t it sufficed that they claimed him as their own.

Behind them all stood Kate Marcy. And it struck him for the first time,
as he gazed at her earnestly, how her appearance had changed. She gave
him a frightened, bewildered look, as though she were unable to identify
him now with the man she had known in the Dalton Street flat, in the
restaurant. She was still struggling, groping, wondering, striving to
accustom herself to the higher light of another world.

"I wanted to come," she faltered. "Sally Grower brought me. . . "

Hodder went back with them to Dalton Street. His new ministry had begun.
And on this, the first day of it, it was fitting that he should sit at
the table of Horace Bentley, even as on that other Sunday, two years
agone, he had gone to the home of the first layman of the diocese,
Eldon Parr.

III

The peace of God passes understanding because sorrow and joy are mingled
therein, sorrow and joy and striving. And thus the joy of emancipation
may be accompanied by a heavy heart. The next morning, when Hodder
entered his study, he sighed as his eye fell upon the unusual pile of
letters on his desk, for their writers had once been his friends. The
inevitable breach had come at last.

Most of the letters, as he had anticipated, were painful reading.
And the silver paper-cutter with which he opened the first had been a
Christmas present from Mrs. Burlingame, who had penned it, a lady of
signal devotion to the church, who for many years had made it her task to
supply and arrange the flowers on the altar. He had amazed and wounded
her--she declared--inexpressibly, and she could no longer remain at St.
John's--for the present, at least. A significant addition. He dropped
the letter, and sat staring out of the window . . . presently arousing
himself, setting himself resolutely to the task of reading the rest.

In the mood in which he found himself he did not atop to philosophize
on the rigid yet sincere attitude of the orthodox. His affection for
many of them curiously remained, though it was with some difficulty he
strove to reconstruct a state of mind with which he had once agreed.
If Christianity were to sweep on, these few unbending but faithful ones
must be sacrificed: such was the law. . . Many, while repudiating his
new beliefs--or unbeliefs!--added, to their regrets of the change in him,
protestations of a continued friendship, a conviction of his sincerity.
Others like Mrs. Atterbury, were fran