'No more of me you knew, my love!' Stephen Smith revisited Endelstow Vicarage, agreeably to his promise.

He had a genuine artistic reason for coming, though no such reason seemed to be required.

Six-and-thirty old seat ends, of exquisite fifteenth-century workmanship, were rapidly decaying in an aisle of the church; and it became politic to make drawings of their worm-eaten contours ere they were battered past recognition in the turmoil of the so-called restoration.
He entered the house at sunset, and the world was pleasant again to the two fair-haired ones.

A momentary pang of disappointment had, nevertheless, passed through Elfride when she casually discovered that he had not come that minute post-haste from London, but had reached the neighbourhood the previous evening.

Surprise would have accompanied the feeling, had she not remembered that several tourists were haunting the coast at this season, and that Stephen might have chosen to do likewise.
They did little besides chat that evening, Mr.Swancourt beginning to question his visitor, closely yet paternally, and in good part, on his hopes and prospects from the profession he had embraced.