"You see, sir, old Mr. Lethbridge wants him to marry into a county family. The truth is, when I was a boy down here he was only a poor lad. How he has got on in the way he has is a mystery to every one. Somehow or other everything he touched turned to money, and now he is richer than Mr. Treherne, the Squire. He is very ambitious, too, and wants to get in with the county people. That is why people wonder at his sticking to the Wesleyan Chapel."
"But how has young Lethbridge caused him trouble?" I asked.
"Well, sir, it is said that he's in love with a farmer's daughter, and that the old gentleman says he will cut him off with a shilling if he doesn't make up to Miss Treherne. Of course, people will talk, and maybe it is only gossip."
I felt more interested than ever in young Lethbridge after this, although I was rather annoyed with myself that I had listened to servants' gossip. All the same, I believed there might be some truth in what I had heard. There was a look in the young fellow's eyes which suggested that the deepest longings in his heart were unsatisfied.
Before the day was over, the old adage which says that it never rains but it pours was fulfilled in my case. Simpson had only just brought my tea when he came to me with an important look on his face.
"Mr. Trelaske, the Vicar, has called to see you, sir."
"Good!" I replied. "Show him in."
"I hope you will forgive the liberty I am taking," said the Vicar on entering, "but, as you are one of my parishioners, and I was told you were at Church on Sunday evening, I thought I might call."
"It is very kind of you," I said. "You have just come in time for tea, too. Won't you sit down?"
Mr. Trelaske did not look so imposing, as he sat in my little room, as when wearing his clerical robes in Church. He seemed a smaller man, not simply physically—his personality seemed less as he drew a chair up to the table and took a cup of tea from Simpson.