An Ambitious Man

Worst came to the worst before twenty-four hours had passed. The

rector received word that Mrs Irving was rapidly failing, and went to

act the part of spiritual counsellor to the invalid, and sympathetic

friend to the suffering girl.

When he returned his mother watched his face with eager, anxious

eyes. He looked haggard and ill, as if he had passed through a

severe ordeal. He could talk of nothing but the beautiful and brave

girl, who was about to lose her one worshipped companion, and who ere

many hours passed would stand utterly alone in the world.

"I never saw you so affected before by the troubles and sorrows of

your parishioners," Mrs Stuart said. "I wonder, Arthur, why you take

the sorrows of this family so keenly to heart."

The young rector looked his mother full in the face with calm, sad

eyes. Then he said slowly: "I suppose, mother, it is because I love Joy Irving with all my

heart. You must have suspected this for some time. I know that you

have, and that the thought has pained you. You have had other and

more ambitious aims for me. Earnest Christian and good woman that

you are, you have a worldly and conventional vein in your nature,

which makes you reverence position, wealth and family to a marked

degree. You would, I know, like to see me unite myself with some

royal family, were that possible; failing in that, you would choose

the daughter of some great and aristocratic house to be my bride.

Ah, well, dear mother, you will, I know, concede that marriage

without love is unholy. I am not able to force myself to love some

great lady, even supposing I could win her if I did love her."

"But you might keep yourself from forming a foolish and unworthy

attachment," Mrs Stuart interrupted. "With your will-power, your

brain, your reasoning faculties, I see no necessity for your allowing

a pretty face to run away with your heart. Nothing could be more

unsuitable, more shocking, more dreadful, than to have you make that

girl your wife, Arthur."

Mrs Stuart's voice rose as she spoke, from a quiet reasoning tone to

a high, excited wail. She had not meant to say so much. She had

intended merely to appeal to her son's affection for her, without

making any unpleasant disclosures regarding Joy's mother; she thought

merely to win a promise from him that he would not compromise himself

at present with the girl, through an excess of sympathy. But already

she had said enough to arouse the young man into a defender of the

girl he loved.