“Alas, they are born.”
“In spirit at any rate you are with them.” The vicar was moved to an infrequent compliment.
But he had suddenly grown nervous. Now that he was face to face with his task he didn’t know how to enter upon it. The wave of indignation which had borne him as far as the library of Hart’s Ghyll had been dissipated by the presence of a suffering it was surely inhuman to embarrass. The younger man, his rare faculty of perception strung to a high pitch, saw at once the vicar’s hesitation. Like an intensely sympathetic woman, Brandon began unconsciously to help him disburden his mind of that which was trying it so sorely.
At last Mr. Perry-Hennington found himself at the point where it became possible to break the ice.
“My dear Gervase,” he said, “there is nothing I dislike more than having to ask you to share my troubles, but a most vexing matter has arisen, and you are the only person whose advice I feel I can take.”
“I only hope I can be of use.”
“Well—it’s John Smith.” The vicar took the plunge. And as he did so, he was sufficiently master of himself to watch narrowly the face of the stricken man.
Brandon fixed deep eyes upon the vicar.
“But he’s such a harmless fellow.” The light tone, the placid smile, told nothing.
“I admit, of course, that one oughtn’t to be worried by a village wastrel.”