For he saw how inexorable was that strength which controlled the world; how ruthless, in spite of smooth and compassionate words, towards those who resisted it. The Socialists were to be "repressed"; the heretic was to be tried for his life; and in all that wide world in which he lived it seemed that there was not one Christian who recoiled, not one breath of public opinion that could express itself. And he--he who hated it--must take his part. A Fate utterly beyond his understanding had set him there as a wheel in that mighty machine; and he must revolve in his place motionlessly and unresistingly in whatever task was set before him. . . . Once only, as he stared out at the great prosperous view, did his heart sicken and fail him. He dropped his face upon his hands, and cried to the only Christ whom he knew in silence. . . . CHAPTER III (I) It was not until the afternoon of the third day, as the trial of Dom Adrian Bennett drew to its close, that the man who had lost his memory could no longer resist the horrible fascination of the affair, and presented himself at the door of the court-room. He had learned that morning that the end of the trial was in sight. It was outside a block of buildings somewhere to the north of St. Paul's Cathedral that the car set him down. He learned at the porter's lodge the number of the court, and then passed in, following his directions, through a quadrangle that was all alight with scarlet creepers, where three or four ecclesiastics saluted him, up a staircase or two, and found himself at last at a tall door bearing the number he wanted. As he hesitated to knock, the door opened, and a janitor came out. "Can I go in?" asked the priest. "I am from Archbishop's House." "I can take you into the gallery at the back, Monsignor," said the man. "The body of the court is full." "That will do." They went round a corner together and came to a door up three or four stairs. The janitor unlocked this and threw it back. Farther steps rose within the doorway, and Monsignor as he set foot on the first had a vivid impression that the court he was approaching was crowded with people. There was no sound at first, but an atmosphere of intense and expectant force. It was a little curtained gallery in which the priest found himself, not unlike a box at a theatre, looking out upon the court from the corner immediately adjacent to the wall against which the raised seats of the judges were placed. He looked round the court, himself sitting a little back in a kind of shame, first identifying the actors in this dreadful drama. He was glad that the gallery had no other occupant than himself.