V

THE CASE OF JOHN ARNISTON'S CONSCIENCE

_Hail, World adored! to thee three times all hail!
We at thy mighty shrine--profane, obscure
With clenchèd hands beat at thy cruel door,
O hear, awake, and let us in, O Baal!_

_Low at thy brazen gates ourselves we fling--
Hear us, even us, thy bondmen firm and sure,
Our kin, our souls, our very God abjure!
Art thou asleep, or dead, or journeying?_

_Bear us, O Ashtoreth, O Baal, that we
In mystic mazes may a moment gleam,
May touch and twine with hot hearts pulsing free
Among thy groves by the Orontes stream_.

_Open and make us, ere our sick hearts fail,
Hewers of wood within thy courts, O Baal!_

"_Pro Fano_."


John Arniston's heart beat fast and high as he went homeward through the
London streets. It had come at last. The blossom of love's