On such an evening two days after the Friday which had been so fatal to Arthur Franklyn's schemes, Mr. Armstrong proposed to accompany his daughter to the old parish church at Kilburn, which was at that period merely a country village.
It was not often that Mr. Armstrong attended the evening service, therefore excepting during her brother's holidays Mary was obliged to remain at home also, for she could not go to church alone. Most readily therefore she hailed the opportunity offered by her father, and hastily arrayed herself in walking costume, a process by no means so troublesome to a lady in summer as in winter.
They had scarcely taken their usual places in their pew when the chimes ceased and the single five minutes bell began to toll.
Mr. Armstrong's pew was in the north gallery; therefore when the organ pealed forth its introductory music, and the clergymen issued from the vestry, Mary could see that one of them entered the reading desk and the other within the communion rails, seating himself on the north side and therefore hidden from their pew by the pulpit.
She paid but little attention to this circumstance, except to feel glad that the old rector would have help for this evening at least, the whole of the preceding Sunday services having been performed by him alone.
The fact of it being the first Sunday after Trinity suggested to Mary Armstrong no cause for Henry Halford's absence from the boys' pew at church. With all her cleverness in other subjects, she had very little knowledge of clerical matters. The prayers used in what is called Ember Week she had noticed and understood, but of their connexion with certain Sundays in the year, among others Trinity Sunday, she knew nothing.
Following the service as it proceeded with true devotional feeling, neither Mary Armstrong nor her father was prepared for the surprise that awaited them.
During the singing of the hymn, and while standing in the pew, she could see that as the rector left the reading desk to proceed to the vestry, he was joined by a stranger; but only his white surplice was visible, the vestry being on the same side as the gallery on which she stood, and the entrance under it.
Those were the days when clergymen changed the surplice for the black academical gown for preaching. Mary, quite engrossed with the music and the words of the last verse of the hymn, did not glance towards the pulpit till the preacher raised his head from his hands, and faced the congregation.
He was very pale, this strange young clergyman, and as he laid his Bible on the desk his hand trembled perceptibly.