Macheson woke with the daylight, stiff, a little tired, and haunted with the consciousness of disturbing dreams. He sprang to his feet and stretched himself. Then he saw the roses.

For a moment or two he stared at them incredulously. Then his thoughts flashed backwards—where or how had he become possessed of them? A few seconds were sufficient. Some one had been there in the night—most likely a woman.

His cheeks burned at the thought. He stooped and took them hesitatingly, reverently, into his hand. To him they represented part of the mystery of life, the mystery of which he knew so little. Soft and fragrant, the touch of the drooping blossoms was like fire to his fingers. Had he been like those predecessors of his in the days of the Puritans, he would have cast them away, trampled them underfoot; he would have seen in them only the snare of the Evil One. But to Macheson this would have seemed almost like sacrilege. They were beautiful and he loved beautiful things.

He made his way farther into the plantation, to where the trees, suddenly opening, disclosed a small, disused slate quarry, the water in which was kept fresh by many streams. Stripping off his clothes, he plunged into the deep cool depths, swimming round for several minutes on his back, his face upturned to the dim blue sky. Then he dressed—in the ugly black suit, for it was Sunday, and made a frugal breakfast, boiling the water for his coffee over a small spirit-lamp. And all the time he kept looking at the roses, now fresh with the water which he had carefully sprinkled over them. Their coming seemed to him to whisper of beautiful things, they turned his thoughts so easily into that world of poetry and sentiment in which he was a habitual wanderer. Yet, every now and then, their direct significance startled, almost alarmed. Some one had actually been in the place while he slept, and had retreated without disturbing him. Roses do not drop from the sky, and of gardens there were none close at hand. Was it one of the village girls, who had seen him that afternoon? His cheeks reddened at the thought. Perhaps he had better leave his shelter. Another time if she came she might not steal away so quietly. Scandal would injure his work. He must run no risks. Deep down in his heart he thrust that other, that impossibly sweet thought. He would not suffer his mind to dwell upon it.

After breakfast he walked for an hour or so across the hills, watching the early mists roll away in the valleys, and the sunlight settle down upon the land. It was a morning of silence, this—that peculiar, mysterious silence which only the first day of the week seems to bring. The fields were empty of toilers, the harvest was stayed. From its far-away nest amongst the hills, he could just hear, carried on the bosom of a favouring breeze, the single note of a monastery bell, whose harshness not even distance, or its pleasant journey across the open country, could modify. Macheson listened to it for a moment, and sat down upon a rock on the topmost pinnacle of the hills he was climbing.

Below him, the country stretched like a piece of brilliant patchwork. Thorpe, with its many chimneys and stately avenues, and the village hidden by a grove of elms, was like a cool oasis in the midst of the landscape. Behind, the hills ran rockier and wilder, culminating in a bleak stretch of country, in the middle of which was the monastery. Macheson looked downwards at Thorpe, with the faint clang of that single bell in his ears. The frown on his forehead deepened as the rush of thoughts took insistent hold of him.

For a young man blessed with vigorous health, free from all material anxieties, and with the world before him, Macheson found life an uncommonly serious matter. Only a few years ago, he had left the University with a brilliant degree, a splendid athletic record, and a host of friends. What to do with his life! That was the problem which pressingly confronted him. He recognized in himself certain gifts inevitably to be considered in this choice. He was possessed of a deep religious sense, an immense sympathy for his fellows, and a passion for the beautiful in life, from which the physical side was by no means absent.

How to find a career which would satisfy such varying qualities! A life of pleasure, unless it were shared by his fellows, did not appeal to him at all; personal ambition he was destitute of; his religion, he was very well aware, was not the sort which would enable him to enter with any prospect of happiness any of the established churches. For a time he had travelled, and had come back with only one definite idea in his mind. Chance had brought him, on his return, into contact with two young men of somewhat similar tastes. A conversation between them one night had given a certain definiteness to his aims. He recalled it to himself as he sat looking down at the thin blue line of smoke rising from the chimneys of Thorpe.

“To use one’s life for others,” he had repeated thoughtfully—it was the enthusiast of the party who had spoken—“but how?”

“Teach them to avoid like filth the ugly things of life—help them in their search for the things beautiful.”

“What are the things beautiful?” he had asked. “Don’t they mean something different to every man?”

Holderness had lifted his beautiful head—the boy with whom he had played at school—the friend of his younger life.

“The Christian morality,” he had answered.

Macheson had been surprised.

“But you——” he said, “you don’t believe anything.”

“It is not necessary,” Holderness had answered. “It is a matter of the intelligence. As an artist, if I might dare to call myself one, I say that the Christian life, if honestly lived, is the most beautiful thing of all the ages.”

