d the avenue, the pale
apricots and golds of the newly-shorn stubbles caught the mounting
light. The beeches of the avenue were turning fast, and the chestnuts
girdling the church on her right hand were already thin enough to let
the tower show through. That was the bell--the old bell given to the
church by Hampden's friend, John Boyce--striking half-past five; and
close upon it came the call of a pheasant in the avenue. There he was,
fine fellow, with his silly, mincing run, redeemed all at once by the
sudden whirr of towering flight.

To-day Mary Harden and the Rector would be at work in the church, and
to-morrow was to be the Harvest Festival. Was it two years?--or in an
hour or two would she be going with her basket from the Cedar Garden, to
find that figure in the brown shooting-coat standing with the Hardens on
the altar steps?

Alas!--alas!--her head dropped on her hands as she knelt by the open
window. How changed were all the aspects of the world! Three weeks
before, the bell in that little church had tolled for one who, in the
best way and temper of his own generation, had been God's servant and
man's friend--who had been Marcella's friend--and had even, in his last
days, on a word from Edward Hallin, sent her an old man's kindly
farewell.

"Tell her," Lord Maxwell had written with his own hand to Hallin, "she
has taken up a noble work, and will make, I pray God, a noble woman. She
had, I think, a kindly liking for an old man, and she will not disdain
his blessing."

He had died at Geneva, Aldous and Miss Raeburn with him. For instead of
coming home in August, he had grown suddenly worse, and Aldous had gone
out to him. They had brought him to the Court for burial, and the new
Lord Maxwell, leaving his aunt at the Court, had almost immediately
returned to town,--because of Edward Hallin's state of health.

Marcella had seen much of Hallin since he and his sister had come back
to London in the middle of August. Hallin's apparent improvement had
faded within a week or two of his return to his rooms; Aldous was at
Geneva; Miss Hallin was in a panic of alarm; and Marcella found herself
both nurse and friend. Day after day she would go in after her nursing
rounds, share their evening meal, and either write for Hallin, or help
the sister--by the slight extra weight of her professional voice--to
keep him from writing and thinking.

He would not himself admit that he was ill at all, and his whole
energies at t