The current of events forced upon Rachel a delay of three or four days in answering her letter, or rather forced upon her that delay in learning whether or no she might answer it; and this was felt by her to be a grievous evil. It had been arranged that she should not write until such writing should have received what might almost be called a parochial sanction, and no idea of acting in opposition to that arrangement ever occurred to her; but the more she thought of it the more she was vexed; and the more she thought of it the more she learned to doubt whether or no her mother was placing her in safe tutelage. During these few weeks a great change came upon the girl’s character. When first Mrs Prime had brought home tidings that Miss Pucker had seen her walking and talking with the young man from the brewery, angry as she had been with her sister, and disgusted as she had been with Miss Pucker, she had acknowledged to herself that such talking and walking were very dangerous, if not very improper, and she had half resolved that there should be no more of them. And when Mrs Prime had seen her standing at the stile, and had brought home that second report, Rachel, knowing what had occurred at that stile, had then felt sure that she was in danger. At that time, though she had thought much of Luke Rowan, she had not thought of him as a man who could possibly be her husband. She had thought of him as having no right to call her Rachel, because he could not possibly become so. There had been great danger — there had been conduct which she believed to be improper though she could not tell herself that she had been guilty. In her outlook into the world nothing so beautiful had promised itself to her as having such a man to love her as Luke Rowan. Though her mother was not herself ascetic — liking tea and buttered toast dearly, and liking also little soft laughter with her child — she had preached asceticisms till Rachel had learned to think that the world was all either ascetic or reprobate. The Dorcas meetings had become distasteful to her because the women were vulgar; but yet she had half believed herself to be wrong in avoiding the work and the vulgarity together. Idle she had never been. Since a needle had come easy to her hand, and the economies of a household had been made intelligible to her, she had earned her bread and assisted in works of charity. She had read no love stories, and been taught to expect no lover. She was not prepared to deny — did not deny even to herself — that it was wrong that she should even like to talk to Luke Rowan.

Then came the ball; or, rather, first came the little evening party, which afterwards grew to be a ball. She had been very desirous of going, not for the sake of any pleasure that she promised herself; not for the sake of such pleasure as girls do promise themselves at such gatherings; but because her female pride told her that it was well for her to claim the right of meeting this young man — well for her to declare that nothing had passed between them which should make her afraid to meet him. That some other hopes had crept in as the evening had come nigh at hand — hopes of which she had been made aware only by her efforts in repressing them — may not be denied. She had been accused because of him; and she would show that no such accusation had daunted her. But would he — would he give occasion for further accusation? She believed he would not; nay, she was sure: at any rate she hoped he would not. She told herself that such was her hope; but had he not noticed her she would have been wretched.

We know now in what manner he had noticed her, and we know also whether she had been wretched. She had certainly fled from him. When she left the brewery-house, inducing Mrs Cornbury to bring her away, she did so in order that she might escape from him. But she ran from him as one runs from some great joy in order that the mind may revel over it in peace. Then, little as she knew it, her love had been given. Her heart was his. She had placed him upon her pinnacle, and was prepared to worship him. She was ready to dress herself in his eyes, to believe that to be good which he thought good, and to repudiate that which he repudiated. When she bowed her head over his breast a day or two afterwards, she could have spoken to him with the full words of passionate love had not maiden fear repressed her.

But she had not even bowed her head for him, she had not acknowledged to herself that such love was possible to her, till her mother had consented. That her mother’s consent had been wavering, doubtful, expressed without intention of such expression — so expressed that Mrs Ray hardly knew that she had expressed it — was not understood by Rachel. Her mother had consented, and, that consent having been given, Rachel was not now disposed to allow of any steps backwards. She seemed to have learned her rights, or to have assumed that she had rights. Hitherto her obedience to her mother had been pure and simple, although, from the greater force of her character, she had in many things been her mother’s leader. But now, though she was ill inclined to rebel, though in this matter of the letter she had obeyed, she was beginning to feel that obedience might become a hardship. She did not say to herself, “They have let me love him, and now they must not put out their hands to hold back my love;” but the current of her feelings ran as though such unspoken words had passed across her mind. She had her rights; and though she did not presume that she could insist on them in opposition to her mother or her mother’s advisers, she knew that she would be wronged if those rights were withheld from her. The chief of those rights was the possession of her lover. If he was taken from her she would be as one imprisoned unjustly — as one robbed by those who should have been his friends — as one injured, wounded, stricken in the dark, and treacherously mutilated by hands that should have protected him. During these days she was silent, and sat with that look upon her brow which her mother feared.

“I could not make Mr Comfort come any sooner, Rachel,” said Mrs Ray.

“No, mamma.”

“I can see how impatient you are.”

“I don’t know that I’m impatient. I’m sure that I haven’t said anything.”

“If you said anything I shouldn’t mind it so much; but I can’t bear to see you with that unhappy look. I’m sure I only wish to do what’s best. You can’t think it right that you should be writing letters to a gentleman without being sure that it is proper.”

“Oh, mamma, don’t talk about it!”

“You don’t like me to ask your sister; and I’m sure it’s natural I should want to ask somebody. He’s nearly seventy years old, and he has known you ever since you were born. And then he’s a clergyman, and therefore he’ll be sure to know what’s right. Not that I should have liked to have said a word about it to Mr Prong, because there’s a difference when they come from one doesn’t know where.”

