It was not a question, but the cry of a new and wider vision of his task.
Her face was transfigured. And her voice, low and vibrating, expressed
no doubts. "Oh, I am proud of you! And if they put you out and
persecute you I shall always be proud, I shall never know why it was
given me to have this, and to live. Do you remember saying to me once
that faith comes to us in some human form we love? You are my faith.
And faith in you is my faith in humanity, and faith in God."

Ere he could speak of his own faith in her, in mankind, by grace of which
he had been lifted from the abyss, there came a knock at the door. And
even as they answered it a deeper knowledge filtered into their hearts.

Horace Bentley stood before them. And the light from his face, that
shone down upon them, was their benediction.




AFTERWORD

Although these pages have been published serially, it is with a feeling
of reluctance that I send them out into the world, for better or worse,
between the covers of a book. They have been written with reverence, and
the reading of the proofs has brought back to me vividly the long winters
in which I pondered over the matter they contain, and wrote and rewrote
the chapters.

I had not thought to add anything to them by way of an afterword.
Nothing could be farther from my mind than to pose as a theologian; and,