ould never
be brought back to the point from which he had last slipped. He was
spinning away into a horror of blackness....

"O Holy Ghost, save him!" she cried. Then Pauline fainted, and wondered
to find herself lying upon the cold floor when she woke as from a dream.
Yet it was not like the gasping rescue of oneself from a nightmare, for
she lay awake a long while afterwards in peace, and she slept as if upon
a victory and very early in the morning went to church.

The days when the thrushes sang matins were come, and all the way she
heard freshets of holy song pouring down through the air. She and her
family always knelt apart from one another, and this morning Pauline
chose a place hidden from the others, a place where she could lean her
cheek against a pillar and be soothed by the cool touch of the stone
like the assurance of unfathomable and maternal love. Now to her calm
spirit returned the vision of those happy heavenly creatures, the
bright-suited and intimate companions of her childhood. They welcomed
her this morning and thronged about her downcast eyes with many angels,
too, that like Tobit's angel, walked by her side. Only her father's
mellow voice spoke from the chancel of earth, and even he in his violet
chasuble took his place among the saints, and when she went up to the
altar Heaven was once again very near to her.

In the morning coolness it was almost impossible to believe that last
night she had fainted, and she began to believe the whole experience had
been a dream's agony. However, whether it were or not, she had made up
her mind to ask Guy a direct question this afternoon. If, as she feared,
he was feeling hostile to religion, she would accept the warning of the
night and give all her determination to prayer for his faith to return.

When they were together, it was for a long time impossible to begin the
subject, and it was not until Guy asked what was making her so
abstracted that Pauline could ask why he never came to church any more.

In the pause before he answered she suffered anew the torment of that
struggle in the darkness.

"Does it worry you when I don't come?" he asked.

"Well, yes, it does rather."

"Then, of course, I will come," said Guy, at once.

Now this was exactly the reason for which least of all she wanted him to
come, and a trace of her mortification may have been visible, because he
asked immediately if that did not please her.

"Guy, don't you want to come to ch