"And now," said John, "the sooner we can bring it to a conclusion the better. I shall go at once and see Sarah, and then return this evening to Oxford to wind up my affairs there, and make a few preparations for a married life."
"My poor friend!" sighed the rector.
"Pray don't pity me," said John, smiling; "you ought to congratulate me."
"So I do—on your possessing such high principle. And you really mean to throw up your appointment?"
"I have no alternative. I cannot go out as a married man."
"Would it not be possible to leave your wife in England," Mr. Rubric had half said; but he checked himself with "No, of course, it would not be. But you will look in at the Manor House before you return to Oxford?"
But Tincroft would not do this. He must submit himself to the consequences of his own act and deed, he said, and he could not expect Mr. Grigson to look upon him in any other light than as a lost man. And as he did not want to be either scorned or pitied, he would leave it to the squire to make any reapproaches. From this determination John was not to be moved, and he accordingly carried out his former programme. There was a hurried walk to High Beech, and a lengthened conference there in the character of an accepted lover, a return to the rectory to luncheon, a solitary tramp to the coaching town, in time for a night mail, and a night journey to Oxford. All this needs not many words.
Nor is much explanation needed to inform the reader of the steps taken by John Tincroft on his return to the university. It is enough to say that before the necessary time had elapsed for the publication of the banns of matrimony in due order, the gownsman's name had been removed from the college books; Mr. Rackstraw had been duly informed that his distant relative had altered his mind, and intended to remain in England; a small cottage near to his friends the Barrys, at Jericho, had been taken by John, and economically furnished out of the funds still remaining in the hands of his lawyer, who lifted up his hands in silent astonishment when his client put him in possession of the facts of the case.
All this was done by John with a degree of stoicism very wonderful and instructive to behold. He made no boast of his self-sacrifice, neither did he express regret at the abandonment of his former plans and expectations. He was in the path of duty—whether rightly or mistakenly, he believed this; and he went forward in it, looking neither to the right hand nor the left.
It was the more consolatory to Tincroft, therefore, as well as a pleasant surprise, when one day—before all his arrangements were quite completed, and before he had finally taken leave of his rooms at Queen's—Tom Grigson broke in upon him with an extraordinary outburst of voice, something like a view-hallo, and caught him by the hand in such a grip that John winced under the infliction.