They ate, therefore, and talked
little for a while: there would be time for talk on the long homeward
ride. But when, in Homer's words, they had put from them the desire of
meat and drink, and had mounted and bidden Mrs. Tossell farewell, Parson
Chichester reopened the conversation.
"You believe the child's story, then?"
"Why, of course; and so must you. Man alive, truth was written all over
it!"
"Yes, yes; I was using a fashion of speech. And the boy?"
"Is Miles Chandon's son. On that too you may lay all Lombard Street to
a china orange." In the twilight Miss Sally leaned forward for a moment
and smoothed her roan's mane. "You know the history, of course?"
"Very little of it. I knew, to be sure, that somehow Chandon had made a
mess of things--turned unbeliever, and what not--"
"Is that all?" Miss Sally, for all her surprise, appeared to be
slightly relieved. "But I was forgetting. You're an unmarried man: a
wife would have taught you the tale and a hundred guesses beside.
Of all women in the world, parsons' wives are the most inquisitive."
Mr. Chichester made no reply to this. She glanced at him after a pause,
and observed that he rode with set face and looked straight ahead
between his horse's ears.
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