She played vigorously.  Once or twice the tune stumbled, and she recovered it impatiently, bending over the key-board, showily flourishing her wrists as she touched the stops.  She was bare-headed (her hat and cloak lay beside her on a stool).  She had fair, fluffy hair, cut short behind her neck; large, round eyes, heightened by a fringe of dark lashes; rough, ruddy cheeks, and a rosy, full-lipped, unstable mouth.  She was dressed quite simply, in a black, close-fitting bodice, a little frayed at the sleeves.  Her hands and neck were coarsely fashioned:  her comeliness was brawny, literal, unfinished, as it were.

When at last the ponderous chords of the Amen faded slowly into the twilight, flushed, breathing a little quickly, she paused, listening to the stillness of the church.  Presently a small boy emerged from behind the organ.

‘Good evenin’, Miss Rosa’, he called, trotting briskly away down the aisle.

‘Good night, Robert’, she answered, absently.

After a while, with an impatient gesture, as if to shake some importunate thought from her mind, she rose abruptly, pinned on her hat, threw her cloak round her shoulders, blew out the candles, and groped her way through the church, towards the half-open door.  As she hurried along the narrow pathway that led across the churchyard, of a sudden, a figure started out of the blackness.

‘Who’s that?’ she cried, in a loud, frightened voice.

A man’s uneasy laugh answered her.

‘It’s only me, Rosa.  I didna’ think t’ scare ye.  I’ve bin waitin’ for ye, this hoor past.’

She made no reply, but quickened her pace.  He strode on beside her.

‘I’m off, Monday, ye know,’ he continued.  And, as she said nothing, ‘Will ye na stop jest a minnit?  I’d like t’ speak a few words wi’ ye before I go, an tomorrow I hev t’ git over t’ Scarsdale betimes,’ he persisted.

‘I don’t want t’ speak wi’ ye:  I don’t want ever to see ye agin.  I jest hate the sight o’ ye.’  She spoke with a vehement, concentrated hoarseness.

‘Nay, but ye must listen to me.  I will na be put off wi’ fratchin speeches.’

And gripping her arm, he forced her to stop.

‘Loose me, ye great beast,’ she broke out.

‘I’ll na hould ye, if ye’ll jest stand quiet-like.  I meant t’ speak fair t’ ye, Rosa.’

They stood at a bend in the road, face to face quite close together.  Behind his burly form stretched the dimness of a grey, ghostly field.

‘What is’t ye hev to say to me?  Hev done wi’ it quick,’ she said sullenly.

‘It be jest this, Rosa,’ he began with dogged gravity.  ‘I want t’ tell ye that ef any trouble comes t’ye after I’m gone—­ye know t’ what I refer—­I want t’ tell ye that I’m prepared t’ act square by ye.  I’ve written out on an envelope my address in London.  Luke Stock, care o’ Purcell and Co., Smithfield Market, London.’

‘Ye’re a bad, sinful man.  I jest hate t’ sight o’ ye.  I wish ye were dead.’