“Not enough for my purpose,” Wingrave declared. “We are going to America to make more.”
“It’s vandalism!” Aynesworth said, “rank vandalism! The place as it is is a picture! The furniture and the house have grown old together. Why, you might marry!”
Wingrave scowled at the younger man across the room.
“You are a fool, Aynesworth,” he said shortly. “Take down these letters.”
After dinner, Wingrave went out alone. Aynesworth followed him about an hour later, when his work was done, and made his way towards the Vicarage. It was barely nine o’clock, but the little house seemed already to be in darkness. He rang twice before anybody answered him. Then he heard slow, shuffling footsteps within, and a tall, gaunt man, in clerical attire, and carrying a small lamp, opened the door.
Aynesworth made the usual apologies and was ushered into a bare, gloomy-looking apartment which, from the fact of its containing a writing table and a few books, he imagined must be the study. His host never asked him to sit down. He was a long, unkempt-looking man with a cold, forbidding face, and his manner was the reverse of cordial.
“I have called to see you,” Aynesworth explained, “with reference to one of your parishioners—the daughter of your late organist.”
“Indeed!” the clergyman remarked solemnly.
“I saw her today for the first time and have only just heard her story,” Aynesworth continued. “It seems to be a very sad one.”
His listener inclined his head.