"We are dust and ashes," he murmured when I had finished: "the humiliation of it for us all!"
"Yes, the salvation," said I.
"But the humiliation firstly, I think," said he. "How modern men have taken up and confirmed the seer's word: 'the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.' It was the one certain clue which we had to God. And now that, too, is snapped when we find His way of acting on Sunday night so foreign to His way on Saturday and Monday."
"Aubrey, we know nothing," I said.
"So I, too, say," he answered, "and I say that it is in the proof which the vision has given us of this that our humiliation lies. How shall we ever more trust our reason, or enjoy the pleasures of our mind? We were so assured that His voice is ever small and hinting, that He guides us with His eye; but now on a sudden we seem to find Him glaring and pedagogic——"
"Still, let us not allow ourselves to criticise the vision, Aubrey," I said.
"No, certainly, we mustn't allow ourselves to do that," he replied: "I was rather criticising the paltriness of our reason, and I was thinking of the damper which the vision will undoubtedly put upon the intellect of the Western world before this day is over."
"Well, since our intellect is unreliable, that won't much matter," I said, "and God's way is best. But I still know nothing of your adventures last night: did you go to Hallam Castle?"
"Yes, I went, and the promise of my unknown correspondent was even duly fulfilled."
"You don't mean that you saw Robinson?"