She played vigorously. Once or twice the tune stumbled, and she
recovered it impatiently, bending over the key-board, showily
flourishing her wrists as she touched the stops. She was bare-headed
(her hat and cloak lay beside her on a stool). She had fair, fluffy
hair, cut short behind her neck; large, round eyes, heightened by a
fringe of dark lashes; rough, ruddy cheeks, and a rosy, full-lipped,
unstable mouth. She was dressed quite simply, in a black, close-fitting
bodice, a little frayed at the sleeves. Her hands and neck were coarsely
fashioned: her comeliness was brawny, literal, unfinished, as it were.

When at last the ponderous chords of the Amen faded slowly into the
twilight, flushed, breathing a little quickly, she paused, listening to
the stillness of the church. Presently a small boy emerged from behind
the organ.

'Good evenin', Miss Rosa', he called, trotting briskly away down the
aisle.

'Good night, Robert', she answered, absently.

After a while, with an impatient gesture, as if to shake some
importunate thought from her mind, she rose abruptly, pinned on her hat,
threw her cloak round her shoulders, blew out the candles, and groped
her way through the church, towards the half-open door. As she hurried
along the narrow pathway that led across the churchyard, of a sudden, a
figure started out of the blackness.

'Who's that?' she cried, in a loud, frightened voice.

A man's uneasy laugh answered her.