torex looked round and saw him as he went out.

Alice got up in terror. The two stood apart on either side of the
organ bench, staring into each other's faces.

Then Alice went round to the back of the organ and addressed the small
organ-blower.

"Go," she said, "and tell the choir we're waiting for them. It's five
minutes past time."

Johnny ran.

Alice went back to the chancel where Greatorex stood turning over the
hymn books of the choir.

"Jim," she said, "that was Dr. Rowcliffe. Do you think he saw us?"

"It doesn't matter if he did," said Greatorex. "He'll not tell."

"He might tell Father."

Jim turned to her.

"And if he doos, Ally, yo' knaw what to saay."

"That's no good, Jim. I've told you so. You mustn't think of it."

"I shall think of it. I shall think of noothing else," said Greatorex.

* * * * *

The choir came in, aggrieved, and explaining that it wasn't six yet,
not by the church clock.

XLIII

As Rowcliffe went back to his surgery he recalled two things he had
forgotten. One was a little gray figure he had seen once or twice
lately wandering through the fields about Upthorne Farm. The other was
a certain interview he had had with Alice when she had come to ask him
to get Greatorex to sing. That was in November, not long before the
concert. He remembered the suggestion he had then made that Alice
should turn her attention to reclaiming Greatorex. And, though he had
no morbid sense of responsibility in the matter, it struck him with
something like compunction that he had put Greatorex into Alice's head
chiefly to distract her from throwing herself at his.

And then, he had gone and forgotten all about it.

He told himself now that he had been a fool not to think of it. And if
he was a fool, what was to be said of the Vicar, under whose nose this
singular form of choir practice had been going on for goodness knew
how long?

It did not occur to the doctor that if his surgery day had been a
Friday, which was choir practice day, he would have been certain to
have thought of it. Neither was he aware that what he had observed
this evening was only the unforeseen result of a perfectly innocent
parochial arrangement. It had begun at Christmas and again at Easter,
when it was understood that Greatorex, who was nervous about his
voice, should turn up for practice ten minutes before the rest of the
choir to try over his part in an anthem or cantata, s