why?

Could it be that he had gone deliberately into an influence that would
make it impossible for the Presence to guide?

Or was it possible that his own attitude toward that girl had been at
fault? He had gone to see her regarding her somewhat lightly. As a
gentleman he should regard no woman with disrespect. Her womanhood
should be honored by him even if she chose to dishonor it herself. If he
had gone to see Gila with a different attitude toward her, expecting
high, fine things of her, rather than merely to be amused by one whom he
scarcely regarded seriously, perhaps all this strange mental phenomena
would not have come to pass.

Finally he locked the door and knelt down with his head upon the worn
Bible. He had no idea of praying. Prayer meant to him but a repetition
of a form of words. There had been prayers in his childhood, brought
about by the maiden aunt who kept house for his father after his
mother's death, and assisted in bringing him up until he was old enough
to go away to boarding-school. They were a good deal of a bore, coming
as they did when he was sleepy. There was a long, vague one beginning,
"Our Father which art," in which he always had to be prompted. There
was, "Now I lay me," and "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, bless the bed I
lie upon; Wish I may, wish I might, get the wish I wish to-night!" Or
_was_ that a prayer? He never could remember as he grew older.

He did not know why he was drawn to kneel there with his eyes closed and
his cheek upon that Bible. Strange that when he was in that room all
doubt about the Presence vanished, all uneasiness about reconciling it
with realities, laws, and science fled away.