The misery of his loneliness took hold of Toyner till it almost felt like despair.

Who was he, unlearned, very sinful, even now shaken with the palsy of recent excess--who was he to bandy words with a holy man?
All words that came from his own lips that hour seemed to him horribly profane.

The new idea that possessed him was what he lived by, and yet alone with it he did not gather strength from it to walk upright.
"The father tempted the prodigal," he said, "when he gave him the substance to waste with sinners.

Did the father sin?
The time had come when nothing but temptation--yes, and sin too--could save.

Most things, sir, that you hold about God I can hold too.