"What could be better for Felix than to come with us?" he asked; "there he will meet with the work he was born for, the work he is fretting his soul for. He will be at last a gallant soldier of the Cross, unhampered by any dread of his father's sin rising up against him. And we could never part with Alice—her mother and I. You would be the last to say No to that, Phebe?"
"Oh, yes!" she answered, with tears standing in her eyes, "Felix must go with you."
"And Hilda, too," he went on; "for what would become of Hilda alone here, with her only brother settled at the antipodes? And here we shall want Phebe Marlowe's influence with old Mr. Clifford, who might prevent his ward from quitting England. I am counting also on Phebe herself, as my pearl of deaconesses, with no vow to bind her, if the happiness and fuller life of marriage opened before her. Still, to secure all these benefits I must give up all this."
He paused for a minute or two, looking back up the narrow side aisle, and then, as if he could not tear himself away, he retraced his steps slowly and lingeringly; and Phebe caught the glistening of tears in his eyes.
"Never to see it again," he murmured, "or if I see it, not to belong to it! To have no more right here than any other stranger! It feels like a home to me, dear Phebe. I have had solemn glimpses of God here, as if it were indeed the gate of heaven. To the last hour of my life, wherever I go, my soul will cleave to these walls. But I shall give it up."
"Yes," she said, sighing, "but there is no bitterness of repentance to you in giving it up."
"How sadly you spoke that," he went on, "as if a woman like you could know the bitterness of repentance! You have only looked at it through other men's eyes. Yes, we shall go. Felix and Hilda and you are free to leave Mr. Clifford, now he is so admirably cared for by this Jean Merle. I like all that I hear of him, though I never saw him; surely it was a blessing from God that Madame Sefton's poor kinsman was brought to the old man. Could we not leave him safely in Merle's charge?"
"Quite safely," she answered.
"I have a scheme for a new settlement in my head," he continued, "a settlement of our own, and we will invite emigrants to it. I can reckon on a few who will joyfully follow our lead, and it will not seem a strange land if we carry those whom we love with us. This hour even I have made up my mind to accept this bishopric. Go on, dear Phebe, and tell my wife. I must stay here alone a little longer."
But Phebe did not hasten with these tidings through the cloisters. She walked to and fro, pondering them and finding in them a solution of many difficulties. For Felix it would be well, and it was not to be expected that Alice would leave her invalid mother to remain behind in England as a curate's wife. Hilda, too, what could be better or happier for her than to go with those who looked upon her as a daughter, who would take Alice's place as soon as she was gone into a home of her own? There was little to keep them in England. She could not refuse to let them go.