“He looks wretchedly, though he says he's very well. It made my heart ache. He looks perfectly wan and haggard. I wish,” she burst out, “I wish I had let you go down and see him!”
“Why—why, what was the matter?” asked Sewell, turning about now. “Did you think he had something on his mind?”
“No, but he looked fairly sick. Oh, I wish he had never come into our lives!”
“I'm afraid he hasn't got much good from us,” sighed the minister. “But I'll go round and look him up in the morning. His trouble will keep overnight, if it's a real trouble. There's that comfort, at least. And now, do go away, my dear, and leave me to my writing.”
Mrs. Sewell looked at him, but turned and left him, apparently reserving whatever sermon she might have in her mind till he should have finished his.
The next morning he went to inquire for Lemuel at Mr. Corey's. The man was sending him away from the door with the fact merely that Lemuel was not then in the house, when the voice of Mr. Corey descending the stairs called from within: “Is that you, Sewell? Don't go away! Come in!”
The old gentleman took him into the library and confessed in a bit of new slang, which he said was delightful, that he was all balled up by Lemuel's leaving him, and asked Sewell what he supposed it meant.
“Left you? Meant?” echoed Sewell.
When they got at each other it was understood that Lemuel, the day before, had given up his employment with Mr. Corey, expressing a fit sense of all his kindness and a fit regret at leaving him, but alleging no reasons for his course; and that this was the first that Sewell knew of the affair.
“It must have been that which he came to see me about last night,” he said, with a sort of anticipative remorse. “Mrs. Sewell saw him—I was busy.”