I hope all
this happened, for I, not seeing why Mrs. Wentworth should
monopolize the grace of sympathy, took the liberty of extending
mine to Newhaven. He was certainly in love with Trix, not with
her money, and the treatment he underwent must have been as
trying to his feelings as it was galling to his pride.
My sympathy was not premature, for Miss Trix's fascinations,
which were indubitably great, began to have their effect. The
scene about the canoe was re-enacted, but with a different
denouement. This time the promise was forgotten, and the
widow forsaken. Then Mrs. Wentworth put on her armor. We had,
in fact, reached this very absurd situation, that these two
ladies were contending for the favors of, or the domination
over, such an obscure, poverty-stricken, hopelessly ineligible
person as the curate of Poltons undoubtedly was. The position
seemed to me then, and still seems, to indicate some remarkable
qualities in that young man.
At last Newhaven made a move. At breakfast, on Wednesday
morning, he announced that, reluctant as he should be to leave
Poltons Park, he was due at his aunt's place, in Kent, on
Saturday evening, and must, therefore, make his arrangements to
leave by noon on that day. The significance was apparent. Had
he come down to breakfast with "Now or Never!" stamped in fiery
letters across his brow, it would have been more obtrusive,
indeed, but not a whit plainer.
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