The light of a shaded candle fell upon the white coverlet of her bed, and upon a book bound in sage-green and gold which lay there. The woman's face shone. She had just read for the fifth time, the poem in "Surgit Amari" which closes the first book. The lovely lines had fused with the holy rapture of the night, and her patient soul was caught up into commune with Jesus. "Soon! Oh, soon! Dear Lord," she gasped, "I shall be with Thee for ever. If it seemeth good to Thee, let me be taken up on some such tranquil night as this. And I thank Thee, Dear Saviour, that Thou hast poured Thy Grace into the soul of Gilbert Lothian, the Poet. Through the white soul of this poet, which Thou hast chosen to be a conduit of comfort to me, my night pain has gone. I am drawn nearer to Thee, Jesus who hast died for me! "Lord, bless the poet. Pour down Thy Grace upon him. Guard him, shield him and his for ever more. And, Sweet Lord, if it be Thy will, let me meet him in Heaven and tell him of this night--this fair night of summer when I lay dying and happy and thinking kindly and with gratitude of him. "Jesus!" CHAPTER IV LOTHIAN GOES TO THE LIBRARY OF PURE LITERATURE "I only knew one poet in my life: And this, or something like it, was his way." --_Browning._ The Podley Library in West Kensington was a fad of its creator. Mr. John Podley was a millionaire, or nearly so, and the head of a great pin-making firm. He was a public man of name and often preached or lectured at the species of semi-religious conversations known as "Pleasant Sunday Afternoons." Sunday afternoon in England--though Mr. Podley called it "The Sabbath"--represented the pin-maker's mental attitude with some fidelity. All avenues to pleasure of any kind were barred, though possibly amusement is the better word. A heavy meal clogged the intellect, an imperfectly-understood piece of Jewish religious politics was made into an idol, erected and bowed down to. Mr. Podley had always lived with the fear of God, and the love of money constantly before his eyes. "Sabbath observance" and total abstinence were his watchwords, and he also took a great interest in "Literature" and had pronounced views upon the subject. These views, like everything else about him, were confined and narrow, but were the sincere convictions of an ignorant, pompous and highly successful man. He had, accordingly, established the Podley Free Library in Kensington in order to enunciate and carry out his ideas in a practical way. What he considered--and not without some truth--the immoral tendency of modern writers, was to be sternly prohibited in his model house of books.