"You were not criticizing me, you were—what shall I say?—merely trying to iron out some of the inconsistencies of life. Well, you helped me to iron out some of the inconsistencies of my own. I am profoundly grateful."
She gazed at him, puzzled. But he did not, he could not enlighten her.
Some day she would discover what he meant.
"If so, I am glad," she said, in a low voice.
They were standing in the midst of the crowd that thronged around the pavilion. An urchin caught hold of the rector's coat.
"Here he is! Say, Mr. Hodder, ain't you going to have any sody?"
"Certainly we are," he replied, returning Alison's faint smile . . . . In the confusion that followed he caught a glimpse of her talking to Mr. Bentley; and later, after he had taken her hand, his eyes followed her figure wending its way in the evening light through the groups toward Park Street, and he saw above the tree-tops the red tiled roof of the great house in which she was living, alone.
CHAPTER XV
THE CRUCIBLE
I
For better or worse John Hodder had flung his treasured beliefs into the crucible, and one by one he watched them crumble and consume away. None but his own soul knew what it cost him to make the test; and some times, in the early stages of it, he would cast down his book under the lamp and walk for hours in the night. Curiosity, and the despair of one who is lost impelled him to persist.