There was no one about, as Joan had accompanied her father to church, so Diana sauntered out on to the flagged path and paced idly up and down, waiting for their return.  The square, grey tower of the church, hardly more than a stone’s throw distant from the Rectory, was visible through a gap in the trees where a short cut, known as the “church path” wound its way through the copse that hedged the garden.  It was an ancient little church, boasting a very beautiful thirteenth century window, which, in a Philistine past, had been built up and rough-cast outside, and had only been discovered in the course of some repairs that were being made to one of the walls.  The inhabitants of Crailing were very proud of that thirteenth century window when it was disinterred; they had a proprietary feeling about it—­since, after all, it had really belonged to them for a little matter of seven centuries or so, although they had been unaware of the fact.

Below the slope of the Rectory grounds the thatched roofs of the village bobbed into view, some gleaming golden in all the pride of recent thatching, others with their crown of straw mellowed by sun and rain to a deeper colour and patched with clumps of moss, vividly green as an emerald.

The village itself straggled down to the edge of the sea in untidy fashion, its cob-walled cottages in some places huddling together as though for company, in others standing far apart, with spaces of waste land between them where you might often see the women sitting mending the fishing nets and gossiping together as they worked.

Diana’s eyes wandered affectionately over the picturesque little houses; she loved every quaint, thatched roof among them, but more than all she loved the glimpse of the sea that lay beyond them, pierced by the bold headland of red sandstone, Culver Point, which thrust itself into the blue of the water like an arm stretched out to shelter the little village nestling in its curve from the storms of the Atlantic.

Presently she heard the distant click of a gate, and very soon the Rector and Joan appeared, Stair with the dreaming, far-away expression in his eyes of one who has been communing with the saints.

Diana went to meet them and slipped her arm confidingly through his.

“Come back to earth, Pobs, dear,” she coaxed gaily.  “You look like Moses might have done when he descended from the Mount.”

The glory faded slowly out of his eyes.

“Come back to heaven, Di,” he retorted a little sadly, “That’s where you came from, you know.”

Diana shook her head.

“You did, I verily believe,” she declared affectionately.  “But there’s only a very small slice of heaven in my composition, I’m afraid.”

Stair looked down at her thoughtfully, at the clean line of the cheek curving into the pointed, determined little chin, at the sensitive, eager mouth, unconsciously sensuous in the lovely curve of its short upper-lip, at the ardent, glowing eyes—­the whole face vital with the passionate demand of youth for the kingdoms of the earth.