The rector fancied he felt his wife's shudder shake the carriage, but
the sensation was of his own producing. The careless defiant words
wrought in him an unaccountable kind of terror: it seemed almost as if
they had rushed of themselves from his own lips.

"Take care, my dear sir," he said solemnly. "There may be something to
believe, though you don't believe it."

"I must take the chance," replied Faber. "I will do my best to make
calamity of long life, by keeping the rheumatic and epileptic and
phthisical alive, while I know how. Where nothing _can_ be known, I
prefer not to intrude."

A pause followed. At length said the rector,

"You are so good a fellow, Faber, I wish you were better. When will you
come and dine with me?"

"Soon, I hope," answered the surgeon, "but I am too busy at present. For
all her sweet ways and looks, the spring is not friendly to man, and my
work is to wage war with nature."

A second pause followed. The rector would gladly have said something,
but nothing would come.

"By the by," he said at length, "I thought I saw you pass the gate--let
me see--on Monday: why did you not look in?"

"I hadn't a moment's time. I was sent for to a patient in the village."

"Yes, I know; I heard of that. I wish you would give me your impression
of the lady. She is a stranger here.--John, that gate is swinging across
the road. Get down and shut it.--Who and what is she?"

"That I should be glad to learn from you. All I know is that she is a
lady. There can not be two opinions as to that."

"They tell me she is a beauty," said the parson.

The doctor nodded his head emphatically.

"Haven't you seen her?" he said.

"Scarcely--only her back. She walks well. Do you know nothing about her?
Who has she with her?"

"Nobody."

"Then Mrs. Bevis shall call upon her."

"I think at present she had better not. Mrs. Puckridge is a good old
soul, and pays her every attention."

"What is the matter with her? Nothing infectious?"

"Oh, no! She has caught a chill. I was afraid of pneumonia yesterday."

"Then she is better?"

"I confess I am a little anxious about her. But I ought not to be
dawdling like this, with half my patients to see. I must bid you good
morning.--Good morning, Mrs. Bevis."

As he spoke, Faber drew rein, and let the carriage pass; then turned his
horse's head to the other side of the way, scrambled up the steep bank
to the field above, and galloped toward Glaston, whose great ch