y ordinary creature." And he vanished in the gloom of the
priest's door.

As Pauline came round the corner the wind was full in her face, and
under the rose-edged wrack of driving clouds the churchyard looked
desolate and savage. There were no flowers to be seen but beaten-down
Michaelmas daisies and bedabbled phlox. The bell had stopped immediately
when the Rector arrived; and the wind seemed now much louder as it went
howling round the great church or rasping through the yews and junipers.
The churchyard was bounded on the northerly side by the mill-stream,
along which ran a wide path between a double row of willows now hissing
and whistling as they were whipped by the blasts. Pauline walked slowly
down this unquiet ambulatory, gazing curiously over to the other bank of
the stream, where the orchard of Plashers Mead was strewn with red
apples. There in the corner by the house that was just visible stood the
owner, playing with a dog, a bobtail, too, which was the kind Pauline
liked best. She wanted very much to wave, but, of course, it was
impossible for the Rector's daughter to do anything like that in the
churchyard. Yet if he did chance to walk in her direction, she would,
whatever happened, shout to him across the stream to bring the dog next
time he came to the Rectory. Pauline walked four times up and down the
path, but first the dog disappeared and then the owner followed him, and
presently Pauline discovered that the path beside the abandoned stream
was very dreary. The crooked tombstones stood up starkly; the wind
sighed across the green graves of the unknown; the fiery roses were
fallen from the clouds. Pauline turned away from the path and went to
take shelter behind the east end of the church. From here, as she
fronted the invading night, she could see the gray wall of the Rectory
garden and the paddock sloping down to the river. How sad it was to
think of the months that must pass before that small meadow would be
speckled with fritillaries or with irises blow white and purple. The
wind shrieked with a sudden gust that seemed more violent, because where
she was standing not a blade of grass twitched. Pauline looked up to
reassure herself that the steeple was not toppling from the tower; as
she did so a gargoyle grinned down at her. The grotesque was frightening
in the dusk, and she hurried round to the priest's door. The Rector came
out as she reached it, and accepted vaguely the information that there
we