I'm always searching for things to do--nothing is thrust on me. There
are the charities--Galt House, and all that, but I never seem to get at
anything, at the people I'd like to help. It's like sending money to
China. There is no direct touch any more. It's like seeing one's
opportunities through an iron grating."

Hodder started at the phrase, so exactly had she expressed his own case.

"Ah," he said, "the iron grating bars the path of the Church, too."

And just what was the iron grating?

They had many moments of intimacy during that fort night, though none in
which the plumb of their conversation descended to such a depth. For he
was, as she had said, always "putting her off." Was it because he
couldn't satisfy her craving? give her the solution for which--he began
to see--she thirsted? Why didn't that religion that she seemed outwardly
to profess and accept without qualification--the religion he taught set
her at rest? show her the path?

Down in his heart he knew that he feared to ask.



That Mrs. Larrabbee was still another revelation, that she was not at
rest, was gradually revealed to him as the days passed. Her spirit, too,
like his own, like 'Mrs Constable's, like Eldon Parr's, like Eleanor
Goodrich's, was divided against itself; and this phenomenon in Mrs.
Larrabbee was perhaps a greater shock to him, since he had always
regarded her as essentially in equilibrium. One of his reasons, indeed,