His journey was for the time being forgotten, and he saw nothing but the finale of a life-drama, whose last scene was a wedding, with Rhoda the wife of the man she had formerly rejected, and his heart beat heavily and fast.
He was moved more than he thought it possible under the circumstances; and in the hot rage that took possession of him he could find no palliation of Rhoda’s conduct. It was evident, he said to himself, that she was engaged to John Tregenna now, and that the last faint hope that, like some tiny spark, he had kept alive was now extinct.
“Ah, Trethick! Where are you going?”
“Eh? Oh, Lee, is that you?”
“Yes; I’m glad to see you. Why don’t you come down to me?”
“What, for Miss Pavey to look horrors, and want to fumigate the house, after the advent of such a social leper?” he said laughingly.
“My dear Trethick, why will you talk like this—and to me?” said the vicar, smiling. “But I am stopping you. Were you going somewhere?”
“I? No. Not I. Yes I was, though,” he exclaimed. “I am going up to London. I forgot.”
The vicar looked at him wonderingly, his manner was so strange.
“Oh, I’m not going out of my mind, man. It’s all right,” exclaimed Geoffrey, laughing. The next moment his face became ashy white, and his eyes seemed to dilate as, in the distance, he caught sight of Rhoda and Tregenna coming back into the town.