For a young man blessed with vigorous health, free from all material anxieties, and with the world before him, Macheson found life an uncommonly serious matter. Only a few years ago, he had left the University with a brilliant degree, a splendid athletic record, and a host of friends. What to do with his life! That was the problem which pressingly confronted him. He recognized in himself certain gifts inevitably to be considered in this choice. He was possessed of a deep religious sense, an immense sympathy for his fellows, and a passion for the beautiful in life, from which the physical side was by no means absent. How to find a career which would satisfy such varying qualities! A life of pleasure, unless it were shared by his fellows, did not appeal to him at all; personal ambition he was destitute of; his religion, he was very well aware, was not the sort which would enable him to enter with any prospect of happiness any of the established churches. For a time he had travelled, and had come back with only one definite idea in his mind. Chance had brought him, on his return, into contact with two young men of somewhat similar tastes. A conversation between them one night had given a certain definiteness to his aims. He recalled it to himself as he sat looking down at the thin blue line of smoke rising from the chimneys of Thorpe. "To use one's life for others," he had repeated thoughtfully--it was the enthusiast of the party who had spoken--"but how?" "Teach them to avoid like filth the ugly things of life--help them in their search for the things beautiful." "What are the things beautiful?" he had asked. "Don't they mean something different to every man?" Holderness had lifted his beautiful head--the boy with whom he had played at school--the friend of his younger life. "The Christian morality," he had answered. Macheson had been surprised. "But you----" he said, "you don't believe anything." "It is not necessary," Holderness had answered. "It is a matter of the intelligence. As an artist, if I might dare to call myself one, I say that the Christian life, if honestly lived, is the most beautiful thing of all the ages." Macheson walked down to the village with the memory of those words still in his brain. The bell was ringing for service from the queer, ivy-covered church, the villagers were coming down the lane in little groups. Macheson found himself one of a small knot of people, who stood reverently on one side, with doffed hats, just by the wooden porch. He looked up, suddenly realizing the cause.