uld obey him. He clearly was entitled to her obedience
on such a point. Then she slowly made her way round the garden, and
entered the house at the front door, some quarter of an hour after
the others.

Why should she refuse him? What was it that she wanted in the world?
She liked him, his manners, his character, his ways, his mode of
life, and after a fashion she liked his person. If there was more of
love in the world than this, she did not think that it would ever
come in her way. Up to this time of her life she had never felt any
such feeling. If not for her own sake, why should she not do it for
him? Why should he not be made happy? She had risked a plunge in the
water to get Flo her ball, and she liked him better than she liked
Flo. It seemed that her mind had been altogether changed by that
stroll through the dark alleys.

"Well," said Janet, "how is it to be?"

"He is to come to-morrow, and I do not know how it will be," she
said, turning away to her own room.

CHAPTER III.

SAM BRATTLE.

It was about eleven o'clock when Gilmore passed through the wicket
leading from the vicarage garden to the churchyard. The path he was
about to take crossed simply a corner of the church precincts, as it
came at once upon a public footway leading from the fields through
the churchyard to the town. There was, of course, no stopping the
public path, but Fenwick had been often advised to keep a lock on his
own gate, as otherwise it almost seemed that the vicarage gardens
were open to all Bullhampton. But the lock had never been put on. The
gate was the way by which he and his family went to the church, and
the parson was accustomed to say that however many keys there might
be provided, he knew that there would never be one in his pocket
when he wanted it. And he was wont to add, when his wife would tease
him on the subject, that they who desired to come in decently were
welcome, and that they who were minded to make an entrance indecently
would not be debarred by such rails and fences as hemmed in the
vicarage grounds. Gilmore, as he passed through the corner of the
churchyard, clearly saw a man standing near to the stile leading from
the fields. Indeed, this man was quite close to him, although, from
the want of light and the posture of the man, the face was invisible
to him. But he knew the fellow to be a stranger to Bullhampton. The
dress was strange, the manner was strange, and the mode of standing
was strange