objected to seeing him in the pulpit. Why? She didn't quite know why; it seemed too intimate, somehow or other. Like being introduced to the Deity as a relation by marriage.

Mollie and Wilberforce laughed at that. Their laughter disturbed Aliette. She and Cavendish sat stupidly silent till church-bells began.

"You'd better come with us. It will do you both good," said Mollie to the solicitor.

"I haven't been inside a church since I left the army," declared Wilberforce.

"All the more reason to come with us," smiled Mollie, who liked this big auburn man, had liked him more and more ever since he was first introduced.And to church, casually, those four went.

As she knelt by the stone pillar on the thin hard hassock, it seemed to Hector Brunton's wife that she had forgotten how to pray, that her eyes were being drawn sideways through her fingers. Only by concentrating could she achieve a moment's devotion. Settling herself back in the pew, she was vividly aware of Cavendish's proximity.

By no means a fanatic, Aliette nevertheless accepted her father's Protestantism. Religion formed part of the code, of those indubitable laws on which one based existence. But on this particular evening Protestantism seemed a farce. She could not imagine any god taking pleasure in the gas-lit ceremonial, in the vacuous-eyed congregation, in the artificial intonations of the parson or the hymn-numbers on the board. All these seemed hugely distant from any concept of worship. Somehow, she caught herself yearning for a richer ceremonial, for a warmer faith. Somehow, she seemed to remember--dimly out of childhood--her grandmother's voice:

"My dear, we've decided to forgive. But, O Marie! aren't you lonely? Don't you feel as though God had gone out of your life?"

And her mother's voice seemed to answer: "Mother, can't you understand? It's the same God. He hasn't gone out of my life just because I worship Him differently. He couldn't abandon any woman who sacrificed herself for love's sake."

The two voices faded into the past.

But now Aliette realized struggle in her soul. It was as though her soul stood at bay, at bay with some terrible decision; as though her soul were being swept toward some contest whose ending, whether victory or defeat, only God could foresee. Once again she felt panic. Yet how should there be panic here in Key Hatch Church?

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