Trewhella seemed relieved and, after a moment's awkwardness in which he gave her the idea that he was on the verge of thanks, departed to his business.
So, not on the following Sunday, for that would have looked like too easy a surrender, but on the Sunday after that, Jenny and May went in the wake of the household to the Free Church—a gaunt square of whitewashed stone, whose interior smelt of varnish and stale hymn-books and harmonium dust. The minister, a compound of suspicion, petty authority and deep-rooted servility, had bicycled from Camston and had in consequence a rash of mud on his coat. Without much fire, gnawing his mustache when in need of a word, he gave a dreary political address in which several modern statesmen were allotted prototypes in Israel. The mean Staffordshire accent destroyed whatever beauty was left to his maimed excerpts from Holy Scripture.
"What a terrible man!" whispered Jenny to May.
Presently during the extempore prayers, when the congregation took up the more comfortable attitude of prayer by bending towards their laps, Jenny perceived that the eyes of each person were surreptitiously fixed on her. She could see the prying sparkle through coarse fingers—a sparkle that was instantly quenched when she faced it. Jenny prodded May.
"Come on," she whispered fiercely. "I'm going out of this dog's island."
May looked alarmed by the prospect of so conspicuous an exit, but loyally followed Jenny as they picked their way over what seemed from their upright position a jumble of corpses. An official, either more indomitably curious or less anxiously self-repressive than the majority, hurried after them.
"Feeling slight, are 'ee, missus?" inquired this red-headed farmer.
"No, thanks," said Jenny.
"It do get very hot with that stove come May month. I believe it ought to be put out. And you're not feeling slight?"
"No, thanks."