He pushed open a folding oaken door, and they found themselves inside it.  Rows of modern seats filled the body of it, but the walls and windows gave an impression of great antiquity.  The stained glass—­ especially that which surmounted the altar—­contained those rich satisfying purples and deep deep crimsons which only go with age.  It was a bright and yet a mellow light, falling in patches of vivid colour upon the brown woodwork and the grey floors.  Here and there upon the walls were marble inscriptions in the Latin tongue, with pompous allegorical figures with trumpets, for our ancestors blew them in stone as well as in epitaphs over their tombs.  They loved to die, as they had lived, with dignity and with affectation.  White statues glimmered in the shadows of the corners.  As Frank and his wife passed down the side-aisle, their steps clanged through the empty and silent church.

‘Here he is!’ said Frank, and faced to the wall.

He was looking up at the modern representation of a gentleman in a full and curly wig.  It was a well-rounded and comely face, with shrewd eyes and a sensitive mouth.  The face of a man of affairs, and a good fellow, with just that saving touch of sensuality about it which makes an expression human and lovable.  Underneath was printed -

Samuel Pepys
Erected by public subscription
1883.

‘Oh, isn’t he nice?’ said Maude.

‘He’s not a bad-looking chap, is he?’

’I don’t believe that man ever could have struck his wife or kicked the maid.’

‘That’s calling him a liar.’

’Oh dear, I forgot that he said so himself.  Then I suppose he must have done it.  What a pity it seems.’

’Cheer up!  We must say what the old heathen lady said when they read the gospels to her.’

‘What did she say?’

’She said, “Well, it was a long time ago, and we’ll hope that it wasn’t true!"’

’O Frank, how can you tell such stories in a church.  Do you really suppose that Mr. Pepys is in that wall?’

‘I presume that the monument marks the grave.’

’There’s a little bit of plaster loose.  Do you think I might take it?’

‘It isn’t quite the thing.’

‘But it can’t matter, and it isn’t wrong, and we are quite alone.’  She picked off the little flake of plaster, and her heart sprang into her mouth as she did so, for there came an indignant snort from her very elbow, and there was a queer little smoke-dried, black-dressed person who seemed to have risen, like the Eastern genii or a modern genius, in a single instant.  A pair of black list slippers explained the silence of his approach.

‘Put that back, young lady,’ said he severely.

Poor Maude held out her guilty relic on the palm of her hand.  ’I am so sorry,’ said she.  ‘I am afraid I cannot put it back.’

’We’ll ’ave the ‘ole church picked to pieces at this rate,’ said the clerk.  ’You shouldn’t ‘ave done it, and it was very wrong.’  He snorted and shook his head.