“You see,” I went on, “no one knows of it, except myself, but Squire Todhetley and Mr. Tanerton. We should never, never think of bringing it up, any one of us; Mr. Tanerton only spoke of it, as he said, because he thought he ought to tell you; he will never speak of it again. Indeed, Mr. Sale, you need not fear it will be known. Benjamin Rymer is quite safe.”
“What sort of a man is he, this Benjamin?” resumed Sale, halting at the outer gate of the field as we were going through it. “Like the father, or like the mother?”
“Like the mother. But not as vulgar as she is. Ben has been educated; she was not; and though he does take after her, there’s a little bit of his father in him as well. Which makes a great difference.”
Without another word, Mr. Sale turned abruptly off to the right, as though he were going for a country ramble. I shut the gate, and made the best of my way home, bearing back the message from the Rector and Grace—that they would come and help eat the codfish.
The Reverend Isaac Sale was that day sorely exercised in mind. The story he had heard shook his equanimity to the centre. To marry a young lady whose brother stood a chance of being prosecuted for felony looked like a very black prospect indeed; but, on the other hand, Margaret at least was innocent, and he loved and respected her with his whole heart and soul. Not until the evening was his mind made up; he had debated the question with himself in all its bearings (seated on the stump of a snowy tree); and the decision he arrived at, was—to take Margaret all the same. He could not leave her.
About nine o’clock he went to Mrs. Rymer’s. The shop was closed, and Mr. Sale entered by the private door. Margaret sat in the parlour alone, reading; Mrs. Rymer was out. In her soft black dress, with its white frilling at the throat, Margaret did not look anything like her nearly twenty years. Her mild brown eyes and tale-telling cheeks lighted up at the entrance of the curate. Letting her nervous little hand meet his strong one, she would have drawn a chair forward for him, but he kept her standing by him on the hearthrug.
“I have come this evening to have some final conversation with you, Margaret, and I am glad your mother is out,” he began. “Will you hear me, my dear?”
“You know I am always glad to hear you,” she said in low, timid tones. And Mr. Sale made no more ado, but turned and kissed her. Then he released her hand, sat down opposite to her on the other side of the hearth, and entered on his argument.
It was no more, or other, than she had heard from him before—the whole sum and substance of it consisted of representations why he must accept this chaplaincy at the Bahamas, and why she must accompany him thither. In the midst of it Margaret burst into tears.