Rodman and his wife came to Wanley to spend three days before all together set out for the Continent.  Adela accepted the course of things, and abandoned herself to the stream.  For a week her husband had been milder; we know the instinct that draws the cat’s paws from the flagging mouse.

Alice, no longer much interested in novels, must needs talk with some one; she honoured Adela with much of her confidence, seeming to forget and forgive, in reality delighted to recount her London experiences to her poor tame sister-in-law.  Alice, too, had been at moments introduced to her husband’s kitchen; she threw out vague hints of a wonderful repast in preparation.

‘Willis is going to buy me a house in Brighton,’ she said, among other things.  ’I shall run down whenever I feel it would do me good.  You’ve no idea how kind he is.’

There was, in fact, an ‘advancement clause’ in Alice’s deed of settlement.  If Mr. Rodman showed himself particularly anxious to cultivate the friendship of Mr. Alfred Waltham, possibly one might look for the explanation to the terms of that same document.

There came a Sunday morning.  Preparations for departure on the morrow were practically completed.  The weather was delightful.  Adela finished breakfast in time to wander a little about the garden before it was the hour for church; her husband and Rodman breakfasted with her, and went to smoke in the library.  Alice and ’Arry did not present themselves till the church bells had ceased.

Adela was glad to be alone in the dusky pew.  She was the first of the congregation to arrive, and she sat, as always, with the curtains enclosing her save in front.  The bells ringing above the roof had a soothing effect upon her, and gave strange turns to her thought.  So had their summoning rung out to generation after generation; so would it ring long after she was buried and at rest.  Where would her grave be?  She was going for the first time to a foreign country; perhaps death might come to her there.  Then she would lie for ever among strangers, and her place be forgotten.  Would it not be the fitting end of so sad and short a life?

In the front of the pew was a cupboard; the upper portion, which contained the service books, was closed with a long, narrow door, opening downwards on horizontal hinges; the shelf on which the books lay went back into darkness, being, perhaps, two feet broad.  Below this shelf was the door of the lower and much larger receptacle; it slid longitudinally, and revealed a couple of buffets, kept here to supplement the number in the pew when necessary.  Adela had only once opened the sliding door, and then merely to glance into the dark hollows and close it again.  Probably the buffets had lain undisturbed for years.