She dabbed her eyes with the little handkerchief again, and went slowly out of the church.  And as she stepped from the shadow of its portal into the sunshiny open air, she came face to face with John Walden.  He started back at the sudden sight of her,—­then recollecting himself, raised his hat, looking at her with questioning eyes.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Walden!” she said, affecting a sprightly air—­ “Are you quite well?”

He smiled.

“Quite.  And you?  You look—–­”

“As if I had been crying, I suppose?”—­she suggested.  “So I have.  Women often cry.”

“They do,—­but—–­”

“But why should they?—­you would say, being a man,”—­and Maryllia forced a laugh.—­“And that’s a question difficult to answer!  Are you going into the church?”

“Not for a service, or on any urgent matter,”—­replied John—­“I left a book in the vestry which I want to refer to,—­that’s all.”

“Fetch it,” said Maryllia—­“I’ll wait for you here.”

He glanced at her—­and saw that her lips trembled, and that she was still on the verge of tears.  He hurried off at once, realising that she wanted a minute or two to recover herself.  His heart beat foolishly fast and uncomfortably,—­he wondered what had grieved or annoyed her.

“Poor little soul!” he murmured, reflecting on a conversation with which Julian Adderley had regaled him the previous day, concerning some of the guests at Abbot’s Manor—­“Poor, weary, sweet little soul!”

While Maryllia, during his brief absence was thinking—­“I won’t cry, or he’ll take me for a worse fool than I am.  He looks so terribly intellectual—­so wise and cool and calm!—­and yet I think—­I think he was rather pleased to see me!”

She smoothed her face into a smile,—­gave one or two more reproving taps to her eyelids with her morsel of a kerchief, and was quite self-possessed when he returned, with a worn copy of the Iliad under his arm.

“Is that the book you wanted?” she asked.

“Yes—­” and he showed it to her—­“I admit it had no business to be left in the church.”

She peeped between the covers.

“Oh, it’s all Greek!”—­she said—­“Do you read Greek?”

“It is one of the happiest accomplishments I learned at college,”—­ he replied.  “I have eased many a heartache by reading Homer in the original.”

She looked meditative.

“Now that’s very strange!” she murmured—­“I should never have thought that to read Homer in the original Greek would ease a heartache!  How does it do it?  Will you teach me?”

She raised her eyes—­how beautiful and blue they were he thought!—­ more beautiful for the mist of weeping that still lingered about their soft radiance.

“I will teach you Greek, if you like, with pleasure!”—­he said, smiling a little, though his lips trembled—­“But whether it would cure any heartache of yours I could not promise!”