was made in the right direction, a dingy office, next to the shop
of the potted meat. The pane of glass was lying in splinters
about the pavement. And the police already had their hands on a
very tall young man, with dark, lank hair and dark, dazed eyes,
with a grey plaid over his shoulder, who had just smashed the
shop window with a single blow of his stick.

"I'd do it again," said the young man, with a furious white face.
"Anybody would have done it. Did you see what it said? I swear
I'd do it again." Then his eyes encountered the monkish habit of
Michael, and he pulled off his grey tam-o'-shanter with the
gesture of a Catholic.

"Father, did you see what they said?" he cried, trembling. "Did
you see what they dared to say? I didn't understand it at first.
I read it half through before I broke the window."

Michael felt he knew not how. The whole peace of the world was
pent up painfully in his heart. The new and childlike world which
he had seen so suddenly, men had not seen at all. Here they were
still at their old bewildering, pardonable, useless quarrels,
with so much to be said on both sides, and so little that need be
said at all. A fierce inspiration fell on him suddenly; he would
strike them where they stood with the love of God. They should
not move till they saw their own sweet and startling existence.
They should not go from that place till they went home embracing
like brothers and shouting like men delivered. From the Cross
from which he had fallen fell the shadow of its fantastic mercy;
and the first three words he spoke in a voice like a silver
trumpet, held men as still as stones. Perhaps if he had spoken