In this mood, which the pure morning air and crisp sunshine tended to favor and prolong, he came at a corner plump upon Mr. Bonamy, who, like all angular, uncomfortable men, was an early riser, and had this morning chosen to extend his before-breakfast walk in the direction of Baerton. The lawyer’s energy had already been rewarded. He had met Mr. Keogh, and learned not only the earlier details of the accident—which were, indeed, known to all Claversham, for the town had sat up into the small hours listening for wheels and discussing the catastrophe—but had further received a minute description of the rector’s conduct. Consequently his thoughts were already busy with the clergyman when, turning a corner, he came unexpectedly upon him. Lindo met his glance and looked away hastily. The rector had been anxious to avoid, by going home at once, any appearance of parading what he had done, and he would have passed on with a brief good-morning. But the lawyer seemed to be differently disposed. He stopped short in the middle of the path, so that the clergyman could not pass him without rudeness, and nodded a jerky greeting. “You have not walked all the way, I suppose, Mr. Lindo?” he said, his keen small eyes reading the other’s face like a book. “No,” the rector answered, coloring uncomfortably under his gaze. “I drove as far as the turnpike, Mr. Bonamy.” “Well, you may think yourself lucky to be well out of it,” the lawyer rejoined, with a dry smile. “To be here at all, indeed,” he continued, with a gesture of the hand which seemed meant to indicate the sunshine and the upper air. “When a man does a foolhardy thing he does not always escape, you know.” The younger man reddened. But this morning he had his temper well under control and he merely answered, “I thought I was called upon to do what I did, Mr. Bonamy. But of course that is a matter of opinion. Perhaps I was wrong, perhaps right. I did what I thought best at the moment, and I am satisfied.” Mr. Bonamy shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, well, every man to his notion,” he said. “I do not approve, myself, of people running risks which do not lie within the scope of their business. And as nothing has happened to you——” “The risk of anything happening,” the rector rejoined, with warmth, “was so small that the thing is not worth discussing, Mr. Bonamy. There is a matter, however,” he continued, changing the subject on a sudden impulse, “which I think I may as well mention to you now as later. You, as churchwarden, have in fact, a right to be informed of it. I——” “You are cold,” said Mr. Bonamy abruptly. “Allow me to turn with you.”