And here, in this sanctuary of her reflection, and out of a quarter on which she had set no watch, out of a wilderness which she had believed to hold nothing save the ruined splendours of the past, had come one who, like the traditional figures of the wilderness, had attracted her by his very uncouthness and latent power.  And the anomaly he presented in what might be called the vehemence of his advocacy of an outworn orthodoxy, in his occupation of the pulpit of St. John’s, had quickened at once her curiosity and antagonism.  It had been her sudden discovery, or rather her instinctive suspicion of the inner conflict in him which had set her standard fluttering in response.  Once more (for the last time—­something whispered—­now) she had become the lady of the lists; she sat on her walls watching, with beating heart and straining eyes, the closed helm of her champion, ready to fling down the revived remnant of her faith as prize or forfeit.  She had staked all on the hope that he would not lower his lance. . . . .

Saturday had passed in suspense . . . .  And now was flooding in on her the certainty that he had not failed her; that he had, with a sublime indifference to a worldly future and success, defied the powers.  With indifference, too, to her!  She knew, of course, that he loved her.  A man with less of greatness would have sought a middle way . . . .

When, at half past ten, she fared forth into the sunlight, she was filled with anticipation, excitement, concern, feelings enhanced and not soothed by the pulsing vibrations of the church bells in the softening air.  The swift motion of the electric car was grateful. . .  But at length the sight of familiar landmarks, old-fashioned dwellings crowded in between the stores and factories of lower Tower Street, brought back recollections of the days when she had come this way, other Sunday mornings, and in a more leisurely public vehicle, with her mother.  Was it possible that she, Alison Parr, were going to church now?  Her excitement deepened, and she found it difficult to bring herself to the realization that her destination was a church—­the church of her childhood.  At this moment she could only think of St. John’s as the setting of the supreme drama.

When she alighted at the corner of Burton Street there was the well-remembered, shifting group on the pavement in front of the church porch.  How many times, in the summer and winter, in fair weather and cloudy, in rain and sleet and snow had she approached that group, as she approached it now!  Here were the people, still, in the midst of whom her earliest associations had been formed, changed, indeed,-but yet the same.  No, the change was in her, and the very vastness of that change came as a shock.  These had stood still, anchored to their traditions, while she —­had she grown? or merely wandered?  She had searched, at least, and seen.  She had once accepted them—­if indeed as a child it could have been said of her that she accepted anything; she had been unable then, at any rate, to bring forward any comparisons.