The day chimed with his mood, and he told himself very
honestly that none could gaze upon this outspread world
and believe that it represented but a display of natural laws,
a casual compact of heat and light and substance, a chance
conglobation of matter whirling beautifully about the sun's
throne at the moment of summer solstice.
The light of noon shone over the world. Cloud shadows



S12 THE WHIRLWIND

flew along the silvery planes of the < earth's surface, and life
teemed in a myriad shapes even to the pinnacles of the land.
Day herself scarcely died now, and night was a shadow rather
than a darkness. Even in the midnight watches, light, like a
ghost, stole under the stars and behind the northern hills until
day returned. So spirits might haunt the nether gloom, he
fancied, and vanish again upon the advent of morning.
To Woodrow, gazing upon the Jime world, it seemed that
he was the only faulty thing in the visible universe; and he
longed to cast his slough and also be without fault*



THE FRUIT OF FAITH

MATTERS fell out much as Hilary Woodrow de-
sired. He returned to Dawlish in October, and
soon afterwards Brendon brought his wife and
child to the sea and himself spent a week there.
His master and he took long walks together among the
Haldon hills, and Daniel learnt with enormous satisfaction
that the other had of late experienced great changes of spirit.
The big man gloried in this fact from a personal point of
view, becaused it appeared to justify his immense faith in
prayer. He had petitioned Heaven for Hilary Woodrow; and
here dawned the answer. Daniel doubted not that this was
the beginning of a larger and deeper conversion. He urged
Woodrow to go farther.
