"You will have to restore the church one of these days," she said.
Harding nodded.
"Certainly. But it will be very ugly, anyhow."
"Well, at least you must have the roof mended. And now, please, will you get the key? It is on the ledge of that pew just across the aisle. I think we had better be going—it has almost left off raining."
She stepped outside and put up her umbrella, while he locked up his ancestors, smiling grimly. It seemed rather unnecessary to turn the key on the family party in that dusty little corner. They were quiet folks, and, as he had said, they would wait for him and his fortune not impatiently. If he could have shut in the brightness of youth, the warmth and life and sweetness which alone could make the fortune worth having, if he could have come back in the hour of success to unfasten the door and find all there—then indeed his big key would have been a priceless talisman. Unfortunately one can shut nothing safely away that is not dead. The old Rothwells were secure enough, but the rest was at the mercy of time and change, and all the winds that blow.
The pair were silent as they turned into Mitchelhurst Street. Reynold looked at the small, shabby houses, and noted the swinging sign of the "Rothwell Arms," though his deeper thoughts were full of other things. But about half way through the village he awoke to a sudden consciousness of eyes. Eyes peered through small-paned windows, stared boldly from open doorways, met him inquisitively in the faces of loiterers on the path, or were lifted from the dull task of mending the road as he walked by with Barbara. He looked over his shoulder and found that other people were looking over their shoulders, after which he felt himself completely encompassed.
"People here seem interested," he remarked to Miss Strange, while a pale-faced, slatternly girl, with swiftly-plaiting fingers, leaned forward to get a better view.
"Why, of course they are interested. You are a stranger, you know. It is quite an excitement for them."
"You call that an excitement?" said he.