cruel of him this is a summary of what was said when captain now the reverend john was enabled by circumstances to indulge his heart s desire of returning to the scene of his former exploits in the capacity of a minister of the gospel a low lying district of the town which at that date was crowded with was crying for a and mr generously offered himself as one willing to a changed man undertake labours that were certain to produce little result and no thanks credit or let the truth be told about him as a clergyman he proved to be anything but a brilliant success single minded deeply in earnest as all could see his delivery was his sermons were dull to listen to and alas too too long even the judges who sat by the hour in the bar parlour of the white � an standing at the dividing line between the poor quarter and the fashionable quarter of s former triumphs and hence affording a position of strict � agreed in substance with the young ladies to the westward though their views were somewhat more expressed surely god a mighty a good to make a bad pa son when he shifted cap n ma into a v the latter knew that such things were said but he pursued his daily labours in and out of the with serene it was about this time that the invalid in the became more than a mere bowing acquaintance of mrs s she had return to the town with her husband and was living with him in a little house in the centre of his circle of when by some means she became one of the d s visitors after a general conversation while sitting in his room with a friend of both an incident led up to the matter that still deeply in her soul her face was now paler and thinner than it had been even more attractive her disappointments having inscribed themselves as meek on a look that was once a little frivolous the two ladies had called to be allowed to use the windows for observing the departure of the who were leaving for much nearer to london the turned the comer of road into the top of high street headed by their band playing the girl i left behind me which was formerly al a changed man ways the tune for such times though it is now nearly they came and passed the where an or two looking up and discovering mrs saluted her whose eyes filled with tears as the notes of the band away before the little group had recovered from that sense of the romantic such spectacles impart mr came along the pavement he probably had his brethren in arms a farewell at the top of the for he walked from that direction in his rather clothes and with a basket on his arm which seemed to hold some s he had been making for his poorer unlike the soldiers he went along quite unconscious of his appearance or of the scene around the contrast was too much for with lips that now quivered she asked the invalid what he thought of the change that had come to her it was difficult to answer and with a that was too strong in her she repeated the question do you think she added that a woman s husband has a right to do such a thing even if he does feel a certain call to it her listener too largely with both of them to be anything but unsatisfactory in his reply gazed out of the window towards the thin dusty line of now towards the ridge i she said who should have been in their van on the way to london am doomed to in a hole on lane many events had passed and many had been current concerning her before the invalid saw her again after her leave taking that day v had known many military and civil many happy times and times less happy a changed man and now came the time of her the of had been laid on the suffering country and the low l ring of this ancient had more than their share of the lane in the quarter and in s parish was where the blow most heavily yet there was a certain mercy in its choice of a date for was the man for such an hour the spread of the was so rapid that the town and took lodgings in the villages and farms mr s house was close to the most street and he himself was mom noon and night in to stamp out the plague and in the sufferings of the victims so as a matter of ordinary precaution he decided to his wife somewhere away from him for a while she suggested a village by the sea near and lodgings were obtained for her at a spot divided from the valley by a high ridge that gave it quite another atmosphere though it lay no more than six miles off thither she went while she was in this place of safety and her husband was in the she struck up an acquaintance with a lieutenant in the � st foot a mr who was stationed with his regiment at the as frequently sat on the beach watching each thin wave slide up to her and hearing without its at the pebbles in its retreat he often took a walk that way the acquaintance grew and her situation her history her beauty her age � a year or two above his own � all tended to make an impression on the young man s heart and a reckless was soon in progress upon that lonely shore it was said by her afterwards that she had chosen her lodgings to be near this gentleman but there is reason to believe that she 