Lucilla wrote it on a card. The tone quashed all hope.

'We trust to you,' she said.

'Mr. Currie has promised to let me hear of Owen,' said Robert; but no
more passed. Owen came back hasty and flushed, wanting to be gone and
have it over. The cabs were called, and he was piling them with luggage;
Robert was glad to be actively helpful. All were in the hall; Owen
turned back for one more solitary gaze round the familiar room; Robert
shook Lucilla's hand.

'O bid me good speed,' broke from her; 'or I cannot bear it.'

'God be with you. God bless you!' he said.

No more! He had not approved, he had not blamed. He would interfere no
more in her fate. She seated herself, and drew down her black veil, a
chill creeping over her.

'Thank you, Robert, for all,' was Owen's farewell. 'If you will say
anything to Phoebe from me, tell her she is all that is left to comfort
poor Honor.'

'Good-bye,' was the only answer.

Owen lingered still. 'You'll write? Tell me of her; Honor, I mean, and
the child.'

'Yes, yes, certainly.'

Unable to find another pretext for delay, Owen again wrung Robert's hand,
and placed himself by his sister, keeping his head out as long as he
could see Robert standing with crossed arms on the doorstep.

When, the same afternoon, Mr. Parsons came home, he blamed himself for
having yielded to his youngest curate the brunt of the summer work.
Never had he seen a man not unwell look so much jaded and depressed.

Nearly at the same time, Lucilla and her boxes were on the platform of
the Southminster station, Owen's eyes straining after her as the train
rushed on, and she feeling positive pain and anger at the sympathy of Dr.
Prendergast's kind voice, as though it would have been a relief to her
tumultuous misery to have bitten him, like Uncle Kit long ago. She
clenched her hand tight, when with old-world courtesy he made her take
his arm, and with true consideration, conducted her down the hill,
through the quieter streets, to the calm, shady precincts of the old
cathedral. He had both a stall and a large town living; and his abode
was the gray freestone prebendal house, whose two deep windows under
their peaked gables gave it rather a cat-like physiognomy. Mrs.
Prendergast and Sarah were waiting in the hall, each with a kiss of
welcome, and the former took the pale girl at once up-stairs, to a room
full of subdued sunshine, looking out on a green lawn sloping down to the
river. At