His agony was that it was too late now. He would die without ever knowing. If he had taken the wrong turning, it could not be undone now. And she had gone on and on all these years, wasting herself and all she had to give prodigally and without restraint. Perhaps in the eyes of God he had committed the greatest of sins. If God and Nature were one, he was the greatest of sinners. The Church taught otherwise, but the Church, the Church. . . . The Church had far less in common with God than Nature had. As it grew older, the Church seemed to have less and less. For forty years he had been serving the Church like an honest servant, no more, no less. For forty years he had been atoning for the first sin, and surely by now he had atoned. Had he not brought souls to God? Souls to God? The phrase echoed bitterly inside his head like a phrase spoken aloud in an empty room. Souls to God. Souls who had wanted to come to God because they were worldly or because they were afraid of life and needed to believe in a pretty story that was considered holy and could not be denied. And at the end there was always Heaven, not a fine, noble, splendid Heaven, but a Paradise like the Primitives', filled with pink and blue angels and God in a blue robe. He had brought souls to God, but not his own soul. It was still the same as it had been at seventeen before he had known anything of life, a little more placid, perhaps, and more resigned, but not much different. Sixty years of life had not proven anything. He was no nearer the mystery now than he had ever been. Sometimes he fancied that God
