Chapter 3 - Page 2

into his now highly responsive
ear.

The second hymn was a simple and popular one, dealing with the theme
of Faith, Hope, and Charity, and having each verse ending with the
word "Love." Conceive it, long drawn out and disarticulate,--

"Faith will van ... ish in ... to sight,
Hope be emp ... tied in deli ... ight,
Love in Heaven will shine more bri ... ight,
There ... fore give us Love."

At the third repetition of the refrain, Lewisham looked down across
the chancel and met her eyes for a brief instant....

He stopped singing abruptly. Then the consciousness of the serried
ranks of faces below there came with almost overwhelming force upon
him, and he dared not look at her again. He felt the blood rushing to
his face.

Love! The greatest of these. The greatest of all things. Better than
fame. Better than knowledge. So came the great discovery like a flood
across his mind, pouring over it with the cadence of the hymn and
sending a tide of pink in sympathy across his forehead. The rest of
the service was phantasmagorial background to that great reality--a
phantasmagorial background a little inclined to stare. He,
Mr. Lewisham, was in Love.

"A ... men." He was so preoccupied that he found the whole
congregation subsiding into their seats, and himself still standing,
rapt. He sat down spasmodically, with an impact that seemed to him to
re-echo through the church.

As they came out of the porch into the thickening night, he seemed to
see her everywhere. He fancied she had gone on in front, and he
hurried up the boys in the hope of overtaking her. They pushed through
the throng of dim people going homeward. Should he raise his hat to
her again?... But it was Susie Hopbrow in a light-coloured dress--a
raven in dove's plumage. He felt a curious mixture of relief and
disappointment. He would see her no more that night.

He hurried from the school to his lodging. He wanted very urgently to
be alone. He went upstairs to his little room and sat before the
upturned box on which his Butler's Analogy was spread open. He did not
go to the formality of lighting the candle. He leant back and gazed
blissfully at the solitary planet that hung over the vicarage garden.

He took out of his pocket a crumpled sheet of paper, smoothed and
carefully refolded, covered with a writing not unlike that of
Frobisher ii., and after some maidenly hesitation pressed this
treasure to his lips. The Schema and the time-table hung in the
darkness like the mere ghosts of themselves.

Mrs. Munday called him thrice to his supper.

He went out immediately after it was eaten and wandered under the
stars until he came over the hill behind the town