t suddenly the remembrance of the sound I
had heard came back to me, and a great fear went through me. I hurried
on. Yes, it was too true; the door was locked, locked from the outside,
and we were prisoners--prisoners pretty certainly for the night! I faced
round upon the girls and told them.

'I remember hearing the sound of locking,' I said.

But at first they wouldn't believe me; I could scarcely believe it
myself. We rattled and shook at the door in the silly way people do in
such cases; of course it was no use. Then we made journeys round the
church to all the other doors; none of them had been open in the
daytime, so it wasn't likely they would be now. Then we considered
together if it would be any use shouting, but we were sure it wouldn't
be. There was no house very near the church; the Convalescent Home, on
rising ground a little behind it, was about the nearest, and we knew our
voices could never be heard there. And we were too far back from the
road to hope that any passer-by would hear us; beside which, unluckily,
it was a windy night--the wind had risen a good deal since we had come
out. We could hear it outside, and it almost sounded as if it was
raining too.

'There is nothing for it,' I said at last, 'but to stay quietly and make
ourselves as comfortable as we can till some one comes to let us out.
Mrs. Parsley is sure to miss us and send, as she knows where we are. The
great thing is to keep poor Maud from catching cold.'

I wasn't cold myself; I had been moving about, and then I wasn't getting
well of an illness like the girls. So I took off my ulster and made
Maudie put it on. There were no cushions in the church, but we collected
all the hassocks we could, and built up a sort of little nest, and then
we all huddled in together. It was fast getting dark, and after we had
been sitting there a while we heard the clock outside strike eight.

I couldn't make it out; they _must_ have missed us at the farm before
this. But they hadn't, and I may as well explain here--a lot of
explainings together at the end are so confusing, I think--how it was.
You remember my saying Mrs. Parsley had had bad news that day. Well,
just as Serry called out to her that she and Maud were coming with us
after all, another message had come that she _must_ go at once to the
old lady who was so ill. There was no choice, she had to go, so the
horse was put to and the red-eared boy drove her off. Mr. Parsley hadn't
come in, so a