ck in
the pew of her selection, the creaking of its heavy walnut joints let
loose the echoes of a hundred years.

She had knelt, but he sat back watching her. The slowly westering sun,
piercing the outside branches and filtering a gleam of rose through one
of the gothic windows, touched her raised face that was in no need of
color. And while she gazed upon the crucifix, he looked tenderly upon
her who was typifying the most lovely purity he had to that time known.

A man entered, carrying a babe, and demurely followed by his wife. They
sat in the pew across; the woman coughed, and again the nave, the
ceiling and the altar were filled with hollow echoes. But other
worshippers now came, and their arrival seemed fully to arouse the
little chapel for its service, dispelling its ghostly sounds for the
rustlings of life.

In the midst of this Brent picked up a book of prayer, and on its first
page wrote: "And not for your sake?"--then passed it to her with the
pencil.

She read it, closed the place on the tip of her gloved finger, and
slowly raised her eyes full again upon the crucifix. The pencil slipped
from her lap and rolled beneath the pew, but when he moved to recover it
she shook her head;--and whatever the answer might have been remained a
secret between herself and the torn Christ.

Someone moved behind the chancel rail, touching with a lighted taper the
wick of each holy candle until the altar sparkled with a score of tiny
flames. She thought of his altar--his secret altar, and its tiny taper
flame.

Now the man across from them laid his sleeping baby in its mother's lap,
quietly and awkwardly arose, and tiptoed out. He appeared again in the
choir loft, removed his coat and waistcoat, spat upon his hands and
grasped the bellows handle. Over this once, twice, thrice he bent, as
though bowing before a symbol of the Trinity, and throughout the church
fluttered a low, trembling sigh of the organ, as it breathed its first
deep breaths of life since the morning service. It was not a mighty
instrument, but the nun who demurely came and sat upon the bench, now
touched the keys, and its harmonies held the little chapel in the grove
enthralled.

The sun was almost down as they turned homeward. It was the same drive,
except that the cool of evening was in the air, and a heavier fragrance
came from the tangles on either side.

"Forgive me if I'm quiet," she said. "I haven't been to church for so
shamefully long, and