I think that the Bishop knowing how sensitive, how very reticent Mark is, meant only that he should not learn what was confided to you." "I never thought of that, Ann.

You may be right." She made no further comment, except to say, "But to know clears the air and leaves me free to talk to him at need." Penhallow felt that where he himself might be a useless confessor, his wife was surely to be trusted.
"If, Ann, the man could only be got on to the back of a horse--" She won the desirable relief of laughter, and the eyes that were full of the tears of pity for this disastrous life overflowed of a sudden with mirth at the Squire's one remedy for the troubles of this earthly existence.
"Oh, I am in earnest," he said.

"Now I must write to John." When after a week or more she did talk to Mark Rivers, he was the better for it and felt free to speak to her as a younger man may to an older woman and can rarely do to the closest of male friends, for, after all, most friendships have their personal limitations and the man who has not both men and women friends may at some time miss what the double intimacies alone can give.
* * * * * The uneasy sense of something lost was more felt than mentioned that fall at Grey Pine, where quick feet on the stair and the sound of young laughter were no longer heard.

Rivers saw too how distinctly the village folk missed these gay young people.

Mrs.Crocker, of the shop where everything was to be bought, bewailed herself to Rivers, who was the receiver of all manner of woes.