“Mr. Wingfold,” she answered listlessly.
“Who is Mr. Wingfold?”
“Our curate at the Abbey.”
“What sort of man is he?”
“Oh, a man somewhere about thirty—a straightforward, ordinary kind of man.”
“Ah!” said Leopold—then added after a moment—“I was hoping he might be an old man, with a grey head, like the brahmin who used to teach me Sanscrit.—I wish I had treated him better, poor old fellow! and learned a little more.”
“What does it matter about Sanscrit? Why should you make troubles of trifles?” said Helen, whose trials had at last begun to undermine her temper.
“It was not of the Sanscrit, but the moonshee I was thinking,” answered Leopold mildly.
“You darling!” cried Helen, already repentant. But with the revulsion she felt that this state of things could not long continue—she must either lose her senses, or turn into something hateful to herself: the strain was more than she could bear. She MUST speak to somebody, and she would try whether she could not approach the subject with Mr. Wingfold.
But how was she to see him? It would be awkward to call upon him at his lodgings, and she must see him absolutely alone to dare a whisper of what was on her mind.