“Yes, I did, and I thought it very cruel.”
“Don’t you like me to throw stones at the birds?”
“Certainly I do not.”
“Then I won’t,” said Dexter; and he took aim with the round stone he carried at the stone urn on the top of a tomb, hitting it with a sounding crack.
“There, wasn’t that a good aim!” he said, with a smile of triumph. “It couldn’t hurt that. That wasn’t cruel.”
Helen turned crimson with annoyance, for she had suddenly become aware of the fact that a gentleman, whom she recognised as the Vicar, was coming along the path quickly, having evidently seen the stone-throwing.
She was quite right in her surmise. It was the Vicar; and not recognising her with her veil down, he strode toward them, making up an angry speech.
“Ah, Miss Grayson,” he said, raising his hat, and ceasing to make his stick quiver in his hand, “I did not recognise you.”
Then followed the customary hand-shakings and inquiries, during which Dexter hung back, and gazed up at the crocketed spire, and at the jackdaws flying in and out of the slits which lit the stone staircase within.
“And who is this?” said the Vicar, raising his glasses to his eyes, but knowing perfectly well all the time, he having been one of the first to learn of the doctor’s eccentricity. “Ah, to be sure; Doctor Grayson’s protégé. Yes, I remember him perfectly well, and I suppose you remember me!”