At eleven next morning he crossed the green to dress Lady Selina’s arm. Upworthy presented to his critical eye no apparent change from the normal. What villagers he met greeted him with a sheepish and apologetic air. Ebullition of feeling had simmered away. Even Timothy Farleigh had reassumed his bovine mask, although his face was brighter, Mary being decidedly better, and likely to improve from hour to hour. Agatha thanked him effusively, on her marrow-bones before his “cleverness.” She repeated the same phrase again and again:

“Oh! you are clever, sir; you saved us all, you did.”

“A bit of luck. I saw the wax vesta in the boy’s hand.”

“And so did I, sir. It told me just nothing, nothing.”

“You were too excited to notice trifles at such a time.” He paused, adding significantly: “Are you still excited?”

She flushed a little, hesitating, but constrained to candour beneath his kindly glance.

“Things can’t go on as they are, sir, can they?”

Her tone was interrogative, not defiant. Recognising the change in her mental attitude, he said genially:

“Things never do go on as they are, nor persons. The progress of the world is intermittent; and it rolls on in curves, now up, now down, but the mean level is steadily rising. Ill-considered speech and action clog the wheels. You can give a motor too much lubricating oil, can’t you?”

“I am very sorry that I misunderstood you, sir.”

With these heartening words he left the Farleigh cottage and walked more briskly to the Vicarage.

Cicely, you may be sure, contrived to see him alone for a minute. From her manner he could divine nothing of her feelings, because they met in the small hall within reach of curious eyes and ears. He fancied that her hand lay cold in his. And her expression was troubled.

“Your mother has passed a bad night?”

“Mother slept soundly, thanks to your draught. She’s up; in the drawing-room. She insists on going to London at once. We are likely to stay there for several months.”

“I see.”

“But do you see? I can’t.” Her voice was almost piteous. “Perhaps it’s for the best. I don’t know. And she talks of sending the family solicitor down here to deal with Snitterfield and Gridley. But he’s an old fossil. They’ll twist him round their fingers. Can’t you coax her into staying here?”

“I am not very sanguine of succeeding where you have failed.”

He followed her into the drawing-room, where Lady Selina was enthroned in a large chair, with energy exuding from her. Grimshaw did the little that was necessary. He had to admit that the burn was not serious. Cicely could attend to it. Lady Selina said briskly:

“I want to talk to you, Mr. Grimshaw. Please sit down. Cicely, my dear, you needn’t go. You are vitally concerned in what I have to say.”

Cicely betrayed slight nervousness. Grimshaw sat down near Lady Selina. He perceived that she was overbrimming with considered speech.

“I awoke with a clear mind,” she affirmed. “I have had an object-lesson, not wasted upon me, I can assure you. I admit that I have been blind to what has been going on under my nose. And I can take into consideration the—the—a—consideration that has been, not too wisely, given to me. Enough of that. I can’t, under the circumstances, call in Lord Wilverley, as you suggested. But there are others. My own solicitor, for instance. I shall instruct him to institute a sort of court of inquiry here. He will know how to deal with this man Snitterfield and our Inspector of Nuisances.”

“Will he?” asked Grimshaw quietly.

Lady Selina answered with slight acerbity:

“Of course he will. Before he meets these men, I shall ask him to have a talk with you. Out of the chaos of yesterday, one phrase bites deeply into my memory. I was told by Timothy Farleigh that my village is a whited sepulchre. You didn’t contradict him.”

The unhappy Cicely wriggled in her chair. Grimshaw remained silent. Lady Selina continued inexorably:

“It is possible, Mr. Grimshaw, that you didn’t contradict him because you share his opinion of Upworthy. Do you?”

Cicely interposed hastily:

“Mother, do wait till you are yourself again.”

“Nonsense, child! I am very much myself this morning. Who wouldn’t be after such an awakening? Mr. Grimshaw will do me the justice to believe that I am in no mood to spare myself or anybody else. If Mr. Grimshaw honestly thinks that Upworthy is a whited sepulchre, let him say so.”

“Mother. I entreat you!”

Lady Selina waved her hand impatiently.

“I must find out what the doctor of the parish thinks. I detest evasions. Heaven knows we have had enough of them.”

Grimshaw replied eagerly:

“I am sorely tempted to evade your question, Lady Selina. And I could do so easily. But you have chosen to raise the big issue between us, and I dare not shirk it. I dare not shirk it.” He repeated the words so sorrowfully that she eyed him more attentively. After the pause he went on: “The metaphor may be crude and harsh. It is. I should not have chosen it myself. But conditions are fundamentally wrong here, as I ventured to hint to you at our very first meeting.”

“Hints! Hints! Let us away with hints. Please tell me this: If—if conditions are so fundamentally wrong here—which I don’t admit—why are you working here? Why did you come back to—to a whited sepulchre?”

Her tone became indescribably ironic, charged, too, with a feeling that she was unable to suppress. Feeling always engenders feeling. Something about Grimshaw, the conviction that he was intensely moved, moved her. She scented mystery. And immediately this suspicion was heightened as she intercepted a glance of Cicely’s directed full at Grimshaw, a supplicating glance, beseeching forbearance and patience. Tiddy had predicted aright. Cicely was no actress. Grimshaw, unable for his part to dissemble, returned the glance. Obviously there was an understanding, or a misunderstanding, between these two. In a harder voice Lady Selina addressed the silent Grimshaw.

“Why do you look at my daughter? That boy, last night, said that you were afraid of her. Why? Is there any sort of—of league between you?”

The hunted Cicely burst out:

“A common desire to spare you.”

“To spare me? Thank you for nothing. I demand the truth. Why is Mr. Grimshaw, a clever, distinguished man, working here under conditions which he holds to be fundamentally wrong?”

Throughout this interview, so poignantly illuminating, Grimshaw had been sensible of Lady Selina’s sincerity and intelligence. He had never doubted the former; the latter gave him pause. Granting that she was really intelligent, an acute observer, why had she drifted into this impasse? Then he remembered what Pawley had said of her, her utter lack of business training, the stigma of all women of her class, and behind this the inherited instinct to move slowly in an appointed groove. Out of this groove she had been rudely shaken. For the first time she had a glimpse of what such women might accomplish if they were freed from the fetters of tradition and convention. He replied calmly:

“What governs most of our actions, Lady Selina? Self-interest. Self-interest lured me into staying here against my better judgment. Self-interest brought me back to Upworthy, although I knew that the basic conditions were not likely to be changed.”

“Self-interest?” She slowly repeated the two odious words, evidently puzzled, but keenly alert. “I can’t for the life of me see where self-interest comes in. Making due allowance for your modesty, Mr. Grimshaw, I fail to follow you. A big town is the place for you, not a country parish. You are the nephew of a distinguished London physician. You must know, better than I do, that self-interest, if you are speaking professionally, ought to have kept you away from Upworthy.”

“I was not speaking professionally.”

“Oh-h-h!”

“I have been weak; something, too, of a coward; but I promise you that self-interest is going to be scrapped here and now.”

“I am utterly at a loss——!”

“You will be enlightened at once.”

He stood up, the light from the windows falling full upon his face.

“I have stayed here because I love your daughter.”