He could almost hear from somewhere the echo of "Abide With Me." But over this memory of a song rose now the surging music of Tschaikovsky's "Pathetique." And the yearnings and fierce hungers in this tumultuous music swept all the hymns from Roger's mind.

Once more he watched the gallery, and this time he became aware that more than half were foreigners.

Out of the mass from every side individual faces emerged, swarthy, weird, and staring hungrily into space.

And to Roger the whole shadowy place, the very air, grew pregnant, charged with all these inner lives bound together in this mood, this mystery that had swept over them all, immense and formless, baffling, this furious demanding and this blind wistful groping which he himself had known so well, ever since his wife had died and he had lost his faith in God.

What was the meaning of it all if life were nothing but a start, and there were nothing but the grave?
"You will live on in our children's lives." He glanced around at Deborah.