THE CASE OF RICHARD MEYNELL

 BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD

 1911

TO THE MEMORY OF A BELOVED CHILD

A FOREWORD

May I ask those of my American readers who are not intimately acquaintedwith the conditions of English rural and religious life to remember thatthe dominant factor in it--the factor on which the story of RichardMeynell depends--is the existence of the State Church, of the greatecclesiastical corporation, the direct heir of the pre-ReformationChurch, which owns the cathedrals and the parish churches, whichby right of law speaks for the nation on all national occasions, whichcrowns and marries and buries the Kings of England, and, through herbishops in the House of Lords, exercises a constant and importantinfluence on the lawmaking of the country? This Church possesses half theelementary schools, and is the legal religion of the great public schoolswhich shape the ruling upper class. She is surrounded with the prestigeof centuries, and it is probable that in many directions she was never soactive or so well served by her members as she is at present. 

At the same time, there are great forces of change ahead. Outside theAnglican Church stands quite half the nation, gathered in the variousnon-conformist bodies--Wesleyan, Congregational, Baptist, Presbyterian, and so on. Between them and the Church exists a perpetual warfare, partly of opinion, partly of social difference and jealousy. In everyvillage and small town this warfare exists. The non-conformist desires todeprive the Church of her worldly and political privileges; the churchmantalks of the sin of schism, or draws up schemes of reunion which dropstill-born. Meanwhile, alike in the Church, in non-conformity, and in theneutral world which owes formal allegiance to neither, vast movements ofthought have developed in the last hundred years, years as pregnant withthe germs of new life as the wonderful hundred years that followed thebirth of Christ. Whether the old bottles can be adjusted to the new wine, whether further division or a new Christian unity is to emerge from thestrife of tongues, whether the ideas of modernism; rife in all forms ofChristianity, can be accommodated to the ancient practices and given ashare in the great material possessions of a State Church; how individuallives are affected in the passionate struggle of spiritual faiths andpractical interests involved in such an attempt; how conscience may beenriched by its success or sterilized by its failure; how the fightitself, ably waged, may strengthen the spiritual elements, the power ofliving and suffering in men and women--it is with such themes that thisstory attempts to deal. Twenty-two years ago I tried a similar subject in"Robert Elsmere. " Since then the movement of ideas in religion andphilosophy has been increasingly rapid and fruitful. I am deeplyconscious how little I may be able to express it. But those who twentyyears ago welcomed the earlier book--and how can I ever forget itsreception in America!--may perhaps be drawn once again to some of the oldthemes in their new dress. 

MARY A. WARD

ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHARLES E. BROCK

"'My dear fellow! No woman ought to marry under nineteen or twenty'"

The Rectory

"Meynell, as he hesitatingly advanced, became the spectator of a scenenot intended for his eyes"

"He shook hands with the Dean"

"'I wonder whether she's ever had any real joy--a week's--aday's--happiness--in her life?'"

"The old shepherd looked after her doubtfully"

BOOK I

MEYNELL

"Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bearThe longest date do melt like frosty rime, That in the morning whitened hill and plainAnd is no more; drop like the tower sublimeOf yesterday, which royally did wearHis crown of weeds, but could not even sustainSome casual shout that broke the silent air, Or the unimaginable touch of Time. "

CHAPTER I

"Hullo, Preston! don't trouble to go in. "

The postman, just guiding his bicycle into the Rectory drive, turned atthe summons and dismounted. The Rector approached him from the road, andthe postman, diving into his letter-bag and into the box of his bicycle, brought out a variety of letters and packages, which he placed in theRector's hands. 

The recipient smiled. 

"My word, what a post! I say, Preston, I add to your burdens prettyconsiderably. "

"It don't matter, sir, I'm sure, " said the postman civilly. "There's nota deal of letters delivered in this village. "

"No, we don't trouble pen and ink much in Upcote, " said the Rector; "andit's my belief that half the boys and girls that do learn to read andwrite at school make a point of forgetting it as soon as they can--forall practical purposes, anyway. "

"Well, there's a deal of newspapers read now, sir, compared to what therewas. "

"Newspapers? Yes, I do see a _Reynolds_ or a _People_ or two about onSunday. Do you think anybody reads much else than the betting and thepolice news, eh, Preston?"

Preston looked a little vacant. His expression seemed to say, "And whyshould they?" The Rector, with his arms full of the post, smiled againand turned away, looking back, however, to say:

"Wife all right again?"

"Pretty near, sir; but she's had an awful bad time, and the doctor--hemakes her go careful. "

"Quite right. Has Miss Puttenham been looking after her?"

"She's been most kind, sir, most attentive, she have, " said the postmanwarmly, his long hatchet face breaking into animation. 

"Lucky for you!" said the Rector, walking away. "When she cuts in, she'sworth a regiment of doctors. Good-day!"

The speaker passed on through the gate of the Rectory, pausing as he didso with a rueful look at the iron gate itself, which was off its hingesand sorely in want of a coat of new paint. 

"Disgraceful!" he said to himself; "must have a go at it to-morrow. Andat the garden, too, " he added, looking round him. "Never saw such awilderness!"

[Illustration: The Rectory]

He was advancing toward a small gabled house of an Early Victorian type, built about 1840 by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners on the site of anold clergy house, of which all traces had been ruthlessly effaced. Thefront garden lying before it was a tangle of old and for the most partugly trees; elms from which heavy, decayed branches had recently fallen;acacias choked by the ivy which had overgrown them; and a crowdedthicket of thorns and hazels, mingled with three or four large andvigorous though very ancient yews, which seemed to have drunk up forthemselves all that life from the soil which should have gone to maintainthe ragged or sickly shrubbery. The trees also had gradually encroachedupon the house, and darkened all the windows on the porch side. On asummer afternoon, the deep shade they made was welcome enough; but on arainy day the Rector's front-garden, with its coarse grass, its fewstraggling rose-bushes, and its pushing throng of half-dead or funerealtrees, shed a dank and dripping gloom upon the visitor approaching hisfront door. Of this, however, the Rector himself was rarely conscious;and to-day, as he with difficulty gathered all the letters and packetstaken from the postman into one hand, while he opened his front door withthe other, his face showed that the state of his garden had alreadyceased to trouble him. 

He had no sooner turned the handle of the door than a joyous uproar ofdogs arose within, and before he had well stepped over the threshold aleaping trio were upon him--two Irish terriers and a graceful youngcollie, whose rough caresses nearly made him drop his letters. 

"Down, Jack! Be quiet, you rascals! I say--Anne!"

A woman's voice answered his call. 

"I'm just bringing the tea, sir. "

"Any letter for me this afternoon?"

"There's a note on the hall-table, sir. "

The Rector hurried into the sitting-room to the right of the hall, deposited the letters and packets which he held on a small, tumble-downsofa already littered with books and papers, and returned to thehall-table for the letter. He tore it open, read it with slightlyfrowning brows and a mouth that worked unconsciously, then thrust it intohis pocket and returned to his sitting-room. 

"All right!" he said to himself. "He's got an odd list of 'aggrievedparishioners!'"

The tidings, however, which the letter contained did not seem to distresshim. On the contrary, his aspect expressed a singular and cheerfulenergy, as he sat a few moments on the sofa, softly whistling to himselfand staring at the floor. That he was a person extravagantly beloved byhis dogs was clearly shown meanwhile by the exuberant attentions andcaresses with which they were now loading him. 

He shook them off at last with a friendly kick or two, that he might turnto his letters, which he sorted and turned over, much as an epicurestudies his _menu_ at the Ritz, and with an equally keen sense ofpleasure to come. 

A letter from Jena, and another from Berlin, addressed in small Germanhandwriting and signed by names familiar to students throughout theworld; two or three German reviews, copies of the _Revue Critique_ andthe _Revue Chrétienne_, a book by Solomon Reinach, and three or fourFrench letters, one of them shown by the cross preceding the signature tobe the letter of a bishop; a long letter from Oxford, enclosing the proofof an article in a theological review; and, finally, a letter sealed withred wax and signed "F. Marcoburg" in a corner of the envelope, which theRector twirled in his hands a moment without opening. 

"After tea, " he said at last, with the sudden breaking of a smile. And heput it on the sofa beside him. 

As he spoke the door opened to admit his housekeeper with the tray, to the accompaniment of another orgie of barks. A stout woman in asun-bonnet, with a broad face and no features to speak of, entered. 

"I'll be bound you've had no dinner, " she said sulkily, as she placed thetea before him on a chair cleared with difficulty from some of thestudent's litter that filled the room. 

"All the more reason for tea, " said Meynell, seizing thirstily on theteapot. "And you're quite mistaken, Anne. I had a magnificent bath-bun atthe station. "

"Much good you'll get out of that!" was the scornful reply. "You knowwhat Doctor Shaw told you about that sort o' goin' on. "

"Never you mind, Anne. What about that painter chap?"

"Gone home for the week-end. " Mrs. Wellin retreated a foot or two andcrossed her arms, bare to the elbow, in front of her. 

The Rector stared. 

"I thought I had taken him on by the week to paint my house, " he said atlast. 

"So you did. But he said he must see his missus and hear how his littlegirl had done in her music exam. "

Mrs. Wellin delivered this piece of news very fast and with evidentgusto. It might have been thought she enjoyed inflicting it on hermaster. 

The Rector laughed out. 

"And this was a man sent me a week ago by the Birmingham DistressCommittee--nine weeks out of work--family in the workhouse--everything upthe spout. Goodness gracious, Anne, how did he get the money? Returnfare, Birmingham, three-and-ten. "

"Don't ask me, sir, " said the woman in the sun-bonnet. "I don't go pryin'into such trash!"

"Is he coming back? Is my house to be painted?" asked the Rectorhelplessly. 

"Thought he might, " said Anne, briefly. 

"How kind of him! Music exam! Lord save us! And three-and-ten thrown intothe gutter on a week-end ticket--with seven children to keep--and allyour possessions gone to 'my uncle. ' And it isn't as though you'd beenstarving him, Anne!"

"I wish I hadn't dinnered him as I have been doin'!" the woman broke out. "But he'll know the difference next week! And now, sir, I suppose you'llbe goin' to that place again to-night?"

Anne jerked her thumb behind her over her left shoulder. 

"Suppose so, Anne. Can't afford a night-nurse, and the wife won't lookafter him. "

"Why don't some one make her?" said Anne, frowning. 

The Rector's face changed. 

"Better not talk about it, Anne. When a woman's been in hell for years, you needn't expect her to come out an angel. She won't forgive him, andshe won't nurse him--that's flat. "

"No reason why she should shovel him off on other people as wants theirnight's rest. It's takin' advantage--that's what it is. "

"I say, Anne, I must read my letters. And just light me a bit of fire, there's a good woman. July!--ugh!--it might be February!"

In a few minutes a bit of fire was blazing in the grate, though thewindows were still wide open, and the Rector, who had had a long journeythat day to take a funeral for a friend, lay back in sybaritic ease, nowsipping his tea and now cutting open letters and parcels. The lettersigned "F. Marcoburg" in the corner had been placed, still unopened, onthe mantelpiece now facing him. 

The Rector looked at it from time to time; it might have been said by aclose observer that he never forgot it; but, all the same, he went ondipping into books and reviews, or puzzling--with muttered imprecationson the German tongue--over some of his letters. 

"By Jove! this apocalyptic Messianic business is getting interesting. Soon we shall know where all the Pauline ideas came from--every singleone of them! And what matter? Who's the worse? Is it any less wonderfulwhen we do know? The new wine found its bottles ready--that's all. "

As he sat there he had the aspect of a man enjoying apparently thecomfort of his own fireside. Yet, now that the face was at rest, certaincavernous hollows under the eyes, and certain lines on the forehead andat the corners of the mouth, as though graven by some long fatigue, showed themselves disfiguringly. The personality, however, on which thisfatigue had stamped itself was clearly one of remarkable vigour, physicaland mental. A massive head covered with strong black hair, curly at thebrows; eyes grayish-blue, small, with some shade of expression in themwhich made them arresting, commanding, even; a large nose and irregularmouth, the lips flexible and kind, the chin firm--one might have madesome such catalogue of Meynell's characteristics; adding to them thestrength of a broad-chested, loose-limbed frame, made rather, one wouldhave thought, for country labours than for the vigils of the scholar. Butthe hands were those of a man of letters--bony and long-fingered, butrefined, touching things with care and gentleness, like one accustomed tothe small tools of the writer. 

At last the Rector threw himself back in his chair, while some of thelitter on his lap fell to the floor, temporarily dislodging one of theterriers, who sat up and looked at him with reproach. 

"Now then!" he said, and reached out for the letter on the mantelpiece. He turned it over a moment in his hand and opened it. 

It was long, and the reader gave it a close attention. When he hadfinished it he put it down and thought a while, then stretched out hishand for it again and reread the last paragraph:

"You will, I am sure, realize from all I have said, my dear Meynell, thatthe last thing I personally wish to do is to interfere with the parochialwork of a man for whom I have so warm a respect as I have for you. I havegiven you all the latitude I could, but my duty is now plain. Let me haveyour assurance that you will refrain from such sermons as that to which Ihave drawn your attention, and that you will stop at once theextraordinary innovations in the services of which the parishionershave complained, and I shall know how to answer Mr. Barron and to composethis whole difficult matter. Do not, I entreat you, jeopardize the noblework you are doing for the sake of opinions and views which you holdto-day, but which you may have abandoned tomorrow. Can you possibly putwhat you call 'the results of criticism'--and, remember, these resultsdiffer for you, for me, and for a dozen others I could name--incomparison with that work for souls God has given you to do, and in whichHe has so clearly blessed you? A Christian pastor is not his own master, and cannot act with the freedom of other men. He belongs by his own actto the Church and to the flock of Christ; he must always have in view the'little ones' whom he dare not offend. Take time for thought, my dearMeynell--and time, above all, for prayer--and then let me hear from you. You will realize how much and how anxiously I think of you. 

"Yours always sincerely in Christ, "F. MARCOBURG. "

"Good man--true bishop!" said the Rector to himself, as he again put downthe letter; but even as he spoke the softness in his face passed intoresolution. He sank once more into reverie. 

The stillness, however, was soon broken up. A step was heard outside, andthe dogs sprang up in excitement. Amid a pandemonium of noise, the Rectorput his head out of window. 

"Is that you, Barron? Come in, old fellow; come in!"

A slender figure in a long coat passed the window, the front door opened, and a young man entered the study. He was dressed in orthodox clericalgarb, and carried a couple of books under his arm. 

"I came to return these, " he said, placing them beside the Rector; "andalso--can you give me twenty minutes?"

"Forty, if you want them. Sit down. "

The newcomer turned out various French and German books from adilapidated armchair, and obeyed. He was a fresh-coloured, handsomeyouth, some fifteen years younger than Meynell, the typical public-schoolboy in appearance. But his expression was scarcely less harassed than theRector's. 

"I expect you have heard from my father, " he said abruptly. 

"I found a letter waiting for me, " said Meynell, holding up the note hehad taken from the hall-table on coming in. But he pursued the subject nofurther. 

The young man fidgeted a moment. 

"All one can say is"--he broke out at last--"that if it had not been myfather, it would have been some one else--the Archdeacon probably. Thefight was bound to come. "

"Of course it was!" The Rector sprang to his feet, and, with his handsunder his coat-tails and his back to the fire, faced his visitor. "That'swhat we're all driving at. Don't be miserable about it, dear fellow. Ibear your father no grudge whatever. He is under orders, as I am. Theparleying time is done. It has lasted two generations. And now comeswar--honourable, necessary war!"

The speaker threw back his head with emphasis, even with passion. Butalmost immediately the smile, which was the only positive beauty of theface, obliterated the passion. 

"And don't look so tragic over it! If your father wins--and as the lawstands he can scarcely fail to win--I shall be driven out of Upcote. Butthere will always be a corner somewhere for me and my books, and a pulpitof some sort to prate from. "

"Yes, but what about _us?_" said the newcomer, slowly. 

"Ah!" The Rector's voice took a dry intonation. "Yes--well!-youLiberals will have to take your part, and fire your shot some day, ofcourse--fathers or no fathers. "

"I didn't mean that. I shall fire my shot, of course. But aren't youexposing yourself prematurely--unnecessarily?" said the young man, withvivacity. "It is not a general's part to do that. "

"You're wrong, Stephen. When my father was going out to the campaignin which he was killed, my mother said to him, as though she werehalf asking a question, half pleading--I can hear her now, poordarling!--'John, it's _right_ for a general to keep out of danger?' andhe smiled and said, 'Yes, when it isn't right for him to go into it, headover ears. ' However, that's nonsense. It doesn't apply to me. I'm nogeneral. And I'm not going to be killed!"

Young Barron was silent, while the Rector prepared a pipe, and began uponit; but his face showed his dissatisfaction. 

"I've not said much to father yet about my own position, " he resumed;"but, of course, he guesses. It will be a blow to him, " he added, reluctantly. 

The Rector nodded, but without showing any particular concern, though hiseyes rested kindly on his companion. 

"We have come to the fighting, " he repeated, "and fighting means blows. Moreover, the fight is beginning to be equal. Twenty years ago--inElsmere's time--a man who held his views or mine could only go. Voysey, of course, had to go; Jowett, I am inclined to think, ought to have gone. But the distribution of the forces, the lie of the field, is nowaltogether changed. _I_ am not going till I am turned out; and there willbe others with me. The world wants a heresy trial, and it is going to getone this time. "

A laugh--a laugh of excitement and discomfort--escaped the younger man. 

"You talk as though the prospect was a pleasant one!"

"No--but it is inevitable. "

"It will be a hateful business, " Baron went on, impetuously. "My fatherhas a horribly strong will. And he will think every means legitimate. "

"I know. In the Roman Church, what the Curia could not do by argumentthey have done again and again--well, no use to inquire how! One must beprepared. All I can say is, I know of no skeletons in the cupboard atpresent. Anybody may have my keys!"

He laughed as he spoke, spreading his hands to the blaze, and lookinground at his companion. Barron's face in response was a face ofhero-worship, undisguised. Here plainly were leader and disciple;pioneering will and docile faith. But it might have been observed thatMeynell did nothing to emphasize the personal relation; that, on thecontrary, he shrank from it, and often tried to put it aside. 

After a few more words, indeed, he resolutely closed the personaldiscussion. They fell into talk about certain recent developments ofphilosophy in England and France--talk which showed them as familiarcomrades in the intellectual field, in spite of their difference of age. Barron, a Fellow of King's, had but lately left Cambridge for a smallCollege living. Meynell--an old Balliol scholar--bore the marks of Jowettand Caird still deep upon him, except, perhaps, for a certain deliberatethrowing over, here and there, of the typical Oxford tradition--itsmeasure and reticence, its scholarly balancing of this against that. Atone as of one driven to extremities--a deep yet never personalexasperation--the poised quiet of a man turning to look a hostile host inthe face--again and again these made themselves felt through his chatabout new influences in the world of thought--Bergson or James, Eucken orTyrell. 

And to this under-note, inflections or phrases in the talk of the otherseemed to respond. It was as though behind the spoken conversation theycarried on another unheard. 

And the unheard presently broke in upon the heard. 

"You mentioned Elsmere just now, " said Barron, in a moment's pause, andwith apparent irrelevance. "Did you know that his widow is now stayingwithin a mile of this place? Some people called Flaxman have takenMaudeley End, and Mrs. Flaxman is a sister of Mrs. Elsmere. Mrs. Elsmereand her daughter are going to settle for the summer in the cottage nearForkéd Pond. Mrs. Elsmere seems to have been ill for the first time inher life, and has had to give up some of her work. "

"Mrs. Elsmere!" said Meynell, raising his eyebrows. "I saw her oncetwenty years ago at the New Brotherhood, and have never forgotten thevision of her face. She must be almost an old woman. "

"Miss Puttenham says she is quite beautiful still, in a wonderful, severeway. I think she never shared Elsmere's opinions?"

"Never. "

The two fell silent, both minds occupied with the same story and the samesecret comparisons. Robert Elsmere, the Rector of Murewell, in Surrey, had made a scandal in the Church, when Meynell was still a lad, bythrowing up his orders under the pressure of New Testament criticism, andfounding a religious brotherhood among London workingmen for thepromotion of a simple and commemorative form of Christianity. 

Elsmere, a man of delicate physique, had died prematurely, worn out bythe struggle to find new foothold for himself and others; but somethingin his personality, and in the nature of his effort--some brilliant, tender note--had kept his memory alive in many hearts. There were manynow, however, who thrilled to it, who could never speak of him withoutemotion, who yet felt very little positive agreement with him. What hehad done or tried to do made a kind of landmark in the past; but in thecourse of time it had begun to seem irrelevant to the present. 

"To-day--would he have thrown up?--or would he have held on?" Meynellpresently said, in a tone of reverie, amid the cloud of smoke thatenveloped him. Then, in another voice, "What do you hear of thedaughter? I remember her as a little reddish-haired thing at her mother'sside. "

"Miss Puttenham has taken a great fancy to her. Hester Fox-Wilton told meshe had seen her there. She liked her. "

"H'm!" said the Rector. "Well, if she pleased Hester--critical littleminx!"

"You may be sure she'll please _me_!" said Barron suddenly, flushingdeeply. 

The Rector looked up, startled. 

"I say?"

Barron cleared his throat. 

"I'd better tell you at once, Rector. I got Hester's leave yesterdayto tell you, when an opportunity occurred--you know how fond she isof you? Well, I'm in love with her--head over ears in love with her--Ibelieve I have been since she was a little girl in the schoolroom. Andyesterday--she said--she'd marry me some day. "

The young voice betrayed a natural tremor. Meanwhile, a strange look--aclose observer would have called it a look of consternation--had rushedinto Meynell's face. He stared at Barron, made one or two attempts tospeak, and, a last, said abruptly:

"That'll never do, Stephen--that'll never do! You shouldn't have spoken. "

Barron's face showed the wound. 

"But, Rector--"

"She's too young, " said Meynell, with increased harshness, "much tooyoung! Hester is only seventeen. No girl ought to be pledged so early. She ought to have more time--time to look round her. Promise me, mydear boy, that there shall be nothing irrevocable--no engagement! Ishould strongly oppose it. "

The eyes of the two men met. Barron was evidently dumb with surprise; butthe vivacity and urgency of Meynell's expression drove him into speech. 

"We thought you would have sympathized, " he stammered. "After all, whatis there so much against it? Hester is, you know, not very happy at home. I have my living, and some income of my own, independent of my father. Supposing he should object--"

"He would object, " said Meynell quickly. "And Lady Fox-Wilton wouldcertainly object. And so should I. And, as you know, I am co-guardian ofthe children with her. "

Then, as the lover quivered under these barbs, Meynell suddenly recoveredhimself. 

"My dear fellow! No woman ought to marry under twenty-one. And every girlought to have time to look round her. It's not right; it's not just--itisn't, indeed! Put this thing by for a while. You'll lose nothing by it. We'll talk of it again in two years. "

And, drawing his chair nearer to his companion, Meynell fell into astrain of earnest and affectionate entreaty, which presently had a markedeffect on the younger man. His chivalry was appealed to--hisconsideration for the girl he loved; and his aspect began to show theforce of the attack. At last he said gravely:

"I'll tell Hester what you say--of course I'll tell her. Naturally wecan't marry without your consent and her mother's. But if Hester persistsin wishing we should be engaged?"

"Long engagements are the deuce!" said the Rector hotly. "You would beengaged for three years. Madness!--with such a temperament as Hester's. My dear Stephen, be advised--for her and yourself. There is no one whowishes your good more earnestly than I. But don't let there be any talkof an engagement for at least two years to come. Leave her free--evenif you consider yourself bound. It is folly to suppose that a girl ofsuch marked character knows her own mind at seventeen. She has all herdevelopment to come. "

Barron had dropped his head on his hands. 

"I couldn't see anybody else courting her--without--"

"Without cutting in. I daresay not, " said Meynell, with a rather forcedlaugh. "I'd forgive you that. But now, look here. "

The two heads drew together again, and Meynell resumed conversation, talking rapidly, in a kind, persuasive voice, putting the common sense ofthe situation--holding out distant hopes. The young man's face graduallycleared. He was of a docile, open temper, and deeply attached to hismentor. 

At last the Rector sprang up, consulting his watch. 

"I must send you off, and go to sleep. But we'll talk of this again. "

"Sleep!" exclaimed Barron, astonished. "It's just seven o'clock. What areyou up to now?"

"There's a drunken fellow in the village--dying--and his wife won't lookafter him. So I have to put in an appearance to-night. Be off with you!"

"I shouldn't wonder if the Flaxmans were of some use to you in thevillage, " said Stephen, taking up his hat. "They're rich, and, they say, very generous. "

"Well, if they'll give me a parish nurse, I'll crawl to them, " said theRector, settling himself in his chair and putting an old shawl over hisknees. "And as you go out, just tell Anne, will you, to keep herself toherself for an hour and not to disturb me?"

Stephen Barron moved to the door, and as he opened it he turned back amoment to look at the man in the chair, and the room in which he sat. Itwas as though he asked himself by what manner of man he had beenthus gripped and coerced, in a matter so intimate, and, to himself, sovital. 

Meynell's eyes were already shut. The dogs had gathered round him, thecollie's nose laid against his knee, the other two guarding his feet. Allround, the walls were laden with books, so were the floor and thefurniture. A carpenter's bench filled the further end of the room. Carving tools were scattered on it, and a large piece of wood-carving, half finished, was standing propped against it. It was part of some choirdecoration that Meynell and a class of village boys were making for thechurch, where the Rector had already carved with his own hand many of theavailable surfaces, whether of stone or wood. The carving, which waselaborate and rich, was technically faulty, as an Italian primitive isfaulty, but _mutatis mutandis_ it had much of the same charm that belongsto Italian primitive work: the same joyous sincerity, the same passionatelove of natural things, leaves and flowers and birds. 

For the rest, the furniture of the room was shabby and ugly. The pictureson the walls were mostly faded Oxford photographs, or outlines byOverbeck and Retsch, which had belonged to Meynell's parents and weretenderly cherished by him. There were none of the pretty, artistictrifles, the signs of travel and easy culture, which many a small countryvicarage possesses in abundance. Meynell, in spite of his scholar'smastery of half-a-dozen languages, had never crossed the Channel. Barron, lingering at the door, with his eyes on the form by the fire, knew why. The Rector had always been too poor. He had been left an orphan whilestill at Balliol, and had to bring up his two younger brothers. He haddone it. They were both in Canada now and prospering. But the signs ofthe struggle were on this shabby house, and on this shabby, frugal, powerfully built man. Yet now he might have been more at ease; theliving, though small, was by no means among the worst in the diocese. Ah, well! Anne, the housekeeper and only servant, knew how the moneywent--and didn't go, and she had passed on some of her grievances toBarron. They two knew--though Barron would never have dared to show hisknowledge--what a wrestle it meant to get the Rector to spend what wasdecently necessary on his own food and clothes; and Anne spent hours ofthe night in indignantly guessing at what he spent on the clothes andfood of other people--mostly, in her opinion, "varmints. "

These things flitted vaguely through the young man's sore mind. Then in aflash they were absorbed in a perception of a wholly different kind. Theroom seemed to him transfigured; a kind of temple. He thought of theintellectual life which had been lived there; the passion for truth whichhad burnt in it; the sermons and books that had been written on thosecrowded tables; the personality and influence that had been graduallybuilt up within it, so that to him, as to many others, the dingy studywas a place of pilgrimage, breathing inspiration; and his heart went out, first in discipleship, and then in a pain that was not for himself. Forover his friend's head he saw the gathering of clouds not now to bescattered or dispersed; and who could foretell the course of the storm?

The young man gently closed the door and went hisway. He need not have left the house so quietly. TheRector got no sleep that evening. 

CHAPTER II

The church clock of Upcote Minor was just striking nine o'clock asRichard Meynell, a few hours later than the conversation just recorded, shut the Rectory gate behind him, and took his way up the village. 

The night was cold and gusty. The summer this year had forgotten to bebalmy, and Meynell, who was an ardent sun-lover, shivered as he walkedalong, buttoning a much-worn parson's coat against the sharp air. Beforehim lay the long, straggling street, with its cottages and small shops, its post-office, and public-houses, and its occasional gentlefolks'dwellings, now with a Georgian front plumb on the street, and now hiddenbehind walls and trees. It was evidently a large village, almost acountry town, with a considerable variety of life. At this hour of theevening most of the houses were dark, for the labourers had gone to bed. But behind the drawn blinds of the little shops there were still lightshere and there, and in the houses of the gentility. 

The Rector passed the fine perpendicular church standing back from theroad, with its churchyard about it; and just beyond it, he turned, hispace involuntarily slackening, to look at a small gabled house, surrounded by a garden, and overhung by a splendid lime tree. Suddenly, as he approached it, the night burst into fragrance, for a gust of windshook the lime-blossom, and flung the scent in Meynell's face; while atthe same time the dim masses of roses in the garden sent out theirsweetness to the passers-by. 

A feeling of pleasure, quick, involuntary, passed through his mind;pleasure in the thought of what these flowers meant to the owner of them. He had a vision of a tall and slender woman, no longer young, with adelicate and plaintive face, moving among the rose-beds she loved, herlight dress trailing on the grass. The recollection stirred in himaffection, and an impulse of sympathy, stronger than the mere thought ofthe flowers, and the woman's tending of them, could explain. It passedindeed immediately into something else--a touch of new and sharp anxiety. 

"And she's been very peaceful of late, " he said to himself ruefully, "asfar at least as Hester ever lets her be. Preston's wife was a godsend. Perhaps now she'll come out of her shell and go more among the people. Itwould help her. Anyway, we can't have everything rooted up again justyet--before the time. "

He walked on, and as the farther corner of the house came into view, hesaw a thinly curtained window with a light inside it, and it seemed tohim that he distinguished a figure within. 

"Reading?--or embroidering? Probably, at her work. She had thatcommission to finish. Busy woman!"

He fell to imagining the little room, the embroidery frame, the books, and the brindled cat on the rug, of no particular race or beauty; for usenot for show; but sensitive and gentle like its mistress, and like her, not to be readily made friends with. 

"How wise of her, " he thought, "not to accept her sister's offer sinceRalph's death--to insist on keeping her little house and herindependence. Imagine her!--prisoned in that house, with that family. Except for Hester--except for Hester!"

He smiled sadly to himself, threw a last troubled look at the littlehouse, and left it behind him. Before him, the village street, with itsgreen and its pond, widened under the scudding sky. Far ahead, about aquarter of a mile away, among surrounding trees, certain outlines werevisible through the July twilight. The accustomed eye knew them for thechimneys of the Fox-Wiltons' house, owned now, since the recent deathof its master, Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton, by his widow, the sister of the ladywith the cat and the embroidery, and mother of many children, for themost part an unattractive brood, peevish and slow-minded like theirfather. Hester was the bright, particular star in that house, as StephenBarron had now found out. 

Alack!--alack! The Rector's face resumed for a moment the expression ofpainful or brooding perplexity it had worn during his conversation of theafternoon with young Barron, on the subject of Hester Fox-Wilton. 

Another light in a window--and a sound of shouting and singing. The"Cowroast, " a "public" mostly frequented by the miners who inhabited thenorthern end of the village, was evidently doing trade. The Rector didnot look up as he passed it; but in general he turned an indulgent eyeupon it. Before entering upon the living, he had himself worked for amonth as an ordinary miner, in the colliery whose tall chimneys could beseen to the east above the village roofs. His body still vividly retainedthe physical memory of those days--of the aching muscles, and thegargantuan thirsts. 

At last the rows of new-built cottages attached to the colliery camein view on the left; to the right, a steep hillside heavily wooded, and at the top of it, in the distance, the glimmering of a large whitehouse--stately and separate--dominating the village, the church, thecollieries, and the Fox-Wiltons' plantations. 

The Rector threw a glance at it. It was from that house had come theletter he had found on his hall-table that afternoon; a letter in ahandwriting large and impressive like the dim house on the hill. Thehandwriting of a man accustomed to command, whether his own ancestralestate, or the collieries which had been carved out of its fringe, or thevillage spreading humbly at his feet, or the church into which he walkedon Sunday with heavy tread, and upright carriage, conscious of histhreefold dignity--as squire, magistrate, and churchwarden. 

"It's my business to fight him!" Meynell thought, looking at the house, and squaring his broad shoulders unconsciously. "It's not my business tohate him--not at all--rather to respect and sympathize with him. Iprovoke the fight--and I may be thankful to have lit on a strongantagonist. What's Stephen afraid of? What can they do? Let 'em try!"

A smile--contemptuous and good-humoured--crossed the Rector's face. Anyangry bigot determined to rid his parish of a heretical parson might nodoubt be tempted to use other than legal and theological weapons, if hecould get them. A heretic with unpaid bills and some hidden vice isscarcely in a position to make much of his heresy. But the Rector's smileshowed him humorously conscious of an almost excessive innocence ofprivate life. The thought of how little an enemy could find to lay holdon in his history or present existence seemed almost to bring with it akind of shamefacedness--as for experience irrevocably foregone, warm, tumultuous, human experience, among the sinners and sufferers of theworld. For there are odd, mingled moments in the lives of most scholarsand saints--like Renan in his queer envy of Théophile Gautier--when suchmen inevitably ask themselves whether they have not missed somethingirreplaceable, the student, by his learning--the saint even, by hisgoodness. 

Here now was "Miners' Row. " As the Rector approached the cottage of whichhe was in search the clouds lightened in the east, and a pale moonshine, suffusing the dusk, showed in the far distance beyond the village, thehills of Fitton Chase, rounded, heathy hills, crowned by giant firs. Meynell looked at them with longing, and a sudden realization of his ownweariness. A day or two, perhaps a week or two, among the fells, withtheir winds and scents about him, and their streams in his ears--he mustallow himself that, before the fight began. 

No. 8. A dim light showed in the upper window. The Rector knocked at thedoor. A woman opened--a young and sweet-looking nurse in her bonnet andlong cloak. 

"You look pretty done!" exclaimed the Rector. "Has he been givingtrouble?"

"Oh, no, sir, not more than usual. It's the two of them. "

"She won't go to her sister's?"

"She won't stir a foot, sir. "

"Where is she?" The nurse pointed to the living-room on her left. 

"She scarcely eats anything--a sup of tea sometimes. And I doubt whethershe sleeps at all. "

"And she won't go to him?"

"If he were dying, and she alone with him in the house, I don't believeshe'd go near him. "

The Rector stepped in and asked a few questions as to arrangements forthe night. The patient, it seemed, was asleep, in consequence of amorphia injection, and likely to remain so for an hour or two. He wasdying of an internal injury inflicted by a fall of rock in the minesome ten days before. Surgery had done what it could, but signs ofblood-poisoning had appeared, and the man's days were numbered. 

The doctor had left written instructions, which the nurse handed over toMeynell. If certain symptoms appeared, the doctor was to be summoned. Butin all probability the man's fine constitution, injured though it hadbeen by drink, would enable him to hold out another day or two. And thehideous pain of the first week had now ceased; mortification had almostcertainly set in, and all that could be done was to wait the slow andsure failure of the heart. 

The nurse took leave. Meynell was hanging up his hat in the littlepassageway, when the door of the front parlour opened, after beingunlocked. 

Meynell looked round. 

"Good evening, Mrs. Bateson. You are coming upstairs, I hope, with me?"

He spoke gently, but with a quiet authority. 

The woman in the doorway shook her head. She was thin and narrow-chested. Her hair was already gray, though she could not have been more thanthirty-five, and youth and comeliness had been long since batteredfrom her face, partly by misery of mind, partly by direct ill usage ofwhich there were evident traces. She looked steadily at the Rector. 

"I'm not going, " she said. "He's nowt to me. But I'd like to know whatthe doctor was thinkin' of him. "

"The doctor thinks he may live through to-night and to-morrow night--notmuch more. He is your husband, Mrs. Bateson, and whatever you haveagainst him, you'll be very sorry afterward if you don't give him helpand comfort in his death. Come up now, I beg of you, and watch with me. He might die at any moment. "

And Meynell put out his hand kindly toward the woman standing in theshadow, as though to lead her. 

But she stepped backward. 

"I know what I'm about, " she said, breathing quick. "He made a fule o' mewi' that wanton Lizzie Short, and he near killt me the last morning aforehe went. And I'd been a good wife to him for fifteen year, and nevera word between us till that huzzy came along. And she's got a child byhim, and he must go and throw it in my face that I'd never given him one. And he struck and cursed me that last morning--he wished me dead, hesaid. And I sat and prayed God to punish him. An' He did. The roof camedown on him. And now he mun die. I've done wi' him--and she's done wi'him. He's made his bed, and he mun lig on it. "

The Rector put up his hand sternly. 

"Don't! Mrs. Bateson. Those are words you'll repent when you yourselfcome to die. He has sinned toward you--but remember!--he's a young manstill--in the prime of life. He has suffered horribly--and he has only afew hours or days to live. He has asked for you already to-day, he issure to ask for you to-night. Forgive him!--ask God to help him to die inpeace!"

While he spoke she stood motionless, impassive. Meynell's voice hadbeautiful inflections, and he spoke with strong feeling. Few persons whomhe so addressed could have remained unmoved. But Mrs. Bateson onlyretreated farther into the dreary little parlour, with its wool mats andantimacassars, and a tray of untasted tea on the table. She passed hertongue round her dry lips to moisten them before she spoke, quite calmly:

"Thank you, sir. Thank you. You mean well. But we must all judge forourselves. If there's anything you want I can get for you, you knocktwice on the floor--I shall hear you. But I'm not comin' up. "

Meynell turned away discouraged, and went upstairs. In the room above laythe dying man--breathing quickly and shallowly under the influence of thedrug that had been given him. The nurse had raised him on his pillows, and the window near him was open. His powerful chest was uncovered, andhe seemed even in his sleep to be fighting for air. In the twelve hoursthat had elapsed since Meynell had last seen him he had travelled withterrible rapidity toward the end. He looked years older than in themorning; it was as though some sinister hand had been at work on theface, expanding here, contracting there, substituting chaos andnothingness for the living man. 

The Rector sat down beside him. The room was small and bare--a littlestrip of carpet on the boards, a few chairs, and a little table with foodand nourishment beside the bed. On the mantelpiece was a large printedcard containing the football fixtures of the winter before. Bateson hadonce been a fine player. Of late years, however, his interest had beenconfined to betting heavily on the various local and county matches, andit was to his ill-luck as a gambler no less than to the influence of theflimsy little woman who had led him astray that his moral break-up mightbe traced. 

A common tale!--yet more tragic than usual. For the bedroom containedother testimonies to the habits of a ruined man. There was a hangingbookcase on the wall, and the Rector sitting by the bed could just makeout the titles of the books in the dim light. 

Mill, Huxley, a reprint of Tom Paine, various books by Blatchford, thesixpenny editions of "Literature and Dogma, " and Renan's "Life ofChrist, " some popular science volumes of Browning and Ruskin, and a groupof well-thumbed books on the birds of Mercia--the little collection, hardly earned, and, to judge from its appearance, diligently read, showedthat its owner had been a man of intelligence. The Rector looked from itto the figure in the bed with a pang at his heart. 

All was still in the little cottage. Through the open window the Rectorcould see fold after fold of the Chase stretching north and west abovethe village. The moorland ridges shone clear under the moon, now bare, orscantily plumed by gaunt trees, and now clothed in a dense blackness ofwood. Meynell, who knew every yard of the great heath and loved it well, felt himself lifted there in spirit as he looked. The "bunchberries" mustjust be ripening on the high ground--nestling scarlet and white amidtheir glossy leaves. And among them and beside them, the taller, slenderbilberries, golden green; the exquisite grasses of the heath, pale pink, and silver, and purple, swaying in the winds, clothing acre after acrewith a beauty beyond the looms of men; the purple heather and the lingflushing toward its bloom: and the free-limbed scattered birch trees, strongly scrawled against the sky. The scurry of the clouds over thepurple sweeps of moor, the beat of the wind, and then suddenly, pools offragrant air sun-steeped--he drew in the thought of it all, as he mighthave drunk the moorland breeze itself, with a thrill of pleasure, whichpassed at once into a movement of soul. 

"_My God--my God_!"

No other words imagined or needed. Only a leap of the heart, natural, habitual, instinctive, from the imagined beauty of the heath, to the"Eternal Fountain" of all beauty. 

The hand of the dying man made a faint rustling with the sheet. Meynell, checked, rebuked almost, by the slight sound, bent his eyes again on thesleeper, and leaning forward tried to meditate and pray. But to-night hefound it hard. He realized anew his physical and mental fatigue, and acertain confused clamour of thought, strangely persistent behind the moreexternal experience alike of body and mind; like the murmur of a distantsea heard from far inland, as the bond and background of all lessersounds. 

