"

"Hold your tongue, sir!" cried the Curate, furious with indignation
and resentment. "Leave this place instantly! If you don't want me to
pitch you into the middle of the road, hold your tongue and go away.
The man is mad!" said Mr Wentworth, turning towards the spectator,
Hayles, and pausing to take breath. But it was evident that this third
person was by no means on the Curate's side.

"I don't know, sir, I'm sure," said Hayles, with a blank countenance.
"It appears to me, sir, as it's an awkward business for all parties.
Here's the girl gone, and no one knows where. When a girl don't come
back to her own 'ome all night, things look serious, sir; and it has
been said as the last place she was seen was at your door."

"Who says so?" cried Mr Wentworth.

"Well--it was--a party, sir--a highly respectable party--as I have
good reason to believe," said Hayles, "being a constant customer--one
as there's every confidence to be put in. It's better not to name no
names, being at this period of the affair."

And at that moment, unluckily for Mr Wentworth, there suddenly floated
across his mind the clearest recollection of the Miss Hemmings, and
the look they gave him in passing. He felt a hot flush rush over his
face as he recalled it. They, then, were his accusers in the first
place; and for the first time he began to realise how the tide of
accusation would surge through Carlingford, and how circumstances
would be patched together, and very plausible evidence concocted out
of the few facts which were capable of an inference totally opposed to
the truth. The blood rushed to his face in an overpowering glow, and
then he felt the warm tide going back upon his heart, and realised the
position in which he stood for the first time in its true light.

"And if you'll let me say it, sir," said the judicious Hayles, "though
a man may be in a bit of a passion, and speak more strong that is
called for, it aint unnatural in the circumstances; things may be
better than they appear," said the druggist, mildly; "I don't say
nothing against that; it may be as you've took her away, sir (if so be
as you have took her away), for to give her a bit of education, or
suchlike, before making her your wife; but folks in general aint
expected to know that; and when a young girl is kep' out of her 'ome
for a whole night, it aint wonderful if her friends take fright. It's
a sad thing for Rosa whoever's taken her away, and wherever she is."

Now