A moisture almost appeared in Mrs. Dixon’s prominent eyes, and her nose-end flushed unmistakably; she had taken a liqueur before leaving, and was more emotional than usual.
“Brilliantine your hair and always wear a good hat,” she said earnestly, “and you may end by being a bishop.”
Then the car went off, and the embryo bishop trudged home through the afternoon sun, trying to piece his thoughts together, and conscious of a burning, stinging spot in the back of his mind that he was afraid to touch.
But it drew—as the aching spot always does—and he got to it at last.
If Lady Jones had not appeared when she did he would have broken his promise to Dick Stamford. Instead of helping a weak man, he would have proved himself to be a weaker.
With bent head and dragging feet he trudged up the churchyard path. Here—he felt it in the bottom of his soul—here, but for the grace of God, went a breaker of promises—a sneak—a man who couldn’t play fair.
He would have to keep away from Elizabeth, because he could no longer trust himself.
He mechanically glanced at the church clock, and saw there was still a quarter of an hour before the time for evensong, and he suddenly realised that he was dog-tired. So he sat down, more from force of habit than anything else, upon the convenient edge of the tombstone beneath which Brother Gulielmus’ body lay resting.
And after a while a little comfort crept into poor Andy’s soul from somewhere, and he began to lose that impression of loneliness which to some natures is so intensely real and desolate. He began to have a sense of brotherhood with all those who have tried and nearly failed and not quite failed through no goodness of their own.
And so he felt a brother to all men—for every one of us must pass that way.