"I'm in great pain, Maggie. I think you must take me home," she
heard her aunt say.
Aunt Anne took her arm, they went out followed by Aunt Elizabeth.
The fresh evening air that blew upon Maggie's forehead seemed
suddenly to make of the Chapel a dim, incredible phantom; faintly
from behind the closed door came the echo of the hymn. The street
was absolutely still--no human being was in sight, only an old cab
stationed close at hand waiting for a possible customer; into this
they got. The pale, almost white, evening sky, with stars in sheets
and squares and pools of fire, shone with the clear radiance of
glass above them. Maggie could see the stars through the dirty
windows of the cab.
They were quite silent all the way home. Aunt Anne sitting up very
straight, motionless, her fingers still on Maggie's arm.
Inside the house there was Jane. She seemed at once to under-stand,
and, with Aunt Elizabeth, led Aunt Anne up the dark stairs.
They disappeared, leaving Maggie alone in the hall, whose only sound
was the ticking clock from the stairs and only light the dim lamp
above the door.
CHAPTER V
THE CHOICE
She waited for some time alone in the hall listening for she knew
not what.
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