The man did not speak. He seemed to have fallen into a reverie. Cordelia stirred restlessly in her seat.
"Did you say you would help me?" she asked at last, timidly.
"Help you?" The man seemed to have forgotten what she had been speaking of.
"Help me to find them, you know—those people I'm looking for."
"Why, of course," laughed the man, easily. "Who are—" He stopped abruptly. For the second time an odd expression crossed his face. "Are they—Sunbridge people?" he asked, stooping to pick up a dried leaf from the gallery floor.
"Yes, Mr. Edwards. There are four of them—three men and one woman. They are John Sanborn, Lester Goodwin, James Hunt, and Mrs. Lizzie Higgins. Maybe you know some of them. Do you?"
"Well, Miss Cordelia,"—the man stopped a minute, as he reached for a leaf still farther away—"is that quite to be expected?" he asked then, lightly.
"No, I suppose not," she sighed; "for, of course, Texas is big. But if you would please just put their names down on paper same as the others have, that would help a great deal."
"Why, certainly," agreed the man, reaching into his pocket and bringing out a little notebook not unlike the minister's. "Now suppose you—you give me those names again, Miss Cordelia."
"John Sanborn, Lester Goodwin, James Hunt, and Mrs. Lizzie Higgins. And I am Cordelia Wilson, you know. Just 'Sunbridge, New Hampshire,' would reach me—if you found any of them."