Jan tried the heavy oak door and it yielded, and from the soft mildness of the spring evening, so full of happy sounds of innocent life, she passed into the grey and sacred silence of the church.
It was cold in the beautiful old fourteenth-century church, with that pervading smell of badly-burning wood that is so often found in country churches till all attempt at heating ceases for the summer. But nothing could mar the nobility of its austerely lovely architecture; the indefinable, exquisite grace that soothes and penetrates.
She went and knelt in the Wren's End pew where Charles Considine Smith's vast prayer-book still stood on the book-board. And even as in the Bombay Cathedral she had prayed that strength might be given to her to walk in the Way, so now she prayed for courage and a quiet, steadfast mind.
Her head was bowed and buried in her hands: "My heart shall not fear," she whispered; but she knew that it did fear, and fear grievously.
The tense silence was broken by an odd, fitful, pattering sound; but Jan, absorbed in her petition for the courage she could not feel, heard nothing.
Something clumsy, warm, and panting pushed against her, and she uncovered her face and looked down upon William trying to thrust his head under her arm and join in her devotions.
And William became a misty blur, for her eyes filled with tears; he looked so anxious and foolish and kind with his tongue hanging out and his absurd, puzzled expression.
He was puzzled. Part of the usual ritual had been omitted.
She ought, by all known precedents, to have put her arm round his neck and have admonished him to "pray for his Master." But she did nothing of the kind, only patted him, with no sort of invitation to join in her orisons.