that they will accept nothing from me."
It came from him, spontaneously, like a cry. He had not meant to say it.
"I don't blame them. I don't blame them for losing their faith in God
and man, in the Church. I ought to have seen it before, but I was blind,
incredibly blind--until it struck me in the face. You saw it, sir, and
you left a church from which the poor are thrust out, which refuses to
heed the first precept of its Master."

"I saw it," answered Mr. Bentley, "but I could do nothing. Perhaps you
can do--something."

"Ah!" Hodder exclaimed sharply, "why do you say that? The Church is
paralyzed, chained. How can she reach these wretched people who are the
victims of the ruthless individualism and greed of those who control her?
You know--that man, Mr. Bentley." (Hodder could not bring himself to
pronounce Eldon Parr's name.) "I had an affection for him, I pitied him,
because he suffers--"

"Yes," echoed Mr. Bentley, "he suffers."

Hodder was momentarily arrested by the sadness of his tone.

"But he doesn't know why he suffers--he cannot be made to see," the
rector went on. "And he is making others suffer,--hideously, while he
imagines himself a Christian. He is the Church to that miserable,
hopeless wretch we saw to-day, and to hundreds of the same kind whom he
has driven to desperation. And I--who am supposed to be the vicar of
God--I am powerless. They have a contempt for me, a just contempt. They
thrust me out of their doors, bid me to return and minister to their
oppressors. You were right to leave, and I should have left long since."

He had not spoken with violence, or with a lack of control. He seemed
rather to have regained a mastery of himself, and felt as a man from whom
the shackles have been struck, proclaiming his freedom. Mr. Bentley's
eyes lighted in involuntary response as he gazed at the figure and face
before him. He pressed his hands together.

"If you will forgive a curiosity, Mr. Hodder, that is somewhat due to my
interest in a church with which I have many precious associations, may I
ask if this is a sudden determination on your part?"

"No," Hodder said. "I have known ever since I came here that something
was wrong, but at first I couldn't see it, and after that I wouldn't see
it. That is about what happened, as I look back on it.

"But the farther in I went," Hodder continued, "the more tangled and
bewildered I became. I was hypnotized, I think," he added with a
gesture,--"hypnot