The soiled light; odours from the warm roots of girl's hair; and Sunday. Sunday; stale odours of churches. You wrote out the sermon you had not listened to and had not heard. Somebody told you the text, and you amused yourself by seeing how near you could get to what you would have heard if you had listened. After tea, hymns; then church again. Your heart laboured with the strain of kneeling, arms lifted up to the high pew ledge. You breathed pew dust. Your brain swayed like a bladder, brittle, swollen with hot gas-fumes. After supper, prayers again. Sunday was over. On Monday, the tenth day, she ran away to Dover Harbour. She had thought she could get to London with two weeks' pocket-money and what was left of Uncle Victor's tip after she had paid for the eau-de-cologne; but the ticket man said it would only take her as far as Canterbury. She had frightened Miss Lambert and made her tremble: all for nothing, except the sight of the Harbour. It was dreadful to see her tremble. Even the Harbour wasn't worth it. A miracle would have to happen. Two weeks passed and three weeks. And on the first evening of the fourth week the miracle happened. Rose Godwin came to her and whispered: "You're wanted in the dining-room." Her mother's letter lay open on the table. A tear had made a glazed snail's track down Miss Lambert's cheek; and Mary thought that one of them was dead--Roddy--Dan--Papa. "My dear, my dear--don't cry. You're going home." "Why? Why am I going?" She could see the dull, kind eyes trying to look clever. "Because your mother has sent for you. She wants you back again." "Mamma? What does she want me for?" Miss Lambert's eyes turned aside slantways. She swallowed something in her throat, making a funny noise: qualk-qualk. "It isn't _you_? You aren't sending me away?" "No; we're not sending you. But we think it's best for you to go. We can't bear to see your dear, unhappy little face going about the passages." "Does it mean that Mamma isn't happy without me?" "Well--she _would_ miss her only daughter, wouldn't she?" The miracle. The shining, lovely miracle. "Mary Olivier is going! Mary Olivier is going!" Actually the girls were sorry. Too sorry. The compassion in Rose Godwin's face stirred a doubt. Doubt of the miracle. She carried her books to the white curtained room where Miss Haynes knelt by her trunk, packing her clothes with little gentle, tender hands. "Miss Haynes" (suddenly), "I'm not expelled, am I?" "Expelled? My dear child, who's talking about expulsion?" As if she said, When miracles are worked for you, accept them. She lay awake, thinking what she should say to her mother when she got home. She would have to tell her that just at first she very nearly _was_ expelled. Then her mother would believe in her unbelief and not think she was shamming. And she would have to explain about her unbelief. And about Pantheism. VII.