of his flock had made the last sacrifice, was reinforced by his
domestic tragedy and the bitter disillusionment it had brought. A sense
of having lost caste weighed on him, while he sat there with his past
receding from him, dusty and unreal. He had the queerest feeling of
his old life falling from him, dropping round his feet like the outworn
scales of a serpent, rung after rung of tasks and duties performed day
after day, year after year. Had they ever been quite real? Well, he
had shed them now, and was to move out into life illumined by the great
reality-death! And taking up his pen, he wrote his resignation.

XI

1

The last Sunday, sunny and bright! Though he did not ask her to go,
Gratian went to every Service that day. And the sight of her, after this
long interval, in their old pew, where once he had been wont to see his
wife's face, and draw refreshment therefrom, affected Pierson more than
anything else. He had told no one of his coming departure, shrinking
from the falsity and suppression which must underlie every allusion and
expression of regret. In the last minute of his last sermon he would
tell them! He went through the day in a sort of dream. Truly proud and
sensitive, under this social blight, he shrank from all alike, made no
attempt to single out supporters or adherents from those who had fallen
away. He knew there would be some, perhaps many, seriously grieved that
he was going; but to try and realise who they were, to weigh them in the
scales against the rest and so forth, was quite against his nature. It
was all or nothing. But when for the last time of all those hundreds,
he mounted the steps of his dark pulpit, he showed no trace of finality,
did not perhaps even feel it yet. For so beautiful a summer evening the
congregation was large. In spite of all reticence, rumour was busy
and curiosity still rife. The writers of the letters, anonymous and
otherwise, had spent a week, not indeed in proclaiming what they had
done, but in justifying to themselves the secret fact that they had done
it. And this was best achieved by speaking to their neighbours of the
serious and awkward situation of the poor Vicar. The result was visible
in a better attendance than had been seen since summer-time began.

Pierson had never been a great preacher, his voice lacked resonance and
pliancy, his thought breadth and buoyancy, and he was not free from,
the sing-song which mars the utterance of many who have t