‘I suppose so. There was a trunk on the four-wheeler. Adela says he looked ill, though I don’t see how she discovered so much.’ ‘I have no doubt she is right. He must have been ill.’ Mr. Wyvern, in contrast with his habit, was paying marked attention; he leaned forward, with a hand on each knee. In the meanwhile the preparations for tea had progressed, and as Mrs. Waltham rose at the sight of the teapot being brought in, her daughter entered the room. Adela was taller by half a head than her brother; she was slim and graceful. The air had made her face bloom, and the smile which was added as she drew near to the vicar enhanced the charm of a countenance at all times charming. She was not less than ladylike in self-possession, but Mr. Wyvern’s towering sableness clearly awed her a little. For an instant her eyes drooped, but at once she raised them and met the severe gaze with unflinching orbs. Releasing her hand, Mr. Wyvern performed a singular little ceremony: he laid his right palm very gently on her nutbrown hair, and his lips moved. At the same time he all but smiled. Alfred’s face was a delightful study the while; it said so clearly, ‘Confound the parson’s impudence!’ Mrs. Waltham, on the other hand, looked pleased as she rustled to her place at the tea-tray. ‘So Mr. Eldon has come?’ she said, glancing at Adela. ‘Alfred says he looks ill.’ ‘Mother,’ interposed the young man, ‘pray be accurate. I distinctly stated that I did not even see him, and should not have known that it was he at all. Adela is responsible for that assertion.’ ‘I just saw his face,’ the girl said naturally. ‘I thought he looked ill.’ Mr. Wyvern addressed to her a question about her walk, and for a few minutes they conversed together. There was a fresh simplicity in Adela’s way of speaking which harmonised well with her appearance and with the scene in which she moved. A gentle English girl, this dainty home, set in so fair and peaceful a corner of the world, was just the abode one would have chosen for her. Her beauty seemed a part of the burgeoning spring-time, She was not lavish of her smiles; a timid seriousness marked her manner to the clergyman, and she replied to his deliberately-posed questions with a gravity respectful alike of herself and of him.