He clicked to his dog and went off abruptly, passing with long, jerky strides into the enveloping stillness of the evening, and Mr. Newman resumed his homeward walk, taking up his mood of reflective quiet at the point where Carrick had broken in upon it.  He was a man made for the Sabbath; he breathed its atmosphere of a day consecrated to observances with a pleasure that was almost sensuous.  For him, piety was that manner of life which gave the quality of Sunday to each other of the seven days of the week, softening them and rendering them august with the sense of a great adorable Presence presiding over their hours.

The curate who disliked Carrick occupied the pulpit that evening; he preached from half a text, after the manner of curates.  “For they shall see God”—­he repeated it in a poignant undertone—­he, tall and young and priestly in his vestments, seen against the dim glory of a stained window—­and Mr. Newman, attentive in his pew, leaned forward suddenly to hear, like a man touched by excitement.

Carrick’s study was one of a pair of rooms he had added to the farmhouse which he inhabited, a long apartment of many windows, designed for spaciousness, and possessing no other good quality.  No fire could warm more than an end of it, and his lamp, wherever it was placed, was but a heart of light in a body of shadow.  He had furnished it with the things he required; a desk was here, a table there, bookcases were along the walls, a variety of chairs stood where he happened to push them.  It had the air of a waiting-room or a mortuary.

Carrick was at his desk when Mr. Newman, on the Monday evening, was shown in to him by the ironclad widow who kept house for him.  He looked up with impatience as his guest entered.

“Oh, it’s you?” was his greeting.

“Good evening,” said Mr. Newman cheerfully.  “You’d forgotten to expect me, I suppose.  But I’m here, all the same.”

“All right,” said Carrick.  “Sit down somewhere, will you?”

He rose and shoved a chair forward with his foot for Mr. Newman’s accommodation, and began to walk slowly to and fro with his hands in his pockets.

“Well,” said Newman; “and what’s this miracle we’re to work?”

“I’ll show you,” said Carrick, still walking.  He stopped and turned toward his guest.  “Newman,” he said, “where do you reckon you were a hundred years ago?”

Mr. Newman laughed, crossing his legs as he sat.

“I’m not as old as that,” he replied.  “Whatever place you’re thinking of, I wasn’t there.”

Carrick was frowning thoughtfully.  “I’m not thinking of places,” he said.  “You—­you exist; the matter that composes you is indestructible; the—­the essential you, the thing in that matter that makes it mean something, the soul, if you like—­that’s indestructible, too.  Everything’s indestructible.  A hundred years hence, you’ll be somewhere; but where were you—­you, that is—­a hundred years ago?”