midable member of his flock, and very conscientiously did Miss Whalley
maintain her calling. She would have preferred to direct Mrs. Lorimer
rather than the mother's help, but since the latter had firmly determined
to take the former's place, she had accepted her with condescension and
allotted to her all the hardest work.

Avery had laboured uncomplainingly in her quiet, methodical fashion, but
now that the stress was over and Miss Whalley safely installed in the
Vicarage drawing-room for tea, she found it impossible not to relax
somewhat, and to make the most of those few exquisite moments of
sanctuary.

She was very far from expecting any invasion of her solitude, and when
after a moment or two she went on with her sweeping she had no suspicion
of another presence in the dark building. She had set herself resolutely
to finish her task, and so energetic was she that she heard no sound of
feet along the aisle behind her.

Some unaccountable impulse induced her to pause at length and still
kneeling, brush in hand, to throw a backward glance along the nave. Then
it was that she saw a man's figure standing on the chancel-steps, and so
unexpected was the apparition that her weary nerves leapt with violence
out of all proportion to the event, and she sprang to her feet with a
startled cry that echoed weirdly through the empty place. Then with a
rush of self-ridicule she recognized Piers Evesham. "Oh, it is you!" she
said. "How stupid of me!"

He came straight to her with an air of determination that would brook no
opposition and took the brush out of her hand. "That's not your job," he
said. "You go and sit down!"

She stared at him in silence, trying to still the wild agitation that his
unlooked-for coming had raised in her. He was wearing a heavy motor-coat,
but he divested himself of this, and without further parley bent himself
to the task of which he had deprived her.

Avery sat down somewhat limply on the pulpit-stairs and watched him. He
was very thorough and far brisker than she could have been. In a very few
minutes the litter was all collected, and Piers turned round and looked
back at her across the dim chancel.

"Feeling better?" he said.

She did not answer him. "What made you come in like that?" she asked.

He replied to the question with absolute simplicity. "I've just brought
Gracie home again. She asked me to tea in the schoolroom, but you weren't
there, and they said I should find you here, so I