"Why, of course we are," returned Eileen, after a pause. "We are going to divide into those that are afraid and those that aren't. It's fear that's got hold of us, now we've time to think. It's all about us to-night; I've seen it, and Millie has seen it; and Clara Jenkyn and all those who are going with her have seen it; and we've all got to find our own way out." She hesitated for a moment, and then said: "And what about you? Have you seen it?" "Yes, for the first time. Within the last ten minutes," said Thrale. The moon was above the trees now, and she could see his face clearly. "Have you?" she asked. "I can't picture it. It can't be Pan or Dionysus, or fear of the Earth or of humanity. No; and it can't be the most terrible of all, the fear of an idea. What are you afraid of?" "I'm afraid of you," said Thrale, and he turned away quickly and hurried on in the direction of the river. "I did see Pan," affirmed Eileen, as she returned, happy and unafraid, towards Marlow. 5 That mood of the night had suggested to Eileen the idea of a single cause which seemed sufficient to account for the revivalist tendencies of Miss Jenkyn and certain other women in Marlow. Fear was presented as a simple explanation, and Eileen, like many other philosophers who had preceded her, was too eager for the simple and inclusive explanation. At first the revivalist tendency was feeble and circumscribed. Twenty or thirty women met in the schoolroom and talked and prayed by the light of a single, tenderly nursed oil-lamp. The absence of any minister kept them back at first; the less earnest needed some concrete embodiment of religion in the form of a black coat and white tie. But when the rain came in early October, came and persisted; when the beeches, instead of flaring into scarlet, grew sodden and dead; when the threat of flood grew even more imminent, and the distraction of physical toil almost ceased, this little nucleus of women was joined by many new recruits, and their comparatively harmless prostrations, lamentations and worshippings of the abstract, developed into an attempt to enforce a moral law upon the community. Millie Gosling, returning to Marlow in mid-October, gave the religionists splendid opportunity for a first demonstration. Millie returned with a bold face and a shrinking heart. She had fled from Wycombe because she could not meet the taunts of the women who had so lately envied her as she rode, prime favourite for a time, in the Dionysian landau. A great loneliness had come over her after she was dethroned; she needed sympathy, and she hoped that Blanche might be made to understand. Millie came back from over the hill prepared with a long tale of excuses. She found her sister perfectly complacent.