"We shall be at vespers," Alves repeated, interrupting the talkative young man.
When his cassock had disappeared up the dusty road between the fields of corn, she added,
"And that, too, you would not like, nor Guy Jones."
After beaching the boat in front of the cottage they walked to the seminary chapel by a little path through the meadows along the lake, then across a wooded hill where the birds were singing multitudinously. The buildings of the Perota Episcopal Seminary occupied the level plateau of a hill that lay between two lakes. A broad avenue of elms and maples led to the rude stone cloisters, one end of which was closed by the chapel. To Sommers the cheap factory finish of the chapel and the ostentatious display of ritualism were alike distasteful. The crude fervors of the boy priests were strangely out of harmony with the environment. But Alves, to whom the place was full of associations, liked the services. As they entered the cloisters, a tiny bell was jangling, and the students were hurrying into the chapel, their long cassocks lending a foreign air to the Wisconsin fields. Only one other person was seated on the benches beneath the choir, a broad-faced young American, whose keen black eyes rested upon Alves. She was absorbed in the service, which was loudly intoned by the young priest. The candles, the incense, the intoned familiar words, animated her. Sommers had often wondered at the powerful influence this service exerted over her. To the training received here as a child was due, perhaps, that blind wilfulness of self-sacrifice which had first brought her to his notice.
"The remission and absolution of sins—" Alves was breathing heavily, her lips murmuring the mighty words after the priest. Was there a sore hidden in her soul? Did she crave some supernatural pardon for a desperate deed? The memory of miserable suspicions flashed over him, and gravely, sadly, he watched the quivering face by his side. If she sought relief now in the exercise of her old faith, what would come as the years passed and heaped up the burden of remorse!
* * * * *
The service ended, and the three lay participants sauntered into the graveyard outside the west door. The setting sun flooded the aisle of the little chapel, even to the cross on the altar. The tones of the organ rolled out into the warm afternoon. The young man approached Alves with extended hand.
"The boys told me I could find you here. It's real good to see you again. Yes, I'm back to have a look at the old place. Wouldn't return to stay for worlds. It's a great place out there, where a man counts for what he is. Won't you make me acquainted with your husband?"
Sommers felt instinctively the hesitation in Alves's manner. She turned to him, however.
"Howard, this is my brother's old friend, Mr. Jones,—Dr. Sommers."