“Oh, it’s possible,” he answered on rejoining her. “What was his name?”
“I do not know,” she answered. “He was not the regular Incumbent. But it was someone that I seemed to know quite well—that I must have been familiar with.”
“It may have been,” he answered carelessly, “though the gulf was wider then than it is now. I’ll try and think. Perhaps it is only your fancy.”
The train drew in, and he found her a corner seat, and stood talking by the window, about common things.
“What did he preach about?” he asked her unexpectedly.
She was puzzled for the moment. “Oh, the old clergyman,” she answered, recollecting. “Oh, Calvary. All roads lead to Calvary, he thought. It was rather interesting.”
She looked back at the end of the platform. He had not moved.
CHAPTER IX
A pile of correspondence was awaiting her and, standing by the desk, she began to open and read it. Suddenly she paused, conscious that someone had entered the room and, turning, she saw Hilda. She must have left the door ajar, for she had heard no sound. The child closed the door noiselessly and came across, holding out a letter.
“Papa told me to give you this the moment you came in,” she said. Joan had not yet taken off her things. The child must have been keeping a close watch. Save for the signature it contained but one line: “I have accepted.”