No one was by his side; it must have been fancy; but, the next minute, he did descry a man walking along the track he had just left, walking at full speed, with a long swinging step; and, with the man's approach, Mr. Sauls recognised the preacher.
Barnabas came deliberately towards him.
"Have the pixies granted me my wish?" thought George with a sneer. "Now, my holy friend, we'll have it out! I wouldn't have gone out of my way to quarrel with you, for her sake; but if you choose to follow me, why, the meekest of men could not stand that."
He lighted a cigar leisurely, and, with his back against the rail, awaited the preacher's approach; with a satisfaction which, perhaps, the "meekest of men" would hardly have experienced.
"I wanted to catch ye up," said Barnabas; and so the two stood face to face at last, with no one between them.
"At your service," said George. His tone was lazily insolent, though, as a rule, he carefully abstained from patronising his inferiors in rank.
He scanned Barnabas between half-shut eyelids. It was not the least of this fellow's offences that he looked so honest.
"I followed to give ye back this. It's not fitting my wife should tak' aught fro' ye; I'd liefer ye had it again. She's no need o' diamonds, an' if she had, they shouldna be bought wi' your money. She's obliged to 'ee, sir," with an evident after-thought; "an' here they be."
"I am sorry to disoblige," said George, lifting his shoulders. "I will not press a gift on Mrs. Thorpe against her will. When she gives it back to me herself, I'll take it; till then I had 'liefer' she kept it."
The preacher put the locket down on the rail that fenced the pond. "She'll not do that," he said quietly. "Take it or leave it, as you like; it's yours." And he turned to go.