“Here’s Mr. Eardley a-coming,” said young Stone, looking out of the window.
For the first time the sound of her pastor’s name was unwelcome to Lottie, for the first time in her life she dreaded an interview with the clergyman. What could she say to him, how explain to him what must appear so mysterious and strange?
Mr. Eardley crossed the road, and did not, as Lottie earnestly hoped, pass the door of the cobbler’s shop. She heard his foot on the stair, his tap at the door of the room. Lottie laid down her iron, courtesied on the entrance of the clergyman, and remained with her eyes fixed on the ground, her fingers nervously twitching the linen which lay on the table beside her. She was not sufficiently collected to think of offering her pastor a chair.
“Lottie, I am sorry to hear that you have left your place,” said Mr. Eardley. “You seemed to be so happy and contented when I spoke to you last Sunday, that I hoped that you would remain for many years at the Lodge, and become in time a valuable servant.” Mr. Eardley’s address was fatherly and kind, but Lottie’s only reply was in the big tears which rolled slowly down her flushed cheeks.
“Come, my child, speak frankly to one who has your true welfare at heart. Did you displease your lady? or had you some little difference with your fellow-servant?”
Mr. Eardley paused for an answer, but no answer came.
“O Lottie, speak out!” cried her brother, who had a child-like faith in the wisdom as well as the kindness of their pastor.
Mr. Eardley was both perplexed and distressed by the strange reserve shown by one whose disposition he had hitherto found clear as daylight. He had heard in an exaggerated form the story of the money which Lottie had brought from Wildwaste, and very painful suspicions began to arise in his mind. Yet the clergyman shrank at first from saying a word that might appear like a charge of dishonesty against one whose character had hitherto been without a stain.
“What did your lady say to your leaving her?”
“Nothing,” was trembling upon the lips of the girl, but Lottie pressed them together, and kept silent. She was aware that if by answering questions she were led into telling anything, she would gradually be drawn into telling all; it was only by preserving silence that she could possibly preserve the secret which she had solemnly promised to keep.