As Edna left the house, the pastor took his hat from the rack in the hall, and walked silently beside her until she reached the gate.
"Mr. Hammond, your niece is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."
He sighed heavily, and answered, hesitatingly: "Yes, yes. She is more beautiful now than when she first grew up."
"How long has she been a widow?"
"Not quite a year."
The troubled expression settled once more over his placid face, and when Edna bade him good-morning, and had walked some distance, she happened to look back, and saw him still leaning on the little gate under the drooping honeysuckle tendrils, with his gray head bent down on his hand. That Mrs. Powell was in some way connected with Mr. Murray's estrangement from the minister Edna felt sure, and the curiosity which the inquiries of the former had betrayed, told her that she must be guarded in her intercourse with a woman who was an object of distrust even to her own uncle.
Very often she had been tempted to ask Mr. Hammond why Mr. Murray so sedulously shunned him; but the shadow which fell upon his countenance whenever St. Elmo's name was accidentally mentioned, made her shrink from alluding to the subject which he evidently avoided discussing.
Before she had walked beyond the outskirts of the village, Mr. Leigh joined her and she felt the color rise in her cheeks as his fine eyes rested on her face, and his hand pressed hers. "You must forgive me for telling you how bitterly I was disappointed in not seeing you two days ago. Why did you absent yourself from the table?"
"Because I had no desire to meet Mrs. Murray's guests, and preferred to spend my time with Mr. Hammond."
"If he were not old enough to be your grandfather, I believe I should be jealous of him. Edna, do not be offended, I am so anxious about you--so pained at the change in your appearance. Last Sunday as you sat in church I noticed how very pale and worn you looked, and with what weariness you leaned your head upon your hand. Mrs. Murray says you are very well, but I know better. You are either sick in body or mind; which is it?"
"Neither, Mr. Leigh. I am quite well, I assure you."
"You are grieved about something, which you are unwilling to confide to me. Edna, it is keen pain that sometimes brings that quiver to your lips, and if you would only tell me! Edna, I know that I--"