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To Margaret, listening dully, there seemed to be an inexpressible incongruity between the man and the office, between the face and the robes, which should have lent a spirituality. She looked about her furtively. Surely, surely she must see that thought reflected from other faces; but her range of vision took in only countenances overflowing with conscious Sabbath rectitude, heads nodding with rhythmic sleepiness and eyes shining with churchly complacency. Suddenly through the rolling periods the meaning struck through to Margaret, and her wandering mind was instantly arrested.

“For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are of the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”

She heard the words with painful eagerness. Her mind seemed suddenly as acute, as quick to record impressions as though she had just awakened from a long sleep.

A woman in a pew to Margaret’s right dropped her prayer-book with a smart crash onto the wooden floor. The smooth brows drew together sharply and his voice, pauseless, took on a note of asperity, of irritated displeasure. Reading was a specialty of his, and to be interrupted spoiled the general effect and displeased him.