A week passed, during which all had been very quiet at the Rectory,
brother and sister meeting each other hour by hour in a kind of saddened
calm. The Reverend Arthur was paler than usual, almost cadaverous,
while there was a troubled, anxious look in little Miss Rosebury's eyes,
and a sharpness in her voice that was not there on the day when Dr
Bolter proposed.
No news had been heard of the young ladies at Miss Twettenham's; and Dr
Bolter, to Miss Rosebury's sorrow, had not written to her brother.
But she bravely fought down her suffering, busying herself with more
than usual zeal in home and parish; while the Reverend Arthur came back
evening after evening faint, weary, and haggard, from some long
botanical ramble.
The eighth day had arrived, and towards noon little Miss Rosebury was
quietly seated by the open window with her work, fallen upon her knee,
and a sad expression in her eyes as she gazed wistfully along the road,
thinking, truth to tell, that Dr Bolter might perhaps come in to their
early dinner.
Doctors were so seldom ill, or perhaps he might be lying suffering at
some hotel.
The thought sent a pang through the little body, making her start, and
seizing her needle, begin to work, when a warm flush came into her
cheeks as she heard at one and the same time the noise of wheels, and a
slow, heavy step upon the gravel.
The step she well knew, and for a few moments she did not look up; but
when she did she uttered an exclamation.
"Tut--tut--tut!" she said. "If anyone saw poor Arthur now they would
think him mad."
Certainly the long, gaunt figure of the Reverend Arthur Rosebury, in his
soft, shapeless felt hat, and long, clinging, shabby black alpaca coat,
was very suggestive of his being a kind of male Ophelia gone slightly
distraught as the consequence of a disappointment in love.
For in the heat of a long walk the tie of his white cravat had gone
round towards the nape of his neck, while his felt hat was decorated to
the crown with butterflies secured to it by pins. The band had wild
flowers and herbs tucked in here and there. His umbrella--a very
shabby, baggy gingham--was closed and stuffed with botanical treasures;
and his vasculum, slung beneath one arm, was so gorged with herbs and
flowers of the field that it would not close.
He was coming slowly down the path as wheels stopped at the gate just
out of sight from the window, where little Miss Rosebury sat with her
head once more bent down over her work; but she could hear a quick,
well-known voice speaking to the driver of the station fly; then there
was the click of the latch as the gate swung to, and the little lady's
heart began to go pat, pat--pat, pat--much faster than the quick,
decided step that she heard coming down the long gravel path.
Her hearing seemed to be abnormally quickened, and she listened to the
wheels as the fly drove off, and then heard every word as the doctor's
quick, decided voice saluted his old friend.
"Been horribly busy, Arthur," he cried; "but I'm down at last. Where's
Mary?"
Hiding behind the curtain, for she had drawn back to place her hand upon
her side to try and control the agitated beating of her foolish little
heart.
"Oh, it is dreadful! How can I be so weak?" she cried angrily, as she
made a brave effort to be calm--a calmness swept away by the entrance of
the doctor, who rushed in boisterously to seize her hands, and before
she could repel him, he had kissed her heartily.
"Eureka! my dear Mary! Eureka!" he cried. "I have it--I have it!"
"Henry--Dr Bolter!" she cried, with a decidedly dignified look in her
pleasant face.
"Don't be angry with me, my dear," he cried; "the news is so good. You
couldn't leave poor Arthur, could you?"
"No!" she cried, with an angry little stamp, as she mentally upbraided
him for tearing open the throbbing wound she was striving to heal. "You
know I will not leave him."
"I love and honour you for it more and more, my dear," he cried. "But
what do you think of this? Suppose we take him with us?"
"Take him with us?" said the little lady, slowly.
"Yes," cried the doctor, excitedly; "take him with us, Mary--my darling
wife that is to be. The chaplaincy of our settlement is vacant. Did
you ever hear the like?"
Little Miss Rosebury could only stare at the excited doctor in a
troubled way, for she understood him now, though her lips refused to
speak.
"Yes, and I am one of the first to learn the news. I can work it, I
feel sure, if he'll come. Then only think; lovely climate, glorious
botanical collecting trips for him! The land, too, whence Solomon's
ships brought gold, and apes, and peacocks. Ophir, Mary, Ophir! Arthur
will be delighted."
"Indeed!" said that lady wonderingly.
"Not a doubt about it, my dear. My own discovery. All live together!
Happiness itself."
"But Arthur is delicate," she faltered. "The station is unhealthy."
"Am not I there? Do I not understand your brother thoroughly? Oh! my
dear Mary, do not raise obstacles in the way. It is fate. I know it
is, in the shape of our Political Resident Harley. He came over with
me, and goes back in the same boat. He has had telegrams from the
station."
"You--you take away my breath, doctor," panted the little lady. "I must
have time to think. Oh! no, no, no; it is impossible. Arthur would
never consent to go."
"If you will promise to be my wife, Mary, I'll make him go!" cried the
doctor, excitedly.
"No, no; he never would. He could not give up his position here, and I
should not allow him. It would be too cruelly selfish on my part. It
is impossible; it can never be."
The next moment the doctor was alone, for Miss Rosebury had hurried out
to go and sob passionately as a girl in her own room, waking up more and
more, as she did, to the fact that she had taken the love distemper late
in life; but it was none the weaker for being long delayed.
"It isn't impossible, my dear," chuckled the doctor, as he rubbed his
hands; "and if I know anything of womankind, the darling little body's
mine. I hope she won't think I want her bit of money, because I don't."
He took a turn up and down the room, rubbing his hands and smiling in a
very satisfied way.
"I think I can work Master Arthur," he said. "He'll be delighted at the
picture I shall paint him of our flora and fauna. It will be a treat
for him, and we shall be as jolly as can be. We'll see about duty and
that sort of thing. Why, it will be a better post for him ever so much,
and he's a splendid old fellow."
There was another promenade of the room, greatly to the endangerment of
Miss Rosebury's ornaments. Then the doctor slapped one of his legs
loudly.
"Capital!" he cried. "What a grand thought. What a card to play! That
will carry her by storm. I'll play that card at our next interview; but
gently, Bolter, my boy, don't be in too great a hurry! She's a splendid
specimen, and you must not lose her by being precipitate; but, by Jove!
what a capital thought--tell her it will be quite an act of duty to come
with me and act a mother's part to those two girls."
"She'll do it--she'll do it," he cried, after a pause, "for she quite
loves little Grey, and a very nice little girl too. Then it will keep
that dark beauty out of mischief, for hang me if I think I could get her
over to her father disengaged, and so I told Harley yesterday."
The doctor did knock off an ornament from a stand at his next turn up
and down the room, breaking it right in two; and this brought him to his
senses, as, full of repentance, he sought the Reverend Arthur Rosebury
in his study to act as medium and confess his sin.