The messenger waited long by the entrance to the Mission House for an answer, exchanging, sitting on his feet, the profane talk of the bazar with the gatekeeper of the Christians.  Stephen was in chapel.  There was no service; he had half an hour to rest in and he rested there.  He was speculating, in the grateful dimness, about the dogma—­he had never quite accepted it, though Colquhoun had—­of the intercessory power of the souls of saints.  A converted Brahmin, an old man, had died the day before.  Arnold luxuriated in the humility of thinking that he would be glad of any good word dear old Nourendra Lal could say for him.  The chapel was deliciously refined.  The scent of fresh cut flowers floated upon the continual presence of the incense; a lily outlined its head against the tall carved altarpiece the Brothers had brought from Damascus.  The seven brass lamps that hung from the rafters above the altar rails were also Damascene, carved and pierced so that the light in them was a still thing like a prayer; and the place breathed vague meanings which did not ask understanding.  It was a refuge from the riot and squalor of the whitewashed streets with a double value and a treble charm—­I.H.S. among plaster gods, a sanctuary in the bazar.  Stephen sat in it motionless, with his lean limbs crossed in front of him, until the half-hour was up; then he bent his knee before the altar and went out to meet a servant at the door with Hilda’s letter.  The chapel opened upon an upper verandah, he crossed it to get a better light and stood to read with his back half turned upon the comers and goers.

It was her first communication since they parted, and in spite of its colourlessness it seemed to lay strong eager hands upon him, turning his shoulder that way, upon the world, bending his head over the page.  He had not dwelt much upon their strange experience, in the days that followed.  It had retreated, for him, behind the veil of tender mystery with which he shrouded, even from his own eyes, the things that lay between his soul and God.  The space from that day to this had been more than usually full of ministry; its pure uses had fallen like snow, blotting and deadening the sudden wonder that blossomed then.  Latterly he had hardly thought of it.

So far was he removed, so deeply drawn again within his familiar activities, that he regarded Hilda’s letter for an instant with a lip of censure, as if, for some reason, it should not have been admitted.  It was, in a manner, her physical presence, the words expanded into her, through it she walked back into his life, with an interrogation.  Standing there by the pillar he became gradually aware of the weight of the interrogation.

A passing Brother cast at him the sweet smile of the cloister.  Arnold stopped him and transferred an immediate duty, which the other accepted with a slightly exaggerated happiness.  They might have been girls together, with their apologies and protestations.  The other Brother went on in a little glow of pleasure, Arnold turned back into the chapel, carrying, it seemed to him, a woman’s life in his hand.