Once during his reply to Drake—and he had not mentioned this to Barnes—Jesus had looked straight across the table at him, and Carter knew that Jesus meant to tell him by that look that practically all he was saying to Drake applied equally to him and to every other self-centered soul at that table that night.

And Carter knew down in his soul, as he was fascinated regarding that marvelous dissecting revelation of himself in the manuscript Jesus had left with him, that he was guilty of all that it contained. That his life had been nothing but a self-satisfied hypocrisy. That he had existed to squeeze the orange of the world for his own gratification. That he had worshipped his paper for the power and the money it brought to him. And that he would never again be at peace in mind or body or heart until he settled the question of this mastery of the Person over his soul.

It must have been two hours later that Barnes in the reporters’ room was startled by Carter’s voice calling him. “Come up. I want to see you.”

Barnes rushed upstairs two steps at a time.

Carter was standing at his desk. The look on his face was inscrutable. “I’m going back to New York on Number Six. I want to tell you what I don’t want others to know I’m going to see.”

“Him?”

“Yes.”

“Thank God.”

“I don’t yet know what for. I know only that I’ve got to go. I’ve just got to go.”

“Mr. Carter, do you want—”

“No,” Carter said almost fiercely. “I don’t want your company, or your advice. I’m going on my own account. I don’t care what comes to the paper, let it go to the devil.” He turned back to his desk, picked up the manuscript, and put it in his pocket. Then he turned around and eyed Barnes. “Either I’ll come back a Christian, or . . .”

He strode past Barnes and out into the office, where he left directions to be followed during his absence.

The Number Six Limited carried Jasper Carter back to New York, and every minute that brought him nearer that figure of the Man was filled with upheaval of his soul, buffeted in the age-long struggle of obedience or disobedience to the rule of the divine.

The night woman on the stairs at the Plaza was deathly weary. She sat on the stair while Jesus, all unknown to her, completed her task. The woman’s body was so exhausted by illness, and her mind so stunned or deadened by misfortune and trouble, that not even the astonishing offer of this well-dressed man to help her could astonish her.