“Oh,” she whispered, “I’m frightened....  Let’s stay close to the church; just outside the door, where we can see the light and hear the music.  I don’t want to go out into the streets to-night, Peter, I want to stay here.  I’m ... so frightened.”

“Come inside,” suggested Peter, as they turned back to the church.  “It would be warmer.”

But she shook her head.  “No.  I’d rather be outside.  I don’t belong in there.”

Peter said, “Why not?” and she told him, “Because for me it’s the ugly things that are true.”

So together they stood in the porch, outside the great oak door, and heard the sound of singing stealing out, fog-softened, and smelt the smell of incense (it was the festal service of some saint) that pierced the thick air with its pungent sweetness.

They sat down on the seat in the porch, and Rhoda shivered, not with cold, and Peter waited by her very patiently, knowing that she needed him as she had never needed him before.

She told him so.  “You don’t mind staying, Peter?  I feel safer with you than with anyone else....  You see, I’m afraid....  Oh, I can’t tell you how it is I feel.  When he looks at me it’s as if he was drawing me and dragging me, and I feel I must get up and follow him wherever he goes.  It’s always been like that, since first I met him, more than a year ago.  He made me care; he made me worship the ground he walked on; if he’d thrown me down and kicked me, I’d have let him.  But he never cared himself; I know that now.  I’ve known it a long time.  And I’ve vowed to myself, and I vowed to mother when she lay dying, that I wouldn’t let him have anything more to do with me.  He frightens me, because he can twist me round his finger and make me care so ... and it hurts....  And he’s just playing; he’ll never really care.  But for all I know that, I know he can get me whenever he wants me.  And he’s come back again to amuse himself seeing me worship him ... and he’ll make me follow him about, and all the time he’ll be thinking me a little fool, and I shall know it ... but I can’t help it, Peter, I can’t help it....  I’ve nothing to hold on to, to save me.  If I could be religious, if I could pray, like the people in there ... but he says there’s nothing in that; he’s made me believe like him, and I sometimes think he only believes in himself, and that’s why I can only believe in him too.  So I’ve got nothing in the world to hold on to, and I shall be carried away and drowned....”

She was crying with strangled sobbings, her face in her thin hands.

Peter’s arm was put gently about her shoulders, comforting her.

“No, you won’t, Rhoda.  Rhoda dear, you won’t be carried away, because I shall be here, holding you.  Is that any help at all?”

He felt her relax beneath his arm and lean back against him; he heard her whisper, “Yes; oh, yes.  If I can hold onto you, Peter, I shall feel safe.”

“Hold on, then,” said Peter, “as tight as you like.”