Then Martin Gurwood, following Statham's directions, walked slowly up the little street, took the turning leading to the church, and looked out for Rose Cottage. There it was, standing some distance back from the road, with the ruddy glow of the Virginia creeper not yet wholly gone from it. Martin Gurwood stopped at the garden-gate and looked at the little paradise, so trim and orderly, so neatly kept, so thoroughly comfortable, and yet so fully unpretentious, with the greatest admiration. Then he lifted the latch and walked towards the house.
The gate swung to behind him, and Alice, who was in her bedroom hearing little Bell her lessons, heard the clanking of the latch. She laid down her book, and stopping the child's babbling by her uplifted finger, leant her head to listen.
'What is it, mamma?' asked little Bell, in wonderment.
'Hush, dear,' said Alice, 'I heard the garden gate. No sound of wheels! Then he cannot have brought his luggage; still it must be John.'
She rose from her seat, and hurried down the stairs into the little hall. Just as she reached the half-glass door, and had her hand upon the lock, a man stepped into the portico; the figure was strange to her--it was not John.
She felt as though she must faint; her grasp on the door relaxed, and she staggered against the wall. Seeing her condition the gentleman entered the hall, took her with a kind firm hold by the arm, and led her into the dining-room, the door of which stood open. She went passively, making no resistance, taking no notice, but throwing herself into a chair, and staring blankly at him, stricken dumb with sickening apprehension.
'I am speaking to Mrs.--Mrs. Claxton?' he said, after a moment's pause, in a soft, kind voice.
He was a young man, she began to notice, fair and good-looking, and dressed in clerical garb. That last fact had a peculiar significance for her. In the far north-east of England, on the sea-coast, where some of Alice's early days had been passed, it was the practice of the fishermen, when one of their number had been lost, to get the parson to go to the newly-made widow and break the news to her. In a stormy season Alice had often seen the sable-garbed messenger proceeding on his doleful mission, and the remembrance of him and of the 'parson's work,' as it was called, when he was so engaged, rose vividly before her, and inspired her with sudden terror.
'You are a clergyman?' she said, looking hard at him.
'I am,' he replied, still in the same soft tone. 'My name is
Gurwood--Martin Gurwood; and I have come here to--'