It was necessary to wait for a train at Parson's Green station. From the elevated platform grass was visible through a gently falling mist. The curving rails stole away mysteriously into a general greyness, and the twilight, assuaging every crudity of the suburban landscape, gave an impression of vast spaces and perfect serenity. Save for the porter leisurely lighting the station lamps, he was alone,--alone, as it seemed to him, in an upper world, above London, and especially above Fulham and the house where lived the girl who read "East Lynne." How commonplace must she be! Richard wondered that Mr. Aked could exist surrounded by all the banalities of Carteret Street. Even his own lodging was more attractive, for at least Raphael Street was within sound of the central hum and beat of the city. A signal suddenly shone out in the distance; it might have been a lighthouse seen across unnumbered miles of calm ocean. Rain began to fall. CHAPTER XI Richard's Sabbaths had become days of dismal torpor. A year ago, on first arriving in London, he had projected a series of visits to churches famous either for architectural beauty or for picturesque ritual. A few weeks, however, had brought tedium. He was fundamentally irreligious, and his churchgoing proceeded from a craving, purely sensuous, which sought gratification in ceremonial pomps, twilight atmospheres heavy with incense and electric with devotion, and dim perspectives of arching stone. But these things he soon discovered lost their fine savour by the mere presence of a prim congregation secure in the brass armour of self-complacency; for him the worship was spoilt by the worshippers, and so the time came when the only church which he cared to attend--and even to this he went but infrequently, lest use should stale its charm--was the Roman Catholic oratory of St. Philip Neri, where, at mass, the separation of the sexes struck a grateful note of austerity, and the mean appearance of the people contrasted admirably with the splendour of the priests' vestments, the elaborate music, and the gilt and colour of altars. Here deity was omnipotent and humanity abject. Men and women of all grades, casting themselves down before the holy images in the ecstatic abandonment of repentance, prayed side by side, oblivious of everything save their sins and the anger of a God. As a spectacle the oratory was sublime. He visited it about once a month. The mornings of intervening Sundays were given to aimless perambulation of the parks, desultory reading, or sleep; there was nothing to prevent him leaving town for the day, but he was so innocent of any sort of rural lore that the prospect of a few hours in the country was seldom enticing enough to rouse sufficient energy for its accomplishment. After dinner he usually slept, and in the evening he would take a short walk and go early to bed. For some reason he never attempted to work on Sundays.