Brown lifted his head.  “Doctor,” said he, slowly, and with a peculiar emphasis which made his friend study his face closely, “if the Devil wanted to put temptation in my way, just as I have decided on my future course, he did it by sending you and the others down here to-night.  If I could have jumped into that car with the rest of you, and by that one act put myself back in the old place, I would have done it—­but for one thing.  And that’s the sure knowledge that soft living makes me soft.  I love the good things of this life so that they unfit me for real service.  Do you know what was the matter with my heart when I came away?  I do.  It was high living.  It was sitting with my legs under the mahogany of my millionaire parishioners’ tables, driving in their limousines, drinking afternoon tea with their wives, letting them send me to Europe whenever I looked a bit pale.  Soft!  I was a down pillow, a lump of putty.  I, who was supposed to be a fighter for the Lord!”

“Nonsense, man!” cried the doctor, now thoroughly aroused.  “You were the hardest worker in the city.  Your organizations—­your charities—­”

“My organizations, my charities!” The words came in a tone of contempt.  “They were all in fine working order when I came to them.  They continued to work, with no help from me.  They are working quite as well now in my absence as they did in my presence.  St. Timothy’s is a great, strong society of the rich, and the man they engage to preach to them on Sundays has mighty little to do that any figurehead couldn’t do as well.  Down here—­well, there is something to do which won’t get done unless I do it.  And if this neighbourhood, or any other similar one, needs me, there’s no question that still more do I need the neighbourhood.”

“In other words,” said the doctor, “Mrs. Kelcey can do more for you than Bruce Brainard?”

The look which met his frown was comprehending.  “Doctor,” said Brown, “every man knows his own weakness.  I like the society of Bruce Brainard so well that when I’m in it I can forget all the pain and sorrow in the world.  When I’m with Mrs. Kelcey I have to remember the hurt, and the grind, and the hardness of life—­and it’s good for me.  It helps me, as St. Paul said, to ‘keep under my body and bring it into subjection.’”

“That’s monkish doctrine.”

“No, it’s St. Paul’s, I tell you.  Remember the rest of it?—­’lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway!’”

“You!  A castaway!” The doctor laughed.

Brown nodded, rising.  “You can see a long way into a man’s body, Doctor, but not so far into his soul.  There’s been a pretty rotten place in mine....  Come, shall we go to bed?  It’s almost two.”

The doctor assented, and Brown went into his bedroom to make it ready for his guest.  Closing the drawers he had opened in such haste two hours before, his eye was caught by something unfamiliar.  Against one of the framed photographs which stood upon the top of the chest leaned a new picture, unframed.  By the light of the small lamp he had brought into the room he examined it.  As the face before him was presented to his gaze he stopped breathing for the space of several thudding heartbeats.