Plainly she had uttered whatever words she had used in the form of a sort of incantation, and here was the result in the living body of this man sitting before her.  She stared hard at him, repeating her words:  “You come.  Yes, you did.”

“It was the answer,” said Miss Montaubyn, with entire simplicity as she bit off her thread, “that’s wot it was.”

Antony Dart lifted his heavy head.

“You believe it,” he said.

“I ‘m livin’ on believin’ it,” she said confidingly.  “I ain’t got nothin’ else.  An’ answers keeps comin’ and comin’.”

“What answers?”

“Bits o’ work—­an’ things as ’elps.  Glad there, she’s one.”

“Aw,” said Glad, “I ain’t nothin’.  I likes to ’ear yer tell about it.  She ses,” to Dart again, a little slowly, as she watched his face with curiously questioning eyes—­“she ses ’e’s in the room—­same as ’E’s everywhere—­in this ’ere room.  Sometimes she talks out loud to ’Im.”

“What!” cried Dart, startled again.

The strange Majestic Awful Idea—­the Deity of the Ages—­to be spoken of as a mere unfeared Reality!  And even as the vaguely formed thought sprang in his brain he started once more, suddenly confronted by the meaning his sense of shock implied.  What had all the sermons of all the centuries been preaching but that it was Reality?  What had all the infidels of every age contended but that it was Unreal, and the folly of a dream?  He had never thought of himself as an infidel; perhaps it would have shocked him to be called one, though he was not quite sure.  But that a little superannuated dancer at music-halls, battered and worn by an unlawful life, should sit and smile in absolute faith at such a—­a superstition as this, stirred something like awe in him.

For she was smiling in entire acquiescence.

“It’s what the curick ses,” she enlarged radiantly.  “Though ’e don t believe it, pore young man; ’e on’y thinks ’e does.  ’It’s for ‘igh an’ low,’ ’e ses, ‘for you an’ me as well as for them as is royal fambleys.  The Almighty ‘E’s everywhere!’ ‘Yes,’ ses I, ’I’ve felt ’Im ’ere—­as near as y’ are yerself, sir, I ‘ave—­an’ I’ve spoke to ‘Im."’

“What did the curate say?” Dart asked, amazed.

“Seemed like it frightened ’im a bit.  ’We mustn’t be too bold, Miss Montaubyn, my dear,’ ’e ses, for ’e’s a kind young man as ever lived, an’ often ses ‘my dear’ to them ‘e’s comfortin’.  But yer see the lidy ‘ad gave me a Bible o’ me own an’ I’d set ‘ere an’ read it, an’ read it an’ learned verses to say to meself when I was in bed—­an’ I’d got ter feel like it was someone talkin’ to me an’ makin’ me understand.  So I ses, ‘’T ain’t boldness we’re warned against; it’s not lovin’ an’ trustin’ enough, an’ not askin’ an’ believin’ true.  Don’t yer remember wot it ses:  “I, even I, am ’e that comforteth yer.  Who art thou that thou art afraid of man that shall die an’ the son of man that