time previous to the governorship of the Westward Islands, Acton
Hague had died, in the bleak honour of this exile, of an illness

consequent on the bite of a poisonous snake. His career was
compressed by the newspaper into a dozen lines, the perusal of

which excited on George Stransom's part no warmer feeling than one
of relief at the absence of any mention of their quarrel, an

incident accidentally tainted at the time, thanks to their joint
immersion in large affairs, with a horrible publicity. Public

indeed was the wrong Stransom had, to his own sense, suffered, the
insult he had blankly taken from the only man with whom he had ever

been intimate; the friend, almost adored, of his University years,
the subject, later, of his passionateloyalty: so public that he

had never spoken of it to a human creature, so public that he had
completely overlooked it. It had made the difference for him that

friendship too was all over, but it had only made just that one.
The shock of interests had been private, intensely" target="_blank" title="ad.激烈地；热切地">intensely so; but the

action taken by Hague had been in the face of men. To-day it all
seemed to have occurred merely to the end that George Stransom

should think of him as "Hague" and measure exactly how much he
himself could resemble a stone. He went cold, suddenly and

horribly cold, to bed.
CHAPTER III.

THE next day, in the afternoon, in the great grey suburb, he knew
his long walk had tired him. In the dreadfulcemetery alone he had

been on his feet an hour. Instinctively, coming back, they had
taken him a devious course, and it was a desert in which no

circling cabman hovered over possible prey. He paused on a corner
and measured the dreariness; then he made out through the gathered

dusk that he was in one of those tracts of London which are less
gloomy by night than by day, because, in the former case of the

civil gift of light. By day there was nothing, but by night there
were lamps, and George Stransom was in a mood that made lamps good

in themselves. It wasn't that they could show him anything, it was
only that they could burn clear. To his surprise, however, after a

while, they did show him something: the arch of a high doorway
approached by a low terrace of steps, in the depth of which - it

formed a dim vestibule - the raising of a curtain at the moment he
passed gave him a glimpse of an avenue of gloom with a glow of

tapers at the end. He stopped and looked up, recognising the place
as a church. The thought quickly came to him that since he was

tired he might rest there; so that after a moment he had in turn
pushed up the leathern curtain and gone in. It was a temple of the

old persuasion, and there had evidently been a function - perhaps a
service for the dead; the high altar was still a blaze of candles.

This was an exhibition he always liked, and he dropped into a seat
with relief. More than it had ever yet come home to him it struck

him as good there should be churches.
This one was almost empty and the other altars were dim; a verger

shuffled about, an old woman coughed, but it seemed to Stransom
there was hospitality in the thick sweet air. Was it only the

savour of the incense or was it something of larger intention? He
had at any rate quitted the great grey suburb and come nearer to

the warm centre. He presently ceased to feel intrusive, gaining at
last even a sense of community with the only worshipper in his

neighbourhood, the sombre presence of a woman, in mourning
unrelieved, whose back was all he could see of her and who had sunk

deep into prayer at no great distance from him. He wished he could
sink, like her, to the very bottom, be as motionless, as rapt in

prostration. After a few moments he shifted his seat; it was
almost indelicate to be so aware of her. But Stransom subsequently

quite lost himself, floating away on the sea of light. If
occasions like this had been more frequent in his life he would

have had more present the great original type, set up in a myriad
temples, of the unapproachable shrine he had erected in his mind.

That shrine had begun in vague likeness to church pomps, but the
echo had ended by growing more distinct than the sound. The sound

now rang out, the type blazed at him with all its fires and with a
mystery of radiance in which endless meanings could glow. The

thing became as he sat there his appropriate altar and each starry
candle an appropriate vow. He numbered them, named them, grouped

them - it was the silent roll-call of his Dead. They made together
a brightness vast and intense, a brightness in which the mere

chapel of his thoughts grew so dim that as it faded away he asked
himself if he shouldn't find his real comfort in some material act,

some outwardworship.
This idea took possession of him while, at a distance, the black-

robed lady continued prostrate; he was quietly thrilled with his
conception, which at last brought him to his feet in the sudden

excitement of a plan. He wandered softly through the aisles,
pausing in the different chapels, all save one applied to a special

devotion. It was in this clear recess, lampless and unapplied,
that he stood longest - the length of time it took him fully to

grasp the conception of gilding it with his bounty. He should
snatch it from no other rites and associate it with nothing

profane; he would simply take it as it should be given up to him
and make it a masterpiece of splendour and a mountain of fire.

Tended sacredly all the year, with the sanctifying church round it,
it would always be ready for his offices. There would be

difficulties, but from the first they presented themselves only as
difficulties surmounted. Even for a person so little affiliated

the thing would be a matter of arrangement. He saw it all in
advance, and how bright in especial the place would become to him

in the intermissions of toil and the dusk of afternoons; how rich
in assurance at all times, but especially in the indifferent world.

Before withdrawing he drew nearer again to the spot where he had
first sat down, and in the movement he met the lady whom he had

seen praying and who was now on her way to the door. She passed
him quickly, and he had only a glimpse of her pale face and her

unconscious, almost sightless eyes. For that instant she looked
faded and handsome.

This was the origin of the rites more public, yet certainly
esoteric, that he at last found himself able to establish. It took

a long time, it took a year, and both the process and the result
would have been - for any who knew - a vivid picture of his good

faith. No one did know, in fact - no one but the bland
ecclesiastics whose acquaintance he had promptly sought, whose

objections he had softly overridden, whose curiosity and sympathy
he had artfully charmed, whose assent to his eccentric munificence

he had eventually won, and who had asked for concessions in
exchange for indulgences. Stransom had of course at an early stage

of his enquiry been referred to the Bishop, and the Bishop had been
delightfully human, the Bishop had been almost amused. Success was

within sight, at any rate from the moment the attitude of those
whom it concerned became liberal in response to liberality. The

altar and the sacred shell that half encircled it, consecrated to
an ostensible and customaryworship, were to be splendidly

maintained; all that Stransom reserved to himself was the number of
his lights and the free enjoyment of his intention. When the

intention had taken complete effect the enjoyment became even
greater than he had ventured to hope. He liked to think of this

effect when far from it, liked to convince himself of it yet again
when near. He was not often indeed so near as that a visit to it

hadn't perforce something of the patience of a pilgrimage; but the
time he gave to his devotion came to seem to him more a

contribution to his other interests than a betrayal of them. Even
a loaded life might be easier when one had added a new necessity to

it.
How much easier was probably never guessed by those who simply knew

there were hours when he disappeared and for many of whom there was
a vulgarreading of what they used to call his plunges. These

plunges were into depths quieter than the deep sea-caves, and the
habit had at the end of a year or two become the one it would have

cost him most to relinquish. Now they had really, his Dead,
something that was indefensibly theirs; and he liked to think that

they might in cases be the Dead of others, as well as that the Dead
of others might be invoked there under the protection of what he

had done. Whoever bent a knee on the carpet he had laid down
appeared to him to act in the spirit of his intention. Each of his