That scene in the old Meetinghouse swam before his eyes, got into his brain.

He remembered the words of his own prayer, and how he had then retreated upon the Power that gave him power, for a draught of the one true tincture which braced the heart to throw itself upon the spears of trial.

Now the trial had come, and that which was in him as deep as being, the habit of youth, the mother-fibre and predisposition, responded to the draught he had drunk then.

As a body freed from the quivering, unrelenting grasp of an electric battery subsides into a cool quiet, so, through his veins seemed to pass an ether which stilled the tumult, the dark desire to drink the potion in his hand, and escape into that irresponsible, artificial world, where he had before loosened his hold on activity.
The phial slipped from his fingers to the floor.

He sank upon the side of the bed, and, placing his hands on his knees, he whispered a few broken words that none on earth was meant to hear.