The phrases of the letter he had found on the hall-table recurred to himwhether he would or no. They were mainly legal and technical, intimatingthat an application had been made to the Bishop of Markborough to issue aCommission of Inquiry into certain charges made by parishioners of UpcoteMinor against the Rector of the parish. The writer of the letter was oneof the applicants, and gave notice of his intention to prosecute thecharges named, with the utmost vigour through all the stages prescribedby ecclesiastical law. 

But it was, rather, some earlier letters from the same hand--letters morefamiliar, intimate, and discursive--that ultimately held the Rector'sthoughts as he kept his watch. For in those letters were contained almostall the objections that a sensitive mind and heart had had to grapplewith before determining on the course to which the Rector of Upcote wasnow committed. They were the voice of the "adversary, " the "accuser. "Crude or conventional, as the form of the argument might be, it yetrepresented the "powers and principalities" to be reckoned with. If theRector's conscience could not sustain him against it, he was henceforth adishonest and unhappy man; and when his lawyers had failed to protect himagainst its practical result--as they must no doubt fail--he would be adispossessed priest:

"What discipline in life or what comfort in death can such a faith asyours bring to any human soul? Do, I beg of you, ask yourself thisquestion. If the great miracles of the Creed are not true, what have youto give the wretched and the sinful? Ought you not in common humancharity to make way for one who can offer the consolations, utter thewarnings, or hold out the heavenly hopes from which you are debarred?"

 * * * * *

The Rector fixed his gaze upon the sick man. It was as though thequestion of the letter were put to him through those parched lips. And ashe looked, Bateson opened his eyes. 

"Be that you, Rector?" he said, in a clear voice. 

"I've been sitting up with you, Bateson. Can you take a little brandy andmilk, do you think?"

The patient submitted, and the Rector, with a tender and skilful touch, made him comfortable on his pillows and smoothed the bedclothes. 

"Where's my wife?" he said presently, looking round the room. 

"She's sleeping downstairs. "

"I want her to come up. "

"Better not ask her. She seems ill and tired. "

The sick man smiled--a slight and scornful smile. 

"She'll ha' time enough presently to be tired. You goa an' ask her. "

"I'd rather not leave you, Bateson. You're very ill. "

"Then take that stick then, an' rap on the floor. She'll hear tha fastenough. "

The Rector hesitated, but only for a moment. He took the stick andrapped. 

Almost immediately the sound of a turning key was heard through the smallthinly built cottage. The door below opened and footsteps came up thestairs. But before they reached the landing the sound ceased. The two menlistened in vain. 

"You goa an' tell her as I'm sorry I knocked her aboot, " said Bateson, eagerly. "An' she can see for hersen as I can't aggravate her no more wi'the other woman. " He raised himself on his elbow, staring into theRector's face. "I'm done for--tell her that. "

"Shall I tell her also, that you love her?--and you want her love?"

"Aye, " said Bateson, nodding, with the same bright stare into Meynell'seyes. "Aye!"

Meynell made him drink a little more brandy, and then he went out to theperson standing motionless on the stairs. 

"What did you want, sir?" said Mrs. Bateson, under her breath. 

"Mrs. Bateson--he begs you to come to him! He's sorry for his conduct--hesays you can see for yourself that he can't wrong you any more. Come--andbe merciful!"

The woman paused. The Rector could see the shiver of her thin shouldersunder her print dress. Then she turned and quietly descended the cottagestairway. Half way down she looked up. 

"Tell him I should do him nowt but harm. I"--her voice trembled for thefirst time--"I doan't bear him malice; I hope he'll not suffer. But I'mnot comin'. "

"Wait a moment, Mrs. Bateson! I was to tell you that in spite of all, heloved you--and he wanted your love. "

She shook her head. 

"It's no good talkin' that way. It'll mebbe use up his strength. Tell himI'd have got Lizzie Short to come an' nurse 'im, if I could. It's herplace. But he knows as she an' her man flitted a fortnight sen, an'theer's no address. "

And she disappeared. But at the foot of the stairs--standing unseen--shesaid in her usual tone:

"If there was a cup o' tea, I could bring you, sir--or anythin'?"

Meynell, distressed and indignant, did not answer. He returned to thesick-room. Bateson looked up as the Rector bent once more over the bed. 

"She'll not coom?" he said, in a faint voice of surprise. "Well, that's aqueer thing. She wasn't used to be a tough 'un. I could most make her dowhat I wanted. Well, never mind, Rector, never mind. Sit tha down--mebbeyou'd be wanting to say a prayer. You're welcome. I reckon it'll do me noharm. "

His lips parted in a smile--a smile of satire. But his brows frowned, andhis eyes were still alive and bright, only now, as the watcher thought, with anger. 

Meynell hesitated. 

"I will say the church prayers, if you wish it, Bateson. Of course I willsay them. "

"But I doan't believe in 'em, " said the sick man, smiling again, "an' youdoan't believe in 'em, noather, if folk say true! Don't tha be vexed--I'mnot saying it to cheek tha. But Mr. Barron, ee says ee'll make tha giveup. Ee's been goin' roun' the village, talkin' to folk. I doan't careabout that--an' I've never been one o' your men--not pious enough, be along way--but I'd like to hear--now as I can't do tha no harm, Rector, now as I'm goin', an' you cawn't deny me--what tha does really believe. Will tha tell me?"

He turned, open-eyed, impulsive, intelligent, as he had always been inlife. 

The Rector started. The inward challenge had taken voice. 

"Certainly I will tell you, if it will help you--if you're strongenough. "

Bateson waved his hand contemptuously. 

"I feel as strong as onything. That sup o' brandy has put some grit inme. Give me some more. Thank tha ... Does tha believe in God, Rector?"

His whimsical, half-teasing, yet, at bottom, anxious look touched Meynellstrangely. 

"With all my life--and with all my strength!"

Meynell's gaze was fixed intently on his questioner. The night-light inthe basin on the farther side of the room threw the strong features intoshadowy relief, illumining the yearning kindliness of the eyes. 

"What made tha believe in Him?"

"My own life--my own struggles--and sins--and sufferings, " saidMeynell, stooping toward the sick man, and speaking each word with anintensity behind which lay much that could never be known to hisquestioner. "A good man, Bateson, put it once in this way, 'There issomething in me that asks something of me. ' That's easy to understand, isn't it? If a man wants to be filthy, or drunken, or cruel, there isalways a voice within--it may be weak or it may be strong--that asks ofhim to be--instead--pure and sober and kind. And perhaps he denies theVoice, refuses it--talks it down--again and again. Then the joy in hislife dies out bit by bit, and the world turns to dust and ashes. Everytime that he says No to the Voice he is less happy--he has less power ofbeing happy. And the voice itself dies away--and death comes. But now, suppose he turns to the Voice and says 'Lead me--I follow!' And supposehe obeys, like a child stumbling. Then every time he stretches and bendshis poor weak will so as to give _It_ what it asks, his heart is happy;and strength comes--the strength to do more and do better. _It_ asks himto love--to love men and women, not with lust, but with pure love; and ashe obeys, as he loves--he _knows_--he knows that it is God asking, andthat God has come to him and abides with him. So when death overtakes himhe trusts himself to God as he would to his best friend. "

"Tha'rt talkin' riddles, Rector!"

"No. Ask yourself. When you fell into sin with that woman, did nothingspeak to you, nothing try to stop you?"

The bright half-mocking eyes below Meynell's wandered a little--waveredin expression. 

"It was the hot blood in me--aye, an' in her too. Yo cawn't help themthings. "

"Can't you? When your wife suffered, didn't that touch you? Wouldn't youundo it now if you could?"

"Aye--because I'm goin'--doctor says I'm done for. "

"No--well or ill--wouldn't you undo it--wouldn't you undo the blows yougave your wife--the misery you caused her?"

"Mebbe. But I cawn't. "

"No--not in my sense or yours. But in God's sense you can. Turn yourheart--ask Him to give you love--love to Him, who has been pleading withyou all your life--love to your wife, and your fellow men--love--andrepentance--and faith. "

Meynell's voice shook. He was in an anguish at what seemed to him theweakness, the ineffectiveness, of his pleading. 

A silence. Then the voice rose again from the bed. 

"Dost tha believe in Jesus Christ, Rector? Mr. Barron, he calls tha aninfidel. But he hasn't read the books you an' I have read, I'll upholdyer!"

The dying man raised his hand to the bookshelves beside him with a proudgesture. 

The Rector slowly raised himself. An expression as of some passionwithin, trying at once to check and to utter itself, became visible onhis face in the half light. 

"It's not books that settle it, Jim. I'll try and put it to you--just asI see it myself--just in the way it comes to me. "

He paused a moment, frowning under the effort of simplification. Thehidden need of the dying man seemed to be mysteriously conveyed tohim--the pang of lonely anguish that death brings with it; the cravingfor comfort beneath the apparent scorn of faith; the human cry expressedin this strange catechism. 

"Stop me if I tire you, " he said at last. "I don't know if I can make itplain--but to me, Bateson, there are two worlds that every man isconcerned with. There is this world of everyday life--work and business, sleeping and talking, eating and drinking--that you and I have beenliving in; and there is another world, within it, and alongside of it, that we know when we are quiet--when we listen to our own hearts, andfollow that voice I spoke of just now. Jesus Christ called that otherworld the Kingdom of God--and those who dwell in it, the children of God. Love is the king of that world, and the law of it--Love, which _is_ God. But different men--different races of men--give different names to thatLove--see it under different shapes. To us--to you and to me--it speaksunder the name and form of Jesus Christ. And so I come to say--so allChristians come to say--_'I believe--in Jesus Christ our Lord_'. For itis His life and His death that still to-day--as they have done forhundreds of years--draw men and women into the Kingdom--the Kingdom ofLove--and so to God. He draws us to love--and so to God. And in God aloneis the soul of man satisfied; _satisfied--and at rest_. "

The last words were but just breathed--yet they carried with them thewhole force of a man. 

"That's all very well, Rector. But tha's given up th' Athanasian Creed, and there's mony as says tha doesn't hold by tother Creeds. Wilt tha tell_me_, as Jesus were born of a virgin?--or that a got up out o' the graveon the third day?"

The Rector's face, through all its harass, softened tenderly. 

"If you were a well man, Bateson, we'd talk of that. But there's only onething that matters to you now--it's to feel God with you--to be givingyour soul to God. "

The two men gazed at each other. 

"What are tha nursin' me for, Rector?" said Bateson, abruptly--"I'm nowtto you. "

"For the love of Christ, " said Meynell, steadily, taking his hand--"andof you, in Christ. But you mustn't talk. Rest a while. "

There was a silence. The July night was beginning to pale into dawn. Outside, beyond the nearer fields, the wheels and sheds and the two greatchimneys of the colliery were becoming plain; the tints and substance ofthe hills were changing. Dim forms of cattle moved in the newly shorngrass; the sound of their chewing could be faintly heard. 

Suddenly the dying man raised himself in bed. 

"I want my wife!" he said imperiously. "I tell tha, I want my wife!"

It was as though the last energy of being had thrown itself into thecry--indignant, passionate, protesting. 

Meynell rose. 

"I will bring her. "

Bateson gripped his hand. 

"Tell her to mind that cottage at Morden End--and the night we came homethere first--as married folk. Tell her I'm goin'--goin' fast. "

He fell back, panting. Meynell gave him food and medicine. Then he wentquickly downstairs, and knocked at the parlour door. After an interval ofevident hesitation on the part of the occupant of the room, it wasreluctantly unlocked. Meynell pushed it open wide. 

"Mrs. Bateson--come to your husband--he is dying!"

The woman, deadly white, threw back her head proudly. But Meynell laid aperemptory hand on her arm. 

"I command you--in God's name. Come!"

A struggle shook her. She yielded suddenly--and began to cry. Meynellpatted her on the shoulder as he might have patted a child, said kind, soothing things, gave her her husband's message, and finally drew herfrom the room. 

She went upstairs, Meynell following, anxious about the physical resultof the meeting, and ready to go for the doctor at a moment's notice. 

The door at the top of the stairs was open. The dying man lay on hisside, gazing toward it, and gauntly illumined by the rising light. 

The woman went slowly forward, drawn by the eyes directed upon her. 

"I thowt tha'd come!" said Bateson, with a smile. 

She sat down upon the bed, crouching, emaciated; at first motionlessand voiceless; a spectacle little less piteous, little less deathlike, than the man on the pillows. He still smiled at her, in a kind oftriumph; also silent, but his lips trembled. Then, groping, she put outher hand--her disfigured, toil-worn hand--and took his, raising it to herlips. The touch of his flesh seemed to loosen in her the fountains of thegreat deep. She slid to her knees and kissed him--enfolding him with herarms, the two murmuring together. 

Meynell went out into the dawn. His mystical sense had beheld the Lord inthat small upper room; had seen as it were the sacred hands breaking tothose two poor creatures the sacrament of love. His own mind was for thetime being tranquillized. It was as though he said to himself, "I knowthat trouble will come back--I know that doubts and fears will pursue meagain; but this hour--this blessing--is from God!"... 

The sun was high in a dewy world, already busy with its first labours offield and mine, when Meynell left the cottage. The church clock was onthe stroke of eight. 

He passed down the village street, and reached again the little gabledhouse which he had passed the night before. As he approached, there was amovement in the garden. A lady, who was walking among the roses, holdingup her gray dress from the dew, turned and hastened toward the gate. 

"Please come in! You must be tired out. The gardener told me he'd seenyou about. We've got some coffee ready for you. "

Meynell looked at the speaker in smiling astonishment. 

"What are you up for at this hour?"

"Why shouldn't I be up? Look how lovely it is! I have a friend with me, and I want to introduce you. "

Miss Puttenham opened her garden gate and drew in the Rector. Behind heramong the roses Meynell perceived another lady--a girl, with brightreddish hair. 

"Mary!" said Miss Puttenham. 

The girl approached. Meynell had an impression of mingled charm andreticence as she gave him her hand. The eyes were sweet and shy. But theunconscious dignity of bearing showed that the shyness was the shyness ofstrong character, rather than of mere youth and innocence. 

"This is my new friend, Mary Elsmere. You've heard they're at ForkédPond?" Alice Puttenham said, smiling, as she slipped her arm round thegirl. "I captured her for the night, while Mrs. Elsmere went to town. Iwant you to know each other. "

"Elsmere's daughter!" thought Meynell, with a thrill, as he followed thetwo ladies through the open French window into the little dining-room, where the coffee was ready. And he could not take his eyes from the youngface. 

CHAPTER III

"I am in love with the house--I adore the Chase--I like heretics--and Idon't think I'm ever going home again!"

Mrs. Flaxman as she spoke handed a cup of tea to a tall gentleman, LouisManvers by name, the possessor of a long, tanned countenance; of thiniron-gray hair, descending toward the shoulders; of a drooping moustache, and eyes that mostly studied the carpet or the knees of their owner. Ashy, laconic person at first sight, with the manner of one to whomconversation, of the drawing-room kind, was little more than a series ofdoubtful experiments, that seldom or never came off. 

Mrs. Flaxman, on the other hand, was a pretty woman of forty, still youngand slender, in spite of two boys at Eton, one of them seventeen, and inthe Eleven; and her talk was as rash and rapid as that of her companionwas the reverse. Which perhaps might be one of the reasons why they wereexcellent friends, and always happy in each other's society. 

Mr. Manvers overlooked a certain challenge that Mrs. Flaxman had thrownout, took the tea provided, and merely inquired how long the rebuildingof the Flaxmans' own house would take. For it appeared that they wereonly tenants of Maudeley House--furnished--for a year. 

Mrs. Flaxman replied that only the British workman knew. But she lookedupon herself as homeless for two years, and found the prospect aspleasant as her husband found it annoying. 

"As if life was long enough to spend it in one county, and one houseand park! I have shaken all my duties from me like old rags. No moreschool-treats, no more bean-feasts, no more hospital committees, for twowhole years! Think of it! Hugh, poor wretch, is still Chairman of theCounty Council. That's why we took this place--it is within fifty miles. He has to motor over occasionally. But I shall make him resign that, nextyear. Then we are going for six months to Berlin--that's for music--_my_show! Then we take a friend's house in British East Africa, where you cansee a lion kill from the front windows, and zebras stub up your kitchengarden. That's Hugh's show. Then of course there'll be Japan--and by thattime there'll be airships to the North Pole, and we can take it on ourway home!"

"Souvent femme varie!" Mr. Manvers raised a pair of surprisingly shrewdeyes from the carpet. "I remember the years when I used to try and digyou and Hugh out of Bagley, and drive you abroad--without the smallestsuccess. "

"Those were the years when one was moral and well-behaved! But everybodywho is worth anything goes a little mad at forty. I was forty lastweek"--Rose Flaxman gave an involuntary sigh--"I can't get over it. "

"Ah, well, it's quite time you were a little nipped by the years, " saidManvers dryly. "Why should you be so much younger than anybody else inthe world? When you grow old there'll be no more youth!"

Mrs. Flaxman's eyes, of a bright greenish-gray, shone gayly into his;then their owner made a displeased mouth. "You may pay me compliments asmuch as you like. They will not prevent me from telling you that you areone of the most slow-minded people I have ever met!"

"H'm?" said Mr. Manvers, with mild interrogation. 

Rose Flaxman repeated her remark, emphasizing with a little tattoo of herteaspoon on the Chippendale tea-tray before her. Manvers studied her, smiling. 

"I am entirely ignorant of the grounds of this attack. "

"Oh, what hypocrisy!" cried his companion hotly. "I throw out the mosttempting of all possible flies, and you absolutely refuse to rise to it. "

Manvers considered. 

"You expected me to rise to the word 'heretic?'"

"Of course I did! On the same principle as 'sweets to the sweet. ' Who--Ishould like to know--should be interested in heretics if not you?"

"It entirely depends on the species, " said her companion cautiously. 

"There couldn't be a more exciting species, " declared Mrs. Flaxman. "Here you have a Rector of a parish simply setting up another Churchof England--services, doctrines and all--off his own bat, so tospeak--without a 'with your leave or by your leave'; his parishionersbacking him up; his Bishop in a frightful taking and not the leastknowing what to do; the fagots all gathering to make a bonfire of him, and a great black six-foot-two Inquisitor ready to apply the match--andyet--I can't get you to take the smallest interest in it! I assure you, Hugh is _thrilled_. "

Manvers laid the finger-tips of two long brown hands lightly against eachother. 

"Very sorry--but it leaves me quite cold. Heresy in the Church of Englandcomes to nothing. Our heretics are never violent enough. They forget theexcellent text about the Kingdom of Heaven! Now the heretics in theChurch of Rome are violent. That is what makes them so far moreinteresting. "

"This man seems to be drastic enough!"

"Oh, no!" said the other, gently but firmly incredulous. "Believe me--hewill resign, or apologize--they always do. "

"Believe _me_!--you don't--excuse me!--know anything about it. Inthe first place, Mr. Meynell has got his parishioners--all except ahandful--behind him--"

"So had Voysey, " interjected Manvers, softly. 

Mrs. Flaxman took no notice. 

"--And he has hundreds of other supporters--thousands perhaps--and someof them parsons--in this diocese, and outside it. And they are allconvinced that they must fight--fight to the death--and _not_ give in. That, you see, is what makes the difference! My brother-in-law"--thevoice speaking changed and softened--"died twenty years ago. I rememberhow sad it was. He seemed to be walking alone in a world that hardlytroubled to consider him--so far as the Church was concerned, I mean. There seemed to be nothing else to do but to give up his living. But thestrain of doing it killed him. "

"The strain of giving up your living may be severe--but, I assure you, your man will find the strain of keeping it a good deal worse. "

"It all depends upon his backing. How do you know there isn't a worldbehind him?" Mrs. Flaxman persisted, as the man beside her slowly shookhis head. "Well, now, listen! Hugh and I went to church here last Sunday. I never was so bewildered. First, it was crowded from end to end, andthere were scores of people from other villages and towns--a kind ofdemonstration. Then, as to the service--neither of us could find our wayabout. Instead of saying the Lord's Prayer four times, we said it once;we left out half the psalms for the day, the Rector explaining from thechancel steps that they were not fit to be read in a Christian church; wealtered this prayer and that prayer; we listened to an extempore prayerfor the widows and orphans of some poor fellows who have been killed in amine ten miles from here, which made me cry like baby; and, most amazingof all, when it came to the Creeds--"

Manvers suddenly threw back his head, his face for the first timesharpening into attention. "Ah! Well--what about the Creeds?"

Mrs. Flaxman bent forward, triumphing in the capture of her companion. 

"We had both the Creeds. The Rector read them--turning to thecongregation--and with just a word of preface--'Here follows the Creed, commonly called the Apostles' Creed, '--or 'Here follows the NiceneCreed. ' And we all stood and listened--and nobody said a word. It was thestrangest moment! You know--I'm not a serious person--but I just held mybreath. "

"As though you heard behind the veil the awful Voices--'_Let us departhence_?'" said Manvers, after a pause. His expression had graduallychanged. Those who knew him best might have seen in it a slight andpassing trace of conflicts long since silenced and resolutely forgotten. 

"If you mean by that that the church was irreverent--or disrespectful--orhostile--well, you are quite wrong!" cried Mrs. Flaxman impetuously. "Itwas like a moment of new birth--I can't describe it--as though a Spiritentered in. And when the Rector finished--there was a kind of breaththrough the church--like the rustling of new leaves--and I thought ofthe wind blowing where it listed.... And then the Rector preached on theCreeds--how they grew up and why. Fascinating!--why aren't the clergyalways telling us such things? And he brought it all round to impressingupon us that some day _we_ might be worthy of another Christian creed--bybeing faithful--that it would flower again out of our lives and souls--asthe old had done.... I wonder what it all meant!" she said abruptly, herlight voice dropping. 

Manvers smiled. His emotion had quite passed away. 

"Ah! but I forgot"--she resumed hurriedly--"we left out several of theCommandments--and we chanted the Beatitudes--and then I found there was alittle service paper in the seat, and everybody in the church but Hughand me knew all about it beforehand!"

"A queer performance, " said Manvers, "and of course childishly illegal. Your man will be soon got rid of. I expect you might have applied tohim the remark of the Bishop of Cork on the Dean of Cork--'Excellentsermon!--eloquent, clever, argumentative!--and not enough gospel in it tosave a tom-tit!"'

Mrs. Flaxman looked at him oddly. 

"Well, but--the extraordinary thing was that Hugh made me stay for thesecond service, and it was as Ritualistic as you like!"

Manvers fell back in his chair, the vivacity on his face relaxing. 

"Ah!--is that all?"

"Oh! but you don't understand, " said his companion, eagerly. "Of courseRitualistic is the wrong word. Should I have said 'sacramental'? I onlymeant that it was full of symbolism. There were lights--and flowers, andmusic, but there was nothing priestly--or superstitious"--she frowned inher effort to explain. "It was all poetic--and mystical--and yetpractical. There were a good many things changed in the Service, --butI hardly noticed--I was so absorbed in watching the people. Almost everyone stayed for the second service. It was quite short--so was the firstservice. And a great many communicated. But the spirit of it was thewonderful thing. It had all that--that magic--that mystery--that one getsout of Catholicism, even simple Catholicism, in a village church--say atBenediction; and yet one had a sense of having come out into fresh air;of saying things that were true--true at least to you, and to the peoplethat were saying them; things that you did believe, or could believe, instead of things that you only pretended to believe, or couldn'tpossibly believe! I haven't got over it yet, and as for Hugh, I havenever seen him so moved since--since Robert died. "

Manvers was aware of Mrs. Flaxman's affection for her brother-in-law'smemory; and it seemed to him natural and womanly that she should betouched--artist and wordling though she was--by this fresh effort ina similar direction. For himself, he was touched in another way: withpity, or a kindly scorn. He did not believe in patching up the Christiantradition. Either accept it--or put it aside. Newman had disposed of"neo-Christianity" once for all. 

"Well, of course all this means a row, " he said at length, with a smile. "What is the Bishop doing?"

"Oh, the Bishop will have to prosecute, Hugh says; of course he must! Andif he didn't, Mr. Barron would do it for him. "

"The gentleman who lives in the White House?"

"Precisely. Ah!" cried Mrs. Flaxman, suddenly, rising to her feet andlooking through the open window beside her. "What do you think we'vedone? We have evoked him! _Parlez du diable_, etc. How stupid of us! Butthere's his carriage trotting up the drive--I know the horses. And that'shis deaf daughter--poor, downtrodden thing!--sitting beside him. Nowthen--shall we be at home? Quick!"

Mrs. Flaxman flew to the bell, but retreated with a little grimace. 

"We must! It's inevitable. But Hugh says I can't be rude to new people. Why can't I? It's so simple. "

She sat down, however, though rebellion and a little malice quickened thecolour in her fair skin. Manvers looked longingly at the door leading tothe garden. 

"Shall I disappear?--or must I support you?"

"It all depends on what value you set on my good opinion, " said Mrs. Flaxman, laughing. 

Manvers resettled himself in his chair. 

"I stay--but first, a little information. The gentleman owns land here?"

"Acres and acres. But he only came into it about three years ago. He ison the same railway board where Hugh is Chairman. He doesn't like Hugh, and he certainly won't like me. But you see he's bound to be civil to us. Hugh says he's always making quarrels on the board--in a kind ofmagnificent, superior way. He never loses his temper--whereas the otherswould often like to flay him alive. Now then"--Mrs. Flaxman laid a fingeron her mouth--"'Papa, potatoes, prunes, and prism'!"

Steps were heard in the hall, and the butler announced "Mr. And MissBarron. "

A tall man, with an iron-gray moustache and a determined carriage, entered the room, followed by a timid and stooping lady of uncertain age. 

Mrs. Flaxman, transformed at once into the courteous hostess, greeted thenewcomers with her sweetest smiles, set the deaf daughter down on thehearing side of Mr. Manvers, ordered tea, and herself took charge of Mr. Barron. 

 * * * * *

The task was not apparently a heavy one. Mrs. Flaxman saw beside her aportly man of fifty-five, with a penetrating look, and a composed manner;well dressed, yet with no undue display. Louis Manvers, struggling withan habitual plague of shyness, and all but silenced by the discovery thathis neighbour was even deafer than himself, watched the "six-foot-twoInquisitor" with curiosity, but could find nothing lurid nor torturous inhis aspect. There was indeed something about him which displeased arationalist scholar and ascetic. But his information and ability, hisapparent adequacy to any company, were immediately evident. It seemed toManvers that he had very quickly disarmed Mrs. Flaxman's vague prejudiceagainst him. At any rate she was soon picking his brains diligently onthe subject of the neighbourhood and the neighbours, and apparentlyenjoying the result, to judge from her smiles and her questions. 

Mr. Barron indeed had everything that could be expected of him to say onthe subject of the district and its population. He descanted on thebeauty of the three or four famous parks, which in the eighteenth centuryhad been carved out of the wild heath lands; he showed an intimateknowledge of the persons who owned the parks, and of their families, "though I myself am only a newcomer here, being by rights a Devonshireman"; he talked of the local superstitions with indulgence, and a propersense of the picturesque; and of the colliers who believed thesuperstitions he spoke in a tone of general good humour, tempered byregret that "agitators" should so often lead them into folly. Thearchitecture of the district came in, of course, for proper notice. Therewere certain fine old houses near that Mrs. Flaxman ought to visit;everything of course would be open to her and her husband. 

"Oh, tell me, " said Mrs. Flaxman, suddenly interrupting him, "how far isSandford Abbey from here?"

Her visitor paused a moment before replying. 

"Sandford Abbey is about five miles from you--across the park. The twoestates meet. Do you know--Sir Philip Meryon?"

Rose Flaxman shrugged her shoulders. 

"We know something of him--at least Hugh does. His mother was a very oldfriend of Hugh's family. "

Mr. Barron was silent. 

"Is he such a scamp?" said Mrs. Flaxman, raising her fine eyes, with alaugh in them. "You make me quite anxious to see him!"

Mr. Barron echoed the laugh, stiffly. 

"I doubt whether your husband will wish to bring him here. He gatherssome strange company at the Abbey. He is there now for the fishing. "

Manvers inquired who this gentleman might be; and Mrs. Flaxman gave him alightly touched account. A young man of wealth and family, it seemed, butspoilt from his earliest days, and left fatherless at nineteen, with onlyan adoring but quite ineffectual mother to take account of. Somenotorious love affairs at home and abroad; a wild practical joke or two, played on prominent people, and largely advertised in the newspapers; anaudacious novel, and a censored play--he had achieved all these things bythe age of thirty, and was now almost penniless, and still unmarried. 

"Hugh says that the Abbey is falling into ruin--and that the young manhas about a hundred a year left out of his fortune. On this he keepsapparently an army of servants and a couple of hunters! The strangething is--Hugh discovered it when he went to call on the Rector the otherday--that this preposterous young man is a first cousin of Mr. Meynell's. His mother, Lady Meryon, and the Rector's mother were sisters. TheRector, however, seems to have dropped him long ago. "

Mr. Barron still sat silent. 

"Is he really too bad to talk about?" cried Mrs. Flaxman, impatiently. 

"I think I had rather not discuss him, " said her visitor, with decision;and she, protesting that Philip Meryon was now endowed with all thecharms, both of villainy and mystery, let the subject drop. 

Mr. Barron returned, as though with relief, to architecture, talkedagreeably of the glories of a famous Tudor house on the west side, and an equally famous Queen Anne house on the east side of the Chase. But the churches of the district, according to him, were on the wholedisappointing--inferior to those of other districts within reach. Here, indeed, he showed himself an expert; and a far too minutediscourse on the relative merits of the church architecture of two orthree of the midland counties flowed on and on through Mrs. Flaxman'stea-making, while the deaf daughter became entirely speechless; andManvers--disillusioned--gradually assumed an aspect of profoundmelancholy, which merely meant that his wits were wool gathering. 

"Well, I thought Upcote Minor church a very pretty church, " saidRose Flaxman at last, with a touch of revolt. "The old screen isbeautiful--and who on earth has done all that carving of thepulpit--and the reredos?"

Mr. Barron's expression changed. He bent toward his hostess, striking onehand sharply and deliberately with the glove which he held in the other. 

"You were at church last Sunday?"

"I was. " Mrs. Flaxman's eyes as she turned them upon him had recoveredtheir animation. 

"You were present then, " said Mr. Barron with passionate energy, "at ascandalous performance! I feel that I ought to apologize to you and Mr. Flaxman in the name of our village and parish. "

The speaker's aspect glowed with what was clearly a genuine fire. Theslight pomposity of look and manner had disappeared. 

Mrs. Flaxman hesitated. Then she said gravely: "It was certainly veryastonishing. I never saw anything like it. But my husband and I liked Mr. Meynell. We thought he was absolutely sincere. "

"He may be. But so long as he remains clergyman of this parish it isimpossible for him to be honest!"

Mrs. Flaxman slowly poured out another cup of tea for Mr. Manvers, whowas standing before her in a drooping attitude, like some long crumpledfly, apparently deaf and blind to what was going on, his hair fallingforward over his eyes. At last she said evasively:

"There are a good many people in the parish who seem to agree with him. Except yourself--and a gaunt woman in black who was pointed out tome--everybody in the church appeared to us to be enjoying what the Rectorwas doing--to be entering into it heart and soul. "

Mr. Barron flushed. 

"We do not deny that he has got a hold upon the people. That makes it allthe worse. When I came here three years ago he had not yet done any ofthese things--publicly; these perfectly monstrous things. Up to lastSunday, indeed, he kept within certain bounds as to the services; thoughfrequent complaints of his teaching had been made to the Bishop, andproceedings even had been begun--it might have been difficult to touchhim. But last Sunday!--" He stopped with a little sad gesture of the handas though the recollection were too painful to pursue. "I saw, however, within six months of my coming here--he and I were great friends atfirst--what his teaching was, and whither it was tending. He has taughtthe people systematic infidelity for years. Now we have the results!"

"He also seems to have looked after their bodies, " said Mrs. Flaxman, ina skirmishing tone that simply meant she was not to be brought to closequarters. "I am told that it was he brought the water-supply here; andthat he has forced the owners to rebuild some of the worst cottages. "

Mr. Barron looked attentively at his hostess. It was as though he werefor the first time really occupied with her--endeavouring to place her, and himself with regard to her. His face stiffened. 

"That's all very well--excellent, of course. Only, let me remind you, hewas not asked to take vows about the water-supply! But he did promise andvow at his ordination to hold the Faith--to 'banish and drive awaystrange doctrines'!"

"What are 'strange doctrines' nowadays?" said a mild, falsetto voice inthe distance. 

Barron turned to the speaker--the long-haired dishevelled person whosename he had not caught distinctly as Mrs. Flaxman introduced him. Hismanner unconsciously assumed a note of patronage. 

"No need to define them, I think--for a Christian. The Church has herCreeds. "

"Of course. But while this gentleman shelves them--no doubt arevolutionary proceeding--are there not excesses on the other side? Maythere not be too much--as well as too little?"

And with an astonishing command of ecclesiastical detail Manvers gave anaccount--gently ironic here and there--of some neo-Catholic functions ofwhich he had lately been a witness. 

Barron fidgeted. 

"Deplorable, I admit--quite deplorable! I would put that kind of thingdown, just as firmly as the other. "

Manvers smiled. 

"But who are '_you_'? if I may ask it philosophically and withoutoffence? The man here does not agree with you--the people I have beendescribing would scout you. Where's your authority? What _is_ theauthority in the English Church?"

"Well, of course we have our answer to that question, " said Barron, aftera moment. 

Manvers gave a pleasant little laugh. "Have you?"

Barron hesitated again, then evidently found the controversial temptationtoo strong. He plunged headlong into a great gulf of cloudy argument, with the big word "authority" for theme. But he could find no footholdin the maze. Manvers drove him delicately from point to point, involving him in his own contradictions, rolling him in his ownambiguities, till--suddenly--vague recollections began to stir in thevictim's mind. _Manvers_? Was that the name? It began to recall tohim certain articles in the reviews, the Church papers. Was there not awell-known writer--a Dublin man--a man who had once been a clergyman, andhad resigned his orders?

He drew himself together with dignity, and retreated in as good order ashe could. Turning to Mrs. Flaxman, who was endeavouring to make a fewcommonplaces audible to Miss Barron, while throwing occasional slyglances toward the field of battle, he somewhat curtly asked for hiscarriage. 

Mrs. Flaxman's hand was on the bell, when the drawing-room door opened toadmit a gentleman. 

"Mr. Meynell!" said the butler. 

And at the same moment a young girl slipped in through the open Frenchwindow, and with a smiling nod to Mrs. Flaxman and Mr. Manvers went up tothe tea-table and began to replenish the teapot and relight the kettle. 

Mr. Barron made an involuntary movement of annoyance as the Rectorentered. But a few minutes of waiting before the appearance of hiscarriage was inevitable. He stood motionless therefore in his place, ahandsome, impressive figure, while Meynell paid his respects to Mrs. Flaxman, whose quick colour betrayed a moment's nervousness. 

"How are you, Barron?" said the Rector from a distance with a friendlynod. Then, as he turned to Manvers, his face lit up. 

"I _am_ glad to make your acquaintance!" he said cordially. 

Manvers took the outstretched hand with a few mumbled words, but anevident look of pleasure. 

"I have just read your Bishop Butler article in the _Quarterly_, " saidMeynell eagerly. "Splendid! Have you seen it?" He turned to his hostess, with one of the rapid movements that expressed the constant energy of theman. 

Mrs. Flaxman shook her head. 

"I am an ignoramus--except about music. I make Mr. Manvers talk to me. "

"Oh, but you must read it! I hope you won't mind my quoting a long bitfrom it?" The speaker turned to Manvers again. "There is a clericalconference at Markborough next week, at which I am reading a paper. I want to make 'em all read you! What? Tea? I should think so!" Then, tohis hostess: "Will you mind if I drink a good deal? I have just been downa pit--and the dust was pretty bad. "

"Not an accident, I hope?" said Mrs. Flaxman, as she handed him his cup. 

"No. But a man had a stroke in the pit while he was at work. They thoughthe was going to die--he was a great friend of mine--and they sent for me. We got him up with difficulty. He has a bedridden wife--daughters allaway, married. Nobody to nurse him as usual. I say!"--he bent forward, looking into his hostess's face with his small, vivacious eyes--"howlong are you going to be here--at Maudeley?"

"We have taken the house for a year, " said Rose, surprised. 

"Will you give me a parish nurse for that time? It won't cost much, andit will do a lot of good, " said the Rector earnestly. "The people hereare awfully good to each other--but they don't know anything--poorsouls--and I can't get the sick folk properly looked after. Will you?"

Mrs. Flaxman's manner showed embarrassment. Within a few feet of her satthe squire of the parish, silent and impassive. Common report made HenryBarron a wealthy man. He could, no doubt, have provided half a dozennurses for Upcote Minor if he had so chosen. Yet here was she, thenewcomer of a few weeks, appealed to instead! It seemed to her that theRector was not exactly showing tact. 

"Won't Mr. Barron help?" She threw a smiling appeal toward him. 

Barron, conscious of an irritation and discomfort he had some difficultyin controlling, endeavoured nevertheless to strike the same easy note asthe rest. He gave his reasons for thinking that a parish nurse was notreally required in Upcote, the women in the village being in his opinionquite capable of nursing their husbands and sons. 

But all the time that he was speaking he was chafing for his carriage. His conversation with Mrs. Flaxman was still hot in his ears. It was allvery well for Meynell to show this levity, this callous indifference tothe situation. But he, Barron, could not forget it. That very week, thefirst steps had been taken which were to drive this heretical andaudacious priest from the office and benefice he had no right to hold, and had so criminally misused. If he submitted and went quietly, well andgood. But of course he would do nothing of the kind. There was alamentable amount of disloyalty and infidelity in the diocese, and hewould be supported. An ugly struggle was inevitable--a struggle for thehonour of Christ and his Church. It would go down to the roots of thingsand was not to be settled or smoothed over by a false and superficialcourtesy. The days of friendship, of ordinary social intercourse, wereover. Barron did not intend to receive the Rector again within his owndoors, intimate as they had been at one time; and it was awkward andundesirable that they should be meeting in other people's drawing-rooms. 

All these feelings were running through his mind while aloud he waslaboriously giving Mrs. Flaxman his reasons for thinking a parish nurseunnecessary in Upcote Minor. When he came to the end of them, Meynelllooked at him with amused exasperation. 

"Well, all I know is that in the last case of typhoid we had here--a poorlad on Reynolds's farm--his mother got him up every day while she madehis bed, and fed him--whatever we could say--on suet dumpling and cheese. He died, of course--what could he do? And as for the pneumonia patients, I believe they mostly eat their poultices--I can't make out what elsethey do with them--unless I stay and see them put on. Ah, well, nevermind. I shall have to get Mrs. Flaxman alone, and see what can be done. Now tell me"--he turned again with alacrity to Manvers--"what's that newGerman book you quote about Butler? Some uncommonly fine things in it!That bit about the Sermons--admirable!"

He bent forward, his hands on his knees, staring at Manvers. Yetthe eyes for all their intensity looked out from a face furrowed andpale--overshadowed by physical and mental strain. The girl sitting at thetea-table could scarcely take her eyes from it. It appealed at once toher heart and her intelligence. And yet there were other feelings in herwhich resisted the appeal. Once or twice she looked wistfully at Barron. She would gladly have found in him a more attractive champion of amajestic cause. 

"What can my coachman be about?" said Barron impatiently. "Might Itrouble you, Mrs. Flaxman, to ring again? I really ought to go home. "Mrs. Flaxman rang obediently. The butler appeared. Mr. Barron's servants, it seemed, were having tea. 

"Send them round, please, at once, " said their master, frowning. "Atonce!"

But the minutes passed on, and while trying to keep up a desultoryconversation with his hostess, and with the young lady at the tea-table, to whom he was not introduced, Mr. Barron was all the while angrilyconscious of the conversation going on between the Rector and Manvers. There seemed to be something personally offensive and humiliating tohimself in the knowledge displayed by these two men--men who had desertedor were now betraying the Church--of the literature of Anglicanapologetics, and of the thought of the great Anglican bishop. Why thisparade of useless learning and hypocritical enthusiasm? What was BishopButler to them? He could hardy sit patiently through it, and it was withmost evident relief that he rose to his feet when his carriage wasannounced. 

 * * * * *

"How pretty Mrs. Flaxman is!" said his daughter as they drove away. "YetI'm sure she's forty, papa. "

Her face still reflected the innocent pleasure that Rose Flaxman'skindness had given her. It was not often that the world troubled itselfmuch about her. Her father, however, took no notice. He sat absent andpondering, and soon he stretched out a peremptory hand and lowered thewindow which his daughter had raised against an east wind to protect adelicate ear and throat which had been the torment of her life. It wasdone with no conscious unkindness; far from it. He was merely absorbed inthe planning of his campaign. The next all-important point was theselection of the Commission of Inquiry. No effort must be spared by theChurch party to obtain the right men. 

