§1. For an hour, for two hours, he tried to adjust his mental and spiritual sight to the blazing illumination; but adjustment, he at length realized, must be a matter of many days. The illumination was too sudden and too intense. He could no more assess moral values and determine ethical duties than a new-born baby can know the use of those objects most habitual to its elders—a new-born baby to whom the lamp on a table and the moon in the sky are one and the same. There must be false starts on wrong roads; there must be disappointment and stumbling; there must even be moments of relapse. The great thing for Luke was that, as the lives of some men are changed forever for the better by an affirmation of faith, his life had now forever been changed for the better by a rejection of faith. He had denied the superhuman in man’s affairs, and the banishment of the superhuman raised the human; it left the man no longer a pigmy trembling before a giant, but himself a giant, limited and mortal, yet self-sufficient and divine. He had found what was for him the ultimate strength; for the knowledge of how to use that strength rightly he could wait. Meanwhile, there was the patent obligation to Forbes. Forbes needed him; Luke returned to the Forbes house. §2. Forbes was waiting in the library. "Where were you yesterday? Are you going crazy, Huber? You knew I needed you." The elder man had borne disaster hardly. He looked tired and ill. "I’m sorry," said Luke. "I was busy." "Busy? What could have kept you busy in town when you knew this strike was going on? And you went to church this morning instead of waking me! Betty says you’re sick. Are you?" "No. I’m only getting well." Forbes’s tone was more considerate: "Anyhow, you might have come in to luncheon. Have you had anything to eat?" "I’m all right," said Luke. "But Betty says——" "Where is she?" "She’s in her room. I told her to lie down. She’s all upset. Really, Huber——" Luke seated himself by the table covered with magazines and sprawling sections of the Sunday newspapers. Outwardly, he was as self-contained as during his days in Leighton’s office. "What was it you wanted to see me about?" he interrupted. Forbes took a chair opposite. He assumed the voice of persuasion. "I want to be perfectly frank with you, Huber," he began. Luke thought: "I wonder what he is going to keep back." All that he said was: "Yes?" "Yes," resumed Forbes, "and I want you to be perfectly frank with me. You once told me you’d made enemies of the people who’ve since made such trouble for us, because you had some letters or other that belonged to them, didn’t you?" Luke bowed assent. He knew now what to expect. "Well," Forbes went on, "the only use those letters were to you was political. Now that you can’t use them politically, why don’t you give them up?" "You mean now that I’ve been chucked out of politics?"