A few formal enquiries as to health and a certain sick person were made
and answered. Dorcas assured him that they were both quite well, Tabitha
especially, and that she had visited the afflicted woman as directed.

"And how was she, dear?" he asked.

"I don't know, dear," she answered. "You see, when I got to the house
I met Mrs. Tomley, the Rector's wife, at the door, and she said, rather
pointedly I thought, that she and her husband were looking after the
case, and though grateful for the kind assistance you had rendered, felt
that they need not trouble us any more, as the patient was a parishioner
of theirs."

"Did they?" said Thomas with a frown. "Considering all things--well, let
it be."

Dorcas was quite content to do so, for she was aware that her husband's
good-heartedness was apt to be interpreted as poaching by some who
should have known better, and that in fact the ground was dangerous.

"I have something to tell you," she began nervously, "about an
arrangement I have made for this afternoon."

Mr. Bull, who was drinking a tumbler of water--he was a teetotaller
and non-smoker, and one of his grievances was that his wife found it
desirable to take a little wine for the Pauline reason--set it down and
said:

"Never mind your afternoon arrangements, my dear; they are generally
of a sort that can be altered, for _I_ have something to tell _you_,