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Stella's religion still seemed to have some colour left in it, some life, some youth. It was more like his childhood's faith than anything he had met so far. She had told him tonight that there were two Christmas trees in church, one each side of the Altar, all bright with the glass balls and birds that had made his childhood's Christmas trees seem almost supernatural. . . . Yggdrasils decked for the eternal Yule . . . he was falling asleep. . . . He was sorry for Stella. She had told him too about the Christmas Crib, the little straw house she had built in the church for Mary and Joseph and the Baby, for the ox and the ass and the shepherds and their dogs and the lambs they could not leave behind. . . . She had told him that she never thought of Christ as being born in Bethlehem, but in the barn at the back of the Plough Inn at Udimore. . . . He saw the long road running into the sunrise, wet and shining, red with an angry morning. Someone was coming along it carrying a lamb . . . was it the lost sheep—or just one of the lambs the shepherds could not leave behind? . . . all along the road the trees were hung with glass balls and many-coloured birds. He could feel Stella beside him, though he could not see her. She was trying to make him come with her to the inn. She was saying "Come, Peter—oh, do come, Peter," and he seemed to be Peter going with her. Then suddenly he knew he was not Peter, and the earth roared and the trees flew up into the sky, which shook and flamed. . . . He must be falling asleep.