Part 21 (1/2)

'I am forcing you no whither. G.o.d, the Father of spirits, is leading you! You, who believe in Him, how dare you fight against Him?'

'Lancelot, I cannot--I cannot listen to you--read that!' And she handed him the vicar's letter. He read it, tossed it on the carpet, and crushed it with his heel.

'Wretched pedant! Can your intellect be deluded by such barefaced sophistries? ”G.o.d's will,” forsooth! And if your mother's opposition is not a sign that G.o.d's will--if it mean anything except your own will, or that--that man's--is against this mad project, and not for it, what sign would you have? So ”celibacy is the highest state!” And why? Because ”it is the safest and the easiest road to heaven?” A pretty reason, vicar! I should have thought that that was a sign of a lower state and not a higher. n.o.ble spirits show their n.o.bleness by daring the most difficult paths. And even if marriage was but one weed-field of temptations, as these miserable pedants say, who have either never tried it, or misused it to their own shame, it would be a greater deed to conquer its temptations than to flee from them in cowardly longings after ease and safety!'

She did not answer him, but kept her face buried in her hands.

'Again, I say, Argemone, will you fight against Fate--Providence-- G.o.d--call it what you will? Who made us meet at the chapel? Who made me, by my accident, a guest in your father's house! Who put it into your heart to care for my poor soul? Who gave us this strange attraction towards each other, in spite of our unlikeness?

Wonderful that the very chain of circ.u.mstances which you seem to fancy the offspring of chance or the devil, should have first taught me to believe that there is a G.o.d who guides us! Argemone! speak, tell me, if you will, to go for ever; but tell me first the truth-- You love me!'

A strong shudder ran through her frame--the ice of artificial years cracked, and the clear stream of her woman's nature welled up to the light, as pure as when she first lay on her mother's bosom: she lifted up her eyes, and with one long look of pa.s.sionate tenderness she faltered out,--

'I love you!'

He did not stir, but watched her with clasped hands, like one who in dreams finds himself in some fairy palace, and fears that a movement may break the spell.

'Now, go,' she said; 'go, and let me collect my thoughts. All this has been too much for me. Do not look sad--you may come again to- morrow.'

She smiled and held out her hand. He caught it, covered it with kisses, and pressed it to his heart. She half drew it back, frightened. The sensation was new to her. Again the delicious feeling of being utterly in his power came over her, and she left her hand upon his heart, and blushed as she felt its pa.s.sionate throbbings.

He turned to go--not as before. She followed with greedy eyes her new-found treasure; and as the door closed behind him, she felt as if Lancelot was the whole world, and there was nothing beside him, and wondered how a moment had made him all in all to her; and then she sank upon her knees, and folded her hands upon her bosom, and her prayers for him were like the prayers of a little child.

CHAPTER XI: THUNDERSTORM THE FIRST

But what had become of the 'bit of writing' which Harry Verney, by the instigation of his evil genius, had put into the squire's fly- book? Tregarva had waited in terrible suspense for many weeks, expecting the explosion which he knew must follow its discovery. He had confided to Lancelot the contents of the paper, and Lancelot had tried many stratagems to get possession of it, but all in vain.

Tregarva took this as calmly as he did everything else. Only once, on the morning of the eclairciss.e.m.e.nt between Lancelot and Argemone, he talked to Lancelot of leaving his place, and going out to seek his fortune; but some spell, which he did not explain, seemed to chain him to the Priory. Lancelot thought it was the want of money, and offered to lend him ten pounds whenever he liked; but Tregarva shook his head.

'You have treated me, sir, as no one else has done--like a man and a friend; but I am not going to make a market of your generosity. I will owe no man anything, save to love one another.'

'But how do you intend to live?' asked Lancelot, as they stood together in the cloisters.

'There's enough of me, sir, to make a good navigator if all trades fail.'

'Nonsense! you must not throw yourself away so.'

'Oh, sir, there's good to be done, believe me, among those poor fellows. They wander up and down the land like hogs and heathens, and no one tells them that they have a soul to be saved. Not one parson in a thousand gives a thought to them. They can manage old folks and little children, sir, but, somehow, they never can get hold of the young men--just those who want them most. There's a talk about ragged schools, now. Why don't they try ragged churches, sir, and a ragged service?'

'What do you mean?'

'Why, sir, the parsons are ready enough to save souls, but it must be only according to rule and regulation. Before the Gospel can be preached there must be three thousand pounds got together for a church, and a thousand for an endowment, not to mention the thousand pounds that the clergyman's education costs: I don't think of his own keep, sir; that's little enough, often; and those that work hardest get least pay, it seems to me. But after all that expense, when they've built the church, it's the tradesmen, and the gentry, and the old folk that fill it, and the working men never come near it from one year's end to another.'

'What's the cause, do you think?' asked Lancelot, who had himself remarked the same thing more than once.

'Half of the reason, sir, I do believe, is that same Prayer-book.

Not that the Prayer-book ain't a fine book enough, and a true one; but, don't you see, sir, to understand the virtue of it, the poor fellows ought to be already just what you want to make them.'

'You mean that they ought to be thorough Christians already, to appreciate the spirituality of the liturgy.'