Next day after morning service she loitered outside the church on the brow of the hill talking, now to Mrs. Coast, now to Mrs. Armstrong. When the Willerbys asked her to drive over with John to Highwold for tea, she declined their invitation.
Miss Taylor approached her, blushing furiously and stammering that a young man from the training college had at last come up to the scratch, and would Mrs. Robson care to come and see his photograph?
Mrs. Robson considered. The way to Miss Taylor's lodging lay down the village street. If one wanted to meet some one staying in Anderby the likeliest place of encounter would be the street after morning service. Mrs. Robson accepted the invitation.
The village street was full of shadows and strange unexpected presences. Figures emerged from garden or cottage, to set her pulses beating wildly, before she dropped to a flat level of disappointment as Jack Greenwood or old Deane appeared. Footsteps on the path behind her, that might herald his approach, died away drearily when the shepherd or Bert Armstrong overtook her hesitating progress.
The grudging ten minutes she granted to the inspection of Miss Taylor's young man were torture to her. While she was there, he might pass unseen.
When one o'clock struck sleepily from the church tower she hastened home to dinner, sick and exhausted, and closed behind her the gate that shut the garden away from the village street.
"You expecting anyone this afternoon, honey?" asked John across the cold beef.
"No. I don't think so."
"But you said to Mrs. Willerby when she asked us to go over——"
"Oh, I know. I thought then that Ursula and Foster said they were motoring over this afternoon. I remembered afterwards it was next week."