The clergyman stared a moment, and then without comment he walked aside and looked over the hedge. He smiled feebly at the well-known prospect. Was it possible, he asked himself, that they thought he could swallow this? That they deemed him so simple, so rustic, that such a piece of play-acting as this could impose upon him? Beyond a doubt they were in league together; with their fine story and their apt surprise, and "my lady" in his garden. The only point on which he felt doubt was the advantage they looked to draw from it, since the moment he reached the Hall the bubble must burst.
He turned by-and-by, thinking in his honest cunning to resolve that doubt. He found Tom in a sort of maze staring at the ground, and the girl watching him with a strange smile. For the first time the good vicar had recourse to the wisdom of the serpent. "Had I not better go to the Hall at once," he said blandly, "and send a carriage for my lady?"
"Go to the Hall without seeing her?" Tom cried, awakening from his reverie. "Not I! I go to her straight. Sophia? Sophia? Good Lord!"
"And so do I, sir, by your leave," the girl cried pertly. "And at once. I know my duty."
"And you're the man to show us the way," Tom continued heartily, slapping his reverence on the back. "No more going up and down at random for me! Let's to her at once! We can find a messenger to go to the Hall, when we have seen her. But Lord! I can't get over it! When was she married, my girl?"
"Well," Betty answered demurely, "'twas the same day, I believe, as your honour was to have been married."
Tom winced and looked at her askance. "You know that, you baggage, do you?" he cried.
"So it went in the steward's room, sir!"
But the vicar, his suspicions confirmed by their decision not to go to the Hall, hung back. "I think I had better go on," he said. "I think Sir Hervey should be warned."
"Oh, hang Sir Hervey!" Tom answered handsomely. "Why is he not looking after his wife? Lead on! Lead on, do you hear, man? How far is it?"