And the sleeper was filled with what seemed to him fresh evidence that God is not! It was, indeed, a real physical sensation, a chill creeping over all his limbs, moving slowly to the heart.

He began to tremble violently, and awoke.
Mayda was bending over him, the thermometer in his hand.

Benedetto murmured, with straining eyes: "Father!--Father!--Father!" The sister suggested, "Our Father who art in Heaven," and would have gone on in her unfortunately colourless voice, had not the Professor checked her sharply.

He applied the thermometer to Benedetto, who hardly noticed what was being done.

He was absorbed in the effort to detach from his innermost self the images of those tempting figures, and of their horrible words; in the effort to cast himself, soul and conscience, upon the Father's breast, to cling to Him with his whole being, to lose himself in the Father.