“Is the nonsense over?” Judith took his hand between hers and he did not resist her. Her voice was restful as a quiet wind through trees. “What is the matter?” she asked him. “Nothing.” “Can you not tell me, your sister?” He stood with slouched shoulders and face darkened in the shadows. The candle smoked and flickered on the mantel-shelf; the books glimmered gilt-lettered in the gloom like parables half cloaked in mystery. “I am very weary of all this,” he said. “When you have done so splendidly!” “Splendidly, indeed!” “Yes.” “It was not I, but the soul of another in me.” “Still these dark sayings.” “All is dark, dear, save for the stars in the vault, and I have one star.” “Gabriel!” “All this is glare and mockery and discord. I hate, I loathe it. Only to be in the dark alone—that is all I desire. Leave me alone, dear, to-night.” “But your father and the others?” “They are content after their lights, so am I—here.” “Come for my sake.” “No, dear.” “Not even for me?” He bent and kissed her forehead. “I obey my thoughts,” he said, “and they are too sacred for anything save solitude. Darkness is good in its season. We see less of earth, more of the universe. Good-night.” PART III XXVI THE contrast in Gabriel’s life had grown the more vivid since the political assemblage at Rilchester and his ascension into oratorical fame. Materialism and idealism still fronted each other on the stage; the one heavy-browed and saturnine, the other with quivering hand unlifted to the heavens. To the thinker who is no mere egotist the meaner excitations of life must inevitably seem as dust on the highway of progress. No man who realizes the dignity of manhood can be deeply discouraged by an ill-fitting coat, a lost seat on a municipal bench, or a spoiled dinner. Materialism is merely a symptom of psychical sterility. Those great with the instinct towards God touch the soil only with their sandals; their eyes are turned to the sky; their foreheads sweep the stars. Struggle and suffering beget thought and true thought begets the consciousness of God. So had it been with Gabriel. Trouble had chastened him, had touched his eyes and given diviner vision. The ragged inanities of a mundane existence were falling like the threads of a rotten cloak. A deep loathing of minute nothings increased forcefully within him as day followed day. The things that men hold of value grew of less and less account to his soul. The numberless petty interests of a narrow social scheme had become peculiarly ridiculous and diminutive in his eyes. He was but working out in his own being the evolution of all history, moving through primitive phases, epicurean egotism, to that universality of the spirit that looks only to the future and embraces the supreme good of humanity as the active word of God.