"You mistake me, Mr. Christian, believe me, you do," protested the lawyer, with an aggrieved expression. "I was speaking in our young friend's interests. Whatever occurs, I beg of you, as a friend and well-wisher of the daughter of Robert Lowther, now in his grave, never to allow her to marry Paul Ritson."
"That shall be as God wills it," said the parson quietly.
The lawyer had risen and drawn on his great-coat.
"She can stay here with me," continued the parson.
"No, she should marry now," said Mr. Bonnithorne, stepping to the door. "She's all but of age. It is hardly fair to keep her."
"Why, what do you mean?" asked the parson, a puzzled look on his face.
"She is rich and she is young. Her wealth can buy comforts, and her youth win pleasures."
The good old Christian opened wide his great gray eyes with a blank expression. He glanced vacantly about the simple room, rose to his feet, and sat down again.
"I never thought of that before," he said, faintly, and staring long into the fire.
There was a heavy foot on the path outside. The latch was lifted, and Paul Ritson stepped into the room. At the sound of his step Greta tripped through the inner door, all joy and eagerness, to welcome him. The parson got up and held out both hands, the clouds gone from his beaming face.
"Well, good-night," said the lawyer, opening the door. "I've four long miles before me. And how dark! how very dark!"
His face was pale and haggard, and his eyes were bleared and heavy. He dropped with a listless weariness into the chair that Greta drew up to the fire. When he smiled the lips lagged back to a gloomy repose, and when he laughed the note of merriment rang hollow and fell short.
"Just in time for a game with me, my lad!" said the parson. "Greta, fetch the chessboard and box."
The board was brought, the pieces fixed; the parson settled himself at his ease, with slippers on the hearth-rug and a handkerchief across his knee.
"Do you know, Paul, I heard a great parl about you to-day?"
"About me! Where?" asked Paul, without much curiosity in his tone.
"At Mr. Proudfoot's smithy, while I was turning the fallows in the meadow down at the crossroads. Little Mr. Oglethorpe was saying that you slept at the Pack Horse, in Keswick, the night before last; but Mr. Job Sheepshanks, the letter-cutter, said nay, and they had high words indeed, wherein Job called Mr. Oglethorpe all but his proper name, and flung away in high dudgeon."