This was an exhibition he always liked, and he dropped into a seat with relief.

More than it had ever yet come home to him it struck him as good there should be churches.
This one was almost empty and the other altars were dim; a verger shuffled about, an old woman coughed, but it seemed to Stransom there was hospitality in the thick sweet air.

Was it only the savour of the incense or was it something of larger intention?
He had at any rate quitted the great grey suburb and come nearer to the warm centre.

He presently ceased to feel intrusive, gaining at last even a sense of community with the only worshipper in his neighbourhood, the sombre presence of a woman, in mourning unrelieved, whose back was all he could see of her and who had sunk deep into prayer at no great distance from him.

He wished he could sink, like her, to the very bottom, be as motionless, as rapt in prostration.