“I can do without—­take this—­take all and leave me nothing,” he had said in the hour of his deepest misery; and with the knowledge of his strength to renounce all that which lay outside himself had come also the knowledge of his power to possess whatever was within his soul.  Life was forfeiture and he had given up the world that he might gain himself.  Since the night when he had distractedly sought God through the city, he had become gradually aware that he moved in the midst of a large unspeakable peace, for in willing as God willed he had entered, he found, into a happiness which was independent and almost oblivious of the external tragedy in which he lived.  Neither sickness nor poverty, nor the shame of Connie’s sin, nor the weakness of his own flesh, had power to separate him from the wisdom which had come to him under the eyes of the harlot at the crossing.  In seeking the essential thing he had wandered for years in a circle which had led him back at last to his own soul.  Beyond this, he saw there was little further to be lost and nothing to be learned.  “Give me more light, my God!” he had prayed in agony of spirit; and the answer had come in a mental illumination which had made the crooked places plain and the obscure meanings clear.  At last he was happy, for at last he had learned that the man who loses all else and has God possesses everything.

His loneliness—­surely there was never a man more alone since the beginning of time—­had failed suddenly to disquiet him; and as he looked from his remote vision upon the people about him, there flowed through his mind that ultimate essence of knowledge which enables a man to recognise himself when he encounters the stranger in the street.

Several weeks later he heard from Gerty Bridewell of Laura’s engagement to Arnold Kemper.  He had dropped in to see Perry one afternoon upon an insignificant piece of business, and Gerty in her husband’s absence, had insisted upon receiving his call.

“I’ll reward you with a bit of news,” she said, with a nervous and troubled gesture.  “Laura will be married in the autumn.”

“Married?” He looked at her a little blankly, for after having armoured himself to meet an expected blow, he was almost surprised to find that he was not insensible to the shook.  “Married! and to whom?”

“To Arnold, of course.  Didn’t you suspect that it would happen?”

He shook his head.  “Of all men he’s the last I’d ever have thought of.”  With the words a vision of Kemper rose before him, robust, virile, sensual, with his dominant egoism and his pleasant affectations, half hero and half libertine.

“Well, of all men he’s probably the only one that could have done it,” replied Gerty; “he’s positively wild about her, there’s some comfort to be got from that—­and Laura—­”

“And Laura?” he repeated the name for she had broken off quickly after having uttered it.

“Oh, Laura is very much in love, it seems.  I don’t believe she herself knows exactly why—­but then one never does.”