PART I

BEGINNING OF THE JOURNEY


CHAPTER I

DEATH OF THE REV. CHARLES CARDINAL


Death leapt upon the Rev. Charles Cardinal, Rector of St. Dreots in
South Glebeshire, at the moment that he bent down towards the second
long drawer of his washhand-stand; he bent down to find a clean
collar. It is in its way a symbol of his whole life, that death
claimed him before he could find one.

At one moment his mind was intent upon his collar; at the next he
was stricken with a wild surmise, a terror that even at that instant
he would persuade himself was exaggerated. He saw before his
clouding eyes a black pit. A strong hand striking him in the middle
of his back flung him contemptuously forward into it; a gasping cry
of protest and all was over. Had time been permitted him he would
have stretched out a hand towards the shabby black box that, true to
all miserly convention, occupied the space beneath his bed. Time was
not allowed him. He might take with him into the darkness neither
money nor clean clothing.

He had been told on many occasions about his heart, that he must not
excite nor strain it. He allowed that to pass as he allowed many