“Rector,” he said, “I suppose there is nothing in the world so convincing as the truth. I tell you, as man to man, that I have felt very tenderly towards this girl, for she saved my life, sir, and has had much to bear. I hold that reverence for the purity of womanhood is a virtue more honorable than the giving of gold. Therefore, I was shocked at the thought that this young girl should be sacrificed to the unclean appetite of a coarse and loose-mouthed savage. The fellow filled her with dread and with disgust. That is why I strove to save her from this shame.”
Sugg’s round face beamed sympathetically.
“And by the ever-living prophets, sir, I shake your hand on it.”
“Moreover,” he said, earnestly, “I believe that there is a secret connected with the girl’s birth. She is no Grimshaw, or I am no gentleman. I know that she has recollections of another and distant past. I wanted to save her from this savage, but they have tricked her, and I am sorry.”
The rector dived for his snuffbox and vented his feelings disguisedly therein.
“I agree with you, I agree with you, sir,” he said, “she’s a fine lass; the more’s the pity, the more’s the pity. God knows what will become of her in the future!”
“Sugg,” said Jeffray, “I hope to save her yet.”
When the rector had gone with a hearty grip of his muscular fist, Richard made his way to the library and found Peter Gladden waiting for him, suave and subservient. The tenor of the interview astonished the butler not a little. What had come to the young master that he looked so stern and masterful and spoke in a way that made poor Gladden’s ears tingle?
The white curtains with red roses flowered on them were half drawn over the windows of Miss Hardacre’s bedroom. Miss Jilian’s room smelled mildly of musk and lavender-water, and there were flowers in the vases upon the mantle-shelf and in the cream-colored Wedgwood bowl upon the French occasional table. The bed was spread with a red silk quilt, the turned-down sheets looking white as milk when contrasted with the expanse of red below. The panels on the walls were painted with garlands, cherubs’ heads, and silly, fat Cupids straddling lambs. The door of the robe-cupboard was open, showing a hanging-garden of gowns.