“I think you might do something to fight her battle for her.”

“I will do nothing—­unless she takes my advice and remains abroad.  You must write to her now, and you will tell her what I say.  It’s an infernal bore, his dying at this moment; but I suppose people won’t expect that I’m to shut myself up.”

For one day only did the baronet shut himself up, and on the following he went whither he had before intended.

Lady Clavering thought it proper to write a line to the rectory, informing the family there that Lord Ongar was no more.  This she did in a note to Mrs. Clavering; and when it was received, there came over the faces of them all that lugubrious look, which is, as a matter of course, assumed by decorous people when tidings come of the death of any one who has been known to them, even in the most distant way.  With the exception of Harry, all the rectory Claverings had been introduced to Lord Ongar, and were now bound to express something approaching to sorrow.  Will any one dare to call this hypocrisy?  If it be so called, who in the world is not a hypocrite?  Where is the man or woman who has not a special face for sorrow before company?  The man or woman who has no such face, would at once be accused of heartless impropriety.

“It is very sad,” said Mrs. Clavering; “only think, it is but little more than a year since you married them!”

“And twelve such months as they have been for her!” said the Rector, shaking his head.  His face was very lugubrious, for though as a parson he was essentially a kindly, easy man, to whom humbug was odious, and who dealt little in the austerities of clerical denunciation, still he had his face of pulpit sorrow for the sins of the people—­what I may perhaps call his clerical knack of gentle condemnation—­and could therefore assume a solemn look, and a little saddened motion of his head, with more ease than people who are not often called upon for such action.

“Poor woman!” said Fanny, thinking of the woman’s married sorrows, and her early widowhood.

“Poor man!” said Mary, shuddering as she thought of the husband’s fate.

“I hope,” said Harry, almost sententiously, “that no one in this house will condemn her upon such mere rumors as have been heard.”

“Why should any one in this house condemn her,” said the Rector, “even if there were more than rumors?  My dears, judge not, lest ye be judged.  As regards her, we are bound by close ties not to speak ill of her—­or even to think ill, unless we cannot avoid it.  As far as I know, we have not even any reason for thinking ill.”  Then he went out, changed the tone of his countenance among the rectory stables, and lit his cigar.