The old woman went slowly on toward her cottage, while the man stood coatless in the rain. It did not seem to cause him any concern, he seemed, in fact, almost to welcome the storm, as he stood erect in its midst, the elements beating upon him, the thunder rolling over his head. And the vicar, peering from his shelter, thought that once or twice his right hand was raised as if he were in the act of speaking to heaven. The man was John Smith. The vicar was amazed; such sheer insensibility to what was going on around was uncanny. Bareheaded, coatless, drenched to the skin, the man scorned the shelter so close at hand. The first thought that passed through the vicar’s mind was one of pity for the man’s physical and mental state. But hard upon that emotion came regret that the stubborn Joliffe was not also a spectator of the scene. Any doubts he still held as to the man’s sanity must surely have been dispelled. A great wind began to roam the upper air. The lightning grew more vivid, the thunder louder, the weight of rain still heavier. The vicar crouched against the bole of the best tree. And as he did so, his thoughts somehow passed from the poor, demented figure of fantasy still before his eyes, to those overwhelming forces of nature in which they were both at that minute engulfed. Intellectually the vicar was a very modest man. Sometimes, it is true, he had been tempted to ask himself poignant questions. But he had never presumed to give an independent answer of his own. For him the solution of the central mystery of man’s relation to the forces around him was comprised in the word “Faith.” But now that he was the witness of poor John Smith’s dementia, the sense of human futility recurred to him. It needed a power of Faith to relate that drenched scarecrow, a mere insect upon whom Nature was wreaking a boundless will, to the cosmic march and profluence. For a moment the vicar was almost tempted to deny the still, small voice within and submit entirely to the judgment of the senses. His eyes, his ears, his sense of touch assured him that the poor madman out in the rain was lost in the sum of things. What relation could he have to those majestic powers by whom he was buffeted? Surely that lone, hapless figure was the symbol of Man himself. And yet the act of devotion the man had just performed must have a meaning. It was a mystery within a mystery. Of whom had this poor blasphemer learned that trick; by what divine license did he practice it? For nearly half an hour it continued to rain pitilessly, and during that time the vicar searched and questioned his heart in regard to the man before him. At last the storm subsided; he came out of his shelter and went thoughtfully home. But in bed that night, when he closed his eyes and tried to sleep, he found the image of John Smith printed inside his eyelids. XXII