His head drooped for a moment as he stood there, and then, with all the honesty of a nature as upright as a fir-tree, he answered it. He could not justly condemn himself: he had done his best according to the light that was given him. He had acted in a way he would have advised another to act,—he would act so again now. It had not been easy. Often he had longed to kiss her face into smiles again, and had been stern instead.
Then briskly again he left the grave, and in the gloaming stepped across the lawn into the long window of his study. The lamp was already there, trimmed and lit, his work was spread on the table in orderly array. There were still ten minutes remaining to him before he need dress for dinner, and from habit long-engrained he sat down at once to use them. He found his place, composed his mind to the topic on hand, and dipped his pen in the ink. But, contrary to habit, his attention wandered, and strayed back to the church-yard and until the dressing-bell sounded he sat there looking out of the window with unseeing eyes, questioning, questioning.
CHAPTER VII
Three glasses of claret during dinner and one of port with his dessert was Mr. Challoner’s usual allowance of alcoholic fluid, and, as a rule, neither his sister nor Helen took any. But to-night, in honour of the occasion, a half-bottle of champagne, to drink a toast in which two names were coupled, made its unusual appearance, and the vicar proposed the health in a voice which shook a little with feeling.
“God bless you both, my dearest girl,” he said, and drained his glass.
Afterwards, as if to endorse the felicity of the occasion, the malignancy of the cards was abated, and Aunt Clara’s Patience “came out” twice before prayers without a semblance of cheating on her part. Why she cared to play at all, if she cheated, had long been to Helen an unanswerable riddle, and was so still. But, in her dry and passionless way, to get out without cheating was a satisfaction to Aunt Clara. She was pleased also with the engagement of her niece, but her comparative reticence on that, as on the subject of Patience (she had said only “Fancy, Sidney, Miss Milligan came out twice!”), was due not, as in her brother’s case, to excess of feeling, but to the inability to feel anything at all acutely. The performance of her duties in the house and in the parish had been for years a sufficient emotional diet; from other influences, like a freshly-vaccinated person in respect of smallpox, she was immune. She always said “Good-night” the moment prayers were over, and did so on this occasion. But she kissed Helen twice. That corresponded to her observation to her brother about the Patience.
To-night, however, contrary to custom, the vicar lingered in the drawing-room instead of going back to his study, and, when her aunt was gone, Helen took this opportunity of getting her little confession made. He had beckoned her to the arm of the long, deep chair in which he was sitting, when she would naturally have followed her aunt upstairs, and took her hand in his, stroking it softly. Such a spontaneous caress was rare with him, and in spite of the enormity of her confession, she needed no large call on her courage to make it.
“There is one thing I want to tell you, father,” she said. “I hope you will not be very angry with me.”
Mr. Challoner pressed her hand gently. Now, as always, the confidence of his children was a thing immensely sweet to him, to get it unasked, pathetically so.
“What is it, dear?” he said. “I don’t think you need be afraid of that.”