In the hall Hubert waited for Winifred with his own form of benediction:
"You're a brick, Winnie," he said, and planted a kiss upon her fair forehead.
She smiled and returned his kiss with an affectionate caress. Hubert's slangy praise was dearer to her than any polished compliment from another source.
Hubert did not understand why he hated the world and things a little less as he walked to business that morning, the stone walk answering to his usual sharp, decisive step. He did not know that it was a gleam of something pure and true, of a religion not in word but in deed, that had flashed across his path and mitigated its darkness.
Winifred had a long talk alone with her father in the library later in the day. She had thought out her reasons, and understood better, herself, the instinctive feeling that led her not to resume her place in the choir under the altered conditions.
"I am just beginning to worship, Father," she said, "and I feel I could do so better out of sight—for awhile, at least. You do not know the temptation it would be to fall back into the old way. I am afraid I could not stand it. I would rather just slip into the congregation beside you, Father, and sing to God when my heart sings, and keep still when it doesn't."
So her father yielded the point to her conscience.
"God bless you, Winnie," he said with glistening eyes, as he stroked her chestnut locks. "It may be I have been a bit of an idolater, myself."
Poor Mrs. Gray sighed, and quite gave up trying to understand Winifred's strange position. She hoped she would be able to give some suitable reason for withdrawing, and not set the whole church talking about her peculiar views. She remembered hopefully that her daughter had suffered from laryngitis not long ago, and she mentally nursed the almost vanished trouble into proportions that would forbid her singing much. She was sure Dr. Lansing would give an opinion to that effect now. But, dear me! as for herself, she did not know how she should ever sit in that church and hear anyone else sing in Winifred's place!
It was to be feared that there were many others who would find it difficult to sit in that church if their own natural wishes and tastes were not gratified there. What it was to be gathered "in My name," as the Lord Jesus had said,—into the name of Him whose flesh with its longing and loves had been carried pitilessly to the cross, that from its death there might spring forth for all His own life in the Spirit unto God—what this was, few at New Laodicea knew; nor what it was, so gathered, to behold Him in the midst. Oh, lonely heart without the door of His own house! He knocks patiently, not in the hope that the whole household will hear Him, but for "any man" who has ears to hear and will open to Him.