But he did not sit immediately.

His eye traversed the kitchen at a glance.

He saw Mrs.Ray propped up with her pillows, and looking vacantly about her, but his attention seemed to be riveted on Sim, who sat uneasily on the bench, apparently trying to escape the concentrated gaze.
"What have we here ?" he said in a cold and strident voice.

"The man Simeon Stagg?
Is he here too ?" The moment before Rotha had gone into the dairy adjoining, and, coming back, she was handing a bowl of milk to her father.

Sim clutched at the dish with nervous fingers.
The Reverend Nicholas walked with measured paces towards where he sat.
Then he paused, and stood a yard or two behind Sim, whose eyes were still averted.
"I was told you had made your habitation on the hillside; a fitting home, no doubt, for one unfit to house with his fellows." Sim's hand trembled violently, and he set the bowl of milk on the floor beside him.