It was full time that Martin Gurwood returned to Lullington, for his parishioners had begun to grow impatient at his absence. Although, as we have already shown, the Vicar could not be called popular amongst them, having no tastes in common with theirs and rather aweing them with his dignified reserve, the good people of Lullington had become accustomed to their parson's ways, and were disposed t-o overlook what they thought the oddity of his manners in consideration of his bountiful kindness and the strict fidelity with which he discharged the duties of his office. He was not one of their own sort; he was not a 'good fellow;' there was nothing at all free-and-easy about him; no jokes were cracked before him; no harvest-home suppers, no Christmas merry-makings found him among the assembled company. But the farmers, if they did not like their Vicar, respected him most thoroughly, and thought it something to have amongst them a man on whose advice on all spiritual matters (and in all worldly matters, few indeed though they be, in which honour and honesty are alone concerned) they could fully and firmly rely. So that when Martin Gurwood, on his mother's invitation, went up to London in the autumn of the year, intending to stop there but a very few weeks, the churchwardens and such others of his parishioners as he deigned to take so far into his confidence, were sincere in expressing their wishes for his speedy return.  
But if the inhabitants of Lullington were sorry for their pastor's departure at the time of his leaving them, much more bitterly did they regret it after they had had a little experience of his locum tenens. The gentleman who had temporarily undertaken the spiritual care of the Lullingtonians was a man of birth and ability, an old college friend of Martin Gurwood, and emphatically a scholar and a gentleman. He had married when very young, and had a large family; he was miserably poor, and it was principally with the view of helping him that Martin had requested him to fill his place during his absence. Mr. Dill was only too glad to find some place which he could occupy rent-free, and where he had a better chance of being able to work undisturbed by the racket of his children than in the noisy lodging in town. So he moved all his family by the third-class train, and in less than an hour after their arrival the boys were playing hockey on the lawn, the girls were swinging in the orchard, Mrs. Dill was in her usual state of uncertainty as to where she had packed away any of the 'things,' and Mr. Dill, inked up to the eyebrows and attired in a ragged grey duffel dressing-gown, was seated in Martin Gurwood's arm-chair hard at work at his Greek play.
 
Although not much given to cultivating politeness, the Lullington farmers, out of respect for Martin Gurwood, thought it advisable to tender a welcome to their Vicar's representative, and appointed two of their number to carry out the determination. The deputation did not succeed in obtaining admittance; Mr. Dill's old servant, a kind of female Caleb Balderstone, meeting them in the hall and declaring her master to be 'at work'--a condition in which e was never to be interrupted. The deputation retired in dudgeon, and that evening at the Dun Cow described their reception amidst the sympathising groans of their assembled friends. It was unanimously decided that when Mr. Dill called upon any of them he should be accommodated with that species of outspoken candour which was known in those parts as 'a piece of their mind.' It is impossible to say what effect this intended frankness would have had upon the temporary occupant of the Lullington pulpit, inasmuch as that during his whole time of residence Mr. Dill never called on one of the parishioners. Many of them never saw him except on Sundays; others caught glimpses of him, a small homely-looking man, striding about the garden dressed in the before-mentioned ragged morning-gown, very short pepper-and-salt trousers, white socks not too clean, and low shoes, gazing now on to the ground, now into the skies, muttering to himself; and apparently enforcing his arguments with extended forefinger, but so entranced and enrapt in his cogitation as to be conscious of nothing passing around him, or to gaze placidly into the broad countenances of Hodge or Giles staring at him over the hedge, without the least notion that they were there. On Sundays, however, it was a very different matter. Then Mr. Dill was anything but preoccupied. He gave himself up entirely and earnestly to the duty of addressing his congregation; but he addressed them with such ferocity, and the doctrine which he preached was so stern and uncompromising--so different from anything that they had been accustomed to hear from the gentle lips of Martin Gurwood--that the congregation, for the time struck rigid with awe and dismay, no sooner found themselves outside the porch than they gathered into a knot in the churchyard and determined on writing off at once to their Vicar to request him to remove his substitute.
 
