“St. Francis of Assisi was the character I worshiped.  I strove after simple goodness.  I desired no glories of this world, no praises of men.  I did not wish to be clever or to shine, but only to do my duty to my fellow-men, and so toward God.  When I was first to make the acquaintance of Marcus Harding, with a view to becoming his senior curate if he thought fit, I felt some alarm.  I had heard so much of his great energy and his remarkable talents.  The day came.  I paid my visit to Onslow Gardens.  For the first time I saw—­” Chichester paused.  His face became distorted.  He turned toward the window as if anxious to hide his face from the professor’s small, keen eyes.  “I saw—­that man,” he continued, in a withdrawn and husky voice, and still looking away.

Stepton sat motionless and silent, sidewise, with his arms hanging.

Chichester, after another long pause, again faced him.

“My very first impression was unfavorable.  I attributed this to his great size, which had startled me.  I now know I was wrong in thinking I took that impression from the outer man.  It was the inner man who in that moment announced himself to me.  But almost instantly he had surely withdrawn himself very far away, and I, then, had no means of following him.  So he escaped from me, and I fell under the influence that Marcus Harding was able to exert at will.

“I was dominated.  Buoyancy, life, energy, self-confidence, radiated from that man.  He steeped me in his vigor.  He seemed kind, cordial.  He won my heart.  My intellect, of course, was dazzled.  But—­he won my heart.  And I felt not only, ’Here is a man far greater than myself to whom I can look up,’ but also, ’Here is a man to whom I must look up, because he is far better than myself.’  At that interview it was settled that I should become senior curate at St. Joseph’s.

“As you know, I became, and still am, senior curate.  As I grew to know Marcus Harding better I admired him more.  In fact, my feeling for him was something greater than admiration.  I almost worshiped him.  His will was law to me in everything.  His slightest wish I regarded as a behest.  His talents amazed me.  But I thought him not only the cleverest, but the best of men.  It seemed to me right that such a man should be autocratic.  A beneficent autocracy became my ideal of government.  That my rector’s will should be law to his wife, his servants, his curates, his organist, his choir, to those attached to his schools, to those who benefited by the charities he organized, seemed to me more than right and proper.  I could have wished to see it law to all the world.  If any one ventured to question any decision of his, or to speak a word against him, I felt almost hot with anger.  In a word, I was at his feet, as the small and humble-minded man often is at the feet of the man who has talents and who is gifted with ambition and supreme self-confidence.

“For a long time this condition of things continued, and I was happy in it.  Probably it might have continued till now, if—­if that accursed idea had not come to Marcus Harding.”