ter him into the distance.

In spite of the scene in church, Abel had felt no resentment against
Judy. He knew that she had made herself ridiculous in the eyes of
the congregation, and that people were pitying him on account of
her hopeless infatuation for the young clergyman, but because he was
indifferent to her in his heart, he was able to look at the situation
from an impersonal point of view, and to realize something of what she
had suffered. When Solomon had railed at her after the service, Abel had
stopped him in indignation.

"If you can't speak civilly to my wife, you can leave my house," he said
sharply.

"Good God, man! Don't you know she's making a laughin' stock of you?"

"That's a lie!" Abel had replied curtly, and Solomon, with the craven
spirit of all natural despots, had muttered beneath his breath that he
"reckoned, after all, it must have been a sudden attack of sickness."

Of the attack and its nature Abel had said no word after this even to
Judy. During that embarrassed walk out of the church, while she clung
sobbing hysterically to his arm, he had resolved once for all that,
even though her behaviour cost him his ambition, he would never stoop to
reproach her. What right, indeed, had he to reproach her when he loved
Molly quite as madly, if not so openly, as she loved the rector? It was
as if he looked on Judy's suffering through his own, and was therefore
endowed with a quality of understanding which his ordinary perceptions
would never have given him.

When he came in sight of the mill, the flash of red wheels caught his
eyes, and he distinguished Mr. Mullen's gig in the road in front of the
door. Having seen Judy as he rode by on his round of visits, the rector
had stopped for a moment to inquire if she had entirely recovered her
health.

"I was much concerned about her illness in church yesterday," he
remarked, turning to the miller.

"I didn't know she was up," replied Abel, observing the inflamed and
swollen state of her features, which had apparently escaped the notice
of Mr. Mullen. "Oughtn't you to have stayed in bed, Judy?" he asked
kindly.

"Oh, no, I'd rather be about," responded Judy hurriedly. "I came over
from the house with a message for you when I saw Mr. Mullen passin'."

"I am trying a young horse of Jim Halloween's," said the clergyman, "my
bay has gone lame, and Jim offered me this one for the day. Badly broken
and needs a firm bit. I'm inclined to believe that he h