As the heavy doors swung back, the voices of the choir swelled out into the faint sunshine, the notes of a high soprano skimming bird-like over the deeper voices of the males and the profundo of the organ. When next Driscoll spoke it was with sudden interest. "I say, Ryder, if this is Algarcife, why on earth did he turn theologian? Any evidences of brain softening?" "Hardly. It is a second Tractarian excitement, with Algarcife for the leader. The High-Church party owes him canonization, as I said to the bishop yesterday. He is the best advertising medium of the century. After Father Speares died, he took things in hand, you know, and raised a thunder-cloud. The old man's mantle fell upon him, along with whatever worldly possessions he possessed. Then some physiologist named Clynn got him into a controversy, and it was like applying an electric-battery to the sluggish limbs of the Church." Driscoll gave a low whistle. "Well, as I'm alive!" he said. "What is it all for, anyway?" "Let's go inside," said Ryder, drawing his collar about his throat. "Beastly chill for October. Wind's due east." For an instant they paused in the vestibule; then Ryder laid his hand upon the door; it swung open, and they entered the church. At first the change of light dazzled Driscoll, and he raised his hand to his eyes; then, lowering it, he leaned against a pillar and looked over the heads of the congregation. A mellow obscurity flooded the nave, lightening in opalescent values where the stained-glass windows cast faint glints of green and gold. The atmosphere was so highly charged with color that it seemed to possess the tangible qualities of fine gauze, drawn in transparent tissue from the vaulted ceiling to the gray dusk of the aisles. A single oblique ray of sunshine, filtering through a western pane, crept slowly along the walls to the first station of the cross, where it lay warm and still. Through the heavy luminousness the voices of the choir swelled in triumphant acclamation: "And His mercy is on them that fear Him: Throughout all generations. He hath showed strength with His arm: He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seat." Beyond the rood-screen in the chancel the candles on the altar flickered in yellow flames beneath a slight draught. Above them, from the window, a Christ in red and purple fainted beneath his crown of thorns. At the foot of the crucifix a heap of white chrysanthemums lay like snow. Before the candles and the cross the priest stood in his heavy vestments, his face turned towards the altar, the sanctuary-lamp shining above his head. Around him incense rose in clouds of fragrant smoke, and through the vapor his dark head and white profile were drawn against the foot of the cross. The yellow candle-light, beside which the gas-light grew pallid, caught the embroideries on the hood of the cope, and they glistened like jewels.