"Go and see this poor woman to-morrow evening. She tells me she isn't acting for a week or two,--rehearsing some new play. Isn't it wonderful to think of the things that are going on every day? Just think of the Holy Spirit pouring into this sinning creature's heart, catching her in the middle of her champagne and frivolity, and just turning her, almost _compelling_ her towards Christ! And men like John Morley or Constantine Schuabe say there is no truth in Christianity!--I'll take one of these apples--poor fools! Now I must go and write my sermon." He was gone in a clattering rush. For a long time Basil sat thinking. The mysterious links of some great chain were being revealed inch by inch. Wonderful as these circumstances already seemed to him, he felt sure there was far more behind them than he knew as yet. There was some unseen tie, some influence that drew his thoughts ever more and more towards the library in the palace at Manchester. * * * * * The next evening a maid showed Gortre into the hall of the flat of Bloomsbury Court Mansions, eyeing him curiously as she did so. He passed down the richly carpeted passage with a quickening of all his pulses, noticing the Moorish lamps of copper studded with turquoise which threw a dim crimson light over everything, marking the ostentatious luxury of the place with wonder. Gertrude Hunt lay back in a low arm-chair. She was dressed in a long, dull red teagown of cashmere, with a broad white band round the neck opening of white Indian needlework, embroidered with dark green leaves. Her face was pale and tired. Despite the general warmth of the time, a fire burnt steadily on the hearth. Gortre sat down at her invitation, and they fell into a desultory conversation. He waited for her to open on the real subjects that had brought him there. He watched the tired, handsome face. Coarse it certainly was, in expression rather than feature, but that very coarseness gave it power. This woman, who lived the life of a doll, had character. One saw that. Perhaps, he thought, as he looked at her, that the very eagerness and greed for pleasure marked in her face, the passionate determination to tear the heart and core out of life, might still be directed to purer and nobler ends. Then she began to talk to him quite frankly, and with no disguise or slurring over the facts of her life. "I'm sick and tired of it all, Mr. Gortre," she said bitterly. "You can't know what it means a bit--lucky for you. Imagine spending all your life in a room painted bright yellow, eating nothing but chocolate creams, with a band playing comic songs for ever and ever. And even then you won't get it."