a thing as religion? Might it not be merely a
figment of the fertile imagination of man? He did not escape the terror
of this thought when he paused to consider his labour of the past two
years and the vanity of its results. And little by little the feeling
grew upon him, such being the state of his mind, that he ought not to
continue, for the present at least, to conduct the services. Should he
resign, or go away for a while to some quiet place before he made such a
momentous decision? There was no one to whom he could turn; no layman,
and no clergyman; not even the old bishop, whom he had more than once
mentally accused of being, too broad and too tolerant! No, he did not
wish a clergyman's solution. The significance of this thought flashed
through him--that the world itself was no longer seeking clergymen's
solutions. He must go off alone, and submit his faith to the impartial
test.

It was in a vigil of the night, when he lay in the hot darkness, unable
to sleep, that he came at length to this resolve. And now that he had
cut the knot he was too just to blame Alison Parr for having pointed out
--with what often had seemed a pitiless cruelty--something of which he
had had a constantly growing perception yet had continually sought to
evade. And he reviewed, as the church bells recorded the silent hours,
how, little by little, his confidence had crumbled before the shocks of
the successive revelations--some of them so slight that they had passed
unnoticed: comparisons, inevitably compelled; Dalton Street; the
confessions of Eleanor Goodrich and Mrs. Constable; Mr. Plimpton and his
views of life--Eldon Parr! Even the slamming of the carriage doors in
Burton Street had had a significance!

Might it not prove that this woman had let fall into the turbid waters of
his soul the drop that was to clear them forever? He would go away. He
would not see her again.

Over the sleeping city, unapprehended, stole the dawn.

He arose, but instead of falling on his knees he went to the window and
lifted his face to the whitening sky . . . . Slowly out of the
obscurity of the earth's shadow emerged the vague outlines of familiar
things until they stood sharply material, in a silence as of death. A
sparrow twittered, and suddenly the familiar, soot-grimed roofs were
bathed in light, and by a touch made beautiful . . . .

Some hours later the city was wide awake. And Hodder, bathed and
dressed, stood staring down from his study wind