, gnarled, and low; and its long branches, which
would have reached the ground, were upheld, like the arms of some
dying patriarch, by supports, themselves old and moss-grown. Under the
spreading of this ancient tree were graves, and from the carved,
age-eaten porch of the church, a path led among them, under the green
tunnel, out into the sunny space beyond it. The Admiral lay in a vault
of which the door was at the side of the church, for no de Tracy, of
course, could occupy a mere grave, like one of the common herd; and
here walked the funereal figure of Mrs. de Tracy, fair weather or
foul, nearly every Sunday in the year.

In justice to Mrs. de Tracy, it must be made plain that with all her
faults, small spite was not a part of her character. Yet to-day, her
anger had been stirred by an incident so small that its very
triviality annoyed her pride. It was Mark Lavendar's custom, when his
visits to Stoke Revel included a Sunday, cheerfully to evade
church-going. His Sundays in the country were few, he said, and he
preferred to enjoy them in the temple of nature, generally taking a
long walk before lunch. But to-day he had announced his intention of
coming to service, and well Mrs. de Tracy, versed in men and in human
nature, knew why. Robinette would be there, and Lavendar followed, as
the bee follows a basket of flowers on a summer day. As Mrs. de Tracy,
like the Stoic that she was, accepted all the inevitable facts of
life,--birth, death, love, hate (she had known them all in her day),
she accepted this one also. But in that atrophy of every feeling
except bitterness, that atrophy which is perhaps the only real
solitude, the only real old age, her animosity was stirred. It was as
though a dead branch upon some living tree was angry with the spring
for breathing on it. As she returned, herself unseen in the shadow of
the yew tree, she saw Lavendar and Robinette enter together under the
lych-gate, the figure of the young woman touched with sunlight and
colour, her lips moving, and Lavendar smiling in answer. In the
clashing of the bells--bells which shook the air, the earth, the
ancient stones, the very nests upon the trees--their voices were
inaudible, but in their faces was a young happiness and hope to which
the solitary woman could not blind herself.

Presently in the lukewarm air within, Robinette was finding the
church's immemorial smell of prayer-books, hassocks, decaying wood,
damp stones, matting, school-ch