“How does one know when one is serving God?” she asked after a pause, apparently rather of herself than of Joan. “It seems so difficult.” Years afterwards, listening to the overture to Tannhäuser, there came back to her the memory of that night. Ever through the mad Satanic discords she could hear, now faint, now conquering, the Pilgrims’ onward march. So through the jangled discords of the world one heard the Song of Life. Through the dim aeons of man’s savage infancy; through the centuries of bloodshed and of horror; through the dark ages of tyranny and superstition; through wrong, through cruelty, through hate; heedless of doom, heedless of death, still the nightingale’s song: “I love you. I love you. I love you. We will build a nest. We will rear our brood. I love you. I love you. Life shall not die.”!

She was not quite sure. She thought it would be when her hair was grey—or rather white. She had been informed by experts that her peculiar shade of hair went white, not grey. Returning to the interior, Joan had duly admired the Cheyne monument, but had been unable to disguise her amusement before the tomb of Mrs. Colvile, whom the sculptor had represented as a somewhat impatient lady, refusing to await the day of resurrection, but pushing through her coffin and starting for Heaven in her grave-clothes. Pausing in front of the Dacre monument, Joan wondered if the actor of that name, who had committed suicide in Australia, and whose London address she remembered had been Dacre House just round the corner, was descended from the family; thinking that, if so, it would give an up-to-date touch to the article. She had fully decided now to write it. But Mary Stopperton could not inform her. They had ended up in the chapel of Sir Thomas More. He, too, had “given up things,” including his head. Though Mary Stopperton, siding with Father Morris, was convinced he had now got it back, and that with the remainder of his bones it rested in the tomb before them.

The landlady entered unexpectedly with the tea; but he did not rise till Joan turned away, nor did he seem disconcerted. Neither did the landlady. She was an elderly, quiet-eyed woman, and had served more than one generation of young people with their teas. “It could be done with a little good will all round,” he continued, “and nine men out of every ten would be the better off. But they won’t even let you explain. Their newspapers shout you down. It’s such a damned fine world for the few: never mind the many. My father was a farm labourer: and all his life he never earned more than thirteen and sixpence a week. I left when I was twelve and went into the mines. There were six of us children; and my mother brought us up healthy and decent. She fed us and clothed us and sent us to school; and when she died we buried her with the money she had put by for the purpose; and never a penny of charity had ever soiled her hands. I can see them now. Talk of your Chancellors of the Exchequer and their problems! She worked herself to death, of course. Well, that’s all right. One doesn’t mind that where one loves. If they would only let you. She had no opposition to contend with—no thwarting and hampering at every turn—the very people you are working for hounded on against you. The difficulty of a man like myself, who wants to do something, who could do something, is that for the best part of his life he is fighting to be allowed to do it. By the time I’ve lived down their lies and got my chance, my energy will be gone.” Joan and the Singletons were the last to go. They promised to show Mr. Halliday a short cut to his hotel in Holborn.