"I've always thought so.

That speech of his about slavery showed it." He put down the book with an emphasis which argued ill for his opinion of a man who could study such words, and began to pace up and down the room like some caged animal, glancing once with a smothered exclamation at the old leather-covered volume, which had fallen upon the floor; he even gave it a furtive kick, as he passed.
He was so occupied with his own thoughts, he did not see John Ward come up the garden path and enter the parsonage, and when, a moment afterwards, the preacher came into the room, Dr.Howe started at the change in him.

These weeks of spiritual conflict had left their mark upon him.

His eyes had a strained look which was almost terror, and his firm, gentle lips were set in a line of silent and patient pain.

Yet a certain brightness rested upon his face, which for a moment hid its pallor.
Through fear, and darkness, and grief, through an extraordinary misconception and strange blindness of the soul, John Ward had come, in his complete abnegation of himself, close to God.