As Gilderman turned and went up into his warm and well-lighted house, filled with its richness and delectabilities, he wondered passively what would be done to the Man; what would be the end of it all with Him. The baby was awake and crying, and as Gilderman went to his room he caught a fleeting glimpse of the silently moving nurse passing across the dim upper hall. Oh, the triumph of finding that a fourth queen had been dealt him! Four queens! He saw just how that queen of clubs had looked when he turned it up. How the fellows had roared when he showed his hand! He looked at his watch as he wound it up. It was half-past two o'clock. XVII THE END OF THE WORLD AND so came the end. As all the world knows, we fulfilled our allotted mission and crucified the Truth. Caiaphas was a merciful man--kind, gentle, and with a very loving heart. But his religion was cruel, relentless, and devoid of mercy. According to his creed, all men who disobeyed the laws of social order suffered eternal punishment as a penalty forever and forever in the life to come. Also, according to that creed, all men were in danger unless they believed the almost unbelievable things of Scripture. He himself would not have tortured or tormented a mouse for doing wrong or for going astray, but he assented, almost with equanimity, to the monstrous assertion that God Almighty would torture and torment a man forever and forever for sin or for disbelief. It is strange that the religion of such a good man as Caiaphas should be of such a monstrous sort; it is still more strange that such doctrines should have appeared to him not only to be sacred and holy beyond measure, but to be the actual foundation of existing social order. Nevertheless, such he held to be the case, and his dogmas appeared to him to be singularly sacred. For his religion he was cheerfully ready to sacrifice his own life or the life of another man. Whether he reasoned about the matter or did not reason about it the fact remained that that dreadful thing was his religious creed, and when he deemed it in danger of overthrow he fulminated that terrible saying: "It is better that one man should die rather than that a whole nation should perish." So the one Man died, and the nation, having fulfilled its mission, perished also as a nation. * * * * * When Christ yielded up the spirit it was said that the sun was darkened and the earth shook and the veil of the Temple was rent in twain. But we--priests and Levites, scribes and pharisees--saw nothing of that. That cataclysm was seen only by the few who saw with the eyes of the spirit. To us the burning sun rode as majestically as ever; to us the earth stood firm; to us that Temple of Faith (that was never to be completed) stood also firm upon its foundations.