“What is the use of waiting?  I knew him well enough eight years ago; he was a pleasant fellow enough then.  He won’t kill me, I suppose, and the chancel is a disgrace—­a positive disgrace to him.  It is my duty to point it out to him; the thing can’t afford to wait, it ought to be done at once.”

So he disregarded Marion’s advice, and Vera helped him on with his great-coat in the hall, and wound his woollen comforter round his neck, and bade him good luck on his expedition to Kynaston.

He came back sorrowful and abashed.  Sir John had been civil, very civil; he had insisted on his sitting down at his table—­for he had apparently not finished his dinner—­and had opened a bottle of fine old port in his honour.  He had inquired about many of the old people, and had expressed a friendly interest in the parish generally; but with regard to the chancel, he had been as adamant.

He did not see, he had said, why it could not go on well enough as it was.  If it was in bad repair, Davis should see to it; a man with a barrowful of bricks and a shovelful of mortar should be sent down.  That, of course, it was his duty to do.  Sir John did not understand that more could possibly be expected of him.  The chancel had been good enough for his father, it would probably be good enough for him; it would last his time, he supposed, in any case.

But the soul of the Rev. Eustace became as water within him.  It was not of a barrowful of bricks and shovelful of mortar that he had been dreaming, but of lancet windows and stone mouldings; of polished oak rafters within, and of high gables and red tiles without.

He came down from the Hall disheartened and discomfited, with all the spirit crushed out of him; and the ladies of his family, for once, were of one mind about the matter.  There arose about him a storm of indignation and a gush of sympathy, which could not fail to soothe him somewhat.  Eustace went to rest that night sore and heavy-hearted, it is true, but with all the damnatory verses in the Scriptures concerning the latter end of the “rich man” ringing in his head; a course of meditation which, upon the whole, afforded him a distinct sensation of consolation and comfort.

And the next morning in the churchyard Vera leant against the Cruppsian sarcophagus, and thought about it.

“Poor old Eustace,” she said to herself; “how I wish I were very rich, and could do his chancel for him!  How pleased he would be; and what a good fellow he is!  How odd it is to think what different aims there are in people’s lives!  There are Eustace and Marion simply miserable this morning because of that hideous barn they can’t get rid of.  Well, it is hideous certainly; but it doesn’t disturb my peace of mind in the least.  What a mean curmudgeon Sir John must be, by the way!  I should not have thought it from his photograph; such a frank, open, generous face he seemed to have.  However, we all know how photographs can mislead one.  I wonder where that wretched boy can be!”