it, Minnie dear--jam?) Why not Tunbridge Wells? Oh, Mr. Beebe!
I had a long and most unsatisfactory interview with dear Lucy this
morning. I cannot help her. I will say no more. Perhaps I have already
said too much. I am not to talk. I wanted her to spend six months with
me at Tunbridge Wells, and she refused."

Mr. Beebe poked at a crumb with his knife.

"But my feelings are of no importance. I know too well that I get on
Lucy's nerves. Our tour was a failure. She wanted to leave Florence, and
when we got to Rome she did not want to be in Rome, and all the time I
felt that I was spending her mother's money--."

"Let us keep to the future, though," interrupted Mr. Beebe. "I want your
advice."

"Very well," said Charlotte, with a choky abruptness that was new to
him, though familiar to Lucy. "I for one will help her to go to Greece.
Will you?"

Mr. Beebe considered.

"It is absolutely necessary," she continued, lowering her veil and
whispering through it with a passion, an intensity, that surprised him.
"I know--I know." The darkness was coming on, and he felt that this odd
woman really did know. "She must not stop here a moment, and we must
keep quiet till she goes. I trust that the servants know nothing.
Afterwards--but I may have said too much already. Only, Lucy and I are
helpless against Mrs. Honeychurch alone. If you help we may succeed.
Otherwise--"

"Otherwise--?"

"Otherwise," she repeated as if the word held finality.

"Yes, I will help her," said the clergyman, setting his jaw firm. "Come,
let us go back now, and settle the whole thing up."

Miss Bartlett burst into florid gratitude. The tavern sign--a beehive
trimmed evenly with bees--creaked in the wind outside as she thanked
him. Mr. Beebe did not quite understand the situation; but then, he did
not desire to understand it, nor to jump to the conclusion of "another
man" that would have attracted a grosser mind. He only felt that Miss
Bartlett knew of some vague influence from which the girl desired to be
delivered, and which might well be clothed in the fleshly form. Its very
vagueness spurred him into knight-errantry. His belief in celibacy, so
reticent, so carefully concealed beneath his tolerance and culture, now
came to the surface and expanded like some delicate flower. "They that
marry do well, but they that refrain do better." So ran his belief,
and he never heard that an engagement was broken off but with a slight
feeling of pleasure. I