than a talk about a girl. I've been talked to till
I'm sick," said Wodehouse, with a little burst of irrepressible nature,
"but things may change before you all know where you are." When he had
said so much, the fear in his heart awoke again, and he cast another
look of inquiry and anxiety at the Curate's face. But Mr Wentworth was
disgusted, and had no more to say.

"Everything changes--except the heart of the churl, which can never be
made bountiful," said the indignant young priest. It was not a fit
sentiment, perhaps, for a preacher who had just written that text
about the wicked man turning from the evil of his ways. Mr Wentworth
went away in a glow of indignation and excitement, and left his guest
to Sarah's bountiful provision of hot coffee and new-laid eggs, to
which Wodehouse addressed himself with a perfectly good appetite,
notwithstanding all the events of the morning, and all the mystery of
the night.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Mr Wentworth retired to his own quarters with enough to think about for
one morning. He could not make up his mind about Wodehouse--whether he
was guilty or not guilty. It seemed incredible that, penniless as he
was, he could have succeeded in carrying off a girl so well known in
Carlingford as Rosa Elsworthy; and, if he had taken her away, how did
it happen that he himself had come back again? The Curate saw clearly
enough that his only chance for exculpating himself in the sight of
the multitude was by bringing home the guilt to somebody else; and in
proportion to the utter scorn with which he had treated Elsworthy's
insinuations at first, was his serious apprehension now of the danger
which surrounded him. He divined all that slander would make of it
with the quickened intelligence of a man whose entire life, and
reputation dearer than life, were at stake. If it could not be cleared
up--if even any investigation which he might be able to demand was not
perfectly successful--Mr Wentworth was quite well aware that the
character of a clergyman was almost as susceptible as that of a
woman, and that the vague stigma might haunt and overshadow him all
his life. The thought was overwhelming at this moment, when his first
hopes of finding a speedy solution of the mystery had come to nothing.
If he had but lived a century earlier, the chances are that no doubt
of Wodehouse's guilt would have entered his mind; but Mr Wentworth was
a man of the present age--reasonable to a fault, and apt to