Elsmere pointed out vindictively that family livings were a corrupt and indefensible institution. Mr. Grey replied calmly that they probably were, but that the fact did not affect, so far as he could see, Elsmere's competence to fulfil all the duties of rector of Murewell.
'After all, my dear fellow,' he said, a smile breaking over his strong expressive face, 'it is well even for reformers to be sane.'
Mrs. Elsmere was passive. It seemed to her that she had foreseen it all along. She was miserable about his health, but she too had a moment of superstition, and would not urge him. Murewell was no name of happy omen to her--she had passed the darkest hours of her life there.
In the end Robert asked for delay, which was grudgingly granted him. Then he and his mother and friend fled over seas: he feverishly determined to get well and cheat the fates. But, after a halcyon time in Palestine and Constantinople, a whiff of poisoned air at Cannes, on their way home, acting on a low constitutional state, settled matters. Robert was laid up for weeks with malarious fever, and when he struggled out again into the hot Riviera sunshine it was clear to himself and everybody else that he must do what he could, and not what he would, in the Christian vineyard.
'Mother,' he said one day, suddenly looking up at her as she sat near him working, 'can _you_ be happy at Murewell?'
There was a wistfulness in the long thin face, and a pathetic accent of surrender in the voice, which hurt the mother's heart.
'I can be happy wherever you are,' she said, laying her brown nervous hand on his blanched one.
'Then give me pen and paper and let me write to Mowbray. I wonder whether the place has changed at all. Heigh ho! How is one to preach to people who have stuffed you up with gooseberries, or swung you on gates, or lifted you over puddles to save your petticoats? I wonder what has become of that boy whom I hit in the eye with my bow and arrow, or of that other lout who pummelled me into the middle of next week for disturbing his bird-trap? By the way, is the Squire--is Roger Wendover--living at the Hall now?'
He turned to his mother with a sudden start of interest.
'So I hear,' said Mrs. Elsmere drily. '_He_ won't be much good to you.'