“Pray, mamma, don’t. I haven’t made any objection to Mr Comfort. It isn’t nice to be talked over in that way by anybody, that’s all.”

“But what was I to do? I’m sure I liked the young man very much. I never knew a young man who took his tea so pleasant. And as for his manners and his way of talking, I had it in my heart to fall in love with him myself. I had indeed. As far as that goes, he’s just the young man that I could make a son of.”

“Dear mamma! my own dearest mamma!” and Rachel, jumping up, threw herself upon her mother’s neck. “Stop there. You shan’t say another word.”

“I’m sure I didn’t mean to say anything unpleasant.”

“No, you did not; and I won’t be impatient.”

“Only I can’t bear that look. And you know what his mother said — and Mrs Tappitt. Not that I care about Mrs Tappitt; only a person’s mother is his mother, and he shouldn’t have called her a goose.”

It must be acknowledged that Rachel’s position was not comfortable; and it certainly would not have been improved had she known how many people in Baslehurst were talking about her and Rowan. That Rowan was gone everybody knew; that he had made love to Rachel everybody said; that he never meant to come back any more most professed to believe. Tappitt’s tongue was loud in proclaiming his iniquities; and her follies and injuries Mrs Tappitt whispered into the ears of all her female acquaintances.

“I’m sorry for her,” Miss Harford said, mildly. Mrs Tappitt was calling at the rectory, and had made her way in. Mr Tappitt was an upholder of the old rector, and there was a fellow-townsman’s friendship between them.

“Oh, yes — very sorry for her,” said Mrs Tappitt.

“Very sorry indeed,” said Augusta, who was with her mother.

“She always seemed to me a pretty, quiet, well-behaved girl,” said Miss Harford.

“Still waters run deepest, you know, Miss Harford, said Mrs Tappitt. “I should never have imagined it of her — never. But she certainly met him half-way.”

“But we all thought he was respectable, you know,” said Miss Harford.

Miss Harford was thoroughly good-natured; and though she had never gone half-way herself, and had perhaps lost her chance from having been unable to go any part of the way, she was not disposed to condemn a girl for having been willing to be admired by such a one as Luke Rowan.

“Well — yes; at first we did. He had the name of money, you know, and that goes so far with some girls. We were on our guard,’— and she looked proudly round on Augusta —“till we should hear what the young man really was. He has thrown off his sheep’s clothing now with a vengeance. Mr Tappitt feels quite ashamed that he should have introduced him to any of the people here; he does indeed.”

“That may be her misfortune and not her fault,” said Miss Harford, who in defending Rachel was enough inclined to give up Luke. Indeed, Baslehurst was beginning to have a settled mind that Luke was a wolf.

“Oh, quite so,” said Mrs Tappitt. “The poor girl has been very unfortunate no doubt.”

After that she took her leave of the rectory.

On that evening Mr Comfort dined with Dr Harford, as did also Butler Cornbury and his wife, and one or two others. The chances of the election formed, of course, the chief subject of conversation both in the drawing-room and at the dinner-table; but in talking of the election they came to talk of Mr Tappitt, and in talking of Tappitt they came to talk of Luke Rowan.

It has already been said that Dr Harford had been rector of Baslehurst for many years at the period to which this story refers. He had nearly completed half a century of work in that capacity, and had certainly been neither an idle nor an inefficient clergyman. But, now in his old age, he was discontented and disgusted by the changes which had come upon him; and though some bodily strength for further service still remained to him, he had no longer any aptitude for useful work. A man cannot change as men change. Individual men are like the separate links of a rotatory chain. The chain goes on with continuous easy motion as though every part of it were capable of adapting itself to a curve, but not the less is each link as stiff and sturdy as any other piece of wrought iron. Dr Harford had in his time been an active, popular man — a man possessing even some Liberal tendencies in politics, though a country rector of nearly half a century’s standing. In his parish he had been more than a clergyman. He had been a magistrate, and a moving man in municipal affairs. He had been a politician, and though now for many years he had supported the Conservative candidate, he had been loudly in favour of the Reform Bill when Baslehurst was a close borough in the possession of a great duke, who held property hard by. But Liberal politics had gone on and had left Dr Harford high and dry on the standing-ground which he had chosen for himself in the early days of his manhood. And then had come that Pestilent act of the Legislature under which his parish had been divided. Not that the Act of Parliament itself had been violently condemned by the doctor on its becoming law. I doubt whether he had then thought much of it.

But when men calling themselves Commissioners came actually upon him and his, and separated off from him a district of his own town, taking it away altogether from his authority, and giving it over to such inexperienced hands as chance might send thither — then Dr Harford became a violent Tory. And my readers must not conceive that this was a question touching his pocket. One might presume that his pocket would be in some degree benefited, seeing that he was saved from the necessity of supplying the spiritual wants of a certain portion of his parish. No shilling was taken from his own income, which, indeed, was by no means excessive. His whole parish gave him barely six hundred a year, out of which he had kept always one, and latterly two curates. It was no question of money in any degree. Sooner than be invaded and mutilated he would have submitted to an order calling upon him to find a third curate — could any power have given such order. His parish had been invaded and his clerical authority mutilated. He was no longer totus teres atque rotundus . The beauty of his life was over, and the contentment of his mind was gone. He knew that it was only left for him to die, spending such day............