The still quietness of the Sabbath morning shed its peace over Foxwood. Within the Court of that name--where the lawns were green and level, and the sweet flowers exhaled their perfume, and a tree here and there was already putting on its autumn tints--the aspect of peace seemed to be more especially exhaled.

The windows of the rooms stood open. Inside one of them the breakfast was on the table yet, Miss Blake seated at it. Matins at St. Jerome\'s had been unusually prolonged; and Sir Karl and Lady Andinnian had taken breakfast when she got home. The Reverend Damon Puff had now come to help Mr. Cattacomb; imparting to St. Jerome\'s an additional attraction.

While Miss Blake took her breakfast, Lucy went out amidst her flowers. The scent of the mignonette filled the air, the scarlet of the geraniums made the beds brilliant. Lucy wore one of her simple muslin dresses; it had sprigs of green upon it--for the weather was still that of summer, though the season was not, and the nightingales were no longer heard of an evening. Trinity church boasted a set of sweet-toned bells, and they were ringing on the air. When the Sacrament was administered--the first Sunday in each month--they generally did ring before service. This was the first Sunday in September. Lucy stooped to pick some mignonette as she listened to the bells. She was getting to look what she was--worn and unhappy. Nothing could be much less satisfactory than her life: it seemed to herself sometimes that she was like a poor flower withering for lack of sunshine. For the first time for several weeks she meant, that day, to stay for the after-service: her mind had really been in too great a chaos before: but this week she had been schooling herself in preparation for it, and praying and striving to feel tranquil.

Karl came round the terrace from his room and crossed the lawn. In his hand he held a most exquisite rose, and offered it to her. She thanked him as she took it. In manner they were always courteous to one another.

"What a lovely day it is?" she said. "So calm and still."

"And not quite so hot as it was a few weeks ago," he replied. "Those must be Mr. Sumnor\'s bells."

"Yes. I wish they rang every Sunday. I think--it may be all fancy, but I can\'t help thinking it--that people would go to church more heartily if the bells rang for them as they are ringing now, instead of calling them with the usual ding-dong."

"There is something melancholy in the ringing of bells," observed Karl, in abstraction.

"But, when the heart is in itself melancholy, the melancholy of the bells brings to it a feeling of soothing consolation," was Lucy\'s hasty answer. And the next moment she felt sorry that she had said it. Never, willingly, did she allude to aught that could touch on their estrangement.

"Talking of church, Lucy," resumed Karl, in a different and almost confidential tone, "I am beginning to feel really annoyed about that place, St. Jerome\'s. They are going too far. I wish you would speak a word of caution to Theresa."

"I--I scarcely like to," answered Lucy, after a pause, her delicate cheek faintly flushing, for she was conscious that she had not dared to talk much on any score with Theresa lately, lest Theresa might allude to the subject of the Maze. Fearing that she avoided her when she could, so as to give no opportunity for private conversation. "She is so much older and wiser than I am--"

"Wiser!" interrupted Karl. "I think not. In all things, save one, you have ten times the good plain sense that she has. That one thing, Lucy, I shall never be able to understand, or account for, to my dying day."

"And, moreover, I was going to add," continued Lucy, flushing deeper at the allusion, "I am quite sure that Theresa would not heed me, whatever I might say."

"Well, I don\'t know what is to be done. People are mocking at St. Jerome\'s and its frequenters\' folly more than I care to hear, and blame me for allowing it to go on. I should not like to be written to by the Bishop of the Diocese."

"You written to!" cried Lucy in surprise.

"It is within the range of possibility. The place is on the Andinnian land."

"I think, were I you, I would speak to Mr. Cattacomb."

Karl made a wry face. He did not like the man. Moreover he fancied--as did Lucy in regard to Miss Blake--that whatever he might say would make no impression. But for this he had spoken to him before. But, now that another was come and the folly was being doubled, it lay in his duty to remonstrate. The whole village gossiped and laughed; Sir Adam was furious. Ann Hopley carried the gossip home to her master--which of course lost nothing in the transit--and he abused Karl for not interfering.

They went to church together, Karl and his wife. It was a thinner congregation than ordinary. Being a grand field-day at St. Jerome\'s with procession and banners, some of them had gone off thither as to a show. Kneeling by her husband\'s side in their pew, Lucy felt the influence of the holy place, and peace seemed to steal down upon her. Margaret Sumnor was opposite, looking at her: and in Margaret\'s face there was a strange, pitying compassion, for she saw that that other face was becoming sadder day by day.

It was a plain, good sermon: Mr. Sumnor\'s sermons always were: its subject the blessings promised for the next world; its text, "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." The tears rose to Lucy\'s eyes as she listened. Karl listened too, wrapt in the words. Just for the quarter of an hour it lasted--the sermons were always short the first Sunday in the month--both of them seemed to have passed beyond their cares into Heaven. It almost seemed to matter little what the trouble of this short span on earth might be, with that glorious fruition to come hereafter.

