“Hush!” said the priest, holding up a warning finger.

This idle chatter displeased him in the church, but he had another reason for wishing to stop the conversation.  It renewed his dread to hear of the projected journey, and made him see, as in a shadowy vision, Domini Enfilden’s figure disappearing into the windy desolation of the desert protected by the living mystery he hated.  Yes, at this moment, he no longer denied it to himself.  There was something in Androvsky that he actually hated with his whole soul, hated even in his church, at the very threshold of the altar where stood the tabernacle containing the sacred Host.  As he thoroughly realised this for a moment he was shocked at himself, recoiled mentally from his own feeling.  But then something within him seemed to rise up and say, “Perhaps it is because you are near to the Host that you hate this man.  Perhaps you are right to hate him when he draws nigh to the body of Christ.”

Nevertheless when, some minutes later, he stood within the altar rails and saw the face of Domini, he was conscious of another thought, that came through his mind, dark with doubt, like a ray of gold:  “Can I be right in hating what this good woman—­this woman whose confession I have received, whose heart I know—­can I be right in hating what she loves, in fearing what she trusts, in secretly condemning what she openly enthrones?” And almost in despite of himself he felt reassured for an instant, even happy in the thought of what he was about to do.

Domini’s face at all times suggested strength.  The mental and emotional power of her were forcibly expressed, too, through her tall and athletic body, which was full of easy grace, but full, too, of well-knit firmness.  To-day she looked not unlike a splendid Amazon who could have been a splendid nun had she entered into religion.  As she stood there by Androvsky, simply dressed for the wild journey that was before her, the slight hint in her personality of a Spartan youth, that stamped her with a very definite originality, was blended with, even transfigured by, a womanliness so intense as to be almost fierce, a womanliness that had the fervour, the glowing vigour of a glory that had suddenly become fully aware of itself, and of all the deeds that it could not only conceive, but do.  She was triumph embodied in the flesh, not the triumph that is a school-bully, but that spreads wings, conscious at last that the human being has kinship with the angels, and need not, should not, wait for death to seek bravely their comradeship.  She was love triumphant, woman utterly fearless because instinctively aware that she was fulflling her divine mission.

As he gazed at her the priest had a strange thought—­of how Christ’s face must have looked when he said, “Lazarus, come forth!”

Androvsky stood by her, but the priest did not look at him.