This time Hyacinth had no doubt whatever about his answer.
‘I am as certain of my love as I am of anything in the world.’
‘I am glad. I am very glad that this has happened—for your sake, because I have always liked you; also for Marion’s sake. I shall see you happy because you love one another, and because you both love the Lord. I ask no more than those two things. But I must go and tell my wife at once. She will be glad, too.’
He rose and went to the door. With his hand stretched out to open it he stopped, struck by a sudden thought.
‘By the way, I ought to ask you—if you mean to be married—have you any—I mean it is necessary—I hope you won’t think I am laying undue stress upon such matters, but I really—I mean we really ought to consider what you are to live upon.’
It was the prospect of imparting the news to his wife which forced this speech from him. Mrs. Beecher was, indeed, the least worldly of women. Did she not marry the Canon, then a mere curate, on the slenderest income, and bear him successively five babies in defiance of common prudence? But it had fallen to her lot to order the affairs of the household, and she had learnt that the people who give you bread and beef demand, after an interval, more or less money in exchange. It was likely that, after her first rapture had subsided, she would make some inquiry about Hyacinth’s income and prospects. The Canon felt he ought to be prepared.
‘Of course, I have lost my position with Mr. Quinn. You know that. But I have an offer of work which I hope will lead on to something better, and will enable me in a short time to earn enough money to marry on. You know—or perhaps you don’t, for I am afraid I never told you‘—he remembered that he had carefully concealed his connection with the Croppy from his friends at Ballymoy, and paused—‘I have done some little writing. Oh, nothing very much—not a book, or anything like that, only a few articles for the press. Well, a friend of mine has got me the offer of a post in connection with a weekly paper. It is not a very great thing in itself just now, but it may improve, and there is always the prospect of picking up other work of the same kind.’
The Canon, who had never seen even an abstract of one of his own sermons in print, had a proper reverence for the men who guide the world’s thought through the press.
‘That is very good, Conneally—very satisfactory indeed. I always knew you had brains. But why did you never tell me what you were doing? I should have been deeply interested in anything you wrote.’
Hyacinth’s conscience smote him.