The hedges gave way to houses; he was in the High Street.He saw then, plastered at intervals on the hoardings, strange phenomena.It was the colour that first attracted him--a bright indecent pink with huge black lettering.Because it was the offseason in Skeaton other announcements were few.All the more prominent then the following:
THE KINGSCOTE BEETHEEN WILL HOLD A RELIGIOUS FESTIVAL IN THE TOWNOF SKEATON-ON-SEA FROM APRIL 10 TO 16.-----SERVICES 10 A.M., 3 P.M.
SPECIAL SONG SERVICE, 7.30 P.M.DAILY All are Cordially Invited.
ADDRESSES BY REV.JOHN THURSTON.REV.WILLIAM CRASHAW.SISTER AVIES.
Paul stared at this placard with horror and disgust in his soul.For the moment Maggie and Grace and all the scandal connected with them was forgotten.This was terrible.By temperament, tradition, training, he loathed and feared every phase of religion known to him as "Methodistic." Under this term he included everything that was noisy, demonstrative, ill-bred and melodramatic.Once when an undergraduate at Cambridge he had gone to some meeting of the kind.
There had been impromptu prayers, ghastly pictures of hell-fire, appeals to the undergraduates to save themselves at once lest it be too late, confessions and appeals for mercy.The memory of that evening still filled him with physical nausea.It was to him as though he had seen some gross indecent act in public or witnessed some horrible cruelty.
Maggie had told him very little about the Chapel and its doings, and he had shrunk from asking her any questions, but everything that was odd and unusual in her behaviour he attributed to her months under that influence.As he stared at the flaunting pink sheet he felt as though it were a direct personal assault on himself and his church.