With a confidence newly born in me as the result of my recent victories over Jakoub and Van Ermengen, I asserted myself for the first time as vicar of the parish.
As though they had been wasps’ nests, I stamped out every committee that had been inaugurated by Snape, and so restored to my parishioners their natural good feeling and loving-kindness.
These preoccupations helped to divert my mind from the more pressing anxieties of life while I waited for news of Edmund, and it was not until I had been home a month that I received a wire from London telling me to expect him on the same afternoon.
My first impulse when he arrived was to tell him of the bishop’s offer and of his new prospects, but I felt I ought perhaps to leave that to the bishop himself.
In any case the announcement would perforce have been postponed, for Edmund arrived full of anxieties. He had an alert and vigorous air which I was glad to see, but it was clear that he was harassed and anxious. He cut my greetings rather short and asked me to come straight into the study.
“I must tell you the worst of it at once,” he said, as he closed the door; “Van Ermengen and Jakoub are on the move already.”
“I know that,” I told him; “I have had a letter from Van Ermengen.”
“You have? Confound his cheek! What does he say?”
I took Van Ermengen’s letter from my desk and handed it to him. He read it carefully, standing on the hearthrug with one arm resting on the mantelpiece.
Watching him from my desk chair I noticed his face flush and the frown deepen on his forehead. He looked older than I had ever seen him look before, and it struck me that Edmund might be a very dangerous man to an enemy.