It was in a vigil of the night, when he lay in the hot darkness, unable to sleep, that he came at length to this resolve.  And now that he had cut the knot he was too just to blame Alison Parr for having pointed out —­with what often had seemed a pitiless cruelty—­something of which he had had a constantly growing perception yet had continually sought to evade.  And he reviewed, as the church bells recorded the silent hours, how, little by little, his confidence had crumbled before the shocks of the successive revelations—­some of them so slight that they had passed unnoticed:  comparisons, inevitably compelled; Dalton Street; the confessions of Eleanor Goodrich and Mrs. Constable; Mr. Plimpton and his views of life—­Eldon Parr!  Even the slamming of the carriage doors in Burton Street had had a significance!

Might it not prove that this woman had let fall into the turbid waters of his soul the drop that was to clear them forever?  He would go away.  He would not see her again.

Over the sleeping city, unapprehended, stole the dawn.

He arose, but instead of falling on his knees he went to the window and lifted his face to the whitening sky . . . .  Slowly out of the obscurity of the earth’s shadow emerged the vague outlines of familiar things until they stood sharply material, in a silence as of death.  A sparrow twittered, and suddenly the familiar, soot-grimed roofs were bathed in light, and by a touch made beautiful . . . .

Some hours later the city was wide awake.  And Hodder, bathed and dressed, stood staring down from his study window into the street below, full now of young men and girls; some with set faces, hurrying, intent, others romping and laughing as they dodged the trucks and trolley cars; all on their way to the great shoe factory around the corner, the huge funnels of which were belching forth smoke into the morning air.  The street emptied, a bell rang, a whistle blew, the hum of distant machinery began . . . .

II

Later that morning Hodder sat in his study.  The shutters were closed, and the intensity of the tropical glare without was softened and diffused by the slanting green slats.  His eye wandered over the long and comfortable room which had been his sanctuary in the feverish days of his ministry, resting affectionately on the hospitable chairs, the wide fireplace before which he had been wont to settle himself on winter nights, and even on the green matting—­a cooling note in summer.  And there, in the low cases along the walls, were the rows of his precious books,—­his one hobby and extravagance.  He had grown to love the room.  Would he ever come back to it?

A step sounded in the hall, a knock, and the well-known gaunt form and spectacled face of McCrae appeared in the doorway.

“Ye wished to see me?” he asked.

“McCrae,” said the rector, “I am going off for a while.”