The tremulous, crying voice, the rapt, fanatical face, and the beseeching attitude struck a bizarre note in the comfortable and worldly room.

Supported on either side by Jane, helpless and anxious, and Barney Bill, crooked, wrinkled, with his close-cropped white hair and little liquid diamond eyes, still nervously tearing his hat-brim, he looked almost grotesque.

To Paul he seemed less a man than a creation of another planet, with unknown and incalculable instincts and impulses, who had come to earth and with foolish hand had wiped out the meaning of existence.

Yet he felt no resentment, but rather a weary pity for the stranger blundering through an unsympathetic world.

As soon as there came a pause in the prayer, he said not ungently: "The Almighty is not going to use me as an instrument to punish you, if I can help it.