Читать книгу The End of the House of Alard онлайн

82 страница из 99

Stella carefully shut out a pursuing hen and went in by the tower door. The church was full of heavy darkness. The afternoon sun had left it a quarter of an hour ago, showing only its pale retreat through the slats of the clerestory windows, white overhead, and night lay already in the aisles. She groped her way to the east end, where the white star of a lamp flickered against a pillar guarding a shrine. She flopped down on the worn stones at the foot of the pillar, sitting back on her heels, her hands lying loosely and meekly in her lap.

She had no sense of loneliness or fear in the dark—the white lamp spoke to her of a presence which she could feel throughout the dark and empty church, a presence of living quiet, of glowing peace. Outside she could hear the fowls clucking in the yard, with every now and then the shrill gobble-gobble of a turkey. She loved these homely sounds, which for years had been the accompaniment of her prayers—her prayers which had no words, but seemed to move in her heart like flames. Oh, it was good to be here, to have this place to come to, this Presence to seek.