ed over the back, buried in the curve of one arm. A
tambourine hung loosely from the hand nearest her face; the other lay,
palm outward in its abandonment, among the folds that covered her limbs.
The folds hung from her waist, and the short close bodice that she wore
above them, like a Bengali woman, left visible the narrow gap of flesh
which nobody notices when it is brown. Her head covering had slipped and
clung only to the knot of hair at the nape of her neck; she lacked,
pathetically, the conscious hand to draw it forward. She was unaware
even of the gaze of the Duke's Own, though it had fixity and absorption.

The man with folded hands went on talking. He seemed to have caught as a
text the refrain of the hymn that had been sung. "Yes indeed," he said,
"I can tell every one 'ere this night, h'every one, that the Saviour is
mighty to keep. I've got it out of my own personal experience, I 'ave.
Jesus don't only look after you on a Sunday but six days a week, my
friends, six days a week. Fix your eye on Him and He'll keep His eye on
you--that's all your part of it. I don't mean to say I don't stumble an'
fall into sin. There's times when the Devil will get the upper 'and, but
oh, my friends, I ask you each an' every one of you, is that the fault
of Jesus? No, it is not 'is fault, it is the fault of the person. The
person 'as been forgetting Jesus, forgetting 'is Bible an' his prayers;
what can you expect? And now I ask you, my friends, is Jesus a-keeping
you? And if he is not, oh, my friends, ain't it foolish to put off any
longer? 'Ere we are met together to-night; we may never all meet
together again. You and I may never 'ear each other speaking again or
see each other sitting there. Thank God," the speaker continued, as his
eye rested on Arnold and Lindsay, "the vilest sinner may be saved, the
respectable sinner may be saved. We've got God's word for that. Now just
a little word of prayer from Ensign Sand 'ere--she's got God's ear, the
Ensign 'as, and she'll plead with 'im for all unconverted souls inside
these four walls to-night."

Laura lifted her head at this and dropped with the other exhorters on
her knees on the floor. As she moved she bent upon the audience a
preoccupied gaze, by which she seemed to observe numbers, chances, from
a point remote and emotionally involved. Lindsay's impression was that
she looked at him as from behind a glass door. Then her eyes closed as
the other woman began, and through the