kiss the little wet
cheek, ascertained that Catherine was not in the house, and then came
back, miserable, with the bewilderment of sleep still upon him. A
sense of wrong rose high within him. How _could_ she have left him thus
without a word?

It had been her way sometimes, during the summer, to go out early to one
or other of the sick folk who were under her especial charge. Possibly
she had gone to a woman just confined, on the further side of the
village, who yesterday had been in danger.

But, whatever explanation he could make for himself, he was none the
less irrationally wretched. He bathed, dressed, and sat down to his
solitary meal in a state of tension and agitation indescribable. All the
exaltation, the courage of the night, was gone.

Nine o'clock, ten o'clock, and no sign of Catherine.

'Your mistress must have been detained somewhere,' he said as quietly
and carelessly as he could to Susan, the parlor-maid, who had been with
them since their marriage. 'Leave breakfast things for one.'

'Mistress took a cup of milk when she went out, cook says,' observed
the little maid with a consoling intention, wondering the while at the
Rector's haggard mien and restless movements.

'Nursing other people, indeed!' she observed severely downstairs,
glad, as we all are at times, to pick holes in excellence which is
inconveniently high. 'Missis had a deal better stay at home and nurse
_him!_'

The day was excessively hot. Not a leaf moved in the garden; over the
cornfield the air danced in long vibrations of heat; the woods and hills
beyond were indistinct and colorless. Their dog Dandy, lay sleeping in
the sun, waking up every now and then to avenge himself on the flies. On
the far edge of the cornfield reaping was beginning. Robert stood on the
edge of the sunk fence, his blind eyes resting on the line of men, his
ear catching the shouts of the farmer directing operations from his gray
horse. He could do nothing. The night before in the wood-path, he had
clearly mapped out the day's work. A mass of business was waiting,
clamoring to be done. He tried to begin on this or that, and gave
up everything with a groan, wandering out again to the gate on the
wood-path to sweep the distances of road or field with hungry, straining
eyes.

The wildest fears had taken possession of him. Running in his head was a
passage from _The Confessions_, describing Monica's horror of her son's
heretical opinions. 'Shrinking from an