He
felt himself humiliated and defeated.
Ashe and Lady Tranmore took leave of him with an extreme gentleness and
affection. He would almost rather they had treated him ill. Yes, he was
an optimist and a dreamer!--one who had, indeed, never grappled in his
own person with the worst poisons and corrosions of the soul. Yet still,
as he passed along the London streets--marked here and there by the
newspaper placards which announced Ashe's committee triumphs of the
night before--he was haunted anew by the immortal words:
"One thing thou lackest," ... and "Come, follow me!"
* * * * *
Ah!--could he have done such a thing himself? or was he merely the
scribe carelessly binding on other men's shoulders things grievous to be
borne? The answering passion of his faith mounted within him--joined
with a scorn for the easy conditions and happy, scholarly pursuits of
his own life, and a thirst which in the early days of Christendom would
have been a thirst for witness and for martyrdom.
* * * * *
Three days later the Dean--a somewhat shrunken and diminished figure, in
ordinary clerical dress, without the buckles and silk stockings that
typically belonged to him--stood once more at the entrance of a small
villa outside the Venetian town of Treviso.
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