Through this press, by many a filthy street, the car conveyed the strangers to their destination. This lay some way down the Commercial Road and was officially in Stepney. Long before they reached it, the increasing throngs spoke of its whereabouts. A vast mob of the hungry, the homeless, and the desperate strove to reach a square-fronted building over whose doors were written in golden letters the words "The Temple." A shabby structure of dull red brick, this day it had become a house of salvation to the multitude. And high above them, upon the topmost step of a stairway which led to its unadorned halls, stood Gabrielle Silvester speaking to the people. She was dressed from head to foot in grey furs, and her flaxen hair showed golden beneath the round cap of silver-fox which crowned it. The excitement of her task had brought a rich flood of colour to her round girlish cheeks, and her eyes were wonderfully bright. The nation's tragedy had dowered her with a rare part, and finely she played it. All this publicity, this movement, this notoriety of charity was life to her. She worked with a method and an energy which surprised even her most intimate friends. In Stepney they had come to call her "Princess Charming"--a title taken from their halfpenny stories and apt for them. Whenever she drove, men doffed their caps, while the eyes of the women filled with tears. This very day she was feeding the people even as Christ, her Master, had fed them. And, looking on with new wonder and pleasure, was the man who knew that she was necessary to him--she and none other. The car came within a hundred yards of the Temple and then was held up by the press. Faber called a sergeant of police, and slipped a sovereign into his hand. "Get us up to the door and there's another," he said, and immediately five sturdy policemen drove a way through the hungry throngs with shoulders hardened by such tasks. The car followed them slowly, and as it went Faber threw silver among the people. It was a mad act, for they fell upon it like wolves, and when the police had quelled the riot, two of those who had come to the Temple for bread lay stark dead upon the pavement. III There were two long counters running down the centre of the Temple, and between them lay piles of new crisp loaves. Many servers handed them out to whoever asked for them, and continued so to do until the day's supply was exhausted. It was a study to watch the faces of those who came for relief--cunning faces, pitiful faces, the faces of mean desire. Some of these people would go out with their bread and return immediately for more, trusting to the press to remain undiscovered. Others were given to wild words of thanks; but these were few, and in the main it would seem that natural greed dominated other thoughts.