The girl’s lips and eyelids were trembling, and for a moment she seemed unable to move. At length she looked up, fixing her eyes on the golden crucifix above the altar; then, as if hypnotized by the sight, she rose and glided into the aisle, mingling with the fluctuant mass of white-veiled figures which had begun to move slowly toward the apse.

            Presently they were all kneeling together on the chancel step, settling their dresses with the quick motions of a flock of birds; and above them, whitely hovering, Maurice saw the pontifical head and voluminous sleeves of the bishop. Annette knelt so that he could just see her between the intervening piers; but Mrs. Tolquitt’s daughter was hidden from him, lost in the impersonal array of white veils and bowed heads.

            The organ murmured a soft accompaniment above which rose the monotonous cadence of the episcopal supplication, “Defend, O Lord, this thy child…. Defend, O Lord, this thy child …” reiterated like an incantation, as the invoking hands passed slowly down the line of motionless young heads.

            Maurice saw the hands sway above Annette’s pale braids, which shone like winter sunshine through her veil; then they moved on, and his eyes turned involuntarily to Mrs. Tolquitt. But she did not see him now; she was crying, not daintily, for the gallery, but in genuine self-surrender, her shoulders shaking, her handkerchief pressed against her face.

            There came over Maurice an uncontrollable longing to escape; the smoke of the incense and the strong fragrance of the lilies sickened him, and Mrs. Tolquitt’s sobs seemed to be choking in his own throat.

            At length the white line about the chancel swayed, broke, and dissolved itself; the choir burst into another victorious hymn, and the little veiled figures came fluttering back to their seats. In the ensuing disturbance, Maurice rose with a quick whisper to his mother—”Let me pass—I’m going out. I can’t stand the incense”—and while Mrs. Birkton made way for him, startled and disappointed, his glance fell for a moment on Annette’s illuminated face, as she moved toward her seat with fixed eyes and folded hands. Her whole gaze was bent upon the inner vision; she did not even see him as he brushed her dress in passing out.

            It was like a new birth to get out into the snow again, and Maurice, after a sharp breath or two, stepped forth rapidly against the wind, courting the tingle of the barbed flakes upon his face.

            He did not go home until late that evening, and when he entered the kitchen, he was met by the festal spectacle of the supper-table adorned with a cluster of white lilies and a delicate array of fruit and angel-cake. Annette, in her habitual dress of dark stuff, looked more familiar and less supernal than before, and though her face still shone, it now seemed to Maurice that he could discern the mingling of a gratified childish vanity with the mystical emotions of the morning.

            “I’m so glad you have come, dear,” Mrs. Birkton exclaimed, her countenance still dewy with a pleasant agitation. “Annette, is the chicken ready? We have a broiled chicken for you, Maurice, dear, and a little mayonnaise of tomatoes.”

            As she spoke her eye turned toward the supper-table, dumbly challenging his praise.

            “How nice it looks,” he murmured, obediently.

            “It is all owing to you, dear,” his mother replied. “We asked Mr. Helfenridge to come to supper, too; we thought you would like to have him.”

            “Is he coming?” Maurice asked, abruptly.

            “No, he couldn’t unfortunately. He said he had promised to go to his sister’s.”

            They sat down, Annette mutely radiant at the head of the table, with her mother and Maurice at the sides; but to the dismay of the two women Maurice refused to partake of the delicacies which they had prepared. He had a headache, he said; but he sat watching them eat, in spite of his mother’s entreaties that he should go and lie down in his own room.

            When supper was over, however, he rose and bade them good-night; Annette’s kiss was mingled with an inarticulate whisper of gratitude, but he pushed her gently aside, and the women heard him cross the passage-way and shut himself into his own room.

            In a few moments, however, he was aroused by a timorous knock, which he recognized as his mother’s.

            “Come in,” he called, and Mrs. Birkton stepped apologetically across the threshold.

            “Maurice, is your head very bad?”

            “No, no—it’s not bad at all. I only want to be quiet.”

            “I know, dear, and I’m very sorry to disturb you. But here is the rest of this money—I can’t keep it, you know, Maurice. Annette’s dress and shoes and veil, and the carriage and supper, and the new strings for my bonnet, only cost twenty-seven dollars and a half, and I can’t possibly keep the rest unless you will let me use it for the household expenses, as usual.”

            Maurice sprang up, white to the lips.

            “For God’s sake, mother, understand me. I don’t want the money—I won’t touch it. I can provide plenty for the household; I haven’t let you starve yet. And this is Annette’s; yours and hers. If you won’t spend it for yourself let Annette put it in the savings-bank; or let her throw it into the street; I don’t care what becomes of it—but don’t speak to me of it again. I’m sick to death of hearing about it!”

            Mrs. Birkton shrank back, trembling at his unwonted tone. She was afraid that he was going to be really ill, and her one thought was to withdraw without increasing his agitation.

            “Very well, dear—just as you please,” she said, deprecatingly. “It was foolish of me to trouble you. Don’t think of it again, but go to bed and try to sleep.