CHAPTER XVII.


Trenholme went from Mrs. Rexford's door that same day to pay some visits
of duty in the village. The afternoon was warm, and exquisitely bright
with the sort of dazzling brightness that sometimes presages rain. On
his return he met a certain good man who was the Presbyterian minister
of the place. The Scotch church had a larger following in Chellaston
than the English. The clergyman and the minister were friends of a sort,
a friendship which was cultivated on chance occasions as much from the
desire to exercise and display large-mindedness as from the drawings of
personal sympathy. The meeting this afternoon led to their walking out
of the village together; and when the Scotchman had strolled as far as
the college gate, Trenholme, out of courtesy and interest in the
conversation, walked a mile further up the road with him.

Very beautiful was the road on that bright summer day. They heard the
ripple of the river faintly where it was separated from them by the
Harmon garden and the old cemetery. Further on, the sound of the water
came nearer, for there was only the wilderness of half overgrown pasture
and sumac trees between them and it. Then, where the river curved, they
came by its bank, road and river-side meeting in a grove of majestic
pines. The ground here was soft and fragrant with the pine needles of
half a century; the blue water curled with shadowed wave against matted
roots; the swaying firmament was of lofty branches, and the summer wind
touched into harmony a million tiny harps. Minds that were not choked
with their own activities would surely here have received impressions of
beauty; but these two men were engaged in important conversation, and
they only gave impassive heed to a scene to which they were well