thou shalt endure. They shall wax old as doth a
garment.... But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end."

The preacher finished, and the buzz and rustle of the people shifting in
their seats told of the tension that had been broken. Faces that had
been distorted with the tremors of fear, or contracted with the
quiverings of remorse, or glorified with the lights of ecstasy, resumed
their normal expression.

The vesper hymn was sung by the whole congregation, standing. It floated
up to the blue roof, where the lights that burned low over the people's
heads left in the gloom the texts written on the open timbers and the
imaged Christ hung in the clerestory. There was one voice that did not
sing the vesper hymn; and the close-locked lips of Hugh Ritson were but
the symbol of the close-locked heart.

He was asking himself, was it true that when the fire of the stars
should be burned to ashes, still man would endure? Pshaw! What was man?
These throngs of men, whose great voice swelled like the sea, what were
they? In this old church where they sung, other men had sung before
them, and where were they now? Who should say they had not perished?
Living, believing, dying, they were gone: gone with their sins and
sorrows; gone with their virtues and rewards; gone from all sight and
all memory; and no voice came from them, pealing out of the abyss of
death to join this song of hope. Hope! It was a dream. A dream that
great yearning crowds like these, filling churches and chapels, dreamed
age after age. But it was a dream from which there would be no awakening
to know that it was not true.

The priest and choir left the church. Then the congregation broke up and
separated. Hugh Ritson stood awhile, still leaning against the column of
the colonnade. The nuns in the south transept rose last, and went out by
a little aperture opening from the south aisle. Hugh watched them pass
at the distance of the width of the nave. Greta walked a few paces
behind them. When the people had gone, and she rose from her seat, her
eyes fell on Hugh. Then she dropped her head, and walked down the aisle
with a hurried step. Hugh saw her out; the church was now empty, and the
voluntary was done. He followed her through the door, and entered into
the sacristy.

Before him was another door; it led into the convent. The last of the
line of nuns was passing through it. Greta stood in the sacristy, faint,
with a scared face, one hand at her br