“I expect it is. However, the opinion on which I acted was my own. I have a very hasty temper, do you know. This very afternoon I have been quarrelling, and have put my foot into it! I confess I thought when I came here that I could manage. Now I see I am not fit for it—for the living, I mean.”
“Perhaps,” she answered slowly and in a low voice, “you are the more fit because you feel unfit.”
“Well, I do not think I dare act on that,” he cried gaily. “So you now see before you, Miss Bonamy, a very humble personage—a kind of clerical man-of-all-work out of place! You do not know an incumbent of easy temper who wants a curate, do you?”
He spoke lightly, without any air of seeking or posing for admiration. Yet there was a little inflection of bitterness in his voice which did not escape her ear, and perhaps spoke to it—and to her heart—more loudly, because it was not intended for either. She suddenly looked at him, and her face quivered, and then she looked away. But he had seen and understood. He marked the color rising to the roots of her hair, and was as sure as if he had seen them that her eyes were wet with tears.
And then he knew. He felt a sudden answering yearning toward her, a forgetfulness of all her surroundings, and of all his surroundings save herself alone. What a fool, what an ingrate, what a senseless clod he had been, not to have seen months before—when it was in his power to win her, when he might have asked for something besides her pity, when he had something to offer her—that she was the fairest, purest, noblest of women! Now, when it was too late, and he had sacrificed all to a stupid conventionality, a social prejudice—what was her father to her save the natural crabbed foil of her grace and beauty—now he felt that he would give all, only he had nothing to give, to see her wide gray eyes grow dark with tenderness, and—and love.
Yes, love. That was it. He knew now. “Miss Bonamy,” he said hurriedly. “Will you——”
Kate started. “Here is my cousin,” she said quietly, and yet with suspicious abruptness. “I think he is looking for me, Mr. Lindo.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE CUP AT THE LIP.
The ten days which followed the events just described were long remembered in Claversham with fondness and regret. The accident at Baerton, and the strange position of affairs at the rectory, falling out together, created intense excitement in the town. The gossips had for once as much to talk about as the idlest could wish, and found, indeed, so much to say on the one side and the other that the grocer, it was rumored, ordered in a fresh supply of tea, and the two bakers worked double tides at making crumpets and Sally Lunns, and still lagged behind the demand. Old Peggy from the almshouse hung about the churchyard half the day, noting who called at the rector’s, and took as much interest in her task as if her weekly dole had depended on Mr. Lindo’s fortunes; while every one who could lay the least claim to knowing more than his neighbors became for the time the object of as many attentions as a London belle.
The archdeacon drove in and out daily. Once the rumor got abroad that he had gone to see Lord Dynmore; and more than once it was said that he was away at the palace conferring with the bishop. Those most concerned walked the streets with the faces of sphinxes. The curate and the rector were known to be on the most distant terms; and to put an edge on curiosity, already keen, Mrs. Hammond was twice seen talking to Mr. Bonamy in the street.