'd fall in love with
somebody else, probably. Or else you'd just naturally dry up and be made
a bishop."

He was extremely shocked at that, and a little hurt. It took her some
time to establish cheerful relations again, and a very humble apology.
But her words stuck in the rector's mind. He made a note for a sermon,
with the text: "Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband
also, and he praiseth her."

He went quietly into the great stone building and sat down. The organist
was practicing the Introit anthem, and half way up the church a woman
was sitting quietly.

The rector leaned back, and listened to the music. He often did that
when he had a sermon in his mind. It was peaceful and quiet. Hard to
believe, in that peace of great arches and swelling music, that across
the sea at that moment men were violating that fundamental law of the
church, "Thou shalt not kill."

The woman turned her head, and he saw that it was Audrey Valentine.
He watched her with kindly, speculative eyes. Self-reliant, frivolous
Audrey, sitting alone in the church she had so casually attended--surely
that was one of the gains of war. People all came to it ultimately. They
held on with both hands as long as they could, and then they found their
grasp growing feeble and futile, and they turned to the Great Strength.

The organist had ceased. Audrey was kneeling now. The rector, eyes on
the gleaming cross above the altar, repeated softly:

"Save and deliver us, we humbly beseech Thee, from the hands of our
enemies; that we, being armed with Thy defense, may be preserved
evermore from all perils."

Audrey was coming down the aisle. She did not see him. She had, indeed,
the fixed eyes of one who still looks inward. She was very pale, but
there was a new look of strength in her face, as of one who has won a
victory.

"To glorify Thee, who are the only giver of all victory, through the
merits of thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord," finished the rector.

CHAPTER XXV

On the last day of February Audrey came home from her shorthand class
and stood wearily by the window, too discouraged even to remove her hat.
The shorthand was a failure; the whole course was a failure. She had not
the instinct for plodding, for the meticulous attention to detail that
those absurd, irrational lines and hooks and curves demanded.

She could not even spell! And an idiot of an instructor had found
fault with the large square band she wrote, as b