e we hold up the
devotions of the whole parish."

"Good Lord!" I commented; sincerely, this time; and with a thought of my
socialist friend Banks. I could still sympathise with him on that score,
even though I was now strongly inclined to side with the Jervaises in the
Brenda affair.

"Yes, isn't it?" Miss Tattersall agreed. "Of course, they _are_ the only
important people in the place," she added thoughtfully.

"So important that it's slightly presumptuous to worship God without the
sanction of their presence in church," I remarked. And then, feeling that
this comment was a trifle too strong for my company, I tried to cover it
by changing the subject.

"I say, do you think we _ought_ to stay on here over the week-end?" I
asked. "Wouldn't it be more tactful of us to invent excuses and leave them
to themselves?"

"Certainly it would. Have you only just thought of it?" Miss Tattersall
said pertly. "Nora and I agreed about that before we came down to prayers.
But there's a difficulty that seems, for the moment, insuperable."

"Which is?" I prompted her.

"No conveyance," she explained. "There aren't any Sunday trains on the
loop line, Hurley Junction is fifteen miles away, and the Jervaises' car
is Heaven knows where and the only other that is borrowable, Mr.
Turnbull's, is derelict just outside the Park gates."

I thought she was rather inclined to make a song of it all, genuinely
thankful to have so sound an excuse for staying to witness the dramatic
developments that might possibly be in store for us. I do not deny that I
appreciated her feeling in that matter.

"And the horses?" I suggested.

"Too far for them, in the omnibus," she said. "And nothing else would be
big enough for four people and their luggage. But, as a matter of fact,
Nora and I talked it all over with Mrs. Jervaise before prayers, and she
said we weren't to think of going--especially as it was all right, now,
about Brenda."

"I'm glad it is all right, if only for old Jervaise's sake," I said,
craftily.

She looked up at me, trying to guess how far I was honest in that remark.

"But you don't really believe..." she said.

"I don't see why not," I returned.

"That Brenda _has_ come back?"

"Mrs. Jervaise said..."

"Had to, of course," Miss Tattersall replied curtly.

I pursed my mouth and shook my head. "It would be too risky to deceive us
as crudely as that," I said. "Make it so much more significant if we
discovered that they h