In such company he entered. On the threshold they paused with a quick breath for the chaste beauty of vista and line, the soft play of color and shadow. Then sense of beauty faded before a thing that eye can not see nor tongue express, what the seekers had needed and what they found: peace, passing understanding, unseen but undoubted; hovering above them in the noble nave, kneeling with them in shadowy aisle, winging toward them on the shaft of sunshine streaming from heaven itself upon the altar. Here, for intrigant and ravager, penitent and saint, failure and world-weary, was sanctuary--respite, if only for an hour, from sin and strife, passion and hate and self. It was good to stay there a while, humbled yet uplifted, aspiring anew. For there was a Presence in His own house. A wonderful thing had happened to David Quentin. His sensitive quivering heart had caught and recorded the great human need, and to him it had been given to build a rest house for many weary and poor in heart. Perhaps if his commonplace little trials had not seemed big and tragic to him, he never could have known the need and so he never would have written in stone and wood the story of sanctuary that has meant so much to the ages. He did not foresee that. He did not think of it as a possibility. He was thinking only of the great discovery he had made: that a man may find sanctuary, as he may give worship, in a task well loved and well done. Life was a pretty good thing after all, since it could not take from him eyes to perceive or heart to rejoice in the beauty he could create, though none else cared to see. The days of his whimpering, even to himself, were ended. "I should have been doing this all along." Nor did he notice that the music had ceased. He did not know even that he was no longer alone, until a voice broke in on his reverie. "He doesn't look very hospitable, does he?" "Maybe," said another, "he doesn't feel that way." David jumped to his feet and peered over the easel at Jonathan and Esther. "But he does, indeed. Visitors," he announced, "are requested to stay on this side of the door." They stepped within. "Since you wouldn't come down," Jonathan explained, "of course we had to come up. Though Miss Summers almost lost her courage on the way. She said we were taking a liberty." "But I didn't," she protested in some confusion. "I only said--" "That you don't seem to care much for company," Jonathan completed her sentence. "She was mistaken, I trust?" "Woefully," smiled David. "And I've had company all evening. They played and sang and helped me to work." He waved a hand toward the easel. "Do you think," Jonathan inquired of Esther, "we may take that as a compliment?" "I'm not quite sure," she answered. "She means," chuckled Jonathan, who seemed to be enjoying himself hugely, "she must see the work before she commits herself. Is it allowed--?"