Then other couples came along, old and young, and twice a trio--one, two young men in black, who skirmished on either side of a very sedate girl in white; one, two girls who shoved one another, and giggled, walking in step three yards behind another young man with his hat on one side, who gloried in being talked at and pretended to be rapt in abstraction. Then some children came; then a family--papa walking severely apart in a silk hat, and mamma, stout and scarlet-faced, in the midst of the throng. Finally there came along a very old Darby and Joan, who with many Yorkshire ejaculations helped one another over the stile, and moved on with bent heads, scolding one another affectionately. It was as this last couple reached the spot where the path ran into the corn that the peal of four bells broke out, and Gertie broke down. Frank had not been noticing her particularly. He was gloomy himself; the novelty of the whole affair had gone; the Major was becoming intolerable, and Frank's religion was beginning to ebb from his emotions. Mass this morning had not been a success from an emotional point of view; he had had an uncomfortable seat on a pitch-pine bench in a tin church with an American organ; the very young priest had been tiresome and antipathetic.... Frank had done his best, but he was tired and bored; the little church had been very hot, and it was no longer any fun to be stared at superciliously by a stout tradesman as he came out into the hot sunshine afterwards. Just now he had been watching the figures make their appearance from the stile, re-form groups and dwindle slowly down to the corn, and their heads and shoulders bob along above it--all with a kind of resentment. These people had found their life; he was still looking for his. He was watching, too, the strangely unreal appearance of the sunlit fields, the long shadows, the golden smoky light, and the church tower, set among cypresses half a mile away--yet without any conscious sentiment. He had not said a word to Gertie, nor she to him, and he was totally taken by surprise when, after the first soft crash of bells for evening service, she had suddenly thrown herself round face forward among the grasses and burst out sobbing. "My dear girl!" said Frank, "whatever's the matter?" Then he stopped. * * * * * Fortunately, the procession of worshipers had run dry, and the two were quite alone. He sat upright, utterly ignorant of what to say. He thought perhaps she was in pain ... should he run for the Major or a doctor?... Then, as after a minute or two of violent sobbing she began a few incoherent words, he understood. "Oh! I'm a wicked girl ... a wicked girl ... it's all so beautiful ... the church bells ... my mother!" * * * * *