His days were spent in unsatisfactory work among crowded and poverty-stricken human creatures before whom he felt helpless because he was an unpractical old Oxford bookworm.

He read such services as he held in his dim church, to empty pews and echoing hollowness.

He was nevertheless a deeply thinking man who was a gentleman of a scarcely remembered school; he was a peculiarly silent man and of dignified understanding.

Through the long years he had existed in detached seclusion in his corner of his world around which great London roared and swept almost unheard by him in his remoteness.
When the visitor's card was brought to him where he sat in his dingy, book-packed study, he stood--after he had told his servant to announce the caller--gazing dreamily at the name upon the white surface.

It was a stately name and brought back vague memories.