Violet Jacob > Irresolute Catherine

16 IRRESOLUTE CATHERINE
of each that sent Charles Saunders’s mind
back to the woodcuts of martyrdoms and
executions he had seen as a boy in his
school history-books. This half-barbarous
scene was heightening the barrier which
his slightly superior station had raised
between himself and Catherine Dennis,
though he was to be married to her in a
week, and though he believed it to have
fallen altogether. He frowned as the prayer
ceased and he took his hands from his eyes.
So far as he was anything, he was a Baptist
by force of parentage and tradition, though
the doctrine of total immersion appealed
neither to him nor to his family. Never¬
theless, he had promised her that he would
embrace it practically, and he glanced at
the small knot of men who awaited their
turn to be baptized and with whom he
was to present himself when the women
came up from the pool.
The quiet figures stood modestly in a
row behind the minister, Catherine and the