"Then why do I find you in such company? You don't come here like us to find sinners." "I haven't forgotten God, but I must do my duty to my husband. It would be like setting myself up against my husband's business, and you don't think I ought to do that? A wife that brings discord into the family is not a good wife, so I've often heard." "You always thought more of your husband than of Christ, Esther." "Each one must follow Christ as best he can! It would be wrong of me to set myself against my husband." "So he married you?" Fred answered bitterly. "Yes. You thought he'd desert me a second time; but he's been the best of husbands." "I place little reliance on those who are not with Christ. His love for you is not of the Spirit. Let us not speak of him. I loved you very deeply, Esther. I would have brought you to Christ.... But perhaps you'll come to see us sometimes." "I do not forget Christ. He's always with me, and I believe you did care for me. I was sorry to break it off, you know I was. It was not my fault." "Esther, it was I who loved you." "You mustn't talk like that. I'm a married woman." "I mean no harm, Esther. I was only thinking of the past." "You must forget all that... Good-bye; I'm glad to have seen you, and that we said a prayer together." Fred didn't answer, and Esther moved away, wondering where she should find Sarah. XXXIII The crowd shouted. She looked where the others looked, but saw only the burning blue with the white stand marked upon it. It was crowded like the deck of a sinking vessel, and Esther wondered at the excitement, the cause of which was hidden from her. She wandered to the edge of the crowd until she came to a chalk road where horses and mules were tethered. A little higher up she entered the crowd again, and came suddenly upon a switchback railway. Full of laughing and screaming girls, it bumped over a middle hill, and then rose slowly till it reached the last summit. It was shot back again into the midst of its fictitious perils, and this mock voyaging was accomplished to the sound of music from a puppet orchestra. Bells and drums, a fife and a triangle, cymbals clashed mechanically, and a little soldier beat the time. Further on, under a striped awning, were the wooden horses. They were arranged so well that they rocked to and fro, imitating as nearly as possible the action of real horses. Esther watched the riders. A blue skirt looked like a riding habit, and a girl in salmon pink leaned back in her saddle just as if she had been taught how to ride. A girl in a grey jacket encouraged a girl in white who rode a grey horse. But before Esther could make out for certain that the man in the blue Melton jacket was Bill Evans he had passed out of sight, and she had to wait until his horse came round the second time. At that moment she caught sight of the red poppies in Sarah's hat.