"Surely you would have me say what I think?"
"Not on such a matter as this, in which any false encouragement may produce so much increased suffering. You, yourself, are so prone to take your own views in opposition to those of others that you should be specially on your guard when you may do so much harm."
"I feel quite sure that he had nothing to do with it."
"You see that you have the police against you after a most minute and prolonged investigation."
"The police are asses," insisted the Vicar.
"Just so. That is, you prefer your own opinion to theirs in regard to a murder. I should prefer yours to theirs on a question of scriptural evidence, but not in such an affair as this. I don't want to talk you over, but I wish to make you careful with other people who are so closely concerned. In dealing with others you have no right to throw over the ordinary rules of evidence."
The Vicar accepted the rebuke and promised to be more careful,—repeating, however, his own opinion about Sam, to which he declared his intention of adhering in regard to his own conduct, let the police and magistrates say what they might. He almost went so far as to declare that he should do so even in opposition to the verdict of a jury; but Gilmore understood that this was simply the natural obstinacy of the man, showing itself in its natural form.
At this moment, which was certainly one of gloom to the parish at large, and of great sorrow at the Vicarage, the Squire moved about with a new life which was evident to all who saw him. He went about his farm, and talked about his trees, and looked at his horses and had come to life again. No doubt many guesses as to the cause of this were made throughout his establishment, and some of them, probably, very near the truth. But, for the Fenwicks there was no need of guessing. Gilmore had been told that Mary Lowther was coming to Bullhampton in the early summer, and had at once thrown off the cloak of his sadness. He had asked no further questions; Mrs. Fenwick had found herself unable to express a caution; but the extent of her friend's elation almost frightened her.
"I don't look at it," she said to her husband, "quite as he does."
"She'll have him now," he answered, and then Mrs. Fenwick said nothing further.