Meanwhile, in the drawing-room which he had left, there was silence for amoment after his departure. Then Meynell said:

"I am afraid I frightened him away. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Flaxman. "

Rose laughed, and glanced at the girl sitting hidden behind thetea-table. 

"Oh, I had had quite enough of Mr. Barron. Mr. Meynell, have I everintroduced you to my niece?"

"Oh, but we know each other!" said Meynell, eagerly. "We met first atMiss Puttenham's, a week ago--and since then--Miss Elsmere has beenvisiting a woman I know. "

"Indeed?"

"A woman who lost her husband some days since--a terrible case. We areall so grateful to Miss Elsmere. "

He looked toward her with a smile and a sigh; then as he saw the shydiscomfort in the girl's face, he changed the subject at once. 

The conversation became general. Some feeling that she could not explainto herself led Mrs. Flaxman into a closer observation of her niece Marythan usual. There was much affection between the aunt and the niece, buton Mrs. Flaxman's side, at least, not much understanding. She thought ofMary as an interesting creature, with some striking gifts--amongst themher mother's gift for goodness. But it seemed to the aunt that she wasfar too grave and reserved for her age; that she had been too strenuouslybrought up, and in a too narrow world. Rose Flaxman had often impatientlytried to enliven the girl's existence, to give her nice clothes, to takeher to balls and to the opera. But Mary's adoration for her mother stoodin the way. 

"And really if she would only take a hand for herself"--thought Mrs. Flaxman--"she might be quite pretty! She is pretty!"

And she looked again at the girl beside her, wondering a little, as though a veil were lifted from something familiar. Mary wastalking--softly, and with a delicate and rather old-fashioned choice ofwords, but certainly with no lack of animation. And it was quite evidentto an inquisitive aunt with a notorious gift for match making that thetired heretic with the patches of coal dust on his coat found her veryattractive. 

But as the clock struck six Meynell sprang up. 

"I must go. Miss Elsmere"--he looked toward her--"has kindly promised totake me on to see your sister at the Cottage--and after to-day I may nothave another opportunity. " He hesitated, considering his hostess--thenburst out: "You were at church last Sunday--I know--I saw you. I want totell you--that you have a church quite as near to you as the parishchurch, where everything is quite orthodox--the church at Haddon End. Iwish I could have warned you. I--I did ask Miss Elsmere to warn hermother. "

Rose looked at the carpet. 

"You needn't pity us, " she said, demurely. "Hugh wants to talk to youdreadfully. But--I am afraid I am a Gallio. "

"Of course--you don't need to be told--it was all a deliberate defianceof the law--in order to raise vital questions. We have never doneanything half so bad before. We determined on it at a public meeting lastweek, and we gave Barron and his friends full warning. "

"In short, it is revolution, " said Manvers, rubbing his hands gently, "and you don't pretend that it isn't. "

"It is revolution!" said Meynell, nodding. "Or a forlorn hope! The laymenin the Church want a real franchise--a citizenship they can exercise--anda law of their own making!"

There was silence a moment. Mary Elsmere took up her hat, and kissed heraunt; Meynell made his farewells, and followed the girl's lead into thegarden. 

Mrs. Flaxman and Manvers watched them open the gate of the park anddisappear behind a rising ground. Then the two spectators turned to eachother by a common impulse, smiling at the same thought. Mrs. Flaxman'ssmile, however, was almost immediately drowned in a real concern. Sheclasped her hands, excitedly. 

"Oh! my poor Catharine! What would she--what _would_ she say?"

CHAPTER IV

Meynell and his companion had taken a footpath winding gently down hilland in a northwest direction across one of the most beautiful parks inEngland. It lay on the fringe of the Chase and contained, within itsslopes and glades, now tracts of primitive woodland whence the charcoalburners seemed to have but just departed; now purple wastes of heather, wild as the Chase itself; or again, dense thickets of bracken and fir, hiding primeval and impenetrable glooms. Maudeley House, behind them, aseemly Georgian pile, with a columnar front, had the good fortune tobelong to a man not rich enough to live in or rebuild it, butsufficiently attached to it to spend upon its decent maintenance themoney he got by letting it. So the delicately faded beauty of the househad survived unspoilt; while there had never been any money to spend uponthe park, where the woods and fences looked after themselves year byyear, and colliers from the neighbouring villages poached freely. 

The two people walking through the ferny paths leading to the cottage ofForkéd Pond were not, however, paying much attention to the landscaperound them. Meynell showed himself at first preoccupied and silent. Aload of anxiety depressed his vitality; and on this particular day longhours of literary work and correspondence, beginning almost with the dawnand broken only by the colliery scene of which he had spoken to Mrs. Flaxman, had left deep marks upon him. Yet the girl's voice and manner, and the fragments of talk that passed between them, seemed gradually tocreate a soothing and liberating atmosphere in which it was possible tospeak with frankness, though without effort or excitement. 

The Rector indeed had so far very little precise knowledge of what hiscompanion's feeling might be toward his own critical plight. He wouldhave liked to get at it; for there was something in this winning, reserved girl that made him desire her good opinion. And yet he shrankfrom any discussion with her. 

He knew of course that the outlines of what had happened must be known toher. During the ten days since their first meeting both the local andLondon newspapers had given much space to the affairs of Upcote Minor. Animportant public meeting in which certain decisions had been taken withonly three dissentients had led up to the startling proceedings in thevillage church which Mrs. Flaxman had described to Louis Manvers. TheBishop had written another letter, this time of a more hurried andperemptory kind. An account of the service had appeared in the _Times_, and columns had been devoted to it in various Mercian newspapers. Afteryears of silence, during which his heart had burned within him; after ashorter period of growing propaganda and expanding utterance, Meynellrealized fully that he had now let loose the floodgates. All round himwas rising that wide response from human minds and hearts--whether insympathy or in hostility--which tests and sifts the man who aspires to bea leader of men--in religion or economics. Every trade union leaderlifted on the wave of a great strike, representing the urgent physicalneed of his fellows, knows what the concentration of human passion canbe--in matters concerned with the daily bread and the homes of men. Religion can gather and bring to bear forces as strong. Meynell knew itwell; and he was like a man stepping down into a rushing stream fromwhich there is no escape. It must be crossed--that is all the wayfarerknows; but as he feels the water on his body he realizes that the momentis perhaps for life or death. 

Such crises in life bring with them, in the case of the noblerpersonalities, a great sensitiveness; and Meynell seemed to be living ina world where not only his own inner feelings and motives but those ofothers were magnified and writ large. As he walked beside Mary Elsmerehis mind played round what he knew of her history and position; and ittroubled him to think that, both for her and her mother, contact with himat this particular moment might be the reviving of old sorrows. 

As they paused on the top of a rising ground looking westward he lookedat her with sudden and kindly decision. 

"Miss Elsmere, are you sure your mother would like to see me? It was verygood of you to request that I should accompany you to-night--but--are yousure?"

Mary coloured deeply and hesitated a moment. 

"Don't you think I'd better turn back?" he asked her, gently. "Your pathis clear before you. " He pointed to it winding through the fern. "And youknow, I hope, that anything I could do for you and your mother duringyour stay here I should be only too enchanted to do. The one thing Ishrink from doing is to interfere in any way with her rest here. And I amafraid just now I might be a disturbing element. "

"No, no! please come!" said Mary, earnestly. Then as she turned her headaway, she added: "Of course--there is nothing new--to her--"

"Except that my fight is waged from inside the Church--and your father'sfrom outside. But that might make all the difference to her. "

"I don't think so. It is"--she faltered--"the change itself. It is all soterrible to her. "

"Any break with the old things? But doesn't it ever present itself toher--force itself upon her--as the upwelling of a new life?" he asked, sadly. 

"Ah!--if it didn't in my father's case--"

The girl's eyes filled with tears. 

But she quickly checked herself, and they moved on in silence. Meynell, with his pastoral instinct and training, longed to probe and soothe thetrouble he divined in her. A great natural dignity in the girl--delicacyof feeling in the man--prevented it. 

None the less her betrayal of emotion had altered their relation; orrather had carried it farther. For he had already seen her in contactwith tragic and touching things. A day or two after that early morningwhen he had told the outlines of the Batesons' story to the two ladieswho had entertained him at breakfast he had found her in Bateson'scottage with his wife. Bateson was dead, and his wife in that dumb, automaton state of grief when the human spirit grows poisonous to itself. The young girl who came and went with so few words and such friendlytimid ways had stirred, as it were, the dark air of the house with abreath of tenderness. She would sit beside the widow, sewing at a blackdress, or helping her to choose the text to be printed on the funeralcard; or she would come with her hands full of wild flowers, and coaxMrs. Bateson to go in the dusk to the churchyard with them. She hadshown, indeed, wonderful inventiveness in filling the first week of lossand anguish with such small incident as might satisfy feeling, and yettake a woman out of herself. 

The level sun shone full upon her as she walked beside him, and her face, her simple dress, her attitude stole gradually like a spell on the mindof her companion. It was a remarkable face; the lower lip a littleprominent, and the chin firmly rounded. But the smile, though rare, wasyouth and sweetness itself, and the dark eyes beneath the full mass ofrichly coloured hair were finely conscious and attentive--disinterestedalso; so that they won the spectator instead of embarrassing him. She wasvery lightly and slenderly made, yet so as to convey an impression ofstrength and physical health. Meynell said to himself that there wassomething cloistered in her look, like one brought up in a graveatmosphere--an atmosphere of "recollection. " At the same time nothingcould be merrier--more childish even--than her laugh. 

Their talk flowed on, from subject to subject, yet always tending, whether they would or no, toward the matter which was inevitably in boththeir minds. Insensibly the barrier between them and it broke away. Neither, indeed, forgot the interposing shadow of Catharine Elsmere. Butthe conversation touched on ideas; and ideas, like fire in stubble, spread far afield. Oxford: the influences which had worked on Elsmere, before Meynell's own youth felt them; men, books, controversies, interwoven for Mary with her father's history, for Meynell with his own;these topics, in spite of misgivings on both sides, could not but revealthem to each other. The growing delight of their conversation waspresently beyond Meynell's resisting. And in Mary, the freedom of it, noless than the sense of personal conflict and tragic possibilities thatlay behind it, awakened the subtlest and deepest feelings. Poignant, concrete images rushed through her mind--a dying face to which her ownhad been lifted, as a tiny child; the hall of the New Brotherhood, whereshe sat sometimes beside her veiled mother; the sad nobility of thatmother's life; a score of trifling, heartpiercing things, that, to thinkof, brought the sob to her throat. Silent revolts of her own too, scattered along the course of her youth, revolts dumb, yet violent;longings for an "ampler ether"--for the great tumultuous clash of thoughtand doubt, of faith and denial, in a living and daring world. And yetagain, times of passionate remorse, in which all movement of revolt haddied away; when her only wish had been to smooth the path of her mother, and to soften a misery she but dimly understood. 

So that presently she was swept away--as by some released long-thwartedforce. And under the pressure of her quick, searching sympathy his talkbecame insensibly more personal, more autobiographical. He was but littlegiven to confession, but she compelled it. It was as though through hisstory she sought to understand her father's--to unveil many things yetdark to her. 

Thus gradually, through ways direct and indirect, the intellectual storyof the man revealed itself to the pure and sensitive mind of the girl. She divined his home and upbringing--his father an Evangelical soldier ofthe old school, a home imbued with the Puritan and Biblical ideas. Sheunderstood something of the struggle provoked--after his ordination, in asomewhat late maturity--by the uprising of the typical modern problems, historical, critical, scientific. She pieced together much that only cameout incidentally as to the counsellors within the Church to whom he hadgone in his first urgent distress--the Bishop whom he reverenced--hisold teachers at Oxford--the new lights at Cambridge. 

And the card houses, the frail resting-places, thus built, it seemed, along the route, had lasted long; till at last a couple of smallFrench books by a French priest and the sudden uprush of new lifein the Roman Church had brought to the remote English clergyman at oncethe crystallization of doubt and the passion of a freed faith. "Modernism"--the attempt of the modern spirit, acting religiously, torefashion Christianity, not outside, but _inside_, the warm limits of theancient churches--was born; and Richard Meynell became one of the firstconverts in England. 

"Ah, if your father had but lived!" he said at last, turning upon herwith emotion. "He died his noble death twenty years ago--think of thedifference between then and now! Then the Broad Church movement wasat an end. All that seemed so hopeful, so full of new life in theseventies, had apparently died down. Stanley, John Richard Green, HughPearson were dead, Jowett was an old man of seventy; Liberalism withinthe Church hardly seemed to breathe; the judgment in the Voysey case--asmuch a defiance of modern knowledge as any Papal encyclical--thoughpeople had nearly forgotten it, had yet in truth brought the wholemovement to a stand. All _within_ the gates seemed lost. Your father wentout into the wilderness, and there, amid everything that was poor andmean and new, he laid down his life. But we!--we are no longer alone, or helpless. The tide has come up to the stranded ship--the launching ofit depends now only on the faithfulness of those within it. "

Mary was moved and silenced. The man's power, his transparent purity ofheart, affected her, as they had already affected thousands. She wasdrawn to him also, unconsciously, by that something in personality whichdetermines the relations of men and women. Yet there were deep instinctsin her that protested. Girl as she was, she felt herself for the momentmore alive than he to the dead weight of the World, fighting the tug ofthose who would fain move it from its ancient bases. 

He seemed to guess at her thought; for he passed on to describe theevents by which, amid his own dumb or hidden struggle, he had becomeaware of the same forces working all round him; among the moreintelligent and quick-witted miners, hungry for history and science, reading voraciously a Socialist and anti-Christian literature, yet allthe while cherishing deep at heart certain primitive superstitions, andfalling periodically into hot abysses of Revivalism, under the influenceof Welsh preachers; or among the young men of the small middle class, inwhom a better education was beginning to awaken a number of newintellectual and religious wants; among women, too, sensitive, intelligent women--

"Ah! but, " said Mary, quickly interrupting him, "don't imagine there aremany women like Miss Puttenham! There are very, very few!"

He turned upon her with surprise. 

"I was not thinking of Miss Puttenham, I assure you. She has taken verylittle part in this particular movement. I never know whether she isreally with us. She stands outside the old things, but I can never makemyself happy by the hope that I have been able to win her to the new!"

Mary looked puzzled--interrogative. But she checked her question, anddrew him back instead to his narrative--to the small incidents and signswhich had gradually revealed to him, among even his brother clergy, yearsbefore that date, the working of ideas and thoughts like his own. Andnow--

He broke off abruptly. 

"You have heard of our meeting last week?"

"Of course!"

"There were men there from all parts of the diocese--and some from othercounties. It made me think of what a French Catholic Modernist said to metwo years ago--'Pius X may write encyclicals as he pleases--I could showhim whole dioceses in France that are practically Modernist, where theSeminaries are Modernist, and two thirds of the clergy. The Bishop knowsit quite well, and is helpless. Over the border perhaps you get anUltramontane diocese, and an Ultramontane bishop. But the process goeson. Life and time are for _us_!'" He paused and laughed. "Ah, of course Idon't pretend things are so here--yet. Our reforms in England--in Churchand State--broaden slowly down. In France, reform, when it moves at all, tends to be catastrophic. But in the Markborough diocese alone we havewon over perhaps a fifth of the clergy, and the dioceses all round aremoving. As to the rapidity of the movement in the last few months it hasbeen nothing short of amazing!"

"And what is the end to be? Not only--oh! Not only--_to destroy_!" saidMary. The soft intensity of the voice, the beauty of the look, touchedhim strangely. 

He smiled, and there was a silence for a minute, as they wandereddownward through a purple stretch of heather to a little stream, sun-smitten, that lay across their path. Once or twice she looked at himtimidly, afraid lest she might have wounded him. 

But at last he said:

"Shall I answer you in the words of a beloved poet?

"'What though there still need effort, strife? Though much be still unwon?Yet warm it mounts, the hour of life! Death's frozen hour is done!

"'The world's great order dawns in sheen After long darkness rude, Divinelier imaged, clearer seen, With happier zeal pursued. 

"'What still of strength is left, employ, _This_ end to help attain--_One common wave of thought and joy Lifting mankind again_!'

"There"--his voice was low and rapid--"_there_ is the goal! a new_happiness_: to be reached through a new comradeship--a freer and yetintenser fellowship. We want to say to our fellowmen: 'Cease from gropingamong ruins!--from making life and faith depend upon whether Christ wasborn at Bethlehem or at Nazareth, whether He rose or did not rise, whether Luke or some one else wrote the Third Gospel, whether the FourthGospel is history or poetry. The life-giving force is _here_, and _now_!It is burning in your life and mine--as it burnt in the life of Christ. Give all you have to the flame of it--let it consume the chaff and purifythe gold. Take the cup of cold water to the thirsty, heal the sick, tendthe dying, and feel it thrill within you--the ineffable, the immortallife! Let the false miracle go!--the true has grown out of it, up fromit, as the flower from the sheath. ' Ah! but then"--he drew himself upunconsciously; his tone hardened--"we turn to the sons of tradition, andwe say: 'We too must have our rights in what the past has built up, thepast has bequeathed--as well as you! Not for you alone, the institutions, the buildings, the arts, the traditions, that the Christ-life has so farfashioned for itself. They who made them are Our fathers no less thanyours--give us our share in them!--we claim it! Give us our share in thecathedrals and churches of our country--our share in the beauty andmajesty of our ancestral Christianity. ' The men who led the rebellionagainst Rome in the sixteenth century claimed the _plant_ of EnglishCatholicism. 'We are our fathers' sons, and these things are _ours!_'they said, as they looked at Salisbury and Winchester. We say thesame--with a difference. 'Give us the rights and the citizenship thatbelong to us! But do not imagine that we want to attack yours. In God'sname, follow your own forms of faith--but allow us ours also--withinthe common shelter of the common Church. We are children of the sameGod--followers of the same Master. Who made you judges and dividers overus? You shall not drive us into the desert any more. A new movement ofrevolt has come--an hour of upheaval--and the men, with it!'"

Both stood motionless, gazing over the wide stretch of country--woodbeyond wood, distance beyond distance, that lay between them and theWelsh border. Suddenly, as a shaft of light from the descending sunfled ghostlike across the plain, touching trees and fields and farms inits path, two noble towers emerged among the shadows--characters, as itwere, that gave a meaning to the scroll of nature. They were the towersof Markborough Cathedral. Meynell pointed to them as he turned to hiscompanion, his face still quivering under the strain of feeling. 

"Take the omen! It is for _them_, in a sense--a spiritual sense--we arefighting. They belong not to any body of men that may chance to-day tocall itself the English Church. They belong to _England_--in her aspectof faith--and to the English people!"

There was a silence. His look came back to her face, and the propheticglow died from his own. "I should be very, very sorry"--he saidanxiously--"if anything I have said had given you pain. "

Mary shook her head. 

"No--not to me. I--I have my own thoughts. But one must think--ofothers. " Her voice trembled. 

The words seemed to suggest everything that in her own personal historyhad stamped her with this sweet, shrinking look. Meynell was deeplytouched. But he did not answer her, or pursue the conversation anyfarther. He gathered a great bunch of harebells for her, from thesun-warmed dells in the heather; and was soon making her laugh by hisstories of colliery life and speech, _à propos_ of the colliery villagesfringing the plain at their feet. 

 * * * * *

The stream, as they neared it, proved to be the boundary between theheath land and the pastures of the lower ground. It ran fresh andbrimming between its rushy banks, shadowed here and there by a few lightashes and alders, but in general open to the sky, of which it was themirror. It shone now golden and blue under the deepening light of theafternoon; and two or three hundred yards away Mary Elsmere distinguishedtwo figures walking beside it--a young man apparently, and a girl. Meynell looked at them absently. 

"That's one of the most famous trout-streams in the Midlands. Thereshould be a capital rise to-night. If that man has the sense to put on asedge-fly, he'll get a creel-full. "

"And what is that house among the trees?" asked his companion presently, pointing to a gray pile of building about a quarter of a mile away, onthe other side of the stream. "What a wonderful old place!"

For the house that revealed itself stood with an impressive dignity amongits stern and blackish woods. The long, plain front suggested a monasticorigin; and there was indeed what looked like a ruined chapel at one end. Its whole aspect was dilapidated and forlorn; and yet it seemed to havegrown into the landscape, and to be so deeply rooted in it that one couldnot imagine it away. 

Meynell glanced at it. 

"That is Sandford Abbey. It belongs, I regret to say, to a neer-do-weelcousin of mine who has spent all his time since he came into it inneglecting his duties to it. Provided the owner of it is safely away, Ishould advise you and Mrs. Elsmere to walk over and see it one day. Otherwise it is better viewed at a distance. At least those are my ownsentiments!"

Mary followed the house with her eyes as they walked along the bank ofthe stream toward the two figures on the opposite bank. 

A sudden exclamation from her companion caught her ear--and a lightmusical laugh. Startled by something familiar in it, Mary looked acrossthe stream. She saw on the farther bank a few yards ahead a young manfishing, and a young girl in white sitting beside him. 

"Hester!--Miss Fox-Wilton!"--the tone showed her surprise; "and who isthat with her?"

Meynell, without replying, walked rapidly along the stream to a pointimmediately opposite the pair. 

"Good afternoon, Philip. I did not know you were here. Hester, I am goinground by Forkéd Pond, and then home. I shall be glad to escort you. "

"Oh! thank you--thank you _so_ much. But it's very nice here. You can'tthink what a rise there is. I have caught two myself. Sir Philip has beenteaching me. "

"She frames magnificently!" said the young man. "How d'ye do, Meynell? Along time since we've met. "

"A long time, " said Meynell briefly. "Hester, will you meet Miss Elsmereand me at the bridge? We sha'n't take you much out of your way. "

He pointed to a tiny wooden bridge across the stream, a hundred yardsfarther down. 

A look of mischievous defiance was flung at Meynell across the stream. "I'm all right, I assure you. Don't bother about me. How do you do, Mary?We don't 'miss' each other, do we? Isn't it a lovely evening? Such goodluck I wouldn't go with mother to dine at the White House! Don't you hatedinner parties? I told Mr. Barron that spiders were so much more refinedthan humans--they did at least eat their flies by themselves! He wasquite angry--and I am afraid Stephen was too!"

She laughed again, and so did the man beside her. He was a dark, slimfellow, finely made, dressed in blue serge, and a felt hat, whichseemed at the moment to be slipping over the back of his handsome head. From a little distance he produced an impression of Apollo-like strengthand good looks. As the spectator came closer, this impression was a gooddeal modified by certain loose and common lines in the face. But fromMary Elsmere's position only Sir Philip Meryon's good points werevisible, and he appeared to her a dazzling creature. 

And in point of looks his companion was more than his match. They madeindeed a brilliant pair, framed amid the light green of the river bank. Hester Fox-Wilton was sitting on a log with her straw hat on her lap. Inpushing along the overgrown stream, the coils of her hair had beendisarranged and its combs loosened. The hair was of a warm brown shade, and it made a cloud about her headland face, from which her eyes andsmile shone out triumphantly. Exceptionally tall, with clear-cut aquilinefeatures, with the movements and the grace of a wood nymph, the girlcarried her beautiful brows and her full throat with a provocative andself-conscious arrogance. One might have guessed that fear was unknownto her; perhaps tenderness also. She looked much older than seventeen, until she moved or spoke; then the spectator soon realized that in spiteof her height and her precocious beauty she was a child, capable still ofa child's mischief. 

And on mischief she was apparently bent this afternoon. Mary Elsmere, shyly amused, held aloof, while Meynell and Miss Fox-Wilton talked acrossthe stream. Meynell's peremptory voice reached her now and then, and shecould not help hearing a sharp final demand that the truant shouldtransfer herself at once to his escort. 

The girl threw him an odd look; she sprang to her feet, flushed, laughed, and refused. 

"Very well!" said Meynell. "Then perhaps, as you won't join us, you willallow me to join you. Miss Elsmere, I am very sorry, but I am afraid Imust put off my visit to your mother. Will you give her my regrets?"

The fury in Hester's look deepened. She lost her smile. 

"I won't be watched and coerced! Why shouldn't I amuse myself as Iplease!"

Meanwhile Sir Philip Meryon had laid aside his rod and was apparentlyenjoying the encounter between his companion and the Rector. 

"Perhaps you have forgotten--this is _my_ side of the river, Meynell!" heshouted across it. 

"I am quite aware of it, " said the Rector, as he shook hands with theembarrassed Mary. She was just moving away with a shy good-bye to theangry young goddess on the farther bank, when the goddess said:

"Don't go, Mary! Here, Sir Philip--take the fly-book!" She flung ittoward him. "Goodnight. "

And turning her back upon him without any further ceremony, she walkedquickly along the stream toward the little bridge which Meynell hadpointed out. 

"Congratulations!" said Meryon, with a mocking wave of the hand to theRector, who made no reply. He ran to catch up Mary, and the two joinedthe girl in white at the bridge. The owner of Sandford Abbey stoodmeanwhile with his hand on his hip watching the receding figures. Therewas a smile on his handsome mouth, but it was an angry one; and hismuttered remark as he turned away belied the unconcern he had affected. 

 * * * * *

"That comes, you see, of not letting me be engaged to Stephen!" saidHester in a white heat, as the three walked on together. 

Mary looked at her in astonishment. 

"I see no connection, " was the Rector's quiet reply. "You know very wellthat your mother does not approve of Sir Philip Meryon, and does not wishyou to be in his company. "

"Precisely. But as I am not to be allowed to marry Stephen, I must ofcourse amuse myself with some one else. If I can't be engaged to Stephen, I won't be anything at all to him. But, then, I don't admit that I'mbound. "

"At present all you're asked"--said Meynell dryly--"is not to disobeyyour mother. But don't you think it's rather rude to Miss Elsmere to bediscussing private affairs she doesn't understand?"

"Why shouldn't she understand them? Mary, my guardian here and my mothersay that I mustn't be engaged to Stephen Barron--that I'm too young--orsome nonsense of that kind. And Stephen--oh, well, Stephen's too good forthis world! If he really loved me, he'd do something desperate, wouldn'the?--instead of giving in. I don't much mind, myself--I don't really careso much about marrying Stephen--only if I'm not to marry him, andsomebody else wants to please me, why shouldn't I let him?"

She turned her beautiful wild eyes upon Mary Elsmere. And as shedid so Mary was suddenly seized with a strong sense of likeness in thespeaker--her gesture--her attitude--to something already familiar. Shecould not identify the something, but her gaze fastened itself on theface before her. 

Meynell meanwhile answered Hester's tirade. 

"I'm quite ready to talk this over with you, Hester, on our way home. Butdon't you see that you are making Miss Elsmere uncomfortable?"

"Oh, no, I'm not, " said Hester coolly. "You've been talking to her ofall sorts of grave, stupid things--and she wants amusing--waking up. I know the look of her. Don't you?" She slipped her arm inside Mary's. "You know, if you'd only do your hair a little differently--fluff it outmore--you'd be so pretty! Let me do it for you. And you shouldn't wearthat hat--no, you really shouldn't. It's a brute! I could trim youanother in half an hour. Shall I? You know--I really like you. _He_sha'n't make us quarrel!"

She looked with a young malice at Meynell. But her brow had smoothed, andit was evident that her temper was passing away. 

"I don't agree with you at all about my hat, " said Mary with spirit. "Itrimmed it myself, and I'm extremely proud of it. "

Hester laughed out--a laugh that rang through the trees. 

"How foolish you are!--isn't she, Rector? No!--I suppose that's just whatyou like. I wonder what you _have_ been talking to her about? I shallmake her tell me. Where are you going to?"

She paused, as Mary and the Rector, at a point where two paths converged, turned away from the path which led back to Upcote Minor. Mary explainedagain that Mr. Meynell and she were on the way to the Forkéd Pondcottage, where the Rector wished to call upon her mother. 

Hester looked at her gravely. 

"All right!--but your mother won't want to see me. No!--really it's nogood your saying she will. I saw her in the village yesterday. I'm nother sort. Let me go home by myself. "

Mary half laughed, half coaxed her into coming with them. But she wentvery unwillingly; fell completely silent, and seemed to be in a dream allthe way to the cottage. Meynell took no notice of her; though once ortwice she stole a furtive look toward him. 

 * * * * *

The tiny house in which Catharine Elsmere and her daughter had settledthemselves for the summer stood on a narrow isthmus of land belonging tothe Maudeley estate, between the Sandford trout-stream and a large rushypond of two or three acres. It was a very lonely and a very beautifulplace, though the neighbourhood generally pronounced it damp andrheumatic. The cottage, sheltered under a grove of firs, looked straightout on the water, and over a bed of water-lilies. All round was a summermurmur of woods, the call of waterfowl, and the hum of bees; for, at theedges of the water, flowers and grasses pushed thickly out into thesunlight from the shadow of the woods. 

By the waterside, with a book on her knee, sat a lady who rose as theycame in sight. 

Meynell approached her, hat in hand, his strong irregular face, which hadalways in it a touch of _naiveté_, of the child, expressing both timidityand pleasure. The memory of her husband was enshrined deep in the mindsof all religious liberals; and it was known to many that while thehusband and wife had differed widely in opinion, and the wife hadsuffered profoundly from the husband's action, yet the love between themhad been, from first to last, a perfect and a sacred thing. 

He saw a tall woman, very thin, in a black dress. Her brown hair, verylightly touched with gray and arranged with the utmost simplicity, frameda face in which the passage of years had emphasized and sharpened allthe main features, replacing also the delicate smoothness of youth by asubtle network of small lines and shadows, which had turned the originalwhiteness of the skin into a brownish ivory, full of charm. The eyeslooked steadily out from their deep hollows; the mouth, austere andfinely cut, the characteristic hands, and the unconscious dignity ofmovement--these personal traits made of Elsmere's wife, even in latemiddle age, a striking and impressive figure. 

Yet Meynell realized at once, as she just touched his offered hand, thatthe sympathy and the homage he would so gladly have brought her would beunwelcome; and that it was a trial to her to see him. 

He sat down beside her, while Mary and Hester--who, on her introductionto Mrs. Elsmere, had dropped a little curtsey learnt at a German school, and full of grace--wandered off a little way along the water-side. Meynell, struggling with depression, tried to make conversation--onanything and everything that was not Upcote Minor, its parish, or itschurch. Mrs. Elsmere's gentle courtesy never failed; yet behind it he wasconscious of a steely withdrawal of her real self from any contact withhis. He talked of Oxford, of the great college where he had learnt from, the same men who had been Elsmere's teachers; of current books, of thewild flowers and birds of the Chase; he did his best; but never oncewas there any living response in her quiet replies, even when she smiled. 

He said to himself that she had judged him, and that the judgments ofsuch a personality once formed were probably irrevocable. Would shediscourage any acquaintance with her daughter? It startled him to feelhow much the unspoken question hurt. 

Meanwhile the eyes of his hostess pursued the two girls, and shepresently called to them, greeting their reappearance with an evidentchange and relaxation of manner. She made Hester sit near her, and it wasnot long before the child, throwing off her momentary awe, was chatteringfast and freely, yet, as Mary perceived, with a tact, conscious orunconscious, that kept the chatter within bounds. 

Mrs. Elsmere watched the girl's beauty with evident delight, and whenMeynell rose to go, and Hester with him, she timidly drew the radiantcreature to her and kissed her. Hester opened her big eyes with surprise. 

Catharine Elsmere sat silent a moment watching the two departing figures;then as Mary found a place in the grass beside her, she said, with someconstraint:

"You walked with him from Maudeley?"

"Mr. Meynell? Yes, I found him there at tea. He was very anxious to payhis respects to you; so I brought him. "

"I can't imagine why he should have thought it necessary. "

Mary colored brightly and suddenly, under the vivacity of the tone. Thenshe slipped her hand into her mother's. 

"You didn't mind, dearest? Aunt Rose likes him very much, and--and Iwanted him to know you!" She smiled into her mother's eyes. "But weneedn't see him anymore if--"

Mrs. Elsmere interrupted her. 

"I don't wish to be rude to any friend of Aunt Rose's, " she said, ratherstiffly. "But there is no need we should see him, is there?"

"No, " said Mary; her cheek dropped against her mother's knee, her eyes onthe water. "No--not that I know of. " After a moment she added withapparent inconsequence, "You mean because of his opinions?"

Catharine gave a rather hard little laugh. 

"Well, of course he and I shouldn't agree; I only meant we needn't go outof our way--"

"Certainly not. Only I can't help meeting him sometimes!"

Mary sat up, smiling, with her hands round her knees. 

"Of course. "

A pause. It was broken by the mother--as though reluctantly. 

"Uncle Hugh was here while you were away. He told me about the servicelast Sunday. Your father would never--never--have done such a thing!"

The repressed passion with which the last words were spoken startledMary. She made no reply, but her face, now once more turned toward thesunlit pond, had visibly saddened. Inwardly she found herself asking--"Iffather had lived?--if father were here now?"

Her reverie was broken by her mother's voice--softened--breathinga kind of compunction. 

"I daresay he's a good sort of man. "

"I think he is, " said Mary, simply. 

They talked no more on the subject, and presently Catharine Elsmere rose, and went into the house. 

Mary sat on by the water-side thinking. Meynell's aspect, Meynell'swords, were in her mind--little traits too and incidents of hisparochial life that she had come across in the village. A man mightpreach and preach, and be a villain! But for a man--a hasty, preoccupied, student man--so to live, through twenty years, among these vigorous, quick-tempered, sharp-brained miners, as to hold the place among themRichard Meynell held, was not to be done by any mere pretender, anyspiritual charlatan. How well his voice pleased her!--his tenderness tochildren--his impatience--his laugh. 

The thoughts, too, he had expressed to her on their walk ran kindlingthrough her mind. There were in her many half-recognized thirsts anddesires of the spirit that seemed to have become suddenly strong andurgent under the spur of his companionship. 

She sat dreaming; then her mother called her to the evening meal, and shewent in. They passed the evening together, in the free and tenderintimacy which was their habitual relation. But in the mind of each therewere hidden movements of depression or misgiving not known to the other. 

Meanwhile the Rector had walked home with his ward. A stormy business!For much as he disliked scolding any young creature, least of all, Hester, the situation simply could not be met without a scolding--byHester's guardian. Disobedience to her mother's wishes; disloyalty towardthose who loved her, including himself; deceit, open and unabashed, ifthe paradox may be allowed--all these had to be brought home to her. Hetalked, now tenderly, now severely, dreading to hurt her, yet hoping tomake his blows smart enough to be remembered. She was not to make friendswith Sir Philip Meryon. She was not to see him or walk with him. He wasnot a fit person for her to know; and she must trust her elders in thematter. 

"You are not going to make us all anxious and miserable, dear Hester!" hesaid at last, hoping devoutly that he was nearly through with his task. "Promise me not to meet this man any more!" He looked at her appealingly. 

"Oh, dear, no, I couldn't do that, " said Hester cheerfully. 

"Hester!"

"I couldn't. I never know what I shall want to do. Why should I promise?"

"Because you are asked to do so by those who love you, and you ought totrust them. "

Hester shook her head. 

"It's no good promising. You'll have to prevent me. "

Meynell was silent a moment. Then he said, not without sternness:

"We shall of course prevent you, Hester, if necessary. But it would befar better if you took yourself in hand. "

"Why did you stop my being engaged to Stephen?" she cried, raising herhead defiantly. 

He saw the bright tears in her eyes, and melted at once. 

"Because you are too young to bind yourself, my child. Wait a while, andif in two years you are of the same mind, nobody will stand in your way. "

"I sha'n't care a rap about him in two years, " said Hester vehemently. "Idon't care about him now. But I should have cared about him if I had beenengaged to him. Well, now, you and mamma have meddled--and you'll see!"

They were nearing the opening of the lane which led from the main road toNorth Leigh, Lady Fox-Wilton's house. As she perceived it Hester suddenlytook to flight, and her light form was soon lost to view in the summerdusk. 

The Rector did not attempt to pursue her. He turned back toward theRectory, perturbed and self-questioning. But it was not possible, afterall, to set a tragic value on the love affair of a young lady who, withina week of its breaking off, had already consoled herself with anotherswain. Anything less indicative of a broken heart than Hester's behaviourduring that week the Rector could not imagine. Personally he believedthat she spoke the simple truth when she said she no longer cared forStephen. He did not believe she ever had cared for him. 

Still he was troubled, and on his way toward the Rectory he turned aside. He knew that on his table he should find letters waiting that would takehim half the night. But they must lie there a bit longer. At MissPuttenham's gate he paused, hesitated a moment, then went straight intothe twilight garden, where he imagined that he should find its mistress. 

He found her, in a far corner, among close-growing trees and with herusual occupations, her books and her embroidery, beside her. But she wasneither reading nor sewing. She sprang up to greet him, and for an hourof summer twilight they held a rapid, low-voiced conversation. 

When he pressed her hand at parting they looked at each other, stillovershadowed by the doubt and perplexity which had marked the opening oftheir interview. But he tried to reassure her. 

"Put from you all idea of immediate difficulty, " he said earnestly. "There really is none--none at all. Stephen is perfectly reasonable, andas for the escapade to-day--"

The woman before him shook her head. 

"She means to marry at the earliest possible moment--simply to escapefrom Edith--and that house. We sha'n't delay it long. And who knows whatmay happen if we thwart her too much?"

"We _must_ delay it a year or two, if we possibly can--for her sake--andfor yours, " said Meynell firmly. "Good night, my dear friend. Try andsleep--put the anxiety away. When the moment comes--and of course I admitit must come--you will reap the harvest of the love you have sown. Shedoes love you!--I am certain of that. "

He heard a low sound--was it a sobbing breath?--as Alice Puttenhamdisappeared in the darkness which had overtaken the garden. 

CHAPTER V

Breakfast at the White House, Upcote Minor, was an affair of somewhatminute regulation. 

About a fortnight after Mr. Barron's call on the new tenants of MaudeleyHall, his deaf daughter Theresa entered the dining-room as usual on thestroke of half-past eight. She glanced round her to see that all was inorder, the breakfast table ready, and the chairs placed for prayers. Thenshe went up to a side-table on which was placed a large Bible andprayer-book and a pile of hymn-books. She looked at the lessons andpsalms for the day and placed markers in the proper places. Then shechose a hymn, and laid six open hymn-books one upon another. After whichshe stood for a moment looking at the first verse of the psalm for theday: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh myhelp. " The verse was one of her favourites, and she smiled vaguely, likeone who recognizes in the distance a familiar musical phrase. 

Theresa Barron was nearly thirty. She had a long face with rather highcheek-bones, and timid gray eyes. Her complexion was sallow, her figureawkward. Her only beauty indeed lay in a certain shy and fleeting charmof expression, which very few people noticed. She passed generally for adull and plain woman, ill-dressed, with a stoop that was almost adeformity, and a deafness that made her socially useless. But the youngservants whom she trained, and the few poor people on her father's estateto whom she was allowed to minister, were very fond of "Miss Theresa. "But for her, the owner of Upcote Minor Park would have been even moreunpopular than he was, indoors and out. The wounds made by his brusque orhaughty manner to his inferiors were to a certain extent healed by thegentleness and the good heart of his daughter. And a kind of glory wasreflected on him by her unreasoning devotion to him. She suffered underhis hardness or his self-will, but she adored him all the time; nor washer ingenuity ever at a loss for excuses for him. He always treated hercarelessly, sometimes contemptuously; but he would not have known how toget through life without her, and she was aware of it. 

On this August morning, having rung the bell for the butler, she placedthe Bible and prayer-book beside her father's chair, and opening the doorbetween the library and the dining-room, she called, "Papa!"

Through the farther door into the hall there appeared a long processionof servants, headed by the butler, majestically carrying the tea-urn. Something in this daily procession, and its urn-bearer, had oncesent Stephen Barron, the eldest son--then an Eton boy just home fromschool--into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, which had cost him hisfather's good graces for a week. But the procession had been in no wayaffected, and at this later date Stephen on his visits home took it asgravely as anybody else. 

The tea-urn, pleasantly hissing, was deposited on the white cloth; theservants settled themselves on their chairs, while Theresa distributedthe open hymn-books amongst them; and when they were all seated, themaster of the house, like a chief actor for whom the stage waits, appeared from the library. 

He read a whole chapter from the Bible. It told the story of Gehazi, andhe read it with an emphasis which the footman opposite to him secretlythough vaguely resented; then Theresa at the piano played the hymn, in which the butler and the scullery-maid supported the deep bass of Mr. Barron and the uncertain treble of his daughter. The other servantsremained stolidly silent, the Scotch cook in particular looking straightbefore her with dark-spectacled eyes and a sulky expression. She wasmaking up her mind that either she must be excused from prayers infuture, or Mr. Barron must be content with less cooking for breakfast. 

