The day was done, and Fancy was again in the school-house. About five o’clock it began to rain, and in rather a dull frame of mind she wandered into the schoolroom, for want of something better to do. She was thinking — of her lover Dick Dewy? Not precisely. Of how weary she was of living alone: how unbearable it would be to return to Yalbury under the rule of her strange-tempered step-mother; that it was far better to be married to anybody than do that; that eight or nine long months had yet to be lived through ere the wedding could take place.

At the side of the room were high windows of Ham-hill stone, upon either sill of which she could sit by first mounting a desk and using it as a footstool. As the evening advanced here she perched herself, as was her custom on such wet and gloomy occasions, put on a light shawl and bonnet, opened the window, and looked out at the rain.

The window overlooked a field called the Grove, and it was the position from which she used to survey the crown of Dick’s passing hat in the early days of their acquaintance and meetings. Not a living soul was now visible anywhere; the rain kept all people indoors who were not forced abroad by necessity, and necessity was less importunate on Sundays than during the week.

Sitting here and thinking again — of her lover, or of the sensation she had created at church that day? — well, it is unknown — thinking and thinking she saw a dark masculine figure arising into distinctness at the further end of the Grove — a man without an umbrella. Nearer and nearer he came, and she perceived that he was in deep mourning, and then that it was Dick. Yes, in the fondness and foolishness of his young heart, after walking four miles, in a drizzling rain without overcoat or umbrella, and in face of a remark from his love that he was not to come because he would be tired, he had made it his business to wander this mile out of his way again, from sheer wish of spending ten minutes in her presence.

“O Dick, how wet you are!” she said, as he drew up under the window. “Why, your coat shines as if it had been varnished, and your hat — my goodness, there’s a streaming hat!”

“O, I don’t mind, darling!” said Dick cheerfully. “Wet never hurts me, though I am rather sorry for my best clothes. However, it couldn’t be helped; we lent all the umbrellas to the women. I don’t know when I shall get mine back!”

“And look, there’s a nasty patch of something just on your shoulder.”

“Ah, that’s japanning; it rubbed off the clamps of poor Jack’s coffin when we lowered him from our shoulders upon the bier! I don’t care about that, for ’twas the last deed I could do for him; and ’tis hard if you can’t afford a coat for an old friend.”

Fancy put her hand to her mouth for half a minute. Underneath the palm of that little hand there existed for that half-minute a little yawn.

“Dick, I don’t like you to stand there in the wet. And you mustn’t sit down. Go home and change your things. Don’t stay another minute.”

“One kiss after coming so far,” he pleaded.

“If I can reach, then.”

He looked rather disappointed at not being invited round to the door. She twisted from her seated position and bent herself downwards, but not even by standing on the plinth was it possible for Dick to get his lips into contact with hers as she held them. By great exertion she might have reached a little lower; but then she would have exposed her head to the rain.

“Never mind, Dick; kiss my hand,” she said, flinging it down to him. “Now, good-bye.”

“Good-bye.”

He walked slowly away, turning and turning again to look at her till he was out of sight. During the retreat she said to herself, almost involuntarily, and still conscious of that morning’s triumph —“I like Dick, and I love him; but how plain and sorry a man looks in the rain, with no umbrella, and wet through!”

As he vanished, she made as if to descend from her seat; but glancing in the other direction she saw another form coming along the same track. It was also that of a man. He, too, was in black from top to toe; but he carried an umbrella.

He drew nearer, and the direction of the rain caused him so to slant his umbrella that from her height above the ground his head was invisible, as she was also to him. He passed in due time directly beneath her, and in looking down upon the exterior of his umbrella her feminine eyes perceived it to be of superior silk — less common at that date than since — and of elegant make. He reached the entrance to the building, and Fancy suddenly lost sight of him. Instead of pursuing the roadway as Dick had done he had turned sharply round into her own porch.

She jumped to the floor, hastily flung off her shawl and bonnet, smoothed and patted her hair till the curls hung in passable condition, and listened. No knock. Nearly a minute passed, and still there was no knock. Then there arose a soft series of raps, no louder than the tapping of a distant woodpecker, and b............