“Then you were not with him when they set on him?”
“No, we had parted.”
“And you went back?”
“Of course we did!”
“It was imprudent,” he said, “very imprudent. If we had not come up at that moment you might have been murdered.”
“And if we had not gone back, Mr. Colet might have been murdered!” she answered. “What he had done to offend them——”
“I think I can tell you that. He’s the curate at Riddsley, isn’t he? Who’s been preaching up cheap bread and preaching down the farmers?”
“Perhaps so,” Mary answered. “He may be. But is he to be murdered for that? From your tone one might think so.”
“No,” he replied slowly, “he is not to be murdered for it. But whether he is wise to preach cheap bread to starving men, whether he is wise to tell them that they would have it but for this man or that man, this class or that class—is another matter.”
She was not convinced—the sermon had keyed her thoughts to a high pitch. But he spoke reasonably, and he had the knack of speaking with authority, and she said no more. And on his side he had no wish to quarrel. He had come down to Riddsley partly to shoot, partly to look into the political situation, but a little—there was no denying it—to learn how Mary Audley fared with her uncle.