Nance said nothing to Rachel Doorm on the night they returned, driven home by the landlord of the Admiral’s Head. What Rachel feared, or what she imagined, as the sisters entered the house in their thin attire carrying the bundle of drenched clothes, it was impossible to surmise. She occupied herself with lighting a fire in their room and while they undressed she brought them up their supper with her own hands. It was a wretched night for both of the sisters and few were the words exchanged between them as they ate their meal. Once in bed and the light extinguished, it was Nance, in spite of all, who fell asleep first. “The pangs of despised love” have not the same corrosive poison as the sting of passion embittered by rancour.
Nance was up early and took her breakfast alone. She felt an irresistible need to see Mr. Traherne. She arrived at the priest’s house almost as early as she had done on a former occasion, only this time, the day being overcast and the wind high, he received her within-doors. She found him reading “Don Quixote” and, without giving her time to speak, he made her listen to the gentle and magnanimous story of the poor knight’s death.
“There’s no book,” he said, when he had finished, “which so recovers my spirits as this one. Cervantes is the noblest soul of them all and the bravest. He’s the only author who never gives up his humility before God or his pride before the Universe. He’s the author for me! He’s the author for us poor priests!”
Mr. Traherne lit a cigarette and looked at Nance through its smoke with a grotesque scowl of infinite reassurance.
“Cheer up, little one!” he said, “the spirit of the great Cervantes is not dead in the world. God has not deserted us. Nothing can hurt us while we hold to Christ and defy the Devil!”
Nance smiled at him. The conviction with which he spoke was like a cup of refreshing water to her in a dry desert.
“Mr. Traherne,” she began, but he interrupted her with a wave of his arm.
“My name’s Hamish,” he said.
“Hamish, then,” she went on, smiling at the ghoulish countenance before her, round which the cigarette smoke ascended like incense about the head of an idol, “I’ve more to tell you than I can say. So you must listen and be very good to me!”
He settled himself in his deep horse-hair chair with one leg over the other and his ancient, deplorably-stained cassock over both. And she poured forth the full history of her troubles, omitting nothing—except one or two of Linda’s cruel speeches. When she had completed her tale she surveyed him anxiously. One terrible fear made her heart beat—the fear lest he should tell her she must carry Linda back to London. He seemed to read her thoughts in her eyes. “One thing,” he began, “is quite clear. You must both of you leave Dyke House. Don’t look so scared, child. I don’t mean you must leave Rodmoor. You can’t kidnap your sister by force and nothing short of force would get her, in her present mood, to go away with you. But I think—I think,” he added, “we could persuade her to leave Miss Doorm.”