Macheson walked down to the village with the memory of those words still in his brain. The bell was ringing for service from the queer, ivy-covered church, the villagers were coming down the lane in little groups. Macheson found himself one of a small knot of people, who stood reverently on one side, with doffed hats, just by the wooden porch. He looked up, suddenly realizing the cause.

A small vehicle, something between a bath-chair and a miniature carriage, drawn by a fat, sleek pony, was turning into the lane from one of the splendid avenues which led to the house. A boy led the pony, a footman marched behind. Wilhelmina, in a plain white muslin dress and a black hat, was slowly preparing to descend. She smiled languidly, but pleasantly enough, at the line of curtseying women and men with doffed hats. The note of feudalism which their almost reverential attitudes suggested appealed irresistibly to Macheson’s sense of humour. He, too, formed one of them; he, too, doffed his hat. His greeting, however, was different. Her eyes swept by him unseeing, his pleasant “Good morning” was unheeded. She even touched her skirt with her fingers, as though afraid lest it might brush against him in passing. With tired, graceful footsteps, she passed into the cool church, leaving him to admire against his will the slim perfection of her figure, the wonderful carriage of her small but perfect head.

He followed with the others presently, and found a single seat close to the door. The service began almost at once, a very beautiful service in its way, for the organ, a present from the lady of the manor, was perfectly played, and the preacher’s voice was clear and as sweet as a boy’s. Macheson, however, was nervous and ill at ease. From the open door he heard the soft whispering of the west wind—for the first time in his life he found the simple but dignified ritual unconvincing. He was haunted by the sense of some impending disaster. When the prayers came, he fell on his knees and remained there! Even then he could not collect himself! He was praying to an unknown God for protection against some nameless evil! He knew quite well that the words he muttered were vain words. Through the stained glass windows, the sunlight fell in a subdued golden stream upon the glowing hair, the gracefully bent head of the woman who sat alone in the deep square pew. She, too, seemed to be praying. Macheson got up and softly, but abruptly, stole from the church.

Up into the hills, as far away, as high up as possible! A day of sabbath calm, this! Macheson, with the fire in his veins and a sharp pain in his side, climbed as a man possessed. He, too, was fleeing from the unknown. He was many miles away when down in the valley at Thorpe some one spoke of him.

“By the bye,” Gilbert Deyes remarked, looking across the luncheon table at his hostess, “when does this athletic young missioner of yours begin his work of regeneration?”

Wilhelmina raised her eyebrows.

“To-morrow evening, I believe,” she answered. “He is going to speak at the cross-roads. I fancy that his audience will consist chiefly of the children, and Mrs. Adnith’s chickens.”

“Can’t understand,” Austin remarked, “why a chap who can play cricket like that—he did lay on to ’em, too—can be such a crank!”

“He is very young,” Wilhelmina remarked composedly, “and I fancy that he must be a little mad. I hope that Thorpe will teach him a lesson. He needs it.”

“You do not anticipate then,” Deyes remarked, “that his labours here will be crowned with success?”

“He won’t get a soul to hear him,” Stephen Hurd replied confidently. “The villagers all know what Miss Thorpe-Hatton thinks of his coming here. It will be quite sufficient.”

Wilhelmina lit a cigarette and rose to her feet.

“Let us hope so,” she remarked drily. “Please remember, all of you, that this is the Palace of Ease! Do exactly what you like, all of you, till five o’clock. I shall be ready for bridge then.”

Lady Peggy rose briskly.

“No doubt about what I shall do,” she remarked. “I’m going to bed.”

Deyes smiled.

“I,” he said, “shall spend the afternoon in the rose garden. I need—development.”

Wilhelmina looked at him questioningly.

“Please don’t be inexplicable,” she begged. “It is too hot.”

“Roses and sentiment,” he declared, “are supposed to go together. I want to grow into accord with my surroundings.”

Wilhelmina was silent for a moment.

“If you have found sentiment here,” she said carelessly, “you must have dug deep.”

“On the contrary,” he answered, “I have scarcely scratched the surface!”

Stephen Hurd looked uneasily from Deyes to his hostess. Never altogether comfortable, although eager to accept the most casually offered invitation to Thorpe, he had always the idea that the most commonplace remark contained an innuendo purposely concealed from him.

“Mr. Deyes,” he remarked, “looks mysterious.”

Deyes glanced at him through his eyeglass.

“It is a subtle neighbourhood,” he said. “By the bye, Mr. Hurd, have you ever seen the rose gardens at Carrow?”

“Never,” Hurd replied enviously. “I have heard that they are very beautiful.”

Wilhelmina passed out.

“The gardens are beautiful,” she said, looking back, “but the roses are like all other roses, they fade quickly. Till five o’clock, all of you!”