appened that the last time she was seen
in Carlingford, Rosa Elsworthy was left standing by herself in the
dark at Mr Wentworth's door.

CHAPTER XXV.

The Curate got up very early next morning. He had his sermon to write
and it was Saturday, and all the events of the week had naturally
enough unsettled his mind, and indisposed him for sermon-writing. When
the events of life come fast upon a man, it is seldom that he finds
much pleasure in abstract literary composition, and the style of the
Curate of St Roque's was not of that hortatory and impassioned
character which sometimes gives as much relief to the speaker as
excitement to the audience. So he got up in the early sweetness of the
summer morning, when nobody but himself was astir in the house, with
the sense of entering upon a task, and taking up work which was far
from agreeable to him. When he came into the little room which he used
as a study, and threw the window open, and breathed the delicious air
of the morning, which was all thrilling and trembling with the songs
of birds, Mr Wentworth's thoughts were far from being concentrated
upon any one subject. He sat down at his writing-table and arranged
his pens and paper, and wrote down the text he had selected; and when
he had done so much, and could feel that he had made a beginning, he
leaned back in his chair, and poised the idle pen on his finger, and
abandoned himself to his thoughts. He had so much to think about.
There was Wodehouse under the same roof, with whom he had felt himself
constrained to remonstrate very sharply on the previous night. There
was Jack, so near, and certainly come to Carlingford on no good
errand. There was Gerald, in his great perplexity and distress, and
the household at home in their anxiety; and last, but worst of all,
his fancy would go fluttering about the doors of the sick chamber in
Grange Lane, longing and wondering. He asked himself what it could be
which had raised that impalpable wall between Lucy and himself--that
barrier too strong to be overthrown, too ethereal to be complained of;
and wondered over and over again what her thoughts were towards
him--whether she thought of him at all, whether she was offended, or
simply indifferent?--a question which any one else who had observed
Lucy as closely could have solved without any difficulty, but which,
to the modest and true love of the Perpetual Curate, was at present
the grand doubt of all the doubts in the unive