"Never come back again?" said the Archdeacon, rousing up a little; and then he put out his large hand and took back the other, as if it had been a pencil or a book that he had lost. All this, let it be known, was well in the shadow, and could not be seen by the world in general to teach the young people a bad lesson. "Why should not you come back? I am going away too," said Mr Beverley; and he stopped short, and resisted the effort his prisoner made to withdraw. Oddly enough at that moment his Rectory rose suddenly before him as in a vision--his Rectory, all handsome and sombre, without a soul in it, room after room uninhabited, and not a sound to be heard, except that of his own foot or his servant's. It was curious what connection there could be between that and the garden, with its four walls, and the tiny cottage covered with wistaria. Such as it was, it moved the Archdeacon to a singular, and, considering the place and moment, rather indecorous proceeding. Instead of contenting himself with the resisting hand, he drew the widow's arm within his as they sat together. "I'll tell you what we must do, Helen," he said confidentially--"we must go back to Basing together, you and I. I don't see the good of leaving you by yourself here. You can make what alterations you like when you get to the Rectory; and I shall let that--that person alone, if you wish it, with his ill-gotten gear. He will never come to any good," said the Archdeacon, with some satisfaction; and then he added in a parenthesis, as if she had expressed some ridiculous doubt on the subject, "Of course I mean that we should be married before we go away." It was in this rapid and summary manner that the whole business was settled. Naturally his companion had nothing to say against such a reasonable arrangement. She had never contradicted him in her life about anything but one thing; and that being set aside, there was no possible reason why she should begin now. _Chapter XXXIV_