The Dweller on the Threshold by Robert Hichens

When Evelyn Malling, notorious because of his sustained interest in / Psychical Research and his work for Professor Stepton, first met the / Rev. Marcus Harding, that well-known clergyman was still in the full / flow of his many activities. He had been translated from his labors in / Liverpool to a West End church in London. There he had proved hitherto / an astonishing success. On Hospital Sundays the total sums collected / from his flock were by far the largest that came from the pockets of / any congregation in London. The music in St. Joseph's was allowed by / connoisseurs, who knew their Elgar as well as their Goss, their Perosi / as well as their Bach, and their Wesley, to be remarkable. Critical / persons, mostly men, who sat on the fence between Orthodoxy and Atheism, / thought highly of Mr. Harding's sermons, and even sometimes came down / on his side. And, of all signs surely the most promising for a West End / clergyman's success, smart people flocked to him to be married, and Arum / lilies were perpetually being carried in and out of his chancel, which / was adorned with Morris windows. He was married to a woman who managed / to be admirable without being dull, Lady Sophia, daughter of the late / Earl of Mansford, and sister of the present peer. He was comfortably off. / His health as a rule was good, though occasionally he suffered from some / obscure form of dyspepsia. And he was still comparatively young, just / forty-eight.

Nevertheless, as Evelyn Malling immediately perceived, Mr. Harding was / not a happy man.