"Decline the honour you are intending her," intimated the rector, seeing that Tincroft hesitated.
"No, no; don't put it so. Decline doing me the honour, if you like."
"Yes, put it in that way; and in that case you will be free. But, to tell you the truth, my opinion is that she will not decline it. But is there no other way of making amends?"
"I think not—I am sure there is not," said John.
Now, this conversation, or something like it, took place before the unexpected visit of John Tincroft to High Beech, as recorded in the last chapter, and it ended in John's being invited to return to the rectory, and to sleep there, with a promise on the part of Mr. Rubric to help his friend through the maze in which he was plunged, so far as he could do so with the consent of his own judgment. To tell the truth, Mr. Rubric sympathised to a considerable extent with Tincroft's conscientious desire to do right, regardless of consequences, while he inwardly hoped that his singular and highly eccentric suit might not prosper.
John had little to tell when he returned to the rectory. What that little was the reader is already acquainted with. He had something more decisive to hear when Mr. Rubric returned on the following day from his mission to High Beech.
Yes, Sarah Wilson would accept John Tincroft as her husband. She was so flurried overnight, she explained, that she was not able to give a proper answer then; but now, thanking John very much for his goodness, she would do her best to please him, and try to make him as comfortable as she could when they were married. All this and more Mr. Rubric reported, with a grim smile.
"I was on honour with you, you see, Tincroft," said he. "I promised that neither by word nor sign would I attempt to influence Sarah Wilson's decision. Not that it would have been of any use," he added, "for, as was to be expected, she was prepared with her answer."
"Why to be expected?" John asked.
"Well, it was not likely that she would refuse your offer. Her circumstances are very low, if not desperate; and besides that, I am not sure that she has not a real regard for you. Let us hope so, at all events. And then, the providing a home for her mother, as you have promised to do, may have had something to do with her prompt acquiescence in your proposal."