te, and she was looking
up at poor Eustace's bug-bear--the barn-like chancel.

Suddenly somebody came up close behind her and spoke to her.

"Can you tell me, please, where the keys of the church are kept?"

A gentleman stood beside her, lifting his hat as he spoke. Vera started
a little at being so suddenly spoken to, but answered quite quietly and
unconfusedly,

"They are generally kept at the vicarage, or else in the clerk's
cottage."

"Thank you; then I will go and fetch them."

"But they are not there now," said Vera, as though finishing her former
remark.

"If you will kindly tell me where I can find them," continued the
stranger, very politely, "I will go and get them."

"I am afraid you can't do that," said Vera, with just the vestige of a
smile playing upon her face, "because they are at present in my pocket."

"Oh, I beg your pardon;" and the stranger smiled outright.

"But I will let you into the church, if you like; if that is what you
wish?" she said, quite simply.

"Yes, if you please." Vera moved up the path to the porch, the gentleman
following her. She turned the key in the heavy door and held it open. "If
you will go in, please, I will take the keys; I must not leave them in
the door." The gentleman went in, and Vera looked at him as he passed by.

Most uninteresting! was her verdict as he passed her; forty at the very
least! What a beautiful situation for an adventure! What a romantic
incident! And how excessively tame is the _denouement_! A middle-aged
gentleman, tall and slightly bald, with close-cropped whiskers and grave,
set features; who on earth could he be? A stranger, evidently; perhaps he
was staying at some neighbouring country house, and had walked over to
Sutton for the sake of exercise; but what on earth could he want to see
the church for!

The stranger stood just inside the door with his hat off, looking at her.

"Won't you come in and show it to me?" he asked, rather hesitatingly.

"The church? oh, certainly, if you like, but there is nothing to see in
it." She came in, closing the door behind her, and stood beside him. It
did not strike her as unusual or interesting, or as anything, in fact,
but the most common-place and unexciting proceeding, that she should do
the honours of the church to this middle-aged stranger.

They stood side by side in the centre of the small nave with all the
ugly, high, red-cushioned pews around them. Vera looked up and down the
familiar