The rector’s wife was on her knees.

‘O Lord, save us!’ she prayed aloud in a terrible voice, from under her Bon Marché hat. ‘O Lord, protect us from the powers of darkness.’

As the rector lay, lolling on the pulpit’s edge.

Sick, Miss Docker saw. Such a powerful man. She was reminded of uncooked rolls of marzipan.

‘Hey! Someone! Mrs Wakeman! The rector has taken a turn,’ Miss Docker cried.

There was a scampering of children, away. Now that the fun was over, now that they were frightened, they remembered how their parents had bullied or bribed them into standing proxy. They remembered the question they would be asked, and were already preparing their sulky answer: Yes, of course, She was there.

Miss Docker had reached the parson almost at the same moment as his wife. She would have started to knead the rolls of marzipan, but nobody seemed to expect it of her.

The parson’s wife looked out from under her only hat. She spoke very quiet and straight She said:

‘Miss Docker, you have killed my saint. Only time will show whether you have killed my God as well.’

‘Eh?’ said Miss Docker.

But the parson’s wife was already streaking out of the church, probably towards the telephone.

‘So much thanks,’ Miss Docker said, ‘for those of us who act in all good faith.’

As the church was emptied by now, excepting for the Furzes and the Bleekers, who were listening to a sermon, she began to walk towards the west door, her thoughts still flaming and flying. She walked through the porch, exhaling the love she still had it in her to give.

The wind was careering all along the Northern Road. All along the empty street, behind the shops, and in the homes, the members of the congregation who had accepted the crisis in the church as an excuse to clean that carburettor, clip the hedges, or baste the joint extra good, were by now sitting down to family dinners.

Miss Docker was alone.

Presently she caught sight of a blue cattle-dog she had noticed several times before.

‘Bluey!’she called. ‘Blue? Blue? Blue?’

Although the dog was still at a distance.

‘There’s a fine dog!’ she called. ‘Come and have a yarn with a poor old woman who never did anything without she was certain it was for someone’s good.’

The dog advancing stiff-hocked was itself an ageing animal. It paused to examine the source of its summons.

‘Ah!’ cried Miss Docker. ‘You are good, Bluey! You are good!’

She looked down into the dog’s pumpkin-coloured eyes. She did not touch, however, convinced as she was of a communion of minds.

‘Would you come with me, Blue,’ she asked, ‘and share my mince collops and bread pudding, at an old person’s home?’

The dog advanced his nose a little. He sniffed at Miss Docker with his dry-blackberry of a nose.

‘I would allow you every licence, Bluey,’ she promised. ‘You would sleep on my bed. We would keep us warm on nights when everything else had failed.’