On the whole Ann had spent the day happily, for fair weather has much to do with happiness; but when that unusual flood of blood-red light came at sunset, giving an unearthly look to a land which was well enough accustomed to bright sunsets of a more ordinary sort, Ann's courage and good humour failed her; she yielded to the common influence of marvels and felt afraid.
What had she done, and what was she going to do?
She was playing with religion; and religion, if it was nothing more, was something which had made Bart Toyner look at her with such a strange smile of selfless hope and desire--hope that she would be something different from what she had been, desire that the best should come to her whatever was going to happen to him.

That was the explanation of what had seemed inexplicable in his look (she felt glad to have worked it out at last); and if anything so strange as that were possible in Bart, what was the force with which she was playing?
Would some judgment befall her?
The evening closed in.

Christa went to bed to finish a yellow-backed novel.

As it was the last she was to read for a long time, she thought she might as well enjoy it.

Ann sat alone in the outer room.