“Ay, sir, there have been one in the church.  I was not in my place, though.  The Captain, he ordered me to let the church go for once, and to be ready up aloft in the belfry to set the chimes going at midday.  As chance had it, the party came out just at the same time; Miss Eliza was a bit late in coming, ye see; so it may be said the chimes rang ’em out.  I guess the sound astonished the people above a bit, for nobody knew they were going to play.”

“But how was it all, Cale?  Why should the Captain order them to chime at midday?”

John Cale shook his head.  “I can’t tell ye that rightly, Mr. Harry; the Captain, as ye know, sir, never says why he does this or why he does t’other.  Young William Threpp, who had to be up there with me, thought he must have ordered ’em to play in mockery—­for he hates the marriage like poison.”

“Who is the bridegroom?”

“It’s a Mr. Hamlyn, sir.  A gentleman who is pretty nigh as haughty as the Captain himself; but a pleasant-spoken, kindly man, as far as I’ve seen:  and a rich one, too.”

“Why did Captain Monk object to him?”

“It’s thought ’twas because he was a stranger to the place and has lived over in the Indies; and he wanted Miss Eliza, so it’s said, to have young Tom Rivers.  That’s about it, I b’lieve, Mr. Harry.”

Harry Carradyne drove away thoughtfully.  At the foot of the slight ascent leading to Leet Hall, one of the grooms happened to be standing.  Harry handed over to him the horse and gig, and went forward on foot.

“Bertie!” he called out.  For he had seen Hubert before him, walking at a snail’s pace:  the very slightest hill tried him now.  The only one left of the wedding-party, for the bridesmaid drove off from the church door.  Hubert turned at the call.

“Harry!  Why, Harry!”

Hand locked in hand, they sat down on a bench beside the path; face gazing into face.  There had always been a likeness between them:  in the bright-coloured, waving hair, the blue eyes and the well-favoured features.  But Harry’s face was redolent of youth and health; in the other’s might be read approaching death.

“You are very thin, Bertie; thinner even than I expected to see, you,” broke from the traveller involuntarily.

“You are looking well, at any rate,” was Hubert’s answer.  “And I am so glad you are come:  I thought you might have been here a month ago.”

“The voyage was unreasonably long; we had contrary winds almost from port to port.  I got on to Worcester yesterday, slept there, and hired a horse and gig to bring me over this morning.  What about Eliza’s wedding, Hubert?  I was just in time to see her drive away.  Cale, with whom I had a word down yonder, says the master does not like it.”

“He does not like it and would not countenance it:  washed his hands of it (as he told us) altogether.”

“Any good reason for that?”

“Not particularly good, that I see.  Somehow he disliked Hamlyn; and Tom Rivers wanted Eliza, which would have pleased him greatly.  But Eliza was not without blame.  My father gave way so far as to ask her to delay things for a few months, not to marry in a hurry, and she would not.  She might have conceded as much as that.”