Reluctantly, but lacking the strength of mind to refuse, Mr. Pepper entered the dining room.  Then Mrs. Coffin turned upon him.

“What do you mean,” she demanded, “by throwin’ out hints that the minister and you are in some sort of secret?  How dare you go round tellin’ people such yarns as that?”

“They ain’t yarns.  And I never told nobody afore, anyhow.  I got to move along.  I’ll—­”

“Stay where you are.  I guess I’ll run right up and ask your sister about this.  Perhaps she might—­”

“Ss-sh! ss-sh! don’t talk that way, Keziah.  Don’t!  Laviny don’t know what I mean.  Don’t go askin’ her things.”

“But you said—­”

“I just said I knew where Mr. Ellery goes every Sunday afternoon.  He don’t know anybody knows, but I do.  That’s all there is to it.  I shan’t tell.  So—­”

“Tell?  Do you mean there’s somethin’ Mr. Ellery wouldn’t want told?  Don’t you dare—­I will see Laviny!”

“No, no, no, no!  ‘Tain’t nothin’ much.  I just know where he goes after he leaves Elkanah’s and who he goes to meet.  I—­Lordy!  I hadn’t ought to said that!  I—­Keziah Coffin, don’t you ever tell I told you.  I’ve said more’n I meant to.  If it comes out there’d be the biggest row in the church that ever was.  And I’d be responsible!  I would!  I’d have to go on the witness stand and then Laviny’d find out how I—­Oh, oh, oh! what shall I do?”

The poor frightened creature’s “jig” had, by this time, become a distracted fandango.  But the housekeeper had no mercy on him.  She was beginning to fear for her parson and, for the time, everything else, her own trouble and the recent interview with Nat, was pushed aside.

“What is it?” she persisted.  “What would bring on the row in the church?  Who does Mr. Ellery meet?  Out with it!  What do you mean?”

“I mean that the minister meets that Van Horne girl every Sunday afternoon after he leaves Elkanah’s.  There, now!  It’s out, and I don’t give a darn if they hang me for it.”

Keziah turned white.  She seized Mr. Pepper by the lapel of his Sunday coat and shook him.

“Grace Van Horne!” she cried.  “Mr. Ellery meets Grace Van Horne on Sunday afternoons?  Where?”

“Down in them pines back of Peters’s pastur’, on the aidge of the bank over the beach.  He’s met her there every Sunday for the last six weeks—­longer, for what I know.  I’ve watched ’em.”

“You have?  You have!  You’ve dared to spy on—­I think you’re lyin’ to me.  I don’t believe it.”

“I ain’t lyin’!  It’s so.  I’ll bet you anything they’re there now, walkin’ up and down and talkin’.  What would I want to lie for?  You come with me this minute and I’ll show ’em to you.”

In the desire to prove his veracity he was on his way to the door.  But Keziah stepped in front of him.

“’Bish Pepper,” she said slowly and fiercely, shaking a forefinger in his face, “you go straight home and stay there.  Don’t you breathe a word to a livin’ soul of what you say you’ve seen.  Don’t you even think it, or—­or dream it.  If you do I’ll—­I’ll march straight to Laviny and tell her that you asked me to marry you.  I will, as sure as you’re shakin’ in front of me this minute.  Now you swear to me to keep still.  Swear!”