The sense that he had had already that his son's action, had suddenly bound him into company with all the powers of evil and destruction rose to its full height at the sound of the man's voice; but with it rose, too, his self-command. The very disgust with which Davray filled him contributed to his own control and dignity. "You should feel ashamed, sir," he said quietly, standing still where be was, "to be in that condition in this building. Or are you too drunk to know where you are?" "That's all right, Archdeacon," Davray said, laughing. "Of course I'm drunk. I generally am--and that's my affair. But I'm not so drunk as not to know where I am and not to know who you are and what's happened to you. I know all those things, I'm glad to say. Perhaps I am a little ahead of yourself in that. Perhaps you don't know yet what your young hopeful has been doing." Brandon was as still as one of the old wooden saints. "Then if you are sober enough to know where you are, leave this place and do not return to it until you are in a fit state." "Fit! I like that." The sense that he was alone now for the first time in his life with the man whom he had so long hated infuriated Davray. "Fit? Let me tell you this, old cock, I'm twice as fit to be here as you're ever likely to be. Though I have been drinking and letting myself go, I'm fitter to be here than you are, you stuck-up, pompous fool." Brandon did not stir. "Go home!" he said; "go home! Recover your senses and ask God's forgiveness." "God's forgiveness!" Davray moved a step forward as though he would strike. Brandon made no movement. "That's like your damned cheek. Who wants forgiveness as you do? Ask this Cathedral--ask it whether I have not loved it, adored it, worshipped it as I've worshipped no woman. Ask it whether I have not been faithful, drunkard and sot as I am. And ask it what it thinks of you--of your patronage and pomposity and conceit. When have you thought of the Cathedral and its beauty, and not always of yourself and your grandeur?...Why, man, we're sick of you, all of us from the top man in the place to the smallest boy. And the Cathedral is sick of you and your damned conceit, and is going to get rid of you, too, if you won't go of yourself. And this is the first step. Your son's gone with a whore to London, and all the town's laughing at you." Brandon did not flinch. The man was close to him; he could smell his drunken breath--but behind his words, drunken though they might be, was a hatred so intense, so deep, so real, that it was like a fierce physical blow. Hatred of himself. He had never conceived in all his life that any one hated him--and this man had hated him for years, a man to whom he had never spoken before to-day. Davray, as was often his manner, seemed suddenly to sober. He stood aside and spoke more quietly, almost without passion.