joined the little pew-opener who was waiting to close the doors. Joan
asked her what she had thought of the sermon, but Mary Stopperton, being
a little deaf, had not heard it.

"It was quite good--the matter of it," Joan told her. "All Roads lead to
Calvary. The idea is that there comes a time to all of us when we have
to choose. Whether, like your friend Carlyle, we will 'give up things'
for our faith's sake. Or go for the carriage and pair."

Mary Stopperton laughed. "He is quite right, dear," she said. "It does
seem to come, and it is so hard. You have to pray and pray and pray. And
even then we cannot always do it." She touched with her little withered
fingers Joan's fine white hand. "But you are so strong and brave," she
continued, with another little laugh. "It won't be so difficult for
you."

It was not until well on her way home that Joan, recalling the
conversation, found herself smiling at Mary Stopperton's literal
acceptation of the argument. At the time, she remembered, the shadow of
a fear had passed over her.

Mary Stopperton did not know the name of the preacher. It was quite
common for chance substitutes to officiate there, especially in the
evening. Joan had insisted on her acceptance of a shilling, and had made
a note of her address, feeling instinctively that the little old woman
would "come in useful" from a journalistic point of view.

Shaking hands with her, she had turned eastward, intending to walk to
Sloane Square and there take the bus. At the corner of Oakley Street she
overtook him. He was evidently a stranger to the neighbourhood, and was