He was about to speak, to say some words of congratulation--words that he had won a great prize, and that his duty to her was to make amends for the past--but the words would not come, and, bowing, he left the room, and walked hastily from the house, watched by Richard Glaire's malicious eyes. For it was sweet revenge to him to know that the hopes he was sure the vicar felt had been blasted, and that he alone would possess Eve Pelly's love.

"He thought to best me," muttered Richard; and he smiled to himself, the feeling of mastering the man he looked upon as his enemy adding piquancy to a marriage that had seemed to him before both troublesome and tame.

Meanwhile the vicar went slowly down the street, with a strange, dazed look; and more than one observer whispered to his neighbour--"Say, lad; parson hasn't been takking his drop, sewerly."

"Nay, nay; I'd sooner believe he was ill. It can't be that," was the reply.

That same day, when busy out in the fields, sick at heart, and worried, after a short interview with Tom Podmore, John Maine was standing alone, and thinking of the past and present. Of the respite that had come to him, since the two men had visited the town, and of the miserable life he led at the farm, and the way in which Jessie behaved to him now; for, to his sorrow, it seemed to him that she looked upon him with a kind of horror, and avoided all communication. The keeper, Brough, came pretty frequently, and certainly she was more gracious to him than to the man who lived with her in the same house and ate at the same table.

Then he recalled that he had had a note from the vicar requesting him to call at the vicarage; but he had not been, partly from dread, partly from shame.

"But I'll go," he said. "I'll be a man and go; go at once, and tell him the whole secret; and be at rest, come what may. Tom says it will be best."

He sat down beneath a hedge bottom to secure the strap of one of his leggings, when, raising his head, he saw in the distance, crossing one of the stiles, a figure which he knew at a glance was that of one of the men he dreaded--one of those who had done their best to make him another of the Ishmaelites who war against society.

A cold chill pa.s.sed over him, followed by a hot perspiration, as he watched till the figure pa.s.sed out of sight, and then he began to muse.

"Come at last, then. It must be with an object."

"Let me see," he thought; "it will be perfectly dark to-night. Nearly new moon. He has come down to see how the land lies, and before morning, unless he's checkmated, the vicarage will be wrecked, and if anybody opposes them, his life will be in danger."

"It's only a part of one's life," he said, bitterly, as he started up.

"I've been a scoundrel, and I thowt I'd grown into a honest man, when I was only a coward. Now the time has come to show myself really honest, and with G.o.d's help I'll do it."

Not long after, the vicar was seated with his head resting upon his hand, strengthening himself as he termed it, and fighting hard to quell the misery in his breast, when Mrs Slee came to the door.

"Yes," he said, trying to rouse himself, and wishing for something to give him a strong call upon the strength, energy, and determination lying latent in his breast. "Yes, Mrs Slee?"

"Here's John Maine fro' the farm wants to see thee, sir."

"Show him in the study, Mrs Slee; I'll be with him in five minutes."

And those minutes he spent in bathing his temples and struggling against his thoughts.

The time had scarcely expired, when he entered the library, to find his visitor standing there, hat in hand, resting upon a stout oak sapling.

"Glad to see you, Maine," said the vicar, kindly. "Could you not find a chair?"

"Thanky, sir, no; I would rather stand. I ought to have been here before, but, like all things we don't want to do, I put it off. I want to tell you something, sir. I want to confess."

"Confess, Maine!" said the vicar, smiling; "any one would think this was Ireland, and that I was the parish priest."

"I have got something heavy on my conscience, sir," continued Maine, in a hesitating way.

"If I can help you, Maine, I am sure you may trust me," said the vicar.

"I know that, sir; I know that," cried Maine, eagerly. "I want to speak out, but the thoughts of that poor gill keep me back."

"That poor girl!" exclaimed the vicar, looking at the young man's anguish-wrung countenance, and feeling startled for the moment. "Do you mean Daisy Banks?"

