The Vange estate has an estimated value.
If the act of restitution represented that value in ready money, do you think the Church would discourage a good convert by refusing his check?
You know better than that—and so do I.
The next day I called to inquire how Mrs. Eyrecourt was getting on.
The report was favorable.
Three days later I called again.
The report was still more encouraging.
I was also informed that Mrs. Romayne had returned to Ten Acres Lodge.
Much of my success in life has been achieved by never being in a hurry.
I was not in a hurry now.
Time sometimes brings opportunities—and opportunities are worth waiting for.
Let me make this clear by an example.
A man of headlong disposition, in my place, would have probably spoken of Miss Eyrecourt’s marriage to Romayne at his first meeting with Winterfield, and would have excited their distrust, and put them respectively on their guard, without obtaining any useful result.
I can, at any time, make the disclosure to Romayne which informs him that his wife had been Winterfield’s guest in Devonshire, when she affected to meet her former host on the footing of a stranger.
In the meanwhile, I give Penrose ample opportunity for innocently widening the breach between husband and wife.
You see, I hope, that if I maintain a passive position, it is not from indolence or discouragement.
Now we may get on.
After an interval of a few days more I decided on making further inquiries at Mrs. Eyrecourt’s house.
This time, when I left my card, I sent a message, asking if the lady could receive me.
Shall I own my weakness?
She possesses all the information that I want, and she has twice baffled my inquiries.
Under these humiliating circumstances, it is part of the priestly pugnacity of my disposition to inquire again.
I was invited to go upstairs.
The front and back drawing-rooms of the house were thrown into one.
Mrs. Eyrecourt was being gently moved backward and forward in a chair on wheels, propelled by her maid; two gentlemen being present, visitors like myself.
In spite of rouge and loosely folded lace and flowing draperies, she presented a deplorable spectacle.
The bodily part of her looked like a dead woman, painted and revived—while the moral part, in the strongest contrast, was just as lively as ever.
“So glad to see you again, Father Benwell, and so much obliged by your kind inquiries.
I am quite well, though the doctor won’t admit it.
Isn’t it funny to see me being wheeled about, like a child in a perambulator?
Returning to first principles, I call it. You see it’s a law of my nature that I must go about.
The doctor won’t let me go about outside the house, so I go about inside the house.
Matilda is the nurse, and I am the baby who will learn to walk some of these days.
Are you tired, Matilda?
No?
Then give me another turn, there’s a good creature.
Movement, perpetual movement, is a law of Nature.
Oh, dear no, doctor; I didn’t make that discovery for myself.
Some eminent scientific person mentioned it in a lecture.
The ugliest man I ever saw. Now back again, Matilda. Let me introduce you to my friends, Father Benwell.
Introducing is out of fashion, I know. But I am one of the few women who can resist the tyranny of fashion.
I like introducing people.
Sir John Drone—Father Benwell.
Father Benwell—Doctor Wybrow.
Ah, yes, you know the doctor by reputation?
Shall I give you his character?
Personally charming; professionally detestable.
Pardon my impudence, doctor, it is one of the consequences of the overflowing state of my health. Another turn, Matilda—and a little faster this time.
Oh, how I wish I was traveling by railway!”
There, her breath failed her.