He had intended to arrive at the Baptist Chapel before the evening service began, but now he was late.  The congregation were all on their knees, and the pastor, standing in his desk or pulpit above a raised platform, had begun to pray aloud.  Dale paused just inside the door, looking at his strange surroundings, and feeling the awkwardness of a person who enters a place that he has never seen before, and finds himself among a lot of people who have their own customs and usages, all of which are unknown to him.  Then he noticed that a man was smiling at him and beckoning, and he bowed gravely and followed the hand.  He was led up the little building to some empty chairs on a level with the platform, at right angles to the rows of benches, and close to a harmonium.  Mr. Osborn, the pastor, had stopped praying, and he did not go on again until Dale was seated.  No one else had looked up or seemed to be aware of the interruption caused by his entrance.

He assumed a duly reverent attitude, not kneeling, but bending his body forward, and observed everything with great interest.  There were many differences between the arrangements of this chapel and those of an ordinary church.  The absence of an altar struck him as very remarkable.  The large platform, with its balustrade and central perch, seemed to be altar, pulpit, and lectern all rolled into one—­and choir too, since it was occupied by several men and a dozen girls and young women, who were all now on their knees while Mr. Osborn, looking very odd in purely civilian clothes, prayed loudly over their heads.

He glanced at the high bare walls and narrow windows, and observed that, except for some stenciled texts, there was not the slightest attempt at decoration.  Outside, the light was rapidly waning, and inside the building the general tone had a grayness and dimness that obliterated all the bright colors of the girls’ dresses and hats.  The circumstance that not a single face was visible produced a curious impression on one’s mind.  It made Dale feel for a moment as though he were improperly prying, behind people’s backs, at matters that did not in the least concern him; and next moment he thought that all the gray stooping forms were exactly like those of ghosts.  Then, in another moment, noticing with what rigid immobility they held themselves, he thought of them as being dead and waiting for some tremendous signal that should bring them to life again.

“Now,” said Mr. Osborn, “let us praise God by singing the hundred and twenty-sixth hymn.”

Then all the faces showed.  It was like a flash of pallid light running to and fro along the benches as everybody changed the kneeling to the sitting posture; and Dale immediately felt that he had been placed in an uncomfortably conspicuous position.  Far from being situated so that he could pry on the private affairs of others, he was where everybody could study him.  He was alone, opposite to the entire crowd, instead of being comfortably absorbed in its mass.