That afternoon the Vicar of Marley was paying house-to-house visits among his humbler parishioners. Though his conversation was the weak point to which attention has been drawn, Hugh Woodgate nevertheless possessed the not too common knack of chatting with the poor. He had the simplicity which made them kin, and his sympathy, unlike that of so many persons who consider themselves sympathetic, was not exclusively reserved for the death-bed and the ruined home. He wrote letters for the illiterate, found places for the unemployed, knew one baby from another as soon as their own mothers, and with his own hand sent to the local papers full reports of the village matches in which he rarely scored a run. Until this August afternoon he was not aware that he had made an actual enemy in all the years that he had spent in Delverton, first as an overworked Northborough curate, and latterly as one of the busiest country vicars in the diocese. But towards five o'clock, as Mr. Woodgate was returning to the Vicarage, a carriage and pair, sweeping past him in a cloud of dust, left the clergyman quite petrified on the roadside, his soft felt hat still in his hand; the carriage contained Mrs. Venables, who had simply stared him in the face when he took it off.  
Woodgate was quite excited when he reached the Vicarage. Morna met him in the garden.
 
"Mrs. Venables cut me dead!" he cried while they were still yards apart.
 
"I am not surprised," replied Morna, who was in a state of suppressed excitement herself.
 
"But what on earth is the meaning of it?"
 
"She has just been here."
 
"Well?"
 
"She is not likely to come again. Oh, Hugh, I don't know how to tell you! If you agree with her for a moment, if you see any possible excuse for the woman, it will break my heart!"
 
Morna's fine eyes were filled with tears; the sight of them put out the flame that had leapt for once from stolid Hugh, and he took her hand in his own great soothing grasp.
 
"Come and sit down," he said, "and tell me all about it. Have I ever taken anybody's part against you, Morna, that you should think me likely to begin now?"
 
"No; but you would if you thought they were right and I was wrong."
 
Hugh reflected until they reached the garden-seat upon the lawn.
 
"Well, not openly, at all events," said he; "and not under any circumstances I can conceive in which Mrs. Venables was the other person."
 
"But she isn't the only other person; that is just it. Oh, Hugh, you do like Rachel, don't you?"
 
"I do," he said emphatically. "But surely you haven't been quarrelling with her?"
 
"No, indeed! And that is exactly why I have quarrelled with Mrs. Venables, because I wouldn't refuse to go to the dinner-party at Normanthorpe to-night!"
 
Woodgate was naturally nonplussed.
 
"Wouldn't refuse?" he echoed.
 
"Yes. She actually asked me not to go; and now I do believe she has gone driving round to ask everybody else!"
 
Woodgate's amazement ended in a guffaw.
 
"And that is what you quarrelled about!" he roared. "The woman must be mad. What reason did she give?"
 
"She had a reason, dear."
 
"But not a good one! There can be no excuse for such an action, let alone a good reason!"
 
Morna looked at her husband with sidelong anxiety, wondering whether he would say as much when he had heard all. She was sure enough of him. But as yet they had never differed on a point that mattered, and the one which was coming mattered infinitely to Morna.
 
"Hugh," she began, "do you remember being with Rachel yesterday at Hornby, when she was introduced to Sir Baldwin Gibson?"
 
"Perfectly," said Hugh.
 
"He is the judge, you know."
 
"Yes, yes."
 
"Did you think they looked as though they had ever seen each other before?"
 
The vicar revolved where he sat, looking his wife suddenly in the face, while a light broke over his own.
 
"Now you speak of it," he cried, "they did! It didn't strike me at the time. I was rather surprised at her being so nervous, but that never occurred to me as the explanation. Yet now I have no doubt about it. You don't mean to say he knows something against Mrs. Steel, and has been giving her away?"
 
"No, dear, the judge has not; but you were not the only one who saw the meeting; and other eyes are more suspicious than yours, Hugh. Darling, you would not think the worse of Rachel for keeping her past life to herself, would you, especially if it had been a very unhappy one?"
 
"Of course not; it is no business of ours."
 
"So you told Mrs. Venables the day she came to tell us Mr. Steel was married, and so I told her again this afternoon. However, that is not her main point, and there is another thing I am still surer you would never do. If a person had been put upon her trial, and found not guilty in open court, you would not treat her as though she had been found guilty, would you—even though the verdict had come as a surprise?"
 
"Of course I would not, Morna; no decent Christian would, I should hope! Bu............