the coals at which he gazed. He sat so
perhaps half an hour, staring moodily at the orange heart of the fire.
Then suddenly, with a smothered half-syllable, with a hand thrown out
impatiently, he was on his feet with a bound, and with that his arms
were against the tall mantel and his head dropped in them, and he was
gazing down so and talking aloud, rapidly, disjointedly, out of his
loneliness, to his friend, the red fire. "How can I--how dare I? A
square peg in a round hole--and the extra corners all weakness and
wickedness. Selfishness--incompetence--I to set up to do the Lord's
special work! I to preach to others--If it were not blasphemy it would
be a joke--a ghastly joke. I can't go on--I have to pull out.
Yet--how can I? They'll think--people will think--oh what _does_ it
matter what people will think? Only--if it hurt the rector--if it hurt
the work? And Theodore--but--someone else would do him--more good than
I can. There ought to be--an older man--to belong. Surely God will
look after His gift--His gift!" The quick lightning of the brilliant
eyes, which in this man often took the place of a smile, flashed; then
the changing face was suddenly grim with a wrenching feeling, yet
bright with a wind of tenderness not to be held back. The soul came
out of hiding and wrote itself on the muscles of the face.
"She--that's it--that's the gist of it--fool that I am. To think--to
dream--to dare to hope. But I _don't_ hope," he brought out savagely,
and flung his shoulders straight and caught the wooden shelf with a
grip. "I don't hope--I just"--the voice dropped, and his head fell on
his arms again. "I won't say it. I'm not utterly mad yet." He picked
up the poker and stirred the fire, and put on coal from a scuttle, and
went and sat down again in the chair. "Something has got to be
decided," he spoke again to the coals in the grate. "I've got to know
if I ought to stay at this job, or if it's an impertinence." For
minutes then he was silent, intent, it seemed, on the fire. Then again
he spoke in the low, clear voice whose simplicity, whose purity
reached, though he did not know it, the inmost hearts of the people to
whom he preached. "I will make a test of her," he said, telling the
fire his decision. "If she is safe and wins through to the real
things, I'll believe that I've been let do that, and that I'm fit for
work. If she doesn't--if I can't pull off that one job which is so
distinctly put