I?"

"Yes," he said. "But I must go with you."

"When can you get away? I don't think we ought to put it off."

"No. There mustn't be an hour's avoidable delay. I'll take you over
this afternoon."

Then, without another word, he finished his breakfast and went
down-stairs. Mavis was vibrating with excitement, her eyes large and
bright, a spot of poppy color on each cheek; she longed to burst out
into all sorts of conjectures, to discuss every possibility, but she
did not dare speak to him again just then.

Though the market town of Old Manninglea was only eight miles distant,
the roundabout journey thither by rail offered such difficulties that
Dale hired a dog-cart from the Roebuck and drove his wife across by
road.

Their route for the first four miles was the one they would have
followed if they had been going to the Abbey, and as they bowled along
behind a strong and active little horse Mavis felt again, but in an
intensified degree, those sensations of well-being, of comfort, and
hopefulness, that she had experienced when passing through the same
scenery on the day of the funeral. All the country looked so warm and
rich in its fulness of summer tints--corn ready to cut, fruit waiting
to be picked, cows asking to be milked; everywhere plenty and peace;
nature giving so freely, and still promising to give more. It seemed
to her that as surely as there is a law under which the seasons
change, sunshine follows storm, and trees after losing their leaf soon
begin to bud again, so surely is it intended that states of mind
should succeed one another, that after sorrow should come gladness,
and that no one has the right to say "I will keep my heart like a
shuttered room, and because it was dark yesterday the light shall not
enter it to-day."

About a mile out from Rodchurch they passed the Baptist chapel--a
supremely ugly little building that stood isolated and forlorn in a
narrow banked enclosure among flat pasture fields--and Mavis, making
conversation, called Dale's attention to the tablet that largely
advertised its date.

"Eighteen thirty-seven, Will! That's a long time ago."

"Yes," he said, "a many years back--that takes one. Year the Queen
came to the throne."

"I wonder why they built it out here--such a way from everybody--such
a tramp for the worshipers."

"In those days all non-conformists were a deal more down-trodden than
they are now. It was before people began to understan' the meanin' o'
lib