“It is lost,” he said.
Vic, who was at the woman’s head, understood. She stooped, said something in her ear, then in that of the Postmaster, and left the room. When she came back, two minutes later, Mr. Jones was with her. What she had done to him to sober him no one ever knew. But he had a book in his hand, and on the dingy black of his waistcoat there shone a little gold cross. He came to where the two lay. Vic drew from her finger a ring. What then occurred was never forgotten by any who saw it; and you could feel the stillness, it was so great, after a high, sing-song voice said: “Those whom God hath joined let no man put asunder.”
The two lying cheek by cheek knew now that they could die in peace.
The sing-song voice rose again in the ceremony of blessing, but suddenly it quavered and broke, the man rose, dropping the prayer-book to the floor, and ran quickly out of the room and into the dust of the street, and on, on into the plains.
“In the name of God, who is he?” said Dicky Merritt to Victoria Lindley.
“He was the Reverend Jones Leverton, of Harfordon-Thames,” was her reply.
“Once a priest, always a priest,” added Dicky. “He’ll never come back,” said the girl, tears dropping from her eyes.
And she was right.