Slowly her brain, like a little dark fish striking up from deep green waters, rose to the surface of her consciousness. What she was then most surely aware of was that she was on the very edge of something; it was a quite physical sensation, as though she had been walking over mist-soaked downs and had suddenly hesitated, to find herself looking down along the precipitances of jagged black rock. It was "jagged black rock" over which she was now peering. The two sides of the choir were now rivalling one another over the psalms, hurling verses at one another with breathless speed, as though they said: "Here's the ball. Catch. Oh, you _are_ slow!" In just that way across the field of Amy Brandon's consciousness two voices were shouting at one another. One cried: "See what she's in for, the foolish woman! She's not up to it. It will finish her." And the other answered: "Well, she is in for it! So it's no use warning her any longer. She wants it. She's going to have it." And the first repeated: "It never pays! It never pays! It never pays!" And the second replied: "No, but nothing can stop her now. Nothing!" Could nothing stop her? Behind the intricacies of one of Smart's most elaborate "Te Deums," with clenched hands and little shivers of apprehension, she fought a poor little battle. "We praise Thee, O God. We acknowledge Thee to be the Lord...." "The goodly fellowship of the prophets praise Thee...." A boy's voice rose, "Thou did'st not abhor the Virgin's womb...." Let her step back now while there was yet time. She had her children. She had Falk. Falk! She looked around her, almost expecting him to be at her side, although she well knew that he had long ago abandoned the Cathedral services. Ah, it wasn't fair! If only he loved her, if only any one loved her, any one whom she herself could love. If any one wanted her! Lawrence was waiting, his back turned to the nave. As the last words of the "Te Deum" rose into a shout of triumphant confidence he turned and solemnly, his staff raised, advanced, Archdeacon Brandon behind him. Now, as always, a little giggle of appreciation ran down the nave as the Archdeacon marched forward to the Lectern. The tourists whispered and asked one another who that fine-looking man was. They craned their necks into the aisle. And he _did_ look fine, his head up, his shoulders back, his grave dignity graciously at their service. At their service and God's. The sight of her husband inflamed Mrs. Brandon. She stared at him as though she were seeing him for the first time, but in reality she was not seeing him as he was now, but rather as he had been that morning bending over her bed in his shirt and trousers. That movement that he had made as though he would lift her bodily out of the bed.