Wingfold assured them it had been but a pleasure.
It was far from a scrutinizing look with which he regarded them, but
the interview left him with the feeling that their faces were
refined and intelligent, and their speech was good. Again he lifted
his rather shabby hat, the man responded with equal politeness in
removing from a great grey head one rather better, and they turned
from each other and went their ways, the sight of their malformation
arousing in the curate no such questions as those with which it had
agitated the tongue, if not the heart, of George Bascombe, to widen
the scope of his perplexities. He had heard the loud breathing of
the man, and seen the projecting eyes of the woman, but he never
said to himself therefore that they were more hardly dealt with than
he. Had such a thought occurred to him, he would have comforted the
pain of his sympathy with the reflection that at least neither of
them was a curate of the church of England who knew positively
nothing of the foundation upon which that church professed to stand.
How he got through the Sunday he never could have told. What times a
man may get through--he knows not how! As soon as it was over, it
was all a mist--from which gleamed or gloomed large the face of
George Bascombe with its keen unbelieving eyes and scornful lips.
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