The feelings with which the curate hastened on the conclusion of his own service, to learn what had happened at the great church may be imagined. His excitement and curiosity were not the less because he had to hide them. If there really had been no service--if the rector had not appeared--what a scandal, what a subject for talk was here! Even if the rector had appeared a little late there would still be whispering; for new brooms are expected to sweep clean. The curate composed his dark face, and purposely made one or two sick calls at houses which lay in his road, lest he might seem to ask the question he had to put too pointedly. By the time he reached the rectory he had made up his mind, judging from the absence of stir in the streets, that nothing very unusual had happened.

"Is the rector in?" he asked the servant.

"No, sir; he has gone to the Town House to dinner," the girl answered.

Involuntarily Mr. Clode frowned. "He was in time for service, I suppose?" he asked, more abruptly than he had intended.

"Oh, yes, sir," said the unconscious maid, who had not been to church.

"Thank you; that is all," he answered, turning away. So nothing had come of it after all! His heart was sick with disappointed hope as he turned into his own dull lodgings; and he felt that the rector in being in time had wronged him afresh, and by dining at the Town House had added insult to injury.

But in the course of the day he learned how late the rector had been; and early next morning some rumor of the triangular altercation in the church porch also reached him--of course in an exaggerated form. As a fact, all Claversham was by this time talking of it, Mr. Bonamy's companions, with one exception, having taken good care to make the most of his success, and to paint the rebuff he had administered to the clergyman in the deepest colors. The curate heard the news with a face of grave concern, but with secret delight; and, turning over in his mind what use he might make of it, came opportunely upon Gregg as the latter was going his rounds. "Hallo!" he said, calling so loudly that the doctor, who had turned away and would fain have retreated, could not decently escape, "you are the very man I wanted to see! What is this absurd story about the rector and you? There is not a word of truth in it, I suppose?"

"I am sure I cannot say until you tell me what it is," replied the doctor snappishly. He was a little afraid of the curate, who had a knack of being unpleasant without giving an opening in return.

"Why, you seem rather sore about it," Clode remarked, with apparent surprise.

"I do not know why I should!" sneered the doctor, his face a dark red with anger.

"Certainly not, if there is no truth in the story," the curate replied, looking down with his eyes half shut at the chafing little man. "But I suppose it is all an invention, Gregg?"

"It is not an invention that the rector was abominably rude to me," blurted out the doctor, who scarcely knew with whom to be most angry--his present tormentor or the first cause of his trouble.

"Pooh!" said Clode, "it is only his way."

"Then it is a d----, it is a most unpleasant way!" retorted the doctor savagely.

"He means no harm," said the curate gaily. "Why did you not answer him back?"

Dr. Gregg's face turned a shade redder. That was where the shoe pinched. Why had he not answered him back as Bonamy had, and not stood mute, acknowledging himself the smaller man? That was what was troubling him now, and making him fancy himself the laughing-stock of the town. "I will answer him back in a way he will not like!" he cried viciously, striving to hide his embarrassment under a show of bluster.

"Tut-t-tut!" said the curate provokingly, "do not go and make a fool of yourself by saying things like that, when you know you don't mean them, man. What can you say to the rector?"

"I will ask him----"

But what he would ask the rector was lost to the world, for at this moment Mr. Bonamy, coming down the pavement behind him, touched his sleeve. "I have just been to your house, doctor," he said. "My youngest girl is a little out of sorts. Would you mind stepping in and seeing her?"

Gregg swallowed his wrath, and was perhaps thankful for the interruption. He said he would; and the lawyer turned to Mr. Clode. "Well," he said, "so you have made up your minds to fight?"

"I am not quite sure," said the curate, with caution--for he knew better than to treat Mr. Bonamy as he treated Gregg--"that I take you."

"You have not seen your principal this morning?" replied the lawyer, with a smile which for him was almost benevolent. The prospect of a fight was as the Mountains of Beulah to him.

"Do you mean Mr. Lindo?" said the curate, with some curtness.

The lawyer nodded. "I see you have not," he continued. "Perhaps you do not know that he turned the sheep out of the churchyard after breakfast this morning, and half of them were found nearly a mile down the Red Lane!"

