A hush fell in the office again, and he felt inexpressibly alone. He was not in any sense hopeless, being assured that in the vast machine of his own creation were inherent qualities of life that could never be extinguished. He was strong, since for himself he desired nothing. In this hour of uncertainty his imagination traveled far, but again and again it was captured by the remembrance of his days with the bishop. This had nothing to do with works, and yet in a way they were intimately connected. The bishop had demonstrated the operation of high and subtle forces to which he himself had not given much thought. The bishop had saved his life, just as Belding had saved it, and he still seemed to feel the working of big muscles under his twitching palms. There flashed back what the prelate had said about being prepared for the worst, which after all was sometimes the best, and, with half closed eyes, he wondered whether this was the occasion. There sounded a knock at the door, and the bishop himself came in. Clark, getting up hastily, advanced to meet him. There were only three people in the world he would have cared to see at that moment, and here was one of them. "Come in and sit down, sir. This is very good of you." "It took me two hours to get here," said the big man, breathing a little hard. "It's rather difficult traveling to-day." Clark stared at him. He had always thought of the bishop as an exemplar of peace, but he had arrived almost on the tail of the riot. "I only reached town a short time ago," the visitor was smiling cheerfully, "and heard about the trouble. Now that I'm safely here, I'll only stay a minute." Clark shook his head. "You are very welcome, sir." The bishop nodded contentedly. "I just wanted to express my sympathy with your present anxiety, and my belief that everything will come all right." "You do believe that?" "Unquestionably. Such efforts as yours are not foredoomed. I see you, too, are of my opinion." "I have to be," said Clark reflectively. "I'm not at all surprised, since you can turn to the physical evidence of your own efforts to support you. It gives you an advantage over myself." "Does it?" The visitor pointed to the mass of buildings close at hand. "You have all that, and there is no doubt that inanimate things possess a peculiar influence, either strengthening or otherwise. But still I can quite imagine what it means to you to sit here and listen to silence with so many reminders about you. It is one of the things that the servants of humanity must occasionally face." "Servants?" said Clark curiously. "Is not a leader also a servant. Has he anything left for himself, and is it not just a different term for the same thing?" The other man experienced a strange sensation that he had discovered this a long time ago. The bishop had also discovered it, but had not forgotten.