“He and his family seemed to need them,” spoke the clergyman from his unselfish heart. “Latterly, when Emily and I have met, we have only allowed it to be as strangers.”
“Not quite as strangers, surely!”
“No, no; I used the word thoughtlessly. I ought to have said as friends.”
“Will you pardon me for the question I am about to ask you, and not attribute it to impertinent curiosity?” resumed Miss Deveen. “How have you found the money to furnish your house? Or are you doing it on credit?”
His whole face lighted up with smiles. “The money is Emily’s, dear Miss Deveen. Her father, Edward Gibson, sent me his cheque for three hundred pounds, saying it was all he should be able to do for her, but he hoped it might be enough for the furniture.”
Miss Deveen took his hands in hers as he rose to leave. “I wish you both all the happiness that the world can give,” she said, in her earnest tones. “And I think—I feel sure—Heaven’s blessing will rest upon you.”
We turned out from the penny-reading like bees from a hive, openly wondering what could have become of Mr. Lake. Mrs. Jonas hoped his head was not splitting—she had seen him talking to Miss Cattledon long enough in the afternoon in that hot King’s Road to bring on a sunstroke. Upon which Cattledon retorted that the ginger-cordial might have disagreed with him. With the clearing up as to Emma Topcroft, these slight amenities had recommenced.
Miss Deveen sat reading by lamp-light when we arrived home. Taking off her spectacles, she began asking us about the penny-reading; but never a hint gave she that she had had a visitor.
Close upon this Mr. Lake took a week’s holiday, leaving that interesting young deacon as his substitute, and a brother Rector to preach on the Sunday morning. No one could divine what on earth he had gone out for, as Mrs. Herriker put it, or what part of the world he had betaken himself to. Miss Deveen kept counsel; Mrs. Topcroft and Emma never opened their lips.
The frightful truth came out one morning, striking the parish all of a heap. They read it in the Times, amongst the marriages. “The Reverend William Lake, Rector of St. Matthew’s, to Emily Mary, eldest daughter of Edward Gibson, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons.” Indignation set in.