Maggie went away with a sensation of being tracked by some stealthy
mysterious force that was creeping ever closer and closer upon her,
that she could only feel but not see. For instance, she might have
said that she would not go to Chapel to-night, and she might have
taken her stand upon that. And yet she could not say that. Of course
she must go because she must see Martin, but even if she had known
that he would not be there she would have gone. Was it curiosity?
Was it reminiscence? Was it superstition? Was it cowardice? Was it
loneliness? All these things, perhaps, and yet something more than
they . . .
All through the afternoon of the lovely November day she anticipated
that evening's services as though it were in some way to be a
climax. She knew that it was to be for all of them an especial
affair. She had heard during the last days much discussion of old
Mr. Crashaw. He was an old man with, apparently, a wonderful history
of conversions behind him. His conversions had been, it seemed, of
the forcible kind, seizing people by the neck and shoving them in;
he was a fierce and militant kind of saint; he believed, it seemed,
in damnation and eternal hell fire, and could make you believe in
them too; his accent was on the tortures rather than the triumphs of
religion.
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