Dixon Mallaby shook hands with him; the girl, as she drew away from Sam Bunce's arm, bobbed the parson a curtsey. But she never turned her face to him, and Mallaby, thoughtfully watching the pair down the road to the south-west, observed that she never once looked back; for even when, being almost indistinguishable among the moving crowd at the corner of the green, they were hailed by the ostler, toddling quickly from the yard, waving a handkerchief and crying: "Hey, Mr. Bunce, Mr. Sam'l Bunce!" it was only the man who turned his head, waving his hand as if in reply to a belated farewell.
The parson swung round in time to see Melchard snatch the handkerchief from the ostler's hand.
Feeling the clergyman's eyes upon him, he muttered: "Looks like one of mine," and ran the hem quickly through his fingers, prying into the corners.
At the third, he found a mark, and dropped the handkerchief on the stones.
"Of course not," he said, and laughed. "Stupid of me, when I hadn't been in the stables."
Dixon Mallaby picked it up.
"Tis t'yoong wumman's," objected Bandy-legs. "Dropped un inside, stablin' t' 'osses."
But the parson put the handkerchief in his pocket.
"I am acquainted with Miss Bunce," he said. "Perhaps I shall see them again."
With a feeling which he found unreasonable, that he had protected a good woman from a bad man, Mr. Dixon Mallaby went to the dressing-room in "The Royal George."