“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’ liberty o’ conscience; and, like enough, that’s a bit of evidence.”

“How so, Will?”

“Quite likely there wasn’t a landlord lib’ral enough to give ’em a patch o’ ground within reach o’ th’ village.  Shoved ’em off as far as they could, to please Mr. Parson, and not contam’nate his church with the sight of an honest dissenter.”

He said all this sententiously and didactically, as one who enjoys speaking on historical or sociological subjects; but then a cloud seemed to descend upon him, and he relapsed into gloomy silence.