Elfride at the organ regarded him with a throbbing sadness of mood which was fed by a sense of being far removed from his sphere.

As he went deliberately through the chapter appointed--a portion of the history of Elijah--and ascended that magnificent climax of the wind, the earthquake, the fire, and the still small voice, his deep tones echoed past with such apparent disregard of her existence, that his presence inspired her with a forlorn sense of unapproachableness, which his absence would hardly have been able to cause.
At the same time, turning her face for a moment to catch the glory of the dying sun as it fell on his form, her eyes were arrested by the shape and aspect of a woman in the west gallery.

It was the bleak barren countenance of the widow Jethway, whom Elfride had not seen much of since the morning of her return with Stephen Smith.

Possessing the smallest of competencies, this unhappy woman appeared to spend her life in journeyings between Endelstow Churchyard and that of a village near Southampton, where her father and mother were laid.
She had not attended the service here for a considerable time, and she now seemed to have a reason for her choice of seat.

From the gallery window the tomb of her son was plainly visible--standing as the nearest object in a prospect which was closed outwardly by the changeless horizon of the sea.
The streaming rays, too, flooded her face, now bent towards Elfride with a hard and bitter expression that the solemnity of the place raised to a tragic dignity it did not intrinsically possess.