Back The Inside of the Cup
Chapters (40)
  1. THE INSIDE OF THE CUP
  2. *
  3. Contents
  4. VOLUME 1
  5. Chapter I - The Waring Problems
  6. Chapter II - Mr. Langmaid's Mission
  7. Chapter III - The Primrose Path
  8. Chapter IV - Some Riddles of the Twentieth Century
  9. VOLUME 2
  10. Chapter V - The Rector Has More Food for Thought
  11. Chapter VI - "Watchman, What of the Night?"
  12. Chapter VII - The Kingdoms of the World
  13. Chapter VIII - The Line of Least Resistance
  14. VOLUME 3
  15. Chapter IX - The Divine Discontent
  16. Chapter X - The Messenger in the Church
  17. Chapter XI - The Lost Parishioner
  18. Chapter XII - The Woman of the Song
  19. VOLUME 4
  20. Chapter XIII - Winterbourne
  21. Chapter XIV - A Saturday Afternoon
  22. Chapter XV - The Crucible
  23. Chapter XVI - Amid the Encircling Gloom
  24. VOLUME 5
  25. Chapter XVII - Reconstruction
  26. Chapter XVIII - The Riddle of Causation
  27. Chapter XIX - Mr. Goodrich Becomes a Partisan
  28. VOLUME 6
  29. Chapter XX - The Arraignment
  30. Chapter XXI - Alison Goes to Church
  31. Chapter XXII - "Which Say to the Seers, See Not"
  32. VOLUME 7
  33. Chapter XXIII - The Choice
  34. Chapter XXIV - The Vestry Meets
  35. Chapter XXV - "Rise, Crowned with Light!"
  36. Chapter XXVI - The Current of Life
  37. VOLUME 8
  38. Chapter XXVII - Retribution
  39. Chapter XXVIII - Light
  40. Afterword

"I see the bishop to-morrow. I have no idea what position he will take. But even if he should decide not to recommend me for trial many difficult problems still remain to be solved."

"I know. It's fine," she continued, after a moment, "the way you are going ahead as if there were no question of your not remaining; and getting all those people into the church and influencing them as you did when they had come for all sorts of reasons. Do you remember, the first time I met you, I told you I could not think of you as a clergyman. I cannot now—less than ever."

"What do you think of me as?" he asked.

"I don't know," she considered. "You are unlike any person I have ever known. It is curious that I cannot now even think of St. John's as a church. You have transformed it into something that seems new. I'm afraid I can't describe what I mean, but you have opened it up, let in the fresh air, rid it of the musty and deadening atmosphere which I have always associated with churches. I wanted to see you, before I went away," she went on steadily, "and when Eleanor mentioned that you were coming to her house to-night, I asked her to invite me. Do you think me shameless?"

The emphasis of his gesture was sufficient. He could not trust himself to speak.

"Writing seemed so unsatisfactory, after what you had done for me, and I never can express myself in writing. I seem to congeal."

"After what I have done for you!" he exclaimed: "What can I have done?"

"You have done more than you know," she answered, in a low voice. "More, I think, than I know. How are such things to be measured, put into words? You have effected some change in me which defies analysis, a change of attitude,—to attempt to dogmatize it would ruin it. I prefer to leave it undefined—not even to call it an acquisition of faith. I have faith," she said, simply, "in what you have become, and which has made you dare, superbly, to cast everything away... It is that, more than anything you have said. What you are."

For the instant he lost control of himself.

"What you are," he replied. "Do you realize—can you ever realize what your faith in me has been to me?"

She appeared to ignore this.

"I did not mean to say that you have not made many things clear, which once were obscure, as I wrote you. You have convinced me that true belief, for instance, is the hardest thing in the world, the denial of practically all these people, who profess to believe, represent. The majority of them insist that humanity is not to be trusted..."

They had reached, in an incredibly brief time, the corner of Park Street.