It was pain inexpressible—­it was loneliness made palpable—­to stand by the tressel stalls and allow his eyes to rest upon the familiar merchandise; and for the third time in that black morning he fled from his own shadow—­fled onward into the darker, older Paris—­the Paris of tradition, where the church of Notre Dame frowns, silently scornful of those who disturb its peace.

As he approached the great building, its sombre impressiveness fell upon his troubled spirit mercifully as its shadow fell across the blinding sunlight.  He paused in the wide space that fronts the heavy doors, and caught his breath as the fugitive of old might have caught breath at sight of sanctuary.

Here was a place of shade and magnitude—–­ a place untouched by memory!

Blindly he moved toward the door, entered the church, walked up the aisle.  Few sight-seers disturbed the sense of peace, for outside it was high noon and Paris was engrossed in the serious business of dejeuner; no service was in progress; all was still, all dim save where a taper of a lamp glowed before a shrine or the sun struck sharp through the splendor of stained glass.

There are few churches—­to some minds there is no other church—­where the idea of the profound broods as it does in Notre Dame.  The sense of dignity, the curious ancient scent compounded by time, the mystic colors of the great windows breathe of the infinite.

Max, walking up the aisle, looked at the dark walls; Max—­modern, critical—­looked up at the wondrous rose window, and felt the overshadowing power of superhuman things.  The modern world crumbled before the impassive silence, criticism found no challenge in its brooding spirit, for the mind cannot analyze what it cannot measure.

Max subscribed to no creed; but, by a strange impulsion, born of dead ages, his eyes fell from the glowing window and turned to the high altar.  He did not want to pray; he rebelled against the idea of supplication; but the circling thoughts within him concentrated suddenly, he clasped his hands with a clasp so fierce that it was pain.

“Oh, God!” he said, under his breath.  “God!  God, let me possess myself!” And as if some chord had snapped, relieving the tension in his brain, he dropped upon his knees, as he had once done at the foot of his own staircase and, crouching against a pillar, wept like a lost child.

PART IV

CHAPTER XXXVI

The last days of August in Paris!  A deadly oppression of heat; a brooding inertia that lay upon the city like a cloak!

In the little appartement every window stood gaping, thirsting for a draught of air; but no stir lightened the haze that weighed upon the atmosphere, no faintest hint of breeze ruffled the plantation shrubs, dark in their fulness of summer foliage.  Stillness lay upon Montmartre—­upon the rue Mueller—­most heavily of all, upon the home of Max.