When they were half way down the aisle, Alick turned to see what the stranger was doing, and found him, not following Bessie with his eyes, but still scrutinising the church as though he were a member of the Archæological Society. There he stood in the pew just as they had left him, indolently surveying roof and walls, tombs and windows. As they passed through the porch, Alick looked back once more, but the object of his curiosity had not moved.
“Waiting for the rector, perhaps,” thought the lad; and he hurried after Bessie, who by this time was half way across the graveyard.
“What a dear old church!” she said, as they reached the gate. “I like it much better than Fifield.”
“Excuse me, but I believe this is your prayer-book,” said a voice close beside her at this juncture, and the interruption was so sudden that both Alick and his companion started to find the stranger close beside them.
“Thank you, I am sorry to have given you so much trouble; yes, it is mine,” Bessie stammered, her face covered with blushes as she received the book, which she put in her pocket; while the stranger raised his hat and turned back across the churchyard in the direction of the Rectory.
“Now, was not that stupid of me?” asked Bessie. In his heart, perhaps Alick thought it was, but he did not express this opinion, he only offered to carry the book for her.
“No, thank you, it is so small, I always keep it in my pocket,” she answered. “If there be one thing more than another I dislike, it is to see people parading church-services and Bibles about on a Sunday as though they want to let all the world know they have been praying;” and thus Bessie rattled on while they retraced their way across the fields, and over the Kemm, and past the woods, and so to Berrie Down, which place they reached about the time when Mrs. Ormson, awaking from her afternoon siesta like a giant refreshed, proposed that society generally should take a turn on the lawn.
To this proposal society, nothing loth, agreed; and thus it chanced that Bessie and Alick were descried entering the croft and rounding the Hollow, and ascending the hill leading to the house.
Once amongst the family group, it was needful to pause and give full particulars of their walk, of North Kemms church, of the congregation, of the music, of the sermon, and of various other matters which the younger Dudleys were pleased to regard in the light of news.
By a singular coincidence, however, neither Alick nor Bessie made any mention of the strange gentleman who had turned aside towards the Rectory. The young lady, indeed, talked so much and so fast that it would have been difficult for her companion to have edged in much information on the subject, even had he felt inclined to do so.