ents of the last two or three hours had
worked a total change in his feelings. He was no longer the injured,
insulted, silent object of a petty but virulent persecution. The
contemptuous silence with which he had treated the scandal at first,
and the still more obstinate sense of wrong which latterly had shut
his lips and his heart, had given way to-day to warmer and more
generous emotions. What would have seemed to him in the morning only
the indignant reserve of a man unjustly suspected, appeared now a
foolish and unfriendly reticence. The only thing which restrained him
was a still lingering inclination to screen Wodehouse, if possible,
from a public exposure, which would throw shame upon his sisters as
well as himself. If any generosity, if any gentlemanly feeling, were
still left in the vagabond's soul, it was possible he might answer the
Curate's appeal; and Mr Wentworth felt himself bound to offer no
public explanation of the facts of the case until this last chance of
escape had been left for the criminal. But, so far as regarded
himself, his heart was opened, his wounded pride mollified, and he was
ready enough to talk of what had just happened, and to explain the
whole business to his anxious companions. When he joined them, indeed,
he was so full of it as almost to forget that he himself was still
believed the hero of the tale. "This unfortunate little girl has been
here, and I have missed her," he said, without in the least concealing
his vexation, and the excitement which his rapid walk had not subdued;
to the great horror of Mr Proctor, who tried all he could, by
telegraphic glances, to recall the young man to a sense of that fact
that Sarah was in the room.

"I must say I think it is imprudent--highly imprudent," said the late
Rector: "they will call these women to prove that she has been here
again; and what conclusion but one can possibly be drawn from such a
fact? I am very sorry to see you so unguarded." He said this, seizing
the moment after Sarah had removed the salmon, which was very good,
and was served with a sauce which pleased Mr Proctor all the more that
he had not expected much from an impromptu dinner furnished by a
Perpetual Curate; but the fact was, that Gerald's arrival had
awakened Mrs Hadwin to a proper regard for her own credit, which was
at stake.

When Sarah withdrew finally, and they were left alone, Frank Wentworth
gave the fullest explanation he was able to his surprised auditor