The next day was Sunday. George Gerard was up as soon as it was light, and off for a ramble on the moor before the nine o’clock breakfast. This glimpse of the country was sweet to him, even in the bleak January weather, and he wanted to make the most of his brief opportunity. When he came back to the Vicarage after his walk, he found Edward Clare smoking a cigar in the shrubbery. ‘What a fellow you are to be rambling about in such wintry weather!’ cried Edward, by way of salutation. ‘I want a few minutes’ talk before we go in to breakfast. We may not get a chance of being alone afterwards. Celia is so fussy on Sunday mornings. I should like you to go to church with us, if you don’t object?’ ‘I had made up my mind to go. I hope you don’t suppose I have an antipathy to churches?’ ‘One never knows how that may be. I don’t imagine there’s much church-going among young professional men in London.’ ‘I used to escort my mother to church every Sunday morning when I was a little boy, and those were my happiest days. If I didn’t like the Sunday morning service for its own sake, I should like it because it puts me in mind of her.’ ‘Ah,’ sighed Edward, ‘I dare say when a fellow loses his mother early in life he feels sentimental about her ever afterwards. But when a mother gets to the elderly and twaddly age, one may be fond of her, but one can’t feel poetical about her. I’ll tell you why I want you to go to church with us, Gerard. John Treverton is sure to be there. It will be a capital opportunity for you to take stock of him. Our pew is just opposite the Manor House pew. You’ll have him in full view all through the service.’ ‘Very good,’ assented Gerard. ‘If this Mr. Treverton and Jack Chicot are the same, I shall know him wherever I see him.’ Celia was in excellent spirits all breakfast-time, and poured out tea and coffee with a vivacity and a grace worthy of French comedy. The presence of a strange young man had a wonderfully brightening influence. Celia felt grateful to her brother for having afforded this unaccustomed variety in the monotonous course of rural life. She took more pains than usual in putting on her bonnet for church, though that was an operation which she always performed carefully; and she happened somehow to be walking by Mr. Gerard’s side for the few hundred yards between the Vicarage and the lych-gate.