He would not leave the Church!

CHAPTER XVIII

THE RIDDLE OF CAUSATION

I

In order to portray this crisis in the life of Kate Marcy, the outcome of which is still uncertain, other matters have been ignored.

How many persons besides John Hodder have seemed to read—­in crucial periods—­a meaning into incidents having all the outward appearance of accidents!  What is it that leads us to a certain man or woman at a certain time, or to open a certain book?  Order and design? or influence?

The night when he had stumbled into the cafe in Dalton Street might well have been termed the nadir of Hodder’s experience.  His faith had been blotted out, and, with it had suddenly been extinguished all spiritual sense, The beast had taken possession.  And then, when it was least expected,—­nay, when despaired of, had come the glimmer of a light; distant, yet clear.  He might have traced the course of his disillusionment, perhaps, but cause and effect were not discernible here.

They soon became so, and in the weeks that followed he grew to have the odd sense of a guiding hand on his shoulder,—­such was his instinctive interpretation of it, rather than the materialistic one of things ordained.  He might turn, in obedience to what seemed a whim, either to the right or left, only to recognize new blazes that led him on with surer step; and trivial accidents became events charged with meaning.  He lived in continual wonder.

One broiling morning, for instance, he gathered up the last of the books whose contents he had a month before so feverishly absorbed, and which had purged him of all fallacies.  At first he had welcomed them with a fierce relief, sucked them dry, then looked upon them with loathing.  Now he pressed them gratefully, almost tenderly, as he made his way along the shady side of the street towards the great library set in its little park.

He was reminded, as he passed from the blinding sunlight into the cool entrance hall, with its polished marble stairway and its statuary, that Eldon Parr’s munificence had made the building possible:  that some day Mr. Parr’s bust would stand in that vestibule with that of Judge Henry Goodrich—­Philip Goodrich’s grandfather—­and of other men who had served their city and their commonwealth.

Upstairs, at the desk, he was handing in the volumes to the young woman whose duty it was to receive them when he was hailed by a brisk little man in an alpaca coat, with a skin like brown parchment.

“Why, Mr. Hodder,” he exclaimed cheerfully, with a trace of German accent, “I had an idea you were somewhere on the cool seas with our friend, Mr. Parr.  He spoke, before he left, of inviting you.”

It had been Eldon Parr, indeed, who had first brought Hodder to the library, shortly after the rector’s advent, and Mr. Engel had accompanied them on a tour of inspection; the financier himself had enjoined the librarian to “take good care” of the clergyman.  Mr. Waring, Mr. Atterbury; and Mr. Constable were likewise trustees.  And since then, when talking to him, Hodder had had a feeling that Mr. Engel was not unconscious of the aura—­if it may be called such—­of his vestry.