spell of the most kindling preacher alive had
ever responded with one-tenth of the fervour with which that irreligious
crowd, standing in the cold dawn of the London streets, had greeted the
coming of their saviour. And as for the man himself--Percy could not
analyse what it was that possessed him as he had stared, muttering the
name of Jesus, on that quiet figure in black with features and hair so
like his own. He only knew that a hand had gripped his heart--a hand
warm, not cold--and had quenched, it seemed, all sense of religious
conviction. It had only been with an effort that sickened him to
remember, that he had refrained from that interior act of capitulation
that is so familiar to all who have cultivated an inner life and
understand what failure means. There had been one citadel that had not
flung wide its gates--all else had yielded. His emotions had been
stormed, his intellect silenced, his memory of grace obscured, a
spiritual nausea had sickened his soul, yet the secret fortress of the
will had, in an agony, held fast the doors and refused to cry out and
call Felsenburgh king.

Ah! how he had prayed during those three weeks! It appeared to him that
he had done little else; there had been no peace. Lances of doubt thrust
again and again through door and window; masses of argument had crashed
from above; he had been on the alert day and night, repelling this,
blindly, and denying that, endeavouring to keep his foothold on the
slippery plane of the supernatural, sending up cry after cry to the Lord
Who hid Himself. He had slept with his crucifix in his hand, he had
awakened himself by kissing it; while he wrote, talked, ate, walked, and
sat in cars, the inner life had been busy-making frantic speechless acts
of faith in a religion which his intellect denied and from which his
emotions shrank. There had been moments of ecstasy--now in a crowded
street, when he recognised that God was all, that the Creator was the
key to the creature's life, that a humble act of adoration was
transcendently greater than the most noble natural act, that the
Supernatural was the origin and end of existence there had come to him
such moments in the night, in the silence of the Cathedral, when the
lamp flickered, and a soundless air had breathed from the iron door of
the tabernacle. Then again passion ebbed, and left him stranded on
misery, but set with a determination (which might equally be that of
pride or faith) that no power in