“They think the same of us, and perhaps do the laughing more loudly.”

“Ah! let them,” said Robert, not without contemptuous indignation, though his mind was far from the talk.

The sweat was on Edward’s forehead.  “In a few minutes it will be half-past—­half-past eleven!  I expect a friend; that makes me impatient.  Mr. Eccles”—­Edward showed his singular, smallish, hard-cut and flashing features, clear as if he had blown off a mist—­“you are too much of a man to bear malice.  Where is Dahlia?  Tell me at once.  Some one seems to be cruelly driving her.  Has she lost her senses?  She has:—­or else she is coerced in an inexplicable and shameful manner.”

“Mr. Blancove,” said Robert, “I bear you not a bit of malice—­couldn’t if I would.  I’m not sure I could have said guilty to the same sort of things, in order to tell an enemy of mine I was sorry for what I had done, and I respect you for your courage.  Dahlia was taken from here by me.”

Edward nodded, as if briefly assenting, while his features sharpened.

“Why?” he asked.

“It was her sister’s wish.”

“Has she no will of her own?”

“Very little, I’m afraid, just now, sir.”

“A remarkable sister!  Are they of Puritan origin?”

“Not that I am aware of.”

“And this father?”

“Mr. Blancove, he is one of those sort—­he can’t lift up his head if he so much as suspects a reproach to his children.”

Edward brooded.  “I desire—­as I told you, as I told her sister, as I told my father last night—­I desire to make her my wife.  What can I do more?  Are they mad with some absurd country pride?  Half-past eleven!—­it will be murder if they force her to it!  Where is she?  To such a man as that!  Poor soul!  I can hardly fear it, for I can’t imagine it.  Here—­the time is going.  You know the man yourself.”

“I know the man?” said Robert.  “I’ve never set eyes on him—­I’ve never set eyes on him, and never liked to ask much about him.  I had a sort of feeling.  Her sister says he is a good, and kind, honourable young fellow, and he must be.”

“Before it’s too late,” Edward muttered hurriedly—­“you know him—­his name is Sedgett.”

Robert hung swaying over him with a big voiceless chest.

“That Sedgett?” he breathed huskily, and his look was hard to meet.

Edward frowned, unable to raise his head.

“Lord in heaven! some one has something to answer for!” cried Robert.  “Come on; come to the church.  That foul dog?—­Or you, stay where you are.  I’ll go.  He to be Dahlia’s husband!  They’ve seen him, and can’t see what he is!—­cunning with women as that?  How did they meet?  Do you know?—­can’t you guess?”

He flung a lightning at Edward and ran off.  Bursting into the aisle, he saw the minister closing the Book at the altar, and three persons moving toward the vestry, of whom the last, and the one he discerned, was Rhoda.