There
followed then an extraordinary scene--from all over the Chapel came
sobs and cries. A man rose suddenly from the back of the building and
cried aloud, "Lord, I believe! Help Thou mine unbelief." One of the
women who had come with Miss Avies fell upon her knees and began to
sob, crying hysterically: "Oh God, have mercy! God have mercy!" Women
pressed up the two aisles, some of them falling on their knees there
where they had stood, others coming to the front and kneeling there.
Somewhere they began to sing the hymn that had already been sung that
evening, a few voices at first, then more, then all singing together:

"By the blood, by the blood, by the blood of the Lamb We beseech Thee!"

Everywhere now women were crying, the Chapel was filled with voices,
sobs, cries and prayers.

Mr. Crashaw stood there, motionless, his arms outstretched.

Maggie did not know what she felt. She seemed deprived of all sensation
on one side, and, on the other, fear and excitement; both joy and
disgust held her. She could not have told any one what her sensations
were; she was trembling from head to foot as though with cold. But
behind everything she had this terror, that at any moment she might be
drawn forward to do something, to give some pledge that would bind her
for all her life. She felt as though some power were urging her to
this, and as though the Chapel and every one in it was conscious of the
struggle.

What might have happened she would never know. She felt a touch on her
sleeve, and, turning round, saw Aunt Anne's eyes looking up at her out
of a face that was so white and the skin of it so tightly drawn that it
was like the face of a dead woman.

"I'm in great pain, Maggie. I think you must take me home," she heard
her aunt say.

Aunt Anne took her arm, they went out followed by Aunt Elizabeth. The
fresh evening air that blew upon Maggie's forehead seemed suddenly to
make of the Chapel a dim, incredible phantom; faintly from behind the
closed door came the echo of the hymn. The street was absolutely
still--no human being was in sight, only an old cab stationed close at
hand waiting for a possible customer; into this they got. The pale,
almost white, evening sky, with stars in sheets and squares and pools
of fire, shone with the clear radiance of glass above them. Maggie
could see the stars through the dirty windows of the cab.

They were quite silent all the way home. Aunt Anne sitting up very
straight, motio