After the hymn, the prayer lasted about ten minutes. Stephen, a ferventlyreligious mind, had often fidgeted under the minute and detailedpetitions of it, which seemed to lay down the Almighty's precise courseof action toward mankind in general for the ensuing day. But Theresa, whowas no less spiritual, under other forms, took it all simply anddevoutly, and would have been uncomfortable if any item in the longcatalogue had been omitted. When the Amen came, the footman, who neverknew what to do with his legs during the time of kneeling, sprang up withparticular alacrity. 

As soon as the father and daughter were seated at breakfast--closetogether, for the benefit of Theresa's deafness--Mr. Barron opened thepost-bag and took out the letters. They arrived half an hour beforebreakfast, but were not accessible to any one till the master of thehouse had distributed them. 

Theresa looked up from hers with an exclamation. 

"Stephen hopes to get over for dinner to-night!"

"Unfortunate--as I may very probably not see him, " said her father, sharply. "I am going to Markborough, and may have to stay the night!"

"You are going to see the Bishop?" asked his daughter, timidly. Herfather nodded, adding after a minute, as he began upon his egg:

"However, I must have some conversation with Stephen before long. Heknows that I have not felt able to stay my hand to meet his wishes; andperhaps now he will let me understand a little more plainly than I do, what his own position is. "

The speaker's tone betrayed bitterness of feeling. Theresa looked pained. 

"Father, I am sure--"

"Don't be sure of anything, my dear, with regard to Stephen! He hasfallen more and more under Meynell's influence of late, and I more thansuspect that when the time comes he will take sides openly with him. Itwill be a bitter blow to me, but that he doesn't consider. I don't expectconsideration from him, either as to that--or other things. Has he beenhanging round the Fox-Wiltons lately as usual?"

Theresa looked troubled. 

"He told me something the other night, father, I ought to have told you. Only--"

"Only what? I am always kept in the dark between you. "

"Oh, no, father! but it seems to annoy you, when--when I talk aboutStephen, so I waited. But the Rector and Lady Fox-Wilton have quiteforbidden any engagement between Stephen and Hester. Stephen _did_propose--and they said--not for two years at least. "

"You mean to say that Stephen actually was such a fool?" said her fatherviolently, staring at her. 

Theresa nodded. 

"A girl of the most headstrong and frivolous character!--a trouble toeverybody about her. Lady Fox-Wilton has often complained to me that sheis perfectly unmanageable with her temper and her vanity! The worstconceivable wife for a clergyman! Really, Stephen--"

The master of the house pushed his plate away from him in speechlessdisgust. 

"And both Lady Fox-Wilton and the Rector have always taken such troubleabout her--much more than about the other children!" murmured Theresa, helplessly. 

"What sort of a bringing up do you think Meynell can give anybody?" saidher father, turning upon her. 

Theresa only looked at him silently, with her large mild eyes. She knewit was of no use to argue. Besides, on the subject of the Rector she verymuch agreed with her father. Her deafness and her isolation had entirelyprotected her from Meynell's personal influence. 

"A man with no religious principles--making a god of his ownintellect--steeped in pride and unbelief--what can he do to train a girllike Hester? What can he do to train himself?" thundered Barron, bringinghis hand down on the table-cloth. 

"Every one says he is a good man, " said Theresa, timidly. 

"In outward appearance. What's that? A man like Meynell, who has thrownover the Christian faith, may fall into sin at any moment. His unbeliefis the result of sin. He can neither help himself--nor other people--andyou need never be surprised to find that his supposed goodness is a meresham and delusion. I don't say it is always so, of course, " he added. 

Theresa made no reply, and the subject dropped. Barron returned to hisletters, and presently Theresa saw his brow darken afresh over one ofthem. 

"Anything wrong, father?"

"There's always something wrong on this estate. Crawley [Crawley was thehead keeper] has caught those boys of John Broad again trespassing andstealing wood in the west plantation! Perfectly abominable! It's thesecond or third time. I shall give Broad notice at once, and we must putsomebody into that cottage who will behave decently!"

"Poor Broad!" said Theresa, with her gentle, scared look. "You know, father, there isn't a cottage to be had in the village--and those boyshave no mother--and John works very hard. "

"Let him find another cottage all the same, " said Barron briefly. "Ishall go round, if I do get back from Markborough, and have a talk withhim this evening. "

There was silence for a little. Theresa was evidently sad. "Perhaps LadyFox-Wilton would find him something, " she said anxiously at last. "Hismother was her maid long ago. First she was their schoolroom maid--thenshe went back to them, when her husband died and John married, and was akind of maid housekeeper. Nobody knew why Lady Fox-Wilton kept her solong. They tell you in the village she had a shocking temper, and wasn'tat all a good servant. Afterward I believe she went to America and Ithink she died. But she was with them a long while. I daresay they'd dosomething for John. "

Barron made no reply. He had not been listening, and was already deep inother correspondence. 

One letter still remained unopened. Theresa knew very well that it wasfrom her brother Maurice, in London. And presently she pushed it towardBarron. 

"Won't you open it? I do want to know if it's all right. "

Barron opened it, rather unwillingly. His face cleared, however, as heread it. 

"Not a bad report. He seems to like the work, and says they treat himkindly. He would like to come down for the Sunday--but he wants somemoney. "

"He oughtn't to!" cried Theresa, flushing. "You gave him plenty. "

"He makes out an account, " said her father, glancing at the letter; "Ishall send him a small cheque. I must say, Theresa, you are always ratherinclined to a censorious temper toward your brother. "

He looked at her with an unusual vivacity in his hard, handsome face. Theresa hastily excused herself, and the incident dropped. But whenbreakfast was over and her father had left the room, Theresa remainedsitting idly by the table, her eyes fixed on the envelope of Maurice'sletter, which had fallen to the floor. Maurice's behaviour wassimply disgraceful! He had lost employment after employment by lazyself-indulgence, trusting always to his father's boundless affection forhim, and abusing it time after time. Theresa was vaguely certain that hewas besmirched by all sorts of dreadful things--drinking, and betting--ifnot worse. Her woman's instinct told her much more than his father hadever discovered about him. Though at the same time she had the good senseto remind herself that her own small knowledge of the world might leadher to exaggerate Maurice's misdoings. And for herself and Stephen, noless than for her father, Maurice was still the darling and Benjamin ofthe family, commended to them by a precious mother whose death had leftthe whole moral structure of their common life insecure. 

She was still absorbed in uneasy thoughts about her brother, when thelibrary door opened violently and her father came in with the Markborough_Post_ in his hand. 

His face was discomposed; his hand shook. Theresa sprang up. 

"What is the matter, father?"

He pointed to the first page of the paper, and to theheading--"Extraordinary meeting at Markborough. Proceedings against theRector of Upcote. Other clergy and congregations rally to his support. "

She read the account with stupefaction. It described a meeting summonedby the "Reformers' Club" of Markborough to consider the announcement thata Commission of Inquiry had been issued by the Bishop of Markborough inthe case of the Rector of Upcote Minor, and that legal proceedingsagainst him for heretical teaching and unauthorized services would beimmediately begun by certain promoters, as soon as the Bishop's formalconsent had been given. 

The meeting, it seemed, had been so crowded and tumultuous thatadjournment had been necessary from the rooms of the Reformers' Club tothe Town Hall. And there, in spite of a strong orthodox opposition, aresolution in support of the Rector of Upcote had been passed, amidscenes of astonishing enthusiasm. Three or four well-known local clergyhad made the most outspoken speeches, declaring that there must be roommade within the church for the liberal wing, as well as for the Ritualistwing; that both had a right to the shelter of the common and ancestralfold; and that the time had come when the two forms of Christianity nowprevailing in Christendom should be given full and equal rights withinthe Church of the nation. 

Meynell himself had spoken, urging on the meeting the profoundresponsibility resting on the Reformers--the need for gentleness no lessthan for courage; bidding them remember the sacredness of the ground theywere treading, the tenacity and depth of the roots they might be thoughtto be disturbing. 

"Yet at the same time we must _fight!_--and we must fight with all ourstrength. For over whole classes of this nation, Christianity is eitherdying or dead; and it is only we--and the ideas we represent--that cansave it. "

The speech had been received with deep emotion rather than applause; andthe meeting had there and then proceeded to the formation of a"Reformers' League" to extend throughout the diocese. "It is alreadyrumoured, " said the _Post_, "that at least sixteen or eighteen beneficedclergy, with their congregations, have either joined, or are about tojoin, the Reformers. The next move now lies with the Bishop, and with theorthodox majority of the diocese. If we are not mistaken, Mr. Meynell andhis companions in heresy will very soon find out that the Church hasstill power enough to put down such scandalous rebellions against herpower and authority as that of the Rector of Upcote, and to purge herborders of disloyal and revolutionary priests. " Theresa looked up. Herface had grown pale. "How _terrible_, father! Did you know they were tohold the meeting?"

"I heard something about a debate at this precious club. What does thatmatter? Let them blaspheme in private as they please, it hurts nobody butthemselves. But a public meeting at the Bishop's very door--and eighteenof his clergy!"

He paced the room up and down, in an excitement he could hardly control. "The poor, poor Bishop!" said Theresa, softly, the tears in her eyes. 

"He will have the triumph of his life!" exclaimed Barron, looking up. "Ifthere are dry bones on our side, this will put life into them. Thosefellows have given themselves into our hands!"

He paused in his walk, falling into a profound reverie in which he lostall sense of his daughter's presence. She dared not rouse him; and indeedthe magnitude of the scandal and distress left her speechless. She couldonly think of the Bishop--their frail, saintly Bishop whom every oneloved. At last a clock struck. She said gently:

"Father, I think it is time to go. "

Barron started, drew a long breath, gathered up the newspaper, and took aletter from his pocket. 

"That is for Maurice. Put in anything you like, but don't miss themorning post. "

"Do you see the Bishop this morning, father?"

"No--this afternoon. But there will be plenty to do this morning. " Henamed two or three heads of the church party in Markborough on whom hemust call. He must also see his solicitor, and find out whether thecounsel whom the promoters of the writ against Meynell desired to securehad been already retained. 

He kissed his daughter absently and departed, settling all his homebusiness before he left the house in his usual peremptory manner, leavingbehind him indeed in the minds of his butler and head gardener, who hadbusiness with him, a number of small but smarting wraths, which wouldultimately have to be smoothed away by Theresa. 

But when Theresa explored the open envelope he had given her for herbrother, she found in it a cheque for £50, and a letter which seemed toMaurice's sister--unselfish and tender as she was--deplorably lacking inthe scolding it ought to have contained. If only her father had evershown the same affection for Stephen!

Meanwhile as Barron journeyed to Markborough, under the shadow of thegreat Cathedral, quite another voice than his was in possession of theepiscopal ear. Precisely at eleven o'clock Richard Meynell appeared onthe doorstep of the Palace, and was at once admitted to the Bishop'sstudy. 

As he entered the large book-lined room his name was announced in a tonewhich did not catch the Bishop's attention, and Meynell, as hehesitatingly advanced, became the spectator of a scene not intended forhis eyes. On the Bishop's knee sat a little girl of seven or eight. Shewas crying bitterly, and the Bishop had his arms round her and wascomforting her. 

[Illustration: "Meynell, as he hesitatingly advanced, became thespectator of a scene not intended for his eyes"]

"There _was_ bogies, grandfather!--there _was!_--and Nannie said I toldlies--and I didn't tell lies. "

"Darling, there aren't bogies anywhere--but I'm sure you didn't telllies. What did you think they were like?"

"Grandfather, they was all black--and they jumped--and wiggled--andspitted--o-o-oh!"

And the child went off in another wail, at which moment the Bishopperceived Meynell. His delicate cheek flushed, but he held up his hand, in smiling entreaty; and Meynell disappeared behind a revolving bookcase. 

The Bishop hastily returned to the charge, endeavouring to persuade hislittle granddaughter that the "bogie" had really been "cook's black cat, "generally condemned to the kitchen and blackbeetles, but occasionally letloose to roam the upper floors in search of nobler game. The child driedher eyes, and listened, gravely weighing his remarks. Her face graduallycleared, and when at the end he said slyly, "And even if there werebogies, little girls shouldn't throw hairbrushes at their Nannies!" shenodded a judicial head, adding plaintively:

"But then Nannies mustn't talk _all_ the time, grandfather! Little girlsmust talk a itty itty bit. If Nannies not let them, little girls _must_frow somefing at Nannies. "

The Bishop laughed--a low, soft sound, from which Meynell in the distancecaught the infection of mirth. 

A few murmured words--no doubt a scolding--and then:

"Are you good, Barbara?"

"Ye-s, " said the child, slowly--"not very. "

"Good enough to say you're sorry to Nannie?"

The child smiled into his face. 

"Go along then, and say it!" said the Bishop, "and mind you say itnicely. "

Barbara threw her arm round his neck and hugged him passionately. Then heset her down, and she ran happily away, through a door at the farther endof the room. 

Meynell advanced, and the Bishop came to meet him. Over both faces, asthey approached each other, there dropped a sudden shadow--a tremor as ofmen who knew themselves on the brink of a tragical collision--decisiveof many things. And yet they smiled, the presence of the child stillenwrapping them. 

"Excuse these domesticities, " said the Bishop, "but there was such woeand lamentation just before you came. And childish griefs go deep. Bogies--of all kinds--have much to answer for!"

Then the Bishop's smile disappeared. He beckoned Meynell to a chair, andsat down himself. 

Francis Craye, Bishop of Markborough, was physically a person of greatcharm. He was small--not more than five foot seven; but so slenderly andperfectly made, so graceful and erect in bearing, that his height, orlack of it, never detracted in the smallest degree from his dignity, orfrom the reverence inspired by the innocence and unworldliness of hischaracter. A broad brow, overshadowing and overweighting the face, combined, with extreme delicacy of feature, a touch of emaciation, and apure rose in the alabaster of the cheeks, to produce the aspect of a mosthuman ghost--a ghost which had just tasted the black blood, and recoveredfor an hour all the vivacity of life. The mouth, thin-lipped and mobileto excess, was as apt for laughter as for tenderness; the blue eyes werefrankness and eagerness itself. And when the glance of the spectatorpursued the Bishop downward, it was to find that his legs, in theepiscopal gaiters, were no less ethereal than his face; while his silkywhite hair added the last touch of refinement to a personality of spiritand fire. 

Meynell was the first to speak. 

"My lord! let me begin this conversation by once more thanking you--frommy heart--for all the personal kindness that you have shown me in thelast few months, and in the correspondence of the last fortnight. "

His voice wavered a little. The Bishop made no sign. 

"And perhaps, " Meynell resumed, "I felt it the kindest thing of allthat--after the letters I have written you this week--after the meetingof yesterday--you should have sent me that telegram last night, sayingthat you wished to see me to-day. That was like you--that touched meindeed!" He spoke with visible emotion. 

The Bishop looked up. 

"There can be no question, Meynell, of any personal enmity betweenyourself and me, " he said gravely. "I shall act in the matter entirely asthe responsibilities of my office dictate--that you know. But I have owedyou much in the past--much help--much affection. This diocese owes youmuch. I felt I must make one last appeal to you--terrible as thesituation has grown. You could not have foreseen that meeting ofyesterday!" he added impetuously, raising his head. 

Meynell hesitated. 

"No, I had no idea we were so strong. But it might have been foreseen. The forces that brought it about have been rising steadily for manyyears. "

There was no answer for a moment. The Bishop sat with clasped hands, hislegs stretched out before him, his white head bent. At last, withoutmoving, he said:

"There are grave times coming on this diocese, Meynell--there are gravetimes coming on the Church!"

"Does any living church escape them?" said Meynell, watching him--with aheavy heart. 

The Bishop shook his head. 

"I am a man of peace. Where you see a hope of victory for what you think, no doubt, a great cause, I see above the mêlée, Strife and Confusion andFate--"red with the blood of men. " What can you--and those who were atthat meeting yesterday--hope to gain by these proceedings? If you couldsucceed, you would break up the Church, the strongest weapon that existsin this country against sin and selfishness--and who would be thebetter?"

"Believe me--we sha'n't break it up. "

"Certainly you will! Do you imagine that men who are the spiritual sonsand heirs of Pusey and Liddon are going to sit down quietly in the samechurch with you and the eighteen who started this League yesterday? Theywould sooner die. "

Meynell bore the onslaught quietly. 

"It depends upon our strength, " he said slowly, "and the strength wedevelop, as the fight goes on. "

"Not at all!--a monstrous delusion!" The Bishop raised an indignantbrow. "If you overwhelmed us--if you got the State on your side, as inFrance at the Revolution--you would still have done nothing toward yourend--nothing whatever! We refuse--we shall always refuse--to be unequallyyoked with those who deny the fundamental truths of the Faith!"

"My lord, you are so yoked at the present moment, " said Meynellfirmly--the colour had flashed back into his cheeks--"it is thefoundation of our case that half the educated men and women we gatherinto our churches to-day are--in our belief--Modernists already. Questionthem!--they are with us--not with you. That is to say, they have tacitlyshaken off the old forms--the Creeds and formularies that bind thevisible, the legal, church. They do not even think much about them. Forgive me if I speak plainly! They are not grieving about the old. Theirsoul--those of them, I mean that have the gift of religion--istravailing--dumbly travailing--with the new. Slowly, irresistibly, theyare evolving for themselves new forms, new creeds, whether they know itor not. You--the traditional party--you, the bishops and the orthodoxmajority--can help them, or hinder them. If you deny them organizedexpression and outlet, you prolong the dull friction between them and thecurrent Christianity. You waste where you might gather--you quench whereyou might kindle. But there they are--in the same church with you--andyou cannot drive them out!"

The Bishop made a sound of pain. 

"I wish to drive no one out, " he said, lifting a diaphanous hand. "To hisown master let each man stand or fall. But you ask us--_us_, theappointed guardians of the Faith--the _ecclesia docens_--the historicepiscopate--to deny and betray the Faith! You ask us to assent formallyto the effacing of all difference between Faith and Unfaith--you bid ustell the world publicly that belief matters nothing--that a man may denyall the Divine Facts of Redemption, and still be as good a Christian asany one else. History alone might tell you--and I am speaking for themoment as a student to a student--that the thing is inconceivable!"

"Unless--_solvitur vivendo_!" said Meynell in a low voice. "What greatchange in the religious life of men has not seemed inconceivable--till ithappened? Think of the great change that brought this English Church intobeing! Within a couple of generations men had to learn to be baptized, and married, and buried, with rites unknown to their fathers--to standalone and cut off from the great whole of Christendom--to which theyhad once belonged--to see the Mass, the cult of Our Lady and the Saints, disappear from their lives. What change that any Modernist proposes couldequal that? But England lived through it!--England emerged!--sherecovered her equilibrium. Looking back upon it all now, we see--you andI agree there--that it was worth while--that the energizing, revealingpower behind the world was in the confusion and the dislocation; and thatEngland gained more than she lost when she made for herself an Englishand a national Church in these islands, out of the shattered débris ofthe Roman System. "

He bent forward, and looked intently into the Bishop's face. "What ifanother hour of travail be upon us? And is any birth possible withoutpain?"

"Don't let us argue the Reformation!" said the Bishop, with a newsharpness of note. "We should be here all night. But let me at leastpoint out to you that the Church kept her Creeds!--the Succession!--thefour great Councils!--the unbroken unity of essential dogma. But you"--heturned with renewed passion on his companion--"what have you done withthe Creeds? Every word in them steeped in the heart's blood ofgenerations!--and you put them aside as a kind of theologicalbric-à-brac that concerns us no more. Meynell!--you have no conception ofthe forces that this movement of yours, if you persist in it, willunchain against you! You are like children playing with the lightning!"

Denunciation and warning sat with a curious majesty on the little Bishopas he launched these words. It was with a visible effort that Meynellbraced himself against them. 

"Perhaps I estimate the forces for and against differently from yourself, Bishop. But when you prophesy war, I agree. There will be war!--and thatmakes the novelty of the situation. Till now there has never beenequality enough for war. The heretic has been an excrescence to be cutaway. Now you will have to make some terms with him! For the ideas behindhim have invaded your inmost life. They are all about you and aroundyou--and when you go out to fight him, you will discover that you arehalf on his side!"

"If that means, " said the Bishop impatiently, "that the Church isaccessible to new ideas--that she is now, as she has always been, alearned Church--the Church of Westcott and Lightfoot, of a host ofyounger scholars who are as well acquainted with the ideas andcontentions of Modernism--as you call it--as any Modernist in Europe--andare still the faithful servants and guardians of Christian dogma--why, then, you say what is true! We perfectly understand your positions--andwe reject them. "

Through Meynell's expression there passed a gleam--slight and gentle--ofsomething like triumph. 

"Forgive me!--but I think you have given me my point. Let me recall toyou the French sayings--'Comprendre, c'est pardonner--Comprendre, c'estaimer. ' It is because for the first time you do understand them--that, for the first time, the same arguments play upon you as play upon us--itis for that very reason that we regard the field as half won, before thebattle is even joined. "

The Bishop gazed upon him with a thin, dropping lip--an expression ofsuffering in the clear blue eyes. 

"That Christians"--he said under his breath--"should divide the forces ofChrist--with the sin and misery of this world devouring and defiling ourbrethren day by day!"

"What if it be not 'dividing'--but doubling--the forces of Christ!" saidMeynell, with pale resolution. "All that we ask is the Church shouldrecognize existing facts--that organization should shape itself toreality. In our eyes, Christendom is divided to-day--or is rapidlydividing itself--into two wholly new camps. The division between Catholicand Protestant is no longer the supreme division; for the force that isrising affects both Protestant and Catholic equally. Each of the newdivisions has a philosophy and a criticism of its own; each of them hasan immense hold on human life, though Modernism is only now slowlyrealizing and putting out its power. Two camps!--two systems ofthought!--both of them _Christian_ thought. Yet one of them, one only, _is in possession_ of the churches, the forms, the institutions; theother is everywhere knocking at the gates. 'Give us our portion!'--wesay--'in Christ's name. ' But _only our portion!_ We do not dream ofdispossessing the old--it is the last thing, even, that we desire. Butfor the sake of souls now wandering and desolate, we ask to live side byside with the old--in brotherly peace, in equal right--sharing what thepast has bequeathed! Yes, even the loaves and fishes!--they ought to bejustly divided out like the rest. But, above all, the powers, theopportunities, the trials, the labours of the Christian Church!"

"In other words, so far as the English Church is concerned, you proposeto reduce us within our own borders to a peddling confusion of sects, held together by the mere physical link of our buildings and ourendowments!" said the Bishop, as he straightened himself in his chair. 

He spoke with a stern and contemptuous force which transformed the smallbody and sensitive face. In the old room, the library of the Palace, withits rows of calf-bound folios, and its vaulted fifteenth century roof, hesat as the embodiment of ancient, inherited things, his gentleness lostin that collective, that corporate, pride which has been at once thenoblest and the deadliest force in history. 

Meynell's expression changed, in correspondence. It, too, grew harder, more challenging. 

"My lord--is there no loss already to be faced, of another kind?--isall well with the Church? How often have I found you here--forgiveme!--grieving for the loss of souls--the decline of faith--the emptychurches--the dwindling communicants--the spread of secularistliterature--the hostility of the workmen! And yet what devotion, whatzeal, there is in this diocese, beginning with our Bishop. Have we notoften asked ourselves what such facts could possibly mean--why God seemedto have forsaken us?"

"They mean luxury and selfishness--the loss of discipline at home andabroad, " said the Bishop, with bitter emphasis. "It is hard indeed toturn the denial of Christ into an argument against His Gospel!"

Meynell was silent. His heart was burning within him with a passionatesense at once of the vast need and hungry unrest so sharply dismissed bythe Bishop, and of the efficacy of that "new teaching" for which hestood. But he ceased to try and convey it by argument. After a fewmoments he began in his ordinary voice to report various developments ofthe Movement in the diocese of which he believed the Bishop to be stillignorant. 

"We wish to conceal nothing from you, " he said at last with emotion; "andconsistently with the trial of strength that must come, we desire tolighten the burden on our Bishop as much as we possibly can. This will bea solemn testing of great issues--we on our side are determined to donothing to embitter or disgrace it. "

The Bishop, now grown very white, looked at him intently. 

"I make one last appeal, Meynell, to your obedience--and to the promisesof your ordination. "

"I was a boy then"--said Meynell slowly--"I am a man now. I took thosevows sincerely, in absolute good faith; and all the changes in me havecome about, as it seems to me, by the inbreathing of a spirit not myown--partly from new knowledge--partly in trying to help my people tolive--or to die. They represent to me things lawfully--divinely--learnt. So that in the change itself, I cannot acknowledge or feel wrongdoing. But you remind me--as you have every right to do--that I accepted certainrules and conditions. Now that I break them, must I not resign theposition dependent on them? Clearly, if it were a question of anyordinary society. But the Christian Church is not an ordinary society! Itis the sum of Christian life!"

The Bishop raised a hand of protest, but without speaking. Meynellresumed:

"And that Life makes the Church--moulds it afresh, from age to age. Thereare times--we hold--when the Church very nearly expresses the Life; thereare others when there are great discordances between the Life, and itsexpression in the Church. We believe that there are such discordances nowbecause--once more--of a New Learning. And we believe that to withdrawfrom the struggle to make the Church more fully represent the Life wouldbe sheer disloyalty and cowardice. We must stay it out, and do our best. We are not dishonest, for, unlike many Liberals of the past and thepresent--we speak out! We are inconsistent indeed with a past pledge; butare we any more inconsistent than the High Churchman who repudiates the'blasphemous fables' of the Mass when he signs the Articles, and thenencourages adoration of the Reserved Sacrament in his church?"

The Bishop made no immediate reply. He was at that moment involved in astruggle with an incumbent in Markborough itself who under the veryshadow of the Cathedral had been celebrating the Assumption of theBlessed Virgin in flat disobedience to his diocesan. His mind wanderedfor a minute or two to this case. Then, rousing himself, he saidabruptly, with a keen look at Meynell:

"I know of course that, in your case, there can be no question ofclinging to the money of the Church. "

Meynell flushed. 

"I had not meant to speak of it--but your lordship knows that all Ireceive from my living is given back to church purposes. I support myselfby what I write. There are others of us who risk much more than I--whorisk indeed their all!"

"You have done a noble work for your people, Meynell. " The Bishop's voicewas not unlike a groan. 

"I have done nothing but what was my bounden duty to do. "

"And practically your parish is with you in this terrible business?"

"The church people in it, by an immense majority--and some of thedissenters. Mr. Barron, as you know, is the chief complainant, and thereare of course some others with him. "

"I expect to see Mr. Barron this afternoon, " remarked the Bishop, frowning. 

Meynell said nothing. 

The Bishop rose. 

"I understand from your letter this morning that you have no intention ofrepeating the service of last Sunday?"

"Not at present. But the League will go to work at once on a revisedservice-book. "

"Which you propose to introduce on a given Sunday--in all the Reformers'churches?"

"That is our plan. "

"You are quite aware that this whole scheme may lead to tumults--breachesof the peace?"

"It may, " said Meynell reluctantly. 

"But you risk it?"

"We must, " said Meynell, after a pause. 

"And you refuse--I ask you once more--to resign your living, at myrequest?"

"I do--for the reasons I have given. "

The Bishop's eyes sparkled. 

"As to my course, " he said, dryly, "Letters of Request will be sent atonce to the Court of Arches preferring charges of heretical teaching andunauthorized services against yourself and two other clergy. I shall berepresented by so-and-so. " He named the lawyers. 

They stood, exchanging a few technical informations of this kind for afew minutes. Then Meynell took up his hat. The Bishop hesitated a moment, then held out his hand. 

Meynell grasped it, and suddenly stooped and kissed the episcopal ring. 

"I am an old man"--said the Bishop brokenly--"and a weary one. I pray Godthat He will give me strength to bear this burden that is laid upon me. "

Meynell went away, with bowed head. The Bishop was left alone. He movedto the window and stood looking out. Across the green of the quadranglerose the noble mass of the Cathedral. His lips moved in prayer; but allthe time it was as though he saw beside the visible structure--itsordered beauty, its proud and cherished antiquity--a ruined phantom ofthe great church, roofless and fissured, its sacred places open to thewinds and rains, its pavements broken and desolate. 

The imagination grew upon him, and it was only with a great effort thathe escaped from it. 

"My bogies are as foolish as Barbara's, " he said to himself with a smileas he went back to the daily toil of his letters. 

CHAPTER VI

Meynell left the Palace shaken and exhausted. He carried in his mind theimage of his Bishop, and he walked in bitterness of soul. The quick, optimistic imagination which had alone made the action of these lastweeks possible had for the moment deserted him, and he was paying thepenalty of his temperament. 

He turned into the Cathedral, and knelt there some time, conscious lessof articulate prayer than of the vague influences of the place; the warmgray of its shadows, the relief of its mere space and silence, the beautyof the creeping sunlight--gules, or, and purple--on the spreadingpavements. And vaguely--while the Bishop's grief still, as it were, smarted within his own heart--there arose the sense that he was the mereinstrument of a cause; that personal shrinking and compunction were notallowed him; that he was the guardian of nascent rights and claims farbeyond anything affecting his own life. Some such conviction is essentialto the religious leader--to the enthusiast indeed of any kind; and it wasnot withheld from Richard Meynell. 

When he rose and went out, he saw coming toward him a man he knewwell--Fenton, the Vicar of a church on the outskirts of Markborough, famous for its "high" doctrine and services; a young boyish fellow, curlyhaired, in whom the "gayety" that Catholicism, Anglican or Roman, prescribes to her most devout children was as conspicuous as an asceticand labourious life. Meynell loved and admired him. At a small clericalmeeting the two men had once held an argument that had been longremembered--Fenton maintaining hotly the doctrine of an intermediateand purgatorical state after death, basing it entirely on a vision ofSaint Perpetua recorded in the Acta of that Saint. Impossible, said thefair-haired, frank-eyed priest--who had been one of the best wicket-keepsof his day at Winchester--that so solemn a vision, granted to a martyr, at the moment almost of death, could be misleading. Purgatory thereforemust be accepted and believed, even though it might not be expedient toproclaim it publicly from an Anglican pulpit. "Since the evening when Ifirst read the Acta of SS. Perpetua and Felicitas, " said the speaker, with an awed sincerity, "I have never doubted for myself, nor have Idared to hide from my penitents what is my own opinion. "

In reply, Meynell, instead of any general argument, had gently taken thevery proof offered him--_i. E. , _ the vision--dissecting it, the time inwhich it arose, and the mind in which it occurred, with a historicalknowledge and a quick and tender penetration which had presently absorbedthe little company of listeners, till Fenton said abruptly, with a frownof perplexity:

"In that way, one might explain anything--the Transfiguration forinstance--or Pentecost. "

Meynell looked up quickly. 

"Except--the mind that dies for an idea!"

Yet the encounter had left them friends; and the two men had beenassociated not long afterward in a heroic attempt to stop some dangerousrioting arising out of a strike in one of the larger collieries. 

Meynell watched the young figure of Fenton approaching through the bandsof light and shadow in the great nave. As it came nearer, some instinctmade him stand still, as though he became the mere spectator of what wasabout to happen. Fenton lifted his head; his eyes met Meynell's, and, without the smallest recognition, his gaze fixed on the pavement, hepassed on toward the east end of the Cathedral. 

Meynell straightened himself for a minute's "recollection, " and went hisway. On the pavement outside the western portal he ran into anotheracquaintance--a Canon of the Cathedral--hurrying home to lunch from amorning's work in the Cathedral library. Canon France looked up, saw whoit was, and Meynell, every nerve strained to its keenest, perceived theinstant change of expression. But there was no ignoring him, though theCanon did not offer to shake hands. 

"Ah! Meynell, is that you? A fine day at last!"

"Yes, we may save the harvest yet!" said Meynell, pausing in his walk. 

A kind of nervous curiosity bade him try and detain the Canon. ButFrance--a man of sixty-five, with a large Buddha-like face, and a pair ofremarkably shrewd and humorous black eyes--looked him quickly over fromtop to toe, and hurried on, throwing a "good-bye" over his shoulder. Whenhe and Meynell had last met it had been to talk for a friendly hour overMonseigneur Duchesne's last book and its bearing on Ultramontanepretensions; and they had parted with a cordial grip of the hand, promising soon to meet again. 

"Yet he knew me for a heretic then!" thought Meynell. "I never made anysecret of my opinions. "

All the same, as he walked on, he forced himself to acknowledge to thefull the radical change in the situation. Acts of war suspend the normalorder; and no combatant has any right to complain. 

Then a moment's weariness seized him of the whole train of thought towhich his days and nights were now committed, and he turned witheagerness to look at the streets of Markborough, full of a market-daycrowd, and of "the great mundane movement. " Farmers and labourers werewalking up and down; oxen and sheep in the temporary pens of themarket-place were waiting for purchasers; there was a Socialist lecturerin one corner, and a Suffragist lady on a wagon in another. The lateAugust sun shone upon the ruddy faces and broad backs of men to whomcertainly it did not seem to be of great importance whether theAthanasian Creed were omitted from the devotions of Christian people orno. There was a great deal of chaffering going on; a little courting, andsome cheating. Meynell recognized some of his parishioners, spoke to afarmer or two, exchanged greeting with a sub-agent of the miners' union, and gave some advice to a lad of his choir who had turned against thepits and come to "hire" himself at Markborough. 

It was plain to him, however, after a little, that although he might wishto forget himself among the crowd, the crowd was on the contrary rathersharply aware of the Rector of Upcote. He perceived as he moved slowly upthe street that he was in fact a marked man. Looks followed him; and themen he knew greeted him with a difference. 

A little beyond the market-place he turned down a narrow street leadingto the mother church of the town--an older foundation even than theCathedral. Knocking at the door in the wall, he was admitted to an oldrectory house, adjacent to the church, and in its low-ceiled dining-roomhe found six of the already famous "eighteen" assembled, among them thetwo other clergy who with himself had been singled out for the firsttesting prosecution. A joint letter was being drawn up for the press. 

Meynell was greeted with rejoicing--a quiet rejoicing, as of men occupiedwith grave matters, that precluded any ebullience of talk. With Meynell'sappearance, the meeting became more formal, and it was proposed to putthe Vicar of the ancient church under whose shadow they were gathered, into the chair. The old man, Treherne by name, had been a double-first indays when double-firsts were everything, and in a class-list not muchmore modern than Mr. Gladstone's. He was a gentle, scholarly person, silent and timid in ordinary life, and his adhesion to the "eighteen" hadbeen an astonishment to friends and foes. But he was not to be inveigledinto the "chair" on any occasion, least of all in his own dining-room. 

"I should keep you here all night, and you would get nothing done, "he said with a smiling wave of the hand. "Besides--_excludat jurgiafinis!_--let there be an age-limit in all things! Put Meynell in. It ishe that has brought us all into this business. "

So, for some hours or more, Meynell and the six grappled with the letterthat was to convey the challenge of the revolted congregations to thegeneral public through the _Times_. It was not an easy matter, and somesmall jealousies and frictions lifted their heads that had been whollylost sight of in the white-hot feeling of the inauguration meeting. 

Yet on the whole the seven men gathered in this room were not unworthy tolead the "forlorn hope" they had long determined on. Darwen--young, handsome, Spiritual, a Third Classic, and a Chancellor's medallist;Waller, his Oxford friend, a man of the same type, both representing therecent flowing back of intellectual forces into the Church which fornearly half a century had abandoned her; Petitôt, Swiss by origin, small, black-eyed, irrepressible, with a great popularity among the hosieryoperatives of whom his parish was mainly composed; Derrick, theSocialist, of humble origin and starved education, yet possessedOf a natural sway over men, given him by a pair of marvellous blueeyes, a character of transparent simplicity, a tragic honesty and thebitter-sweet gift of the orator; Chesham, a man who had left the army forthe Church, had been grappling for ten years with a large parish ofsecularist artisans, and was now preaching Modernism with a Franciscanfervour and success; and Rollin, who owned a slashing literary style, wasa passionate Liberal in all fields, had done excellent work in theclearing and cleaning of slums, with much loud and unnecessary talk bythe way, and wrote occasionally for the _Daily Watchman_. Chesham andDarwen were Meynell's co-defendants in the suit brought by the Bishop. 

Rollin alone seemed out of place in this gathering of men, drawing tensebreath under a new and almost unbearable responsibility. He was so inlove with the sensational, notoriety side of the business, so eager topull wires, and square editors, so frankly exultant in the "big row"coming on, that Meynell, with the Bishop's face still in his mind, couldpresently hardly endure him. He felt as Renan toward Gavroche. Was itworth while to go through so much that Rollin might cut a figure, andtalk at large about "modern thought?"

However Darwen and Waller, Derrick also, were just as determined asMeynell to keep down the frothy self-advertising element in the campaignto the minimum that human nature seems unable to do without. So thatRollin found himself gradually brought into line, being not a bad fellow, but only a common one; and he abandoned with much inward chagrin theproject of a flaming "interview" for the _Daily Watchman_ on thefollowing day. 

And indeed, as this handful of men settled down to the consideration ofthe agenda for a large conference to be held in Markborough the followingweek, there might have been discerned in six of them, at least, a temperthat glorified both them and their enterprise; a temper of seriousness, courage, unalterable conviction, with such delicacy of feeling as befitsmen whose own brethren and familiar companions have become their foes. They were all pastors in the true sense, and every man of them knew thatin a few months he would probably have lost his benefice and hisprospects. Only Treherne was married, and only he and Rollin had privatemeans. 

Meynell was clearly their leader. Where the hopefulness of the others wasintermittent his was constant; his knowledge of the English situationgenerally, as well as of the lie of forces in the Markborough district, was greater than theirs; and his ability as a writer made him theirnatural exponent. It was he who drew up the greater part of their"encyclical" for the press; and by the time the meeting was over he hadso heightened in them the sense of mission, so cheered them with thevision of a wide response from the mind of England, that all lesserthoughts were sunk, and they parted in quietness and courage. 

Meynell left the outskirts of Markborough by the Maudeley road, meaningto walk to Upcote by Forkéd Pond and Maudeley Park. 

It was now nearly a fortnight since he had seen Mary Elsmere, and for thefirst time, almost, in these days of storm and stress could the mind makeroom for some sore brooding on the fact. He had dined at Maudeley, makingtime with infinite difficulty; Mrs. Elsmere and her daughter were notthere. He had asked Mrs. Flaxman to tea at the Rectory, and had suggestedthat she should bring her sister and her niece. Mr. And Mrs. Flaxmanappeared--without companions. Once or twice he had caught sight of MaryElsmere's figure in the distance of Miss Puttenham's garden. Yet he hadnot ventured to intrude upon the two friends. It had seemed to him bythen it must be her will to avoid him, and he respected it. 

As to other misgivings and anxieties, they were many. As Meynell enteredthe Maudeley lane, with the woods of Sandford Abbey on his left, and thelittle trout-stream flashing and looping through the water meadows on hisright, his mind was often occupied by a conversation between himself andStephen Barron which had taken place the night before. Meynell could notbut think of it remorsefully. 

"And I can explain nothing--to make it easier for the poor oldfellow--nothing! He thinks if we had allowed the engagement, it wouldall have come right--he would have got a hold upon her, and been able toshape her. Oh, my dear boy--my dear boy! Yet, when the time comes, Stephen shall have any chance, any help, I can give him--unless indeedshe has settled her destiny for herself by then, without any referenceto us. And Stephen shall know--what there is to know!"

As to Hester herself, she seemed to have been keeping the Fox-Wiltonhousehold in perpetual fear. She went about in her mocking, mysteriousway, denying that she knew anything about Sir Philip Meryon, or had anydealings with him. Yet it was shrewdly suspected that letters had passedbetween them, and Hester's proceedings were so quick-silverish andincalculable that it was impossible to keep a constant watch upon her. Inthe wilderness of Maudeley Park, which lay directly between the twohouses, they might quite well have met--they probably had met. Meynellnoticed and rebuked in himself a kind of settled pessimism as to Hester'sconduct and future. "Do what you will, " it seemed to say--"do all youcan--but that life has in it the ferments of tragedy. "

Had they at least been doing all they could? he asked himself anxiously, vowing that no public campaign must or should distract him from a privatetrust much older than it, and no less sacred. In the midst of the turmoilof these weeks he had been corresponding on Lady Fox-Wilton's behalf witha lady in Paris to whom a girl of Hester's age and kind might be safelycommitted for the perfecting of her French and music. It had beennecessary to warn the lady that in the case of such a pensionnaire asHester the male sex might give trouble; and Hester had not yet signifiedher gracious consent to go. 

But she would go--she must go--and either he or Alice Puttenham wouldtake her over and install her. Good heavens, if one had only EdithFox-Wilton to depend on in these troubles!

