Into the Highways and Hedges

by F. F. Montrésor

"About father! Come again and tell me all you can think of," she said. "Come and talk to me about him; come soon."

"I'll come to-morrow," said George; and so he did, and for many following morrows. So long as he talked on that subject her interest never flagged; though it must be owned that he, on his part, occasionally felt the situation strained.

"What a fool I am!" he said to himself more fiercely every time he saw her. And afterwards, when he had left her and was back in London, those hot days spent at the "other end of nowhere," at the side of the woman who unconsciously played so large a part in his life, seemed to belong to a part of himself that he hardly recognised. He was so eminently sane as a rule, so little given to unprofitable expenditure, either of time or feeling; and yet, if he had never met Meg, he would have been a smaller man.

He wondered sardonically sometimes, between his pretty constant visits to Meg, how all this would end. It couldn't go on for ever! Would the climax come in his having the quarrel he was pining for with Margaret's husband when that saint should see fit to return to his wife? Would Meg herself wake up, and take fright, and bid him go? He knew perfectly well that, at a word of love, she would fly horrified from him; and his reverence for her kept his tongue within bounds. Had she been any one else, he felt there would have been a third possibility; but Meg's ice would never melt for him. It was, perhaps, some small consolation to discover also that it hadn't melted for the preacher; and Mr. Sauls was shrewd enough to arrive at that fact, even though Margaret Thorpe was not quite so transparent as Margaret Deane had been.

They were walking together along the cart road to N——town when she gave Mr. Sauls her husband's reply to her letter about the legacy.

The road was perfectly straight, flanked by a ditch on each side, and beyond the ditch a low mud bank. The croaking of the marsh frogs filled the pauses in their speech like a chorus. George took the letter unwillingly. How he loathed the sight of that laboured handwriting! A longing assailed him to toss it to the frogs; but, unfortunately, he might not gratify the impulse.

"I should like you to read it," said Meg, with a touch of dignity; "because you have imagined that the preacher would want me to take the money. You have not understood the sort of man he is."

"No! You see, I am not a saint myself," said Mr. Sauls. He adjusted his glass carefully. Ah, how he hated that man! "There's always a sort of mist here. I should fancy these marshes were not healthy," he said aloud.

("Don't stay a moment longer; come with me, away from these brutal farmers and their pestilent country," said the voice in his heart.)

"My dear lass," he read ("the impudence of the fellow!"), "I was glad to get a letter. I am glad you are well." ("Oh! curse his gladness!") "It doesn't seem to me as there can be two minds about the money. It isn't for us to be having a fine house and servants" ("for us! did he put himself on a level with her?"); "besides, I wouldn't have you beholden to any; and I would be 'shamed to have you live on another man's money, even though he be dead, while I've strength to work. If Mrs. Russelthorpe is oneasy, you can set her mind at rest. You are in my heart by day and by night. God bless you, my girl!"