aid the priest, holding up a warning finger.

This idle chatter displeased him in the church, but he had another
reason for wishing to stop the conversation. It renewed his dread to
hear of the projected journey, and made him see, as in a shadowy vision,
Domini Enfilden's figure disappearing into the windy desolation of the
desert protected by the living mystery he hated. Yes, at this moment, he
no longer denied it to himself. There was something in Androvsky that
he actually hated with his whole soul, hated even in his church, at the
very threshold of the altar where stood the tabernacle containing the
sacred Host. As he thoroughly realised this for a moment he was shocked
at himself, recoiled mentally from his own feeling. But then something
within him seemed to rise up and say, "Perhaps it is because you are
near to the Host that you hate this man. Perhaps you are right to hate
him when he draws nigh to the body of Christ."

Nevertheless when, some minutes later, he stood within the altar rails
and saw the face of Domini, he was conscious of another thought, that
came through his mind, dark with doubt, like a ray of gold: "Can I be
right in hating what this good woman--this woman whose confession I have
received, whose heart I know--can I be right in hating what she loves,
in fearing what she trusts, in secretly condemning what she openly
enthrones?" And almost in despite of himself he felt reassured for an
instant, even happy in the thought of what he was about to do.

Domini's face at all times suggested strength. The mental and emotional
power of her were forcibly expressed, too, through her tall and
athletic body, which was full of easy grace, but full, too, of well-knit
firmness. To-day she looked not unlike a splendid Amazon who could have
been a splendid nun had she entered into religion. As she stood there by
Androvsky, simply dressed for the wild journey that was before her, the
slight hint in her personality of a Spartan youth, that stamped her with
a very definite originality, was blended with, even transfigured by, a
womanliness so intense as to be almost fierce, a womanliness that had
the fervour, the glowing vigour of a glory that had suddenly become
fully aware of itself, and of all the deeds that it could not only
conceive, but do. She was triumph embodied in the flesh, not the triumph
that is a school-bully, but that spreads wings, conscious at last that
the human being has kinship with the angels,