The Distracted Preacher by Thomas Hardy Page A

and then you go out yourself, and know your way about as well by night as by day, and have hair-breadth escapes from old Latimer and his fellows, who are too stupid ever to really frighten us, and only make us a bit nimble.”
    â€œHe frightened you a little last night, anyhow; and I would advise you to drop it before it is worse.”
    She shook her head. “No, I must go on as I have begun. I was born to it. It is in my blood, and I can’t be cured. Oh, Richard, you cannot think what a hard thing you have asked, and how sharp you try me when you put me between this and my love for ’ee!”
    Stockdale was leaning with his elbow on the mantelpiece, his hands over his eyes. “We ought never to have met, Lizzy,” he said. “It was an ill day for us. I little thought there was anything so hopeless and impossible in our engagement as this. Well, it is too late now to regret consequences in this way. I have had the happiness of seeing you and knowing you at least.”
    â€œYou dissent from Church, and I dissent from State,” she said, “and I don’t see why we are not well matched.”
    He smiled sadly, while Lizzy remained looking down, her eyes beginning to overflow.
    That was an unhappy evening for both of them, and the days that followed were unhappy days. Both she and he went mechanically about their employments, and his depression was marked in the village by more than one of his denomination with whom he came in contact. But Lizzy, who passed her days in-doors, was unsuspected of being the cause: for it was generally understood that a quiet engagement to marry existed between her and her cousin Owlett, and had existed for some time.
    Thus uncertainly the week passed on, till one morning Stockdale said to her, “I have had a letter, Lizzy. I must call you that till I am gone.”
    â€œGone?” said she, blankly.
    â€œYes,” he said. “I am going from this place. I felt it would be better for us both that I should not stay after what has happened. In fact, I couldn’t stay here, and look on you from day to day, without becoming weak and faltering in my course. I have just heard of an arrangement by which the other minister can arrive here in about a week, and let me go elsewhere.”
    That he had all this time continued so firmly fixed in his resolution came upon her as a grievous surprise. “You never loved me!” she said, bitterly.
    â€œI might say the same,” he returned; “but I will not. Grant me one favor. Come and hear my last sermon on the day before I go.”
    Lizzy, who was a church-goer on Sunday mornings, frequently attended Stockdale’s chapel in the evening with the rest of the double-minded, and she promised.
    It became known that Stockdale was going to leave, and a good many people outside his own sect were sorry to hear it. The intervening days flew rapidly away, and on the evening of the Sunday which preceded the morning of his departure Lizzy sat in the chapel to hear him for the last time. The little building was full to overflowing, and he took up the subject which all had expected, that of the contraband trade so extensively practised among them. His hearers, in laying his words to their own hearts, did not perceive that they were most particularly directed against Lizzy, till the sermon waxed warm and Stockdale nearly broke down with emotion. In truth, his own earnestness, and her sad eyes looking up at him, were too much for the young man’s equanimity. He hardly knew how he ended. He saw Lizzy, as through a mist, turn and go away with the rest of the congregation, and shortly afterwards followed her home.
    She invited him to supper, and they sat down alone, her mother having, as was usual with her on Sunday nights, gone to bed early.
    â€œWe will part friends, won’t we?” said Lizzy, with forced gayety, and never alluding to the sermon—a reticence which rather disappointed