But what a power--what a terrible power--lay in this sense of loathing, that it could thus overwhelm a man, as it had done with him, at the very moment when he stood as teacher and spiritual guide in a Christian church, speaking to Christian souls! The little party from Grimön left the church as the preacher descended from the pulpit. Once outside, they stopped involuntarily, and stood a moment by the church door, looking around. The church stood in the middle of a level, open plain--an unusual thing in that part of the country. Not of very wide extent, but still considerable. One could see from one side to the other, and mark the doings of one's neighbours, yet, for all that, it was large enough to furnish ground for church and vicarage, and a score of homesteads and farms round about. The plain was walled in by gray, rocky hills on every side--not very high, but still considerable. Both the north wind and the west could force their way across the barrier, yet it sufficed to shut out the view of everything beyond, even to the mountain peaks. The whole plain was cut up into field on field of cultivated ground--and these were neither large nor small, but of a size to suit the standing of honest peasant farmers. And here and there among the fields were buildings, red and blue and white, likewise of an equable, respectable size. No big mansions dominating all the rest, and, on the other hand, no poor cottages such as might serve to exalt the appearance of the others, and make for pride in those who dwelt there. As for the vegetation, it could not be called luxuriant, for there were no trees to be seen, whether as woods on the hillsides, or in groups on the plain, or set in rows along the waysides. On the other hand, it could not be denied that it was a fertile soil, as it lay there now in its autumn glory--a waving sea of wheat and grass and peas and beans and clover. Almost in the middle of the plain stood the church, from which the Grimön folk themselves had just, as it were, been driven out. It was an old-fashioned wooden building, that could not be called altogether ugly, for it had a slender little tower rising up boldly, and leading the mind heavenward. On the other hand, it was hardly beautiful, by reason of its dark, heavy nave, that weighed down the soul to earth. And in the stone-walled enclosure about the church itself, a gray-striped cat wandered to and fro while the three stood without. A handsome animal, well marked, with close, fine fur, and a pleasant softness in all its movements. But as they watched it, there seemed to be something uncanny about the way its limbs moved under the soft skin. It was not only that it moved so silently, or that its green slits of eyes, as it looked at them, were so veiled and without expression. The thing was hateful because it was so smooth and soft and pleasant-looking, while all the time it thought of nothing but stealing and killing.