-counteracting me--resisting me--ever so
gently. Those are times when you feel you must tell it, Nance--when the
God-consciousness comes."

"Oh, Bernal, if you could--if you could come back to do what your
grandfather really wanted you to do--to preach something worth while!"

"I doubt the need for my message, Nance. I need for myself a God that
could no more spare a Hottentot than a Pope--but I doubt if the world
does. No one would listen to me--I'm only a dreamer. Once, when I was
small they gave me a candy cane for Christmas. It was a thing I had long
worshipped in shop-windows--actually worshipped as the primitive man
worshipped his idol. I can remember how sad I was when no one else
worshipped with me, or paid the least attention to my treasure. I
suspect I shall meet the same indifference now. And I hope I'll have the
same philosophy. I remember I brought myself to eat the cane, which I
suppose is the primary intention regarding them--and perhaps the fruits
of one's faith should be eaten quite as practically."

They had sent no word to Allan, agreeing it were better fun to surprise
him. When they took the train together on the third day, the wife not
less than the brother looked forward to a joyous reunion with him. And
now that Nancy had proved in her heart the perverse unwifeliness of her
old attitude and was eager to begin the symbolic rites of her atonement,
it came to her to wonder how Bernal would have judged her had she
persisted in that first wild impulse of rebellion. She wanted to see
from what degree of his reprobation she had saved herself. She would be
circuitous in her approach.

"You remember, Bernal, that night you went away--how you said there was
no moral law under the sky for you but your own?"

He smiled, and above the noise of the train his voice came to her as his
voice of old came above the noise of the years.

"Yes--Nance--that was right. No moral law but mine. I carried out my
threat to make them all find their authority in me."

"Then you still believe yours is the only authority?"

"Yes; it sounds licentious and horrible, doesn't it; but there are two
queer things about it--the first is that man quite naturally _wishes_ to
be decent, and the second is that, when he does come to rely wholly upon
the authority within himself, he finds it a stricter disciplinarian than
ever the decalogue was. One needs only ordinary good taste to keep the
ten commandments--the moral ones. A man may