As for Philip Meryon, he was, of course, now and always, a man of vicioushabits and no scruples. He seemed to be staying at Sandford with theusual crew of flashy, disreputable people, and to allow Hester to run anyrisks with regard to him would be simply criminal. Yet with soinefficient a watch-dog as Lady Fox-Wilton, who could guarantee anything?Alice, of course, thought of nothing else than Hester, night and day. Butit was part of the pathos of the situation that she had so littleinfluence on the child's thoughts and deeds. 

Poor, lonely woman! In Alice's sudden friendship for Mary Elsmere, herjunior by some twelve years, the Rector, with an infinite pity, read theconfession of a need that had become at last intolerable. For theseseventeen years he had never known her make an intimate friend, and tosee her now with this charming, responsive girl was to realize what thelong hunger for affection must have been. Yet even now, how impossible tosatisfy it, as other women could satisfy it! What ghosts and shadowsabout the path of friendship!

"A dim and perilous way, " his mind went sounding back along theintricacies of Alice Puttenham's story. The old problems arose inconnection with it--problems now of ethics, now of expediency. Andinterfused with them a sense of dull amazement and yet of intolerablerepetition--in this difficulty which had risen with regard to Hester. Theowner of Sandford--_and Hester!_ When he had first seen them together, ithad seemed a thing so sinister that his mind had refused to take itseriously. A sharp word to her, a word of warning to her naturalguardians--and surely all was mended. Philip never stayed more than threeweeks in the old house; he would very soon be gone, and Hester's fancywould turn to something else. 

But that the passing shock should become anything more! There rose beforeMeynell's imagination a vision of the two by the river, not in the actualbrightness of the August afternoon, but bathed, as it were, in angrystorm-light; behind them, darkness, covering "old, unhappy, far-offthings. " From that tragical gloom it seemed as though their young figureshad but just emerged, unnaturally clear; and yet the trailing clouds werealready threatening the wild beauty of the girl. 

He blamed himself for lack of foresight. It should have been utterlyimpossible for those two to meet! Meryon generally appeared at Sandfordthree times a year, for various sporting purposes. Hester might easilyhave been sent away during these descents. But the fact was she had grownup so rapidly--yesterday a mischievous child, to-day a woman in her firstbloom--that they had all been taken by surprise. Besides, who could haveimagined any communication whatever between the Fox-Wilton household andthe riotous party at Sandford Abbey?

As to the girl herself, Meynell was always conscious of being engaged insome long struggle to save and protect his ward against her will. Therewere circumstances connected with Hester that should have stirred in thefew people who knew them a special softness of heart in regard to her. But it was not easy to feel it. The Rector had helped two women to watchover her upbringing; he had brought her to her first communion, and triedhard, and quite in vain, to instil into her the wholesome mysticisms ofthe Christian faith; and the more efforts he made, the more sharply washe aware of the hard, egotistical core of the girl's nature, of Hester'sfatal difference from other girls. 

And yet, as he thought of her with sadness and perplexity, there cameacross him the memory of Mrs. Elsmere's sudden movement toward Hester;how she had drawn the child to her and kissed her--she, so unearthlyand so spiritual, whose very aspect showed her the bondswoman of Christ. 

The remembrance rebuked him, and he fell into fresh plans about thechild. She must be sent away at once!--and if there were really any signof entanglement he must himself go to Sandford and beard Philip in hisden. There was knowledge in his possession that might be used to frightenthe fellow. He thought of his cousin with loathing and contempt. 

But--to do him justice--Meryon knew nothing of those facts that gave suchan intolerable significance to any contact whatever between hisbesmirched life and that of Hester Fox-Wilton. 

Meryon knew nothing--and Stephen knew nothing--nor the child herself. Meynell shared his knowledge with only two other persons--no!--three. Was that woman, that troublesome, excitable woman, whose knowledge hadbeen for years the terror of three lives--was she alive still? RalphFox-Wilton had originally made it well worth her while to go to theStates. That was in the days when he was prepared to pay anything. Thenfor years she had received an allowance, which, however, Meynell believedhad stopped sometime before Sir Ralph's death. Meynell remembered thatthe stopping of it had caused some friction between Ralph and his wife. Lady Fox-Wilton had wished it continued. But Ralph had obstinatelyrefused to pay any more. Nothing had been heard of her, apparently, for along while. But she had still a son and grand-children living in Upcotevillage. 

 * * * * *

Meynell opened the gate leading into the Forkéd Pond enclosure. The pondhad been made by the damming of part of the trout stream at the pointwhere it entered the Maudeley estate, and the diversion of the rest to anew channel. The narrow strip of land between the pond and the newchannel made a little waterlocked kingdom of its own for the cottage, which had been originally a fishing hut, built in an Izaak Walton-ishmood by one of the owners of Maudeley. But the public footpath throughthe park ran along the farther side of the pond, and the doings of theinhabitants of the cottage, thick though the leafage was, could sometimesbe observed from it. 

Involuntarily Meynell's footsteps lingered as the little thatchedhouse became visible, its windows set wide to the sounds and scents ofthe September day. There was conveyed to him a sense of its warmloneliness in the summer nights, of the stars glimmering upon it throughthe trees, of the owls crying round it. And within--in one of those upperrooms--those soft deep eyes, at rest in sleep?--or looking out, perhaps, into the breathing glooms of the wood?--the sweet face propped on theslender hand. 

He felt certain that the inner life of such a personality as Mary Elsmerewas rich and passionate. Sometimes, in these lonely hours, did she thinkof the man who had told her so much of himself on that, to him, memorablewalk? Meynell looked back upon the intimate and autobiographical talkinto which he had been led, with some wonder and a hot cheek. He hadconfessed himself partly to Elsmere's daughter, on a hint of sympathy, asto one entitled to such a confidence, so to speak, by inheritance, shouldshe desire it; but still more--he owned it--to a delightful woman. It wasthe first time in Meynell's strenuous life, filled to the brim withintellectual and speculative effort on the one hand, and with the careof his parish on the other, that he had been conscious of any suchfeeling as now possessed him. In his first manhood it had been impossiblefor him to marry, because he had his brothers to educate. And when theywere safely out in the world the Rector, absorbed in the curing of sickbodies and the saving of sick souls, could not dream of spending themoney thus set free on a household for himself. 

He had had his temptations of the flesh, his gusts of inclination, likeother men. But he had fought them down victoriously, for conscience sake;and it was long now since anything of the sort had assailed him. 

He paused a moment among the trees, just before the cottage passed out ofsight. The sun was sinking in a golden haze, the first prophecy ofautumnal mists. Broad lights lay here and there upon the water, to belost again in depths of shadow, wherein woods of dream gave backthe woods that stooped to them from the shore. Everything was so still hecould hear the fish rising, the run of a squirrel along a branch, thepassage of a coot through the water. 

The very profoundity of nature's peace suddenly showed him to himself. Aman engaged in a struggle beyond his power!--committed to one of thosetasks that rend and fever the human spirit even while they ennoble it! Hehad talked boldly to Stephen and the Bishop of "war"--"inevitable" and"necessary war. " At the same time there was no one who would suffer fromwar more than he. The mere daily practice of Christianity, as a man'slife-work, is a daily training in sensitiveness, involves a dailyrefining of the nerves. When a man so trained, so refined, takes up thepublic tasks of leadership and organization, in this noisy, hard-hittingworld, his nature is set at enmity with itself. Meynell did not yet knowwhether the mystic in him would allow the fighter in him to play hispart. 

If the memory of Fenton's cold, unrecognizing eyes and rigid mouth, asthey passed each other in the silence of the Cathedral, had power tocause so deep a stab of pain, how was he to brace himself in the futureto what must come?--the alienation of friend after friend, thecondemnation of the good, the tumult, the poisoned feeling, the abuse, public and private. 

Only by the help of that Power behind the veil of things, perceived bythe mind of faith! "_Thou, Thou art being and breath_!--Thine is thistruth, which, like a living hand, bridles and commands me. Grind my lifeas corn in Thy mill!--but forsake me not! Nay, Thou wilt not, Thou canstnot forsake me!"

No hope for a man attempting such an enterprise as Meynell's but in thissimplicity, this passion of self-surrender. Without it no adventure inthe spiritual fight has ever touched and fired the heart of man. Meynellwas sternly and simply aware of it. 

But how is this temper, this passion, kindled?

The answer flashed. Everywhere the divine ultimate Power mediates itselfthrough the earthly elements and forces, speaks through small, childishthings, incarnates itself in lover, wife, or friend--flashing its mysticfire through the web of human relations. It seemed to Meynell, as hestood in the evening stillness by the pond, hidden from sight by thelight brushwood round him, that, absorbed as he had been from his youthin the symbolism and passion of the religious life, as other men areabsorbed in art or science, he had never really understood one of thesegreat words by which he imagined himself to live--Love, or Endurance, orSacrifice, or Joy--because he had never known the most sacred, the mostintimate, things of human life out of which they grow. 

And there uprose in him a sudden yearning--a sudden flame of desire--forthe revealing love of wife and child. As it thrilled through him, heseemed to be looking down into the eyes--so frank, so human--of MaryElsmere. 

Then while he watched, lost in feeling, yet instinctively listening forany movement in the wood, there was a flicker of white among the treesopposite. A girl, book in hand, came down to the water's edge, and pausedthere a little, watching the glow of sunset on the water. Meynellretreated farther into the wood; but he was still able to see her. Presently she sat down, propping herself against a tree, and began toread. 

Her presence, the grace of her bending neck, informed the silence of thewoods with life and charm. Meynell watched her a few moments in a tranceof pleasure. But memory broke in upon the trance and scattered all hispleasure. What reasonable hope of winning the daughter of that quiet, indomitable woman, who, at their first meeting, had shown him with suchicy gentleness the gulf between himself and them?

And yet between himself and Mary he knew that there was no gulf. Spiritually she was her father's child, and not her mother's. 

But to suppose that she would consent to bring back into her mother'slife the same tragic conflict, in new form, which had already rent andseared it, was madness. He read his dismissal in her quiet avoidance ofhim ever since she had been a witness of her mother's manner toward him. 

No. Such a daughter would never inflict a second sorrow, of the samekind, on such a mother. Meynell bowed his head, and went slowly away. Itwas as though he left youth and all delightfulness behind him, in thedeepening dusk of the woods. 

 * * * * *

While Meynell was passing through the woods of Forkéd Pond a verydifferent scene, vitally connected with the Rector and his fortunes, waspassing a mile away, in a workman's cottage at Upcote Minor. 

Barron had spent an agitated day. After his interview with the Bishop, inwhich he was rather angrily conscious that his devotion and his zeal werenot rewarded with as much gratitude or as complete a confidence on theBishop's part as he might have claimed, he called on Canon France. 

To him he talked long and emphatically on the situation, on the excessivecaution of the Bishop, who had entirely refused to inhibit any one of theeighteen, at present, lest there should be popular commotions; on themeasures that he and his friends were taking, and on the strong feelingthat he believed to be rising against the Modernists. It was evident thathe was discontented with the Bishop, and believed himself the onlysaviour of the situation. 

Canon France watched him, sunk deep in his armchair, the plump fingers ofone hand playing with certain charter rolls of the fourteenth century, with their seals attached, which lay in a tray beside him. He had justbrought them over from the Cathedral Library, and was longing to be atwork on them. Barron's conversation did not interest him in the least, and he even grudged him his second cup of tea. But he did not show hisimpatience. He prophesied a speedy end to a ridiculous movement; wonderedwhat on earth would happen to some of the men, who had nothing but theirlivings, and finally said, with a humorous eye, and no maliciousintention:

"The Romanists have always an easy way of settling these things. Theyfind a scandal or invent one. But Meynell, I suppose, is immaculate. "

Barron shook his head. 

"Meynell's life is absolutely correct, outwardly, " he said slowly. "Ofcourse the Upcote people whom he has led away think him a saint. "

"Ah, well, " said the Canon, smiling, "no hope then--that way. I rejoice, of course, for Meynell's sake. But the goodness of the unbeliever isbecoming a great puzzle to mankind. "

"Apparent goodness, " said Barron hotly. 

The Canon smiled again. He wished--and this time more intensely--thatBarron would go, and let him get to his charters. 

And in a few minutes Barron did take his departure. As he walked to theinn to find his carriage he pondered the problem of the virtuousunbeliever. A certain Bampton lecture by a well-known and learned Bishoprecurred to him, which most frankly and drastically connected "Unbelief"with "Sin. " Yet somehow the view was not borne out, as in the interestsof a sound theology it should have been, by experience. 

After all, he reached Upcote in good time before dinner, and rememberingthat he had to inflict a well-deserved lecture on the children who hadbeen caught injuring trees and stealing wood in his plantations, hedismissed the carriage and made his way, before going home, to thecottage, which stood just outside the village, on the way from Maudeleyto the Rectory and the church. 

He knocked peremptorily. But no one came. He knocked again, chafing atthe delay. But still no one came, and after going round the cottage, tapping at one of the windows, and getting no response, he was just goingaway, in the belief that the cottage was empty, when there was a rattlingsound at the front door. It opened, and an old woman stood in thedoorway. 

"You've made a pretty noise, " she said grimly, "but there's no one in butme. "

"I am Mr. Barron, " said her visitor, sharply. "And I want to see JohnBroad. My keepers have been complaining to me about his children'sbehaviour in the woods. "

The woman before him shook her head irritably. 

"What's the good of asking me? I only came off the cars here last night. "

"You're a lodger, I suppose?" said Barron, eyeing her suspiciously. Hedid not allow his tenants to take in lodgers. 

And the more he examined her the stranger did her aspect seem. She wasevidently a woman of seventy or upward, and it struck him that she lookedhaggard and ill. Her grayish-white hair hung untidily about a thin, bonyface; the eyes, hollow and wavering, infected the spectator with theirown distress; yet the distress was so angry that it rather repelled thanappealed. Her dress was quite out of keeping with the labourer's cottagein which she stood. It was a shabby blue silk, fashionably cut, and setoff by numerous lockets and bangles. 

She smiled scornfully at Barron's questions. 

"A lodger? Well, I daresay I am. I'm John's mother. "

"His mother?" said Barron, astonished. "I didn't know he had a motheralive. " But as he spoke some vague recollection of Theresa's talk in themorning came back upon him. 

The strange person in the doorway looked at him oddly. 

"Well, I daresay you didn't. There's a many as would say the same. I'vebeen away this eighteen year, come October. "

Barron, as she spoke, was struck with her accent, and recalled hermention of "the cars. "

"Why, you've been in the States, " he said. 

"That's it--eighteen year. " Then suddenly, pressing her hand to herforehead, she said angrily: "I don't know what you mean. What do you comebothering me for? I don't know who you are--and I don't know nothingabout your trees. Come in and sit down. John'll be in directly. "

She held the door open, and Barron, impelled by a sudden curiosity, stepped in. He thought the woman was half-witted; but her silk dress, andher jewellery, above all her sudden appearance on the scene as the motherof a man whom he had always supposed to be alone in the world, with threemotherless, neglected children, puzzled him. 

So as one accustomed to keep a sharp eye on the morals and affairs of hiscottage tenants, he began to question her about herself. She had thrownherself confusedly on a chair, and sat with her head thrown back, and hereyes half closed--as though in pain. The replies he got from her wereshort and grudging, but he made out from them that she had married asecond time in the States, that she had only recently written to her son, who for some years had supposed her dead, and had now come home to him, having no other relation left in the World. 

He soon convinced himself that she was not normally sane. That she had noidea as to his own identity was not surprising, for she had left Upcotefor the States years before his succession to the White House estate. But her memory in all directions was confused, and her strange talk madehim suspect drugs. She had also, it seemed, the usual grievances of theunsound mind, and believed herself to be injured and assailed by personsto whom she darkly alluded. 

As they sat talking, footsteps were heard in the road outside. Mrs. Sabin--so she gave her name--at once hurried to the door and looked out. The movement betrayed her excited, restless state--the state of one justreturned to a scene once familiar and trying, with a clouded brain, torecover old threads and clues. 

Barron heard a low cry from her, and looked round. 

"What's the matter?"

He saw her bent forward and pointing, her wrinkled face expressing a wildastonishment. 

"That's her!--that's my Miss Alice!"

Barron, following her gesture, perceived through the half-open door twofigures standing in the road on the farther side of a bit of villagegreen. Meynell, who had just emerged from Maudeley Park upon thehighroad, had met Alice Puttenham on her way to pay an evening visit tothe Elsmeres, and had stopped to ask a question about some villageaffairs. Miss Puttenham's face was turned toward John Broad's cottage;the Rector had his back to it. They were absorbed in what they weretalking about, and had of course no idea that they were watched. 

"Why do you say my Miss Alice?" Barron inquired in astonishment. 

Mrs. Sabin gave a low laugh. And at the moment, Meynell turned so thatthe level light now flooding the village street shone full upon him. Mrs. Sabin tottered back from the door, with another stifled cry, and sankinto her chair. Her eyes seemed to be starting out of her head. "But--butthey told me he was dead. He'll have married her then?"

She raised herself, peering eagerly at her companion. 

"Married whom?" said Barron, utterly mystified, but affected himself, involuntarily, by the excitement of his strange companion. 

"Why--Miss Alice!" she said gasping. 

"Why should he marry her?"

Mrs. Sabin tried to control herself. "I'm not to talk about that--I knowI'm not. But they give me my money for fifteen year--and then theystopped giving it--three year ago. I suppose they thought I'd never beback here again. But John's my flesh and blood, all the same. I made Mr. Sabin write for me to Sir Ralph. But there came a lawyer's letter andfifty pounds--and that was to be the last, they said. So when Mr. Sabindied, I said I'd come over and see for myself. But I'm ill--you see--andJohn's a fool--and I must find some one as 'ull tell me what to do. Ifyou're a gentleman living here"--she peered into his face--"perhapsyou'll tell me? Lady Fox-Wilton's left comfortable, I know. Why shouldn'tshe do what's handsome? Perhaps you'll give me a word of advice, sir? Butyou mustn't tell!--not a word to anybody. Perhaps they'll be for puttingme in prison?"

She put her finger to her mouth; and then once more she bent forward, passionately scrutinizing the two people in the distance. Barron hadgrown white. 

"If you want my advice you must try and tell me plainly what all thismeans, " he said, sternly. 

She looked at him--with a mad expression flickering between doubt anddesire. 

"Then you must shut the door, sir, " she said at last. Yet as he moved todo so, she bent forward once more to look intently at the couple outside. 

"And what did they tell me that lie for?" she repeated, in a tone halfperplexed, half resentful. Then she turned peremptorily to Barron. 

"Shut the door!"

 * * * * *

Half an hour later Barron emerged into the road, from the cottage. Hewalked like a man bewildered. All that was evil in him rejoiced; all thatwas good sorrowed. He felt that God had arisen, and scattered hisenemies; he also felt a genuine horror and awe in the presence ofhuman frailty. 

All night long he lay awake, pondering how to deal with the story whichhad been told him; how to clear up its confusions and implications; tofind some firm foothold in the mad medley of the woman's talk--somereasonable scheme of time and place. Much of what she had told him hadbeen frankly incoherent; and to press her had only made confusion worse. He was tolerably certain that she was suffering from some obscure braintrouble. The effort of talking to him had clearly exhausted her; but hehad not been able to refrain from making her talk. At the end of the halfhour he had advised her--in some alarm at her ghastly look--to see adoctor. But the suggestion had made her angry, and he had let it drop. 

In the morning news was brought to him from Broad's cottage that JohnBroad's mother, Mrs. Richard Sabin, who had arrived from America onlyforty-eight hours before, had died suddenly in the night. The burstingof an unsuspected aneurism in the brain was, according to the doctorcalled in, the cause of death. 

BOOK II

HESTER

"Light as the flying seed-balls is their playThe silly maids!"

"Who see in mould the rose unfold, The soul through blood and tears. "

CHAPTER VII

"I cannot get this skirt to hang as Lady Edith's did, " said SarahFox-Wilton discontentedly. 

"Spend twenty guineas on it, my dear, as Lady Edith did on hers, andit'll be all right, " said a mocking voice. 

Sarah frowned. She went on pinning and adjusting a serge skirt in themaking, which hung on the dummy before her. "Oh, we all know what _you_would like to spend on your dress, Hester!" she said angrily, butindistinctly, as her mouth was full of pins. 

"Because really nice frocks are not to be had any other way, " said Hestercoolly. "You pay for them--and you get them. But as for supposing you cancopy Lady Edith's frocks for nothing, why, of course you can't, and youdon't!"

"If I had ever so much money, " said Sarah severely, "I shouldn't think it_right_ to spend what Lady Edith does on her dress. "

"Oh, wouldn't you!" said Hester with a laugh and a yawn. "Just give _me_the chance--that's all!" Then she turned her head--"Lulu!--you mustn'teat any more toffy!"--and she flung out a mischievous hand and captured abox that was lying on the table, before a girl, who was sitting near itwith a book, could abstract from it another square of toffy. 

"Give it me!" said Lulu, springing up, and making for her assailant. Hester laughingly resisted, and they wrestled for the box a little, tillHester suddenly let it go. 

"Take it then--and good luck to you! I wouldn't spoil my teeth and mycomplexion as you do--not for tons of sweets. Hullo!"--the speaker sprangup--"the rain's over, and it's quite a decent evening. I shall go out fora run and take Roddy. "

"Then I shall have to come too, " said Sarah, getting up from her knees, and pulling down her sleeves. "I don't want to at all, but mamma says youare not to go out alone. "

Hester flushed. "Do you think I can't escape you all--if I want to? Ofcourse I can. What geese you are! None of you will ever prevent me fromdoing what I want to do. It really would save such a lot of time andtrouble if you would get that into your heads. "

"Where do you mean to go?" said Sarah stolidly, without taking any noticeof her remark. "Because if you'll go to the village, I can get somebinding I want. "

"I have no intention whatever of going out for your convenience, thankyou!" said Hester, laughing angrily. "I am going into the garden, and youcan come or not as you please. " She opened the French window as she spokeand stepped out. 

"Has mamma heard from that Paris woman yet?" asked Lulu, looking afterHester, who was now standing on the lawn playing with a terrier-puppy shehad lately brought home as a gift from a neighbouring farmer--much toLady Fox-Wilton's annoyance. Hester had an absurd way of making friendswith the most unsuitable people, and they generally gave her things. 

"The Rector expected to hear to-day. "

"I don't believe she'll go, " said Lulu, beginning again on the toffy. Shewas a heavily made girl of twenty, with sleepy eyes and a dullcomplexion. She took little exercise, was inordinately fond of sweetthings, helped her mother a little in the housekeeping, and wasintimately acquainted with all the gossip of the village. So was Sarah;but her tongue was sharper than Lulu's, and her brain quicker. She wastherefore the unpopular sister; while for Lulu her acquaintances feltrather a contemptuous indulgence. Sarah had had various love affairs, which had come to nothing, and was regarded as "disappointed" in thevillage. Lulu was not interested in young men, and had never yet beenobserved to take any trouble to capture one. So long as she was allowedsufficient sixpenny novels to read, and enough sweet things to eat, shewas good-humoured enough, and could do kind things on occasion for herfriends. Sarah was rarely known to do kind things; but as her womanfriends were much more afraid of her than of Lulu, she was in generaltreated with much more consideration. 

Still it could not be said that Lady Fox-Wilton was to be regarded asblessed in either of her two elder daughters. And her sons were quitefrankly a trouble to her. The eldest, Sarah's junior by a year and ahalf, had just left Oxford suddenly and ignominiously, without a degree, and was for the most part loafing at home. The youngest, a boy offifteen, was supposed to be delicate, and had been removed from school byhis mother on that account. He too was at home, and a tutor who lodged inthe village was understood to be preparing him for the Civil Service. Hewas a pettish and spiteful lad, and between him and Hester existedperpetual feud. 

But indeed Hester was at war with each member of the family in turn;sometimes with all of them together. And it had been so from her earliestchildhood. They all felt instinctively that she despised them and theslow, lethargic temperament which was in most of them an inheritance froma father cast in one of the typical moulds of British Philistinism. Therewas some insurmountable difference between her and them. In the firstplace, her beauty set her apart from the rest; and, beside her, Sarah'ssharp profile, and round apple-red cheeks, or Lulu's clumsiness, made, as both girls were secretly aware, an even worse impression than theyneed have made. And in the next, there were in her strains of romantic, egotistic ability to which nothing in them corresponded. She couldplay, she could draw--brilliantly, spontaneously--up to a certainpoint, when neither Sarah nor Lulu could stumble through a "piece, " orproduce anything capable of giving the smallest satisfaction to theirdrawing-master. She could chatter, on occasion, so that a room full ofpeople instinctively listened. And she had read voraciously, especiallypoetry, where they were content with picture-papers and the mildest ofnovels. Hester brought nothing to perfection; but there could be noquestion that in every aspect of life she was constantly making, incomparison with her family, a dashing or dazzling effect all the morestriking because of the unattractive _milieu_ out of which it sprang. 

The presence of Lady Fox-Wilton, in particular, was needed to show thesecontrasts at their sharpest. 

As Hester still raced about the lawn, with the dog, that lady came roundthe corner of the house, with a shawl over her head, and beckoned to thegirl at play. Hester carelessly looked round. 

"What do you want, mamma!"

"Come here. I want to speak to you. "

Hester ran across the lawn in wide curves, playing with the dog, andarrived laughing and breathless beside the newcomer. Edith Fox-Wilton wasa small, withered woman, in a widow's cap, who more than looked her age, which was not far from fifty. She had been pretty in youth, and her blueeyes were still appealing, especially when she smiled. But she did notsmile often, and she had the expression of one perpetually protestingagainst all the agencies--this-worldly or other-worldly--which had thecontrol of her existence. Her weak fretfulness depressed all thevitalities near her; only Hester resisted. 

At the moment, however, her look was not so much fretful as excited. Herthin cheeks were much redder than usual; she constantly looked round asthough expecting or dreading some interruption; and in a hand which shookshe held a just opened letter. 

"What is the matter, mamma?" asked Hester, a sharp challenging note inher gay voice. "You look as though something had happened. "

"Nothing has happened, " said Lady Fox-Wilton hastily. "And I wish youwouldn't romp with the puppy in that way, Hester. He's always doing somedamage to the flowers. I'm going out, and I wished to give you a messagefrom the Rector. "

"Is that from Uncle Richard?" said Hester, glancing carelessly at theletter. 

Lady Fox-Wilton crushed it in her hand. 

"I told you it was. Why do you ask unnecessary questions? The Rector hasheard from the lady in Paris and he wants you to go as soon as possible. Either he or Aunt Alice will take you over. We have had the best possiblerecommendations. You will enjoy it very much. They can get you the bestlessons in Paris, they say. They know everybody. "

"H'm--" said Hester, reflectively. Then she looked at the speaker. "Doyou know, mamma, that I happen to be eighteen this week?"

"Don't be silly, Hester! Of course I know!"

"Well, you see, it's rather important. Am I or am I not obliged to dowhat you and Mr. Meynell want me to do? I believe I'm not obliged. Anyway, I don't quite see how you're going to make me do it, if I don'twant to. "

"You can behave like a naughty, troublesome girl, without any properfeeling, of course!--if you choose, " said Lady Fox-Wilton warmly. "But Itrust you will do nothing of the kind. We are your guardians till you aretwenty-one; and you ought to be guided by us. "

"Well, of course I can't be engaged to Stephen, if you say Imayn't--because there's Stephen to back you up. But if Queen Victoriacould be a queen at eighteen, I don't see why _I_ shouldn't be fit ateighteen to manage my own wretched affairs! Anyway--I--am--not--going toParis--unless I want to go. So I don't advise you to promise that ladyjust yet. If she keeps her room empty, you might have to pay for it!"

"Hester, you are really the plague of my life!" cried Lady Fox-Wiltonhelplessly. "I try to keep you--the Rector tries to keep you--out ofmischief that any girl ought to be ashamed--of--and--"

"What mischief?" demanded Hester peremptorily. "Don't run intogeneralities, mamma. "

"You know very well what mischief I mean!"

"I know that you think I shall be running away some day with Sir PhilipMeryon!" said the girl, laughing, but with a fierce gleam in her eyes. "Ihave no intention at present of doing anything of the kind. But ifanything could make me do it, it would be the foolish way in which youand the others behave. I don't believe the Rector ever told you to setSarah and Lulu on to dog me wherever I go!"

"He told me you were not to be allowed to meet that man. You won'tpromise me not to meet him--and what can we do? You know what the Rectorfeels. You know that he spent an hour yesterday arguing and pleading withyou, when he had been up most of the night preparing papers for thiscommission. What's the matter with you, Hester? Are you quite in yourright senses?"

The girl had clasped her hands behind her back, and stood with one footforward, "on tiptoe for a flight, " her young figure and radiant lookexpressing the hot will which possessed her. At the mention of Meynell'sname she clearly hesitated, a frown crossed her eyes, her lip twitched. Then she said with vehemence:

"Who asked him to spend all that time? Not I. Let him leave me alone. Hedoes not care twopence about me, and it's mere humbug and hypocrisy allhis pretending to care. "

"And your Aunt Alice--who's always worshipped you? Why, she's justmiserable about you!"

"She says exactly what you and Uncle Richard tell her to say--she alwayshas! Well, I don't know about Paris, mamma--I'll think about it. If youand Sarah will just let me be, I'll take Roddy for a stroll, and thenafter tea I'll tell you what I'll do. " And, turning, she beckoned to afine collie lazily sunning himself on the drawing-room steps, and hesprang up, gambolling about her. 

"Promise you won't meet that man!" said Lady Fox-Wilton, in agitation. 

"I believe he went up to Scotland to-day, " said Hester, laughing. "Ihaven't the smallest intention of meeting him. Come, Roddy!"

The eyes of the two met--in those of the older woman, impatience, a kindof cold exasperation; in Hester's, defiance. It was a strange look topass between a mother and daughter. Hester turned away, and then paused:

"Oh, by the way, mamma--where are you going?"

Lady Fox-Wilton hesitated unaccountedly. 

"Why do you ask?"

Hester opened her eyes. 

"Why shouldn't I? Is it a secret? I wanted you to tell Aunt Alicesomething if you were going that way. "

"Mamma!"

Sarah suddenly emerged from the schoolroom window and ran excitedlyacross the lawn toward her mother. "Have you heard this extraordinarystory about John Broad's mother? Tibbald has just told me. "

Tibbald was the butler, and Sarah's special friend and crony. 

"What story? I wish you wouldn't allow Tibbald to gossip as you do, Sarah!" said Lady Fox-Wilton angrily. But a close observer might haveseen that her bright colour precipitately left her. 

"Why, what harm was it?" cried Sarah, wondering. "He told me, because itseems Mrs. Sabin used to be a servant of ours long ago. Do you rememberher, mamma?"

Again Lady Fox-Wilton stumbled perceptibly in replying. She turned away, and, with the garden scissors at her waist, she began vaguely to clip offsome dead roses from some bushes near her. 

"We once had a maid--for a very short time, " she said over her shoulder, "who married some one of that name. What about her?"

"Well, she came back from America two days ago. John Broad thoughtshe was dead. He hadn't heard of her for four years. But she turnedup on Tuesday--the queerest old woman! She sat there boasting andchattering--in a silk dress with gold bracelets!--they thought she wasgoing to make all their fortunes. But she must just have been off herhead, for she died last night in her sleep, and there were only a fewshillings on her--not enough to bury her. There's to be an inquest thisevening, they say. "

"Don't spend all your time chattering in the village, Sarah, " said LadyFox-Wilton severely, as, still with her back toward the girls, she movedaway in the direction of the drive. "You'll never get your dress done ifyou do. "

"I say--what's wrong with mamma?" said Hester coolly, looking after her. "I suppose Bertie's been getting into some fresh bother. "

Bertie was the elder brother, who was Sarah's special friend in thefamily. So that she at once resented the remark. 

"If she's worrying about anything, she's worrying about you, " said Sarahtartly, as she went back to the house. "We all know that. "

Hester, with her dog beside her, went strolling leisurely through thevillage street, past Miss Puttenham's cottage on the one hand and theRectory gates on the other, making for a footpath that led from the backof the village, through fields and woods, on to the Chase. 

As she passed beneath the limes that overhung Miss Puttenham's railingsshe perceived some distant figures in the garden. Uncle Richard, withmamma and Aunt Alice on either side of him. They were walking up and downin close conversation; or, rather, Uncle Richard seemed to be talkingearnestly, addressing now one lady, now the other. 

What a confabulation! No doubt all about her own crimes andmisdemeanours. What fun to creep into the garden and play the spy. "That's what Sarah would do--but I'm not Sarah. " Instead, she turned intothe footpath and began to mount toward the borders of the Chase. It was abrilliant September afternoon, and the new grass in the shorn hayfieldswas vividly green. In front rose the purple hills of the Chase, whileto the left, on the far borders of the village, the wheels and chimneysof two collieries stood black against a blaze of sun. But the sharpemphasis of light and colour, which in general would have set her ownspirits racing, was for a while lost on Hester. As soon as she was outof sight of the village, or any passers-by, her aspect changed. Once ortwice she caught her breath in what was very like a sob; and there weremoments when she could only save herself from the disgrace of tears by awild burst of racing with Roddy. It was evident that her brush with LadyFox-Wilton had not left her as callous as she seemed. 

Presently the path forsook the open fields and entered a plantation ofdark and closely woven trees where the track was almost lost in themagnificence of the bracken. Beyond this, a short climb of broken slopes, and Hester was out on the bare heath, with the moorland wind blowingabout her. 

She sat down on a bank beneath a birch tree, twisted and tortured out ofshape by the northwesterly gales that swept the heath in winter. Allround her a pink and purple wilderness, with oases of vivid green andswaying grass. Nothing in sight but a keeper's hut, and some grouse buttsfar away; an ugly red building on the horizon, in the very middle of theheath, the Markborough isolation hospital; and round the edge of the vastundulating plateau in all directions the faint smoke of the collierychimneys. But the colour of the heath was the marvel. The world seemedstained in crimson, and in every shade and combination of it. Close athand the reds and pinks were diapered with green and gold as thebilberries and the grasses ran in and out of the heather; but on everyside the crimson spread and billowed to the horizon, covering the hollowsand hills of the Chase, absorbing all lesser tones into itself. After therain of the morning, the contours of the heath, the distances of theplain, were unnaturally clear; and as the sunshine, the high air, thefreshly moving wind, played upon Hester, her irritation passed away in asensuous delight. 

"Why should I let them worry me? I won't! I am here! I am alive! I amonly eighteen! I am going to manage my life for myself--and get out ofthis coil. Now let me think!"

She slid downward among the heather, her face propped on her hands. Close beneath her eyes was an exquisite tuft of pink bell-heatherintergrown with bunchberries. And while a whole vague series of thoughtsand memories passed through her mind she was still vividly conscious ofthe pink bells, the small bright leaves. Sensation in her wasexceptionally keen, whether for pleasure or pain. She knew it and hadoften coolly asked herself whether it meant that she would wear out--lifeand brain--quicker than other people--burn faster to the socket. So muchthe better if it did. 

What was it she really wanted?--what did she mean to do? Proudly, sherefused to admit any other will in the matter. The thought of Meynell, indeed, touched some very sore and bitter chords in her mind, but it didnot melt her. She knew very well that she had nothing to blame herguardian for; that year after year from her childhood up she had repelledand resisted him, that her whole relation to him had been one ofstubbornness and caprice. Well, there were reasons for it; she was notgoing to repent or change. 

Of late his conduct with regard to Stephen's proposal had stirred in hera kind of rage. It was not that she imagined herself in love withStephen; but she had chosen to be engaged to him; and that any one shouldaffect to control her in such a matter, should definitely and decidedlycross her will, was intolerable to her wild pride. If Stephen hadrebelled with her, she might have fallen fiercely in love with him--for amonth. But he had submitted--though it was tolerably plain what it hadcost him; and all her careless liking for him, the fruit of years of verypoorly requited devotion on his part, seemed to have disappeared in anight. 

Why shouldn't she be engaged at seventeen--within two months of eighteen, in fact? Heaps of girls were. It was mere tyranny and nonsense. Sherecalled her interview with Meynell, in which the Rector had roused inher a new and deeper antagonism than any she had yet felt toward hisefforts to control her. It was as though he did not altogether believe inhis own arguments; as though there were something behind which she couldnot get at. But if there were something behind, she had a right to knowit. She had a right to know the meaning of her father's extraordinaryletter to Meynell--the letter attached to his will--in which she had beensingled out by name as needing the special tutelage of the Rector. So faras the Rector's guardianship of the other children was concerned, it wasalmost a nominal thing. Another guardian had been named in the will, LadyFox-Wilton's elder brother, and practically everything that concerned theother children was settled by him, in concert with the mother. The Rectornever interfered, was never indeed consulted, except on purely formalmatters of business. But for her--for her only--Uncle Richard--as shealways called her guardian--was to be the master--the tyrant!--close athand. For so Sir Ralph had laid it down, in his testamentary letter--"Icommend Hester to your special care. And in any difficulties that mayarise in connection with her, I beg for our old friendship's sake thatyou will give my wife the help and counsel that she will certainly need. She knows it is my wish she should rely entirely upon you. "

Why had he written such a letter? Since Sir Ralph's death, two yearsbefore, the story of it had got about; and the injustice, as she held, ofher position under it had sunk deep into the girl's passionate sense, andmade her infinitely more difficult to manage than she had been before. Ofcourse everybody said it was because of her temper; because of theconstant friction between her and her father; people believed the hatefulthings he used sometimes to say about her. 

Nor was it only the guardianship--there was the money too! Provision madefor all of them by name--and nothing for her! She had made Sarah show hera copy of the will--she knew! Nothing indeed for any of them--the girlsat least--till Lady Fox-Wilton's death, or till they married; but nothingfor _her_, under any circumstances. 

"Well, why should there be?" Sarah had said. "You know you'll have AuntAlice's money. _She_ won't leave a penny to us. "

All very well! The money didn't matter! But to be singled out and held upto scorn by your own father!

A flood of bitterness surged in the girl's heart. And then they expectedher to be a meek and obedient drudge to her mother and her elder sisters;to open her mouth and take what they chose to send her. She mightnot be engaged to Stephen--for two years at any rate; and yet if sheamused herself with any one else she was to be packed off to Paris, tosome house of detention or other, under lock and key. 

Her cheeks flamed. When had she first come across Philip Meryon? Only theday before that evening when Uncle Richard had found her fishing withhim. She knew very well that he was badly spoken of; trust Upcote forgossip and scandal! Well, so was she!--they were outcasts together. Anyway, he was more amusing to walk and talk with than her sisters, orthe dreadful young men they sometimes gathered about them. Why shouldn'tshe walk and talk with him? As if she couldn't protect herself! As if shedidn't know a great deal more of the world than her stupid sisters did, who never read a book or thought of anything beyond the tittle-tattleof their few local friends. 

But Philip Meryon had read lots of books, and liked those that she liked. He could read French too, as she could. And he had lent her some Frenchbooks, which she had read eagerly--at night or in the woods--wherevershe could be alone and unobserved. Why shouldn't she read them? There wasone among them--"Julie de Trecoeur, " by Octave Feuillet, that stillseemed running, like a great emotion, through her veins. The tragicleap of Julie, as she sets her horse to the cliff and thunders to herdeath, was always in Hester's mind. It was so that she herself would liketo die, spurning submission and patience, and all the humdrum virtues. 

She raised herself, and the dog beside her sprang up and barked. The sunwas just dropping below a bank of fiery cloud, and a dazzling and garishlight lay on the red undulations of the heath. As she stood up shesuddenly perceived the figure of a man about a hundred yards off emergingfrom a gully--a sportsman with his gun over his shoulder. He hadapparently just parted from the group with whom he had been shooting, whowere disappearing in another direction. 

Philip Meryon! Now she remembered! He and two other men had taken theshooting on this side of the Chase. Honestly she had forgotten it;honestly her impression was that he had gone to Scotland. But of coursenone of her family would ever believe it. They would insist she hadsimply come out to meet him. 

What was she to do? She was in a white serge dress, and with Roddybeside her, on that bare heath, she was an object easily recognized. Indeed, as she hesitated, she heard a call in the distance, and saw thatMeryon was waving to her and quickening his pace. Instantly, with aleaping pulse, she turned and fled, Roddy beside her, barking hisloudest. She ran along the rough track of the heath, as though some vaguewild terror had been breathed into her by the local Pan. She ran fleetand light as air--famous as a runner from her childhood. But the manbehind her had once been a fine athlete, and he gained upon her fast. Soon she could hear his laugh behind her, his entreaties to her to stop. She had reached the edge of the heath, where the wood began, and the pathran winding down it, with banks of thick fern on either hand. 

