Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/42

 twenty—among them the Jerrolds. A compelling impulse made Derek lay his hat down. Then he half rose. Then he encountered the stare of the man with the nasal voice, across the aisle, and he dropped to his knees. There was a creaking of large boots, and the man who had led him in, moved up to the pew behind him. There was now no hope of escape. He buried his face on his arm and tried to compose his mind.

"Lift up your he-earts." The sonorous, muffled tones came from a long way off, it seemed.

"We lift them up unto the Lo-ord," moaned the twenty people on a note of abject misery.

Across his arm Vale saw Miss Jerrold's head drooping above her clasped hands; like some lovely flower bending to receive the dew of Heaven, he thought, and felt surprised at his own poetic fancy. There was a movement now towards the chancel. He shut his eyes for a time, and when he opened them it was his turn to go forward. Mr. Jerrold and his daughter were already in the aisle and he stepped out directly behind them. . . . . The man with the creaking boots pressed close after, and they stood motionless for a space between the rows of staring choir boys, while three women who had just received the Communion, filed past them with meekly lowered eyes.

The sunlight through stained glass windows fell in ruddy efflorescence on the white silk altar-cloth. Derek knelt, and fixed his eyes on the solemn shine of the cross. Then altar and cross were hidden by the billowing folds of a surplice, and sacred words were murmured above his head. . . . . When he rose to his feet his eyes fell on Mr. Jerrold. He was still kneeling; erect and motionless as the brass eagle of the lectern.