For a time, while she was in church, her trouble had been less. The air of security, of permanence, of prosperity about the place, and the absence of any kind of tumult within it had lulled and comforted. “The peace of God which passeth all understanding....” She had bowed her head with the rest, mistaking the decorous silence for peace indeed. But, as she rose from her knees, her eyes encountered Ordith’s which seemed half-laughingly to search and accuse her; and, as if following a suggestion of his, she began to think that the support she had received from the service had been based, not upon faith, but upon the extraordinary beauty of its prose. The hymns, with their redundancies and bad rhymes, had meant nothing to her, despite their devotion, and to the modern prayers on contemporary subjects she had given no heed. The balance and completeness of the Litany, the Lessons’ direct beauty, the Collects’ vigorous restraint--upon these her attention had been concentrated. Though the matter of the Benediction had remained unchanged, it would have brought no comfort to her if it had been expressed differently--by the Archbishops, for example. “Hadn’t old man Cranmer a wonderful ear for words?” Ordith said lightly, cutting Margaret to the quick. She felt that he read her thoughts, or--and this with a pang of fear that was reflected in the eyes she suddenly raised--that he had imposed his thoughts upon her. “You don’t like my saying that?” he asked, looking into her face. And even as she moved her lips to reply, to express somehow the resentment that was burning in her, his power asserted itself and drove her back to say, scarcely of her own will: “Yes; it’s quite true.” Like a pleasing, habitual vice, Ordith frightened and controlled her. Her father had chosen him as her husband, and her mother seemed to acquiesce in the choice. She pictured herself saying “No” to Ordith, and “No” to her father and mother. She would be very calm, very determined, and then all would be over, the battle fought and won. Surely it would be easy to say “No.” One word to be spoken, one definite resolve to be kept--that was all. Nowadays coercion was impossible; the time of starvation, and imprisonment, and whips was long past. What she had to do was to look Ordith in the face, say “No,” and stand by her decision. It sounded easy.