“Not until I have said one thing more,” replied the rector, undaunted.  “I have found the woman whose marriage with your son you prevented, whom you bought off and started on the road to hell without any sense of responsibility.  You have made of her a prostitute and a drunkard.  Whether she can be rescued or not is problematical.  She, too, is in Mr. Bentley’s care, a man upon whom you once showed no mercy.  I leave Garvin, who has gone to his death, and Kate Marcy and Horace Bentley to your conscience, Mr. Parr.  That they are representative of many others, I do not doubt.  I tell you solemnly that the whole meaning of life is service to others, and I warn you, before it is too late, to repent and make amends.  Gifts will not help you, and charities are of no avail.”

At the reference to Kate Marcy Eldon Parr’s hand dropped to his side.  He seemed to have physical difficulty in speaking.

“Ah, you have found that woman!” He leaned an elbow on the desk, he seemed suddenly to have become weary, spent, old.  And Hodder, as he watched him, perceived—­that his haggard look was directed towards a photograph in a silver frame on the table—­a photograph of Preston Parr.  At length he broke the silence.

“What would you have had me do?” he asked.  “Permit my son to marry a woman of the streets, I suppose.  That would have been Christianity, according to your notion.  Come now, what world you have done, if your son had been in question?”

A wave of pity swept over the rector.

“Why,” he said, why did you have nothing but cruelty in your heart, and contempt for her?  When you saw that she was willing, for the love of the son whom you loved, to give up all that life meant to her, how could you destroy her without a qualm?  The crime you committed was that you refused to see God in that woman’s soul, when he had revealed himself to you.  You looked for wile, for cunning, for self-seeking,—­and they were not there.  Love had obliterated them.  When you saw how meekly she obeyed you, and agreed to go away, why did you not have pity?  If you had listened to your conscience, you would have known what to do.

“I do not say that you should not have opposed the marriage—­then.  Marriage is not to be lightly entered into.  From the moment you went to see her you became responsible for her.  You hurled her into the abyss, and she has come back to haunt you.  You should have had her educated and cared for—­she would have submitted, to any plan you proposed.  And if, after a sensible separation, you became satisfied as to her character and development, and your son still wished to marry her, you should have withdrawn your objections.

“As it is, and in consequence of your act, you have lost your son.  He left you then, and you have no more control over him.”

“Stop!” cried Eldon Parr, “for God’s sake stop!  I won’t stand any more of this.  I will not listen to criticism of my life, to strictures on my conduct from you or any other man.”  He reached for a book on the corner of his desk—­a cheque book.—­“You’ll want money for these people, I suppose,” he added brutally.  “I will give it, but it must be understood that I do not recognize any right of theirs to demand it.”