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her face grew; nor had any one noticed as soon as he had
done the strangeness of her manner at times, the unsteadiness of her
step, and the flush upon her face, as she now and then passed to and fro
under the yew-trees. But he had never had the courage to speak to her
at such moments; and there was only a mournful suspicion and dread in
his heart, which he did his best to hide from himself.

This afternoon Mrs. Bolton had sought him in the vestry, where he had
been silently brooding over his parish and its sins and sorrows, in the
dim, green light shining through the lattice window, which was thickly
overgrown with ivy. Mrs. Bolton was a handsome woman still, always
handsomely dressed, as became a wealthy archdeacon's widow. Her
presence seemed to fill up the little vestry; and as she occupied his old,
high-backed chair, Mr. Warden stood opposite to her, looking down
painfully and shyly at the floor on which he stood, rather than at the
distinguished personage who was visiting him.
"I come to you," she said, in a decisive, emphatic voice, "as a
clergyman, as well as my nephew's confidential friend. What I say to
you must go no farther than ourselves. We have no confessional in our
church, thank Heaven! but that which is confided to a clergyman, even
to a curate, ought to be as sacred as a confession."
"Certainly," answered Mr. Warden, with painful abruptness.
"Sacred as a confession!" repeated Mrs. Bolton. "I must tell you, then,
that I am in the greatest trouble about my nephew's wife. You know
how ill she was last winter, after he went away. A low, nervous fever,
which hung over her for months. She would not listen to my telling
David about it, and, indeed, I was reluctant to distress and disturb him
about a matter that he could not help. But she is very strange now; very
strange and flighty. Possibly you may have observed some change in
her?"
"Yes," he replied, still looking down on the floor, but seeing a vision of
Sophy pacing the beaten track to the little grave under the vestry
window.
"When she was at the worst," pursued Mrs. Bolton, "and I had the best
advice in London for her, she was ordered to take the best wine we
could get. I told Brown to bring out for her use some very choice port,
purchased by the archdeacon years ago. She must have perished
without it; but unfortunately--I speak to you as her pastor, in
confidence--she has grown fond of it."

"Fond of it?" repeated Mr. Warden.
"Yes," she answered, emphatically; "I leave the cellar entirely in
Brown's charge; a very trusty servant; and I find that Mrs. Chantrey has
lately been in the habit of getting a great deal too much from him. But
she will take anything she can get that will either stupefy or excite her.
She never writes to David until her spirits are raised by stimulants of
one kind or another. It is a temptation I cannot understand. I take a
proper quantity, just as when the archdeacon was alive, and I never
think of exceeding that. I need no more, and I desire no more. But Mrs.
Chantrey grows quite excited, almost violent at times. It makes me
more anxious than words can express."
There was a long pause, Mr. Warden neither lifting his head nor
opening his mouth. His pale face flushed a little, and his lips quivered.
David Chantrey was his dearest friend, and an almost intolerable sense
of shame and dread kept him silent. His wife, of whom he always
spoke so tenderly in all his letters to him! The very spot where he was
listening to this charge against her, David's vestry, seemed to deepen
the shame of it, and the unutterable sorrow, if it should be true.
"What would you counsel me to do?" asked Mrs. Bolton, after a time.
"Must I write to my nephew and tell him?"
"Do!" he cried, with sudden eagerness and emphasis; "do! Take the
temptation out of her way at once. Let everything of the kind be
removed from the house. Let no one touch it, or mention it in her
presence. Guard her as you would guard a child from taking deadly
poison."
"Impossible!" exclaimed Mrs. Bolton. "Have no wine in my house?
You forget my station and its duties, Mr. Warden, I must give dinner
parties occasionally; I must allow beer to my servants. It is absurd.
Nobody could expect me to take such a step as that."
"Listen to me," he said, earnestly, and with an authority quite at
variance with his ordinary shyness. "I do not venture to hope for any
other remedy. I have