Vernon crumpled the sheets of paper one by one and threw them all into the fire together. The flames caught them at once. The writing glowed red, then white. The draught from the chimney rustled the ashes to and fro in the grate.
"Well," she asked, almost roughly, "what am I to do?"
"There is but one thing—your duty. I cannot soften it."
"Duty!" she repeated, in a terrible voice. For a moment Vernon thought a nerve-crisis was at hand; but she fought it down. The wit that was almost the woman's second nature came uppermost.
"It's a pretty trap, isn't it? There ought to have been a notice-board on my narrow way, Father Vernon: 'Beware man-traps and canons.' God's ways are a little impish at times, don't you think so? Can I see him?"
"I think not, dear child. It will only make it harder for you both."
"Pah! You say that, but you really don't trust me. You're only a man, after all. Can I write the letter here? It won't be very long."
Without a word he wheeled his writing-chair round for her, and pulled out unheaded note-paper and plain envelopes. She wrote a letter of six or eight pages quietly, without hesitating, except just at the end, when Vernon noticed her lips were pursed and her eyes swimming in tears. The second letter was a much shorter affair, and she enclosed in it the slip of paper which she had saved from the burnt letter. It lay on the top, and he noticed the address was that of a bank.
"I will leave these with you to post," she said; "then you will feel quite safe. I shall go down to Hindhead to-morrow and stay a good while, I think. I like watching the spring come. Good-bye; and remember it is by what you didn't say to-night that I measure your sympathy. I don't think I could have stood platitudes."
"My child, I preach to those who are bearing their cross, not to those whom God has nailed to it. Before them I dare only kneel and pray."