and now it seemed that the monsters yet stirred and lived.  All the evening she had sat, walked, lain about her quiet house with the horror heavy about her, flinging open a window now and again in the icy air to listen with clenched hands to the cries and the roarings of the mob that raged in the streets beneath, the clanks, the yells and the hoots of the motor-trains that tore up from the country to swell the frenzy of the city—­to watch the red glow of fire, the volumes of smoke that heaved up from the burning chapels and convents.

She had questioned, doubted, resisted her doubts, flung out frantic acts of faith, attempted to renew the confidence that she attained in her meditation, told herself that traditions died slowly; she had knelt, crying out to the spirit of peace that lay, as she knew so well, at the heart of man, though overwhelmed for the moment by evil passion.  A line or two ran in her head from one of the old Victorian poets: 

You doubt If any one Could think or bid it?  How could it come about?...  Who did it?  Not men!  Not here!  Oh! not beneath the sun....  The torch that smouldered till the cup o’er-ran The wrath of God which is the wrath of Man!

She had even contemplated death, as she had told her husband—­the taking of her own life, in a great despair with the world.  Seriously she had thought of it; it was an escape perfectly in accord with her morality.  The useless and agonising were put out of the world by common consent; the Euthanasia houses witnessed to it.  Then why not she?...  For she could not bear it!...  Then Oliver had come, she had fought her way back to sanity and confidence; and the phantom had gone again.

How sensible and quiet he had been, she was beginning to tell herself now, as the quiet influence of this huge throng in this glorious place of worship possessed her once more—­how reasonable in his explanation that man was even now only convalescent and therefore liable to relapse.  She had told herself that again and again during the night, but it had been different when he had said so.  His personality had once more prevailed; and the name of Felsenburgh had finished the work.

“If He were but here!” she sighed.  But she knew He was far away.

* * * * *

It was not until a quarter to eleven that she understood that the crowds outside were clamouring for Him too, and that knowledge reassured her yet further.  They knew, then, these wild tigers, where their redemption lay; they understood what was their ideal, even if they had not attained to it.  Ah! if He were but here, there would be no more question:  the sullen waves would sink beneath His call of peace, the hazy clouds lift, the rumble die to silence.  But He was away—­away on some strange business.  Well; He knew His work.  He would surely come soon again to His children who needed Him so terribly.

* * * * *