ther man's
grounds. However, that's not my business;--and the other reason, sir?"
said Mr Wentworth, with his anxious look.

"My dear father," said the Curate, touched by the anxiety in the
Squire's face, and sitting down by him with a sudden impulse, "I have
done nothing which either you or I need be ashamed of. I am grieved
that you should think it necessary to examine me so closely. Wodehouse
is a rascal, but I had taken charge of him; and as long as it was
possible to shield him, I felt bound to do so. I made an appeal to his
honour, if he had any, and to his fears, which are more to be depended
on, and gave him until noon to-day to consider it. Here is his note,
which was given me in the vestry; and now you know the whole business,
and how it is that I postponed the conclusion till to-night."

The Squire put on his spectacles with a tremulous hand to read the note
which his son gave him. The room was very still while he read it, no
sound interrupting him except an occasional sniff from Louisa, who was
in a permanent state of whimpering, and, besides, had ceased to be
interested in Frank's affairs. Jack Wentworth, standing in the
background behind the Squire's chair, had the whole party before him,
and studied them keenly with thoughts which nobody guessed at. Gerald
was still standing by the window, leaning on it with his face only half
turned to the others. Was he thinking of the others? was he still one of
them? or was he saying his office from some invisible breviary
abstracted into another life? That supposition looked the most like
truth. Near him was his wife, who had thrown herself, a heap of bright
fluttering muslin, into the great chair, and kept her handkerchief to
her red eyes. She had enough troubles of her own to occupy her, poor
soul! Just at that moment it occurred to her to think of the laburnum
berries in the shrubbery at the Rectory, which, it was suddenly borne in
upon her, would prove fatal to one or other of the children in her
absence;--the dear Rectory which she had to leave so soon! "And Frank
will have it, of course," Louisa said to herself, "and marry somebody;"
and then she thought of the laburnum berries in connection with his
problematical children, not without a movement of satisfaction. Opposite
to her was the Squire, holding Wodehouse's epistle in a hand which shook
a little, and reading aloud slowly as he could make it out. The note was
short and insolent enough. While it was being