Now she beheld them, collectively, in their complacent finery, as representing a force, a section of the army blocking the heads of the passes of the world’s progress, resting on their arms, but ready at the least uneasy movement from below to man the breastworks, to fling down the traitor from above, to fight fiercely for the solidarity of their order.  And Alison even believed herself to detect, by something indefinable in their attitudes as they stood momentarily conversing in lowered voices, an aroused suspicion, an uneasy anticipation.  Her imagination went so far as to apprehend, as they greeted her unwonted appearance, that they read in it an addition to other vague and disturbing phenomena.  Her colour was high.

“Why, my dear,” said Mrs. Atterbury, “I thought you had gone back to New York long ago!”

Beside his mother stood Gordon—­more dried up, it seemed, than ever.  Alison recalled him, as on this very spot, a thin, pale boy in short trousers, and Mrs. Atterbury a beautiful and controlled young matron associated with St. John’s and with children’s parties.  She was wonderful yet, with her white hair and straight nose, her erect figure still slight.  Alison knew that Mrs. Atterbury had never forgiven her for rejecting her son—­or rather for being the kind of woman who could reject him.

“Surely you haven’t been here all summer?”

Alison admitted it, characteristically, without explanations.

“It seems so natural to see you here at the old church, after all these years,” the lady went on, and Alison was aware that Mrs. Atterbury questioned—­or rather was at a loss for the motives which had led such an apostate back to the fold.  “We must thank Mr. Hodder, I suppose.  He’s very remarkable.  I hear he is resuming the services to-day for the first time since June.”

Alison was inclined to read a significance into Mrs. Atterbury’s glance at her son, who was clearing his throat.

“But—­where is Mr. Parr?” he asked.  “I understand he has come back from his cruise.”

“Yes, he is back.  I came without—­him—–­as you see.”

She found a certain satisfaction in adding to the mystification, to the disquietude he betrayed by fidgeting more than usual.

“But—­he always comes when he is in town.  Business—­I suppose—­ahem!”

“No,” replied Alison, dropping her bomb with cruel precision, “he has gone to Calvary.”

The agitation was instantaneous.

“To Calvary!” exclaimed mother and son in one breath.

“Why?” It was Gordon who demanded.  “A—­a special occasion there—­a bishop or something?”

“I’m afraid you must ask him,” she said.

She was delayed on the steps, first by Nan Ferguson, then by the Laureston Greys, and her news outdistanced her to the porch.  Charlotte Plimpton looking very red and solid, her eyes glittering with excitement, blocked her way.

“Alison?” she cried, in the slightly nasal voice that was a Gore inheritance, “I’m told your father’s gone to Calvary!  Has Mr. Hodder offended him?  I heard rumours—­Wallis seems to be afraid that something has happened.”