With a grave and simple salutation, he went down the pulpit stairs, passed out of the church, his daughter eagerly joining him and linking her arm in his. Her English cousin, who had come in late to the service, hastened after them, and frankly expressed his astonishment at the sudden turn of affairs. The people, who streamed out after them in hurried groups, as if anxious to get into the air, that they might talk over this extraordinary event, eyed them askance as they walked home; the deacons spoke together in shocked whispers, and the older men and women quoted texts about wolves in sheeps' clothing. Some of the younger church members were scared and disturbed more by the uncompromising arguments than by the tangible result; while others, the reckless and the more "unregenerate," boldly said they admired the minister's "pluck."
George Charteris dwelt very seriously on the exclusion from the guardianship of his son which this course of Mr. Seymour's would inevitably entail; but the father only answered sadly: "The Lord did not speak to me of such things; those affairs are in his hands, and his secrets are not for us to inquire into. So far as I saw my way clear, I have answered the call of God."
Several friends called in the evening to speak to the minister about the incredible announcement he had made that morning; they found him the same as ever, patient, kind, and courteous, and his young daughter more beautiful and more attractive than before; for the determined way in which she supported her father's conduct gave her a touch of the heroine.
Late that night the two visited the moonlit grave near the little church. Great elm-shadows veiled it, and the night-wind rustled the violet and primrose leaves that bordered it all round. In the summer a cross of heliotrope grew at its head, but as yet it had been too cold to put the plants out. In his new-found faith, the husband could now kneel and pray, and speak to the angel guardian of his lost wife, and send messages to the soul that knew all he had so lately learnt, and knew it so much better than he. But the great thing of which he spoke was the future of his children and hers, praying that they too, especially Grace, should be brought to the same knowledge and saved through the same faith. Grace stood like a statue, her hands clasped and resting on her father's shoulder, her slight form bending forward as he knelt. When he rose, she pressed his arm and drew him towards her, looking up into his tear-veiled eyes with looks of hungry love. It was a rare and a piteous sight to see the strong man weep, to see the wave-like emotion of this solemn hour bow the head of the deep thinker, the calm and kingly scholar. It made him more sacred in her sight, and kindled her rapturous feelings to that degree that she could gladly have died, that he might be spared one pang more in his future path of thorns.
He hardly suspected all that he was to his child; for great though his love was, broad, and deep, and still, it was silent as the great ocean that sleeps round the islands of coral, beneath the changeless radiance of southern constellations. But few outward signs passed between father and daughter, for his grand, noble nature was self-contained and grave; and for that very reason Grace honored him in her heart, calling him to herself a hero among men. Was it strange that, by his side, other men seemed dwarfed, that their virtues seemed shallow, and their very vices more contemptible than horrible? Was it strange that his intellect, so far-reaching, and his practical business abilities, so clear and straight-forward, should make other men seem only half men, with one side of their nature alone monstrously developed, till it grew to overbalance the other, and make the whole into a grotesque travesty of humanity, a moral satyr, more beast than man, and more fool than either?
I do not say that such ungracious thoughts came to her when she noticed her cousin, George Charteris; but something hollow and unreal suggested itself to her, as she listened to his brilliant, frivolous talk or his cynical, off-hand observations. She thought, if that is what modern fashion breeds in men, the world of to-day is no better than a smelting-furnace, obliterating all but the changing current of mingled ore and dross constantly running with aimless speed through its many channels. She looked forward to any contact with it as a trial, and only stayed herself with the idea that everything noble and pure and dignified was embodied in her father's life, in which she would always be wrapped up. Yet she had promised to think of marriage!
The day following this eventful Sunday the Seymour family left Walcot. Their cottage, which was their own property, was to be let for a year, as their affairs were still unsettled and their plans quite undecided. From that day Edward Seymour again felt that a new journey had begun for him; and where his soul would be landed he knew not, nor cared to know, so God was before him and his daughter at his side.
TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.