He had not spoken with violence, or with a lack of control.  He seemed rather to have regained a mastery of himself, and felt as a man from whom the shackles have been struck, proclaiming his freedom.  Mr. Bentley’s eyes lighted in involuntary response as he gazed at the figure and face before him.  He pressed his hands together.

“If you will forgive a curiosity, Mr. Hodder, that is somewhat due to my interest in a church with which I have many precious associations, may I ask if this is a sudden determination on your part?”

“No,” Hodder said.  “I have known ever since I came here that something was wrong, but at first I couldn’t see it, and after that I wouldn’t see it.  That is about what happened, as I look back on it.

“But the farther in I went,” Hodder continued, “the more tangled and bewildered I became.  I was hypnotized, I think,” he added with a gesture,—­“hypnotized, as a man is who never takes his eyes from a pattern.  I wanted to get at this neighbourhood—­Dalton Street—­I mean, and finally I agreed to the establishment of a settlement house over here, to be paid for largely by Eldon Parr and Francis Ferguson.  I couldn’t see the folly of such an undertaking—­the supreme irony of it, until—­until it was pointed out to me.”  He hesitated; the remembrance of Alison Parr ran through him, a thread of pain.  “And even then I tried to dodge the issue, I tried to make myself believe that good might flow out of evil; that the Church, which is supposed to be founded on the highest ideal ever presented to man, might compromise and be practical, that she might accept money which had been wrung from a trusting public by extortion, by thinly disguised thievery such as this Consolidated Tractions Company fraud, and do good with it!  And at last I made up my mind to go away, to-day, to a quiet place where I might be alone, and reflect, when by a singular circumstance I was brought into contact with this man, Garvin.  I see now, clearly enough, that if I had gone, I should never have come back.”

“And you still intend to go?” Mr. Bentley asked.

Hodder leaned his elbow against the mantel.  The lamplight had a curious effect on Mr. Bentley’s face.

“What can I do?” he demanded.  The question was not aimed directly at his host—­it was in the nature of a renewed appeal to a tribunal which had been mute, but with which he now seemed vaguely aware of a certain contact.  “Even supposing I could bring myself to accept the compromise —­now that I see it clearly, that the end justifies the means—­what good could I accomplish?  You saw what happened this afternoon—­the man would have driven me out if, it hadn’t been for you.  This whole conception of charity is a crime against civilization—­I had to have that pointed out to me, too,—­this system of legalized or semi-legalized robbery and the distribution of largesse to the victims.  The Church is doing wrong, is stultifying herself in encouraging it.  She should set her face rigidly against it, stand for morality and justice and Christianity in government, not for pauperizing.  It is her mission to enlighten these people, all people—­to make them self-respecting, to give them some notion of the dignity of their souls and their rights before God and man.”