"I am going to stay," whispered Lucy, as the service ended. A hint to him that he might depart without her.

Karl nodded, but made no other answer. The congregation filed out, and still he sat on. Lucy wondered. All in a moment it flashed upon her that he also must be going to stay. Her face turned crimson: the question, was he fit for it, involuntarily suggesting itself.

He did stay. They knelt side by side together and received the elements of Christ\'s holy Ordinance. After that, Karl was on his knees in his pew until the end, buried as it seemed in beseeching prayer. It was impossible for Lucy to believe that he could be living an ill life of any kind at that present time--whatever he might have done.

He held out his arm as they quitted the church, and she took it. It was not often that she did. Thus they walked home together, exchanging a sentence or two between whiles. Karl went at once to his room, saying he should not take anything to eat: he had a headache. Miss Blake had "snatched a morsel," and had gone out again to hear the children\'s catechism, Hewitt said. One thing must be conceded--that she was zealous in her duties.

And so Lucy was alone. She took a "morsel" too, and went to sit under the acacia tree. When an hour or so had passed, Karl came up, and surprised her with tears on her cheeks.

"Is it any new grief?" he asked.

"No," she answered, half lost in the sorrow her thoughts had been abandoned to, and neglecting her usual reticence. "I was but thinking that I am full young to have so much unhappiness."

"We both have enough of that, I expect. I know I have. But yours is partly of your own making, Lucy; mine is not."

"Not of his own making!" ran her thoughts. "Of his own planning, at any rate." But she would not say a word to mar the semi-peace which pervaded, or ought to pervade, their hearts that day.

"That was a nice sermon this morning," he resumed, sitting down by her on the bench.

"Very. I almost forgot that we were not close to Heaven: I forgot that we had, speaking according to earth\'s probabilities, years and years and years to live out here first."

"We shall have to live them out, Lucy, I suppose--by Heaven\'s will. The prospect of it looks anything but consolatory."

"I thought you seemed very sad," she remarked in a low tone. "I had no idea you were going to stay."

"Sad!" He laid his hand upon her knee, not in any particular affection, but to give emphasis to his word. "Sad is not the term for it, Lucy. Misery, rather; dread; despair--the worst word you will. I wished, with a yearning wish, that I was in Mr. Sumnor\'s heaven--the heavens he described--if only some others could go before me, so that I did not leave them here."

Lucy wondered of whom he spoke. She thought it must lie between herself and Mrs. Grey. Karl had been thinking of his poor proscribed brother, for whom the glad earth could never open her arms freely again.

"I think what Mr. Sumnor said must be true," resumed Lucy. "That the more sorrow we have to endure in this world, the brighter will be our entrance to the next. I am sure he has a great deal of sorrow himself: whenever he preaches of it he seems to feel it so deeply."

Karl appeared not to hear. He was gazing upwards, a look of patient pain on his pale face. There were moments--and this was one--when Lucy\'s arms and heart alike yearned to encircle him, and ask for his love to be hers again. She cared for him still--oh, how much!--and wished she could awake to find the Maze, and all the trouble connected with it, a hideous dream.

They sat on, saying nothing. The birds sang as in spring, the trees waved gently beneath the blue sky, and the green grass was grateful for the eye to rest upon. On the handsome house lay the glad sun: not a sound of every-day labour, indoors or out, broke the stillness. All was essentially peace. Except--except within their own wearied breasts.

The bell of Trinity church rang out for service, arousing Lucy from her reverie. She said she should like to attend it.

"What! this afternoon?" exclaimed Karl. "You are not accustomed to go in the afternoon."

That was true. The heat of the summer weather had been almost unbearable, and Lucy had not ventured to church in it more than once a day.

"It is cooler now," she answered. "And I always like to go if I can when I have stayed for the communion."

But Karl held back from it: rather, Lucy thought, in an unaccountable manner, for he was ever ready to second any wish of hers. He did not seem inclined to go forth again, and said, as a plea of excuse, that he preferred to retain the impression of the morning\'s sermon on his mind, rather than let it give place to an inferior one. His head was aching badly.

"I do not ask you to come," said Lucy, gently. "I should like to go myself, but I can go quite well alone."

When she came down with her things on, however, she found him ready also; and they set off together.

It may be questioned, though, whether Lucy would have gone had she foreseen what was to happen. In the middle of the service, while the "Magnificat" was being sung, a respectable, staid woman entered the church with an infant in her arms. A beautifully dressed infant. Its long white robe elaborately embroidered, its delicate blue c............