On the Sunday morning Nora went to church alone. Miss Harding, who did not appear at breakfast, sent word that she had a headache and hoped that Nora would excuse her; which Nora was glad to do; she preferred to go alone.  
For the first time for some days the sky was overcast; the sun was hidden, as if the clerk of the weather desired to show that he was in sympathy with the girl's feelings. Certainly the girl's mood was not a sunny one. The church was distant from the house about a mile. The way to it was through the grounds; along a footpath through the wood, across Farmer Snelling's thirty-acre field, into the copse on the other side, where the first daffodils were always found; when you were out of the copse almost in front of you was the Rectory Lane; a hundred yards along the lane, turn sharply to the left, there was the lych-gate under which, aforetime, more parish coffins rested than men had count of. As she went the familiar way, amid the many evidences of the hasting spring, the spirit of the morning seemed to enter into her, so that, as she passed into the church, and knelt where she had knelt so many times in happier days, the peace of God came into her soul and she knew, with an abiding sense of comfort, that indeed all things are in His hands.
 
She never forgot that morning's service; the last at which she was privileged to be a worshipper in what she had thought would always be, in a special sense, her own church; the memory was with her, as a sweet savour, in the still darker days which were to come. It was Palm Sunday, for Easter was late that year; the hour of the Church's mourning was close at hand; the appointed service for the day seemed to be peculiarly suited to her own case; before it was at an end her thoughts ceased to be centred on herself; her head, and her heart, were both abased before a sorrow that was greater than hers.
 
When she came out, at the close of service, she was surrounded by people, villagers and others, for there was not a creature in the parish, good or bad, high or low, with whom she was not on terms of intimacy; unconsciously she illustrated the doctrine that--
 
"He prayeth best who loveth best
 
All things, both great and small;
 
For the dear God who loveth us,
 
He made and loveth all."
 
They had all a word of sympathy to offer, crude words some of them were, but she knew that all of them were well meant, and that was something; what was hidden from her, and from them, was knowledge of the fact that to most of those who clustered round her, and who waylaid her as she went, the words which were uttered were words of farewell; that before another Sunday came round she was to be parted from them as by a great sea. At the church porch, in the Rectory Lane, in the copse across Farmer Snelling's field, she found some one who had at least a word to say; sometimes it was an ancient, sometimes a toddling child. She had gained the stile which one had to climb to get into the wood before she was able to feel that the last of the interviewers was done with; she did not guess that on the other side of that stile lurked the most irrepressible of them all.
 
Although there was a right of way through the wood it was one which was seldom used, except by the household at Cloverlea; and how often they went that way was shown by the untrodden moss which almost hid the track. And yet it was a pleasant wood, and an inviting path; it had only to be followed a very little way, there were delicious nooks and dells. Most of the trees were old, and many of them were stately; yet they were excellent company, if one chanced to be alone. As Nora had found, many a time. She loved that wood; it was to her as a dear friend; so often had she come to it to dream, waking dreams, and to be alone in it, with her joys. The season, that year, was early. The chestnuts--there were not many in the wood, only about a dozen, but they were all fine trees--were already nearly in full leaf; the elms were showing green; there was promise of green upon the beeches; only the oaks were still bare; in all the wood, somewhere, was the gleam and glow and glory of that lustrous, delicate, fleeting green which is spring's greatest marvel. And though the sun still was hidden, she felt how beautiful it was, and how good to be in it there alone; until she came upon a man who was leaning against a tree, the finest chestnut in the wood, the splendour of whose leafing branches formed a canopy above him.
 
The man was Robert Spencer; the tree was just round a bend in the path, so that she was almost up against him before she had the faintest notion that any one was there. To judge from her demeanour the sight of him alarmed her; she drew back with a half-stifled cry, staring at him as if he were some dangerous thing. He, on his side, was all smiles, as if he was very conscious that she was the pleasantest thing he had seen that day. He held out both hands, with his cap in one.
 
"Nora! at last! I was afraid you were never coming!"
 
There was no mistake about the joyous ring which was in his voice. On her part she seemed not to know what to say, or do, or make of him, as if his presence there was a possibility of which she had never dreamed.
 
"Mr. Spencer, you--you ought not to be here; I--I must beg of you to let me pass."
 
