"What made people build the giant cathedrals I have seen in every
country?" he asked himself. "The feeling shared so widely throughout
all time must surely be based upon something."

"Something! Do you call God _something_?" cried his conscience. "God!
God! God! . . ."

The word was echoed and re-echoed by an inner voice, til it
overwhelmed him; but his feeling of terror subsided as he heard sweet
distant sounds of music that he had caught faintly before. They were
singing in the church, he thought, and his eyes scanned the great
doorway. But as he listened more closely, the sounds poured upon him
from all sides; he looked round the square, but there was no sign of
any musicians. The melody brought visions of a distant heaven and
far-off gleams of hope; but it also quickened the remorse that had set
the lost soul in a ferment. He went on his way through Paris, walking
as men walk who are crushed beneath the burden of their sorrow, seeing
everything with unseeing eyes, loitering like an idler, stopping
without cause, muttering to himself, careless of the traffic, making
no effort to avoid a blow from a plank of timber.

Imperceptibly repentance brought him under the influence of the divine
grace that soothes while it bruises the heart so terribly. His face
came to wear a look of Melmoth, something great, with a trace of
madness in the greatness--a look of dull and hopeless distress,
mingled with the excited eagerness of hope, and, beneath it all, a
gnawing sense of loathing for all that the world can give. The
humblest of prayers lurked in the eyes that saw with such dreadful
clearness. His power was the measure of his anguish. His body was
bowed down by the fearful storm that shook his soul, as the tall pines