The minister spoke with a deep intensity, as though his whole being were breathed into what he said. David sat silent and embarrassed, opposition rising in him to what he thought ministerial assumption. 'Well, I don't know what you mean,' he said, after a pause. 'One needn't be very old to find out that a good many people and things in the world are pretty bad. Only we Secularists explain it differently from you. We put a good deal of it down to education, or health, or heredity.' 'Oh, I know--I know!' said the minister hastily, as though shrinking from the conversation he had himself evoked. 'I'm not fit to talk about it, Davy. I'm ill, I think! But there were those two things I wanted to say to you--your sister--and--' His voice dropped. He shaded his eyes and looked away from David into the smouldering coals. 'No--no,' he resumed almost in a whisper; 'it's the _will_--it's the _will_. It's not anything he says, and Christ--_Christ's_ the only help.' Again there was a silence. David studied his old teacher attentively, as far as the half-light availed him. The young man was simply angry with a religion which could torment a soul and body like this. Ancrum had been 'down' in this way for a long time now. Was another of his black fits approaching? If so, religion was largely responsible for them! When at last David sighted his own door, he perceived a figure lounging on the steps. 'I say,' he said to himself with a groan, 'it's John!' 'What on earth do you want, John, at this time of night?' he demanded. But he knew perfectly. 'Look here!' said the other thickly, 'it's all straight. You're coming back in a fortnight, and you'll bring her back too!' David laughed impatiently. 'Do you think I shall lose her in Paris or drop her in the Channel?' 'I don't know,' said Dalby, with a curiously heavy and indistinct utterance. 'She's very bad to me. She won't ever marry me; I know that. But when I think I might never see her again I'm fit to go and hang myself.' David began to kick the pebbles in the road. 'You know what I think about it all,' he said at last, gloomily. 'I've told you before now. She couldn't care for you if she tried. It isn't a ha'p'orth of good. I don't believe she'll ever care for anybody. Anyway, she'll marry nobody who can't give her money and fine clothes. There! You may put that in your pipe and smoke it, for it's as true as you stand there.' John turned round restlessly, laid his hands against the wall, and his head upon them. 'Well, it don't matter,' he said slowly, after a pause. 'I'll be here early. Good night!' David stood and looked after him in mingled disgust and pity. 'I must pack him off,' he said, 'I must.' Then he threw back his young shoulders and drew in the warm spring air with a long breath. Away with care and trouble! Things would come right--must come right. This weather was summer, and in forty-eight hours they would be in Paris! BOOK III STORM AND STRESS CHAPTER I