At that moment Geoffrey Bingham, in the last agony of doubt, would gladly have exchanged his hopes of life beyond for a certainty of eternal sleep.

That faith which enables some of us to tread this awful way with an utter confidence is not a wide prerogative, and, as yet, at any rate, it was not his, though the time might come when he would attain it.

There are not very many, even among those without reproach, who can lay them down in the arms of Death, knowing most certainly that when the veil is rent away the countenance that they shall see will be that of the blessed Guardian of Mankind.

Alas! he could not be altogether sure, and where doubt exists, hope is but a pin-pricked bladder.

He sighed heavily, murmured a little formula of prayer that had been on his lips most nights during thirty years--he had learnt it as a child at his mother's knee--and then, while the tempest roared around him, gathered up his strength to meet the end which seemed inevitable.
At any rate he would die like a man.
Then came a reaction.