The porch, too, was empty. Perhaps he had really gone. Perhaps—she almost began to hope he had never been there, that she had imagined him. She walked slowly beside Mrs. Colquhoun along the path to the churchyard gate. Stephen had hurried off to a sick-bed, Mr. Lambton had withdrawn to his lodgings to prepare his Sunday sermons.
‘I’m afraid you felt unwell in church,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun, suiting her steps to Catherine’s, which were small and slow, which, in fact, dragged.
‘I have rather a headache to-day,’ said Catherine, in a voice that trailed away into indistinctness, for, on turning a bend in the path, there once more was Christopher.
He was examining George’s tomb.
Mrs. Colquhoun saw him at the same moment, and her attention was at once diverted from Catherine. Strangers were rare in that quiet corner of the world, and she scrutinised this one with keen, interested eyes. The young man in his leather motoring-clothes pleased her, for not only was he a well-set-up young man, but he was reading poor Mr. Cumfrit’s inscription bareheaded. So, in her opinion, should all hic jacet inscriptions be read. It showed, thought Mrs. Colquhoun, a rather delicate reverence, not usually found in these wild scorchers of the road. If Mr. Cumfrit had been the Unknown Warrior himself his inscription couldn’t have been read more respectfully.
She was pleased, and wondered complacently who the stranger could be; and almost before she had had time to wonder, he turned from the tomb and came towards them.
‘Why, he seems——’ she began; for the young man was showing signs of recognition, his face was widening in greeting, and the next moment he was holding out his hand to her companion.
‘How do you do,’ he said, with such warmth that she concluded he must be Mrs. Cumfrit’s favourite nephew. She had never heard of any nephews, but most families have got some.
‘How do you do,’ replied her companion, with no warmth at all—with, indeed, hardly any voice at all.
The newcomer, standing bareheaded in the sun, seemed red all over. His face was very red, and his hair glowed. She liked the look of him. Vigour. Life. A relief after her bloodless companion.