“Funny!” said Priscilla suddenly, when they were sitting opposite to each other in the dining-car a few hours later. “Funny, isn’t it, that that man with the reddish hair who was working out his sentence for forgery should be the Reverend Sylvanus Purview, who read the marriage service between Marcus Blaydon and myself!”
“Great Gloriana! Are you positive?” cried Jack.
“As positive as I was about the other,” said Priscilla. “And what’s stranger still, he recognized me the moment we entered the tailor’s shop. I saw as much by his face, though I had not recognized him in his prison clothes. He was a temporary hand taken on by Mr. Possnett to do his duty when he was absent on his holiday. He lodged in Mrs. Bowman’s cottage, and went away without paying her. It created rather a scandal in our respectable neighbourhood.”
“The rascal! I suppose he’ll lose his frock, now,” said Jack.
“Mr. Possnett wrote to the Bishop about him; but he had left the diocese, and no one knew what had become of him,” said Priscilla.
“Well, we know now. I wonder what it was he forged. He was clearly a bad egg from the first. How did you feel when you recognized him?”
“Delighted,” cried Priscilla. “I felt as if I were paying him back in full the grudge that I owed him.” Jack laughed.