‘Come, come!’ said the journalist, not a little astonished. ‘Of all the men I ever knew—and I have known many—you are about the most irreproachable.’
The clergyman bent over the table, and said in a low voice, ‘Do you remember Mary Goodwin?’
‘Of course,’ replied the other with a laugh. ‘What! is it possible that you are reproaching yourself on that account? Absurd! You acted by her like a man of honour; but little Mary was too knowing for you, that was all.’
‘You knew I married her?’
‘I suspected it, knowing your high-flown notions of duty. We all pitied you—we all——’
‘Hush!’ said the clergyman, still in the same low, agitated voice. ‘Not a word against her. She is asleep and at peace; and if there was any sin I shared it—I who ought to have known better. Perhaps, had I been a better man, I might have made her truly happy; but she didn’t love me—I did not deserve her love—and so, as you know, we parted.’
‘I know she used you shamefully,’ returned Cholmondeley, with some impatience. ‘Come, I must speak! You picked her from the gutter, and made her what Mrs. Grundy calls an honest woman. How did she reward you? By bolting away with the first rascal who offered her the run of his purse and a flash set of diamonds. By-the-by, I heard of her last in India, where she was a member of a strolling company. Did she die out there?’
‘Yes,’ answered the clergyman, very sadly.
‘Nine years ago.’
‘You were only a boy,’ continued Cholmondeley, with an air of infinite age and experience, ‘and Mr. Verdant Green was nothing to you. You thought all women angels, at an age when most youngsters know them to be devils. Well, that’s all over, and you have nothing to reproach yourself with. I wish I could show as clean a book, old fellow.’