parish; he is not half
so good a squire as poor dear Sir John." And there was a whole volume of
unspoken reproach in the sigh with which Marion wound up her remarks.

"Decidedly," said Vera, to herself, as she went slowly upstairs to her
own little room; "decidedly I must get away from all this. I shall have
to marry." She leant out of her open window in a frame-work of roses
and jessamine, and looked out over the lime-trees towards the Hall.
Now that the trees were in full leaf, she could catch no glimpse of its
red-stacked chimneys and its terraced gardens; but, by-and-by, when the
leaves were down and the trees were bare, she knew she should see it.
Every morning when she got up the sun would be shining full upon it;
every night when she went to bed she would see the twinkling lights of
the many windows gleaming through the darkness; she would be in her
room alone, and _he_ would be out there, happy with his wife.

"I shall not be able to bear it," said Vera, slowly, speaking aloud to
herself. "I had better marry, and go away; there is nothing else to be
done. Poor Denis! He is worthy of a better woman; but I think he will be
good to me."

For it had come to this now, that when Vera thought about marrying, it
was upon Denis Wilde that she also pondered.

To be at Sutton, and not to come face to face with Maurice, was of course
an impossibility. Carefully as Vera confined herself to the house and
garden for the next three days, she could not avoid going to church when
Sunday came. And at church were Captain and Mrs. Kynaston. During the
service she only saw his back, erect and broad-shouldered, in the seat in
front of her, for the pews had been cleared away, and open sittings had
been substituted all through the church. Maurice looked neither to the
right nor to the left; he stood, or sat, or knelt, and scarcely turned
his head an inch, but Helen's butterfly bonnet was twisted in every
direction throughout the service. It is certain that she very soon knew
who it was who had come into the vicarage seat behind her.

When Vera came out of church, having purposely lingered as long as she
could inside, until the rest of the congregation had all gone out, she
found the bride and bridegroom waiting for her in the churchyard.

Helen stood with her hand twined with easy familiarity round her
husband's arm; possibly she had studied the attitude with a view to
impressing Vera with the perfection of her conjugal happiness.