ng the
words, the controversy which had raged for nineteen hundred years, and
not yet was stilled. Perfection is divine. Human! Hodder repeated the
word, as one groping on the threshold of a great discovery....

III

He was listening--he had for a long time been listening to a sound which
had seemed only the natural accompaniment of the drama taking place in
his soul, as though some inspired organist were expressing in exquisite
music the undercurrent of his agony. Only gradually did he become aware
that it arose from the nave of the church, and, turning, his eyes fell
upon the bowed head and shoulders of a woman kneeling in one of the
pews. She was sobbing.

His movement, he recalled afterward, did not come of a conscious
volition, as he rose and descended the chancel steps and walked toward
her; he stood for what seemed a long time on the white marble of the
aisle looking down on her, his heart wrung by the violence of her grief,
which at moments swept through her like a tempest. She seemed still
young, but poverty had marked her with unmistakable signs. The white,
blue-veined hands that clung to the railing of the pew were thin; and
the shirtwaist, though clean, was cheap and frayed. At last she rose
from her knees and raised a tear-stained face to his, staring at him in
a dumb bewilderment.

"Can I do anything for you?" he said gently, "I am the rector here." She
did not answer, but continued to stare uncomprehendingly. He sat down
beside her in the pew.

"You are in trouble," he said. "Will you let me try to help you?" A sob
shook her--the beginning of a new paroxysm. He waited patiently until it
was over. Suddenly she got rather wildly and unsteadily to her feet.

"I must go!" she cried. "Oh, God, what would I do if--if he wasn't
there?"

Hodder rose too. She had thrust herself past him into the aisle, but if
he had not taken her arm she would have fallen. Thus they went together
to the door of the church, and out into the white, burning sunlight. In
spite of her weakness she seemed actually to be leading him, impelled
by a strange force and fled down the steps of the porch to the sidewalk.
And there she paused, seeing him still beside her. Fortunately he had
his hat in his hand.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"To take you home," he replied firmly, "you ought not to go alone."

A look of something like terror came into her eyes.

"Oh, no!" she protested, with a vehemence that surprised him.