He was in a hurry to slip out before the service began; Sally waited for him outside.
"Oh no; I haven't got my book and things," said Kitty. "They are in the box in the corner; daddy had it made for me, and here's the key," producing a key on a string from round her neck. "There's a nice red one you can use that belongs to Nurse."
By the time Paul had unlocked the box and found the books, Kitty's hands were devoutly folded in prayer, and her eyes fast shut. She opened them presently with a bright smile.
"Thank you," she half-whispered. "Now if you bring that chair close to me, you'll find my places for me; Nurse always does. I've not learned to read so very long—daddy would not let me."
Paul, feeling himself a victim of circumstance, fetched the chair and seated himself.
"I suppose he's forgotten to say his prayers," thought Kitty, as she noticed that he neither knelt down nor even placed his hand over his eyes, which were the varying methods of paying homage to God, that she had observed the men of the congregation adopted when they came into church.
Paul found his position a singular one. He had not been present at a service of any description since his college days. It would not be true to say that he had lost his belief; he had never had any. He might well question the necessity of religious education, for he had had none himself. He and Sally had been baptized as babies, just because their mother had wished it; but after her death their father, who cared for none of these things, left their religious training to chance.
"Speak the truth, and behave like a gentleman," he said to Paul, when he was sent at an early age to school; "and if ever you get into a scrape, come to me and tell me all about it."
It was a very simple moral code, and Paul lived by it both at school and college; and before his college course was ended his father had died. Christianity had not appealed to him in any way; he regarded it as a worn-out system of religious belief that had been a moral force in the world, but was dying now, slowly perhaps, but surely. Perhaps in a remote village like this, where a Rector of strong personality was at the head of affairs, it might be fanned into a flame for a time, but it would not last. It certainly had a semblance of life to-night, Paul admitted, as the congregation rose to its feet at the opening bars of the voluntary, and the white-robed choir entered, followed by Mr. Curzon. There was scarcely an empty seat, and there were as many men present as women; and they were there, apparently, not to look on but to worship, if hearty singing or burst of response were any criterion. There was a scarcely a voice silent save Paul's own.
Viewed as a picture it was a pretty one, framed as it was by the high narrow Early English arch which opened from the belfry into the nave. First came the bowed heads of the kneeling people, and, through the beautiful old screen which separated chancel from nave, the altar shone out in strong relief against its background of soft-coloured mosaic, the rays of the western sun giving an added touch of brilliance to its decoration of cross and flowers.