given by the
Queen, but his son had to flee the country. There's Herring. He doesn't
sleep because his daughter is going to marry an Italian count. There's
Latouche. His place in the cabinet is begotten in corruption, in the
hotbed of faction war. There's Kenealy. His wife has led him a dance
of deep damnation. There's the lot of them--every one, not an ounce of
peace among them, except with old Casson, who weighs eighteen stone,
lives like a pig, grows stuffier in mind and body every day, and drinks
half a bottle of whiskey every night. There's no one else--yes, there
is!"

He was looking at a small black-robed figure with clean-shaven face,
white hair, and shovel-hat, who passed slowly along the wooden walk
beneath, with meditative content in his face.

"There's peace," he said with a laugh. "I've known Father Hallon
for twenty-five years, and no man ever worked so hard, ever saw more
trouble, ever shared other people's bad luck mere than he; ever took the
bit in his teeth, when it was a matter of duty, stronger than he;
and yet there's peace; he has it; a peace that passes all
understanding--mine anyhow. I've never had a minute's real peace. The
World, or Nature, or God, or It, whatever the name is, owes me peace.
And how is It to give it? Why, by answering my questions. Now it's
a curious thing that the only person I ever met who could answer any
questions of mine--answer them in the way that satisfies--is Suzon. She
works things down to phrases. She has wisdom in the raw, and a real grip
on life, and yet all the men she has known have been river-drivers and
farmers, and a few men from town who mistook the sort of Suzon she is.
Virtuous and straight, she's a born child of Aphrodite too--by nature.
She was made for love. A thousand years ago she would have had a
thousand loves! And she thinks the world is a magnificent place, and she
loves it, and wallows--fairly wallows--in content. Now which is right:
Suzon or Father Hallon--Aphrodite or the Nazarene? Which is peace--as
the bird and the beast of the field get it--the fallow futile content,
or--"

He suddenly stopped, hiccoughed, then hurriedly drawing paper before
him, he sat down. For an hour he wrote. It grew darker. He pushed the
table nearer the window, and the singing of the choir in the church
came in upon him as his pen seemed to etch words into the paper, firm,
eccentric, meaning. What he wrote that evening has been preserved, and
the yellow sheets lie