The rule is clear. A
man may do most things except cheat at cards or run away in action; a
woman may break half-a-dozen hearts, or try to break them, and finally
put herself up at auction and take no harm at all--but neither of them
may in any event do _this_.
Not that Geoffrey, to do him justice, had any such intentions. Most
men are incapable of plots of that nature. If they fall, it is when the
voice of conscience is lost in the whirlwind of passion, and counsel
is darkened by the tumultuous pleadings of the heart. Their sin is
that they will, most of them, allow themselves to be put in positions
favourable to the development of these disagreeable influences. It is
not safe to light cigarettes in a powder factory. If Geoffrey had done
what he ought to have done, he would never have gone to Bryngelly, and
there would have been no story to tell, or no more than there usually
is.
At length Mr. Granger and his guest reached Bryngelly; there was nobody
to meet them, for nobody knew that they were coming, so they walked up
to the Vicarage. It was strange to Geoffrey once more to pass by the
little church through those well-remembered, wind-torn pines and see
that low long house.
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