On entering the pew this morning she had as usual dropped the upper door, and had laid her large church service open on the shelf, where she could reach it as soon as Mr. Wyvern began to read.  Then began her reverie.  From thoughts of the grave she passed to memories of her wedding-day.  How often the scene of that morning had re-enacted itself in her mind!  Often she dreamed it all over, and woke as from a nightmare.  She wished it had not taken place in this church; it troubled the sacred recollections of her maiden peace.  She began to think it over once more, attracted by the pain it caused her, and, on coming to the bestowal of the ring, an odd caprice led her to draw the circlet itself from her finger.  When she had done it she trembled.  The hand looked so strange.  Oh, her hand, her hand!  Once ringless indeed, once her own to give, to stretch forth in pledge of the heart’s imperishable faith!  Now a prisoner for ever; but, thus ringless, so like a maiden hand once more.  There came a foolish sense of ease.  She would keep her finger free yet a little, perhaps through the service.  She bent forward and laid the ring on the open book.

More dreams, quite other than before; then the organ began its prelude, a tremor passing through the church before the sound broke forth.  Adela sank deeper in reverie.  At length Mr. Wyvern’s voice roused her; she stood up and reached her book; but she had wholly forgotten that the ring lay upon it, and was only reminded by a glimpse of it rolling away on the shelf, rolling to the back of the cupboard.  But it did not stop there; surely it was the ring that she heard fall down below, behind the large sliding door.  She had a sudden fright lest it should be lost, and stooped at once to search for it.

She drew back the door, pushed aside the buffets, then groped in the darkness.  She touched the ring.  But something else lay there; it seemed a long piece of thick paper, folded.  This too she brought forth, and, having slipped the ring on her finger, looked to see what she had found.

It was parchment She unfolded it, and saw that it was covered with writing in a clerkly hand.  How strange!

‘This is the last will and testament of me, RICHMOND MUTIMER—­’

Her hand shook.  She felt as if the sides of the pew were circling about her, as if she stood amid falling and changing things.

She looked to the foot of the sheet.

’In witness whereof I, the said Richard Mutimer, have hereunto set my hand this seventeenth day of October, 187-.’

The date was some six months prior to old Richard Mutimer’s death.  This could be nothing but the will which every one believed him to have destroyed.

Adela sank upon the seat.  Her ring!  Had she picked it up?  Yes; it was again upon her finger.  How had it chanced to fall down below?  She rose again and examined the cupboard; there was a gap of four or five inches at the back of the upper shelf.