amazement against a materialism so solid as to remain unshaken by the
words which had so uplifted her. Eddies were forming in the aisle as
the people streamed slowly out of the church, and snatches of their
conversation, in undertones, reached her ears.

"I should never have believed it!"

"Mr. Hodder, of all men..."

"The bishop!"

Outside the swinging doors, in the vestibule, the voices were raised a
little, and she found her path blocked.

"It's incredible!" she heard Gordon Atterbury saying to little Everett
Constable, who was listening gloomily.

"Sheer Unitarianism, socialism, heresy."

His attention was forcibly arrested by Alison, in whose cheeks bright
spots of colour burned. He stepped aside, involuntarily, apologetically,
as though he had instinctively read in her attitude an unaccountable
disdain. Everett Constable bowed uncertainly, for Alison scarcely
noticed them.

"Ahem!" said Gordon, nervously, abandoning his former companion and
joining her, "I was just saying, it's incredible--"

She turned on him.

"It is incredible," she cried, "that persons who call themselves
Christians cannot recognize their religion when they hear it preached."

He gave back before her, visibly, in an astonishment which would have
been ludicrous but for her anger. He had never understood her--such
had been for him her greatest fascination;--and now she was less
comprehensible than ever. The time had been when he would cheerfully
have given over his hope of salvation to have been able to stir her.
He had never seen her stirred, and the sight of her even now in this
condition was uncomfortably agitating. Of all things, an heretical
sermon would appear to have accomplished this miracle!

"Christianity!" he stammered.

"Yes, Christianity." Her voice tingled. "I don't pretend to know much
about it, but Mr. Hodder has at least made it plain that it is something
more than dead dogmas, ceremonies, and superstitions."

He would have said something, but her one thought was to escape, to be
alone. These friends of her childhood were at that moment so distasteful
as to have become hateful. Some one laid a hand upon her arm.

"Can't we take you home, Alison? I don't see your motor."

It was Mrs. Constable.

"No, thanks--I'm going to walk," Alison answered, yet something in Mrs.
Constable's face, in Mrs. Constable's voice, made her pause. Something
new, something oddly sympathetic. Their eyes met, and Alison saw that
t