and not quite steadily, and hesitated in his
turn, "I shan't be visiting."

"It's a rest ye need, I've been wanting to say it." McCrae took a step
forward, and for a moment it seemed as though he were at last about
to break the bonds of his reserve. Perhaps he detected an instinctive
shrinking on the rector's part. At any rate, there was another instant
of silence, in which the two men faced each other across the desk, and
McCrae held out his hand. "Good luck to ye," he said, as Hodder took
it, "and don't have the pariah on your mind. Stay till ye're rested, and
come back to us."

He left the room abruptly. Hodder remained motionless, looking after
him, and then, moved apparently by a sudden impulse, started toward the
door,--only to halt and turn before he got to it. Almost he had opened
his lips to call his assistant back. He could not do it--the moment had
come and fled when it might have been possible. Did this man hide, under
his brusqueness and brevity of speech, the fund of wisdom and the wider
sympathy and understanding he suspected? Hodder could have vouched for
it, and yet he had kept his own counsel. And he was struck suddenly by
the significance of the fact, often remarked, that McCrae in his brief
and common-sense and by no means enlivening sermons had never once
referred in any way to doctrine or dogma!

He spent half an hour in collecting and bestowing in two large valises
such articles as his simple needs would demand, and then set out for a
railroad office in the business portion of the city, where he bought his
ticket and berth. Then, after a moment of irresolution on the threshold
of the place, he turned to the right, thrusting his way through the
sluggish crowds on Tower Street until he came to the large bookstore
where he had been want to spend, from time to time, some of his leisure
moments. A clerk recognized him, and was about to lead the way to the
rear, where the precious editions were kept, when Hodder stopped him.

In casting about for a beginning in his venture over unknown seas, there
had naturally come into his mind three or four works which were anathema
to the orthodox; one of which, in seven volumes, went back to his
seminary days, and had been the subject of a ringing, denunciatory
sermon by the dean himself. Three of them were by Germans of established
reputations, another by a professor of the University of Paris. The
habit of years is strong.

And though he knew that many clerg