Page:The Yellow Book - 03.djvu/214

 It seemed utterly strange, unaccountable, that she, whose eager echoing of all his own spiritual fervour and enthusiasm for the work of the Church still rang in his ears, should have chosen a man, whose sole talk had seemed to be of dogs and of horses, of guns and of game; a man thick-minded, unthinking, self-complacent; a man whom he himself had carelessly despised as devoid of any spark of spirituality.

And, at this moment, when the first smartings of bitter bewilderment were upon him, the little living of Scarsdale fell vacant, and his rector, perhaps not unmindful of his trouble, suggested that he should apply for it.

The valley was desolate and full of sombre beauty; the parish, sparsely-peopled but extensive; the life there would be monotonous, almost grim, with long hours of lonely brooding. The living was offered to him. He accepted it excitedly.

And there, busied with his new responsibilities, throwing himself into the work with a suppressed, ascetic ardour, news of the outside world reached him vaguely, as if from afar.

He read of her wedding in the local newspaper: later, a few trite details of her surroundings; and then, nothing more.

But her figure remained still resplendent in his memory, and, as time slipped by, grew into a sort of gleaming shrine, incarnating for him all the beauty of womanhood. And gradually, this incarnation grew detached, as it were, from her real personality, so that, when twice a year he went back to spend Sunday with his old rector, to preach a sermon in the parish church, he felt no shrinking dread lest he should meet her. He had long ceased to bear any resentment against her, or to doubt that she had done what was right. The part that had been his in the little drama seemed altogether of lesser importance.