So she put on her finest clothes and went down to meet Mervyn at the chapel door, and greet him with a sprightly challenge and a little quiver of her lip: Not that she was really in love with him. Any other of the stalwart young men, who cultivated the same forehead curl, would have done as well, if he had been attracted by her and called her his darling, and asked her to be his wife; for all her education had left her woman--woman pure and simple.
There was quite a crowd at the chapel door, a general excitement over the thought of the new preacher, though to many a bent old man and worn old woman the great event of the day was in the envelope, safely tucked away in the Bibles they clutched so confidently. For, realising that this might be their last donation, they had given their ransom for the skies. Isaac Edwards fussed round, keeping a watchful eye for the doubtful members of the flock; and the Reverend Hwfa Morgan, a tall young man who might have looked sensual but for his exceeding pallor, spoke to the favoured few, giving them a taste of his fluency.
He was extraordinarily fluent. His periods swept along soundfully and brought forth many encomiums in the brief period between the services, for the evening hour had been put forward to the afternoon in order to allow the outermost outsiders to get home ere dark, and thus have no excuse for absence.
So the westering sun shone full into the bare, whitewashed chapel when Morris Pugh, as a preliminary to his final appeal, stepped forward, and the Reverend Hwfa Morgan stepped back for the moment.
There was the difference of two worlds between their faces. As Morris gave out a well-known Welsh hymn, a little sudden thrill seemed to vibrate in the humanity-burdened air of the packed chapel.
The quaint modulations rose and fell in wide compass, now high, now low. Would the Spirit of the Lord speak in a singing voice?
The thought was no new one; it had been in Morris Pugh's mind as he had listened of late to the oft-told tale--which grew in the telling-- of the mysterious music in the church on Trinity Sunday.
But no! The hymn died away to its Amen, and there was no sign. So he began his address.
And then suddenly his eye caught a figure by the door, a figure in black, close veiled. Surely it was Gwen--Gwen the sinner?