They came down into the hall, where they stood for a moment quite alone. Both were greatly agitated, both felt drawn together by some great power. "How beautiful it is!" Carr said at length. "Our Lord is with her. May we all die so." "Poor, dear woman!" "In a few moments she will be in the supreme and ineffable glory of Paradise. I want to see trees and flowers, to think happily of the wonderful mercy and goodness of God among the things He has made. I should like to walk in the park for an hour, to hear the birds and see the children play. Will you come with me?" "Yes, I will come." He took her hand and bowed low over it. "I have a great thing to ask of you," he said. They walked soberly together until they came to the railed-in open space. To each the air seemed thick with unspoken thoughts. The park was a poor place enough. But flowers grew there, the grass was green, it was not quite Hornham. They sat upon a bench and for a minute or two both were silent. Lucy knew a serenity at this moment such as she had hardly ever known. She was as some mariner who, at the close of a long and tempestuous voyage, comes at even-tide towards harbour over a still sea. The coastwise lights begin to glimmer, the haven is near. In her mind and heart, at that moment, she was reconciled to and in tune with all that is beautiful in human and Divine. She sat there, this well-known society girl, who, all her life, had lived with the great and wealthy of the world, in great content. In the "park" of Hornham, with the poor clergyman, she knew supreme content. In a low voice that shook with the intensity of his feeling and yet was resolute and informed with strength, Carr asked Lucy to be his wife. She gave him her hand very simply and happily. A river that had long been weary had at last wound safe to sea. That she should be the wife of this man was, she knew, one of the gladdest and most merciful ordinances of God. CHAPTER XIII THE ARCHBISHOP AND THE HAMLYNS "Gussie Davies says that she's sure that Miss Pritchett hasn't added a codicil," said Mr. Sam Hamlyn, coming into the inner room at the offices of the Luther League. Mr. Hamlyn, Senior, had been at work for some hours, but his son had only just arrived in the Strand. It was the day after Miss Pritchett's death, and Sam had remained in North London to make a few inquiries. "What a blessing of Providence," said the secretary. "There's something to be said for a ritualistic way of dying, after all! If it 'adn't been for her messing about with the oil and that, she'd have sent for her solicitor and cut the League out of her will! The priests have been 'oist with their own petard this time." "I wonder how much it'll be," Sam said reflectively.