But their souls were seen by God; and if
their souls were in a state of grace they were radiant to see: and God
loved them, seeing them.
A wasting breath of humiliation blew bleakly over his soul to think of
how he had fallen, to feel that those souls were dearer to God than
his. The wind blew over him and passed on to the myriads and myriads of
other souls on whom God's favour shone now more and now less, stars now
brighter and now dimmer sustained and failing. And the glimmering souls
passed away, sustained and failing, merged in a moving breath.
One soul was lost; a tiny soul: his. It flickered once and went
out, forgotten, lost. The end: black, cold, void waste.
Consciousness of place came ebbing back to him slowly over a vast tract
of time unlit, unfelt, unlived. The squalid scene composed itself
around him; the common accents, the burning gas-jets in the shops,
odours of fish and spirits and wet sawdust, moving men and women. An
old woman was about to cross the street, an oilcan in her hand. He bent
down and asked her was there a chapel near.
--A chapel, sir? Yes, sir. Church Street chapel.
--Church?
She shifted the can to her other hand and directed him; and, as she
held out her reeking withered right hand under its fringe of shawl, he
bent lower towards her, saddened and soothed by her voice.
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