Evidently he was not going home to dinner. Perhaps he had some sick
person to visit, and he might get a snack at the Barradine Arms or
one of the cottages. It was said that his father had been a rich
linen-draper in some North of England town; and that he himself would
have inherited this flourishing business and its accumulated wealth,
if he had not insisted on joining the ministry. But he threw up all to
preach the Gospel. Dale thought of the nature of the faith that would
make a man go and do a thing like that. It must be unquestioning,
undoubting; a conviction that amounted to certainty.
He did not see Mavis approaching. She called to him from a distance,
and he sprang off the gate and hurried to meet her. Instinctively, as
he drew near, he looked into her face, searching for the expression
that he had noticed just now in those other faces. It was not there.
She was hot and red after her walk; her eyes were full of life and
gaiety; she seemed a fine, broad-blown, well-dressed dame who might
have been returning from market instead of from church, and her first
words spoke of practical affairs.
"Holly Lodge is let again, Will, and Mr. Allen says the new gentleman
keeps horses--because he's having the stables painted.
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