They did not speak a word during their progress, or in any way interfere with the stillness and silence that prevailed everywhere around them.  Everything in the place was the embodiment of decay:  the fading red glare from the setting sun, which came in at the west window, emphasizing the end of the day and all its cheerful doings, the mildewed walls, the uneven paving-stones, the wormy pews, the sense of recent occupation, and the dank air of death which had gathered with the evening, would have made grave a lighter mood than Cytherea’s was then.

‘What sensations does the place impress you with?’ she said at last, very sadly.

’I feel imperatively called upon to be honest, from very despair of achieving anything by stratagem in a world where the materials are such as these.’  He, too, spoke in a depressed voice, purposely or otherwise.

’I feel as if I were almost ashamed to be seen walking such a world,’ she murmured; ’that’s the effect it has upon me; but it does not induce me to be honest particularly.’

He took her hand in both his, and looked down upon the lids of her eyes.

‘I pity you sometimes,’ he said more emphatically.

‘I am pitiable, perhaps; so are many people.  Why do you pity me?’

‘I think that you make yourself needlessly sad.’

‘Not needlessly.’

’Yes, needlessly.  Why should you be separated from your brother so much, when you might have him to stay with you till he is well?’

‘That can’t be,’ she said, turning away.

He went on, ’I think the real and only good thing that can be done for him is to get him away from Budmouth awhile; and I have been wondering whether it could not be managed for him to come to my house to live for a few weeks.  Only a quarter of a mile from you.  How pleasant it would be!’

‘It would.’

He moved himself round immediately to the front of her, and held her hand more firmly, as he continued, ’Cytherea, why do you say “It would,” so entirely in the tone of abstract supposition?  I want him there:  I want him to be my brother, too.  Then make him so, and be my wife!  I cannot live without you.  O Cytherea, my darling, my love, come and be my wife!’

His face bent closer and closer to hers, and the last words sank to a whisper as weak as the emotion inspiring it was strong.

She said firmly and distinctly, ‘Yes, I will.’

‘Next month?’ he said on the instant, before taking breath.

‘No; not next month.’

‘The next?’

‘No.’

‘December?  Christmas Day, say?’

‘I don’t mind.’

‘O, you darling!’ He was about to imprint a kiss upon her pale, cold mouth, but she hastily covered it with her hand.

‘Don’t kiss me—­at least where we are now!’ she whispered imploringly.

‘Why?’

‘We are too near God.’

He gave a sudden start, and his face flushed.  She had spoken so emphatically that the words ‘Near God’ echoed back again through the hollow building from the far end of the chancel.