Bradley nodded, and at once saw the not too cordial manner of the other sink to freezing point.
‘The unfortunate lady was your wife?’
‘Yes; but we had been separated for many years.’
‘Ah, indeed!’ sighed the clergyman with a long-drawn sigh, a furtive glance of repulsion, and an inward exclamation of ‘no wonder!’
‘Although we lived apart, and although, to be frank, there was great misunderstanding between us, all that is over for ever, you understand. It is in a spirit of the greatest tenderness and compassion that I wish to conduct the funeral service—to which I presume there is no objection.’
Mr. Robertson started in amazement, as if a bomb had exploded under his feet.
‘To conduct the funeral service! But you have seceded from the Church of England.’
‘In a sense, yes; but I have never done so formally. I am still an English clergyman.’
‘I could never consent to such a thing,’ cried the other, indignantly. ‘I should look upon it as profanity. Your published opinions are known to me, sir; they have shocked me inexpressibly; and not only in my opinion, but in that of my spiritual superiors, they are utterly unworthy of one calling himself a Christian.’
‘Then you refuse me permission to officiate?’