The young clergyman’s eyes flashed, and his face grew hard as a stone. He guessed already the misfortune which had happened to him, and his heart was sore, as well as full of wrath. But in his pride he betrayed only the anger. “Lord Dynmore,” he said fiercely, “you will have to answer for these insinuations. If there has been any error, the fault has not lain with me!”
“An error, you call it, do you? Let me——”
“Oh, Lord Dynmore!” Mrs. Hammond gasped.
“One moment, Lord Dynmore, if you please.” This from the archdeacon; and he pressed his interruption, placing himself between the two men, and almost laying his hands on the excited peer. “If there has been a mistake,” he urged, “a few words will make it clear. I fully believe—nay, I feel sure, that my friend here is not in fault, whoever is.”
“Ask your questions,” grunted my lord, breathing hard, and eyeing the young clergyman as a terrier eyes the taller dog it means to attack. “He will not answer them, trust me!”
“I think he will,” replied the archdeacon with decision. His esprit de corps was rising. The earl’s rude insistance disgusted him. He remarked, his eyes wandering for a moment while he considered how he should frame his question, that another person, Mr. Clode, had silently entered the room, and was listening with a darkly thoughtful face. It occurred to the archdeacon to suggest that the ladies should withdraw, but then again it seemed fair that, as they had heard the charges, they should hear what answer the rector had to make; and he proceeded. “First, Lord Dynmore,” he said, “I must ask you whom you intended to present.”
“My old friend, Reginald Lindo, of course.”
“His address, please,” continued the archdeacon rather curtly.
“Somewhere in the East End of London,” the earl answered. “Oh, I remember now, St. Gabriel’s, Aldgate.”
The archdeacon turned silently to the clergyman. “He was my uncle,” Lindo explained gravely. “He died a year ago last October.”