A fresh development of Rose Lancaster's love-affairs was brought to Mr. Curzon's notice on Monday, for the first person he met, as he left the rectory in the morning, was Rose herself—a crumpled dishevelled Rose, whose toilet gave evidence of hurry, and whose eyes were red with weeping.
"Oh, sir, I've come because I didn't know what to do. We're all in dreadful trouble!—Dixon's gone!"
"Not dead!" cried the rector in horror.
"Oh no; he's run away. And oh, it's cruel, cruel! to have used me like this," said Rose, her sobs bursting out afresh.
"I wonder what has made him do it? Has he left no note behind him?"
"Not a line—nor a message for me," replied Rose. "Only a scrawl in pencil which the groom found on the saddle-room table, to say that nobody need try to trace him. And only to think that our banns were put up yesterday."
"I think you are wasting your tears over a heartless scamp!" said the rector, a little impatiently. "Did you come with any message from the Court?"
"No, sir; I only came to ask you if I ought to tell?"
"To tell what?"
"All that happened last night. There was a dreadful quarrel between Dixon and Tom Burney; and that's how Dixon got hurt. He was stunned, and I thought he was dead; and Tom ran off, and, when Dixon came to himself, his one notion was that I was not to tell any one how he came by his fall."