Rachel forgot her own trials to think of his.
"I did not know you had been so worried," she said, her voice full of sympathy. "Have people been horrid?"
"No, not horrid to me; but the devil is playing havoc in the place, and it is a strain."
Rachel felt ashamed. Luke had been enduring the strain and stress of battle with the enemy, thinking altogether of his people, while she had been engrossed in her own little trials, caused by an insane jealousy of the one who was the only person who could advise and help him. How small she was! How poor and mean! How unlike the good Christian that Luke supposed her to be. She was filled with shame and scorn of herself.
[CHAPTER VI.]
THE STUDY.
Luke was beginning to feel acutely the great necessity of a study. When his mother had lived with him she had left the dining-room entirely for his use in the mornings, and had been careful not to interrupt him by going in and out. In fact, in those days they had kept no servant, and Mrs. Greville had been so busy in the house that she had not needed to use the room at all.
But since Luke had married and Polly had come as maid, things had been different. Rachel was constantly in the room, and though she took pains to be as quiet as possible, and sometimes sat so still working, that, had it not been that Luke had heard her enter, he would not have known she was there, he was more or less conscious of her presence, and this very consciousness was an interruption.
Luke at this time was not only busy with his parish and his sermons; he was grappling with the great enemy in his own soul.