Poor Sarah! She could scarcely believe her own ears for wild, blank amazement.
"I do not ask for your answer to-night, Miss Wilson," John said; and then he added, "I am staying with Mr. Rubric, who knows why I came on here this evening, and he will call on you to-morrow for your decision. So let us say 'Good-night' now."
Their hands met, and while John's trembled with excitement, he could feel that Sarah's was deadly cold. In another moment, Sarah was left alone.
Then a low, sobbing cry broke from her, and her piteous exclamation "Oh! What shall I do? What shall I do?" was followed by a flood of tears which relieved her full heart.
It was true, as Tincroft had said, that on first entering the village that evening, he had taken his way to the rectory, where, to the intense astonishment of Mr. Rubric, he had laid bare his determination to take Sarah Wilson to wife, if she would have him, and thus remedy to the extent of his means the trouble he had occasioned.
"Is it possible that I understand you aright? Are you really serious in what you are saying?" ejaculated the rector.
John was perfectly serious, and he said so.
"But only consider, my good friend. Think how this is likely to end. You yourself say that Sarah Wilson is not the person whom, if left to your free choice, you would fix upon as a companion for life; that in marrying any one at this present time, your prospects would be destroyed; that you may have immediately to take your name from the college books, just too when by your final examinations you might obtain your degree; and that you will have to settle down as a broken man (excuse my plain speaking), and go into that precarious occupation, classical teaching, to earn a scanty livelihood. Think of this, Mr. Tincroft."
John had thought of it, he averred.
"And then, again, you have friends to whom you must thenceforth be a stranger—at least, in all probability. To say the least of it, Mr. Richard Grigson and his brother, who are really attached to you, would find it difficult to surmount their prejudices and swallow their disappointment, even should they be disposed to maintain their present relations with you."