The irony of his
illness and death occurring precisely when he was invited to mount
nothing less--according to local report--than an oriental throne,
sufficed to stir the most lethargic imagination. Moralists of the
Reginald Sawyer school might read in this the direct judgment of an
offended deity. Deadham, however, being reprehensibly clannish, viewed
the incident otherwise; and questioned--thanks to an ingeniously inverted
system of reasoning--whether the said Reginald Sawyer hadn't laid himself
open to a charge of manslaughter or of an even graver breach of the
Decalogue.
Theresa Bilson--in whose hat artificial buttercups and daisies hastily
made room for bows of crape--lurked in the humble obscurity of the free
seats near the west door. To right and left she was flanked by a guardian
Miss Minett; but these ladies to-day were but broken reeds on which to
lean. They still laboured under a sense of having been compromised, and
of resultant social ostracism. This, although their former parsonic
lodger had vanished from the scene on the day following his threatened
immersion--a half-hearted proposition on his part of "facing out the
undeserved obloquy, living down the coarse persecution" meeting with as
scant encouragement from his ecclesiastical superior, the vicar, as from
themselves.
Pages:
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844