or desire to return to God.

In the long day's struggle, half conscious and half unconscious, his
love for Ann--and it was not a bad sort of love either--had triumphed
over what principle he had; it had survived the sudden shock that had
wrecked his faith. The hell which he was experiencing was intolerable
now, because of the heaven which he had seen, and he could not forgive
the God who had ordained it. The unreal notion that an omnipotent God
can permit what He does not ordain could have no weight with him, for he
was grappling with reality. As he brooded bitterly upon his own fate,
his heart became enlarged with tenderness for all other poor helpless
creatures like himself who were under the same misrule.

His resolution was taken--he would use his sobriety to help Ann. It
would not profit himself, but still he would win from her the promise
concerning her future life and Christa's which she had offered him, and
he would go that night and do all that a man could do to help the poor
wretch to whom his heart went out with ever-increasing pity. It would
not be much, but he would do what he could, and after that he would tell
the authorities what he had done and give up his office. He had a very
vague notion of the penalties he would incur; if they put him in prison,
so much the better--it might save him a little longer from drinking
himself to death.

Like an honest man he had given up attempting to pull God round to his
own position. He did not now think for a moment that the act of love and
mercy which possessed his soul was a pious one; his motive he believed
to be solely his pity for Markham and his love for Ann, which, being
natural, he supposed to be selfish, and, being selfish, he knew to be
unholy.