Mr. Kendal had been obliged to attend to some justice business—­ better for him, perhaps, than acting as domestic magistrate—­and meanwhile the Vicar of Fairmead found himself forgotten.  He wanted to be at home, yet did not like to leave his sister in unexplained trouble, though not sure whether he might not be better absent.

Time passed on, he finished the newspaper, and wrote letters, and then, seeing no one, he had gone into the hall to send for a conveyance, when Gilbert, coming in from the militia parade, became the recipient of his farewells, but apparently with so little comprehension, that he broke off, struck by the dejected countenance, and wandering eye.

‘I beg your pardon,’ Gilbert said, passing his hand over his brow, ’I did not hear.’

’I was only asking you to tell my sister that I would not disturb her, and leaving my good-byes with you.’

‘You are not going?’

‘Thank you; I think my wife will grow anxious.’

’I had hoped’—­Gilbert sighed and paused—­’I had thought that perhaps—­’

The wretchedness of his tone drove away Mr. Ferrars’s purpose of immediate departure, and returning to the drawing-room he said, ’If there were any way in which I could be of use.’

‘Then you do not know?’ said Gilbert, veiling his face with his hand, as he leant on the mantel-shelf.

’I know nothing.  I could only see that something was amiss.  I was wishing to know whether my presence or absence would be best for you all.’

‘Oh! don’t go!’ cried Gilbert.  Nobody must go who can be any comfort to Mrs. Kendal.’

A few kind words drew forth the whole piteous history that lay so heavily on his heart.  Reserves were all over now; and irregularly and incoherently he laid open his griefs and errors, his gradual absorption into the society with which he had once broken, and the inextricable complication of mischief in which he had been involved by his debt.

‘Yet,’ he said, ’all the time I longed from my heart to do well.  It was the very thing that led me into this scrape.  I thought if the man applied to my father, as he threatened, that I should be suspected of having concealed this on purpose, and be sent to India, and I was so happy, and thought myself so safe here.  I did believe that home and Mrs. Kendal would have sheltered me, but my destiny must needs hunt me out here, and alienate even her!’

’The way to find the Devil behind the Cross, is to cower beneath it in weak idolatry, instead of grasping it in courageous faith,’ said Mr. Ferrars.  ’Such faith would have made you trust yourself implicitly to your father.  Then you would either have gone forth in humble acceptance of the punishment, or else have stayed at home, free, pardoned, and guarded; but, as it was, no wonder temptation followed you, and you had no force to resist it.’

’And so all is lost!  Even dear little Maurice can never be trusted to me again!  And his mother, who would, if she could, be still merciful and pitying as an angel, she cannot forget to what I exposed him!  She will never be the same to me again!  Yet I could lay down my life for any of them!’