“I will be plainer, then, Henry. It seems to me that you are offering yourself a willing victim to the wiles of an artful woman; and the next thing will be, I suppose, that you intend bringing her here as mistress of the Vicarage.”
“I quite agree with Beatrice,” cried Rebecca. “It is time we left you, Henry, to the devices and desires of your own heart.”
The vicar was stern of aspect now, as he paced the library, and hot words of anger were upon his lips, but he stayed them there, and looked from face to face as if seeking sympathy where there was none.
He knew that his sisters were right, and that in following out the dictates of his own heart he would gladly ask Hazel Thorne to be his wife; but he was weak, and the more so that she had given him no hope. His was not the nature that would have made him a martyr to his faith; neither could he be one for his unrequited love. He loved Hazel Thorne; but she did not care for him—he could see it plainly enough; and even had she loved him in return, he was not one who could have braved public opinion for her sake. For the trouble connected with that money was always in his mind. Then there was the society to which he belonged. What would they say if he, the Reverend Henry Lambent, Master of Arts, and on visiting terms with the highest county families, were to enter into a matrimonial alliance with the daughter of a bankrupt stockbroker—one who was only the new mistress!
Then there were his sisters. If he married Hazel, always supposing she would accept him, he should have to break with them; and this he was too weak to do. In imagination he had been the stern ruler of Plumton All Saints’ Vicarage for many years, and head of the parish. But it was a mistake: the real captain had been Beatrice, his younger sister; and Rebecca, though the elder, had been first lieutenant. The vicar had only been a private in the ranks.
“Now we are upon this theme,” Beatrice went on, “it would be better, Henry, that the unpleasant feeling that has existed should come to an end.”
“Surely there has been no unpleasant feeling between us,” said the vicar.
“I quite agree with Beatrice—unpleasant feeling,” said Rebecca.
“We are sisters and brother,” continued Beatrice, “and we must remain so.”
“Most assuredly,” said the vicar, smiling.