hated to discuss the matter and he let him go.

But Philip thought over all that the headmaster had said, and presently,
his mind taken up entirely with the ceremony that was before him, a
mystical rapture seized him. His spirit seemed to free itself from the
bonds of the flesh and he seemed to be living a new life. He aspired to
perfection with all the passion that was in him. He wanted to surrender
himself entirely to the service of God, and he made up his mind definitely
that he would be ordained. When the great day arrived, his soul deeply
moved by all the preparation, by the books he had studied and above all by
the overwhelming influence of the head, he could hardly contain himself
for fear and joy. One thought had tormented him. He knew that he would
have to walk alone through the chancel, and he dreaded showing his limp
thus obviously, not only to the whole school, who were attending the
service, but also to the strangers, people from the city or parents who
had come to see their sons confirmed. But when the time came he felt
suddenly that he could accept the humiliation joyfully; and as he limped
up the chancel, very small and insignificant beneath the lofty vaulting of
the Cathedral, he offered consciously his deformity as a sacrifice to the
God who loved him.

XVIII

But Philip could not live long in the rarefied air of the hilltops. What
had happened to him when first he was seized by the religious emotion
happened to him now. Because he felt so keenly the beauty of faith,
because the desire for self-sacrifice burned in his heart with such a
gem-like glow, his strength seemed inadequate to his ambition. He was
tired out by the violence of his passion. His soul was filled on a sudden
with a singular aridity. He began to forget the presence of God which had
seemed so surrounding; and his religious exercises, still very punctually
performed, grew merely formal. At first he blamed himself for this falling
away, and the fear of hell-fire urged him to renewed vehemence; but the
passion was dead, and gradually other interests distracted his thoughts.

Philip had few friends. His habit of reading isolated him: it became such
a need that after being in company for some time he grew tired and
restless; he was vain of the wider knowledge he had acquired from the
perusal of so many books, his mind was alert, and he had not the skill to
hide his contempt for his companions' stupidity. They complained that he
wa