Some one sitting near the door rose when the other voices came in again, and walked up the aisle till he came to a point where, looking up, the choir in the gallery could be seen. There he stood till the anthem was ended, and then moved quietly away. He was a stranger, and no one took much notice of him at the moment, though some among them remembered him afterwards. Lucy Wainright noticed him, and spoke of it when she came home.
“It must have been some stranger. No one of our people would have done such a thing,” said she.
“It must have been that he wanted to see where the voice came from,” said her sister.
“I do not wonder,” said their father. “Miss Marsh, how came you to take the place of honour to-day?”
“I don’t know,” said Fidelia.
Mrs Wainright laughed.
“I don’t know either. I did not think of it a second before I spoke. It was a risk, I acknowledge—or it would have been with any one but Fidelia.”
“A risk! It might have caused a breakdown. She might have refused.”
“No; I was sure of Fidelia!”
And while they went on talking the door-bell rang, and the maid brought in a card and gave it to Mrs Wainright.