ght have
been able, had he not been so intent on Becky's story, to slip past
the dusty bales and cases and out into--what? But Chris's head was
ringing with Ned Cilley's tale, and with all the things, so different
and so absorbing, that surrounded him. He put out his hand, knocked,
and on hearing a low reply, stepped inside.

The room Chris entered, his eyes round in order to take in every new
sight, was a small study. It stretched across the back of the house.
The kitchen fireplace had its echo in a fireplace on this side of the
wall, and facing Chris three windows looked out onto the pleached pear
and apple trees; the ordered rows of the vegetable and herb garden. A
final window at the end of the room, at Chris's left, looked out on a
little hill behind the house. Chris, without thinking, stepped forward
a pace or two in order to look for the familiar ugly red and gray
church at the end of Church Lane. It was not to be seen. There was
only a pasture hemmed by woods and fine trees with, in the distance
where M Street should be, a roof or two.

A thin voice, that came from nowhere and was everywhere, broke in to
Chris.

"No, my boy. The church is not yet built. That will come in seventy
years. In eighteen-sixty, to be exact. Confusing, is it not?"

Chris whipped about at the sound of the antiquarian's voice but for a
moment longer he could not see him, and looked toward the other end of
the room with interest.

Mr. Wicker's study was cosy and bright, well warmed by a cheerfully
burning fire. The heavy curtains, drawn back now from the windows to
let in the morning sun, were of a fine ruby damask. The furniture
consisted, as far as Chris was concerned, of antiques. Two wing chairs
covered in red leather, tacked at the edges with brassheaded nails,
looked invitingly comfortable. One had its back to Chris and the door,
and the other was empty. Both were drawn close to the snapping logs. A
grandfather clock stood in the corner between the fireplace and the
first window, and gave out a steady deep tock. The carpet was a soft
Indian rug of fine texture and many colors, red, blue, and gold
predominating. Most surprisingly, a steep spiral staircase of polished
wood came down into the room in the right-hand corner near where Chris
stood, and Chris wondered for a moment, if Mr. Wicker's voice had come
from the top of the stair.

Turning back, he saw that a desk, opposite him, stood between the two
windows that faced the g