"I--I shall be happy--"

"Happy!"

The music ceased, and that for the sufficiently good reason that the pianist rose from her seat and flung her arms about the curate's neck.

He said something, but what it was was lost in the ample expanses of Miss Vesey's breast.

"Madam," she cried, addressing Miss Macleod, "your nephew has promised to marry me! He has said that he will be happy."

Miss Macleod, who did not happen just then to be looking in the opposite direction, smiled grimly. Owing to the peculiarity of her physical configuration everything about her was grim--even her smile.

"I am glad to hear it," she observed.

The Rev. Alan struggled himself free from the lady's powerful embrace.

His distress was tragic in its intensity.

"This--this is some extraordinary--"

"Happiness!" cried the lady, and again she clasped him in her arms.

"Your happiness is mine! It has been my life-long dream to be married to a clergyman; is not my father one already?"

At that moment the father referred to entered the room.

"What's this?" he cried, as a father naturally would cry on seeing his daughter with a stranger in her arms.

The young lady, however, promptly relieved his mind.

"Father, let me present to you my future husband."

"I--I do protest," screamed the frenzied curate.

"You do protest, sir! What do you protest?" The father's voice was terrible, so was his manner. Apparently all his paternal instincts had not been destroyed by dipsomania. "You come to this house, sir, a perfect stranger, sir; you a.s.sault my daughter, sir; you take her in your arms."

This was, perhaps, strictly speaking, a perversion of the truth; but at this moment Miss Macleod offered her interposition.

"You need be under no concern. My nephew is a gentleman. I was a witness of his proposal. If he behaves as a dastard to your daughter, I will deliver him to your righteous vengeance then. In the meantime, perhaps you and your daughter will accompany us home to luncheon. We can arrange the preliminaries of the marriage during the course of the meal."

CHAPTER III.--A CURIOUS COURTSHIP

"Miss Bayley, I am in a position of the extremest difficulty."

Miss Bayley was not only the Rev. Alan Macleod's parishioner; she was, so to speak, his co-curate, at Swaffham-on-Sea. That delightful village boasted of a rector who found that the local air did not agree with him, so he spent most of his time in the South of France. The Rev. Alan was, therefore, to all intents and purposes, the head and front of all Church matters in the neighbourhood. Unfortunately the greater part of the population--what there was of it--was dissenting, and that part of it which was not dissenting was even worse--it was Episcopalian!--the lowest of the low! The curate, therefore, found himself in the position of the sower who sows his seed in barren soil.

His congregation not unfrequently consisted of two--the verger and Miss Bayley.

The curate had returned to Swaffham, and it was this faithful feminine flower of his flock he was addressing now.

"Oh, Mr Macleod, I am so sorry! Can I help you? Is it spiritual?"

The curate shook his head. He had not fallen quite so low as that. The idea of his coming to a person in petticoats for help in spiritual matters struck him as too absurd. He could scarcely excuse Miss Bayley.

"Can you think that I, your priest, should come to learn of you?"

Miss Bayley looked down.

"I was wrong," she murmured. She told herself that she ought to have remembered that none of the curates ever was half so c.o.c.ksure about that kind of thing as the Rev. Alan. But then, she was so anxious to lend him a hand in anything.

"An error owned is half atoned."

He meant this for a little pleasantry--but he was an awkward man, even when he trifled. He hesitated. He was conscious that he had come for a.s.sistance in a matter quite as delicate as anything which appertained to Church government.

"Miss Bayley." He cleared his throat. "I--I have an aunt." The abashed Miss Bayley signified that she had heard him mention that fact before--which she had, about half a dozen times a day. "She is not one of us." Miss Bayley sighed; she felt that she was expected to sigh.

"She is of the world worldly. Her thoughts are fixed on temporalities.

Being possessed of great riches, to which I am the natural heir, the continual desire of her life is that I--I should marry."

The Rev. Alan stammered a little at the end. Miss Bayley perceptibly started. That was the continual desire of her life too. She wondered if it was going to be gratified at last.

"That you should marry? Oh, Mr Macleod!"

"I need not tell you that, in such a matter, her desire would not weigh with me in the least. The true priest is celibate."

Miss Bayley's heart fluttered--she did not go with him so far as that.

"But--if she were to disinherit you?"

"Do you know me so little as that? Nothing would please me better than that she should."

He clasped his hands in a kind of ecstasy. The lady, whose father was the parish doctor, and who knew what it was to have to dress on nothing a year, was almost tempted to think that the curate was a fool. But as she could scarcely express the thought aloud, she was wise enough to hold her peace. The gentleman went on rather awkwardly.

The travelling was getting difficult, in fact.

"To--eh--such lengths has--eh--she--she--allowed her desire to--eh--carry her, that--eh--it--it has resulted in--eh--involving me in--eh--complications of an excessively disagreeable kind."

Miss Bayley's imagination realised the worst at once.

"Are you engaged?" she cried.

"She--she says I am."

"She says you are!" The lady was on the verge of tears--the blow was sudden. "Mr Macleod, I have something which I have to do upstairs."

She felt that if she stayed in the room she might disgrace herself by crying before his face. The Rev. Alan was dismayed at the idea of her leaving him.

"Miss Bayley, I do entreat you not to go. You do not understand me in the least. _I_ do not say I am engaged; quite--quite the other way."

"Oh, Mr Macleod!"

The affair might have its comic side for a looker-on, but it was tragic enough for her. If she did not get this man, whom could she get? At Swaffham-on-Sea eligible bachelors were as rare as snow in summer. Besides--women attach themselves to poodle dogs!--she really liked the man.

The curate continued: