ere she was hunting a rabbit. The
voice, the sights, the sounds of nature, all served to obliterate the
effect of life, as she had, hitherto, regarded it, upon her processes
of thought. Archie Windebank's wealth, social position and career were
as nought to her; he appealed to her only as a man, and her conceivable
relationship to him was but as female to male.

All other considerations, which she had before believed of importance,
now seemed trivial and inept. She wondered how she could have been
blinded for so long. She bitterly reproached herself for her high-flown
scruples, which now savoured of unwholesome affectation; but for these,
she might not only have been a happy wife, but she might, also, have
proved the means of conferring happiness upon another, and he a dearly
loved one.

She called to Jill and sorrowfully went home. Three weeks later was
Whit Monday, a day which, being a holiday, she was able to devote to
her own uses. She had planned to walk to the village of Preen, an
ancient hamlet set upon a hill that overlooked Salisbury Plain, which
was distant some five miles from Melkbridge; but, at the last moment,
her distress of mind was such that she abandoned the excursion.
Lethargy had succeeded to her disturbed thoughts--lethargy that made
her look on life through grey spectacles. Instead of setting out for
Preen, she walked aimlessly about the town, accompanied by Jill.
Presently she went up Church Walk, at the top of which she saw that the
church door was open. She had a fancy for walking by the grave-stones,
so Mavis tied Jill up to the gate of the churchyard with the lead which
she usually carried.

As Mavis wandered among the moss-grown stones, which bore almost
undecipherable inscriptions, she wondered if those they covered had led
happy, contented lives, or if they were afflicted with unquiet
thoughts, unsatisfied longings, and dull despair, as she was. The
church was empty and cool; she walked inside, to sit in the first pew
she chanced upon. It was the first time that she had sat all alone in
the church; its venerable appearance now cried aloud for recognition
and appreciation. As if to accentuate its antiquity, some of the aisles
and walls bore the disfiguring evidences of an unfinished electric
light and electric organ-blowing installation, which was in the process
of being made, despite the protests of the more conservative among the
worshippers. She did not know whether to stay or to go; s