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Once back in the old environment, Northrup went, daily, through the
sensations of his haunting dream, without the relief of awakening. The
corridor of closed doors was an actuality to him now. Behind them lay
experiences, common enough to most men, undoubtedly, but, as yet,
unrevealed to him.

In one he had dwelt for a brief time--good Lord! had it only been for
weeks? Well, the memory, thank heaven, was secure; unblemished. He
vowed that he would reserve to himself the privilege of returning, in
thought, to that memory-haunted sanctuary as long as he might live,
for he knew, beyond any doubt, that it could not weaken his resolve to
take up every duty that he had for a time abandoned. It should be with
him as Manly had predicted.

This line of thought widened Northrup's vision and developed a new tie
between him and other men. He found himself looking at them in the
street with awakened interest. He wondered how many of them, stern,
often hard-featured men, had realized their souls in private or public
life, and how had they dealt with the revelation? He grew sensitive as
to expressions; he believed, after a time, that he could estimate, by
the look in the eyes of his fellowmen, by the set of their jaws,
whether they had faced the ordeal, as he was trying to do, or had
denied the soul acceptance. It was like looking at them through a
magnifying lens where once he had regarded them through smoked glass.

And the women? Well, Northrup was very humble about women in
those days. He grew restive when he contemplated results and
pondered upon the daring that had assumed responsibility where
complete understanding had never been attempted. It seemed, in his
introspective state, that God, even, had been cheated. Women were,
he justly concluded, pretty much a response to ideals created for
them, not by them.

Mary-Clare was having her way with Northrup!

Something of all this crept into his book for, after a fortnight at
home, he set his own jaw and lips rather grimly, went to his small
office room in the tower of a high building, and paid the elevator boy
a goodly sum for acting as buffer during five holy hours of each day.

It was like being above the world, sitting in that eyrie nook of his.
Northrup often recalled a day, years before, when he had stood on a
mountain-peak bathed in stillness and sunlight, watching the dramatic
play of the elements on the scene below. Off to the right a violent
shower spent itsel