Martin Warlock, as his father moved away, came across to her, She had known that he would do that as though something had been arranged between them. When he came to her, however, he stood there before her and had nothing to say. She also had nothing to say. His eyes searched her face, then he broke out abruptly. "Are you better?" "I'm all right," she answered him brusquely. "Please don't say anything about yesterday. It was an idiotic thing to do." "That's what I came about to-day--to see how you were," he answered her, his eyes laughing at her. "I should never have dreamed of coming otherwise, you know. I saw you in chapel this morning so I guessed you were all right, but it seemed such bad luck fainting right off the minute you got here." "I've never fainted in my life before," she answered. "No, you don't look the sort of girl who'd faint. But I suppose you've had a rotten time with your father and all." His eyes still searched for hers. She determined that she would not look at him; her heart was beating strangely and, although she did not look, she could in some sub-conscious way see the rough toss of his hair against his forehead; she could smell the stuff of his coat. But she would not look up. "You're going to live here, aren't you?" "Yes," she said. "I've only just come back," he went on. "I know," she said. "Oh! of course; that girl," jerking his head in the direction of the tea-table and laughing. "She told you. She's been here this afternoon, hasn't she? She chatters like anything. Don't you believe half she says." There was another pause. The voices at the tea-table seemed to come from very far away. Then he said roughly, moving a very little nearer to her: "I'm glad you've come." At that she raised her eyes, her cheeks flushed. She looked him full in the face, her head up. Her heart thundered in her breast. She felt as though she were at the beginning of some tremendous adventure--an adventure enthralling, magnificent--and perilous. PART II THE CHARIOT OF FIRE CHAPTER I THE WARLOCKS There is beyond question, in human nature, such a thing as an inherited consciousness of God, and this consciousness, if inherited through many generations, may defy apparent reason, all progress of vaunted civilisations, and even, it may be suggested, the actual challenge of death itself. This consciousness of God had been quite simply the foundation of Mr. Warlock's history. In the middle of the eighteenth century it expressed itself in the formula of John Wesley's revival; the John Wesley of that day preached up and down the length and breadth of Westmoreland, Cumberland, Northumberland, Durham, and being a fighter, a preacher and a simple-minded human being at one and the same time, received a large following and died full of years and honours.