Prince struggled a little at first, but Betty soothed him and then crept inside.
'I'm afraid I've come too late,' she murmured, as she looked round the silent church and saw no signs of the lady; 'but I'll come another day soon and see her.'
Softly she made her way round to the stained-glass window she loved, but started in astonishment when she saw leaning against the monument a tall, strange gentleman.
He did not see Betty; his brows were knitted and his lips twitching strangely under his heavy dark moustache; with folded arms he stood leaning against the pillar, and looking down upon the fair figure of the recumbent child in front of him. Then he stooped, and taking up one of the fading lilies across the child's hands looked at it wonderingly.
'The picture more lasting than the thing itself,' he muttered; 'it is all that is left us; the fragile productions of nature cannot exist long in this hard, rough world, and yet how I tried to shield her from every blast!'
A slight whine from Prince startled him, and looking round he pulled himself together sternly.
'What are you doing here, little girl?'
Almost the same words that had been said to her in the wood the other day; and Betty began to wonder if she were again on forbidden ground.
'Does the church belong to you?' she asked, standing her ground, and looking up through her long dark lashes rather shyly; 'am I where I oughtn't to be? I came to see that little girl.'
He looked at her.