"I did not know it," said the curate gravely. But it was as much as he could do to restrain his exultation and show no sign save of concern.

"Well, it is the fact," the lawyer replied, rubbing his hands. "It is quite true he gave the church wardens notice to remove them a fortnight ago; but we did not comply, because we say it is our affair and not his. Now you may tell him from me that the only question in my mind is the form of action."

"I will tell him,' said the curate with dignity.

"Just so! What do you say, Gregg?"

But the doctor, grinning from ear to ear with satisfaction, was gone; and the curate, not a whit less pleased in his heart, hastened to follow his example. "Bonamy one, and Gregg two," he said softly to himself, "and last, but not least, one who shall be nameless, three! He has made three enemies already, and, if those be not enough, with right on their side, to oust him from his seat when the time comes, why, I know nothing of odds!"

"With right on their side," said the curate, even to himself. He had made no second attempt to pry into the rector's secrets or to bring home to him a knowledge of the wrongfulness of his possession. But he did still believe, or persuaded himself he believed, that Lindo was a guilty man; or why should the young rector pension the old earl's servant? And on this ground Clode justified to himself the secret ill-turns he was doing him. A month's intimacy with the rector would probably have convinced an impartial mind of his good faith. But the curate had not, it must be remembered, an impartial mind; and we are all very apt to believe what suits us.

To return to the little doctor, whom we left going on his way in a mood almost hilarious. He hoped that this fresh escapade of the rector's would wipe out the memory of the fray in which he had himself borne so inglorious a part. And the more he thought of it, the greater was his admiration of the lawyer, whom he had long patronized in a timid fashion, much as a snub-nosed King Charlie treats the butcher's mongrel. Now he felt a positive reverence for him. He began to think it possible that, with all his drawbacks of birth, Mr. Bonamy might become a personage in the town, and pretty Kate not so bad a match. The result of these musings was that, by the time he reached the lawyer's door, an idea which he had first entertained on seeing the young clergyman's admiration for Kate Bonamy, and which he had since turned over more than once in his mind, had become on a sudden a settled purpose. So much so that, as the doctor rang the bell, he looked at his hands, which were not so clean as they might have been, pished and pshawed, settled his light-blue scarf--which the next minute rose again to the level of his collar--and at length went in with a briskly juvenile air and an engaging smile.

He found Daintry lying on the sofa in the dining-room down-stairs, her head on a white bed-pillow. Kate was leaning over her. The room was in some disorder--littered with this and that, a bottle of eau de Cologne, Mr. Bonamy's papers, books, and sewing; but it looked comfortable, for it was very evidently inhabited. A fastidious eye might have thought it was too much inhabited; and yet proofs of refinement were not wanting, though the sofa was covered with horsehair, and the mirror was heavy and ugly, and the grate, knee-high, was as old as the Georges. There were flowers on the table and on the little cottage piano; and by the side of the last was a violin-case. Not many people in Claversham knew that Mr. Bonamy played the violin. Still fewer had heard him play, for he never did so out of his own house.

Possibly a very particular suitor might have preferred to find Kate attending on her sister in a boudoir, free from a lawyer's papers, furnished in a less solid and durable style, and with some livelier look-out than through wire blinds upon a dull street. But another might have thought that the office in which she was engaged, and the gentleness of her touch and eye as she went about it, made up for all deficiencies.

Dr. Gregg was not of a nature to appreciate either the deficiencies or the set-off; but he had eyes for the girl's grace and beauty, for the neatness of the well-fitting blue gown and the white collar and cuffs; and he shook hands with her and devoted himself to Daintry--who disliked him extremely and was very fractious--with the most anxious solicitude. "It is only a sick headache!" he said finally, with bluntness which was meant for encouragement. "It is nothing, you know."

"I wish you had it, then!" Daintry wailed, burying her face in the pillow.

"It will be gone in the morning!" he retorted, rising and keeping his temper by an unnatural effort. "She will be the better for it afterward, Miss Bonamy."

To this Daintry vouchsafed no answer, unless a muttered "Rubbish!" was intended for one. He affected not to hear it, at any rate. He was all good-temper this morning; the unfortunate point about this being that his good nature was a shade more unpleasant than his usual snappish manner.

