And the very first inquiry he made of Emma, on reaching the house, was:
"Is the Reverend Doctor Jones a married man?"
"Why, what a question!" exclaimed Emma, laughing. "No, he is not a married man; he is a widower. Why do you ask?"
"I don't know. But I thought he was a widower. He seems very much taken with Mrs. Grey," sighed the young man.
"Oh, is that it?" laughed Emma, as she ran away to take off her bonnet and mantle.
And that Easter Sunday Mary Grey found herself again in a dilemma between her two proposed victims—the gray-haired clergyman and the raven-locked youth.
But she managed them both with so much adroitness that at the close of the day, when Craven Kyte was riding slowly back to Wendover, he was saying to himself:
"She is fond of me, after all; the beauty, the darling, the angel! Oh, that such a perfect creature should be fond of me! I am at this moment the very happiest man on earth!"
And later the same night, when the Rev. Dr. Jones laid his woolen night-capped head upon his pillow, instead of going to sleep as the old gentleman should have done, he lay awake and communed with himself as follows:
"Poor child—poor child! A mere baby. And she is penitent; sincerely penitent. Oh, I can see that! And to think that she is not nearly so much in fault as we believed her to be! She tells me that she really was married to that man—married when she was a child only fourteen years of age. So her gravest error was in running away to be married! And that was the fault of the man who stole her, rather than of herself. And she is as repentant for that fault as if it were some great crime. And oh, how she has suffered! What she has gone through for one so young! And she has such a tender, affectionate, clinging nature! Ah, what will become of her, poor child—poor child! She ought to have some one to take care of her. She ought indeed to be married, for no one but a tender husband could take care of such a pretty, delicate, helpless creature. She ought to marry some one much older than herself. Not a green, beardless boy like that young puppy—Heaven forgive me!—I mean that young man Kyte. He couldn't appreciate her, couldn't be a guide or a guard to her. And she really needs guiding and guarding too. For see how easily she falls into error. She ought to marry some good, wise, elderly man, who could be her guide, philosopher and friend as well as husband[."]