It had been enough for her to have those fears under which she had made her escape from Stone Cottage set at rest, and she had not examined too closely into the story, though she had asked a few questions as to the somewhat remarkable fact of the proposal having been made in his presence and accepted within the quarter of an hour that had elapsed between her home-coming and his. If she had known that he had left Stone Cottage within about three minutes, and had spent the rest of the time calming himself by a walk up the village street, she might have found it, in fact, still more remarkable. She was so relieved, however, at finding her husband prepared to accept Mollie's engagement, and to act in a fatherly way towards the young couple, that she rested herself upon that, and let her own pleasure in the happiness that had come to the girl she loved have its full flow. Mrs. Mercer having been satisfied, and her mouth incidentally closed, by order, the more difficult task remained to placate Mollie and Pemberton. On thinking it over carefully, with wits sharpened by a real and increasing alarm, the Vicar had decided that neither of those two would wish an open breach, and would welcome an assumption upon which they could avoid it. This enabled him to put a little more dignity into his letter than the facts entitled him to. He had, he wrote, entirely misjudged the situation. Nothing, naturally, could please him better than that the girl in whom he had taken so warm an interest should find happiness in a suitable marriage. He had no hesitation in saying that this struck him as an eminently suitable marriage, and he asked her to believe that he was sincere in wishing her all joy and blessing from it. Anything that he may have said in the heat of the moment to Mr. Pemberton, under the impression that his attentions had not been serious, he should wish unreservedly to apologise for. When one had made a mistake, it was the part of an honest man to acknowledge it frankly, and make an end of it. He thought that it might be more agreeable to Mr. Pemberton that this acknowledgment should be conveyed to him through Mollie. He did not, therefore, propose to write to him himself, but trusted that no more would be thought or said of what had passed. The letter ended tentatively on the note of his old intercourse with Mollie, and the last sentences gave him more trouble than all the rest put together. He knew well enough that if his overtures were not accepted this claim to something special in the way of affection on both sides could only be contemptuously rejected, and that in any case he had no right left upon which to found it.