"There's a little church called St. Sennan's. You haven't heard of it, probably. It's past the Cove—on a hill looking over the sea. It's the most tumble-down old place you ever saw, and nobody goes there except a few fishermen, but we know the clergyman and like him. I like the place too—you can listen to the sea if you're bored with the sermon."
"The parson is like one of the prophets," said Bethel. "Too strong for the Pendragon point of view. It's a place of ruins, Trojan, and the congregation are like a crowd of ancient Britons—but you'll like it."
Mrs. Bethel was unwontedly quiet—it was obvious that she was in distress; Mary, too, seemed to speak at random, and there was an air of constraint in the room.
When they set off for church the grey sky had changed to blue; the sun had just set, and little pink clouds like fairy cushions hung round the moon. As they passed out of the town, through the crooked path down to the Cove, Harry had again that strong sense of Cornwall that came to him sometimes so suddenly, so strangely, that it was almost mysterious, for it seemed to have no immediate cause, no absolute relation to surrounding sights or sounds. Perhaps to-night it was in the misty half-light of the shining moon and the dying sun, the curious stillness of the air so that the sounds and cries of the town came distinctly on the wind, the scent of some wild flowers, the faint smell of the chrysanthemums that Mary was wearing at her breast.
"By Jove, it's Cornwall," he said, drawing a great breath. He was walking a little ahead with Mary, and he turned to her as she spoke. She was walking with her head bent, and did not seem to hear him. "What's up?" he said.
"Nothing," she answered, trying to smile.
"But there is," he insisted. "I'm not blind. I've bored you with my worries. You might honour me with yours."
"There isn't anything really. One's foolish to mind, and, indeed, it's not for myself that I care—but it's mother."
"What have they done?"
"They don't like us—none of them do. I don't know why they should; we aren't, perhaps, very likeable. But it is cruel of them to show it. Mother, you see, likes meeting people—we had it in London, friends I mean, lots of them, and then when we came here we had none. We have never had any from the beginning. We tried, perhaps a little too hard, to have some. We gave little parties and they failed, and then people began to think us peculiar, and if they once do that here you're done for. Perhaps we didn't see it quite soon enough and we went on trying, and then they began to snub us."