Surely it was one of Roger's finds. It was too big for the altar niche, for one thing, and of impressive workmanship, whereas the scattered plaster saints who remained on their pedestals—the predictable and pretty St. Therese of Lisieux in her Carmelite robes, with her cross and her bouquet of roses; St. Joseph with his lily; and even the Maria Regina with her crown at her shrine beside the altar—were all more or less routine. They were life-size; they were carefully painted; they were not fine works of art.

The Crucified Christ pushed one to some sort of resolution.

Either "I loathe Christianity in all its bloodiness," or some more painful feeling, perhaps for a time in youth when one had imagined one's hands systematically pierced with those particular nails. Lent.

Meditations. The Church. The Priest's voice entoning the words. Our Lord.

I felt both the loathing and the pain. Hovering near in the shadows, watching outside lights flicker and flare in the stained glass, I felt boyhood memories near me, or maybe I tolerated them. Then I thought of Roger's love for his daughter, and the memories were nothing, and the love was everything. I went up the steps that had once led to the altar and tabernacle. I reached up and touched the foot of the crucified figure. Old wood. Shimmer of hymns, faint and secretive. I looked up into the race and saw not a countenance twisted in agony, but wise and still, perhaps in the final seconds before death.

A loud echoing noise sounded somewhere in the building. I stepped back almost too fast, and lost my footing stupidly and found myself facing the church. Someone moved in the building, someone walking at a moderate pace on the lower floor and towards the same stairway up which I'd come to the chapel door.

I moved swiftly to the entrance of the vestibule. I could hear no voice and detect no scent! No scent. My heart sank. "I won't take any more of this!" I whispered. I was already shaking. But some mortal scents don't come that easily; there is the breeze to consider, or rather the draughts, which in this place were considerable.

The figure was mounting the stairs.

I leant back behind the chapel door so I might see it turn at the landing. And if it was Dora I meant to hide at once.

But it wasn't Dora, and it came walking so fast right up the stairs, lightly and briskly towards me, that I realized who it was as he came to a stop in front of me.

The Ordinary Man.

I stood stock-still, staring at him. Not quite my height; not quite my build; regular in every respect as I remembered. Scentless? No, but the scent was not right. It was mingled with blood and sweat and salt and I could hear a faint heartbeat... .

"Don't torment yourself," he said, in a very civil and diplomatic voice. "I'm debating.