She rose. "At a quarter past three this morning. He was not in pain at the end. I sent the boy to the Ferrand Arms at four. They told him you had gone out."
"I was on the fen."
"Yes." Something passed across her face and was put away. "He thought you might be."
Behind her the church had gone so silent that Ivo could hear the lilies' faint wet sound as one of them slipped in its vase. He was aware of Sir Digby coming down out of the Ellerholt pew, and of Cordelia's small cry, and of Mr. Furnival lowering his book.
"Then there is no wedding," Ivo said. His own voice sounded strange to him. "I am sorry. You should not have come. You should not have had to come here and—tell them. I will tell them. Go home, Miss Quarrie."
"I cannot go home," she said. "And there is a wedding."
She held out the folded paper.
"His will says I must marry you today."
II.
The vestry of St Guthlac's was a narrow stone room built against the north side of the chancel, with a single lancet window, a press for the surplices, an iron-bound chest for the registers, and a table at which every rector since the Restoration had signed his name in the same brown ink. It had been built to hold two men and a parish clerk. At five minutes past eleven it held six people, and the air in it was close and cold at once.
"I will hear it read," said Sir Digby Rendell, "by someone other than that woman."