He knew all in an instant. He rose and tottered towards the door, where he would have fallen had I not caught him in my arms. Only one word escaped him.
“Roger!”
After some time Kenneth stole in, and seeing how matters stood insisted on bearing me off to dinner. He took me into the parlor, which was blazing with lights and decorated with holly and red berries in good old Christmas fashion. The first object to meet my eyes was a great “Welcome Home” which flashed in letters of fragrant blossoms cunningly woven in strange device about my portrait. Mrs. Goodal came forward and kissed me while the tears fell from her eyes. “You don’t deserve it, you wicked boy, but I can’t help it,” she said. Mr. Goodal had seized both my hands in his. A beautiful girl stood a little apart watching all with wondering eyes, and in them too there were tears, such is the force of example with women. I had never seen her before, but I needed no ghost to tell me that she was Kenneth’s sister.
“This is Elfie, Roger,” said Fairy. “She wants to welcome you too. Elfie is my sister. I stole her. Oh! a sister is so much nicer than a great rough brother who runs away!”
“And this,” said Mrs. Goodal, leading forward a tall, spare gentleman, with that closely shaven face and quiet lip and eye that, with or without the conventional garb, stamp the Catholic priest all the world over—“this is our dear friend and father, the friend and father of all of us, Father Fenton.”
There was a general pause at this introduction. I suppose that my countenance must have shown some perplexity, for a general laugh followed the pause. Mrs. Goodal came to the rescue.
“You expected to meet Mr. Knowles, I suppose, sir, or the Abbot Jones. Kenneth has told me about the Abbot Jones. But you must know that the present Archdeacon Knowles is far too high and mighty a dignitary for Leighstone, and the abbot is laid up with the gout. Your father has not been to the Priory for a very long time—for so long a time that he thinks he would no longer be known there. The Herbert pew is very vacant; and Nellie has had no one to take her. Still mystified? You see what comes of silly boys running away from home and never writing. They miss all the news.”
She led me to the other end of the parlor, and I stood before a lofty ivory crucifix. The light of tapers flashed upon the thin pale face; blood gleamed from the nailed hands and feet, from the pierced side, from the bowed and thorn-crowned head. It was the figure of “the Man of Sorrows,” and the artist had thrown into the silent agony of the face an expression of infinite pity. My own heart bowed in silence.
“We are all Papists, Roger. What are you?” whispered Mrs. Goodal at my elbow.
“Nothing,” I murmured. “Nothing.”