I think that both of her companions felt abased by the vivid faith which sparkled in Miss Hurribattle’s conversation.  We were both rebuked by her life-effort for what was high and positive and real.  The clergyman, examining the depths of his own sensitive spirit, felt keener contempt for that theoretical good-will, that indefinite feeling of profound desire, which might not be concentrated upon any reality.  And it came over me, how mean was the thirst and struggle for a merely professional eminence which filled my common days.  As in a mental mirage, which loomed above the thickening twilight, I saw how our paths diverged, and whither each must surely tend.  No doubtful way was hers, the single-hearted woman of lofty aims, of restless feminine activity, of holy impatience with sin.  She might, indeed, miss the clue which guides through the labyrinth; but then her life would teach mankind even better than she designed.  On the other hand,—­supposing the position attained which too constantly occupied my own thoughts,—­there was an admiration of men, a market-salutation from reputable Commonplace, a seat in a fashionable church, a final lubrication with a fat obituary,—­and then?  But it was no part of my design to invite the reader into the inner chambers of my own personality, and I forbear.

After a half-mile walk, we left Miss Hurribattle, and turned our steps towards the parsonage.

“I sometimes feel that her instinct reasons more accurately than my poor logic,” said Clifton, bitterly; “yet it is a hard necessity to sacrifice our individual faculties of comparison and judgment for the working-power of a fervid organization!”

“No doubt it is a matter for serious question,” I replied.  “For, as soon as we grow out of our languid and feeble maladies, we grow into the violent inflammatory disorders which troubled our forefathers.  The doctors will tell you that this is true of our bodies; and surely the soul’s physician may pursue the analogy.”

“I can no longer hope to heal any man’s soul,” exclaimed the clergyman; “it is enough if my own be not wholly lost.  I shall to-morrow formally resign the sacred office of teacher in this place.  With the final renunciation of the great purpose which once swayed my life, I must renounce every symbol less profound, less poetic.  I must make my boast of an intellect which will never let any affection pass the line of demonstrable truth.  I once knew how grand it was to stand alone in the world of an inward faith; but now I have renounced all belief in an ideal human being inclosed in this poor body whom it was my business to liberate.”

As we stopped at the broad path leading to the parsonage, I ventured to say a few words which I will not set down.

More and more I was drawn towards the high and intense life of the woman in whom all that was wrong seemed but an excess of virtue.  I could have besought some fanatical warlike spirit to take possession of Clifton and make him capable of hate, and so, perhaps, of love.  Anything to arouse this personator of our human mutability, this vacillator between doing and letting alone!