If it had not been for the dog she could have slipped under the close-settrees, whence the light had already departed, and lain close among thefern. But with Roddy--no chance! She suddenly turned toward her pursuer, and with her hand on the dog's neck awaited him. 

"Caught--caught!--by Jove!" cried Philip Meryon, plunging to her throughthe fern. "Now what do you deserve--for running away?"

"A _gentleman_ would not have tried to catch me!" she said haughtily, asshe faced him, with dilating nostrils. 

"Take care!--don't be rude to me--I shall take my revenge!"

As he spoke, Meryon was fairly dazzled, intoxicated by the beauty of thevision before him--this angry wood-nymph, half-vanishing like anotherDaphne into the deep fern amid which she stood. But at the same time hewas puzzled--and checked--by her expression. There was no mereprovocation in it, no defiance that covers a yielding mind; but, rather, an energy of will, a concentrated force, that held at bay a man whosewill was the mere register of his impulses. 

"You forget, " said Hester coolly, "that I have Roddy with me. " And as shespoke the dog couching at her side poked up his slender nose through thefern and growled. He did not like Sir Philip. 

Meryon looked upon her smiling--his hands on his sides. "Do you mean tosay that when you ran you did not mean me to follow?"

"On the contrary, if I ran, it was evidently because I wished to getaway. "

"Then you were very ungrateful and unkind; for I have at this moment inmy pocket a book you asked me to get for you. That's what I get fortrying to please you. "

"I don't remember that I asked you to get anything for me. "

"Well, you said you would like to see some of George Sand's novels, which--for me--was just the same. So when I went to London yesterday Imanaged to borrow it, and there it is. " He pointed triumphantly to ayellow-paper-bound volume sticking out of his coat pocket. "Of course youknow George Sand is a sort of old Johnnie now; nobody reads her. Butthat's your affair. Will you have it?" He offered it. 

The excitement, the wild flush in the girl's face, had subsided. Shelooked at the book, and at the man holding it out. 

"What is it?" She stooped to read the title--"Mauprat. " "What's itabout?"

"Some nonsense about a cad tamed by a sentimental young woman. " Heshrugged his shoulders, "I tried to read it, and couldn't. But they sayit's one of her best. If you want it, there it is. "

She took it reluctantly, and moved on along the downward path, hefollowing, and the dog beside them. 

"Have you read the other book?" he asked her. 

"'Julie de Trécoeur?' Yes. "

"What did you think of it?"

"It was magnificent!" she said shortly, with a quickened breath. "I shallget some more by that man. "

"Well, you'd better be careful!" He laughed. "I've got some others, but Ididn't want to recommend them to you. Lady Fox-Wilton wouldn't exactlyapprove. "

"I don't tell mamma what I read. " The girl's young voice sounded sharplybeside him in the warm autumnal dusk. "But if you lent me anything yououghtn't to lend me I would never speak to you again!"

Meryon gave a low whistle. 

"My goodness! I shall have to mind my p's and q's. I don't know that Iought to have lent you 'Julie de Trécoeur' if it comes to that. "

"Why not?" Hester turned her great, astonished eyes upon him. "One mightas well not read Byron as not read that. "

"Hm--I don't suppose you read _all_ Byron. "

He threw her an audacious look. 

"As much as I want to, " she said, indifferently. "Why aren't you inScotland?"

"Because I had to go to London instead. Beastly nuisance! But there wassome business I couldn't get out of. "

"Debts?" she said, raising her eyebrows. 

The self-possession of this child of eighteen was really amazing. Not atrace in her manner of timidity or tremor. In spite of her flight fromhim he could not flatter himself that he had made any impression on hernerves. Whereas her beauty and her provocative way were beginning to telldeeply on his own. 

"Well, I daresay!" His laugh was as frank as her question. "I'm generallyin straits. "

"Why don't you do some work, and earn money?" she asked him, frowning. 

"Frankly--because I dislike work. "

"Then why did you write a play?"

"Because it amused me. But if it had been acted and made money, and I hadhad to write another, that would have been work; and I should probablyhave loathed it. "

"That I don't believe, " she said, shaking her head. "One can always dowhat succeeds. It's like pouring petrol into the motor. "

"So you think I'm only idle because I'm a failure?" he asked her, histone betraying a certain irritation. 

"I wonder why you _are_ idle--and why you _are_ a failure?" she said, turning upon him a pair of considering eyes. 

"Take care, Mademoiselle!" he said, gasping a little. "I don't know whyyou allow yourself these _franchises_!"

"Because I am interested in you--rather. Why won't the neighbourhood callon you--why do you have disreputable people to stay with you? It is allso foolish!" she said, with childish and yet passionate emphasis. "Youneedn't do it!"

Meryon had turned rather white. 

"When you grow a little older, " he said severely, "you will know betterthan to believe all the gossip you hear. I choose the friends that suitme--and the life too. My friends are mostly artists and actors--they arequite content to be excluded from Upcote society--so am I. I don't gatheryou are altogether in love with it yourself. "

He looked at her mockingly. 

"If it were only Sarah--or mamma, " she said doubtfully. 

"You mean I suppose that Meynell--your precious guardian--my very amiablecousin--allows himself to make all kinds of impertinent statements aboutme. Well, you'll understand some day that there's no such bad judge ofmen as a clergyman. When he's not ignorant he's prejudiced--and when he'snot prejudiced he's ignorant. "

A sudden remorse swelled in Hester's mind. 

"He's not prejudiced!--he's not ignorant! How strange that you and heshould be cousins!"

"Well, we do happen to be cousins. And I've no doubt that you wouldlike me to resemble him. Unfortunately I can't accommodate you. If Iam to take a relation for a model, I prefer a very different sort ofperson--the man from whom I inherited Sandford. But Richard, I am sure, never approved of him either. "

"Who was he?--I never heard of him. " And, with the words, Hestercarelessly turned her head to look at a squirrel that had run across theglade and was now peeping at the pair from the first fork of an oak tree. 

"My uncle? Well, he was an awfully fine fellow--whatever Meynell may say. If the Abbey wasn't taboo, I could show you a portrait of him there--by aFrenchman--that's a superb thing. He was the best fencer in England--andone of the best shots. He had a beautiful voice--he could write--he coulddo anything he pleased. Of course he got into scrapes--such men do--andif Richard ever talked to you about him, of course he'd crab him. All thesame, if one must be like one's relations--which is, of course, quiteunnecessary--I should prefer to take after Neville than after Richard. "

"What was his name?"

"Neville--Sir Neville Flood. " Hester looked puzzled. 

"Well!--if you want the whole genealogical tree, here it is: There was acertain Ralph Flood, my grandfather, an old hunting squire, a regular badlot! Oh! I can tell you the family history doesn't give me much chance!He came from Lincolnshire originally, having made the county there toohot to hold him, and bought the Abbey, which he meant to restore andnever did. He worried his wife into her grave, and she left him threechildren: Neville, who succeeded his father; and two daughters--Meynell'smother, who was a good deal older than Neville and married ColonelMeynell, as he was then; and my mother, who was much the youngest, anddied three years ago. She was Neville's favourite sister, and as he knewRichard didn't want the Abbey, he left it to me. A precious whiteelephant--not worth a fiver to anybody. I was only thirteen when Nevillewas drowned--"

"Drowned?"

Meryon explained that Neville Flood had lost his life in a storm on anIrish lough; a queer business, which no one had ever quite got to thebottom of. Many people had talked of suicide. There was no doubt he wasin very low spirits just before it happened. He was unhappily married, mainly through his own fault. His wife could certainly have got a divorcefrom him if she had applied for it. But very soon after she separatedfrom Flood she became a Catholic, and nothing would induce her to divorcehim. And against her there was never a breath. It was said of course thathe was in love with some one else, and broken-hearted that his wiferefused to lend herself to a divorce. But nobody knew anything. 

"And, by Jove, I wonder why I'm telling you all these shady tales. Yououghtn't to know anything about such things, " Meryon broke off suddenly. 

Hester's beautiful mouth made a scornful movement. 

"I'm not a baby--and I intend to know what's _true_. I should like to seethat picture. "

"What--of my Uncle Neville?"

Meryon eyed her curiously, as they strolled on through the arched greenof the woodland. Every now and then there were openings through whichpoured a fiery sun, illuminating Hester's face and form. 

"Do you know"--he said at last--"there is an uncommonly queer likenessbetween you and that picture?"

"Me?" Hester opened her eyes in half-indifferent astonishment. "People say such absurd things. Heaps of people think I am like UncleRichard--not complimentary, is it? I hope his uncle was better looking. And, anyway, I am no relation of either of them. "

"Neville and Richard were often mistaken for one another--though Nevillewas a deal handsomer than old Richard. However, nobody can account forlikenesses. If you come to think of it, we are all descended from a smallnumber of people. But it has often struck me--" He looked at her againattentively. "The setting of the ear--and the upper lip--and the shapeof the brow--I shall bring you a photograph of the picture. "

"What does it matter!" said Hester impatiently. "Besides, I am going awaydirectly--to Paris. "

"To Paris!--why and wherefore?"

"To improve my French--and"--she turned and looked at him in the face, laughing--"to make sure I don't go walks with you!"

He was silent a moment, twisting his lip. 

"When do you go?"

"In a week or two--when there's room for me. "

He laughed. 

"Oh! come then--there's time for a few more talks. Listen--you think I'msuch an idle dog. I'm nothing of the sort. I've nearly finished a wholenew play. Only--well, I couldn't talk to you about it--it's not a playfor _jeunes filles_. But after all I might read you a few scenes. Thatwouldn't do any harm. You're so deuced clever!--your opinion would beworth having. I can tell you the managers are all after it! I'm gettingletters by every post asking for parts. What do you say? Can you meetme somewhere? I'll choose some of the best bits. Just name your time!"

Her face had kindled, answering to the vivacity--the peremptoriness--inhis. Her vanity was flattered at last; and he saw it. 

"Send me a word!" he said under his breath. "That little schoolroom maid--is she safe?"

"Quite!" said Hester, also under her breath, and smiling. 

"You beautiful creature!" he spoke with low intensity. "You lovely, wildthing!"

"Take care!" Hester sprang away from him as he put out an incautioushand. "Come, Roddy! Goodnight!"

In a flash the gloom of the wood closed upon her, and she was gone. 

Meryon walked on laughing to himself, and twisting his black moustache. After some years of bad company and easy conquests, Hester's proud grace, her reckless beauty, her independent, satiric ways had sent a newstimulus through jaded nerves. Had he met her in London on equal termswith other men he knew instinctively that he would have had but smallchance with her. It was the circumstances of this quiet country place, where young men of Hester's class were the rarest of apparitions, andwhere Philip, flying from his creditors and playing the part of a needyDon Juan amid the picturesque dilapidations of the Abbey, was gravelledday after day for lack of occupation--it was these surroundings that hadmade the flirtation possible. Well, she was a handsome daredevil littleminx. It amused him to make love to her, and in spite of his parsonicalcousin, he should continue to do so. And that the proceeding annoyedRichard Meynell made it not less, but more, enticing. Parsons, cousins orno, must be kept in their place. 

Hester ran home, a new laugh on her lip, and a new red on her cheek. Several persons turned to look at her in the village street, but she tookno notice of any one till, just as she was nearing the Cowroast, she sawgroups round the door of the little inn, and a stream of men coming out. Among them she perceived the Rector. He no sooner saw her than with anevident start he altered his course and came up to her. 

"Where have you been, Hester?"

She chose to be offended by the inquiry, and answered pettishly that foronce she had been out by herself without a keeper. He took no notice ofher tone, and walked on beside her, his eyes on the ground. Presently shewondered whether he had heard her reply at all, he was so evidentlythinking of something else. In her turn she began to ask questions. 

"What's happening in the village? Why are those people coming out of theCowroast?"

"There's been an inquest there. "

"On that old woman who was once a servant of ours?"

The Rector looked up quickly. 

"Who told you anything about her?"

"Oh, Sarah heard from Tibbald--trust him for gossip! Was she off herhead?"

"She died of disease of the brain. They found her dead in her bed. "

"Well, why shouldn't she? An excellent way to die! Good night, UncleRichard--good night! You go too slow for me. "

She walked away with a defiant air, intended to show him that he was inher black books. He stood a moment looking after her, compunction and sadaffection in his kind eyes. 

CHAPTER VIII

Meanwhile, for Catharine Elsmere and Mary these days of early autumn werepassing in a profound external quiet which bore but small relation to themental history of mother and daughter. 

The tranquillity indeed of the little water-locked cottage was complete. Mrs. Flaxman at the big house took all the social brunt upon herself. Sheset no limit to her own calls, or to her readiness to be called upon. TheFlaxman dinner and tennis parties were soon an institution in theneighbourhood; and the distinguished persons who gathered at Maudeley forthe Flaxman week-ends shed a reflected lustre on Upcote itself. But RoseFlaxman stoutly protected her widowed sister. Mrs. Elsmere was delicateand in need of rest; she was not to be expected to take part in anysocial junketings, and callers were quite plainly warned off. 

For all of which Catharine Elsmere was grateful to a younger sister, grotesquely unlike herself in temperament and character, yet broughtsteadily closer to her by the mere passage of life. Rose was an artistand an optimist. In her youth she had been an eager and exquisitemusician; in her middle life she was a loving and a happy woman, thoughshe too had known a tragic moment in her first youth. Catharine, herelder by some years, still maintained, beneath an exquisite refinement, the strong north-country characteristics of the Westmoreland family towhich the sisters belonged. Her father had been an Evangelical scholarand headmaster; the one slip of learning in a rude and primitive race. She had been trained by him; and in spite of her seven years of marriedlife beside a nature so plastic and sensitive as Elsmere's, and of herpassionate love for her husband, it was the early influences on hercharacter which had in the end proved the more enduring. 

For years past she had spent herself in missionary work for the Church, in London; and though for Robert's sake she had maintained for long aslender connection that no one misunderstood with the New Brotherhood, the slow effect of his withdrawal from her life made itself inevitablyfelt. She stiffened and narrowed intellectually; while for all sinnersand sufferers, within the lines of sympathy she gradually traced outfor herself, she would have willingly given her body to be burned, sostrong was the Franciscan thirst in her for the self-effacement andself-sacrifice that belong to the Christian ideal, carried to intensity. 

So long as Mary was a child, her claim upon her mother had to some extentbalanced the claims of what many might have thought a devastating anddepersonalizing charity. Catharine was a tender though an austere mother;she became and deserved to become the idol of her daughter. But as Marygrew up she was drawn inevitably into her mother's activities; andCatharine, in the blindness of her ascetic faith, might have injured thewhole spring of the girl's youth by the tremendous strain thus put uponit by affection on the one hand and pity on the other. 

Mercifully, perhaps, for them both, Catharine's nerve and strengthsuddenly gave way; and with them that abnormal exaltation and clearnessof spiritual vision which had carried her through many sorrowing years. She entered upon a barren and darkened path; the Christian joy desertedher, and there were hours and days when little more than the Christianterrors remained. It was her perception of this which roused such atender and desperate pity in Mary. Her mother's state fell short indeedof religious melancholy; but for a time it came within sight of it. Catharine dreaded to be found herself a castaway; and the memory ofRobert's denials of the faith--magnified by her mental state, like treesin mist--had now become an ever-haunting misery which tortured herunspeakably. Her mind was possessed by the parables of judgment--thedividing of the sheep from the goats, the shutting of the door ofsalvation on those who had refused the heavenly offers, and by all thosesayings of the early Church that make "faith" the only passport toeternal safety. 

Her saner mind struggled in vain against what was partly a physicalpenalty for defied physical law. And Mary also, her devoted companion, whose life depended hour by hour on the aspects and changes of hermother, must needs be drawn within the shadow of Catharine's dumb andphantom-ridden pain. The pain itself was dumb, because it concerned thedeepest feelings of a sternly reserved woman. But mingled with the painwere other matters--resentments, antagonisms--the expression of whichoften half consciously relieved it. She rose in rebellion against thosesceptical and deadly forces of the modern world which had swept herbeloved from the narrow way. She fled them for herself; she feared themfor Mary, in whom she had very early divined the working of Robert'saptitudes and powers. 

And now--by ill-fortune--a tired and suffering woman had no sooner foundrefuge and rest in the solitude of Forkéd Pond than, thanks partly to theFlaxmans' new friendship for Upcote's revolutionary parson, and partly toall the public signs, not to be escaped, of the commotion brewing in thediocese, and in England generally, the same agitations, the same troubleswhich had destroyed her happiness and peace of mind in the past, cameclattering about her again. 

Every one talked of them; every one took a passionate concern in them;the newspapers were full of them. The personality of Meynell, or that ofthe Bishop; the characters and motives of his opponents; the chances ofthe struggle--and the points on which it turned; even in the littlesolitary house between the waters Catharine could not escape them. TheBishop, too, was an old friend; before his promotion he had been theincumbent of a London parish in which Catharine had worked. She was nosooner settled at Forkéd Pond than he came to see her; and what morenatural than he should speak of the anxieties weighing upon him to one soable to feel for them?

Then!--the first involuntary signs of Mary's interest in, Mary's sympathywith, the offender! In Catharine's mind a thousand latent terrors sprangat once to life. For a time--some weeks--she had succeeded in checkingall developments. Invitations were refused; meetings were avoided. Butgradually the situation changed. Points of contact began inevitably tomultiply between Mary and the disturber of Christ's peace in Upcote. Mary's growing friendship for Alice Puttenham, her chance encounters withMeynell there, or in the village, or in the Flaxmans' drawing-room, wereall distasteful and unwelcome to Catharine Elsmere. At least her Roberthad sacrificed himself--had done the honest and honourable thing. Butthis man--wounding the Church from within--using the opportunities of theChurch for the destruction of the Church--who would make excuses for sucha combatant?

And the more keenly she became aware of the widening gulf between herthoughts and Mary's--of Mary's involuntary, instinctive sympathy with theenemy--the greater was her alarm. 

For the first time in all her strenuous, self-devoted life she wouldsometimes make much of her physical weakness in these summer days, so asto keep Mary with her, to prevent her from becoming more closelyacquainted with Meynell and Meynell's ideas. And in fact this new anxietyinterfered with her recovery; she had only to let herself be ill, and illmost genuinely she was. 

Mary understood it all, and submitted. Her mother's fears were indeedamply justified! Mary's secret mind was becoming absorbed, from adistance, in Meynell's campaign; Meynell's personality, through allhindrance and difficulty--nay, perhaps, because of them--was graduallyseizing upon and mastering her own; and processes of thought that, solong as she and her mother were, so to speak, alone in the worldtogether, were still immature and potential, grew apace. The woods andglades of Maudeley, the village street, the field paths, began to be forher places of magic, whence at any moment might spring flowers of joyknown to her alone. To see him pass at a distance, to come across him ina miner's cottage, or in Miss Puttenham's drawing-room--these rareoccasions were to her the events of the summer weeks. Nevertheless, whenSeptember arrived, she had long since forbidden herself to hope foranything more. 

Meanwhile, Rose Flaxman was the only person who ever ventured to feel andshow the irritation of the natural woman toward her sister'sidiosyncrasies. 

"Do for heaven's sake stop her reading these books!" she said impatientlyone evening to Mary, when she had taken leave of Catharine, and her niecewas strolling back with her toward Maudeley. 

"What books?"

"Why, lives of bishops and deans and that kind of thing! I never come butI find a pile of them beside her. It should be made absolutely illegal towrite the life of a clergyman! My dear, your mother would be well in aweek if we could only stop it and put her on a course of Gaboriau!"

Mary smiled rather sadly. 

"They seem to be the only things that interest her now. "

"What, the deans? I know. It's intolerable. She went to speak to thepostman just now while I was with her, and I looked at the book she hadbeen reading with her mark in it. I should like to have thrown it intothe pond! Some tiresome canon or other writing to a friend about EternalPunishment. What does he know about it? I should like to ask! I declare Ihope he may know something more about it some day! There was your motheras white as her ruffles, with dark lines under her eyes. I tell youclerical intimidation should be made a punishable offence. It's just asbad as any other!"

Mary let her run on. She moved silently along the grassy path, her prettyhead bent, her hands clasped behind her. And presently her aunt resumed:"And the strange thing is, my dear, saving your presence--that yourbeloved mother is quite lax in some directions, while she is so strict inothers. I never can make her pay the smallest attention to the things Itell her about Philip Meryon, for instance, that Hugh tells me. 'Poorfellow!' she always calls him, as though his abominable ways were likethe measles--something you couldn't help. And as for that wild minxHester!--she has positively taken a fancy to her. It reminds me of whatan old priest said to me once in Rome--'Sins, madame!--the only sins thatmatter are those of the intellect!' There!--send me off--before I say anymore _inconvenances_!"

Mary waved farewell to her vivacious aunt, and walked slowly back to thecottage. She was conscious of inner smart and pain; conscious also forthe first time of a critical mind toward the mother whose will had beenthe law of her life. It was not that she claimed anything for herself;but she claimed justice for a man misread. 

"If they could only know each other!"--she found herself saying at lastaloud--with an impetuous energy; and then, with a swift return uponherself--"Mother, _darling_!--mother, who has no one in the world--butme!"

As the words escaped her, she came in sight of the cottage, and saw thather mother was sitting in her usual place beside the water. Catharine'shands were resting on a newspaper they had evidently just put down, andshe was gazing absently across the lights and shadows, the limpid bluesand browns of the tree-locked pool before her. 

Mary came to sit on the grass beside her. 

"Have you been reading, dearest?"

But as she spoke she saw, with discomfort, that the newspaper on hermother's knee was the _Church Guardian_, in which a lively correspondenceon the subject of Meynell and the Modernist Movement generally was at themoment proceeding. 

"Yes, I have been reading, " said Catharine slowly--"and I have been verysad. "

"Then I wish you wouldn't read!" cried Mary, kissing her hand. "I shouldlike to burn all the newspapers!"

"What good would that do?" said Catharine, trying to smile. "I have beenreading Bishop Craye's letter to the _Guardian_. Poor Bishop!--what acruel, cruel position!"

The words were spoken with a subdued but passionate energy, and when Mrs. Elsmere perceived that Mary made no reply, her hand slipped out of herdaughter's. 

There was silence for a little, broken by Catharine, speaking with thesame quiet vehemence:

"I cannot understand how you, Mary, or any one else can defend what thisman--Mr. Meynell--is doing. If he cannot agree with the Church, let himleave it. But to stay in it--giving this scandal--and this offence--"

Her voice failed her. Mary collected her thoughts as best she could. 

At last she said, with difficulty:

"Aren't you thinking only of the people who may be hurt--or scandalized?But after all, there they are in the Church, with all its privileges andopportunities--with everything they want. They are not asked to giveanything up--nobody thinks of interfering with them--they have all theold dear things, the faiths and the practices they love--and that help_them_. They are only asked to tolerate other people who want differentthings. Mr. Meynell stands--I suppose--for the people--who are starved, whose souls wither, or die, for lack of the only food that could nourishthem. "

"'I am the bread of life, '" said Catharine with an energy that shook herslight frame. "The Church has no other food to give. Let those who refuseit go outside. There are other bodies, and other means. "

"But, mother, this is the _National_ Church!" pleaded Mary, after amoment. "The Modernists too say--don't they?--that Christ--or whatChrist stands for--is the bread of life. Only they understand thewords--differently from you. And if"--she came closer to her mother, andputting her hands on Catharine's knees, she looked up into the elderwoman's face--"if there were only a few here and there, they could ofcourse do nothing; they could only suffer, and be silent. But there areso many of them--so many! What is the 'Church' but the living souls thatmake it up? And now thousands of these living souls want to change thingsin the Church. Their consciences are hurt--they can't believe what theyonce believed. What is the justice of driving them out--or leaving themstarved--forever? They were born in the Church; baptized in the Church!They love the old ways, the old buildings, the old traditions. 'Comfortour consciences!' they say; 'we will never tyrannize over yours. Give usthe teaching and the expression we want; you will always have what youwant! Make room for us--beside you. If your own faith is strong it willonly be the stronger because you let ours speak and live--because yougive us our bare rights, as free spirits, in this Church that belongs tothe whole English people. ' Dear mother, you are so just always--soloving--doesn't that touch you--doesn't it move you--at all?"

The girl's charming face had grown pale. So had Catharine's. 

"This, I suppose, is what you have heard Mr. Meynell say, " she answeredslowly. 

Mary turned away, shading her eyes with her hand. 

"Yes, " she said, with shrinking; "at least I know it is what he wouldsay. "

"Oh, Mary, I wish we had never come here!" It was a cry of bitterness, almost of despair. Mary turned and threw her arms round the speaker'sneck. 

"I will never hurt you, my beloved! you know I won't. "

The two gazed into each other's eyes, questions and answers, unspoken yetunderstood, passing between them. Then Catharine disengaged herself, rose, and went away. 

During the night that followed Mary slept little. She was engaged intrying to loosen and tear away those tendrils of the heart that had begunto climb and spread more than she knew. Toward the early dawn it seemedto her she heard slight sounds in her mother's room. But immediatelyafterward she fell asleep. 

The next day, Mary could not tell what had happened; but it was asthough, in some inexplicable way, doors had been opened and weightslifted; as though fresh winds had been set blowing through the House ofLife. Her mother seemed shaken and frail; Mary hovered about her withministering tenderness. There were words begun and left unfinished, movements and looks that strangely thrilled and bewildered the youngerwoman. She had no key to them; but they seemed to speak of change--ofsomething in her mother that had been beaten down, and was still faintly, pitifully striving. But she dared say nothing. They read, and wroteletters, and strolled as usual; till in the evening, while Mary wassitting by the water, Catherine came out to her and stood beside her, holding the local paper in her hand. 

"I see there is to be a meeting in the village next Friday--of theReformers' League. Mr. Meynell is to speak. "

Mary looked up in amazement. 

"Yes?"

"You would perhaps like to go. I will go with you. "

"Mother!" Mary caught her mother's hand and kissed it, while the tearssprang to her eyes. "I want to go nowhere--to do nothing--that gives youpain!"

"I know that, " said Catharine quietly. "But I--I should like tounderstand him. "

And with a light touch of her hand on Mary's red-gold hair, she went backinto the house. Mary wandered away by herself into the depths of thewoods, weeping, she scarcely knew why. But some sure instinct, lost inwonder as she was, bade her ask her mother no questions; to let timeshow. 

The day of the League meeting came. It happened also to be the date onwhich the Commission of Inquiry into the alleged heresies andirregularities of the Rector of Upcote was holding its final meeting atMarkborough. 

The meetings of the commission were held in the Library of the Cathedral, once a collegiate church of the Cistercian order. All trace of the greatmonastery formerly connected with it had disappeared, except for theLibrary and a vaulted room below it which now made a passageway from theDeanery to the north transept. 

The Library offered a worthy setting for high themes. The walls were, ofcourse, wreathed in the pale golds and dignified browns of old books. Alight gallery ran round three sides of the room, while a largeperpendicular window at the farther end contained the armorial bearingsof various benefactors of the see. Beneath the window was a bookcasecontaining several chained books--a Vulgate, a Saint Augustine, the_Summa_ of St. Thomas; precious possessions, and famous in the annals ofearly printing. And wherever there was a space of wall left free, pictures or engravings of former bishops and dignitaries connected withthe Cathedral enforced the message and meaning of the room. 

A seemly, even beautiful place--pleasantly scented with old leather, andfilled on this September afternoon with the sunshine which, on the Chase, was at the same moment kindling the heather into a blood-redmagnificence. Here the light slipped in gently, subdued to the quiet noteand standard of the old Library. 

The Dean was in the Chair. He was a man of seventy who had only justbecome an old man, submitting with difficulty, even with resentment, tothe weight of his years. He wore a green shade over his eyes, beneathwhich his long sharp nose and pointed chin--in the practical absence ofthe eyes--showed with peculiar emphasis. He was of heavy build, andsuffered from chronic hoarseness. In his youth he had been a Broadchurchman and a Liberal, and had then passed, through stages mysteriousto his oldest friends, into an actively dogmatic and ecclesiasticalphase. It was rumoured that he had had strange spiritual experiences; a"vision" was whispered; but all that was really known was that from an"advanced" man, in the Liberal sense, he had become the champion of highorthodoxy in the Chapter, and an advocate of disestablishment as the onlymeans of restoring "Catholic liberty" to the Church. 

The Dean's enemies, of whom he had not a few, brought various chargesagainst him. It was said that he was a worldling with an undue leaning tonotabilities. And indeed in every gathering, social or ecclesiastical, the track of the Dean's conversation sufficiently indicated the relativeimportance of the persons present. Others declared that during his longtenure of a country living he had left the duties of it mainly to acurate, and had found it more interesting to live in London, conferringwith Cabinet Ministers on educational reform; while the women-folk of theChapter pitied his wife, whose subdued or tremulous aspect certainlysuggested that the Dean's critical and sarcastic temper sharpened itselfat home for conflicts abroad. 

On the Dean's right hand sat Canon Dornal, a man barely forty, who owedhis canonry to the herculean work he had done for fourteen years in aSouth London parish, work that he would never have relinquished for thecomparative ease of the Markborough precincts but for a sudden failure inhealth which had pulled him up in mid-career, and obliged him to think ofhis wife and children. He had insisted, however, on combining with hiscanonry a small living in the town, where he could still slave as hepleased; and his sermons in the Cathedral were generally held to be, nextto the personality of the Bishop, all that was noblest in MarkboroughChristianity. His fine head, still instinct with the energy of youth, wascovered with strong black hair; dark brows shadowed Cornish blue eyes, simple, tranquil, almost _naif_, until of a sudden there rushed into themthe passionate or tender feeling that was in truth the heart of the man. The mouth and chin were rather prominent, and, when at rest, severe. Hewas a man in whom conscience was a gadfly, remorseless and tormenting. Hewas himself overstrained and his influence sometimes produced in others atension on which they looked back with resentment. But he was a saint;open, pure, and loving as a child; yet often tempest-driven with newideas, since he possessed at once the imagination that frees a man fromtradition, and the piety which clings to it. 

Beside him sat a University professor, the young holder of an importantchair, who had the face, the smile, the curly hair of a boy of twenty, orappeared to have them, till you came to notice the subtleties of themouth and the crow's-feet which had gathered round the eyes. And theparadox of his aspect only repeated the paradox within. His "History andthe Gospels, " recently published, would have earned him excommunicationunder any Pope; yet no one was a more rigid advocate of tests and creeds, or could be more eloquent in defence of damnatory clauses. The clergy whoadmired and applauded him did not read his books. It was rumoured indeedthat there were many things in them which were unsound; but the rumouronly gave additional zest to the speeches in which at Church Congressesand elsewhere he flattered clerical prejudice, and encouraged clericalignorance. To him there was no more "amusing" study--using "amusing" inthe French sense as meaning something that keeps a man intellectuallyhappy and awake--than the study of the Gospels. They presented an endlessseries of riddles, and riddles were what he liked. But the scientifictreatment of these riddles had, according to him, nothing to do with thediscipline of the Church; and to the discipline of the Church this youngman, with the old eyes and mouth, was rigorously attached. He was abachelor and a man of means--facts which taken together with his literaryreputation and his agreeable aspect made him welcome among women; ofwhich he was well aware. 

The Archdeacon, Doctor Froswick, and the Rural Dean, Mr. Brathay, whocompleted the Commission of Inquiry, were both men of middle age; theArchdeacon, fresh-coloured and fussy, a trivial, kindly person of nogreat account; the Rural Dean, broad-shouldered and square-faced, asilent, trustworthy man, much beloved in a small circle. 

A pile of books, MSS. , and letters lay to the Chairman's right hand. Onthe blotting-pad before him was the voluminous written report of thecommission which only awaited the signatures of the Commissioners, and--as to one paragraph in it--a final interview with Meynell himself, which had been fixed for noon. Business was now practically over till hearrived, and conversation had become general. 

"You have seen the leader in the _Oracle_ this morning?" asked theArchdeacon, nervously biting his quill. "Perfectly monstrous, I think! Ishall withdraw my subscription. "

"With the _Oracle_, " said the Professor, "it will be a mere question ofsuccess or failure. At present they are inclined to back the rebellion. "

"And not much wonder!" put in the Dean's hoarse voice. "The news thismorning is uncommonly bad. Four more men joined the League here--a wholeseries of League meetings in Yorkshire!--half the important newspapersgone over or neutral--and a perfectly scandalous speech from the Bishopof Dunchester!"

"I thought we should hear of Dunchester before long, " said the Professor, with a sarcastic lip. "Anything that annoys his brethren has his constantsupport. But if the Church allows a Socinian to be put over her, she musttake the consequences!"

"What can the Church do?" said the Dean, shrugging his shoulders. "If wehad accepted Disestablishment years ago, Dunchester would never have beena bishop. And now we may have missed our chance. "

"Of what?"--Canon Dornal looked up--"of Disestablishment?"

The Dean nodded. 

"The whole force of _this_ Liberal movement, " he said slowly, "will bethrown against Disestablishment. There comes the dividing line between itand the past. I say again, we have missed our chance. If the HighChurchmen had known their own minds--if they had joined hands boldly withthe Liberation society, and struck off the State fetters--we should atleast have been left in quiet possession of what remained to us. Weshould not have been exposed to this treachery from within. Or, at least, we should have made short work of it. "

"That means, that you take for granted we should have kept our endowmentsand our churches?" said Canon Dornal. 

The Dean flushed. 

"We have been called a nation of shopkeepers, " he said vehemently, "butnobody has ever called us a nation of thieves. "

The Canon was silent. Then his eye caught the bulky MS. Report lyingbefore the Dean, and he made a restless movement as though the sight ofit displeased him. 

"The demonstrations the papers report this morning are not all on oneside, " said the Rural Dean slowly but cheerfully, as though from a ratherunsatisfactory reverie this fact had emerged. 

"No--there seems to have been something like a riot at Darwen's church, "observed the Archdeacon. "What can they expect? You don't outragepeople's dearest feelings for nothing. The scandal and misery of it! Ofcourse we shall put it down--but the Church won't recover for ageneration. And all that this handful of agitators may advertisethemselves and their opinions!"

Canon Dornal frowned and fidgeted. 

"We must remember, " he said, "that--unfortunately--they have the greaterpart of European theology behind them. "

"European theology!" cried the Archdeacon. "I suppose you mean Germantheology?"

"The same thing--almost, " said the Canon, smiling a little sadly. 

"And what on earth does German theology matter to us?" retorted theArchdeacon. "Haven't we got theologians of our own? What have the Germansever done but set up one mare's nest after another, for us to set right?They've no sooner launched some cocksure theory or other than they haveto give it up. I don't read German, " said the Archdeacon, hastily, "butthat's what I understand from the Church papers. "

Silence a moment. The Professor looked at the ceiling, a smile twitchingthe corners of his mouth. The green shade concealed the Dean'sexpression. He also knew no German, but it did not seem necessary to sayso. Canon Dornal looked uncomfortable. 

"Do you see who it was that protected Darwen from the roughs outside hischurch?" he said presently. 

Brathay looked up. 

"A party of Wesleyans?--class-leaders? Yes, I saw. Oh! Darwen has alwaysbeen on excellent terms with the Dissenters!"

"Meynell too, " said the Professor. "That of course is their game. Meynellhas always gone for the inclusion of the Dissenters. "

"Well, it was Arnold's game!" said the Canon, his look kindling. "Don'tlet's forget that. Meynell's dream is not unlike his--to includeeverybody that would be included. "

"Except the Unitarians, " said the Professor with emphasis--"the deniersof the Incarnation. Arnold drew the line there. So must we. "

He spoke with a crisp and smiling decision--as of one in authority. Allkinds of assumptions lay behind his manner. Dornal looked at him with arather troubled and hostile eye. This whole matter of the coming trialwas to him deeply painful. He would have given anything to avoid it; buthe did not see how it could be avoided. The extraordinary spread of theMovement indeed had made it impossible. 

At this moment one of the vergers of the Cathedral entered the room tosay that Mr. Meynell was waiting below. The Dean directed that he shouldbe shown up, and the whole commission dropped their conversational airand sat expectant. 

Meynell came in, rather hastily, brushing his hair back from hisforehead. He shook hands with the Dean and the Archdeacon, and bowedto the other members of the commission. As he sat down, the Archdeacon, who was very sensitive to such things, and was himself a model ofspick-and-span-ness, noticed that the Rector's coat was frayed, and oneof the buttons loose. Anne indeed was not a very competent valet of hermaster; and nothing but a certain esthetic element in Meynell preservedhim from a degree of personal untidiness which might perhaps have beenexcused in a man alternating, hour by hour, between his study-table andthe humblest practical tasks among his people. 

[Illustration: "He shook hands with the Dean"]

The other members of the commission observed him attentively. Perhaps allin their different ways and degrees were conscious of change in him: thechange wrought insensibly in a man by some high pressure of emotion andresponsibility--the change that makes a man a leader of his fellows, consecrates and sets him apart. Canon Dornal watched him with a secretsympathy and pity. The Archdeacon said to himself with repugnance thatMeynell now had the look of a fanatic. 

The Dean took a volume from the pile beside him, and opened it at amarked page. 

"Before concluding our report to the Bishop, Mr. Meynell, we wished tohave your explanation of an important passage in one of your recentsermons; and you have been kind enough to meet us with a view to givingus that explanation. Will you be so good as to look at the passage?"

He handed the book to Meynell, who read it in silence. The few markedsentences concerned the Resurrection. 

"These Resurrection stories have for our own days mainly a symbolic, perhaps one might call it a sacramental, importance. They are the'outward and visible' sign of an inward mystery. As a simple matter offact the continuous life of the spirit of Christ in mankind began withthe death of Jesus of Nazareth. The Resurrection beliefs, so far as wecan see, were the natural means by which that Life was secured. "

"Are we right in supposing, Mr. Meynell, " said the Dean, slowly, "that inthose sentences you meant to convey that the Resurrection narratives ofthe New Testament were not to be taken as historical fact, but merely asmythical--or legendary?"

"The passage means, I think, what it says, Mr. Dean. "

"It is not, strictly speaking, logically incompatible, " said theProfessor, bending forward with a suave suggestiveness, "with acceptanceof the statement in the Creed?"

Meynell threw him a slightly perplexed look, and did not replyimmediately. The Dean sharply interposed. 

"Do you in fact accept the statements of the Creed? In that case we mightreport to the Bishop that you felt you had been misinterpreted--and wouldwithdraw the sermon complained of, in order to allay the scandal it hasproduced?"

Meynell looked up. 

"No, " he said quietly, "no; I shall not withdraw the sermon. Besides"--the faintest gleam of a smile seemed to flit through thespeaker's tired eyes--"that is only one of so many passages. "

There was a moment's silence. Then Canon Dornal said:

"Many things--many different views--as we all know, are permitted, mustbe permitted, nowadays. But the Resurrection--is vital!"

"The physical fact?" said Meynell gently. His look met that of Dornal;some natural sympathy seemed to establish itself at once between them. 

"The _historical_ fact. If you could see your way to withdraw some of thestatements in these volumes on this particular subject, much relief wouldbe given to many--many wounded consciences. "

The voice was almost pleading. The Dean moved abruptly in his chair. Dornal's tone was undignified and absurd. Every page of the books teemedwith heresy!

But Meynell was for the moment only aware of his questioner. He leanedacross the table as though addressing him alone. 

"To us too--the Resurrection is vital--the transposition of it, Imean--from the natural, or physical to the spiritual order. "

Dornal did not of course attempt to argue. But as Meynell met thesensitive melancholy of his look the Rector remembered that during thepreceding year Dornal had lost a little son, a delicate, gifted child, towhom he had been peculiarly attached. And Meynell's quick imaginationrealized in a moment the haunted imagination of the other--the dear ghostthat lived there--and the hopes that grouped themselves about it. 

 * * * * *

A long wrestle followed between Meynell and the Professor. But Meynellcould not be induced to soften or recant anything. He would often sayindeed with an eager frown, when confronted with some statement of hisown, "That was badly put! It should be so-and-so. " And then would followsome vivid correction or expansion, which sometimes left the matter worsethan before. The hopes of the Archdeacon, for one set of reasons, and ofDornal, for another, that some bridge of retreat might be provided by theinterview, died away. The Dean had never hoped anything, and Mr. Brathaysat open-mouthed and aghast, while Meynell's voice and personality drovehome ideas and audacities which on the printed page were but dim to him. Why had the Anglican world been told for the last fifteen years that thewhole critical onslaught--especially the German onslaught--was a beatenand discredited thing? It seemed to him terribly alive!

 * * * * *

The library door opened again, and Meynell disappeared--ceremoniouslyescorted to the threshold by the Professor. When that gentleman wasseated again, the Dean addressed the meeting. 

"A most unsatisfactory interview! There is nothing for it, I fear, but tosend in our report unaltered to the Bishop. I must therefore ask you toappend your signatures. "

All signed, and the meeting broke up. 

