Wild Margaret by Charles Garvice

Just at this period a singular change came over Mr. Austin Ambrose's mode of life. As a rule he rarely left London. At a certain hour of the day you would find him in his chambers, at another riding or walking in the park, at another he would be dining at his club, and every night you were sure of seeing him at the whist table at any rate for an hour or two. But immediately after Margaret's promise to marry Lord Blair, Mr. Austin Ambrose took to taking little excursions in the environs of London, and the special objects of attraction for him seemed to be, strangely enough, seeing that he could by no means be called a religious man, the various churches in the villages dotted about Kent and Surrey. The smaller and more out of the way the village, and the more dilapidated and neglected the church, the more Mr. Austin Ambrose seemed to be attracted by them.

He chose the churches where the congregation is small and the clergyman old and feeble, and he would sit and listen as the old parsons dribbled out their prosy sermons, and the scattered people in the great pews nodded and slept.