the Church had been unjust; but I did not ask to know anything about
it, for the acceptance of the injustice was worth more to my soul than
was the great cathedral I had been instrumental in building. I was
grieved that my friends had left me, but I knew at last that I had
cultivated them at the expense of greater friends--sacrifice and
humility. Shorn of my honors, in the rags and tatters left of my
greatness, I lay before my Master--and I gained more in peace than I
had ever known was in life."

"God!" Mark's very soul seemed to be speaking, and the single word
held the solemnity of a prayer. "This, then, is religion! Was it this
that I lost?"

"No one has lost, Mark, what he sincerely wishes to find."




CHAPTER VI

WHO IS RUTH?

Leaving Father Murray at the rectory, Mark went on to the hotel.
Entering the lobby, he gave vent to a savage objurgation as he
recognized the man speaking to the clerk. Mark's thoughts were no
longer of holy things, for the man was no other than Saunders, from
whom, for the past two weeks, Sihasset had been most pleasantly free.

"Damn!" he muttered. "I might have known he'd return to spoil it all."
Then, mustering what grace he could, Mark shook hands with the