This was his speech, as he dismounted from Goliath and picketed the mule.
“Come in, parson,” said Hale, “and we’ll have a chat in my room, for Mary is busy, as you hear, with her guitar, on the back porch.”
“It is of Mary I have come to speak, and moreover of one other, brother Hale; will we be wholly alone?” the parson inquired.
“Wholly so; is there any news?” asked the judge, feeling a dread of coming evil.
“None, other than that I have told you. Now let us talk to the point. Do you not know me?”
The parson’s manner suddenly changed. He dropped the singsong way in which he always spoke. Judge Hale looked him fairly in the face, and answered slowly:
“No, though you recall one to me long since dead.”
“Who is that one?”
“A clergyman who fell from grace, killed a friend, and was sentenced to prison for life.”