The lights seemed to prophesy company, and so he was surprised, on pushing the door softly back and entering, to find that there was no one there. But there were two large candles on the altar, and they waved towards him a little with the draught from the door as though to greet him. The church seemed larger now in the half light. The great box-like family pew was lost in the dark corners by the walls; it seemed to stretch away into infinite space. The other seats had an air of conscious waiting for some ceremony. On one of them was still an open prayer-book, open at the marriage service, that had been left there that afternoon. And at the sight of it the memories of Tony and Janet came back to him with a rush, so that they seemed to be there with him. Already it seemed a very, very long time since they had gone, another lifetime almost. And now, as he thought of it, perhaps, after all, it was better that they had gone like that. He thought over the whole affair from the beginning. The first evening in Treliss, that first night when he had quarrelled with her, and then there had been Tony. That dated the change in him. But he could not remember when he had first noticed anything in her. There had been the picnic, the evening in their room when he had nearly lost control of himself and shaken her. . . . Yes, it was after that. That placed it. Well, then, it was only, after all, because he had shown himself firm, because, for once, he had made her afraid of him. Because, too, no doubt, she had noticed that people paid him attention. For the first time in their married life he had become “somebody,” and that perhaps had opened her eyes. But then there had been that curious moment the other night when she had spoken to him. That had been extraordinarily unpleasant. He could feel again his uncomfortable sensation of helplessness, of not in the least knowing how to deal with her. That was the new Mrs. Maradick. He had therefore some one quite new to reckon with. And then he saw suddenly, there in the church, the right thing to do. It was to go back. To go back to Epsom, to go back to his wife, to go back to the girls. He saw that she, Mrs. Maradick, in her own way, had been touched by the Admonitus Locorum—not that he put it that way; he called it the “rum place” or “the absurd town.” She was going to try (she had herself told him so) to be better, more obliging. He could see her now, sitting there on the end of the bed, looking at him so pathetically. The shadows gathered about the church, creeping along the floor and blotting out the blue light from the windows, and only there was a glow by the altar where the candles seemed to increase in size, and their light, like a feathery golden mist, hung in circles until it lost itself in the dusky roof.