ead it he folded it up carefully and put
it in his pocket.

'That,' he said, 'is one of the best women that ever lived, and
perhaps, who knows, there may be others who see this matter in the
right light also.' All that he had previously said passed completely
out of his mind as he talked of the insight and the complete
understanding that some good women evinced. He began to speak with
manly kindliness of the poor little invalid upstairs, and when at last
he bade good-bye to his wife he kissed her affectionately and bade
her--in his usual formula--not do too much.

Miss Abingdon's letter had shown the canon to himself in his true
light; before he reached home he had come to believe that it was he who
had urged his wife to go to Hulworth. As was usual with him when he
felt strongly, he adopted a character role, and his handsome face wore
a more than usually beneficent and great-minded expression upon it as
he walked with his fine erect carriage through the village that night;
while it would hardly have required a playbill of _dramatis personae_
to indicate the fact that the canon was living the part of the Vicar of
Wakefield in the supreme moment when he visits Olivia in prison. He
had promised his wife before leaving to drive over often to see her
during her stay at Hulworth; and the following Sunday he preached one
of his most memorable sermons on the text--'And when they shall take up
some deadly thing it shall not hurt them.'

CHAPTER XI

Mrs. Wrottesley remained at Hulworth until her patient was better, and
then the good-hearted canon joined her there for a few days and was
altogether charming to poor little Mrs. Avory, who liked him far better
than she liked his wife. Toffy went up to London to join Peter Ogilvie
and to take ship for Argentine, and Peter went to say good-bye to Jane
Erskine.

These two last-named, cheerful people were in a state of acute
unhappiness which each was doing his and her best to conceal. It
required some pluck to be perfectly even-spirited and to show good mettle
in those days. The world contained for them nothing but a sense of
parting and uncertainty, and a horrible feeling of disappointment. Their
lives were to be severed, perhaps for years, and over all the uncertainty
and the thought of separation hung the mystery of Mrs. Ogilvie's
half-finished message. The memory of her was clouded by the thought of
how much she had suffered, and the conviction intruded itself