He searched her face curiously as she rose, and they went together to the other carriage where Dr. Ranken sat reading with one plaid about his shoulders and another over his knees. The old minister looked fragile indeed, but he had maintained a brittle alertness. He smiled his wintry yet rather sweet smile at Joanna, and made her sit by him while he asked about her doings, and about her brothers – mentioning both by name – and about Georgie and Georgie’s baby. It was a clear and pleasing point of vanity with him, this individual remembrance which he kept of each boy and girl who had ever had a place in his flock. And Joanna was the more surprised, as in their childhood he had never seemed to them to notice their existence. Certainly his former bleakness was gone. Time sometimes generous, had given him with his white locks, a distinction quite denied to his middle-age. And it was perhaps his own appreciation of this that made him genial.

“And your mother,” he said presently, – “I was sorry, very sorry to hear of her death. Your mother, my dear, was a good woman.”

“Yes,” said Joanna.

“I never knew a better. And she had courage – a rare gift … a gift I esteem not less but more as I grow older. True, theologically we did not always see eye to eye, your mother and myself …” he twinkled.

So they talked mostly of the early days in Glasgow, of St. Jude’s Church, of the Boyds, of this one’s death, that one’s marriage, the disgrace of that other. And the old man was lively in his interest. As for the young man, he sat smoking and watching, seldom speaking. In answer to Joanna’s questions he told her a little about his work, and she divined that he loved the part of the world where it was. Laconically as he spoke, there was enthusiasm in his description of a certain high mountain which dominated the landscape visible from his bungalow.

But if Bob took no great part in the conversation, he was all the more intent in listening to every least remark of Joanna’s. When they parted at King’s Cross he was emphatic upon the strange coincidence of their meeting. He had meant, he said, the very next day to have sought her out at Chapel Court. Might he still come? He was to be at the least a fortnight in London. Joanna could not but see that his eyes were full of eager reminiscence.

II

But at the Moons’ house there was trouble.

Roddy, who had fallen ill suddenly, was to be operated upon next day. Edwin Moon was white with anxiety. Trissie was grey. He was bowed more than ever. She was more than ever upright. Dreadfully upright she was, with her shoulders thrown back and her desperate head held high.