At any rate Kate thought it so. She felt the instinctive repulsion which the wrong man's wooing awakens in an unspoiled girl. She was conscious of an added dislike for the man as she held out her hand to him at the dining-room door. But she did not divine the cause of this; no, nor conjecture his purpose when he said in a low voice that he wished to speak to her outside.

"May we go in here a moment?" he muttered, when the door was closed behind them. He pointed to the room on the other side of the hall, which Mr. Bonamy used in summer as a kind of office.

"There is no fire there," Kate answered. "I think it has been lighted up-stairs, however, if you will not mind coming up, Dr. Gregg. Is there anything"--this was when he had silently followed her into the stiff drawing-room, where the newly lit fire was rather smoking than burning--"serious the matter with her, then?"

Her voice was steady, but her eyes betrayed the sudden anxiety his manner had aroused in her.

"With your sister?" he answered slowly. He was really pondering how he should say what he had come to say. But, naturally, she set down his thoughtfulness to a professional cause.

"Yes," she said anxiously.

"Oh, no--nothing, nothing. The truth is," continued the doctor, following up a happy thought and smiling approval of it, "the matter is with me, Miss Bonamy."

"With you!" Kate exclaimed, opening her eyes in astonishment. Her momentary anxiety had put all else out of her head. She thought the doctor had gone mad.

"Yes," he said jerkily, but with a grin of tender meaning. "With me. And you are the cause of it. Now do not be frightened, Miss Kate," he continued hastily, seeing her start of apprehension. "You must have known for a long time what I was thinking of."

"Indeed I have not," Kate murmured in a low voice. She did not affect to misunderstand him.

"Well, you easily might have known it then," he retorted, forgetting his rÔle for an instant. "But the long and the short of it is that I want you to marry me. I do!" he repeated, overcoming something in his throat, and going on from this point swimmingly. "And you will please to hear me out, and not answer in a hurry, Miss Kate. If you like--but I should not think that you would want it--you can have until to-morrow to think it over."

"No," she replied impulsively, her face crimson. And then she shut her mouth so suddenly, it seemed she was afraid to let anything escape it except that unmistakable monosyllable.

"Very well," he replied, comfortably settling his elbow upon the mantel-shelf, "that is as you like. I hope it does not want much thinking over myself. I will not boast that I am a rich man, but I am decently off. I flatter myself that I can keep my head above water--and yours, too, for the matter of that."

"Oh, it is not that," she began hurriedly.

He interrupted her. "No, no," he said jocularly---his last remarks had put him into a state of considerable self-satisfaction, and he no more thought it possible that she could or would refuse him than that the sky could fall--"do not buy a pig in a poke! Hear me out first, Miss Kate, and we shall start fair. You have been in my house, and, if it is not quite so large a house as this, I will answer for it you will find it a great deal more lively. You will see people you have never seen here, nor will see while your name is Bonamy. You will have--well, altogether a better time. Not that I mind myself," the doctor added rather vaguely, forgetting the French proverb about those who excuse themselves, "what your name is, not I! So don't you think you could say Yes at once, my dear?"

He took a step nearer, thinking he had put it rather neatly and without any nonsense. Possibly, from his point of view of things, he had. But Kate fell back, nevertheless, as he advanced.

"Oh, no," she said, flushing painfully. "I could not! I could not indeed, Dr. Gregg! I am very sorry."

"Come, come," he said, holding out his hand, his tone one of pleasant raillery. He had looked for some hanging back, some show of coyness and bashfulness, and was prepared to laugh in his sleeve at it--"I think you can, Kate. I think it is possible." That it was in woman's nature to say No to his comfortable home and the little lift in society he had to offer--it is only little lifts we appreciate, just up the next floor above us--he did not believe.

But Kate soon undeceived him. "I am afraid it is not possible," she said firmly. "Indeed, I may say at once, Dr. Gregg, that it is out of the question what you ask; though I thank you, I am sure."

