her a smile and a pressure of welcome. Beside her, standing behind the
rear pew, were Asa Waring and--Mr. Bentley! Mr. Bentley returned to St.
John's!

"You have come!" Alison whispered.

He understood her. He took her hand in his and looked down into her
upturned face.

"Yes, my dear," he said, "and my girls have come Sally Grover and the
others, and some friends from Dalton Street and elsewhere."

The news, the sound of this old gentleman's voice and the touch of his
hand suddenly filled her with a strange yet sober happiness. Asa Waring,
though he had not overheard, smiled at her too, as in sympathy. His
austere face was curiously illuminated, and she knew instinctively that
in some way he shared her happiness. Mr. Bentley had come back! Yes, it
was an augury. From childhood she had always admired Asa Waring, and now
she felt a closer tie....

She reached the pew, hesitated an instant, and slipped forward on her
knees. Years had gone by since she had prayed, and even now she made no
attempt to translate into words the intensity of her yearning--for what?
Hodder's success, for one thing,--and by success she meant that he might
pursue an unfaltering course. True to her temperament, she did not
look for the downfall of the forces opposed to him. She beheld him
persecuted, yet unyielding, and was thus lifted to an exaltation
that amazed... If he could do it, such a struggle must sorely have an
ultimate meaning! Thus she found herself, trembling, on the borderland
of faith...

She arose, bewildered, her pulses beating. And presently glancing about,
she took in that the church was fuller than she ever remembered having
seen it, and the palpitating suspense she felt seemed to pervade, as
it were, the very silence. With startling abruptness, the silence was
broken by the tones of the great organ that rolled and reverberated
among the arches; distant voices took up the processional; the white
choir filed past,--first the treble voices of the boys, then the deeper
notes of the--men,--turned and mounted the chancel steps, and then she
saw Hodder. Her pew being among the first, he passed very near her.
Did he know she would be there? The sternness of his profile told her
nothing. He seemed at that moment removed, set apart, consecrated--this
was the word that came to her, and yet she was keenly conscious of his
presence.

Tingling, she found herself repeating, inwardly, two, lines of the hymn

"Lay hold on l