The stranger suddenly left her side and walked up the church by himself into the chancel. He went straight up to the east end and made a minute examination apparently of the wall; after that, he came slowly down again, looking carefully into every corner and cranny from the whitewashed ceiling down to the damp and uneven stone paving at his feet; Vera thought him a very odd person, and wondered what he was thinking about.
He came back to her and stood before her looking at her for a minute. And then he made this most remarkable speech:
"If you were to ask Sir John Kynaston this he would restore the chancel!" he said.
For half-a-second Vera stared at him in blank amazement. Then she turned haughtily round, and flushed hotly with angry indignation.
"There is nothing more to see in the church," she said, shortly, and walked straight out of it.
The stranger had followed her; when they reached the churchyard he said to her, quite humbly,
"I beg your pardon; Miss Nevill; how unlucky I am to have made you angry, to begin with."
Vera looked at him in astonishment. How did he know her name; who was he? He was looking at her with such a penitent and distressed expression, that for the first time she noticed what a kind face it was. Then, before she could answer him, she saw her brother-in-law over the paling of the vicarage garden, coming towards them.
The stranger saw him, too, and lifted his hat to her.
"Good-bye," he said, rather hastily; "I did not mean to offend you; don't be angry about it;" and, before she could say a word, he turned quickly down the churchyard through the lych-gate into the road, and was gone.