“You must go and explore Wych Maries,” the Rector had said to Mark soon after they arrived.  “You’ll find it rather attractive.  There’s a disused chapel dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin and St. Mary Magdalene.  My predecessor took me there when we drove round the parish on my first visit; but I haven’t yet had time to go again.  And you ought to have a look at the gardens of Rushbrooke Grange.  The present squire is away.  In the South Seas, I believe.  But the housekeeper, Mrs. Honeybone, will show you round.”

It was in response to this advice that Mark and Esther set out on a golden May evening to explore Wych Maries.  Esther had continued to be friendly with Mark after the Pomeroy affair; and when he came to live at Meade Cantorum she had expressed her pleasure at the prospect of having him for a brother.

“But you’ll keep off religion, won’t you?” she had demanded.

Mark promised that he would, wondering why she should suppose that he was incapable of perceiving who was and who was not interested in it.

“I suppose you’ve guessed my fear?” she had continued.  “Haven’t you?  Haven’t you guessed that I’m frightened to death of becoming religious?”

The reassuring contradiction that one naturally gives to anybody who voices a dread of being overtaken by some misfortune might perhaps have sounded inappropriate, and Mark had held his tongue.

“My father was very religious.  My mother is more or less religious.  Stephen is religious.  Miriam is religious.  Oh, Mark, and I sometimes feel that I too must fall on my knees and surrender.  But I won’t.  Because it spoils life.  I shall be beaten in the end of course, and I’ll probably get religious mania when I am beaten.  But until then—­” She did not finish her sentence; only her blue eyes glittered at the challenge of life.

That was the last time religion was mentioned between Mark and Esther, and since both of them enjoyed the country they became friends.  On this May evening they stood by the signpost and looked across the shimmering grass to where the sun hung in his web of golden haze above the edge of the wold.

“If we take the road to Wych Maries,” said Mark, “we shall be walking right into the sun.”

Esther did not reply, but Mark understood that she assented to his truism, and they walked on as silent as the long shadows that followed them.  A quarter of a mile from the high road the path reached the edge of the wold and dipped over into a wood which was sparse just below the brow, but which grew denser down the slope with many dark evergreens interspersed, and in the valley below became a jungle.  After the bare upland country this volume of May verdure seemed indescribably rich and the valley beyond, where the Greenrush flowed through kingcups toward the sun, indescribably alluring.  Esther and Mark forgot that they were exploring Wych Maries and thinking only of reaching that wide valley they ran down through