ization, and a Peace which he could
not understand. Every man with whom he had to do seemed kind and
tender; there was the patient old priest who taught him and bore
with him as with a child, the fatherly cardinal, the quiet,
serene ecclesiastics of the house in which he lived, the
controlled crowds, the deferential great men with whom he talked.
But it was their very strength, he saw, that made them tender;
the appalling power of the machine, which even now he felt that
he but half understood, was the very thing that made it run so
smoothly. It had the horror of a perfectly controlled steel
piston that moves as delicately as a feather fan.

For he saw how inexorable was that strength which controlled the
world; how ruthless, in spite of smooth and compassionate words,
towards those who resisted it. The Socialists were to be
"repressed"; the heretic was to be tried for his life; and in all
that wide world in which he lived it seemed that there was not
one Christian who recoiled, not one breath of public opinion that
could express itself.

And he--he who hated it--must take his part. A Fate utterly
beyond his understanding had set him there as a wheel in that
mighty machine; and he must revolve in his place motionlessly and
unresistingly in whatever task was set before him. . . .

Once only, as he stared out at the great prosperous view, did his
heart sicken and fail him. He dropped his face upon his hands,
and cried to the only Christ whom he knew in silence. . . .

CHAPTER III

(I)

It was not until the afternoon of the third day, as the trial of
Dom Adrian Bennett drew to its close, that the man who had lost
his memory could no longer resist the horrible fascination of the
affair, and presented himself at the door of the court-room. He
had learned that morning that the end of the trial was in sight.

It was outside a block of buildings somewhere to the north of St.
Paul's Cathedral that the car set him down. He learned at the
porter's lodge the number of the court, and then passed in,
following his directions, through a quadrangle that was all
alight with scarlet creepers, where three or four ecclesiastics
saluted him, up a staircase or two, and found himself at last at
a tall door bearing the number he wanted. As he hesitated to
knock, the door opened, and a janitor came out.

"Can I go in?" asked the priest. "I am from Archbishop's House."

"I can take you into the gallery at the back, Monsign