n twilight which her upbringing had taught her to associate with
God. Once before in her life, and once only, she had stood within
the minster--on her confirmation day, when she had entered with her
hand in her mother's. Her eyes sought and found the very place where
she had sat then among the crowd of girl-candidates, and a ghost in a
white frock sat there still with bowed head. She remembered the very
texture and scent of that white frock: they came back with the awe,
the fervour, the passionate desire to be good; and these memories
cried all in her ears, "What have you to do with that child?
Which of you is Hetty? You cannot both be real."

They sang in her ears while she questioned the verger about Romley.
He had to repeat his answers before she thanked him and turned
towards one of the lowest seats. She did not repent: she was not
thinking of repentance. She loved, she had given all for love, and
life was fuller of beautifying joy than ever it had been even on that
day of confirmation: but beneath the joy awoke a small ache, and with
the ache a certain knowledge that she might never sit beside the
child in white, never so close as to touch her frock; that their
places in this building, God's habitation, were eternally separate.

Then the organ ceased, and the voice began to speak. And the voice
uttered promise of pardon, but Hetty heard nothing of the words--only
the notes.

"_And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in
the cool of the day: and A dam and his wife hid themselves from the
presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden_."

Less terrible this voice was; a seraph's rather, at the lodge-gate,
welcoming the morn. Yet Hetty crouched by her pillar, afraid.
For the day he welcomed was not _her_ day, the worship he offered was
not _her_ worship; for _her_ a sword lay across the gate.

Her terror passed, and she straightened herself. After all, she did
not repent. Why should she repent? She was loved; she loved in
return, utterly and without guile, with a love which, centred upon
one, yet embraced all living creatures. Nay, it embraced Heaven, if
Heaven would accept it. And why not?

"_Wherefore let us beseech him_," said the voice, "_to grant us true
repentance and his Holy Spirit, that those things may please him
which we do at this present; and that the rest of our life hereafter
may be pure and holy_ . . ."

"Pure and holy"--but she desired no less, and ou