heart, consumed with grief, but burning more fiercely with the flame of his anguish than the fires of brushwood upon the ridge.
But here the voice of his conscience spoke:
"It is their faith that they are celebrating. They are glorifying God in thee and thou hast no right to thrust thyself and thy wretchedness between them and God."
But from deeper still within him another voice made itself heard:
"It is not that. It is because thou art base and vile and art afraid of suffering, of burning in very truth."
And the nearer they came to the village and the men, the more abased did Paul feel. As the leaping flames fought with the shadows on the hill-side so light and darkness seemed to fight in his conscience, and he did not know what to do. He remembered his first arrival in the village years ago, with his mother following him anxiously as she had followed the first steps of his infancy.
"And I have fallen in her sight," he groaned.
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