s he no longer believed the
Government susceptible to public opinion; perhaps he had lost faith in
the people themselves! The people were the same always; the people never
change, only individuals change.

And at the end of the sandy spit, where some pines had grown and seeded,
he stood looking across the silvery lake wondering if his parishioners
had begun to notice the change that had come over him since Nora Glynn
left the parish, and as her name came into his mind he was startled out
of his reverie by the sound of voices, and turning from the lake, he saw
two wood-gatherers coming down a little path through the juniper-bushes.
He often hid himself in the woods when he saw somebody coming, but he
couldn't do so now without betraying his intention, and he stayed where
he was. The women passed on, bent under their loads. Whether they saw
him or not he couldn't tell; they passed near enough for him to
recognize them, and he remembered that they were in church the day he
alluded to Nora in his sermon. A hundred yards further on the women
unburdened and sat down to rest a while, and Father Oliver began to
consider what their conversation might be. His habit of wandering away
by himself had no doubt been noticed, and once it was noticed it would
become a topic of conversation. 'And what they do be saying now is,
"That he has never been the same man since he preached against the
schoolmistress, for what should he be doing by the lake if he wasn't
afraid that she made away with herself?" And perhaps they are right,' he
said, and walked up the shore, hoping that as soon as he was out of
sight the women would forget to tell when they returned home that they
had seen him walking by the lake.

All the morning he had been trying to keep Nora Glynn out of his mind,
but now, as he rambled, he could not put back the memory of the day he
met her for the first time, nearly two years ago, for to-day was the
fifteenth of May; it was about that time a little later in the year; it
must have been in June, for the day was very hot, and he had been riding
fast, not wishing to keep Catherine's dinner waiting, and as he pushed
his bicycle through the gate, he saw the great cheery man, Father Peter,
with a face like an apple, walking up and down under the sycamores
reading his breviary. It must have been in June, for the mowers were in
the field opposite, in the field known as the priest's field, though
Father Peter had never rented it. There