Salem Chapel by Margaret Oliphant

The next morning brought no letters except from Susan. Fordham, if so true as Lady Western called him, was not, Vincent thought with bitterness, acting as an honourable man should in this emergency. But perhaps he might come to Carlingford in the course of the day, to see Susan's brother. The aspect of the young minister was changed when he made his appearance at the breakfast table. Mrs. Vincent made the most alarmed inquiries about his health, but -- stopped abruptly in making them by his short and ungracious answer -- came to a dead pause; and with a pang of fright and mortification, acknowledged to herself that her son was no longer her boy, whose entire heart she knew, but a man with a life and concerns of his own, possibly not patent to his mother. That breakfast was not a cheerful meal. There had been a long silence, broken only by those anxious attentions to each other's personal comfort, with which people endeavour to smooth down the embarrassment of an intercourse apparently confidential, into which some sudden unexplainable shadow has fallen. At last Vincent got up from the table, with a little outbreak of impatience.

"I can't eat this morning; don't ask me. Mother, get your bonnet on," said the young man; "we must go to see Mrs. Hilyard today."