The noise made by the opening of the organ shutters cracked above her head and reverberated through the building. While she waited, none of the sacred associations of the church spoke to her heart; her soul was bruised with pain, rendering her incapable of being moved by the ordinary suggestions of the place. Then Trivett played. Mavis's highly-strung, distraught mind ever, when sick as now, seeking the way of health, listened intently, devoutly, to the message of the music. Sorrow was the musician's theme: not individual grief, but the travail of an aged world. There had been, there was, such an immense accumulation of anguish that, by comparison with the sum of this, her own griefs now seemed infinitesimal. Then the organ became eloquent of the majesty of sorrow. It was of no dumb, almost grateful, resignation to the will of a Heavenly Father, who imposed suffering upon His erring children for their ultimate good, of which it spoke. Rather was the instrument eloquent of the power wielded by a pagan god of pain, before whose throne was a vast aggregation of torment, to which every human thing, and particularly loving women, were, by the conditions consequent on their nature, condemned to contribute. In return for this inevitable sacrifice, the god of pain bestowed a dignity of mind and bearing upon his votaries, which set them apart, as though they were remote from the thoughtless ruck. While Trivett played, Mavis was eased of some of her pain, her mind being ever receptive to any message that music might offer. When the organ stopped, the cold outlines of the church chilled her to the marrow. The snap occasioned by the shutting up of the instrument seemed a signal on the part of some invisible inquisitor that her torments were to recommence. Before Trivett joined her, the sound of the church clock striking the hour smote her ear with its vibrant, insistent notes. This reminder of the measuring of time recalled to Mavis the swift flight, not only of the hours, but of the days and years. It enabled her dimly to realise the infinitesimal speck upon the chart of recorded time which even the most prolonged span of individual life occupied. So fleeting was this stay, that it almost seemed as if it were a matter of no moment if life should happen to be abbreviated by untimely death. Whilst the girl's mind thus struggled to alleviate its pain and to mend the gaps made by the slings and arrows of poignant grief in its defences, Trivett stumbled downstairs and blundered against the pews as he approached. Then the two walked home, where Mavis resumed her lonely vigil beside the ark which contained all that was mortal of her baby. No matter what further anguish this watch inflicted, she could not suffer her boy to be alone during the last night of his brief stay on earth.