‘Would you like for me to do so?’ said Robert, in the quiet matter-of-course way of one to whom painful offices had become well-nigh natural.
‘You? O Robin, if you—’ she said, in some confusion, but at the moment the sound of the visitor’s bell startled her, and she was about to take measures for their exclusion, when looking from the window, she saw that the curate of Wrapworth had already been admitted into the court. The next moment she had met him in the hall, and seizing his hand, exclaimed in a hurried whisper, ‘I know! I know! But there is a terrible stroke hanging over my poor child. Come in and help us to tell her!’
She drew him into the study, and shut the door. The poor man’s sallowness had become almost livid, and in half-sobbing words he exclaimed—‘Is it so? Then give her to me at once. I will nurse her to the last, or save her! I knew it was only her being driven out to that miserable governess life that has been destroying her!’ and he quite glared upon poor innocent Honor as a murderess.
‘Mr. Prendergast, I do not know what you mean. Lucilla is nearly well again. It is only that we fear to give her some bad news of her brother.’
‘Her brother! Is that all?’ said the curate, in a tone of absolute satisfaction. ‘I beg your pardon, Miss Charlecote; I thought I saw a doctor here, and you were going to sentence my darling.’
‘You do see Robert Fulmort, whom I thought you knew.’
‘So I do,’ said Mr. Prendergast, holding out his hand. ‘I beg your pardon for having made such a fool of myself; but you see, since I came to an understanding with that dear child, I have not thought of anything else, nor known what I was about.’
Robert could not but look inquiringly at Miss Charlecote.
‘Yes,’ she faltered, ‘Mr. Prendergast has told you—what I could not—what I had not leave to say.’
‘Yes,’ put in Mr. Prendergast, in his overflowing felicity, ‘I see you think it a shocking match for such a little gem of beauty as that; but you young men should have been sharper. There’s no accounting for tastes;’ and he laughed awkwardly.