ent in Birmingham that night, a
train to catch. Reluctantly but relentlessly he abandoned the proffered
ear. But he promised that the next time they met in the club he would go
into the matter "exhausteevely."

The door closed upon him. The bishop was alone. He was flooded with
the light of the world that is beyond this world. The things about him
became very small and indistinct.

He would take himself into a quiet corner in the library of this doll's
house, and sit his little body down in one of the miniature armchairs.
Then if he was going to faint or if the trancelike feeling was to become
altogether a trance--well, a bishop asleep in an armchair in the library
of the Athenaeum is nothing to startle any one.

He thought of that convenient hidden room, the North Library, in which
is the bust of Croker. There often one can be quite alone.... It was
empty, and he went across to the window that looks out upon Pall Mall
and sat down in the little uncomfortable easy chair by the desk with its
back to the Benvenuto Cellini.

And as he sat down, something snapped--like the snapping of a lute
string--in his brain.

(7)

With a sigh of deep relief the bishop realized that this world had
vanished.

He was in a golden light.

He perceived it as a place, but it was a place without buildings or
trees or any very definite features. There was a cloudy suggestion of
distant hills, and beneath his feet were little gem-like flowers, and
a feeling of divinity and infinite friendliness pervaded his being. His
impressions grew more definite. His feet seemed to be bare. He was no
longer a bishop nor clad as a bishop. That had gone with the rest of the
world. He was seated on a slab of starry rock.

This he knew quite clearly was the place of God.

He was unable to disentangle thoughts from words. He seemed to be
speaking in his mind.

"I have been very foolish and confused and perplexed. I have been like a
creature caught among thorns."

"You served the purpose of God among those thorns." It seemed to him at
first that the answer also was among his thoughts.

"I seemed so silly and so little. My wits were clay."

"Clay full of desires."

"Such desires!"

"Blind desires. That will presently come to the light."

"Shall we come to the light?"

"But here it is, and you see it!"

(8)

It became clearer in the mind of the bishop that a figure sat beside
him, a figure of great strength and beauty, with a smiling f