Page:Lord of the World - Benson - 1908.djvu/64

34 "Lord! I cannot bear it!" he moaned

In an instant he was back again, drawing long breaths of misery. He passed his tongue over his lips, and opened his eyes on the darkening apse before him. The organ was silent now, and the choir was gone, and the lights out. The sunset colour, too, had faded from the walls, and grim cold faces looked down on him from wall and vault. He was back again on the surface of life; the vision had melted; he scarcely knew what it was that he had seen.

But he must gather up the threads, and by sheer effort absorb them. He must pay his duty, too, to the Lord that gave Himself to the senses as well as to the inner spirit. So he rose, stiff and constrained, and passed across to the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament.

As he came out from the block of chairs, very upright and tall, with his biretta once more on his white hair, he saw an old woman watching him very closely. He hesitated an instant, wondering whether she were a penitent, and as he hesitated she made a movement towards him.

"I beg your pardon, sir," she began.

She was not a Catholic then. He lifted his biretta.

"Can I do anything for you?" he asked.

"I beg your pardon, sir, but were you at Brighton, at the accident two months ago?"

"I was."

"Ah! I thought so: my daughter-in-law saw you then."

Percy had a spasm of impatience: he was a little tired of being identified by his white hair and young face.

"Were you there, madam?"

She looked at him doubtfully and curiously, moving her