This was not the case; he made an excellent clergyman, but he had a great sense of the fitness of things, and he believed fully in a time for everything.
Helping three merry girls to cut out red and blue merino frocks, on a cold day in January, seemed to him a very cheerful occupation. Gay laughter and light and innocent chatter filled the room, and Lilias soon became one of the merriest of the party.
In the midst of their chatter the rector entered.
"I want you, Carr," he said, abruptly; he was usually a very polite man, almost too ceremonious. Now his words came with a jerk, and the moment he had uttered them he vanished.
As Carr left the room in obedience to this quick summons. Lilias' face became once more clouded.
The rector was pacing up and down his study. When Carr entered he asked him to bolt the door.
"Is anything the matter, sir?" asked the young man.
Mr. Wyndham's manner was so perturbed, so unlike himself, that it was scarcely wonderful that Carr should ask this question. It received, however, a short and sharp reply.
"I hope to goodness, Carr, you are not one of those imaginative people who are always foreboding a lion in the path. What I sent for you was—well——" the rector paused. He raised his eyes slowly until they rested upon the picture of Gerald's mother; the face very like Gerald's seemed to appeal to him; his lips trembled.
"I can't keep it up, Carr," he said, with an abandon which touched the younger man to the heart. "I'm not satisfied about my son. Nothing wrong, oh, no—and yet—and yet—you understand, Carr, I have only one son—a lot of girls, God bless them all!—and only one son."