The light of noon shone over the world. Cloud shadows flew along the silvery planes of the earth's surface, and life teemed in a myriad shapes even to the pinnacles of the land. Day herself scarcely died now, and night was a shadow rather than a darkness. Even in the midnight watches, light, like a ghost, stole under the stars and behind the northern hills until day returned. So spirits might haunt the nether gloom, he fancied, ere they vanished again at the glorious advent of day. To Woodrow, gazing upon the June world, it seemed that he was the only faulty thing in the visible universe; and he longed to cast his slough and also be without fault. CHAPTER V THE FRUIT OF FAITH Matters fell out much as Hilary Woodrow desired. He returned to Dawlish in October, and soon afterwards Brendon brought his wife and child to the sea. His master and he took long walks together among the Haldon hills, and Daniel learnt with enormous satisfaction that the other had of late experienced great changes of spirit. The big man gloried in this fact from a personal point of view, because it appeared to justify his immense faith in prayer. He had petitioned Heaven for Hilary Woodrow; and here dawned the answer. Daniel doubted not that this was the beginning of a larger and deeper conversion. He urged Woodrow to go farther. "There's no standing still," he said. "There's no standing still for you now--no more than the light stands still when the sun rises. Brighter and brighter surely it must grow, till the full light of the Gospel of the Son of God warms your heart. Man! what's deeper than that, what shows all clearer than that--or throws a darker shadow--the shadow of our sins?" "What a preacher you are!" "'Tis the good tidings of what you say. They make even my slow mind move quick. 'Ye believe in God, believe also in Me'; 'tis that I'm thinking." "Ah, Dan, that's a very different matter." "God'll show you 'tis the same." Thus oftentimes they talked; then work called Brendon, and he went home again. But his wife and child stopped for some weeks longer beside the sea; because little Gregory gained benefit from the change, and Sarah Jane was anxious to remain for his sake.