The carver raised his long arm and pointed in the direction of Leo’s Hill. “Twenty years,” he said, “have I been working on this stone. I used to despise such work. Then I grew to care for it. Then there came a change. I loved the work! It was the only thing I loved. I loved to feel the stone under my hands, and to watch it yielding to my tools. I think the soul of it must have passed into my soul. It seemed to know me; to respond to me. We became like lovers, the stone and I!” He laughed an uneasy, disconcerting laugh; and went on. “But that is not all. Another change came. _She_ came into my life. I needn’t tell you, Miss Seldom, who I mean. You know well enough. These things cannot be hidden. Nothing can be hidden that happens here! She came and was kind to me. She is kind to me still. But they have got hold of her. She can’t resist them. Why she can’t, I cannot say; but it seems impossible. She talks to me like a person in a dream. They’re going to marry her to that brute Goring. You’ve heard that I suppose? But of course it’s nothing to you! Why should it be?” He paused, and Vennie interrupted him sharply. “It is a great deal to us, Mr. Andersen! Every cruel thing that is done in a place affects everyone who lives in the place. If Mr. Taxater and--and Mr. Clavering--thought that Miss Traffio was being driven into this marriage, I’m sure they would not allow it! They would do something--everything--to stop such an outrage. Wouldn’t you, Mr. Taxater?” “But surely, Vennie,” said the theologian, “you have heard something of this? You can’t be quite so oblivious, as all that, to the village scandal?” He spoke with a certain annoyance as people are apt to do, when some disagreeable abuse, which they have sought to forget, is brought vividly before them. Vennie, too, became irritable. The question of Lacrima’s marriage had more than once given her conscience a sharp stab. “I think it is a shame to us all,” she cried vehemently, “that this should be allowed. It is only lately that I’ve heard rumours of it, and I took them for mere gossip. It’s been on my mind.” She looked almost sternly at the theologian. “I meant to talk to you about it. But other things came between. I haven’t seen Lacrima for several weeks. Surely, if it is as Mr. Andersen says, something ought to be done! It is a horrible, perfectly horrible idea!” She covered her face with her hands as if to shut out some unbearable vision. James Andersen watched them both intently, leaning against the wood-work of the church-door.