Page:The One Woman (1903).pdf/39

 before, I heard the rush of its half-crazed millions, its crash and roar, saw its fierce brutality, its lust, its cruelty, its senseless scramble for pleasure, its indifference to truth, its millions of to-day but a symbol of the millions gone before and the trampling millions to come, and I felt I was a failure. I felt that I was pitching straws against a hurricane, only to find them blown back into my face. I came down out of that pulpit with the weariness of a thousand years crushing my tired body and soul, feeling that I could never speak again, or struggle against the tide any more—that I was broken, bruised and done for all time, and I came home feeling so"

He paused a moment and a sigh caught his voice. His wife's face had softened and a tear was quivering on her long eyelashes.

"I came home thus worn out to-night hoping for a word of cheer, yet knowing it would be days before I could recover from the sheer nerve-agony I had endured. What a reception you have given me! And for what? A beautiful woman stopped to tell me my message had not been in vain, that it had made for her a light on life's way, and that the prayers in which I had tried to realise as my own, the people's thoughts and hopes and fears had been a revelation to her, and because I smiled"

His wife was again staring at him with the glitter of jealousy. He saw it and ceased to speak.