A God needing man’s help, unable without it to accomplish His purpose. A God calling to man as Christ beckoned to His disciples to follow him, forsaking all, to suffer and to labour with Him. The thought had taken hold of him from the beginning: that summer’s night when he and Landripp had talked together, until the dawn had drawn a long thin line of light between the window curtains. And then had come Eleanor’s sudden recovery, when he had almost given up hope, on the very day of the laying of the foundation-stone of the new model dwellings; and it had seemed to him that God had chosen this means of revealing Himself. The God he had been taught. The God of his fathers. Who answered prayers, accepted the burnt offering, rewarded the faithful and believing. What need to seek further? The world was right. Its wise men and its prophets had discovered the true God. A God who made covenants and bargains with man. Why not? Why should not God take advantage of Anthony’s love for Eleanor to make a fair businesslike contract with him? “Help me with these schemes of yours for the happiness of my people and I will give you back your wife.” But the reflection would come: Why should an omnipotent God trouble Himself to bargain with His creatures, take round-about ways for accomplishing what could be done at once by a movement of His will? A God who could have made all things perfect from the beginning, beyond the need of either growth or change. Who had chosen instead to write the history of the human race in blood and tears. Surely such a God would need man’s forgiveness, not his worship. The unknown God was yet to seek. Landripp had been killed during the building of the model dwellings. It had been his own fault. For a stout, elderly gentleman to run up and down swaying ladders, to scramble round chimney stacks, and balance himself on bending planks a hundred feet above the ground was absurd. There were younger men who could have done all that, who warned Mr. Landripp of the risks that he was running. He had insisted on supervising everything himself. The work from its commencement had been to him a labour of love. He was fearful lest a brick should be ill-laid. Anthony had a curious feeling of annoyance as he looked upon the bruised and broken heap of rubbish that had once been his friend. Landripp had been dead when they picked him up. They had put him on a stretcher and carried him round to his office. Anthony had heard the news almost immediately, and had reached Bruton Square as the men were coming out. The body lay on the big table in the room where he and Anthony had had their last long talk. The face had not suffered and the eyes were open. There may have been a lingering consciousness still behind them for it seemed to Anthony that for an instant they smiled at him. And then suddenly the light went out of them.