And then he spoke again. He had passed the night in prayer; he had eaten nothing; the whole body and soul of him was in deadly earnest.
Whether there was something more than this or not, that in itself has to be reckoned with, especially with an emotional audience.
So, as he spoke of the dead child, an old woman, her face seamed with wrinkles, seemed to feel a half-forgotten tug at her breast and began to weep; an old man, straining with almost sightless eyes for some glimpse which might make the young, flexible, lamenting voice more earthly, less heavenly, followed suit. Then the golden haze which filled the chapel seemed to hold a radiance, and close to the speaker, Alicia Edwards gave a little half-suffocated cry and tore, as if for breath, at the laces round her throat.
And still the insistent, strenuous voice held to its high protesting pitch of passionate reproof. Its cadence was the only sound----
From the figure by the door a sound--the merest shadow of a sound!
The Welsh translation of a sinner's joy was familiar, and a thrill, individual yet collective, ran through the chapel as, turning, every one in it saw Gwen, her whole face, sodden with tears, transfigured into angelic light and peace and joy as she sang--
The strenuous man's voice failed suddenly before the exquisite sweetness of the woman's, but only for a moment. A voice less strenuous, yet still a man's, joined in the singing, then another woman's.
So, by ones and twos and threes, the message of certain salvation grew from a whisper to a storm of sound.
Then, while Morris Pugh stood white, trembling, almost appalled, the Reverend Hwfa Morgan sprang forward with a shout of "Hallelujah!"
It swept away the last barrier of reserve. With cries and groans the congregation leapt to its feet or grovelled in the dust.
"Speak to them, man, speak to them, the Spirit is upon you," urged the Reverend Hwfa Morgan, as Morris Pugh still stood, paralysed by the realisation of his prayer.
So he essayed to speak, but the power did not lie with him. It lay in the soft, almost unearthly, harmonies of Gwen's voice, and Mervyn's, and Alicia Edwards, followed by those of many a young man and maiden. Over and over again some wild Welsh chant pitted itself against prayer or preaching, or even the earnest confession of sin from some sinner, and always with the same result, a victory for the service of song. Against that soothing background even Time itself seemed lost. The evening drew in wet and stormy. The necessity for closing the chapel doors burdened the pent air still more with man's great need of forgiveness. The miserable ventilation, which sanitation allows to churches and forbids to theatres, made women faint and strong men turn sick, while every now and again a burst of unrestrained laughter or sobbing told of nerves strained to the breaking point.