Why should they look so prominent? The question puzzled Edwin all the way down through the quiet streets. But even though this mystery exercised his mind he could not help appreciating the curious atmosphere of the route through which they progressed. At the corner of the street the first familiar thing smote him: it was the odour of stale spirits and beer that issued from between the closed doors of the Bull’s Head public-house, behind which it had been secreted ever since an uproarious closing time the night before. Then came the steep High Street, and from its gutters the indescribable smell of vegetable refuse left there overnight from the greengrocer’s stalls. On an ordinary morning it would not have been noticed, for the motion of wheeled traffic in the highway and the sight of open shop windows would have distracted the attention. On Sunday morning, however, it became the most important thing in the road, and seemed to emphasise the deadness of the day in contrast to the activities and dissipations of Saturday night. It called attention to the indubitable sordidness of the whole street: the poverty of its grimy brick: the faded lettering above the shop windows: the paint that cracked and peeled from the closed shutters. On this morning Halesby was a squalid and degraded town. Even Mr. Ingleby’s shop in the High Street looked curiously small and mean. Edwin disliked the sight of his own name printed over it. It reminded him of Griffin’s social prejudices. They entered a small door in the transept when the last bell was tolling; and as they stepped into the full church Edwin realised at last the reason of Aunt Laura’s particular anxieties. They were on show. This was the first occasion, since the funeral, that the family had entered the church, and, in accordance with an immemorial custom, the congregation were now engaged in searching their faces and their clothing for evidences of the grief that was proper to their condition. Kneeling in the conventional opening prayer, Edwin could see through his folded fingers that the whole of the gathering was engaged in a ghoulish scrutiny of their party. Now, for the first time, he realised the full meaning of the horror with which his grey tie had inspired Aunt Laura. He could even feel Aunt Laura, who remained kneeling longer than usual, wallowing in the emotion that her presence evoked. It was a rotten business. If he could have dared to do so without causing an immense scandal, Edwin would have got up and left the church. He saw Aunt Laura glance at his father with a kind of proprietary air, as if this exhibition were really her own responsibility and the degree of interest that Mr. Ingleby’s appearance aroused were to her credit.