"Mr. Marston," said the clergyman, gravely, and almost sternly, though
with some embarrassment, "it is a long time since you and I have seen
one another, and many and painful events have passed in the interval.
I scarce know upon what terms we meet. I am prompted to speak to you,
and in a tone, perhaps, which you will hardly brook; and yet, if we
keep company, as it seems likely we may, I cannot, and I ought not, to
be silent."

"Well, Mr. Danvers, I accept the condition--speak what you will," said
Marston, with a gloomy promptitude. "If you exceed your privilege, and
grow uncivil, I need but use my spurs, and leave you behind me preaching
to the winds."

"Ah! Mr. Marston," said Dr. Danvers, almost sadly, after a considerable
pause, "when I saw you close beside me, my heart was troubled within me."

"You looked on me as something from the nether world, and expected to see
the cloven hoof," said Marston, bitterly, and raising his booted foot a
little as he spoke; "but, after all, I am but a vulgar sinner of flesh
and blood, without enough of the preternatural about me to frighten an
old nurse, much less to agitate a pillar of the Church."

"Mr. Marston, you talk sarcastically, but you feel that recent
circumstances, as well as old recollections, might well disturb and
trouble me at sight of you," answered Dr. Danvers.

"Well--yes--perhaps it is so," said Marston, hastily and sullenly, and
became silent for a while.