Thus was the mission to Lambeth Court decided upon. Paul had carried his Committee with him, as he always did. Its eldest member, a married bank clerk of a nervous temperament, had indeed echoed something of Mrs. Kestern's fears. He thought that the Court was no place for ladies, and said, frankly, he would not care for his wife to go there. Paul, at the head of the Mission vestry table, played with a pencil, and showed his instinctive leadership again by not answering him. He looked up instead, and caught Edith Thornton's eyes as she sat opposite him. They were eager and indignant, and he nodded ever so slightly. Edith, therefore, had taken up her parable, and the more forcefully since she did not often speak on Committee. "Oh, Mr. Derrick," she exclaimed, "I don't agree with you at all! What about our missionaries' wives? What about the Salvation Army? Do you think any place can be too bad for a Christian if there is one single soul to be saved?" She flushed a little at her own vehemence. Mr. Derrick coughed, fumbling with his watchchain. He was well aware that the Spirit was at work in Apple Orchard Mission Hall, and he was conscious of being one of the weaker brethren. Paul's very silence daunted him, for he honestly loved the eager Paul. "Let us pray about it," he suggested. Paul pushed his chair back, and slipped to his knees. Instinctively he always knelt to pray, though the more general custom was to sit. "A few minutes' silent prayer first," he commanded, and, in the slow ticking of the clock, he prayed himself, with utter simplicity and earnestness, for Lambeth Court, for the guidance of the Holy Spirit--and for Mr. Derrick. The result was, of course, a foregone conclusion. Thus, at intervals, all that golden summer, Lambeth Court heard the Word. True, the signs following were so small that the less zealous Endeavourers openly shook their heads, and even the more ardent of the band would have been tempted to give in. But Paul and Edith were of different mettle. At devotional meetings, Paul spoke of heroic souls who had preached for half a generation in heathen lands and not seen a convert, until, one day, the tide turned in all its power. Most effective was the story of the Moravians who laboured among a certain band of Esquimaux for forty years unblessing and unblessed, and then, discovering that the channels were choked in themselves, cleared them, and saw many mighty works. And in July, indeed, the doubters had received a knock-out blow. Mrs. Reynolds, of No. 11, had been as truly converted as Saul on the road to Damascus, converted by the human instrumentality of Edith and a novel tract in the shape of a small slip of cardboard bearing nothing but a question mark on one side and on the other: _HOW_ SHALL YE ESCAPE IF YE NEGLECT SO GREAT SALVATION?