For a moment the minister stood before the seat, as if doubtful what to
do. He held the plate in his left hand and a fragment of bread in his
fingers. Then, as he began the words he had to say, one thing at least
the people saw, and that was that a great flush dyed the old man's face,
though he sat quiet. Then, as the minister held out the bread, the
squire seemed to recover himself; he put out his fingers quickly, took
the bread sharply and put it into his mouth; and so sat again, until the
minister brought the cup; and this, too, he drank of quickly, and gave
it back.

Then, as the communicants, one by one, took the bread and wine and went
back to their seats, man after man glanced up at the squire.

But the squire sat there, motionless and upright, like a figure cut of
stone.


IV

The court of the manor seemed deserted half an hour before dinner-time.
There was a Sabbath stillness in the air to-day, sweetened, as it were,
by the bubbling of bird-music in the pleasaunce behind the hall and the
high woods beyond. On the strips of rough turf before the gate and
within it bloomed the spring flowers, white and blue. A hound lay
stretched in the sunshine on the hall steps; twitching his ears to keep
off a persistent fly. You would have sworn that his was the only
intelligence in the place. Yet at the sound of the iron latch of the
gate and the squire's footsteps on the stones, the place, so to say,
became alive, though in a furtive and secret manner. Over the half door