"Why, my dear Nora, of course I'll let you pass; do you suppose I want to block the way? But why do you call me Mr. Spencer? and why do you keep out of kissing distance? Do you know how long it is since I had a kiss? and how often of late I've pictured the delicious moment in which I was to have another? Nora!"
 
The colours chased each other across her cheeks in rainbow hues; she strove her utmost to look dignified; but, to his thinking, she only looked more delightful; her very severity he thought became her.
 
"Mr. Spencer, you--you have no right to talk to me like this. You have had my letter----"
 
"Your letter? what letter?"
 
"The one I sent you yesterday; it ought to have been delivered this morning."
 
"It wasn't; I've had no letter of yours which you sent me yesterday; where did you send it? to what address?"
 
"I addressed it to you at Holtye."
 
"Then that's why I've not had it; possibly I never shall have it. You rushed off in such a flurry, before I could speak a word to you, that I had no chance to tell you that I wasn't staying at Holtye."
 
"Not staying at Holtye? then where are you staying?"
 
"At the 'Unicorn,' I've taken a room there; it's only another illustration of the truth of what I've so often told you, the more haste the worse speed. I can see now that you'd go tearing off if I'd let you; but I won't. I want to explain."
 
"I--I'd rather you explained through the post."
 
"Then I wouldn't; and I'm not going to. When people wish to understand each other in matters of real importance I hold that they'd better do so face to face; I've no faith in pen and ink; microbes breed in ink-bottles, which breed all sorts of misconceptions. Now I can see that you're rushing at your fences again. You're taking it for granted that I wish to speak to you on one subject, when I principally wish to speak to you about your father. I want to tell you something about him which you ought to know."
 
"What is it?"
 
Her voice was faint, as if she felt that unfair engines of war were being used against her.
 
"Your father hoped that we should marry; he knew that I loved you, and would always love you; and he thought you loved me, and would always love me; and therefore----"
 
"What were you going to tell me about my father?"
 
She perceived that he was trenching on dangerous ground, and tried to get him off it; he came off with much agility.
 
"I met him on the morning on which I was starting for Cairo----"
 
"You never told me."
 
"I had an idea that he didn't wish me to mention that I'd met him, so I didn't. We lunched together; he gave me a most excellent lunch----"
 
"I'm glad he gave you an excellent lunch."
 
"There, Nora! that's much more like you! thank you! It was an excellent lunch; it was after lunch he said he hoped that we should marry, because, as I have already observed, he knew that----"
 
"Yes; we'll take that for granted; please go on."
 
"I'm going on as fast as ever I can; but it'll only be another case of more haste worse speed if you won't let me tell my tale my own way, because, if I don't, I'm nearly sure to leave out essential details. Among other things he remarked that, one day, you'd be a rich young woman."
 
"You're sure he said that?"
 
"Quite; your father could express himself clearly enough if he chose; and he expressed himself clearly then."
 
"But--I don't understand."
 
"Wait a bit; I'm going to make you understand, if you'll have a little patience. Later, I cannot say that he said so clearly, but he intimated, that he obtained his income from some business with which he was connected, and which represented to him a large sum of money."
 
"Business! I didn't know that he had anything to do with any business."
 
"Mind, he didn't state definitely that he had; and I asked no questions, but that was what he hinted. Then he said something which, in the light of recent events, appears to me to have been rather remarkable. He observed that life was always uncertain; that one could never tell the hour when one would die, and that, therefore, since I was going to be the husband of his only child, he would like to place in my hands directions as to what he would desire to have done, in case death took him unawares; or before he completed certain arrangements which he then had in view."
 
"What a strange thing for him to say!"
 
"You see how necessary it was that I should see you face to face, and how difficult it would have been to put this on to paper? Nora, I love you!"
 
"Are you--are you really telling me what my father said?"
 
"I'm going to tell you everything he said, if you'll give me time enough; only don't suppose for a moment that you're going to keep me from saying that I love you; especially as it was because he knew I loved you, and believed that you loved me, that he told me what he did."
 
"I--I wish you'd go on."
 
"After I'd been a few days in Cairo there came a package in which there was a note from him; a brief and characteristic note, to this effect. 'Dear Robert,' you see he called me Robert." He paused, as if to challenge her. "Nora, I wish you'd call me Robert; it's a stupid, ugly, vulgar, clumsy name, but you don't know how I long to hear it on your lips."
 
"I--I don't know that it............