reach it with his fingers and claw it away! There was black
madness here, and a pain insufferable--a damnable impotence, robbing him
of even the power, the faculty to think or reason, or to make himself
understand in any logical degree the meaning or the cause of this thing
that sent his brain swirling sick.

He halted. His lips were working; the muscles of his face quivered. And
suddenly, snatching his hat from his head, he flung himself on the
ground and plunged face and head, feverishly, tigerishly, into the
little brook that ran beside the path. Again and again he buried his
face in the cold, clear, refreshing water--and then, still on hands and
knees, he raised his head to listen. Softly, full of a great peace, full
of a strange sweetness that knew no discord, no strife, the notes of the
chapel bell floated across the fields. Evening had come; the day's work
was done--it was benediction time. It was the call of the faithful--the
Angelus of those who believed.

It came, the revulsion, to Madison in a choked sob--and he stood up. The
day's work was done--here. Here they would go in quiet thankfulness each
from the farm to his little cottage, each to his simple, wholesome meal,
each to the twilight hours of gentle communion as they talked to one
another from their doorways, each to his bed and his rest, tranquil in
the love of God and of man.

Madison flung back the dripping hair from his forehead. Strange, the
contrast that, unbidden, came insistently to him now: The liquid notes
of the bell wafted sweetly on the evening breeze; the howling, jangling
turmoil of the city slums, of his familiar haunts where, in mad chaos,
reigned the hawkers' cries, the thunder of the elevated trains, the
noisome traffic of the street, the raucous clang of trolley bells--the
sweet perfume of the, fields, the smell of trees, of earth, of all of
God's pure things untouched, unsoiled; the stench of Chatham Square,
the reek of whiskey spilled with the breath of obscene, filthy lips--the
little village that he could see beyond him, the tiny curls of blue
smoke rising like the incense from an altar over the roofs of houses
whose doors had no locks, whose windows were not barred, where plain,
homely folk, unsullied, lived at peace with God and the world; the
closed areaways of the Bowery, the creaking stairs, the dim hallways
leading to dens of vileness and iniquity where, safe by bolts from
interruption, crime bred its offsprings and vice