Waller soon perceived Mr. Rubric's embarrassment, and drew from it the very worst auguries.
"Don't say any more, sir," he said huskily. "I see what you mean, sir, and I am much obliged to you for not deceiving me."
"Nay, but my good Walter, do not think worse of the matter than there is occasion for. I trust and believe that your cousin is heart-whole; and I am sure she has been, and I trust she is, strongly attached to you; and that if there has been a little undue familiarity, and I don't say that this has been the case, but if there should have been, and if female vanity (she is but young, you know, your cousin, I mean) has been somewhat excited and flattered, I do hope, now the cause is removed, she will come round again all right."
The excellent divine floundered through this long sentence, which he had made all the more complicated by not knowing how he should end it when he began. Presently he went on—
"I am an elderly man, Mr. Wilson, and have some notions I daresay at variance with the greater liberty allowed to young people in the present day in matters of this sort; and besides, my profession as a clergyman makes it essential that I should give no countenance to things which may be lawful but not expedient. I hope you understand me, my dear young friend."
Walter was not at all sure that he did understand all that his clerical friend and former religious instructor had been giving words to, but he understood some parts of it too well. There was nothing more to be made of it, at any rate; and without stopping to mark, much less to inwardly digest, an exhortation which followed regarding the exorcise of charity, the chief of the three heavenly trances, the impetuous young man thanked the rector and hastened away, half determined to return to the far-off field of his business labours, without even an interview with his cousin.
On second thoughts, however, he decided that this course would be cowardly; and then some yearning towards the old and happy days of early love prompted him to the following course. He would go and see his cousin, would lay before her very plainly her misdeeds, and would then, if she seemed penitent, offer her his forgiveness (he intended to be very magnanimous, you see) on condition that she made full confession of all that she had been charged with, and humbly sued for his mercy.
The visit to High Beech was accordingly paid, but not till after the lapse of another day or two, which he required for setting all his arguments and reproaches and reproofs in due methodical order. Then he took the road he had so often, under happier circumstances, and at other times, taken. Almost as a matter of course, his uncle Mark was not about home; and Walter so timed the visit that, almost as a matter of course also (it being afternoon), his aunt was having her diurnal "lay down."
The first greeting with his cousin was short and incisive on both sides, for Sarah had her grounds of resentment in the fact, which had come to her knowledge, that her lover had been a week almost within sight of her home without deigning to see her, or even to send a message.
"We had better go into the garden and say what we have to say, Sarah; we shall be more out of hearing there," said Walter, and, without knowing what she did, the poor girl obeyed the imperious and dictatorial invitation.