"I think it is wiser not to look too far into the future," replied Dora, warding off.

"I should look much more happily into the future," replied the Rector, with the deliberation of the domestic autocrat, "if I knew that you had a good husband to take care of you."

In a flash of thought Dora traced it all back to Arthur, through Mrs.

Agar; and her would-be lover fell still further in her estimation. He seemed to be fated to show himself at every turn the very ant.i.type to her ideal.

"Ah," she laughed, "but suppose I got a bad one? You are always saying that marriage is a lottery, and I don't believe the remark is original.

Suppose I drew a blank; fancy being married to a blank! Or I might do worse. I might draw minus something--minus brains, for instance. They are in the lottery, for I have seen them, nicely done up in faultless linen--both blanks and worse."

She turned away towards the window, and the moment her face was averted it changed suddenly. The face that looked out towards the beech-wood, where the shadows were creeping from the darkening east, was piteous, terror-stricken, driven.

It is an ever-living question why people--honest, well-meaning parents and others--should be set to ride rough-shod over all that is best and purest in the human mind.

The Rector went on, in his calmly self-satisfied voice, with a fatuous ignorance of what he was doing which must have made the very angels wince.

"A great many girls," he said, "have thrown away a chance of happiness merely to serve a pa.s.sing fancy. Mind you don't do that."

She gave a little laugh, quite natural and easy, but her face was grave, and more.

"I do not think there is any fear of that," she replied lightly. "You must confess, papa, that I have always displayed a remarkable capacity for the management of my own affairs--with the a.s.sistance of Sister Cecilia, _bien entendu_."

This was rather a forlorn hope, but Dora was driven into a corner. The Rector was in the habit of preaching a good methodical sermon, and usually finished up somewhere in the neighbourhood of the text from whence he started. He allowed himself to deviate, but he never turned his back upon his text and went for a vague ramble through scriptural meadows, as some have been heard to do. He deviated on this occasion for a moment, but never lost sight of the main question.

"Sister Cecilia," he said, "is a busybody, and, like all busybodies, a fool. It is always people who cannot manage their own affairs who are so anxious to help their neighbours. I have no doubt that you are as capable of looking after yourself as any girl; but, child, you must remember that experience goes a long way in the world, and in the nature of things I must know better than you."

"Of course you do, papa dear. I know that."

But she did not know it, and he knew that she did not. This knowledge is certain to come, sooner or later, to men and women who have lived for themselves and in themselves alone. They are mental hermits, whose opinion of things connected with the lives of others cannot well be of value because they have only studied their own existences.

The Rector of Stagholme suddenly became aware of this. He suddenly found that his advice was no longer law. There are plenty of us ready to confess that we cannot play billiards or whist or polo, but no man likes it to be known that he cannot play the game of life. Mr. Glynde did not like this subtle feeling of incompetency. He prided himself on being a man of the world, and frequently applied the vague term to himself. We are all men of a world, but it depends upon the size of that world as to what value our citizenship may be. Mr. Glynde's world had always been the Reverend Thomas Glynde. He knew nothing of Dora's world, and lost his way as soon as he set his foot therein. But rather than make inquiries he thought to support paternal dignity by going further.

"It is," he said, with inevitable egotism, "unnecessary for me to tell you that I have only your interests at heart."

"Quite, papa dear. But do not let us talk about these horrid things. I am quite happy at home, and I do not want to go away from it. There is nowhere in the world where I should sooner be than here, even taking into consideration the fact that you are sometimes the most dismal old gentleman on the face of the earth."

"Well," he answered, with a grim smile, "I am sure I have enough to make me dismal. I am thankful to say that there will be no difficulty about money. You will be well enough off to have all that you might desire. But wealth is not all that a woman wants. She cannot turn it to the same account as a man. She wants position, a household, a husband. Otherwise the world only makes use of her; she is a prey to charity humbugs and bad people who do good works badly. I am not speaking as a parson, but as a man of the world."

"Then," she said, "as a parson, tell me if it would not be wrong to marry a man for whom one did not care, just for the sake of these things--a household and a husband."

"Of course it would," answered Mr. Glynde. "And that is a wrong which is usually punished in this life. But there are cases where it is difficult to say whether there be love or not. Unless you actually despise or hate a man, you may come to care for him."

"And in the meantime the position and the advantages mentioned are worth seizing?"

"So says the world," admitted Mr. Glynde.

"And what says the parson?"

She went to him and laid her two arms upon his broad chest, standing behind him as he sat in his arm-chair and looking down affectionately upon his averted face.

"And what says the parson?" she repeated, with a loving tap of her fingers on his breast.

"Nothing," was the reply. "A better parson than I says that what is natural is right."

"Yes, and that means follow the dictates of your own heart?"

"I suppose so," admitted the Hector, taking her two hands in his.

"And the dictates of my heart are all for staying at home and looking after my ancient parents and worrying them. Am I to be sent away? Not yet, old gentleman, not yet."

The Reverend Thomas Glynde laughed, somewhat as if a weight had been lifted from his heart. In his way he was a conscientious man. It was his honest conviction that Dora would do well to marry Arthur, who was a gentleman and essentially harmless. In persuading her to do so covertly, as he had thought well to do, he was honestly performing that which he thought to be his duty towards her. Presently Mrs. Glynde came back, and shortly afterwards Dora left the room. The Rector was not reading the book he held open on his knee, but gazed instead absently at the pattern of the hearthrug.

A change had come in this quiet household. Dora had gone away a child.

She had come back a woman, with that consciousness of life which comes somewhere between twenty and thirty years of age--a consciousness which is partly made up of the knowledge that life is, after all, given to each one of us individually to make the best of as well as we may; and no one knows what that best is except ourselves. What is happiness for one is misery for another, and while human beings vary as the clouds of heaven, no life can be lived by set rule.

Over these things the Rector pondered. He felt the difference in Dora.

She was still his daughter, but no longer a child. Her existence was still his chief care, but he could only stand by and help a little here and there; for the dependency of childhood was left behind, and her evident intention was to work out her own life in her own way. So do those who are dependent by nature upon the advice and sympathy of others learn to lean only upon their own strength.

In the room overhead, standing by the window with weary eyes, Dora was murmuring: "I wonder--I wonder if I shall be able to hold out against them all."

CHAPTER XXII

ACROSS THE YEARS

Across the years you seem to come.

"That is just what I can't do. I cannot afford to wait."

Arthur Agar drew in his neatly-shod little feet, and leant back in the deep chair which was always set aside as his in the Stagholme drawing-room.

Mother and son were alone in the vast, somewhat gloomy apartment. Arthur had been home six hours, and the subject of their conversation was, of course, Dora.

Sister Cecilia was absent, only in obedience to a very unmistakable hint in one of Arthur's recent letters to his mother.

"Only a little while," pleaded Mrs. Agar. "Of course, dear, it will all come right. I feel convinced of that. Only you see, dear, girls do not like to be hurried in such an important step. I am quite sure she cares for you; only you _must_ give her a little time."

"But I can't, I can't," he repeated anxiously. And his face wore that strangely accentuated look of trouble which almost amounted to dread--dread of something in life which had not come yet.

"Why not?" inquired Mrs. Agar. "You are both young enough, I am sure."

"Oh, yes, we are young enough."

He stirred his tea with an effeminate appreciation of fine Coalport and a dainty Norwegian spoon.

"Then why should you not wait?"