TWO:On this particular Sunday morning, he had not gone to Cathedral service at all, but after his wife and Alice had set forth in the victoria to St Thomas��s, had walked out westwards along the road from The Cedars, to where half a mile away the last house was left behind and the billowing downs rolled away in open sea out of sight of the land of houses. In the main it was the sense of spring with its intimate stirrings that called him out, and the adventure was a remarkable one, for it was years since he had failed to attend Sunday morning service. But to-day he sought no stern omnipotent Presence, which his religion told him must be invoked among arches and altars: he{231} sought maybe the same, under the guise of a smiling face, in windy temples. It was not that he consciously sought it: as far as any formulated expression went, he would have said that he ��chose�� to go for a walk in the country, and would attend Cathedral service in the evening as usual. But as he walked he wondered whether Norah would come to The Cedars that morning to work in his library. He had not the slightest intention, however reserved and veiled from himself, of going back there to see; he meant to walk until his wife and daughter would certainly be back from church again, though probably this was among the last two or three mornings that Norah would come to The Cedars at all, for the catalogue was on the point of completion.The Dutch were great traders in the East Indies, and they managed to obtain a footing in Japan during the time of the Portuguese success. They received a concession of the island of Deshima, about six hundred feet square, in the harbor of Nagasaki, and here they lived until our day. When the troubles arose that led to the expulsion of foreigners and the extinction of Christianity, the Dutch were excepted from the operations of the edict, as it could not be shown that they had had any part in the conspiracy. They had been too busy with their commerce to meddle in religious matters; and, if history is true, it is probable that they hadn't religion enough in their small colony at Deshima to go around and give a perceptible quantity to each man.