"Will, you've come home, and I'm grateful for it. But--but I do think you're cruel to me. Especially considering what's happened, I did hope you'd begin to think kinder to me." "Mavis," he said solemnly, "it is the finger of God." And he repeated the phrase slowly, with a solemnity that was almost pompous. "It is the finger of God. If that man had not chanced to die in this sudden and startling way, I could never have come home to you. It was the decision I had arrived at before I read of his accident in the paper. Otherwise you'd 'a' never set eyes on me. Now all I can say is, you and I must trust to the future. It will be my endeavor not to look back, and I ask you equally to look forward." She was certain that this was a set speech prepared beforehand. She knew so well the faintly unnatural note in his voice when he was reciting sentences that he had learned by rote: she who had helped in so many rehearsals before his public utterances could not be mistaken. However, she had to be contented with it. And, stilted and stiff as it was, it certainly seemed to imply that she need not relinquish hope. He added something, in the same ponderous style, about the probability of its being advisable to put private inclinations on one side and attend the funeral of the deceased in his public capacity of postmaster. This mark of respect would be expected from him, and people would wonder if he did not pay it. Then he left the parlor, and again spoke to Mary. Mavis, listening, heard him give orders that an unused camp bedstead should be brought down from the clerk's room and made up in the kitchen. He told Mary that he wished to sleep by himself because he felt twinges of rheumatism and was afraid of disturbing the mistress if the pain came on during the night. And Mavis noticed that all the time that he was talking to Mary his voice sounded perfectly natural. Then he went down-stairs, speaking again when he was half-way down. "How goes it, Miss Yorke? Is Mr. Ridgett in the office?" And this time it was absolutely his old voice--rather loud, rather authoritative, but really quite cheerful. Thinking of his manner to her and his manner to others, she believed that she could now understand all that he intended. She was to be held in disgrace perhaps for a long time, but appearances were to be kept up. No breath of scandal was to tarnish the reputation of the Rodchurch postmaster; the curious world must not be allowed the very slightest peep behind the scenes of his private life; and she, without explicit instructions, was to assist in preventing any one--even poor humble Mary--from guessing that as husband and wife they were not as heretofore on the best possible terms. Down below in the sorting-room Dale greeted Mr. Ridgett very heartily.