r happiness for a fancy. If it was anything
that could not be arranged, I would not mind so much; but if we all
promise to give in to you, and that you shall do what you please, and
nobody will interfere, how can you have the heart to make us all so
wretched? We will not even be respectable," said the weeping woman; "a
family without any father, and a wife without her husband--and he
living all the time! Oh, Gerald, though I think I surely might be
considered as much as candles, have the altar covered with lights if
you wish it; and if you never took off your surplice any more, I would
never say a word. You can do all that and stay in the Rectory. You
have not the heart--surely--surely you have not the heart--all for an
idea of your own, to bring this terrible distress upon the children
and me?"

"God help us all!" said Gerald, with a sigh of despair, as he lifted
her up sobbing in a hysterical fit, and laid her on the sofa. He had
to stand by her side for a long time holding her hand, and soothing
her, with deeper and deeper shadows growing over his face. As for
Frank, after pacing the room in great agitation for some time, after
trying to interpose, and failing, he went away in a fever of
impatience and distress into the garden, wondering whether he could
ever find means to take up the broken thread, and urge again upon his
brother the argument which, but for this fatal interruption, he
thought might have moved him. But gathering thoughts came thick upon
the Perpetual Curate. He did not go back to make another attempt, even
when he knew by the sounds through the open windows that Louisa had
been led to her own room up-stairs. He stood outside and looked at the
troubled house, which seemed to stand so serene and secure in the
sunshine. Who could have supposed that it was torn asunder in such a
hopeless fashion? And Louisa's suggestion came into his mind, and
drove him wild with a sense of horror and involuntary guilt, as
though he had been conspiring against them. "The Rectory will go to
Frank." Was it his fault that at that moment a vision of Lucy
Wodehouse, sweet and strong and steadfast--a delicate, firm figure, on
which a man could lean in his trouble--suddenly rose up before the
Curate's eyes? Fair as the vision was, he would have banished it if he
could, and hated himself for being capable of conjuring it up at such
a time. Was it for him to profit by the great calamity which would
make his brother's house desol