Deep soul movements had swept Daniel as he climbed to the crowns of the land. He began to ask himself questions; his heart shook and bled within him; he prayed to his God; he humbly implored his God; but no answer came. Therefore he went onward--since the Almighty's mind was unshaken. Then came the child, and he took the letter and doubted not that the Father of Mercy had, even at this last hour, dictated it to her who sent it. Now he was to learn what he must do. While he opened it he walked on, until he had reached within fifty yards of the ruin. After he had read it, he stood still a moment and considered. He doubted not that his wife's eyes were upon him. The letter was very short:-- "_My dear, they say you have come. I know. I'll spare you that.--Your true love._" The man lifted his voice at last. "I can't do it--God forgive me, I can't--I can't. Make your peace with Him, as I shall. Live out your life on your knees for ever, as I shall. I'm going. You shall never see me no more." Then he spoke to the child. "Get to your mother," he said. Gregory, frightened at his face and voice, ran back as fast as he could go, and Brendon departed. But a moment later, when shrill shriek upon shriek cut his ears, he stopped, turned again, and went to his child; because he knew that the little thing was alone. CHAPTER XV SET OF MOON On a night at mid-December, in a darkened room, Daniel Brendon sat writing laboriously. The candle beside him was shielded so that the light should fall only on his papers, on a copy of the "War Cry," and on his Bible. In a corner were two beds, side by side, and his boy occupied the smaller one and slept peacefully there. Upon a chair by the little bed Gregory's clean clothes were placed for the morrow. A small scarlet jersey hung close by, and beside it a very large one, that Daniel would wear. Brendon had joined the Salvation Army and was captain of the Lydford Branch. Indeed, he had founded this branch, and worked like a giant by night and day to increase its strength. Twenty-five persons were already numbered. He rose up and stretched his arms; then sat down and read through the notes that he had made. To-morrow the man would preach from the twelfth chapter of Job and the twenty-second verse. "He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death." The child laughed in his sleep and then was still again. A clock struck four. Brendon appeared to be much aged; he did not spare himself in his unceasing struggles for his God. Only at such moments as this, in the waste of night, when life's pulses burned low; when his own agony surged high; when human powerlessness to stem the tide of the world's grief was most borne in upon his spirit, did he waver and look forward hungrily to the end. For a moment now he put his great hands over his face and longed for the time when the dust of the workshop should be still, the dust of the workman at rest.