He was looking up at the beautiful face of the young girl, cold and clear-cut like marble, in the moonlight; and he was not aware that he had been thinking of her. All at once that horrible consciousness flashed in upon him like a bolt of consuming fire; his heart gave one big throb, and he almost staggered back as he said to himself, with remorse, and horror, and shame—
"O God, I love this woman with my whole soul; and what shall I say to my poor Dove?"
She sate up there, pure and calm, like some glorified saint, and saw nothing of the hell of contending emotions which raged below in her companion's breast. Unconscious of it all, she sate and dreamed the dreams of a happy and contented soul. As for him, he was overwhelmed with shame, and pity, and despair. And as he thought of Dove, and St. Mary-Kirby, the dull sonorous striking of some great bell suddenly reminded him of his promise.
He hastily pulled out his watch—half-past ten, English time. She, down in the quiet Kentish vale, had remembered his promise (indeed, had she not dreamed of it all day?) had gone to her window, and tenderly thought of her lover, and with happy tears in her eyes had sent him many a kindly message across the sea; he—what his thoughts had been at the same moment he scarcely dared confess to his awakened self.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE OUTCAST.
"Quite true, my dear," said Mr. Anerley, gently. "If I had risen at six, gone and dipped myself in the river, and then taken a walk, I should have been in a sufficiently self-satisfied and virtuous frame of mind to have accompanied you to church. But I try to avoid carnal pride. Indeed, I don't know how Satan managed to develop so much intolerable vanity, unless he was in the habit of rising at a prodigiously early hour and taking a cold bath."
"Oh, papa, how dare you say such a thing?" said a soft voice just beside him; and he turned to the open breakfast-room window to see Dove's pretty face, under a bright little summer bonnet, looking in at him reproachfully.
"Come, get away to church, both of you," he said. "There goes the cracked bell."
So Mrs. Anerley and Dove went alone to church; the former very silent and sad. The tender little woman could do nothing for this husband of hers—nothing but pray for him, in an inaudible way, during those moments of solemn silence which occur between divisions of the service.