When the service was over and the procession had gone out Rosamund sat very still listening to the organ.  She believed that Canon Wilton had given the organist a hint that he would have an attentive hearer, for he was playing one of Bach’s greatest preludes and fugues.  Father Robertson stayed on in his place.  All the rest of the small congregation drifted away through the archway in the rood-screen and down the steps to the nave.  The fugue was a glorious, sturdy thing, like a great solid body inhabited by a big, noble, unquestioning soul—­a soul free from hesitations, that knew its way to God and would not be hindered from taking it.  A straight course to the predestined end—­that was good, that was glorious!  The splendid clamor of the organ above her, growing in sonorous force, filled Rosamund with exultation.  She longed to open her mouth and sing; the blood came to her cheeks; her eyes shone; she mounted on the waves of sound; she was wound up with the great fugue, and felt herself part of it.  The gradual working up thrilled her whole being; she was physically and spiritually seized hold of and carried along towards a great and satisfying end.  At last came the trumpet with its sound of triumphant flame, and the roar of the pedals was like the roaring of the sea.  Already the end was there, grandly inherent in the music, inevitably, desired by all the voices of the organ.  All the powers of the organ thundered towards it, straining to be there.

It came, like something on the top of the world.

“If I were a man that’s the way I should like to go to God!” said Rosamund to herself, springing up.  “That’s the way, in a chariot of fire.”

Unconscious of what she was doing she stretched out her hands with a big gesture and opened her lips to let out a breath; then, in the gray silence of the now empty Cathedral, she saw Father Robertson’s eyes.

He stepped down from his stall and went out through the archway, and she followed him.  On the steps, just beyond the rood-screen, she met a small, determined-looking man with hot cheeks and shining eyes.  She guessed at once that he was the organist, went up to him and thanked him enthusiastically.

The organist was the first person she captivated in Welsley, where she was to have so many warm adherents very soon.

Father Robertson went back to Canon Wilton’s house while Rosamund talked to the organist, with whom she walked as far as a high wooden gate labeled “Mr. Dickinson.”

“You’ve got a walled garden too!” she remarked, as her companion took off his hat with an “I live here.”

The organist looked inquiring.  Rosamund laughed.

“How could you know?  It’s only that I’ve been visiting a delicious old house, with a walled garden, to-day.  It’s to let.”

“Oh, Mrs. Duncan Browning’s!” said Mr. Dickinson.  “I—­I’m sure I hope you’re going to take it.”

“I may!” said Rosamund.  “Good-by, and thank you again for your splendid music.  It’s done me good.”