She gazed up into the sky, the blue was mellowed and yet paled by the golden haze of harvest-time. “The summer has gone again,” she murmured as she passed into the church by an old porch-way with stone seats at each side, which reminded her of the entrance to Greystone Abbey—“the old porch at home”—and it was in a sort of dream that she made her way to a seat in a quiet corner. She hardly noticed when the service began; she stood up mechanically with those about her, but her thoughts were far away. Suddenly, without knowing what had suggested it, she found herself thinking of that Sunday morning, more than a year ago now, in Lingthurst church—the first Sunday after Geneviève’s arrival. She remembered how the sunshine bad streamed into the ugly little building, brightening into brilliant pink the old woman’s brick dust cloaks, making also more conspicuous the mildew stains and patches on the plastered walls. She recalled her feelings of commiseration for the new clergyman on this his first introduction to his church. What had put all this into her mind just now? There was nothing in the place to recall Lingthurst—Leobury church was as picturesque and impressive as Lingthurst was commonplace; the one was perfect of its kind, the other glaringly bare and unattractive—the familiar words of the service had been listened to by Cicely in many churches during the last few months without recalling any special association. Suddenly the riddle was solved Two clergymen were officiating; the one, an old white-headed man with a feeble quavering voice, which contrasted curiously with the firm clear tones of his assistant priest. From where Cicely sat, the younger man was not visible, but by moving a little she obtained a view of him, and understood the trick which the “quaint witch” had been playing her—she saw before her the grave, boyish face of Mr. Hayle!
How had he come there? How strange it seemed! A little shiver passed through her as she recalled the last time she had seen him—it had been on the night of the Lingthurst ball, the night so full of misery for her. She had never seen him since then, for though he had called at the Abbey after her father’s death, she had shrunk from meeting him again, though far from ungrateful for his kindness and consideration. And now here he was at Leobury!
“I shall not mind seeing him again now,” thought Cicely, “I think I am rather glad he is here. Mother liked him. I don’t think she will have any painful feeling to him, poor little man!”
But the rest of the service passed like a dream. Cicely’s thoughts were away in the past—wandering in the land of long ago.” She recalled her happy childhood, her girl hood so full of love and promise—the sunny days when trouble and sorrow seemed such remote, all but impossible, possibilities! How Trevor seemed associated with it all—there was not a walk she had ever taken, not a summer ramble or winter skating expedition in which his figure did not seem prominent.
“I wish he had been my brother, really,” sighed Cicely, “then no one and nothing could ever have separated us!”
It was a torn out page—a page which it would ever be painful to miss. But she was beginning to realise that the book held others—others which hereafter she would not shrink from looking back to and lingering over with loving tenderness of remembrance.
When the service was over, Cicely walked slowly homewards. She was near her mother’s house, when the sound of her own name made her look round. Mr. Hayle was behind her.
“Miss Methvyn,” he exclaimed eagerly, his face flushed with pleasure and the quick rate at which he had been walking, “I thought it was you. I was sure I could not be mistaken.”
“Did you see me in church?” said Cicely, shaking hands with him as she spoke. She was pleased to see him, but again, at this first moment of meeting, there rushed over her the remembrance of the last time she had spoken to him, and unconsciously a slight constraint showed itself in her manner.
“Yes,” said Mr. Hayle. “But I was on the look-out for you. I heard yesterday evening quite accidentally that a lady of your name had taken a house here, and I began to hope it might be you. I trust Mrs. Methvyn is well. I—I hope I may come to see her?”