"No, no, sir; no, no. Miss Jessie there at the farm. I can't bear for her to know. There, sir," he exclaimed, hurriedly, "it's got to come out, and I must speak, or I shall never get it said. You see, sir, when I was quite a boy, I was upon my own hands by the death of my father and mother. Then I drifted to Nottingham, where I was thrown amongst the lowest of the low; was mixed with poachers, and thieves, and scoundrels of every shape; always trying to get to something better, but always dragged back to their own level by my companions, who sneered at my efforts, and bullied me till my life was a curse, and I grew to feel more like an old man at eighteen than a boy.

"To make a long story short, sir, I could bear it no longer. I ran away from home--from that," he said, grimly, "that was my home--and kept away, working honestly for a couple of years, when some of the old lot came across me to jeer me, laugh at me, and end by proposing that I should rob my employer and run off with them. I was seen talking to the wretches, dismissed in disgrace from my situation, and went back to blackguardism and scoundreldom for a whole year, because no one would give me a job of decent labour to do. Mr Selwood, sir, you don't know how hard it is to climb the hill where honest people live--to get to be cla.s.sed as one who is not always watched with suspicious eyes. It was a fearful fight I had to get there, against no one knows what temptations and efforts to drag me back. Sir, I got to honest work at last, and from that place came on here, where for years I've worked hopefully, and begun to feel that I need not blush when I looked an honest man in the face, nor dread to meet the police lest they should have learned something about my former life. In short, sir, I was beginning to feel that I need not go about always feeling that I had made a mistake in trying to leave my old life."

The vicar sat at the table with his head resting upon his hand, and face averted, feeling that he was not the only man in Dumford whose heart was torn with troubles, and he listened without a word as John Maine went on.

"There, sir, I can't tell you all the hopes and fears I have felt, as I have striven hard for years, hopefully too, thinking that after all there might be a bright future in store for me, and rest out here at the pleasant old farm; and now, sir," he continued huskily, and with faltering voice--

"Some of the old lot have turned up and found you again, eh, Maine?"

"Yes, sir, that's what it is," said the young man, starting; "and I thought I'd make a clean breast of it to you, and ask you, sir, to give me a bit of advice."

"I'm a poor one to ask for advice just now, Maine," said the vicar, sadly; "but I'll do my best for you."

"Thanky, sir; I thought you would."

"So you meant to give me some news?" continued the vicar, dryly.

"Yes, sir," said John Maine, "if you call it news," and he spoke bitterly.

"Well, no," said the vicar, making an effort to forget self; "I don't call it news. I knew all this some time ago."

"You knew it, sir?"

"Why, my good fellow, yes. Some weeks back, about as dirty an old cadger as it has ever been my fate to encounter, pointed you out to me on the road, and told me the greatest part of your history."

"He did, sir?"

"Oh, yes, poor old fellow," said the vicar, bitterly, "I suppose he felt as if he could not die comfortably without doing somebody else an ill turn."

"Die, sir?"

"Yes, he was very ill: could hardly crawl, and I sent him on to Ranby Union, where he died."

"And you knew all this, sir?" faltered John Maine.

"Knew it, Maine? How could I help it? Mr Keeper Brough, too, made a point of telling me that he had seen you talking to a couple of disreputable-looking scoundrels, evidently trading poachers. Don't you remember what a bad headache it gave you, Maine?"

The young man stared at the speaker, and could not find a word.

"He has been very busy I find, too, at the farm," continued the vicar, forgetting his own troubles in those of his visitor. "Mr Bult.i.tude does not like it, and he has been in a good deal of trouble about your nocturnal wanderings, friend John Maine."

"I can explain all that, sir," said Maine.

"Of course you can," said the vicar, coolly.

"But you knew of all this, sir?" faltered the young man.

"To be sure I did, John, and respected you for it; but I fear you have been giving poor Jessie a good deal of suffering through your want of openness."