"Christian! Up and fight them!"


The voice waked; it leaped from him; and to Anne's terrified nerves it
seemed to be scattering the voices of the choir before it. It dropped on
the Amen and died; but in dying it remained triumphant, like the trump of
an archangel retreating to the uttermost ends of heaven.

Anne's heart pained her with a profane tenderness, and a poignant
repudiation. Her soul being once more adjusted to the divine, it was
intolerable to think that this preposterous human voice should have power
to shake it so.

She sank to her knees and bowed her head to the Benediction.

"Did you like it?" he asked as they emerged together into the open air.

He spoke as if to the child she seemed to him now to be. They had been
playing together, pretending they were two pilgrims bound for the
Heavenly City, and he wanted to know if she had had a nice game. He
nursed the exquisite illusion that this time he had pleased her by
playing too.

"Of course I liked it."

"So did I," he answered joyously, "I quite enjoyed it. We'll do it again
some other night."

"What made you come, like that?" said she, appeased by his innocence.