came, and he went down to church in the morning as usual, but
dressed with more scruples than was customary. Far up the glen the bell
jangled through the trees of the Duke's policies, and the road was busy
with people bound for the sermon of Dr. Colin. They walked down the glen
in groups, elderly women with snow-white piped caps, younger ones
with sober hoods, and all with Bibles carried in their napkins and
southernwood or tansy between the leaves. The road was dry and sandy;
they cast off their shoes, as was their custom, and walked barefoot,
carrying them in their hands till they came to the plane-tree at the
cross-roads, and put them on again to enter the town with fit decorum.
The men followed, unhappy in their unaccustomed suits of broad-cloth or
hodden, dark, flat-faced, heavy of foot, ruminant, taming their secular
thoughts as they passed the licensed houses to some harmony with the
sacred nature of their mission. The harvest fields lay half-garnered,
smoke rose indolent and blue from cot-houses and farm-towns; very high
up on the hills a ewe would bleat now and then with some tardy sorrow
for her child. A most tranquil day, the very earth breathing peace.

The Paymaster and Miss Mary sat together in Keils pew, Gilian with them,
conscious of a new silk cravat. But his mind almost unceasingly was set
upon a problem whose solution lay behind him. Keils pew was in front,
the Maam pew was at least seven rows behind, in the shadow of the loft,
beneath the cushioned and gated preserve of the castle. One must not at
any time look round, even for the space of a second, lest it should be
thought he was guilty of some poor worldly curiosity as to the occupants
of the ducal seat, and to-day especially, Gilian dared not show
an unusual interest in the Turner pew. His acute ear had heard its
occupants enter after a loud salutation from the elder at the plate to
the General, he fancied there was a rustle of garments such as had not
been heard there for three years. All other sounds in the church--the
shuffle of feet, the chewing of sweets with which the worshippers in
these parts always induce wakefulness, the noisy breathing of Rixa as
he hunched in his corner beside the pulpit--seemed to stop while a skirt
rustled. A glow went over him, and unknowing what he did he put forward
his hand to take his Bible off the book-board.

Miss Mary from the corners of her eyes, and without turning her face in
the slightest degree from the