his hand lazily for his letters, which evidently did not excite any
special expectations in his mind. There was one from his sister, and one
from an old university friend, full of the news of the season. Last of
all, there was a neat little note, directed in a neat little hand, which
anybody who received it would naturally have left to the last, as Mr
Wentworth did. He opened it quite deliberately, without any appearance
of interest. But as he read the first lines, the Curate gradually
gathered himself up off the sofa, and stretched out his hand for his
boots, which he had just taken off; and before he had finished it, had
walked across the room and laid hold of the railway book in use at
Carlingford, all the time reading and re-reading the important little
epistle. It was not so neat inside as out, and blurred and blotted, and
slightly illegible; and this is what the letter said:--

"Oh, Frank, dear, I am so anxious and unhappy about Gerald. I can't
tell what is the matter with him. Come directly, for heaven's sake,
and tell me what you think, and try what you can do. Don't lose a
train after you get this, but come directly--oh, come if you ever
loved any of us. I don't know what he means, but he says the most
awful things; and if he is not _mad_, as I sometimes hope, he has
forgotten his duty to his family and to me, which is far worse. I
can't explain more; but if there is any chance of anybody doing him
good, it is you. I beg you, on my knees, come directly, dear Frank. I
never was in such a state in my life. I shall be left so that nobody
will be able to tell what I am; and my heart is bursting. Never mind
business or anything; but come, come directly, whether it is night or
day, to your broken-hearted sister,

"LOUISA."

"_P.S._--In great haste, and _so_ anxious to see you."

Half an hour after, Mr Wentworth, with a travelling-bag in his hand, was
once more hastening up Grange Lane towards the railway station. His face
was somewhat grey, as the lamps shone on it. He did not exactly know
what he was anxious about, nor what might have happened at Wentworth
Rectory before he could get there; but the express train felt slow to
his anxious thoughts as it flashed out of the station. Mr Morgan and his
wife were in their garden, talking about the encounter in Prickett's
Lane, when the train plunged past, waking all the echoes; and Mrs
Morgan, by way of making a diversion, appealed to the Rector about