To this Geoffrey listened silently, wounded, as he always was, by the thought that she whom he loved so dearly had left her home under a cloud, were it but the lightest breath of suspicion. Even to this sexton he must needs defend his idol. ‘I have reason to know that Miss Davoren was married to that gentleman before he came to Wykhamston,’ he said. ‘It was a secret marriage, and she was foolish enough to leave her home without informing her parents of the step she had taken; but she was that man’s wife, and no shadow of dishonour can tarnish her name.’ ‘Deary me!’ exclaimed the sexton; ‘and our poor dear rector took it so to heart. Some folks think it was that as killed him, though the doctors called it heart-disease of long standing.’ Geoffrey went from the church to the rectory, an overgrown thatched cottage, quaint and old, with plastered walls and big chimney-stacks; the garden all abloom with late roses—the new incumbent evidently a prosperous gentleman. He loitered by the tall privet-hedge a little while, gathered a rose from a bush that grew within reach—a rose which he put carefully in his pocket-book—frail memorial of her he loved. This pilgrimage occupied an entire day; for the young man lingered about Wykhamston as if loth to leave the spot where Janet had once lived—as if he almost hoped to meet the phantom of her girlhood in one of those low water meadows where he wandered listlessly by the reedy trout streams. Belle and Jessie pouted a little at this desertion, yet would not complain. Were they not fortunate in dear Geoffrey’s return? And if they questioned or teased him he might take flight again. ‘I hope you are not going to desert us to-morrow,’ said Belle, on the evening of his return from Wykhamston. ‘Why do you lay such a tremendous stress upon to-morrow?’ asked Geoffrey, with a comfortable yawn. He was stretched on a rustic bench outside the drawing-room windows smoking, while these damsels conversed with him from within. ‘Have you forgotten?’ ‘Forgotten what?’ with another yawn. ‘How sleepy this country air makes one!’ ‘Yes, and how stupid sometimes!’ exclaimed Jessie. ‘You might have remembered that to-morrow is the day for Lady Baker’s _fête_.’ ‘Ah, to be sure! She’s a very nice old party, that Lady Baker of yours. I shall make a point of being in attendance upon you.’ CHAPTER XII. TROUBLES THICKEN. There was plenty of work for Lucius in his surgery when he went home, after inducting Mr. Otranto’s men in their duties at Cedar House. There were the medicines to be made up, and to be taken round to the patients that night, by the sleepy boy, who looked unutterable reproaches at his master for this unwonted neglect of duty. ‘Some of the places will be shut, I should think,’ he said with an injured air, as he ground some nauseous drug furiously with a stone pestle; ‘and some of the folks gone to bed. We’ve never been so late before.’