Up into the hills, as far away, as high up as possible! A day of sabbath calm, this! Macheson, with the fire in his veins and a sharp pain in his side, climbed as a man possessed. He, too, was fleeing from the unknown. He was many miles away when down in the valley at Thorpe some one spoke of him.
“By the bye,” Gilbert Deyes remarked, looking across the luncheon table at his hostess, “when does this athletic young missioner of yours begin his work of regeneration?”
Wilhelmina raised her eyebrows.
“To-morrow evening, I believe,” she answered. “He is going to speak at the cross-roads. I fancy that his audience will consist chiefly of the children, and Mrs. Adnith’s chickens.”
“Can’t understand,” Austin remarked, “why a chap who can play cricket like that—he did lay on to ’em, too—can be such a crank!”
“He is very young,” Wilhelmina remarked composedly, “and I fancy that he must be a little mad. I hope that Thorpe will teach him a lesson. He needs it.”
“You do not anticipate then,” Deyes remarked, “that his labours here will be crowned with success?”
“He won’t get a soul to hear him,” Stephen Hurd replied confidently. “The villagers all know what Miss Thorpe-Hatton thinks of his coming here. It will be quite sufficient.”
Wilhelmina lit a cigarette and rose to her feet.
“Let us hope so,” she remarked drily. “Please remember, all of you, that this is the Palace of Ease! Do exactly what you like, all of you, till five o’clock. I shall be ready for bridge then.”