ate? He could not endure the thought,
nor himself for finding it possible; and he was ashamed to look in
Gerald's face with even the shadow of such an imagination on his own.
He tapped at the library window after a while, and told his brother
that he was going up to the Hall. Louisa had gone up-stairs, and her
husband sat once more, vacant yet occupied, by his writing-table. "I
will follow you presently," said Gerald. "Speak to my father without
any hesitation, Frank; it is better to have it over while we are all
together--for it must be concluded now." And the Curate saw in the
shadow of the dim apartment that his brother lifted from the table the
grand emblem of all anguish and victory, and pressed upon it his pale
lips. The young man turned away with the shadow of that cross standing
black between him and the sunshine. His heart ached at the sight of
the symbol most sacred and most dear in the world. In an agony of
grief and impatience, he went away sadly through the familiar road to
his father's house. Here had he to stand by and see this sacrifice
accomplished. This was all that had come of his mission of consolation
and help.

CHAPTER XVII.

The Curate of St Roque's went sadly along the road he knew so well
from Wentworth Rectory to the Hall. There was scarcely a tree nor the
turning of a hedgerow which had not its own individual memories to the
son of the soil. Here he had come to meet Gerald returning from
Eton--coming back from the university in later days. Here he had
rushed down to the old Rector, his childless uncle, with the copy of
the prize-list when his brother took his first-class. Gerald, and the
family pride in him, was interwoven with the very path, and now--The
young man pressed on to the Hall with a certain bitter moisture
stealing to the corner of his eye. He felt indignant and aggrieved in
his love, not at Gerald, but at the causes which were conspiring to
detach him from his natural sphere and duties. When he recollected how
he had himself dallied with the same thoughts, he grew angry with his
brother's nobleness and purity, which never could see less than its
highest ideal soul in anything, and with a certain fierce fit of
truth, glanced back at his own Easter lilies and choristers, feeling
involuntarily that he would like to tear off the flowers and surplices
and tread them under his feet. Why was it that he, an inferior man,
should be able to confine himself to the mere accessories