"Luke Barnby knows the way to my lodge."
Desirous as I was to return to the vicarage, it took me a long time to do so, for everybody was in the main street, talking and laughing over the sudden break-up of the meeting summoned by the commissioner. Here I met one who had not been present, and wished to hear my account of the affair; there another, who had been present, and wanted to go over it again. A knot of young fellows dragged me into the White Hart, where they drank Daft Jack's health, and the health of the man who had "put him up to the trick." For no reason they had given me the credit of the device, nor did my plain denial quite remove their belief that I had a hand in the business. At last I got away from them, and found all quiet at the vicarage.
It had been agreed to act on the suggestion of the chief constable the following day, and he had engaged to protect the house during the night. Anna, as I had come to name her to myself, had recovered from the shock of the previous evening, and looked charming even with a cross of plaister on her brow. After I had told the true and full story of Daft Jack's achievement, the doctor and the parson prosed alternately, the one describing all the venomous insects known to man, I should think; the other giving instances from history, sacred and profane, of their intervention in human affairs, and seeming to have pleasure in recounting the torture inflicted on an unlucky wight, whose name I forget, by an enemy who had him smeared with honey, and exposed to the stings of bees and wasps. The vicar was too good a Christian to rejoice in the sufferings of the commissioner, but I am sure he got some kind of consolation in the very particular description which he made of the torments of the other man.
Anna was unusually silent, which I hoped might be due to the same thought as kept me so, that of the parting to come on the morrow. I noted with secret delight that the songs she chose, when she went to the spinet at my request, were tinged with a sweet melancholy, which might be that of love.
CHAPTER IX
"I asked you to come out with me because there is something I must say before you return to Sandtoft." So I feebly began, as we paced the garden, now somewhat cleared of the mire and refuse brought by the flood, a few flowers lifting their heads to the July sun. "I told you the other night I loved you. I might never have dared to say it, but for the fear that I should not have another chance. Mistress Goel—Anna—do you, can you love me?"
She lifted her noble face a little, gave me a look which I could not understand, and then the eyelids drooped, as she answered with trembling lips—
"It would be only too easy to love you, Frank, but I am bound—betrothed already. Have patience with me, while I tell you my miserable story." She sat down, and I beside her, heavy-hearted.
"Years ago, my father and his dearest friend, Cornelius Vliet, agreed upon a marriage between me and his friend's only son. I shrank from the thought of it, and begged my father to allow me to refuse; but he laughed at what he took to be girlish perversity. He could not believe I had a repugnance against a young man, who was reckoned handsome, well-bred, brave, the heir to a large fortune. And, indeed, I could say nothing against Sebastian, but only that I had the strongest dislike to be married to him, or to any man. My father so far yielded as to defer the matter awhile. Then he was seized and thrown into prison, and we knew his doom would be death, or lifelong imprisonment. Sebastian came to me, and offered to secure my father's escape—on one condition. I gave him my promise, and he fulfilled his own by lavish bribery, and, I must acknowledge, at the risk of his own liberty, perhaps his life. He accompanied us to Paris. There I saw and heard much more of his manner of living than I had known at home, and it was fearful and loathsome to me. My father assured me young men were no worse for—what was so offensive to me. I cannot tell you how dreadful I felt it to be to fail in duty and love toward my father, and to be so ungrateful to Sebastian for my father's life and freedom, but I could not keep my plighted word. I vowed that I would not be married until Sebastian changed his course. He did not upbraid or taunt me, or argue with me, but disappeared. For some months we have heard nothing of him. I supposed he had been disgusted with what he must think my ingratitude and fickleness; but yesterday my father received a letter from him, saying he has given up drinking and dicing and all evil ways, and is coming to claim his bride. He has decided to join Vermuijden, and to share our exile, and will quickly follow his letter. My father is delighted. Forgive me, Frank, that I have not avoided you. I am guilty, I know. Forgive me."