"Mr. Parr," he replied, "I have been a friend of yours, and I am a friend still. And what I am going to tell you is not only in the hope that others may benefit, but that your own soul may be saved. I mean that literally--your own soul. You are under the impression that you are a Christian, but you are not and never have been one. And you will not be one until your whole life is transformed, until you become a different man. If you do not change, it is my duty to warn you that sorrow and suffering, the uneasiness which you now know, and which drive you on, in search of distraction, to adding useless sums of money to your fortune--this suffering, I say, will become intensified. You will die in the knowledge of it, and live on after, in the knowledge of it." In spite of himself, the financier drew back before this unexpected blast, the very intensity of which had struck a chill of terror in his inmost being. He had been taken off his guard,--for he had supposed the day long past--if it had ever existed--when a spiritual rebuke would upset him; the day long past when a minister _could_ pronounce one with any force. That the Church should ever again presume to take herself seriously had never occurred to him. And yet--the man had denounced him in a moment of depression, of nervous irritation and exasperation against a government which had begun to interfere with the sacred liberty of its citizens, against political agitators who had spurred that government on. The world was mad. No element, it seemed, was now content to remain in its proper place. His voice, as he answered, shook with rage,--all the greater because the undaunted sternness by which it was confronted seemed to reduce it to futility. "Take care!" he cried, "take care! You, nor any other man, clergyman or no clergyman, have any right to be the judge of my conduct." "On the contrary," said Hodder, "if your conduct affects the welfare, the progress, the reputation of the church of which I am rector, I have the right. And I intend to exercise it. It becomes my duty, however painful, to tell you, as a member of the Church, wherein you have wronged the Church and wronged yourself." He didn't raise his tone, and there was in it more of sorrow than of indignation. The banker turned an ashen gray.... A moment elapsed before he spoke, a transforming moment. He suddenly became ice. "Very well," he said. "I can't pretend to account for these astounding views you have acquired--and I am using a mild term. Let me say this" (he leaned forward a little, across the desk): "I demand that you be specific. I am a busy man, I have little time to waste, I have certain matters before me which must be attended to to-night. I warn you that I will not listen any longer to vague accusations." It was Hodder's turn to marvel. Did Eldon Parr, after all, have no sense of guilt? Instantaneously, automatically, his own anger rose.