"Do you know at all when the case is likely to come on?" said Dornal tothe Dean. 

"Hardly before November. The Letters of Request are ready. Then after theArches will come the appeal to the Privy Council. The whole thing maytake some time. "

"You see the wild talk in some of the papers this morning, " said theProfessor, interposing, "about a national appeal to Parliament to 'bringthe Articles of the Church of England into accordance with modernknowledge. ' If there is any truth in it, there may be an Armageddonbefore us. "

Dornal looked at him with distaste. The speaker's light tone, the note ofrelish in it, as of one delighting in the drama of life, revolted him. 

On coming out of the Cathedral Library, Dornal walked across to theCathedral and entered. He found his way to a little chapel of St. Oswaldon the north side, where he was often wont to sit or kneel for tenminutes' quiet in a busy day. As he passed the north transept he sawa figure sitting motionless in the shadow, and realized that it wasMeynell. 

The silence of the great Cathedral closed round him. He was conscious ofnothing but his own personality, and, as it seemed, of Meynell's. Theytwo seemed to be alone together in a world outside the living world. Dornal could not define it, save that it was a world of reconciledenmities and contradictions. The sense of it alternated with adisagreeable recollection of the table in the Library and the men sittinground it, especially the cherubic face of the Professor; the thought alsoof the long, signed document which reported the "heresy" of Meynell. 

He had been quite right to sign it. His soul went out in a passionateadhesion to the beliefs on which his own life was built. Yet still thestrange reconciling sense flowed in and round him, like the washing of apure stream. He was certain that the Eternal Word had been made flesh inJesus of Nazareth, had died and risen, and been exalted; that the Churchwas now the mysterious channel of His risen life. He must, in mereobedience and loyalty, do battle for that certainty--guard it as themost precious thing in life for those that should come after. Nevertheless he was conscious that there was in him none of the righteousanger, none of the moral condemnation, that his father or grandfathermight have felt in the same case. As far as _feeling_ went, nothingdivided him from Meynell. They two across the commission table--asaccuser and accused--had recognized, each in the other, the man of faith. The same forces played on both, mysteriously linking them, as the samesea links the headland which throws back its waves with the harbour whichreceives them. 

 * * * * *

Meynell too was conscious of Dornal as somewhere near him in the still, beautiful place, but only vaguely. He was storm-beaten by the labour andexcitement of the preceding weeks, and these moments of rest in theCathedral were sometimes all that enabled him to go through his day. Heendeavoured often at such times to keep his mind merely vacant andpassive, avoiding especially the active religious thoughts which weremore than brain and heart could continuously bear. "One cannot alwaysthink of it--one must not!" he would say to himself impatiently. And thenhe would offer himself eagerly to the mere sensuous impressions of theCathedral--its beauty, its cool prismatic spaces, its silences. 

He did so to-day, though always conscious beyond the beauty, and thehealing quiet, of the mysterious presence on which he "propped hissoul. "... 

Conscious, too, of a dear human presence, closely interwoven now with hissense of things ineffable. 

Latterly, as we have seen, he had not been without some scantyopportunities of meeting Mary Elsmere. In Miss Puttenham's drawing-room, whither the common anxiety about Hester had drawn him on many occasions, he had chanced once or twice on Miss Puttenham's new friend. In thevillage, Mrs. Flaxman was beginning to give him generous help; the parishnurse was started. And sometimes when she came to consult, her niece waswith her, and Meynell, while talking to the aunt either of his people orof the progress of the heresy campaign, was always keenly aware of thegirlish figure beside her--of the quick, shy smile--the voice and itstones. 

She was with him in spirit--that he knew--passionately knew. But thebarriers between them were surely insurmountable. Her sympathy with himwas like some warm, stifled thing--some chafing bird "beating up againstthe wind. "

For a time, indeed, he had tried to put love from him, in the name of hishigh enterprise and its claims upon him. But as he sat tranced in thesilence of the Cathedral that attempt finally gave way. His longing washopeless, but it enriched his life. For it was fused with all that heldhim to his task; all that was divinest and sincerest in himself. 

One of the great bells of the Cathedral struck the quarter. His moment ofcommunion and of rest broke up. He rose abruptly and left the Cathedralfor the crowded streets outside, thinking hard as he walked of quiteother things. 

The death of Mrs. Sabin in her son's cottage had been to Meynell like astone flung into some deep shadowed pool--the ripples from it had beenspreading through the secret places of life and thought ever since. 

He had heard of the death on the morning after it occurred. John Broad, an inarticulate, secretive fellow, had come to the Rectory in quest ofthe Rector within a few hours of its occurrence. His mother had returnedhome, he said, unexpectedly, after many years of wanderings in theStates; he had not had very much conversation with her, as she had seemedill and tired and "terrible queer" when she arrived. He and his boys hadgiven up their room to her for the night, and she had been very late incoming downstairs the following morning. He had had to go to his work, and when he came back in the evening he found her in great pain andunable to talk to him. She would not allow him to call any doctor, andhad locked herself in her room. In the morning he had forced the door andhad found her dead. He did not know that she had seen anybody but himselfand his boys since her arrival. 

But she had seen some one else. As the Rector walked along the street hehad in his pocket a cutting from the Markborough _Post_, containing thereport of the inquest, from which it appeared--the Rector of course waswell aware of it--that Mr. Henry Barron of the White House, going to thecottage to complain of the conduct of the children in the plantation, hadfound her there, and had talked to her for some time. "I thought herexcited--and overtired--no doubt by the journey, " he had said to theCoroner. "I tried to persuade her to let me send in a woman to look afterher, but she refused. "

In Barron's evidence at the inquest, to which Meynell had given closeattention, there had been no hint whatever as to the nature of hisconversation with Mrs. Sabin. Nor had there been any need to inquire. Themedical evidence was quite clear as to the cause of death--advanced braindisease, fatally aggravated by the journey. 

Immediately after his interview with John Broad the Rector hadcommunicated the news of Mrs. Sabin's unexpected arrival and sudden deathto two other persons in the village. He still thought with infiniteconcern of the effect it had produced on one of them. Since his hurriednote telling her of Barron's evidence before the Coroner, and of his ownimpressions of it, he had not seen her. But he must not leave her toomuch to herself. A patient and tender pity, as of one on whom the burdenof a struggling and suffering soul has long been thrown, dictated all histhoughts of her. He had himself perceived nothing which need alarm her inBarron's appearance at the inquest. Barron's manner to himself had beensingularly abrupt and cold when they happened to run across each other, outside the room in which the inquest was held; but all that wassufficiently explained by the position of the heresy suit. 

Still anxiously pondering, Meynell passed the last houses in theCathedral Close. The last of all belonged to Canon France, and Meynellhad no sooner left it behind him than a full and portly figure emergedfrom its front door. 

Barron--for it was he--stood a moment looking after the retreatingRector. A hunter's eagerness gave sharpening, a grim sharpening, to theheavy face; yet there was perplexity mixed with the eagerness. Hisconversation with France had not been very helpful. The Canon's worldlywisdom and shrewd contempt for enthusiasts had found their natural foodin the story which Barron had brought him. His comments had been wittyand pungent enough. But when it had come to the practical use of thestory, France had been of little assistance. His advice inclined too muchto the Melbourne formula--"Can't you let it alone?" He had pointed outthe risks, difficulties, and uncertainties of the matter with quiteunnecessary iteration. Of course there were risks and difficulties; butwas a man of the type of Richard Meynell to be allowed to play thehypocrite, as the rapidly emerging leader of a religious movement--amovement directed against the unity and apostolicity of the EnglishChurch--when there were those looking on who were aware of the gravesuspicions resting on his private life and past history?

CHAPTER IX

On the same afternoon which saw the last meeting of the Commission ofInquiry at Markborough, the windows of Miss Puttenham's cottage in UpcoteMinor were open to the garden, and the sun stealing into the halfdarkened drawing-room touched all the many signs it contained of awoman's refinement and woman's tastes. The room was a little austere. Notmany books, but those clearly the friends and not the passingacquaintance of its mistress; not many pictures, and those rather slightsuggestions on the dim blue walls than finished performances; a few"notes" in colour, or black and white, chosen from one or other of thosemoderns who can in a sensitive line or two convey the beauty or theharshness of nature. Over the mantelpiece there was a pencil drawing byDomenichino, of the Madonna and Child; a certain ecstatic languor in theMadonna, and, in all the lines of form and drapery, an exquisite flow androundness. 

The little maidservant brought in the afternoon letters and with them afolded newspaper--the Markborough _Post_. A close observer might havedetected that it had been already opened, and hurriedly refolded in theold folds. There was much interest felt in Upcote Minor in the inquestheld on John Broad's mother; and the kitchen had taken toll before thepaper reached the drawing-room. 

As though the maid's movement downstairs had been immediately perceivedby a listening ear overhead, there was a quick sound of footsteps. MissPuttenham ran downstairs, took the letters and the newspaper from thehands of the girl, and closed the door behind her. 

She opened the paper with eagerness, and read the account it gave of theCoroner's inquiry held at the Cowroast a week before. The newspaperdropped to the ground. She stood a moment, leaning against themantelpiece, every feature in her face expressing the concentration ofthought which held her; then she dropped into a chair, and raising hertwo hands to her eyes, she pressed the shut lids close, lifting her faceas though to some unseen misery, while a little sound--infinitelypiteous--escaped her. 

She saw a bedroom in a foreign inn--a vague form in the bed--a womanmoving about in nurse's dress, the same woman who had just died in JohnBroad's cottage--and her sister Edith sitting by the fire. The doorleading to the passage is ajar, and she is watching.... Or is it thefigure in the bed that is watching?--a figure marred by illness and pain?Through the door comes hastily a form--a man. With his entrance, movementand life, like a rush of mountain air, come into the ugly shaded room. Heis tall, with a long face, refined and yet violent, instinct with thecharacter and the pride of an old hectoring race. He comes to the bed, kneels down, and the figure there throws itself on his breast. There is asound of bitter sobbing, of low words--

Alice Puttenham's hands dropped from her face--and lay outstretched uponher knee. She sat, staring before her, unconscious of the garden outside, or of the passage of time. In some ways she was possessed of more beautyat thirty-seven than she had been at twenty. And yet from childhood herface had been a winning one--with its childish upper lip and its thinoval, its delicate brunette colour, and the lovely clearness of its browneyes. In youth its timid sweetness had been constantly touched withlaughter. Now it shrank from you and appealed to you in one. But thedeparture of youth had but emphasized a certain distinction, a certainquality. Laughter was gone, but grace and character remained, imprintedalso on the fragile body, the beautiful arms and hands. The only marringof the general impression came from an effect of restlessness andconstraint. To live with Alice Puttenham was to conceive her as acreature subtly ill at ease, doing her best with a life which was, insome hidden way, injured at the core. 

 * * * * *

She thought herself quite alone this quiet afternoon, and likely toremain so. Hester, who had been lunching with her, had gone shopping intoMarkborough with the schoolroom maid, and was afterward to meet Sarah andLulu at a garden party in the Cathedral Close. Lady Fox-Wilton had justleft her sister's house after a long, querulous, excited visit, thelatest of many during the past week. How could it be her--Alice's--fault, that Judith Sabin had come home in this sudden, mysterious way? Yet theevent had reopened all the old wounds in Edith's mind, revived all theold grievances and terrors. Strange that a woman should be capable of onesupreme act of help and devotion, and should then spend her whole afterlife in resenting it!

"It was you and your story--that shocking thing we had to do foryou--that have spoilt my life--and my husband's. Tom never got over it--and I never shall. And it will all come out--some day--and then what'llbe the good of all we've suffered!"

That was Edith's attitude--the attitude of a small, vindictive soul. Itnever varied year by year; it showed itself both in trifles and on greatoccasions; it hindered all sisterly affection; and it was the explanationof her conduct toward Hester--it had indeed made Hester what she was. 

Again the same low sound of helpless pain broke from Alice Puttenham'slips. The sense of her unloved, solitary state, of all that she had borneand must still bear, roused in her anew a flame of memory. Torch-like itran through the past, till she was shaken with anguish and revolt. Shehad been loved once! It had brought her to what the world calls shame. She only knew, at moments of strong reaction or self-assertion like thepresent, that she had once had a man at her feet who had been the desiredand adored of his day; that she had breathed her heart out in the passionof youth on his breast; that although he had wronged her, he had sufferedbecause of her, had broken his heart for her, and had probably diedbecause circumstances denied him the power to save and restore her, andhe was not of the kind that bears patiently either thwarting from withoutor reproach from within. 

For his selfish passion, his weakness and his suffering, and her ownwoman's power to make him suffer; for his death, no less selfish indeedthan his passion, for it had taken from her the community of the sameair, and the same earth with him, the sense that somewhere in the worldhis warm life beat with hers, though they might be separated in bodilypresence forever--for each and all of these things she had loved him. Andthere were still times when, in spite of the years that had passed away, and of other and perhaps profounder feelings that had supervened, shefelt within her again the wild call of her early love, responding to itlike an unhappy child, in vain appeal against her solitude, her sister'sunkindness, and the pressure of irrevocable and unforgotten facts. 

Suddenly, she turned toward a tall and narrow chest of drawers that stoodat her left hand. She chose a key from her watch-chain, a small gold keythat in their childhood had been generally mistaken by her nieces andnephews for one of the bunch of charms they were allowed to play with on"Aunt Alsie's" lap. With it she unlocked a drawer within her reach. Herhand slipped in; she threw a hasty look round her, at the window, thegarden. Not a sound of anything but the evening wind, which had justrisen, and was making a smart rustling among the shrubs just outside. Herhand, a white, furtive thing, withdrew itself, and in it lay a packet, wrapped in some faded, green velvet. Hurriedly--with yet more pauses tolisten and to look--the wrapping was undone; the case within fell open. 

It contained a miniature portrait of a man--French work, by an excellentpupil of Meissonier. The detail of it was marvellous; so, in AlicePuttenham's view, was the likeness. She remembered when and how it hadbeen commissioned--the artist, and his bare studio in a street on theisland, near Notre Dame; the chestnuts in the Luxembourg garden asthey walked home; the dust of the falling blossoms, and the childrenplaying in the alleys. And through it all, what passionate, guiltyhappiness--what dull sense of things irreparable!--what deliberateshutting out of the future!

It was as good a likeness as the Abbey picture, only more literal, less"arranged. " The Abbey picture, also by a French artist of another school, was younger, and had a fine, romantic, René-like charm. "René" had beenher laughing name for him--her handsome, melancholy, eloquent _poseur!_Like many of his family, he was proud of his French culture, his Frenchaccent, and his knowledge of French books. The tradition that cameoriginally from a French marriage had been kept up from father to son. They were not a learned or an industrious race, but their tongue sooncaught the accent of the boulevards--of the Paris they loved andfrequented. Her hand lifted the miniature the better to catch theslanting light. 

As she did so she was freshly struck with a resemblance she had longceased to be conscious of. Familiarity with a living face, as so oftenhappens, had destroyed for her its likeness--likeness in difference--to aface of the dead. But to-night she saw it--was indeed arrested by it. 

"And yet Richard was never one tenth as good-looking!"

The portrait was set in pearls, and at the foot was an inscription inblue enamel--

"_A ma mie!_"

But before she could see it she must with her cold, quick fingers removethe fragment of stained paper that lay upon it like a veil. The half of apage of Molière--turned down--like that famous page of Shelley's"Sophocles"--and stained with sea water, as that was stained. 

She raised the picture to her lips and kissed it--not with passion--butclingingly, as though it represented her only wealth, amid so muchpoverty. Then her hand, holding it, dropped to her knee again; the otherhand came to close over it; and her eyes shut. Tears came slowly throughthe lashes. 

Amazing!--that that woman should have come back--and died--within a fewhundred yards, and she, Alice, know nothing! In spite of all Richard'spersuasions she tortured herself anew with the thought of the interviewbetween Judith and Mr. Barron. What could they have talked about--solong? Judith was always an excitable, hot-tempered creature. Her silencehad been heavily and efficiently bought for fifteen years. Then stepshad been taken--insisted upon--by Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton. His wife and hissister-in-law had opposed him in vain. And Ralph had after all triumphedin Judith's apparent acquiescence. 

Supposing she had now come home, perhaps on a sudden impulse, with a viewto further blackmail, would not her wisest move be to risk someindiscretion, some partial disclosure, so that her renewed silenceafterward might have the higher price? An hour's _tete-a-tete_ withthat shrewd, hard-souled man, Henry Barron! Alice Puttenham guessed thather own long-established dislike of him as acquaintance and neighbour wasprobably returned with interest; that he classed her now as one of"Meynell's lot, " and would be only too glad to find himself possessed ofany secret information that might, through her, annoy and harass RichardMeynell, her friend and counsellor. 

Was it conceivable that nothing should have been said in that lengthyinterview as to the causes for Judith's coming home?--or of the reasonsfor her original departure? What else could have accounted for soprolonged a conversation between two persons, so different in socialgrade, and absolute strangers to each other?

Richard had told her, indeed, and she saw from the _Post_, that at theinquest Barron had apparently accounted for the conversation. "She gaveme a curious history of her life in the States. I was interested by herstrange personality--and touched by her physical condition. "

Richard was convinced that there was no reasonable cause for alarm. ButRichard was always the consoler--the optimist--where she was concerned. Could she have lived at all--if it had not been so?

And then, for the second time, the rush of feeling rose, welling up, notfrom the springs of the past, but from the deepest sources of thepresent. 

_Richard!_

That little villa on the Cap Martin--the steep pathway to it--and Richardmounting it, with that pale look, those tattered, sea-stained leaves inhis hand--and the tragedy that had to be told, in his eyes, and on hislips. Could any other human being have upheld her as he did through thatfirst year--through the years after? Was it not to him that she owedeverything that had been recovered from the wreck; the independence andfreedom of her daily life; protection from her hard brother-in-law, andfrom her sister's reproaches; occupation--hope--the gradual healing ofintolerable wounds--the gradual awakening of a spiritual being?

Thus--after passion--she had known friendship; its tenderness, itsdisinterested affection and care. 

_Tenderness?_ Her hand dashed away some more impetuous tears, then lockeditself in the other, the tension of the muscles answering to the inwardeffort for self-control. Thank God, she had never asked him for more; hadoften seemed indeed to ask him for much less; had made herselfirresponsive, difficult, remote. At least she had never lost her dignityin his eyes--(ah! in whose eyes but his had she ever possessed it?)--shehad never forfeited--never risked even--her sacred place in his life, asthe soul he had helped through dark places, true servant as he was of theMaster of Pity. 

The alarms of the week died away, as this emotion gained upon her. Shebethought her of certain central and critical years, when, after longdependence on him as comrade and friend, suddenly, she knew not how, herown pulse had quickened, and the sharpest struggle of her life had comeupon her. It was the crisis of the mature woman, as compared with that ofthe innocent and ignorant girl; and in the silent mastering of it sheseemed to have parted with her youth. 

But she had never parted with self-control and self-respect. She hadnever persuaded herself that the false was true. She had kept hercounsel, and her sanity, and the wage of it had not been denied her. Shehad emerged more worthy of his friendship, more capable of rewarding it. 

Yes, but with a clear and sad perception of the necessities laid uponher--of the sacrifices involved. 

He believed her--she knew it--indifferent to the great cause of religiouschange and reform which he had at heart. In these matters, indeed, shehad quietly, unwaveringly held aloof. There are efforts and endurancesthat can only be maintained--up to a point. Beyond that point resistancebreaks. The life that is fighting emotion must not run too many risks ofemotion. At the root of half the religious movements of the world liesthe appeal of the preacher and the prophet--to women. Because women arethe creatures and channels of feeling; and feeling is to religion as airto life. 

But _she_--must starve feeling--not feed and cherish it. Richard's voicewas too powerful with her already. To hear it dealing with the mostintimate and touching things of the soul would have tested the resistanceof her will too sorely. Courage and honour alike told her that she wouldbe defeated and undone did she attempt to meet and follow him--openly--inthe paths of religion. _Entbehren sollst du_--_sollst entbehren!_

So, long before this date, she had chosen her line of action. She took nopart in the movement, and she rarely set foot in the village church, which was close to her gates. Meynell sadly believed her unshakeable--oneof the natural agnostics or pessimists of the world who cannot becomforted through religion. 

And meanwhile secretly, ardently, she tracked all the footsteps of histhoughts, reading what he read, thinking as far as possible what hethought, and revealing nothing. 

Except that, lately, she had been indiscreet sometimes in talk with MaryElsmere. Mary had divined her--had expressed her astonishment that herfriend should declare herself and her sympathies so little; and Alice hadset up some sort of halting explanation. 

But in this nascent friendship it was not Mary alone who had madediscoveries.... 

 * * * * *

Alice Puttenham sat very still, in the quiet shadowy room, her eyesclosed, her hands crossed over the miniature, the Markborough paper lyingon the floor beside her. As the first activity of memory, stirred andgoaded by an untoward event, lost its poignancy; as she tried inobedience to Meynell to put away her terrors, with regard to the past, her thoughts converged ever more intensely on the present--on herself--and Mary.... 

There was in the world, indeed, another personality rarely or neverabsent from Alice Puttenham's consciousness. One face, one problem, moreor less acutely realized, haunted her life continuously. But thisafternoon they had, for the moment, receded into the background. Hesterhad been, surely, more reasonable, more affectionate lately. PhilipMeryon had now left Sandford; a statement to that effect had appeared inthe _Post_; and Hester had even shown some kindness to poor Stephen. Shehad at last declared her willingness to go to Paris, and the arrangementswere all made. The crisis in her of angry revolt, provoked apparently bythe refusal of her guardian to allow her engagement to Stephen, seemed tobe over. 

So that for once Alice Puttenham was free to think and feel for her ownlife and what concerned it. From the events connected with Judith Sabin'sdeath--through the long history of Meynell's goodness to her--the mindof this lonely woman travelled on, to be filled and arrested by thegreat new fact of the present. She had made a new friend. And at thesame moment she had found in her--at last--the rival with whom herown knowledge of life had threatened her these many years. A rival sosweet--so unwitting! Alice had read her. She had scarcely yet readherself. 

Alice opened her eyes--to the quiet room, and the windy skyoutside. She was very pale, but there were no tears. "It is notrenouncing"--she whispered to herself--"for I never possessed. Itis accepting--loving--giving--all one has to give. "

And vaguely there ran through her mind immortal words--"_goodmeasure--pressed down, and running over_. "

A smile trembled on her lip. She closed her eyes again, lost in one ofthose spiritual passions accessible only to those who know the play andheat of the spiritual war. The wind was blowing briskly outside, and fromthe wood-shed in the back garden came a sound of sawing. Miss Puttenhamdid not hear a footstep approaching on the grass outside. 

 * * * * *

Hester paused at the window--smiling. There was wildness--triumph--in herlook, as though for her this quiet afternoon had seen some undisclosedadventure. Her cheek was hotly flushed, her loosened hair made a glory inthe evening sun. Youth, selfishly pitiless--youth, the supplanter anddestroyer--stood embodied in the beautiful creature looking down uponAlice Puttenham, on the still intensity of the plaintive face, the closedeyes, the hands holding the miniature. 

Mischievously the girl came closer. She took the stillness before her forsleep. 

"Auntie! Aunt Alsie!"

With a start, Alice Puttenham sprang up. The miniature dropped fromher hands to the floor, opening as it fell. Hester looked at itastonished--and her hand stooped for it before Miss Puttenham hadperceived her loss. 

"Were you asleep, Aunt Alsie?" she asked, wondering. "I got tired ofthat stupid party--and I--well, I just slipped away"--the clear highvoice had grown conscious--"and I looked in here, because I left a bookbehind me--Auntie, who is it?" She bent eagerly over the miniature, trying to see it in the dim light. 

Miss Puttenham's face had faded to a gray-white. 

"Give it to me, Hester!" She held out her hand imperiously. 

"Mayn't I know even who it is?" asked Hester, as she unwillingly returnedit. In the act she caught the inscription and her face kindled. 

Impetuously throwing herself down beside Miss Puttenham, the girl lookedup at her with an expression half mockery, half sweetness, while Alice, with unsteady fingers, replaced the case and locked the drawer. 

"What an awfully handsome fellow!" said Hester in a low voice, "thoughyou wouldn't let me see it properly. I say, Auntie, won't you tell me--?"

"Tell you what?"

"Who he was--and why I never saw it before? I thought I knew all yourthings by heart--and now you've been keeping something from me!" Thegirl's tone had changed to one of curious resentment. "You know how youscold _me_ when you think I've got a secret. "

"That is quite different, Hester. "

Miss Puttenham tried to rise, but Hester, who was leaning against herknee, prevented it. 

"Why is it different?" she said, audaciously. "You always sayyou--you--want to be everything to me--and then you hide things fromme--and I--"

She raised herself, sitting upright on the floor, her hands round herknees, and spoke with extraordinary animation and sparkling eyes. 

"Why, I should have loved you twice as much, Aunt Alice--and you know I_do_ love you!--if you'd told me more about yourself. The people _I_ careabout are the people who _live_--and feel--and do things! There's versein one of your books"--she pointed to a little bookshelf of poets on atable near--"I always think of it when mamma reads the 'Christian Year'to us on Sunday evenings--

Out of dangers, dreams, disasters_We_ arise, to be your masters!"

"_We_--the people who want to know, and feel, and _fight_! We who loatheall the humdrum _bourgeois_ talk--'don't do this--don't do that!' AuntAlsie, there's a German line, too, you know it--' _Was uns alle bändigt, das Gemeine'_--don't you hate it too--_das Gemeine?_" the word camewith vehemence through the white teeth. "And how can we escape it--wewomen--except through freedom--through asserting ourselves--through love, of course? It all comes to love!--love that mamma says one ought not totalk about. I wouldn't talk about it, if it only meant what it means toSarah and Lulu--I'd scorn to!"

She stopped--and looked with her blazing and wonderful eyes at hercompanion--her lips parted. Then she suddenly stooped and kissed the coldhand trying to withdraw itself from hers. 

"Who was he, dear?"--she laid the hand caressingly against hercheek--"I'm good at secrets!"

Alice Puttenham wrenched herself free, and rose tottering to her feet. 

"He is dead, Hester--and you mustn't speak of it to me--or anyone--again. "

She leant against the mantelpiece trying to recover herself--but in vain. 

"I'm rather faint, " she said at last, putting out a groping hand. "No, don't come!--I'm all right--I'll go upstairs and rest. I got overtiredthis morning. "

And she went feebly toward the door. 

Hester looked after her, panting and wounded. Aunt Alsie repel--refuseher!--Aunt Alsie!--who had always been her special possession andchattel. It had been taken for granted in the family, year after year, that if no one else was devoted to Hester, Aunt Alsie's devotion, atleast, never failed. Hester's clothes were Miss Puttenham's special care;it was for Hester that she stitched and embroidered. Hester was toinherit her jewels and her money. In all Hester's scrapes it was AuntAlice who stood by her, who had often carried her off bodily out of reachof the family anger, to the Lakes, to the sea--once even, to Italy. 

And from her childhood Hester had coolly taken it all for granted, hadnever been specially grateful, or much more amenable to counsels fromAunt Alice than from anybody else. The slender, graceful woman, sogentle, plaintive and reserved, so easily tyrannized over, had neverseemed to mean much to her. Yet now, as she stood looking at the doorthrough which Miss Puttenham had disappeared, the girl was conscious of aprofound and passionate sense of grievance, and of something deeper, beneath it. The sensation that held her was new and unbearable. 

Then in a moment her temperament turned pain into anger. She ran to thewindow and down the steps into the garden. 

"If she had told me"--she said to herself, with the childish fury thatmingled in her with older and maturer things--"I might have told _her_. Now--I fend for myself!"

CHAPTER X

Meanwhile, in the room upstairs, Alice Puttenham lying with her facepressed against the back of the chair into which she had feebly dropped, heard Hester run down the steps, tried to call, or rise, and could not. Since the death of Judith Sabin she had had little or no sleep, and muchless food than usual, with--all the while--the pressure of a vaguecorrosive terror on nerve and brain. The shock of that miniature inHester's hands had just turned the scale; endurance had given way. 

The quick footsteps receded. Yet she could do nothing to arrest them. Hermind floated in darkness. 

Presently out of the darkness emerged a sound, a touch--a warm hand onhers. 

"Dear--dear Miss Puttenham!"

"Yes. "

Her voice seemed to herself a sigh--the faintest--from a great distance. 

"The servants said you were here. Ellen came up to knock, and you did nothear. I was afraid you were ill--so I came in--you'll forgive me. "

"Thank you. "

Silence for a while. Mary brought cold water, chafed her friend's hands, and rendered all the services that women in such straits know how tolavish on a sufferer. Gradually Alice mastered herself, but more than abroken word or two still seemed beyond her, and Mary waited in patience. She was well aware that some trouble of a nature unknown to her had beenweighing on Miss Puttenham for a week or more; and she realized too, instinctively, that she would get no light upon it. 

Presently there was a knock at the door, and Mary went to open it. Theservant whispered, and she returned at once. 

"Mr. Meynell is here, " she said, hesitating. "You will let me send himaway?"

Alice Puttenham opened her eyes. 

"I can't see him. But please--give him some tea. He'll have walked--fromMarkborough. "

Mary prepared to obey. 

"I'll come back afterward. "

Alice roused herself further. 

"No--there is the meeting afterward. You said you were going. "

"I'd rather come back to you. "

"No, dear--no. I'm--I'm better alone. Good night, kind angel. It'snothing"--she raised herself in the chair--"only bad nights! I'll go tobed--that'll be best. Go down--give him tea. And Mrs. Flaxman's goingwith you?"

"No. Mother said she wished to go, " said Mary, slowly. "She and I were tomeet in the village. "

Alice nodded feebly, too weak to show the astonishment she felt. 

"Just time. The meeting is at seven. "

Then with a sudden movement--"Hester!--is she gone?"

"I met her and the maid--in the village--as I came in. "

A silence--till Alice roused herself again--"Go dear, don't miss themeeting. I--I want you to be there. Good night. "

And she gently pushed the girl from her, putting up her pale lips to bekissed, and asking that the little parlour-maid should be sent to helpher undress. 

Mary went unwillingly. She gave Miss Puttenham's message to the maid, andwhen the girl had gone up to her mistress she lingered a moment at thefoot of the stairs, her hands lightly clasped on her breast, as though toquiet the stir within. 

 * * * * *

Meynell, expecting to see the lady of the house, could not restrain thestart of surprise and joy with which he turned toward the incomer. Hetook her hand in his--pressing it involuntarily. But it slipped away, andMary explained with her soft composure why she was there alone--that MissPuttenham was suffering from a succession of bad nights and was keepingher room--that she sent word the Rector must please rest a little beforegoing home, and allow Mary to give him tea. 

Meynell sank obediently into a chair by the open window, and Maryministered to him. The lines of his strong worn face relaxed. His lookreturned to her again and again, wistfully, involuntarily; yet not so asto cause her embarrassment. 

She was dressed in some thin gray stuff that singularly became her; andwith the gray dress she wore a collar or ruffle of soft white that gaveit a slight ascetic touch. But the tumbling red-gold of the hair, thefrank dignity of expression, belonged to no mere cloistered maid. 

Meynell heard the news of Miss Puttenham's collapse with a sigh--checkedat birth. He asked few questions about it; so Mary reflected afterward. He would come in again on the morrow, he said, to inquire for her. Then, with some abruptness, he asked whether Hester had been much seen at thecottage during the preceding week. 

Mary reported that she had been in and out as usual, and seemedreconciled to the prospect of Paris. 

"Are you--is Miss Puttenham sure that she hasn't still been meeting thatman?"

Mary turned a startled look upon him. 

"I thought he had gone away?"

"There may be a stratagem in that. I have been keeping what watch Icould--but at this time--what use am I?"

The Rector threw himself back wearily in his chair, his hands behind hishead. Mary was conscious of some deep throb of feeling that must not cometo words. Even since she had known it the face had grown older--thelines deeper--the eyes finer. She stooped forward a little. 

"It is hard that you should have this anxiety too. Oh! but I _hope_ thereis no need!"

He raised himself again with energy. 

"There is always need with Hester. Oh! don't suppose I have forgottenher! I have written to that fellow, my cousin. I went, indeed, to see himthe day before yesterday, but the servants at Sandford declared he hadgone to town, and they were packing up to follow. Lady Fox-Wilton andMiss Alice here have been keeping a close eye on Hester herself, I know;but if she chose, she could elude us all!"

"She couldn't give such pain--such trouble!" cried Mary indignantly. 

The Rector shook his head sadly. Then he looked at his companion. 

"Has she made a friend of you? I wish she would. "

"Oh! she doesn't take any account of me, " said Mary, laughing. "She isquite kind to me--she tells me when she thinks my frock is hideous--ormy hat's impossible--or she corrects my French accent. She is quite kind, but she would no more think of taking advice from me than from thesofa-cushion. "

Meynell shrugged his shoulders. 

"She has no bump of respect--never had!" and he began to give a halfhumorous account of the troubles and storms of Hester's bringing up. "Ioften ask myself whether we haven't all--whether I, in particular, haven't been a first-class bungler and blundered all through with regardto Hester. Did we choose the wrong governesses? They seemed mostestimable people. Did we thwart her unnecessarily? I can't remember atime when she didn't have everything she wanted!"

"She didn't get on very well with her father?" suggested Mary timidly. 

Meynell made a sudden movement, and did not answer for a moment. 

"Sir Ralph and she were always at cross-purposes, " he said at last. "Buthe was kind to her--according to his lights; and--he said some very soundand touching things to me about her--on his death-bed. "

There was a short silence. Meynell had covered his eyes with his hand. Mary was at a loss how to continue the conversation, when he resumed:

"I wonder if you will understand how strangely this anxiety weighs uponme--just now. "

"Just now?"

"Here am I preaching to others, " he said slowly, "leading what peoplecall a religious movement, and this homely elementary task seems to beall going wrong. I don't seem to be able to protect this child confidedto me. "

"Oh, but you will protect her!" cried Mary, "you will! She mayn't seem togive way--when you talk to her; but she has said things to me--to mymother too--"

"That shows her heart isn't all adamant? Well, well!--you're a comforter, but--"

"I mean that she knows--I'm sure she does--what you've done for her--howyou've cared for her, " said Mary, stammering a little. 

"I have done nothing but my plainest, simplest duty. I have madeinnumerable mistakes; and if I fail with her, it's quite clear that I'mnot fit to teach or lead anybody. "

The words were spoken with an impatient emphasis to which Mary did notventure a reply. But she could not restrain an expression in her grayeyes which was a balm to the harassed combatant beside her. 

They said no more of Hester. And presently Mary's hunger for news ofthe Reform Movement could not be hid. It was clear she had been readingeverything she could on the subject, and feeding upon it in a loneliness, and under a constraint, which touched Meynell profoundly. The conflictin her between a spiritual heredity--the heredity of her father'smessage--and her tender love for her mother had never been so plain tohim. Yet he could not feel that he was abetting any disloyalty inallowing the conversation. She was mature. Her mind had its own rights!

Mary indeed, unknown to him, was thrilling under a strange and secretsense of deliverance. Her mother's spiritual grip upon her had relaxed;she moved and spoke with a new though still timid sense of freedom. 

So once again, as on their first meeting, only more intimately, hersympathy, her quick response, led him on. Soon lying back at his ease, his hands behind his head, he was painting for her the progress of thecampaign; its astonishing developments; the kindling on all sides of thedry bones of English religion. 

The new--or re-written--Liturgy of the Reform was, it seemed, almostcompleted. From all parts: from the Universities, from cathedralcloisters, from quiet country parishes, from the clash of life in thegreat towns, men had emerged as though by magic to bring to the making ofit their learning and their piety, the stored passion of their hearts. And the mere common impulse, the mere release of thoughts and aspirationsso long repressed, had brought about an extraordinary harmony, avictorious selflessness, among the members of the commission charged withthe task. The work had gone with rapidity, yet with sureness, as in thoseearly years of Christianity, which saw so rich and marvellous an upgrowthfrom the old soil of humanity. With surprising ease and spontaneity theold had passed over into the new; just as in the first hundred yearsafter Christ's death the psalms and hymns and spiritual songs of thelater Judaism had become, with but slight change, the psalms and hymns ofChristianity; and a new sacred literature had flowered on the stock ofthe old. 

"To-night--here!--we submit the new marriage service and the new burialservice to the Church Council. And the same thing will be happening, atthe same moment, in all the churches of the Reform--scattered throughEngland. "

"How many churches now?" she asked, with a quickened breath. 

"Eighteen in July--this week, over a hundred. But before our cases comeon for trial there will be many more. Every day new congregations come infrom new dioceses. The beacon fire goes leaping on, from point to point!"

But the emotion which the phrase betrayed was instantly replaced by thebusiness tone of the organizer as he went on to describe some of thepractical developments of the preceding weeks: the founding of anewspaper; the collection of propagandist funds; the enrolment ofteachers and missionaries, in connection with each Modernist church. Yet, at the end of it all, feeling broke through again. 

"They have been wonderful weeks!--wonderful! Which of us could have hopedto see the spread of such a force in the dusty modern world! You rememberthe fairy story of the prince whose heart was bound with iron bands--andhow one by one, the bands give way? I have seen it like that--in lifeafter life. "

"And the fighting?"

She had propped her face on her hands, and her eyes, with their eagersympathy, their changing lights, rained influence on the man beside her;an influence insensibly mingling with and colouring the passion for ideaswhich held them both in its grip. 

"--Has been hot--will be of course infinitely hotter still! But yet, again and again, with one's very foes, one grasps hands. They seem tofeel with us 'the common wave'--to be touched by it--touched by our hope. It is as though we had made them realize at last how starved, how shutout, we have been--we, half the thinking nation!--for so long!"

"Don't--don't be too confident!" she entreated. "Aren't you--isn't itnatural you should miscalculate the forces against you? Oh! they are sostrong! and--and so noble. "

She drew in her breath, and he understood her. 

"Strong indeed, " he said gravely. "But--"

Then a smile broke in. 

"Have I been boasting? You see some signs of swelled head? Perhaps youare right. Now let me tell you what the other side are doing. Thatchastens one! There is a conference of Bishops next week; there was onea week ago. These are of course thundering resolutions in Convocation. The English Church Union has an Albert Hall meeting; it will bemagnificent. A 'League of the Trinity' has started against us, and willsoon be campaigning all over England. The orthodox newspapers are all infull cry. Meanwhile the Bishops are only waiting for the decision of mycase--the test case--in the lower court to take us all by detachments. Every case, of course, will go ultimately to the Supreme Court--the PrivyCouncil. A hundred cases--that will take time! Meanwhile--from us--amonster petition--first to the Bishops for the assembling of a fullCouncil of the English Church, then to Parliament for radical changes inthe conditions of membership of the Church, clerical and lay. "

Mary drew in her breath. 

"You _can't_ win! you _can't_ win!"

And he saw in her clear eyes her sorrow for him and her horror of theconflict before him. 

"That, " he said quietly, "is nothing to us. We are but soldiers undercommand. "

He rose; and, suddenly, she realized with a fluttering heart how emptythat room would be when he was gone. He held out his hand to her. 

"I must go and prepare what I have to say to-night. The Church Councilconsists of about thirty people--two thirds of them will be miners. "

"How is it _possible_ that they can understand you?" she asked him, wondering. 

"You forget that half of them I have taught from their childhood. Theyare my spiritual brothers, or sons--picked men--the leaders of theirfellows--far better Christians than I. I wish you could see them--andhear them. " He looked at her a little wistfully. 

"I am coming, " she said, looking down. 

His start of pleasure was very evident. 

"I am glad, " he said simply; "I want you to know these men. "

"And my mother is coming with me. "

Her voice was constrained. Meynell felt a natural surprise. He paused aninstant, and then said with gentle emphasis:

"I don' think there will be anything to wound her. At any rate, therewill be nothing new, or strange--to _her_--in what is said to-night. "

"Oh, no!" Then, after a moment's awkwardness, she said, "We shall soon begoing away. "

His face changed. 

"Going away? I thought you would be here for the winter!"

"No. Mother is so much better, we are going to our little house in theLakes, in Long Whindale. We came here because mother was ill--and AuntRose begged us. But--"

"Do you know"--he interrupted her impetuously--"that for six months I'vehad a hunger for just one fortnight up there among the fells?"

"You love them?" Her face bloomed with pleasure. "You know the dearmountains?"

He smiled. 

"It doesn't do to think of them, does it? You should see the letters onmy table! But I may have to take a few days' rest, some time. Should Ifind you in Long Whindale--if I dropped down on you--over Goat Scar?"

