but which a passport of beauty or charm may always open; and with many,
of finer clay, there are but two or three ways into a guarded temple,
and only the touchstone of quality may let pass the lightest foot upon
the carefully tended sod. But now and then a heart is Holy of Holies.
Long ago the Bishop, lifting a young face from the books that absorbed
him, had seen a girl's figure filling the narrow doorway, and dazzled by
the radiance of it, had placed that image on the lonely altar, where the
flame waited, before unconsecrated. Then the girl had gone, and he had
quietly shut the door and lived his life outside. But the sealed place
was there, and the fire burned before the old picture. Why should he,
for Dick Fielding, for any one, let the light of day upon that
stillness? The one thing in life that was his own, and all these years
he had kept it sacred--why should he? Fiercely, with the old animal
jealousy of ownership, he guarded for himself that memory--what was
there on earth that could make him share it? And in answer there rose
before him the vision of Madge Preston, with a haunting air of her
mother about her; of young Dick Fielding, almost his own child from
babyhood, his honest soul torn between two duties; of old Dick Fielding,
loyal and kind and obstinate, his stubborn feet, the feet that had
walked near his for forty years, needing only a touch to turn them into
the right path.

Back and forth the thoughts buffeted each other, and the Bishop sighed,
and threw away his cigar, and then stopped and stared out at the
darkening, great ocean. The steady rush and pause and low wash of
retreat did not calm him to-night.

"I'd like to turn it off for five minutes. It's so eternally right," he
said aloud and began to walk restlessly again.