It was
almost as if Lucius Harney had never had a part in their lives: Mr.
Royall's imperturbable indifference seemed to relegate him to the domain
of unreality.
As she sat at work, she tried to shake off her disappointment at
Harney's non-appearing. Some trifling incident had probably kept him
from joining them at midday; but she was sure he must be eager to see
her again, and that he would not want to wait till they met at supper,
between Mr. Royall and Verena. She was wondering what his first words
would be, and trying to devise a way of getting rid of the Targatt girl
before he came, when she heard steps outside, and he walked up the path
with Mr. Miles.
The clergyman from Hepburn seldom came to North Dormer except when he
drove over to officiate at the old white church which, by an unusual
chance, happened to belong to the Episcopal communion. He was a brisk
affable man, eager to make the most of the fact that a little nucleus of
"church-people" had survived in the sectarian wilderness, and resolved
to undermine the influence of the ginger-bread-coloured Baptist chapel
at the other end of the village; but he was kept busy by parochial work
at Hepburn, where there were paper-mills and saloons, and it was not
often that he could spare time for North Dormer.
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