“M’sieu’ Varley?” the priest responded, and watched a galloping horseman to whom Finden had pointed, till he rounded the corner of a little wood.
“Varley, the great London surgeon, sure! Say, father, it’s a hundred to one she’d take him, if—”
There was a curious look in Father Bourassa’s face, a cloud in his eyes. He sighed. “London, it is ver’ far away,” he remarked obliquely.
“What’s to that? If she is with the right man, near or far is nothing.”
“So far—from home,” said the priest reflectively, but his eyes furtively watched the other’s face.
“But home’s where man and wife are.”
The priest now looked him straight in the eyes. “Then, as you say, she will not marry M’sieu’ Varley—hein?”
The humour died out of Finden’s face. His eyes met the priest’s eyes steadily. “Did I say that? Then my tongue wasn’t making a fool of me, after all. How did you guess I knew—everything, father?”
“A priest knows many t’ings—so.”
There was a moment of gloom, then the Irishman brightened. He came straight to the heart of the mystery around which they had been maneuvering. “Have you seen her husband—Meydon—this year? It isn’t his usual time to come yet.”