'Amid a world of forgetfulness and decay, in the sight of his own shortcomings and limitations, or on the edge of the tomb, he alone who has found his soul in losing it, who in singleness of mind has lived in order to love and understand, will find that the God who is near to him as his own conscience has a face of light and love!'
Pressing the phrases into his memory, he listened to the triumphant outbursts of the Christian service.
'Man's hope,' he thought, 'has grown humbler than this. It keeps now a more modest mien in the presence of the Eternal Mystery; but is it in truth less real, less sustaining? Let Grey's trust answer for me.'
He walked away absorbed, till at last in the little squalid street outside the cemetery it occurred to him to look round for Langham. Instead, he found Cathcart, who had just come up with him.
'Is Langham behind?' he asked. 'I want a word with him before I go.'
'Is he here?' asked the other with a change of expression.
'But of course! He was in the chapel. How could you——'
'I thought he would probably go away,' said Cathcart with some bitterness. 'Grey made many efforts to get him to come and see him before he became so desperately ill. Langham came once. Grey never asked for him again.'
'It is his old horror of expression, I suppose,' said Robert troubled; 'his dread of being forced to take a line, to face anything certain and irrevocable. I understand. He could not say good-bye to a friend to save his life. There is no shirking that! One must either do it or leave it!'