She was fascinated for a moment by the spectacle, and
reflected upon it, but she passed on. In about three-quarters of an
hour she found herself near a church, larger than an ordinary village
church, and, as she was tired, and the gate of the church porch was
open, she entered and sat down. The sun streamed in upon her, and
some sheep which had strayed into the churchyard from the adjoining
open field came almost close to her, unalarmed, and looked in her
face. The quiet was complete, and the air so still, that a yellow
leaf dropping here and there from the churchyard elms--just beginning
to turn--fell quiveringly in a straight path to the earth. Sick at
heart and despairing, she could not help being touched, and she
thought to herself how strange the world is--so transcendent both in
glory and horror; a world capable of such scenes as those before her,
and a world in which such suffering as hers could be; a world
infinite both ways. The porch gate was open because the organist was
about to practise, and in another instant she was listening to the
Kyrie from Beethoven's Mass in C. She knew it; Frank had tried to
give her some notion of it on the piano, and since she had been in
London she had heard it at St Mary's, Moorfields. She broke down and
wept, but there was something new in her sorrow, and it seemed as if
a certain Pity overshadowed her.
She had barely recovered herself when she saw a woman, apparently
about fifty, coming towards her with a wicker basket on her arm.
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