“He is—and he approves the course I have taken. He is my confidant and my counsellor.”
“You could have no better adviser in a case of conscience—yet I can but regret my friend’s ruined life, all the same. But I will say no more, Mrs. Greswold. I will respect your reserve.”
Mrs. Mason came bustling in with a tea-tray, on which her family teapot—the silver teapot that had been handed down from generation to generation since the days of King George the Third—and her very best pink and gold china sparkled and glittered in the lamp-light. The toast and eggs might have tempted an anchorite, and Mildred had eaten nothing since her nine-o’clock breakfast. The strong tea revived her like good old wine, and she sat resting and listening with interest to Mr. Rollinson’s account of his parishioners, and the village chronicle of the last six months. How sweet it was to hear the old familiar names, to be in the old place, if only for a brief hour!
“I wonder if they miss me?” she speculated. “They never seemed quite the same—after—after the fever.”
“Ah, but they know your value now. They have missed you sadly, and they have missed your husband’s old friendly interest in their affairs. He has given me carte blanche, and there has been no one neglected, nothing left undone; but they miss the old personal relations, the friendship of past days. You must not think that the poor care only for creature comforts and substantial benefits.”
“I have never thought so. And now tell me all you can about my husband. Does he receive no one?”
“No one. People used to call upon him for a month or two after you left, but he never returned their visits, he declined all invitations, and he made his friends understand pretty clearly that he had done with the outside world. He rarely comes to the eleven-o’clock service on Sundays, but he comes to the early services, and I believe he walks into Romsey sometimes for the evening service. He has not hardened his heart against his God.”
“Do you see him often?”
“About once a week. I take him my report of the sick and poor. I believe he is as much interested in that as he can be in anything; but I always feel that my society is a burden to him, in spite of his courteousness. I borrow a book from him sometimes, so as to have an excuse for spending a few minutes with him when I return it.”
“You are a good man, Mr. Rollinson, a true friend,” said Mildred, in a low voice.