His face fell ludicrously, and his thick black brows drew together in a very ominous fashion. But he still could not believe that she meant it. "I do not think you understand," he said, "that the house is ready, and the furniture and servants, and there is nothing to prevent you stepping into it all whenever you please. I will take you away from this," he continued, darting a scornful glance round the stiff chilly room--"I do not suppose that ten people enter this room in the twelvemonth--and I will show you something like life. It is an offer not many would make you. Come, Kate, do not be a little fool! You are not going to say No, so say Yes at once. And don't let us shilly-shally!"

He had put out his hand as he spoke and captured hers. But she snatched it from him again almost roughly, and stepped back. The right man might have used the words the doctor used, and might have scolded her with impunity, but not the wrong one. Her face, perplexed and troubled a moment before, grew decided enough now. "I am going to say No, nevertheless, Dr. Gregg," she replied firmly. "I thought I had already said it. I will be as plain as you have been. I do not like you as a wife should like her husband, nor otherwise than as a friend."

"A friend!" he exclaimed. He gasped as a man does who has been plunged suddenly into cold water. His face was red with anger, and his little black eyes glared at her banefully. "Oh, bother your friendship!" he added violently. "I did not ask you for that!"

"I have nothing else to give you," she replied coldly.

He gasped again. Refused by the Bonamy girl! He had never thought of this. He was beside himself with astonishment and anger, with disappointment and wounded pride. "You would not have said this a month ago!" he cried at last. "It was a pity I did not ask you then!"

"I should have given you the same answer."

"Oh, no," he replied ironically, swinging his hat to and fro. "Oh, no, you would not--not at all, Miss Bonamy. You would have sung to a very different tune if I had whistled to you before this niminy-piminy parson showed his face here! Do not think that I am such a fool as not to see which way the wind is blowing."

She stood looking at him in silence. But her face was scarlet, and her hand shook with rage.

He saw it. "Pooh! do not think to frighten me!" he said coarsely. "When a man has offered to marry you he has a right to speak his mind! It will be a long time, I warrant you, before your parson will have the same right to speak. He was very great with you once, but he has quite another set of friends now, and I have not heard of him offering to introduce you to them."

"Will you go, Dr. Gregg?" she cried passionately, pointing to the door. His taunts were torture to her. "Will you go, or do you wish to stay and insult me further?"

"I wish to say one thing, and I am going to say it," he replied, nodding triumphantly. "You are pretty proud of your capture, but you need not be. He will not be much of a match when we have stripped him of the living he has no right to, and shown him the detected swindler he is! Wait! Wait a little, Miss Bonamy, and when your parson is ruined, as he will be before three months are out, high as he holds his head now, perhaps you will be sorry that you did not take my offer. Why," he added scornfully, "I should say you are the only person in the parish who does not know he has no more right where he is than I have."

"Go!" she said, pointing to the door. Her face was white now.

"So I will when I have said one more word----"

"You won't say it!" cried a sharp voice behind him. "You will go now!" He shot round, and there was Daintry with her hand on the door. Her hair was in disorder, her cheeks were flushed, her greenish-gray eyes were aglow with anger. He saw that she had overheard something of what had passed, and he began to tremble. He had said more than he intended. "You will go now, as Kate tells you," she cried, "I will not have----"

"Leave the room, child!" he snarled, stamping his foot.

"I shan't!" she retorted fiercely. "And if you do not go before I count three I will fetch the dogs."

Dr. Gregg made a movement as if he would have put her out of the room. But her presence had a little sobered him, and he stopped. "Look here," he said.

"One!" cried Daintry, who knew well that the doctor had a particular dislike for Snorum, and that the dog's presence was at any time enough to drive him from the house.

He turned and looked at Kate. She had gone to the window and was gazing out, her back to him, her figure proud and scornful. "Miss Bonamy," he said.

"Two!" cried Daintry. "Are you going, or shall I fetch Snorum?"

With a muttered oath he took up his hat and went down the stairs and out into the street. There at the door he stood a moment, grinding his teeth, as the full sense of the calamity which had befallen him came home to him. He had stooped and been rejected--had been rejected by Bonamy's daughter. He walked away, and still his anger did not decrease, but all the same he began to be a little thankful that the child had interrupted him. Had he gone on he might have said too much. As it was, he had an idea that perhaps he had said more than was quite prudent. And this had presently a wonderful effect in the way of sobering him.