aware, remorse, phantoms, voices, sudden blazings of wrath as suddenly
gone, sweating panics, that craven care of life which springs so rank as
the soul decays, and a steady, cunning determination to keep whole the
emptied shell of reputation and rank,--these were the things that filled
his hours by day, by night; these, and a frightful expectance of one
accusing, child-claiming ghost that never came. The air softened to
Indian summer; the ice faded off the pool; a million leaves, crimson and
bronze, scarlet and gold, dropped tenderly upon its silvering breadth
and lay still; and both the joyless master of the larger house and the
merry maid of the cottage asked Heaven impatiently if the pond would
never freeze over again.

It was Saturday afternoon when Giles, asked by Sarah Stebbens where Mr.
Arthur was, told her he was again, as he had been so many times the last
three days, down by the water, sitting at the edge of the overhanging
bank; or, as the Englishman expressed it, "'dreamink the 'appy hours
aw'y.'" So the week passed out; a second came in, and the rector of All
Angels went to his sacred office.

He knew, before he appeared in the chancel, that Mrs. Morris was in her
accustomed place, and Ruth and her father in theirs, and that Leonard
was not yet reported back nor looked for; but exactly as he began to
read, "'Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moveth us, in sundry
places, to acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness, and
that we should not dissemble nor cloak them before the face of Almighty
God our heavenly Father'"--a sickness filled Mrs. Morris's frame, a
deathly hue overspread the minister's face, and Leonard came in and sat
beside his father and sister.

Yet the service went on. The people knelt.