He had met her—­perhaps had tried to meet her—­tolerably often since their first chance encounter weeks ago in the vicarage drawing-room.  All through there had been on his side the uncomfortable knowledge of his grandfather’s antipathy to Richard Boyce, and of the social steps to which that antipathy would inevitably lead.  But Miss Boyce had never shown the smallest consciousness, so far, of anything untoward or unusual in her position.  She had been clearly taken up with the interest and pleasure of this new spectacle upon which she had entered.  The old house, its associations, its history, the beautiful country in which it lay, the speech and characteristics of rural labour as compared with that of the town,—­he had heard her talk of all these things with a freshness, a human sympathy, a freedom from conventional phrase, and, no doubt, a touch of egotism and extravagance, which rivetted attention.  The egotism and extravagance, however, after a first moment of critical discomfort on his part, had not in the end repelled him at all.  The girl’s vivid beauty glorified them; made them seem to him a mere special fulness of life.  So that in his new preoccupation with herself, and by contact with her frank self-confidence, he had almost forgotten her position, and his own indirect relation to it.  Then had come that unlucky note from Mellor; his grandfather’s prompt reply to it; his own ineffective protest; and now this tongue-tiedness—­this clumsy intrusion—­which she must feel to be an indelicacy—­an outrage.

Suddenly he heard Miss Harden saying, with penitent emphasis, “I am stupid!  I have left the scissors and the wire on the table at home; we can’t get on without them; it is really too bad of me.”

“I will go for them,” said Marcella promptly.  “Here is the hand-cart just arrived and some people come to help; you can’t be spared.  I will be back directly.”

And, gathering up her black skirt in a slim white hand, she sped down the church, and was out of the south door before the Hardens had time to protest, or Aldous Raeburn understood what she was doing.

A vexed word from Miss Harden enlightened him, and he went after the fugitive, overtaking her just where his gun and dog lay, outside the churchyard.

“Let me go, Miss Boyce,” he said, as he caught her up.  “My dog and I will run there and back.”

But Marcella hardly looked at him, or paused.

“Oh no!” she said quickly, “I should like the walk.”

He hesitated; then, with a flush which altered his usually quiet, self-contained expression, he moved on beside her.

“Allow me to go with you then.  You are sure to find fresh loads to bring back.  If it’s like our harvest festival, the things keep dropping in all day.”

Marcella’s eyes were still on the ground.

“I thought you were on your way to shoot, Mr. Raeburn?”

“So I was, but there is no hurry; if I can be useful.  Both the birds and the keeper can wait.”