as
a--"

"Oh Lord, don't speak so loud!--what do you mean? Wentworth, I say,
hist! Mr Wentworth! By Jove, he won't listen to me!" cried Wodehouse,
in an agony. When he found that the Curate was already out of hearing,
the vagabond looked round him on every side with his natural instinct
of suspicion. If he had known that Mr Wentworth was thinking only of
disgrace and the stern sentence of public opinion, Wodehouse could
have put up with it; but he himself, in his guilty imagination, jumped
at the bar and the prison which had haunted him for long. Somehow it
felt natural that such a Nemesis should come to him after the
morning's triumph. He stood looking after the Curate, guilty and
horror-stricken, till it occurred to him that he might be remarked;
and then he made a circuit past Elsworthy's shop-window as far as the
end of Prickett's Lane, where he ventured to cross over so as to get
to his own house. His own house!--the wretched thrill of terror that
went through him was a very sufficient offset against his momentary
triumph; and this was succeeded by a flush of rage as he thought of
the Curate's other information. What was to be done? Every moment was
precious; but he felt an instinctive horror of venturing out again in
the daylight. When it approached the hour at which he had ordered that
dinner at the Blue Boar, the humbled hero wrapped himself in an old
overcoat which he found in the hall, and slunk into the inn like the
clandestine wretch he was. He had no confidence in himself, but he had
confidence in Jack Wentworth. He might still be able to help his
unlucky associate out.

When Mr Wentworth reached his rooms, he found that his guest had
arrived before him, and consequently the threatened explanation with
Mrs Hadwin was forestalled for that night. Mr Proctor and Gerald were
sitting together, not at all knowing what to talk about; for the late
Rector was aware that Frank Wentworth's brother was on the verge of
Rome, and was confused, and could not help feeling that his position
between a man on the point of perversion in an ecclesiastical point of
view, and another whose morals were suspected and whose character was
compromised, was, to say the least, a very odd position for a
clergyman of unblemished orthodoxy and respectability; besides, it was
embarrassing, when he had come for a very private consultation, to
find a stranger there before him. The Curate went in very full of what
had just occurred. The ev