, for the revelation that there was something nobler than the
acquisition of riches; but I suppose it was because no race ever needed
it so much. And what new revelation--what new message is coming to the
multitudes here in England who are living in a paradise of sensual
gratification, blinded, besotted, their world a sort of gorgeous
pig-stye--"

"Oh, that's all right," Lionel said, cheerfully. "Octavius Quirk has
settled all that. The cure for everything is to be a blowing of the
whole social fabric to bits. Then we're going to begin again all over;
and the New Jerusalem will be reached when each man has to dig for his
own potatoes."

"Quirk!" said Maurice Mangan, contemptuously; and then he took out his
watch. "We'd better be getting back, Linn. We'll just be in time to meet
your people coming out of church."

So they turned and walked leisurely across the gorse-covered downs until
they reached the broad and dusty highway leading towards Winstead
village. And then again they struck into a by-lane with tall hedges, the
banks underneath which were bright with stitchwort and speedwell and
white dead-nettle. Now and again, through a gap or a gate, they caught a
glimpse of the lush meadows golden with buttercups; in one of them there
was a small black pony standing in the shadow of a wide-spreading elm.
They passed some cottages with pretty gardens in front; they stopped for
a second to look at the old-fashioned columbine and monkshood, the
none-so-pretty, the yellow and crimson wall-flower, the peony roses.
Then always around them was this gracious silence, which seemed so
strange after the roar of London; and if the day promised to become
still hotter, at least they had this welcome breeze, that rustled the
quick-glancing poplars, and stirred the white-laden hawthorns, and kept
the long branches of the wych-elms and chestnuts swaying hither and
thither. They were not talking much now; one of them was thinking of a
pair of gray eyes.

At last they came to a turnstile, and, passing through that, found
themselves in one of those wide meadows; at the farther side of it the
red-tiled roof, the gray belfry, and slated spire of Winstead Church
just showed above the masses of green foliage. They crossed the meadow
and entered the churchyard. A perfect silence reigned over the place;
they could not hear what was going on within the small building; out
here there was no sound save the chirping of the birds and the
continuous