Meanwhile, though grieved and humbled, and longing to comfort his unhappy
mother Charles Marston, for the present absolutely dependant upon his
father, had no choice but to remain at Cambridge, and to pursue his
studies there. At Gray Forest Marston and the partner of his guilt continued to live. The old servants were all gradually dismissed, and new ones hired by
Mademoiselle de Barras. There they dwelt, shunned by everybody, in a
stricter and more desolate seclusion than ever. The novelty of the
unrestraint and licence of their new mode of life speedily passed away,
and with it the excited and guilty sense of relief which had for a time
produced a false and hollow gaiety. The sense of security prompted in
mademoiselle a hundred indulgences which, in her former precarious
position, she would not have dreamed of. Outbreaks of temper, sharp and
sometimes violent, began to manifest themselves on her part, and renewed
disappointment and blacker remorse to darken the soul of Marston himself. Often, in the dead of the night, the servants would overhear their bitter
and fierce altercations ringing through the melancholy mansion, and
often the reckless use of terrible and mysterious epithets of crime. Their quarrels increased in violence and in frequency, and, before two
years had passed, feelings of bitterness, hatred, and dread, alone seemed
to subsist between them. Yet upon Marston she continued to exercise a
powerful and mysterious influence. There was a dogged, apathetic
submission on his part, and a growing insolence on hers, constantly more
and more strikingly visible. Neglect, disorder, and decay, too, were more
than ever apparent in the dreary air of the place. Doctor Danvers, save by rumor and conjecture, knew nothing of Marston
and his abandoned companion. He had, more than once, felt a strong
disposition to visit Gray Forest, and expostulate, face to face, with its
guilty proprietor. This idea, however, he had, upon consideration,
dismissed; not on account of any shrinking from the possible repulses and
affronts to which the attempt might subject him, but from a thorough
conviction that the endeavor would be utterly fruitless for good, while
it might, very obviously, expose him to painful misinterpretation and
suspicion, and leave it to be imagined that he had been influenced, if by
no meaner motive, at least by the promptings of a coarse curiosity. Meanwhile he maintained a correspondence with Mrs. Marston, and had even
once or twice since her departure visited her. Latterly, however, this
correspondence had been a good deal interrupted, and its intervals had
been supplied occasionally by Rhoda, whose letters, although she herself
appeared unconscious of the mournful event the approach of which they
too plainly indicated, were painful records of the rapid progress of
mortal decay. He had just received one of those ominous letters, at the little post
office in the town we have already mentioned, and, full of the melancholy
news it contained, Dr. Danvers was returning slowly towards his home. As
he rode into a lonely road, traversing an undulating tract of some three
miles in length, the singularity, it may be, of his costume attracted the
eye of another passenger, who was, as it turned out, no other than
Marston himself. For two or three miles of this desolate road, their ways
happened to lie together. Marston's first impulse was to avoid the
clergyman; his second, which he obeyed, was to join company, and ride
along with him, at all events, for so long as would show that he shrank
from no encounter which fortune or accident presented. There was a spirit
of bitter defiance in this, which cost him a painful effort. "How do you do, Parson Danvers?" said Marston, touching his hat with the
handle of his whip. Danvers thought he had seldom seen a man so changed in so short a time. His face had grown sallow and wasted, and his figure slightly stooped,
with an appearance almost of feebleness. "Mr. Marston," said the clergyman, gravely, and almost sternly, though
with some embarrassment, "it is a long time since you and I have seen
one another, and many and painful events have passed in the interval. I scarce know upon what terms we meet. I am prompted to speak to you,
and in a tone, perhaps, which you will hardly brook; and yet, if we
keep company, as it seems likely we may, I cannot, and I ought not, to
be silent." "Well, Mr. Danvers, I accept the condition--speak what you will," said
Marston, with a gloomy promptitude. "If you exceed your privilege, and
grow uncivil, I need but use my spurs, and leave you behind me preaching
to the winds." "Ah! Mr. Marston," said Dr. Danvers, almost sadly, after a considerable
pause, "when I saw you close beside me, my heart was troubled within me." "You looked on me as something from the nether world, and expected to see
the cloven hoof," said Marston, bitterly, and raising his booted foot a
little as he spoke; "but, after all, I am but a vulgar sinner of flesh
and blood, without enough of the preternatural about me to frighten an
old nurse, much less to agitate a pillar of the Church." "Mr. Marston, you talk sarcastically, but you feel that recent
circumstances, as well as old recollections, might well disturb and
trouble me at sight of you," answered Dr. Danvers. "Well--yes--perhaps it is so," said Marston, hastily and sullenly, and
became silent for a while. "My heart is full, Mr. Marston; charged with grief, when I think of the
sad history of those with whom, in my mind, you must ever be associated,"
said Doctor Danvers. "Aye, to be sure," said Marston, with stern impatience; "but, then, you
have much to console you. You have got your comforts and your
respectability; all the dearer, too, from the contrast of other people's
misfortunes and degradations; then you have your religion moreover--"

"Yes," interrupted Danvers, earnestly, and hastening to avoid a sneer
upon this subject; "God be blessed, I am an humble follower of his
gracious Son, our Redeemer; and though, I trust, I should bear with
patient submission whatever chastisement in his wisdom and goodness he
might see fit to inflict upon me, yet I do praise and bless him for the
mercy which has hitherto spared me, and I do feel that mercy all the more
profoundly, from the afflictions and troubles with which I daily see
others overtaken." "And in the matter of piety and decorum, doubtless, you bless God also,"
said Marston, sarcastically, "that you are not as other men are, nor even
as this publican." "Nay, Mr. Marston; God forbid I should harden my sinful heart with the
wicked pride of the Pharisee. Evil and corrupt am I already over much. Too well I know the vileness of my heart, to make myself righteous in my
own eyes," replied Dr. Danvers, humbly. "But, sinner as I am, I am yet a
messenger of God, whose mission is one of authority to his
fellow-sinners; and woe is me if I speak not the truth at all seasons,
and in all places where my words may be profitably heard."