With another summer Hilary Woodrow again returned to his home, and time passed as during previous years. But the passage of the last winter had left its mark upon him, and the least observant noticed a change. Physically he had grown thinner. His cheek-bones thrust out, and there were hollows beneath them. He still rode, and he still read; but his books belonged now to a different plane of thought, and a man by glancing at them might have calculated with pretty close accuracy the nature of his bent, and the slow but sure victory of faith over reason. In some respects he looked younger, for a colour that means health in infancy and death at adolescence, lighted his fallen cheek. His eyes were bright; his manner continued courteous and kind as of yore; his energies were not yet much decreased, save in certain directions. From predisposition he had gradually passed into actual disease; and as the bodily fires waned and cooled, his interest in the superhuman waxed and dominated every waking hour. He believed in a life beyond the grave; he had infected the domain of reason by deep reading of irrational authors; and these created an atmosphere through which he groped his way back to the faith of his fathers. Sarah Jane held secret speech with him, at oncoming of another autumn, and the great matter arose upon his lips. This happened towards the end of his stay at home, when already it became necessary to think of leaving the Moor. First he treated of his health, and confessed, to her grief, that he was not so well; then he discussed the superstitions now supremely precious to him. "What will you say when I tell you that I have followed in the path of many and many a greater man than myself, and changed my opinions?" he asked. "I know it," she answered. "You told me nine months agone at Dawlish. You believe in God and heaven; and so do I with all my heart." "But I've gone beyond that--higher--higher. We must believe in that, when our eyes are opened to read the meaning of the world--or even a glimpse of the meaning. Looking back, I tremble to see what a dreadful, lonely thing I was--walking here in my pride. But God's too great a thought for the mind of man to grasp single-handed. I've come to see there must be something between--something within reach of human intellect--something that man's mind can understand and even love--something that will bring the divine light to us, yet soften its wonder and terror, so that we can gaze upon it. Without Christ, the idea of God dazzles and blinds and bewilders. With Christ, the thought can be received and taken home into our hearts. The only possible God for man is made clear to us by the Son of God. Therefore I am a Christian, Sarah Jane."