Eagerly, with the confident resolution of a child, he told his news to the leaders of the Chapel, Thurston, Miss Avies, and one or two others.Then a special meeting of the Inside Saints was called and, in the simplest language, he described exactly what had occurred.He did not at first perceive the effect that his news had.Then, dimly, through the mist of his prayers and ecstasies, he realised that his message had created confusion.There was in the first place the question as to whether the whole congregation should be told.He found that he could not decide about this, and when he left the judgment to Thurston, Thurston told him that, in his opinion, "the less that they knew about it the better." It was then that the first suspicion came to him as to whether some of the Saints "doubted." He questioned Thurston as to the effect of this message upon the Saints.Thurston explained to him that "many of them had been very troubled.They had not expected It to come so soon." Thurston explained that they were, after all, only poor human clay like the rest of mankind, and to prepare for a Second Coming in general, something that might descend upon the world, say, in a hundred years' time, was very different from a Judgment that might be expected, definitely, in about three weeks.One or two of them, in fact, had left the Chapel.Others begged for some clearer direction:
"Give it them a bit more clearly, Master.Tell 'em a few facts what the Lord God looked like and 'ow He spoke and in what kind of way He was coming.Supposing He wasn't to come after all..."It was then that the trouble that had been smouldering for so long between Thurston and the Master burst into flame.For half an hour the Master lost his temper like an ordinary human being.Thurston said very little but listened with a quiet and sarcastic smile.Then he went away.Warlock was left in a torment of doubt and misery.
That night he was in his room, until the dawn, on his knees, wrestling with God.He accused himself because, during these latter months, he had removed himself from human contact with his congregation.He had been so intent upon God that he had forgotten his flock.Now he hardly knew how to approach them.The thought of a personal interview with the Miss Cardinals, or Miss Pyncheon, or Mr.
Smith filled him with a strange shy terror.He seemed to have nothing more to say to them, and he blamed himself bitterly because he had been intent upon his own salvation rather than theirs.
Thurston's words sent him groping back through the details of the visions.And there were no details.For himself there had been enough in the light, the ecstasy, the contact, but these others who had not themselves felt this, nor seen its glory, demanded more.
He began then, in an agony of distress, to question himself as to whether he had not dreamt his visions.He wrestled with God, beseeching Him to come again and give him a clearer message.Night after night passed and he waited for some further vision, but nothing was granted him.Then he thought that perhaps he himself was now cursed for leaving God.God had come to him and revealed Himself to him in unmistakable signs, and yet he was doubting Him and demanding further help.
As the weeks passed he perceived more and more clearly that there was every kind of division and trouble in the Chapel.Many members left and wrote to him telling him why they had done so.In his own household he felt that Amy no longer gave him any confidence.She attended to him more carefully than before, watched over him as though he were a baby, but made no allusion to the services or the Chapel or any meeting.He seemed, as the weeks passed, to be lonelier and lonelier, and he looked upon this as punishment for his own earlier selfishness.He was pulled then two ways.On the one hand it seemed to him that he would only hear God's full message if he withdrew further and further from the world, on the other he felt that he was letting his followers slip away from him now at the very moment when he should be closest to them, advising, helping, encouraging.This divided impulse was a torture, and as the weeks went on he ate less and less and slept scarcely at all.He had been for a long time past in delicate health owing to the weakness of his heart, and now he began to look strange indeed, with his bright gaunt face with its prominent cheek-bones, his eyes straining to see beyond his actual vision, his flowing white beard.His doctor, a cheerful, commonplace little man, a member of the Chapel, although not a Saint, tried to do his best with him, but his visits only led to scenes of irritation, and Warlock obeyed none of his commands.
After a visit on the afternoon of Christmas Eve he took Amy aside:
"Look here," he said, "unless you keep a stricter eye on your father than you have been doing he'll be leaving you altogether."She looked up at him with that odd dark impassivity that seemed to remove her so deliberately from her fellow-beings.
"It's very well to talk like that," she said."But how is any one to have any control over him? He listens to nothing that we say, and if we insist he's in a frenzy of irritation.""Can your mother do nothing?" the doctor asked.
"Mother?" Amy smiled."No, mother can do nothing.""Well," said the doctor, "any sudden shock will kill him--I warn you."When the fog came down upon the city Warlock was already in too thick a fog of his own to perceive it.
