Hardacre shuddered every time at the very thought.
In the meantime, with his passion for Dorothy Bannister as consuming as ever, he had nevertheless proceeded very slowly in his effort to merge the now well-recognized friendship between them into something warmer and more intimate. Though he had prided himself he had been all along most tactful, yet almost from the very beginning he had never been quite sure that he was wholly deceiving her and that she had not instinctively sensed what his ultimate intentions were. With others present when he met her, either in the Rectory itself or about the church or in the village, she always gave him a warm and friendly smile as he approached. Her manner then was natural and without the slightest trace of any embarrassment, and she could not be nicer
