And then, suddenly, he saw it all as clearly as the day through the chapel window: his broken home, his mother's tears, Edith lost to him, his ambition to write poetry blocked out, and instead, instead—that silver Cup behind the white curtain thrust into his hand. A half-remembered line shot into his head:
And down the shaft of light
Blood-red...
And suppose, after all, it were not true....
If it were true, surely God would show him. If He were a Father, surely, surely...
(6)
That, then, was the manner in which Paul Kestern grew afraid. The utter silence of the chapel grew on him, bore down on him, wave on wave. Was it not time for the trap? Oh, but they would call him. Meantime, why wouldn't God speak? Just a word, a flicker of a curtain.... It was all so still. Not even a wind. The silence listened, that was the awful thing; it listened for him to pray. And if he prayed—oh, if he prayed, he would break down like a baby, and surrender, and he would never really have known.
Then Paul knew he could not pray.
But he shut his eyes; he groped into the blackness; he pressed against the silence; he knew he was alone, all alone; he knew if he could have fled, he would have done so, but that he could not move. He must fight it out alone, endure alone; and though that awful silence terrorised his very thought, he must still try to think....
"It's t-t-time to go," whispered a voice in his ear.
He got up, and stumbled out. "Thank you so much, Father," he said. There was utter terror in his soul, but that was what he said. He saw the other's face, tender and grave, and his quaint black gown, and the bare hall, and the little flagged path, and the iron gate, and the trap. Oh, he was glad to see the trap. He mustn't be afraid; it was absurd; he could walk out. "Really I've loved being here," he heard himself saying.