On reaching home and his own study, the servant, Merton, presented himself, and his master, too deeply excited to hear him then, appointed the next day for the purpose.  There was no contending against Marston’s peremptory will, and the man reluctantly withdrew.  Here was, apparently, a matter of no imaginable moment; whether this menial should be discharged on that day, or on the morrow; and yet mighty things were involved in the alternative.

There was a deeper gloom than usual over the house.  The servants seemed to know that something had gone wrong, and looked grave and mysterious.  Marston was more than ever dark and moody.  Mrs. Marston’s dimmed and swollen eyes showed that she had been weeping.  Mademoiselle absented herself from supper, on the plea of a bad headache.  Rhoda saw that something, she knew not what, had occurred to agitate her elders, and was depressed and anxious.  The old clergyman, whom we have already mentioned, had called, and stayed to supper.  Dr. Danvers was a man of considerable learning, strong sense, and remarkable simplicity of character.  His thoughtful blue eye, and well-marked countenance, were full of gentleness and benevolence, and elevated by a certain natural dignity, of which purity and goodness, without one debasing shade of self-esteem and arrogance, were the animating spirit.  Mrs. Marston loved and respected this good minister of God; and many a time had sought and found, in his gentle and earnest counsels, and in the overflowing tenderness of his sympathy, much comfort and support in the progress of her sore and protracted earthly trial.  Most especially at one critical period in her history had he endeared himself to her, by interposing, and successfully, to prevent a formal separation which (as ending forever the one hope that cheered her on, even in the front of despair) she would probably not long have survived.

With Mr. Marston, however, he was far from being a favorite.  There was that in his lofty and simple purity which abashed and silently reproached the sensual, bitter, disappointed man of the world.  The angry pride of the scornful man felt its own meanness in the grand presence of a simple and humble Christian minister.  And the very fact that all his habits had led him to hold such a character in contempt, made him but the more unreasonably resent the involuntary homage which its exhibition in Dr. Danvers’s person invariably extorted from him.  He felt in this good man’s presence under a kind of irritating restraint; that he was in the presence of one with whom he had, and could have, no sympathy whatever, and yet one whom he could not help both admiring and respecting; and in these conflicting feelings were involved certain gloomy and humbling inferences about himself, which he hated, and almost feared to contemplate.

It was well, however, for the indulgence of Sir Wynston’s conversational propensities, that Dr. Danvers had happened to drop in; for Marston was doggedly silent and sullen, and Mrs. Marston was herself scarcely more disposed than he to maintain her part in a conversation; so that, had it not been for the opportune arrival of the good clergyman, the supper must have been dispatched with a very awkward and unsocial taciturnity.