The first was that through the past two hours she had been seated in the same building with Leo Salis; the pews were high, and Leo could only have seen the top of her bonnet, whereas the handsome widow did not go to great expense for the most fashionable _modes et robes_, as the dressmakers express it, for nothing. The most elegant head-gear, though it may afford some satisfaction to the wearer, is hardly worth wearing, unless it be envied by those of the one sex and admired by the other. This encounter with the doctor would give handsome Leo a good opportunity for envious glances, and as Mrs Berens could not rival her neighbour in contour, she would have some chance of standing upon an equal footing. The other reason was that she wished the curate to come up and speak to her at the same time as she was talking to the doctor. For Mrs Berens was not deeply in love; she only wished to be. The doctor and the curate were both fine, manly fellows, to either of whom she would have been willing to give herself and fortune; but somehow they had both been terribly unimpressionable, and though she had shown as plainly as she dared, any time during the past year, the tenderness waiting to burst forth, she was still Mrs Berens, and twelve months older. Here was an opportunity of playing one-off against the other; for men could often be stirred, she knew, into learning the value of something when they saw that it was gliding from their grasp. The couple from the Rectory came up, and Mrs Berens felt a pang as, after her warm salutations, in which her hand had rested in that of the curate for a few moments, to receive nothing more than a frank, friendly pressure, she saw that of Leo Salis rest in the doctor's longer than she considered prudent. Leo seemed unusually handsome, too, that morning. There was a bright flush on her cheeks; her eyes sparkled, and she looked twenty, while Mrs Berens felt that she looked nearly forty. Salis was glad of the encounter, for it was true that he had been making mistakes that morning. The very fact that Tom Candlish was in the church was disturbing, and when he knew that he must have come--he could not believe otherwise--expressly to stare at Leo, the presence of the man whom he had thrashed in so unclerical a way acted on his thoughts as a pointsman acts over trains at a busy junction--sent them flying in different directions beyond the drivers' control. The curate's colour was heightened, for he knew that he had appeared at a disadvantage before the more thoughtful of his congregation. He was anxious, too, about Leo, who looked excited, and he dreaded any renewal of the past trouble; so that the encounter was satisfactory, if only from the fact that it afforded temporary relief from worrying thoughts and cares.