The letter, in the form of a round-robin, was duly signed and dispatched, and produced a reply from Martin, counselling moderation, and promising the exertion of his influence with Mr. Dill. That influence had a somewhat salutary effect, and on the next Sunday the discourse was incomprehensible instead of denunciatory in its tone. But there was no sympathy between Mr. Dill and those with whom his lot was cast, and spiritual matters in Lullington had come to a very low ebb indeed when Martin Gurwood returned to his parishioners. Then they revived at once. The Vicar's arrival was hailed with the greatest delight; he was greeted with a cordiality which he had never before experienced, and, after the celebration of service on the ensuing Sunday, there was quite a demonstration of affection towards him on the part of the warm-hearted, if somewhat narrow-minded, people, amongst whom he had not laboured in vain.
 
But when the gloss of renewed confidence and regard began to wear off, it was noticed among the farmers that the Vicar's reserve, which had been the original stumbling block to his popularity with his parishioners, had, if anything, rather grown than decreased since his visit to London. Martin Gurwood did his duty regular as heretofore; attended schools, visited the sick, was always accessible when wanted; but he seemed more than ever anxious to escape to his solitude; the services of the Irish mare were brought into constant requisition, and she was ridden harder than ever. All this was not lost upon the observant eye of Farmer Barford.
 
'It's pride, that's what it is, my boy,' said the old man to his son; 'it was so when parson first came down here, and though he got the better of it, it is so again now. It's after having been up to London, and seeing the ways, and wickedness, and goings-on of the grand folks that leaves the sting of envy behind, mebbe; and he knows it's not right, and flies from the temptation back to these quiet parts; and then the thought of what he has seen, and what he has to give up, rankles and galls him sorely.'
 
Farmer Barford was by no means strictly correct in his impression. There was a temptation in London for Martin Gurwood indeed, but it was not of the kind which the worthy old churchwarden imagined; and though the Vicar devoted the greater portion of his thoughts to it, it had not, at first at least, the effect of goading or harassing him in any way. Indeed, instead of attempting to expel the subject from his mind, he loved to brood and ponder over it, turning it hither and thither, dwelling upon it in its every phase, and parting from it to enter once more upon the work-a-day duties of the world with the greatest reluctance.
 
Yes, however much he had attempted to deceive himself when in Alice's presence, to tell himself that the interest he felt in her merely arose from pity for the position in which, by a sad combination of circumstances, she had been placed, Martin Gurwood no sooner found himself in the peaceful retreat of his own home, no longer surrounded by the feverish excitement of London, no longer compelled to be constantly on his guard lest he should betray the Claxton mystery to his mother, lest even he should betray to his friend Statham the secret of his heart, than he acknowledged to himself that he loved Alice. Loved her with depth and intensity such as no one would have accredited him with; loved her with a power of love such as he had never dreamed of possessing, and which astonished him by its force and earnestness. He, the man of saintly reputation, loved with his whole heart this woman, whose name and fame--innocent, and even ignorant of it as she was--were tarnished in the eyes of the world, and quite humbly put to himself the question if he could win her. In the silent watches of the night, or when riding far away from home, he would bring his horse to a stand-still on wind-swept common or barren moorland, and ask himself if he dared--having reference to his own past life--to hope for such happiness. Surely there could be little to cause trouble or anxiety to such a man? he, if any one, could afford to stand the scrutiny of the world, could ignore or laugh at what the world might say respecting his choice of a wife! And what could the world say? The secrecy which had been maintained about the whole matter had been perfect, so perfect as to make him easy about the fact that the dead man whom Alice had believed to be her husband was his stepfather. No one will ever know that but Statham, who is to be trusted, and--and Madame Du Tertre. He had forgotten her, and somehow, at the thought of her his heart turned chill within him. She could be relied upon, however, and Alice would never be troubled by any one or anything more when once he had the right to protect her.
 
To protect her............