Ryder eyed him with a little pity, but more contempt. "Why take other people's faults on your back?" said she. "My mistress is tied to a man she does not love; but that is not your fault: and he is jealous of you, that never gave him cause. If I was a man he should not accuse me—for nothing; nor set his man on to drag me through a horse-pond—for nothing. I'd have the sweet as well as the bitter."
Father Leonard turned and looked at her with a face full of terror. Some beautiful, honeyed fiend seemed to be entering his heart and tempting it. "O, hush! my daughter, hush!" he said; "what words are these for a virtuous woman to speak, and a priest to hear?"
"There, I have offended you by my blunt way," said the cajoling hussy, in soft and timid tones.
"Nay, not so; but O speak not so lightly of things that peril the immortal soul!"
"Well, I have done," said Ryder. "You are out of danger now; so give you good day."
He stopped her. "What, before I have thanked you for your goodness. Ah, Mistress Ryder, 't is on these occasions a priest sins by longing for riches to reward his benefactors. I have naught to offer you but this ring; it was my mother's,—my dear mother's." He took it off his finger to give it her.
But the little bit of goodness that cleaves even to the heart of an intrigante revolted against her avarice. "Nay, poor soul, I'll not take it," said she; and put her hands before her eyes not to see it, for she knew she could not look at it long and spare it.
With this she left him; but, ere she had gone far, her cunning and curiosity gained the upper hand again, and she whipped behind a great tree and crouched, invisible all but her nose and one piercing eye.
She saw the priest make a few steps homewards, then look around, then take Mrs. Gaunt's letter out of his pocket, press it passionately to his lips, and hide it tenderly in his bosom.
This done, he went home, with his eyes on the ground as usual, and measured steps. And to all who met him he seemed a creature in whom religion had conquered all human frailty.