"O Holy Ghost, save him!" she cried. Then Pauline fainted, and wondered to find herself lying upon the cold floor when she woke as from a dream. Yet it was not like the gasping rescue of oneself from a nightmare, for she lay awake a long while afterwards in peace, and she slept as if upon a victory and very early in the morning went to church.
The days when the thrushes sang matins were come, and all the way she heard freshets of holy song pouring down through the air. She and her family always knelt apart from one another, and this morning Pauline chose a place hidden from the others, a place where she could lean her cheek against a pillar and be soothed by the cool touch of the stone like the assurance of unfathomable and maternal love. Now to her calm spirit returned the vision of those happy heavenly creatures, the bright-suited and intimate companions of her childhood. They welcomed her this morning and thronged about her downcast eyes with many angels, too, that like Tobit's angel, walked by her side. Only her father's mellow voice spoke from the chancel of earth, and even he in his violet chasuble took his place among the saints, and when she went up to the altar Heaven was once again very near to her.
In the morning coolness it was almost impossible to believe that last night she had fainted, and she began to believe the whole experience had been a dream's agony. However, whether it were or not, she had made up her mind to ask Guy a direct question this afternoon. If, as she feared, he was feeling hostile to religion, she would accept the warning of the night and give all her determination to prayer for his faith to return.
When they were together, it was for a long time impossible to begin the subject, and it was not until Guy asked what was making her so abstracted that Pauline could ask why he never came to church any more.
In the pause before he answered she suffered anew the torment of that struggle in the darkness.
"Does it worry you when I don't come?" he asked.
"Well, yes, it does rather."
"Then, of course, I will come," said Guy, at once.
Now this was exactly the reason for which least of all she wanted him to come, and a trace of her mortification may have been visible, because he asked immediately if that did not please her.
"Guy, don't you want to come to church? You used to come happily, didn't you?"