The Williamson pew was one of the side ones at the top of the church and its occupants practically faced the congregation . Eric looked at every girl and woman in the audience , but he saw nothing of the face which , setting will power and common sense flatly at defiance , haunted his memory like a star . Thomas Gordon was there , sitting alone in his long , empty pew near the top of the building ; and Neil Gordon sang in the choir which occupied the front pew of the gallery . He had a powerful and melodious , though untrained voice , which dominated the singing and took the colour out of the weaker , more commonplace tones of the other singers . He was well-dressed in a suit of dark blue serge , with a white collar and tie . But Eric idly thought it did not become him so well as the working clothes in which he had first seen him . He was too obviously dressed up , and he looked coarser and more out of harmony with his surroundings . For two days Eric refused to let himself think of the orchard . Monday evening he went cod-fishing , and Tuesday evening he went up to play checkers with Alexander Tracy . Alexander won all the games so easily that he never had any respect for Eric Marshall again . `` Played like a feller whose thoughts were wool gathering , '' he complained to his wife . `` He 'll never make a checker player -- never in this world . '' CHAPTER VI . THE STORY OF KILMENY Wednesday evening Eric went to the orchard again ; and again he was disappointed . He went home , determined to solve the mystery by open inquiry . Fortune favoured him , for he found Mrs. Williamson alone , sitting by the west window of her kitchen and knitting at a long gray sock . She hummed softly to herself as she knitted , and Timothy slept blackly at her feet . She looked at Eric with quiet affection in her large , candid eyes . She had liked Mr. West . But Eric had found his way into the inner chamber of her heart , by reason that his eyes were so like those of the little son she had buried in the Lindsay churchyard many years before .
`` Mrs. Williamson , '' said Eric , with an affectation of carelessness , `` I chanced on an old deserted orchard back behind the woods over there last week , a charming bit XXXXX wilderness .
as at by in into near of that though to