CHAPTER IV. IN WHICH MISS SUDLOW SPEAKS HER MIND.
Philip Winslade did not accompany his mother to church on Sunday morning. His heart was still so sore, he was still so mentally shaken by his mother's revelation that, like the stricken deer, he craved for solitude the most absolute. It was a craving Mrs. Winslade was too wise to combat. She herself had suffered in like manner in years gone by, and her heart bled for her boy.
Phil still held firmly by his overnight determination to make a clean breast of it to the Vicar at their interview on the morrow, and it was so evidently the right thing to do that on no account would his mother have breathed a syllable in any effort to dissuade him therefrom. In the course of the afternoon the Vicar's note was delivered at the Cottage, and after a first reading it seemed both to Phil and Mrs. Winslade as if a brief providential breathing-space had been accorded them. The evil day was only put off for a time; but it was a respite, and they were grateful for it.
Further consideration of the note, however, made it evident that, although the Vicar expressed a wish to defer the Monday's interview till he should have had an opportunity of consulting his daughter, that was no sufficient reason why Phil should take on himself to delay his confession. Was it not, rather, his duty to tell everything to the Vicar before the meeting in question took place? With the latter in possession beforehand of all the facts of the case, it could not afterwards be alleged that any unfair advantage had been taken of either his or his daughter's ignorance of them. Clearly here also was the right thing to do.
Next morning after breakfast--such a breakfast as either mother or son had the appetite to partake of--Phil set out for the vestry. His mother kissed him and bade him be of good cheer; her eyes were dry, but there was a wistfulness in the smile with which she followed him as he left the house which seemed to have its origin in emotions too profound for tears. As it fell out, however, the Vicar and Phil were not destined to meet that day. The latter, on reaching the vestry, was told by Jabez Drew, the parish clerk, that "his reverence" had been summoned from home by telegram and was not expected back till next day. Now, Philip Winslade was due back in London at nine o'clock on Tuesday morning. Evidently there was no help for it. He must defer what he had to say till the Vicar should appoint a meeting at his own time and place.
