She held out her hand and he took it. He knew that his was trembling, but so, too, was hers. The hands fell apart. Grace entered the house and John Ellery went out at the gate.
That night Keziah, in the sitting room, trying to read, but finding it hard to keep her mind on the book, heard her parson pacing back and forth over the straw-matted floor of his chamber. She looked at the clock; it was nearly twelve. She shut the book and sighed. Her well-meant words of consolation had been a mistake, after all. She should not have spoken Grace Van Horne's name.
CHAPTER XVI
IN WHICH THE MINISTER BOARDS THE SAN JOSE
“Hey, Mr. Ellery!”
It was Captain Zeb Mayo who was calling. The captain sat in his antique chaise, drawn by the antique white horse, and was hailing the parsonage through a speaking trumpet formed by holding both his big hands before his mouth. The reins he had tucked between the edge of the dashboard and the whip socket. If he had thrown them on the ground he would still have been perfectly safe, with that horse.
“Mr. Ellery, ahoy!” roared Captain Zeb through his hands.
The window of Zoeth Peters's house, next door to the Regular church, was thrown up and Mrs. Peters's head, bound with a blue-and-white handkerchief in lieu of a sweeping cap, was thrust forth into the crisp March air.
“What is it, Cap'n Mayo?” screamed Mrs. Peters. “Hey?”