"It isn't as if it were natural," Felix Fayre-Michell persisted."Don't imagine that for a moment.""It's too creepy - I can't believe it," declared his niece.She was incapable of suffering much for anybody, and her excitement had a flavour not wholly bitter.She saw herself describing these events at other house parties.It would be unfair to say that she was enjoying herself; still she knew nobody at Chadlands very well, it was her first visit, and adventures are, after all, adventures.Her uncle discussed the psychic significance of the tragedy, and gave instances of similar events.One or two listened to him for lack of anything better to do.There was a general sensation of blankness.They were all thrown.Life had let them down.Under the circumstances, to most of them it seemed an excellent idea to go to church.Vane joined them presently.He was able to give them many details and excite their interest.They crowded round him, and he spoke nakedly.Death was nothing to him - he had seen so much.They heard the motor return with Dr.Mannering.
"We're so out of it," said Mr.Miles Handford, a stout man from Yorkshire - a wealthy landowner and sportsman.
He was unaccustomed to be out of anything in his environment, and he showed actual irritation.
"Thank Heaven we are, I should think!" answered another; and the first speaker frowned at him.
Ernest Travers joined them presently.He had put on a black tie and wore black gloves and a silk hat.
"If you accompany me," he said, "I can show you the short way by a field path.It cuts off half a mile.I have told Sir Walter we all go to church, and he asked me if we would like the motors; but I felt, the day being fine, you would agree with me that we might walk.He is terribly crushed, but taking it like the man he is."Miles Handford and Fayre-Michell followed the church party in the rear, and relieved their minds by criticizing Mr.Travers.
"Officious ass!" said the stout man."A typical touch that black tie! A decent-minded person would have felt this appalling tragedy far too much to think of such a trifle.I hope I shall never see the brute again.""It seems too grotesque marching to church like a lot of children, because he tells us to do so," murmured Fayre-Michell.
"I don't want to go.I only want distraction.In fact, I don't think I shall go," added Mr.Handford.But a woman urged him to do so.
"Sir Walter would like it," she said.
"It's all very sad and very exasperating indeed," declared the Yorkshireman; "and it shows, if that wanted showing, that there's far, far less consideration among young men for their elders than there used to be in my young days.If my father-in-law had told me not to do a thing, the very wish to do it would have disappeared at once.""Sir Walter was as clear as need be," added Felix."We all heard him.Then the young fool - Heaven forgive him - behind everybody's back goes and plays with fire in this insane way.""The selfishness! Just look at the inconvenience - the upset - the suffering to his relations and the worry for all of us.All our plans must be altered - everything upset, life for the moment turned upside down - a woman's heart broken very likely - and all for a piece of disobedient folly.Such things make one out of tune with Providence.They oughtn't to happen.They don't happen in Yorkshire.Devonshire appears to be a slacker's county.It's the air, I shouldn't wonder.""Education, and law and order, and the discipline inculcated in the Navy ought to have prevented this." continued Fayre-Michell."Who, ver heard of a sailor disobeying-except Nelson?""He's paid, poor fellow," said his niece, who walked beside him.
"We have all paid," declared the north countryman."We have all paid the price; and the price has been a great deal of suffering and discomfort and stress of mind that we ought not have been called upon to endure.One resents such things in a stable world.""Well, I'm not going to church, anyway.I must smoke for my nerves.I'm a psychic myself, and I react to a thing of this sort," replied Fayre- Michell.
>From a distant stile between two fields Mr.Travers, some hundred yards ahead, was waving directions and pointing to the left.
"Go to Jericho!" snapped Mr.Handford, but not loud enough for Ernest Travers to hear him.
A little ring of bells throbbed thin music.It rose and fell on the easterly breeze and a squat grey tower, over which floated a white ensign on a flagstaff, appeared upon a little knoll of trees in the midst of the village of Chadlands.
Presently the bells stopped, and the flag was brought down to half- mast.Mr.Travers had reached the church.
"A maddening sort of man," said Miles Handford, who marked these phenomena."Be sure Sir Walter never told him to do anything of that sort.He has taken it upon himself - a theatrical mind.If I were the vicar -"Elsewhere Dr.Mannering heard what Henry Lennox could tell him as they returned to the manor house together.He displayed very deep concern combined with professional interest.He recalled the story that Sir Walter had related on the previous night.
"Not a shadow of evidence - a perfectly healthy little woman; and it will be the same here as sure as I'm alive," he said."To think - we shot side by side yesterday, and I remarked his fine physique and wonderful high spirits - a big, tough fellow.How's poor Mary?""She is pretty bad, but keeping her nerve, as she would be sure to do," declared the other.