"Yes--from December till March!" Then she suddenly checked the happinessof her look and tone. "I needn't warn you that it rains. "

"Doesn't it rain! And everybody pretends it doesn't. The lies one tells!"

She laughed. 

They stood looking at each other. An atmosphere seemed to have sprung upround them in which every tone and movement had suddenly becomemagnified--significant. 

Meynell recovered himself. He held out his hand in farewell, but he hadscarcely turned away from her, when she made a startled movement towardthe open window. 

"What is that?"

There was a sound of shouting and running in the street outside. Acrowd seemed to be approaching. Meynell ran out into the garden tolisten. By this time the noise had grown considerably, and he thoughthe distinguished his own name among the cries. 

"Something has happened at the colliery!" he said to Mary, who hadfollowed him. 

And he hurried toward the gate, bareheaded, just as a gray-haired lady inblack entered the garden. 

"Mother, " cried Mary, in amazement. 

Catharine Elsmere paused--one moment; she looked from her daughter toMeynell. Then she hurried to the Rector. 

"You are wanted!" she said, struggling to get her breath. "A terriblething has happened. They think four lives have been lost--some accidentto the cage--and people blame the man in charge. They've got him shut upin the colliery office--and declare they'll kill him. The crowd looksdangerous--and there are very few police. I heard you were here--someone, the postman, saw you come in--you must stop it. The people willlisten to you. "

Her fine, pale face, framed in her widow's veil, did not so much ask ascommand. He replied by a gesture--then by two or three rapid inquiries. Mary--bewildered--saw them for an instant as allies and equals, eachrecognizing the other. Then Meynell ran to the gate, and was at onceswallowed up in the moving groups which had gathered there, and seemed tocarry him back with them toward the colliery. 

Catharine Elsmere turned to follow--Mary at her side. Mary looked at herin anxiety, dreading the physical strain for one, of late, so frail. 

"Mother darling!--ought you?"

Catharine took no heed whatever of the question. 

"It is the women who are so terrible, " she said in a low voice, as theyhurried on; "their faces were like wild beasts. They have telephoned toCradock for police. If Mr. Meynell can keep them in check for half anhour, there may be hope. "

They ran on, swept along by the fringe of the crowd till they reached thetop of a gentle descent at the farther end of the village. At the bottomof this hill lay the colliery, with its two huge chimneys, its shed andengine houses, its winding machinery, and its heaps of refuse. Within theenclosure, from the height where they stood, could be seen a thin line ofpolice surrounding a small shed--the pay-office. On the steps of it stoodthe manager, and the Rector, to be recognized by his long coat and hisbare head, had just joined him. Opposite to the police, and separatedfrom the shed by about ten yards and a wooden paling, was a threateningand vociferating mob, which stretched densely across the road and up thehill on either side; a mob largely composed of women--dishevelled, furious women--their white faces gleaming amid the coal-blackened formsof the miners. 

"They'll have 'im out, " said a woman in front of Mary Elsmere. "Oh, myGod!--they'll have 'im out! It was he caused the death of the boy--yomind 'im--young Jimmy Ragg--a month sen; though the crowner's jury didlet 'im off, more shame to them! An' now they say as how he signalled for'em to bring up the men from the Albert pit afore he'd made sure as thecage in the Victory pit was clear!"

"Explain to me, please, " said Mary, touching the woman's arm. 

Half a dozen turned eagerly upon her. 

"Why, you see, miss, as the two cages is like buckets in a well--the yangoes down, as the other cooms up. An' there's catches as yo mun knockaway to let 'un go down--an' this banksman--ee's a devil!--he niver somuch as walked across to the other shaft to see--an' theer was thecatches fast--an' instead o' goin' down, theer was the cage stuck, an'the rope uncoilin' itsel', and fallin' off the drum--an' foulin' theother rope--An' then all of a suddent, just as them poor fellows wornearin' top--the drum began to work t'other way--run backards, youunnerstan?--an' the engineman lost 'is head an' niver thowt to put ont'breaks--an'--oh! Lord save us!--whether they was drownt at t'bottomi' the sump, or killt afore they got theer--theer's no one knowsyet--They're getten of 'em up now. "

And as she spoke, a great shout which became a groan ran through thecrowd. Men climbed up the railings at the side of the road that theymight see better. Women stood on tiptoe. A confused clamour came frombelow, and in the colliery yard there could be seen a gruesome sight;four stretchers, borne by colliers, their burdens covered from view. Beside them were groups of women and children and in front of them thecrowd made way. Up the hill they came, a great wail preceding andsurrounding them; behind them the murmurs of an ungovernable indignation. 

As the procession neared them Mary saw a gray-haired woman throw up herarm, and heard her cry out in a voice harsh and hideous with excitement:

"Let 'im as murdered them pay for't! What's t' good o' crowner'sjuries?--Let's settle it oursel's!"

Deep murmurs answered her. 

"And it's this same Jenkins, " said another fierce voice, "as had a sightto do wi' bringin' them blacklegs down here, in the strike, last autumn. He's been a great man sense, has Jenkins, wi' the masters; but he sha'n'tmurder our husbinds and sons for us, while he's loafin' round an' playin'the lord--not he! Have they got 'un safe?"

"Aye, he's in the pay-house safe enough, " shouted another--a man. "An' ifthem as is defendin' of 'un won't give 'un up, there's ways o' makin'them. "

The procession of the dead approached--all the men baring theirheads, and the women wailing. In front came a piteous group--a younghalf-fainting wife, supported by an older woman, with children clingingto her skirts. Catharine went forward, and lifted a baby or two that wasbeing dragged along the ground. Mary took up another child, and they bothjoined the procession. 

As they did so, there was a shout from below. 

Mary, white as her dress, asked an elderly miner beside her, who hadshown no excitement whatever, to tell her what had happened. He clamberedup on the bank to look and came back to her. 

"They've beaten 'un back, miss, " he said in her ear. "They've got thesurface men to help, and Muster Meynell he's doing his best; if there'sanybody can hold 'em, he can; but there's terrible few on 'em. It is timeas the Cradock men came up. They'll be trying fire before long, an' thewomen is like devils. "

On went the procession into the village, leaving the fight behind them. In Mary's heart, as she was pushed and pressed onward, burnt the memoryof Meynell on the steps--speaking, gesticulating--and the surging crowdin front of him. 

There was that to do, however, which deadened fear. In the main streetthe procession was met by hurrying doctors and nurses. For those brokenbodies indeed--young men in their prime--nothing could be done, save tostraighten the poor limbs, to wash the coal dust from the strong faces, and cover all with the white linen of death. But the living--the crushed, stricken living--taxed every energy of heart and mind. Catharine, recognized at once by the doctors as a pillar of help, shrank from nooffice and no sight, however terrible. But she would not permit them toMary, and they were presently separated. 

Mary had a trio of sobbing children on her knee, in the living-room ofone of the cottages, when there was a sudden tramp outside. Everybody inMiners' Row, including those who were laying out the dead, ran to thewindows. 

"The police from Cradock!"--fifty of them. 

The news passed from mouth to mouth, and even those who had been maddesthalf an hour before felt the relief of it. 

Meanwhile detachments of shouting men and women ran clattering atintervals through the village streets. Sometimes stragglers from themwould drop into the cottages alongside--and from their panting talk, whathad happened below became roughly clear. The police had arrived only justin time. The small band defending the office was worn out, the Rector hadbeen struck, palings torn down; in another half-hour the rioters wouldhave set the place on fire and dragged out the man of whom they were insearch. 

The narrator's story was broken by a howl--

"Here he comes!" And once again, as though by a rush of muddy water, thestreet filled up, and a strong body of police came through it, escortingthe banksman who had been the cause of the accident. A hatless, huntedcreature, with white face and loosened limbs, he was hurried along by thepolice, amid a grim silence that had suddenly succeeded to the noise. 

Behind came a group of men, officials of the colliery, and to the rightof them walked the Rector, bareheaded as before, a bandage on the lefttemple. His eyes ran along the cottages, and he presently perceived MaryElsmere standing at an open door, with a child that had cried itself tosleep in her arms. 

Stepping out of the ranks, he approached her. The people made way forhim, a few here and there with sullen faces, but in the main with afriendly and remorseful eagerness. 

"It's all over, " he said in Mary's ear. "But it was touch and go. Anunpopular man--suspected of telling union secrets to the masters lastyear. He was concerned in another accident to a boy--a month ago; theyall think he was in fault, though the jury exonerated him. And now--apiece of abominable carelessness!--manslaughter at least. Oh! he'll catchit hot! But we weren't going to have him murdered on our hands. If hehadn't got safe into the office, the women alone would have thrown himdown the shaft. By the way, are you learned in 'first aid'?"

He pointed, smiling, to his temple, and she saw that the wound beneaththe rough bandage was bleeding afresh. 

"It makes me feel a bit faint, " he said with annoyance; "and there is somuch to do!"

"May I see to it?" said her mother's voice behind her. And Catharine, whohad just descended from an upper room, went quickly to a nurse's walletwhich had been left on a table in the kitchen, and took thence anantiseptic dressing and some bandaging. 

Meynell sat down by the table, shivering a little from shock and strain, while she ministered to him. One of the women near brought him brandy;and Catharine deftly cleaned and dressed the wound. Mary looked on, handing what was necessary to her mother, and in spite of herself, a rayof strange sweetness stole through the tragedy of the day. 

In a very few minutes Meynell rose. They were in the cottage of one ofthe victims. The dead lay overhead, and the cries of wife and mothercould be heard through the thin flooring. 

"Don't go up again!" he said peremptorily to Catharine. "It is too muchfor you. "

She looked at him gently. 

"They asked me to come back again. It is not too much for me. Please letme. "

He gave way. Then, as he was following her upstairs, he turned to say toMary:

"Gather some of the people, if you can, outside. I want to give a noticewhen I come down. "

He mounted the ladder-stairs leading to the upper room. Violent sounds ofwailing broke out overhead, and the murmur of his voice could be heardbetween. 

Mary quietly sent a few messengers into the street. Then she gatheredup the sleeping child again in her arms, and sat waiting. In spirit shewas in the room overhead. The thought of those two--her mother andMeynell--beside a bed of death together, pierced her heart. 

After what seemed to her an age, she heard her mother's step, and theRector following. Catharine stood again beside her daughter, brushingaway at last a few quiet tears. 

"You oughtn't to face this any more, indeed you oughtn't, " said Meynell, with urgency, as he joined them. "Tell her so, Miss Mary. But she hasbeen doing wonders. My people bless her!"

He held out his hand, involuntarily, and Catharine placed hers in it. Then, seeing a small crowd already collected in the street, he hurriedout to speak to them. 

Meanwhile evening had fallen, a late September evening, shot with goldand purple. Behind the village the yellow stubbles stretched up to theedge of the Chase and drifts of bluish smoke from the colliery chimneyshung in the still air. 

Meynell, standing on the raised footpath above the crowd, gave noticethat a special service of mourning would be held in the church thatevening. The meeting of the Church Council would of course be postponed. 

During his few words Mary made her way to the farther edge of thegathering, looking over it toward the speaker. Behind him ran the row ofcottages, and in the doorway opposite she saw her mother, with her armtenderly folded round a sobbing girl, the sister of one of the dead. Thesudden tranquillity, the sudden pause from tumult and anguish seemed todraw a "wind-warm space" round Mary, and she had time, for a moment, tothink of herself and the strangeness of this tragic day. 

How amazing that her mother should be here at all. This meeting of theReformers' League to which she had insisted on coming--as a spectator ofcourse, and with the general public--what did it mean? Mary did not yetknow, long as she had pondered it. 

How beautiful was the lined face!--so pale in the golden dusk, in itsheavy frame of black. Mary could not take her eyes from it. It betrayedan animation, a passion of life, which had been foreign to it for months. In these few crowded hours, when every word and action had been simple, instructive, inevitable; love to God and man working at their swiftestand purest; through all the tragedy and the horror some burden seemed tohave dropped from Catharine's soul. She met her daughter's eyes, andsmiled. 

When Meynell had finished, the crowd silently drifted away, and hecame back to the Elsmeres. They noticed the village fly coming towardthem--saw it stop in the roadway. 

"I sent for it, " Meynell explained rapidly. "You mustn't let your motherdo any more. Look at her! Please, will you both go to the Rectory? Mycook will give you tea; I have let her know. Then the fly will take youhome. "

They protested in vain--must indeed submit. Catharine flushed a little atbeing so commanded; but there was no help for it. 

"I _would_ like to come and show you my den!" said Meynell, as he putthem into the carriage. "But there's too much to do here. "

He pointed sadly to the cottages, shut the door, and they were off. 

During the short drive Catharine sat rather stiffly upright. Saint as shewas, she was accustomed to have her way. 

They drove into the dark shrubbery that lay between the Rectory and theroad. At the door of the little house stood Anne in a white cap and cleanapron. But the white cap sat rather wildly on its owner's head; nor wouldshe take any interest in her visitors till she had got from them a fulleraccount of the tumult at the pit than had yet reached her, and assurancesthat Meynell's wound was but slight. But when these were given shepounced upon Catharine. 

"Eh, but you're droppin'!"

And with many curious looks at them she hurried them into the study, where a hasty clearance had been made among the books, and a tea-tablespread. 

She bustled away to bring the tea. 

Then exhaustion seized on Catharine. She submitted to be put on the sofaafter it had been cleared of its pile of books; and Mary sat by her awhile, holding her hands. Death and the agony of broken heartsovershadowed them. 

But then the dogs came in, discreet at first, and presently--at scent ofcurrant cake--effusively friendly. Mary fed them all, and Catharinewatched the colour coming back to her face, and the dumb sweetness in thegray eyes. 

Presently, while her mother still rested, Mary took courage to wanderround the room, looking at the books, the photographs on the walls, therack of pipes, the carpenter's bench, and the panels of half-finishedcarving. Timidly, yet eagerly, she breathed in the message it seemedto bring her from its owner--of strenuous and frugal life. Was thathalf-faded miniature of a soldier his father--and that sweet gray-hairedwoman his mother? Her heart thrilled to each discovery. 

Then Anne invaded them, for conversation, and while Catharine, unable tohide her fatigue, lay speechless, Anne chattered about her master. Herindignation was boundless that any hand could be lifted against him inhis own parish. "Why he strips himself bare for them, he does!"

And--with Mary unconsciously leading her--out came story after story, inthe racy Mercian vernacular, illustrating a good man's life, and all

His little nameless unremembered actsOf kindness and of love. 

As they drove slowly home through the sad village street they perceivedHenry Barron calling at some of the stricken houses. The squire wasalways punctilious, and his condolences might be counted on. Beside himwalked a young man with a jaunty step, a bored sallow face, and a longmoustache which he constantly caressed. Mary supposed him to be thesquire's second son, "Mr. Maurice, " whom nobody liked. 

Then the church, looming through the dusk; lights shining through itsfine perpendicular windows, and the sound of familiar hymns surging outinto the starry twilight. 

Catharine turned eagerly to her companion. 

"Shall we go in?"

The emotion of one to whom religious utterance is as water to the thirstyspoke in her voice. But Mary caught and held her. 

"No, dearest, no!--come home and rest. " And when Catharine had yielded, and they were safely past the lighted church, Mary breathed more freely. Instinctively she felt that certain barriers had gone down before thetragic tumult, the human action of the day; let well alone!

And for the first time, as she sat in the darkness, holding her mother'shand, and watching the blackness of the woods file past under the stars, she confessed her love to her own heart--trembling, yet exultant. 

 * * * * *

Meanwhile in the crowded church, men and women who had passed thatafternoon through the extremes of hate and sorrow unpacked their heartsin singing and prayer. The hymns rose and fell through the dim redsandstone church--symbol of the endless plaint of human life, foreverclamouring in the ears of Time; and Meynell's address, as he stood on thechancel steps, almost among the people, the disfiguring strips ofplaster on the temple and brow sharply evident between the curly blackhair and the dark hollows of the eyes, sank deep into grief-strickensouls. It was the plain utterance of a man, with the prophetic gift, speaking to human beings to whom, through years of checkered life, he hadgiven all that a man can give of service and of soul. He stood there asthe living expression of their conscience, their better mind, conceivedas the mysterious voice of a Divine power in man; and in the name of thatPower, and its direct message to the human soul embodied in the tale wecall Christianity, he bade them repent their bloodthirst, and hope in Godfor their dead. He spoke amid weeping; and from that night forward onemight have thought his power unshakeable, at least among his own people. 

But there were persons in the church who remained untouched by it. In theleft aisle Hester sat a little apart from her sisters, her hard, curiouslook ranging from the preacher through the crowded benches. She surveyedit all as a spectacle, half thrilled, half critical. And at the westernend of the aisle the squire and his son stood during the greater part ofthe service, showing plainly by their motionless lips and folded armsthat they took no part in what was going on. 

Father and son walked home together in close conversation. 

And two days later the first anonymous letter in the Meynell case wasposted in Markborough, and duly delivered the following morning to anaddress in Upcote Minor. 

CHAPTER XI

"What on earth can Henry Barron desire a private interview with meabout?" said Hugh Flaxman looking up from his letters, as he andhis wife sat together after breakfast in Mrs. Flaxman's sitting-room. 

"I suppose he wants subscriptions for his heresy hunt? The Church partyseem to be appealing for funds in most of the newspapers. "

"I should have thought he knew I am not prepared to support him, " saidFlaxman quietly. 

"Where are you, old man?" His wife laid a caressing hand on hisshoulder--"I don't really quite know. "

Flaxman smiled at her. 

"You and I are not theologians, are we, darling?" He kissed the hand. "Idon't find myself prepared to swear to Meynell's precise 'words' any morethan I was to Robert's. But I am ready to fight to prevent his beingdriven out. "

"So am I!" said Rose, erect, with her hands behind her. 

"We want all sorts. "

"Ye-es, " said Rose doubtfully. "I don't think I want Mr. Barron. "

"Certainly you do! A typical product--with just as much right to a placein English religion as Meynell--and no more. "

"Hugh!--you must behave very nicely to the Bishop to-night. "

"I should think I must!--considering the _ominum gatherum_ you have askedto meet him. I really do not think you ought to have asked Meynell. "

"There we must agree to differ, " said Rose firmly. "Social relations inthis country must be maintained--in spite of politics--in spite ofreligion--in spite of everything. "

"That's all very well--but if you mix people too violently, you make themuncomfortable. "

"My dear Hugh!--how many drawing-rooms are there?" His wife waved a vaguehand toward the folding doors on her right, implying the suite ofGeorgian rooms that stretched away beyond them; "one for every _nuance_if it comes to that. If they positively won't mix I shall have tosegregate them. But they will mix. " Then she fell into a reverie for amoment, adding at the end of it--"I must keep one drawing-room for theRector and Mr. Norham--"

"That I understand is what we're giving the party for. Intriguer!"

Rose threw him a cool glance. 

"You may continue to play Gallio if you like. _I_ am now a partisan. "

"So I perceive. And you hope to turn Norham into one. "

Rose nodded. Mr. Norham was the Home Secretary, the most important memberin a Cabinet headed by a Prime Minister in rapidly failing health; towhose place, either by death or retirement it was generally expected thatEdward Norham would succeed. 

"Well, darling, I shall watch your manoeuvres with interest, " saidFlaxman, rising and gathering up his letters--"and, _longo intervallo_, Ishall humbly do my best to assist them. Are Catherine and Mary coming?"

"Mary certainly--and, I think, Catharine. The Fox-Wiltons of course, and that mad creature Hester, who goes to Paris in a few days--andAlice Puttenham. How that sister of hers bullies her--horrid littlewoman! _And_ Mr. Barron!"--Flaxman made an exclamation--"and the deafdaughter--and the nice elder son--and the unpresentable younger one--infact the whole menagerie. "

Flaxman shrugged his shoulders. 

"A few others, I hope, to act as buffers. "

"Heaps!" said Rose. "I have asked half the neighbourhood--our first bigparty. And as for the weekenders, you chose them yourself. " She ranthrough the list, while Flaxman vainly protested that he had never intheir joint existence been allowed to do anything of the kind. "Butto-night you're not to take any notice of them at all. Neighbours first!Plenty of time for you to amuse yourself to-morrow. What time does Mr. Barron come?"

"In ten minutes!" said Flaxman, hastily departing, only, however, to befollowed into his study by Rose, who breathed into his ear--

"And if you see Mary and Mr. Meynell colloguing--play up!"

Flaxman turned round with a start. 

"I say!--is there really anything in that?"

Rose, sitting on the arm of his chair, did her best to bring him up todate. Yes--from her observation of the two--she was certain there was agood deal in it. 

"And Catharine?"

Rose's eyebrows expressed the uncertainty of the situation. 

"But such an odd thing happened last week! You remember the day of theaccident--and the Church Council that was put off?"

"Perfectly. "

"Catharine made up her mind suddenly to go to that Church Council--afternot having been able to speak of Mr. Meynell or the Movement for weeks. _Why_--neither Mary nor I know. But she walked over from the cottage--thefirst time she has done it. She arrived in the village just as thedreadful thing had happened in the pit. Then of course she and the Rectortook command. Nobody who knew Catharine would have expected anythingelse. And now she and Mary and the Rector are busy looking after the poorsurvivors. 'It's propinquity does it, ' my dear!"

"Catharine could never--never--reconcile herself. "

"I don't know, " said Rose, doubtfully. "What did she want to go to thatCouncil for?"

"Perhaps to lift up her voice?"

"No. Catharine isn't that sort. She would have suffered dreadfully--andsat still. "

And with a thoughtful shake of the head, as though to indicate that theveins of meditation opened up by the case were rich and various, Rosewent slowly away. 

 * * * * *

Then Hugh was left to his _Times_, and to speculations on the reasons whyHenry Barron--a man whom he had never liked and often thwarted--shouldhave asked for this interview in a letter marked "private. " Flaxman madean agreeable figure, as he sat pondering by the fire, while the _Times_gradually slipped from his hands to the floor. And he was precisely whathe looked--an excellent fellow, richly endowed with the world's goodthings, material and moral. He was of spare build, with grizzled hair;long-limbed, clean-shaven and gray-eyed. In general society he appearedas a person of polished manners, with a gently ironic turn of mind. Hisfriends were more numerous and more devoted than is generally the case inmiddle age; and his family were rarely happy out of his company. Certainindeed of his early comrades in life were inclined to accuse him of a toofacile contentment with things as they are, and a rather Philistineestimate of the value of machinery. He was absorbed in "business" whichhe did admirably. Not so much of the financial sort, although he was atrusted member of important boards. But for all that unpaid multiplicityof affairs--magisterial, municipal, social or charitable--which make thecountry gentleman's sphere Hugh Flaxman's appetite was insatiable. He wasa born chairman of a county council, and a heaven-sent treasurer of ahospital. 

And no doubt this natural bent, terribly indulged of late years, ledoccasionally to "holding forth"; at least those who took no interest inthe things which interested Flaxman said so. And his wife, who was muchmore concerned for his social effect than for her own, was oftennervously on the watch lest it should be true. That her handsome, popularHugh should ever, even for a quarter of an hour, sit heavy on the souleven of a youth of eighteen was not to be borne; she pounced on eachincipient harangue with mingled tact and decision. 

But though Flaxman was a man of the world, he was by no means aworldling. Tenderly, unflinchingly, with a modest and cheerful devotion, he had made himself the stay of his brother-in-law Elsmere's harassed andbroken life. His supreme and tyrannical common sense had never allowedhim any delusions as to the ultimate permanence of heroic ventures likethe New Brotherhood; and as to his private opinions on religious mattersit is probable that not even his wife knew them. But outside the strongaffections of his personal life there was at least one enduring passionin Flaxman which dignified his character. For liberty of experiment, andliberty of conscience, in himself or others, he would gladly have gone tothe stake. Himself the loyal upholder of an established order, which hehelped to run decently, he was yet in curious sympathy with many obscurerevolutionists in many fields. To brutalize a man's conscience seemed tohim worse than to murder his body. Hence a constant sympathy withminorities of all sorts; which no doubt interfered often with hispractical efficiency. But perhaps it accounted for the number of hisfriends. 

 * * * * *

"We shall, I presume, be undisturbed?"

The speaker was Henry Barron; and he and Flaxman stood for a momentsurveying each other after their first greeting. 

"Certainly. I have given orders. For an hour if you wish, I am at yourdisposal. "

"Oh, we shall not want so long. "

Barron seated himself in the chair pointed out to him. His portlypresence, in some faultlessly new and formal clothes, filled itsubstantially; and his colour, always high, was more emphatic than usual. Beside him, Flaxman made but a thread-paper appearance. 

"I have come on an unpleasant errand"--he said, withdrawing some papersfrom his breast pocket--"but--after much thought--I came to theconclusion that there was no one in this neighbourhood I could consultupon a very painful matter, with greater profit--than yourself. "

Flaxman made a rather stiff gesture of acknowledgment. 

"May I ask you to read that?"

Barron selected a letter from the papers he held and handed it to hishost. 

Flaxman read it. His face changed and worked as he did so. He read ittwice, turned it over to see if it contained any signature, and returnedit to Barron. 

"That's a precious production! Was it addressed to yourself?"

"No--to Dawes, the colliery manager. He brought it to me yesterday. "

Flaxman thought a moment. 

"He is--if I remember right--with yourself, one of the five aggrievedparishioners in the Meynell case?"

"He is. But he is by no means personally hostile to Meynell--quite thecontrary. He brought it to me in much distress, thinking it well that weshould take counsel upon it, in case other documents of the same kindshould be going about. "

"And you, I imagine, pointed out to him the utter absurdity of thecharge, advised him to burn the letter and hold his tongue?"

Barron was silent a moment. Then he said, with slow distinctness:

"I regret I was unable to do anything of the kind. " Flaxman turnedsharply on the speaker. 

"You mean to say you believe there is a word of truth in thatpreposterous story?"

"I have good reason, unfortunately, to know that it cannot at once be putaside. "

Both paused--regarding each other. Then Flaxman said, in a raised accentof wonder:

"You think it possible--_conceivable_--that a man of Mr. Meynell'scharacter--and transparently blameless life--should have not only beenguilty of an intrigue of this kind twenty years ago--but should havedone nothing since to repair it--should actually have settled down tolive in the same village side by side with the lady whom the letterdeclares to be the mother of his child--without making any attempt tomarry her--though perfectly free to do so? Why, my dear sir, was thereever a more ridiculous, a more incredible tale!"

Flaxman sprang to his feet, and with his hands in his pockets, turnedupon his visitor, impatient contempt in every feature. 

"Wait a moment before you judge, " said Barron dryly. "Do you remember acase of sudden death in this village a few weeks ago?--a woman whoreturned from America to her son John Broad, a labourer living in one ofmy cottages--and died forty-eight hours after arrival of brain disease?"

Flaxman's brow puckered. 

"I remember a report in the _Post_. There was an inquest--and somecurious medical evidence?"

Barron nodded assent. 

"By the merest chance, I happened to see that woman the night after shearrived. I went to the cottage to remonstrate on the behaviour of JohnBroad's boys in my plantation. She was alone in the house, and she cameto the door. By the merest chance also, while we stood there, Meynell andMiss Puttenham passed in the road outside. The woman--Mrs. Sabin--wasterribly excited on seeing them, and she said things which astounded me. I asked her to explain them, and we talked--alone--for nearly an hour. Iadmit that she was scarcely responsible, that she died within a few hoursof our conversation, of brain disease. But I still do not see--I wish toheaven I did!--any way out of what she told me--when one comes to combineit with--well, with other things. But whether I should finally havedecided to make any use of the information I am not sure. Butunfortunately"--he pointed to the letter still in Flaxman's hand--"thatshows me that other persons--persons unknown to me--are in possession ofsome, at any rate, of the facts--and therefore that it is now vain tohope that we can stifle the thing altogether. "

"You have no idea who wrote the letter?" said Flaxman, holding it up. 

"None whatever, " was the emphatic reply. 

"It is a disguised hand"--mused Flaxman--"but an educated one--more orless. However--we will return presently to the letter. Mrs. Sabin'scommunication to you was of a nature to confirm the statements containedin it?"

"Mrs. Sabin declared to me that having herself--independently--becomeaware of certain facts, while she was a servant in Lady Fox-Wilton'semployment, that lady--no doubt in order to ensure her silence--tookher abroad with herself and her young sister, Miss Alice, to a place inFrance she had some difficulty in pronouncing--it sounded to me likeGrenoble; that there Miss Puttenham became the mother of a child, whichpassed thenceforward as the child of Sir Ralph and Lady Fox-Wilton, andreceived the name of Hester. She herself nursed Miss Puttenham, and nodoctor was admitted. When the child was two months old, she accompaniedthe sisters to a place on the Riviera, where they took a villa. HereSir Ralph Wilton, who was terribly broken and distressed by the wholething, joined them, and he made an arrangement with her by which sheagreed to go to the States and hold her tongue. She wrote to her peoplein Upcote--she had been a widow for some years--that she had accepted anurse's situation in the States, and Sir Ralph saw her off from Genoa forNew York. She seems to have married again in the States; and in thecourse of years to have developed some grievance against the Fox-Wiltonswhich ultimately determined her to come home. But all this part of herstory was so excited and incoherent that I could make nothing of it. Nordoes it matter very much to the subject--the real subject--we arediscussing. "

Flaxman, who was standing in front of the speaker, intently listening, made no immediate reply. His eyes--half absently--considered the manbefore him. In Barron's aspect and tone there was not only the pompousself-importance of the man possessed of exclusive and sensationalinformation; there were also indications of triumphant trains ofreasoning behind that outraged his listener. 

"What has all this got to do with Meynell?" said Flaxman abruptly. 

Barron cleared his throat. 

"There was one occasion"--he said slowly--"and one only, on which theladies at Grenoble--we will say it was Grenoble--received a visitor. MissPuttenham was still in her room. A gentleman arrived, and was admitted tosee her. Mrs. Sabin was bundled out of the room by Lady Fox-Wilton. Butit was a small wooden house, and Mrs. Sabin heard a good deal. MissPuttenham was crying and talking excitedly. Mrs. Sabin was certain fromwhat, according to her, she could not help overhearing, that the man--"

"Must one go into this back-stairs story?" asked Flaxman, with repulsion. 

"As you like, " said Barron, impassively. "I should have thought it wasnecessary. " He paused, looking quietly at his questioner. 

Flaxman restrained himself with some difficulty. 

"Did the woman have any real opportunity of seeing this visitor?"

"When he went away, he stood outside the house talking to LadyFox-Wilton. Mrs. Sabin was at the window, behind the lace curtains, with the child in her arms. She watched him for some minutes. "

"Well?" said Flaxman sharply. 

"She had never seen him before, and she never saw him again, until--suchat least was her own story--from the door of her son's cottage, while Iwas with her, she saw Miss Puttenham--and Meynell--standing in the roadoutside. "

Flaxman took a turn along the room, and paused. 

"You admit that she was ill at the time she spoke to you--and in adistracted, incoherent state?"

"Certainly I admit it. " Barron drew himself erect, with a slight frown, as though tacitly protesting against certain suggestions in Flaxman'smanner and voice. "But now let us look at another line of evidence. Youas a newcomer are probably quite unaware of the gossip there has alwaysbeen in this neighbourhood, ever since Sir Ralph Wilton's death, on thesubject of Sir Ralph's will. That will in a special paragraph committedHester Fox-Wilton to Richard Meynell's guardianship in remarkable terms;no provision whatever was made for the girl under Sir Ralph's will, andit is notorious that he treated her quite differently from his otherchildren. From the moment also of the French journey, Sir Ralph'scharacter and temper appeared to change. I have inquired of a good manypersons as to this; of course with absolute discretion. He was a man ofnarrow Evangelical opinions"--at the word "narrow" Flaxman threw asudden glance at the speaker--"and of strict veracity. My belief is thathis later life was darkened by the falsehood to which he and his wifecommitted themselves. Finally, let me ask you to look at the young ladyherself; at the extraordinary difference between her and her supposedfamily; at her extraordinary likeness--to the Rector. "

Flaxman raised his eyebrows at the last words, his aspect expressingdisbelief and disgust even more strongly than before. Barron glanced athim, and then, after a moment, resumed in another manner, loftilyexplanatory:

"I need not say that personally I find myself mixed up in such a businesswith the utmost reluctance. "

"Naturally, " put in Flaxman dryly. "The risks attaching to it are simplygigantic. "

"I am aware of it. But as I have already pointed out to you, by somestrange means--connected I have no doubt with the woman, Judith Sabin, though I cannot throw any light upon them--the story is no longer in myexclusive possession, and how many people are already aware of it and maybe aware of it we cannot tell. I thought it well to come to you in thefirst instance, because I know that--you have taken some part lately--inMeynell's campaign. "

"Ah!" thought Flaxman--"now we've come to it!"

Aloud he said:

"By which I suppose you mean that I am a subscriber to the Reform Fund, and that I have become a personal friend of Meynell's? You are quiteright. Both my wife and I greatly like and respect the Rector. " He laidstress on the words. 

"It was for that very reason--let me repeat--that I came to you. You haveinfluence with Meynell; and I want to persuade you, if I can, to use it. "The speaker paused a moment, looking steadily at Flaxman. "What I ventureto suggest is that you should inform him of the stories that are nowcurrent. It is surely just that he should be informed. And then--wehave to consider the bearings of this report on the unhappy situation inthe diocese. How can we prevent its being made use of? It would beimpossible. You know what the feeling is--you know what people are. InMeynell's own interest, and in that of the poor lady whose name isinvolved with his in this scandal, would it not be desirable in everyway that he should now quietly withdraw from this parish and fromthe public contest in which he is engaged? Any excuse would besufficient--health--overwork--anything. The scandal would then die out ofitself. There is not one of us--those on Meynell's side, or those againsthim--who would not in such a case do his utmost to stamp it out. But--ifhe persists--both in living here, and in exciting public opinion as he isnow doing--the story will certainly come out! Nothing can possibly stopit. "

Barron leant back and folded his arms. Flaxman's eyes sparkled. He feltan insane desire to run the substantial gentleman sitting opposite to thedoor and dismiss him with violence. But he restrained himself. 

"I am greatly obliged to you for your belief in the power of my goodoffices, " he said, with a very frosty smile, "but I am afraid I must askto be excused. Of course if the matter became serious, legal action wouldbe taken very promptly. "

"How can legal action be taken?" interrupted Barron roughly. "Whatevermay be the case with regard to Meynell and her identification of him, Judith Sabin's story is true. Of that I am entirely convinced. "

But he had hardly spoken before he felt that he had made a false step. Flaxman's light blue eyes fixed him. 

"The story with regard to Miss Puttenham?"

"Precisely. "

"Then it comes to this: Supposing that woman's statement to be true, the private history of a poor lady who has lived an unblemished life inthis village for many years is to be dragged to light--for what? Inorder--excuse my plain speaking--to blackmail Richard Meynell, and toforce him to desist from the public campaign in which he is now engaged?These are hardly measures likely, I think, to commend themselves to someof your allies, Mr. Barron!"

Barron had sprung up in his chair. 

"What my allies may or may not think is nothing to me. I am of courseguided by my own judgment and conscience. And I altogether protestagainst the word you have just employed. I came to you, Mr. Flaxman, Ican honestly say, in the interests of peace!--in the interests of Meynellhimself. "

"But you admit that there is really no evidence worthy of the nameconnecting Meynell with the story at all!" said Flaxman, turning uponhim. "The crazy impression of a woman dying of brain disease--some gossipabout Sir Ralph's will--a likeness that many people have never perceived!What does it amount to? Nothing!--nothing at all!--less than nothing!"

"I can only say that I disagree with you. " The voice was that of arancorous obstinacy at last unveiled. "I believe that the woman'sidentification was a just one--though I admit that the proof isdifficult. But then perhaps I approach the matter in one way, and you inanother. A man, Mr. Flaxman, in my belief, does not throw over the faithof Christ for nothing! No! Such things are long prepared. Conscience, mydear sir, conscience breaks down first. The man becomes a hypocrite inhis private life before he openly throws off the restraints of religion. That is the sad sequence of events. I have watched it many times. "

Flaxman had grown rather white. The man beside him seemed to him a kindof monstrosity. He thought of Meynell, of the eager refinement, the cleanidealism, the visionary kindness of the man--and compared it with the"muddy vesture, " mental and physical, of Meynell's accuser. 

Nevertheless, as he held himself in with difficulty he began to perceivemore plainly than he had yet done some of the intricacies of thesituation. 

"I have nothing to do, " he said, in a tone that he endeavoured to makereasonably calm, "nor has anybody, with generalization of that kind, in acase like this. The point is--could Meynell, being what he is, what weall know him to be, have not only betrayed a young girl, but have thenfailed to do her the elementary justice of marrying her? And the reply isthat the thing is incredible!"

"You forget that Meynell was extremely poor, and had his brothers toeducate--"

Flaxman shrugged his shoulders in laughing contempt. 

"Meynell desert the mother of his child--because of poverty--because ofhis brothers' education!--_Meynell_! You have known him some years--Ionly for a few months. But go into the cottages here--talk to thepeople--ask them, not what he believes, but what he _is_--what he hasbeen to them. Get one of them, if you can, to credit this absurdity!"

"The Rector's intimate friendship with Miss Puttenham has long been anastonishment--sometimes a scandal--to the village!" exclaimed Barron, doggedly. 

Flaxman stared at him in a blank amazement, then flushed. He took a turnup and down the room, after which he returned to the fireside, composed. What was the use of arguing with such a disputant? He felt as though themere conversation were an insult to Meynell, in which he was forced toparticipate. 

He took a seat deliberately, and put on his magisterial manner, which, however, was much more delicately and unassumingly authoritative thanthat of other men. 

"I think we had better clear up our ideas. You bring me a story--apainful story--concerning a lady with whom we are both acquainted, whichmay or may not be true. Whether it is true or not is no concern of ours. Neither you nor I have anything to do with it, and legal penalties wouldcertainly follow the diffusion of it. You invite me to connect with itthe name of a man for whom I have the deepest respect and admiration; whobears an absolutely stainless record; and you threaten to make use of thecharge in connection with the heresy trials now coming on. Now let megive you my advice--for what it may be worth. I should say--as you haveasked my opinion--have nothing whatever to do with the matter! If anybodyelse brings you anonymous letters, tell them something of the law oflibel--and something too of the guilt of slander! After all, with alittle good will, these are matters that are as easily quelled as raised. A charge so preposterous has only to be firmly met to die away. It isyour influence, and not mine, which is important in this matter. You area permanent resident, and I a mere bird of passage. And"--Flaxman'scountenance kindled--"let me just remind you of this: if you want tostrengthen Meynell's cause--if you want to win him thousands of newadherents--you have only to launch against him a calumny which is sureto break down--and will inevitably recoil upon you!"

The two men had risen. Barron's face, handsome in feature, save for somethickened lines and the florid tint of the cheeks, had somehow emptieditself of expression while Flaxman was speaking. 

"Your advice is no doubt excellent, " he said quietly, as he buttoned hiscoat, "but it is hardly practical. If there is one anonymous letter, there are probably others. If there are letters--there is sure to betalk--and talk cannot be stopped. And in time everything gets into thenewspapers. "

Flaxman hesitated a moment. Something warned him not to push matters toextremities--to make no breach with Barron--to keep him in play. 

"I admit, of course, if this goes beyond a certain point it may benecessary to go to Meynell--it may be necessary for Meynell to go to hisBishop. But at present, if you _desire_ to suppress the thing, you haveonly to keep your own counsel--and wait. Dawes is a good fellow, andwill, I am sure, say nothing. I could, if need be, speak to him myself. Iwas able to get his boy into a job not long ago. "

Barron straightened his shoulders slowly. 

"Should I be doing right--should I be doing my duty--in assisting tosuppress it--always supposing that it could be suppressed--my convictionsbeing what they are?"

Then--suddenly--it was borne in on Flaxman that in the whole interviewthere had been no genuine desire whatever on Barron's part for advice andconsultation. He had come determined on a certain course, and the objectof the visit had been, in truth, merely to convey to one of Meynell'ssupporters a hint of the coming attack, and some intimation of itsstrength. The visit had been in fact a threat--a move in Barron's game. 

"That, of course, is a question which I cannot presume to decide, " saidFlaxman, with cold politeness. His manner changed instantly. Peremptorilydismissing the subject, he became, on the spot, the mere suave andcourteous host of an interesting house; he pointed out the pictures andthe view, and led the way to the hall. 

As he took leave, Barron stiffly intimated that he should not himself beable to attend Mrs. Flaxman's party that evening; but his daughter andsons hoped to have the pleasure of obeying her invitation. 

"Delighted to see them, " said Flaxman, standing in the doorway, with hishands in his pockets. "Do you know Edward Norham?"

"I have never met him. "

"A splendid fellow--likely I think to be the head of the Ministry beforethe year's out. My wife was determined to bring him and Meynell together. He seems to have the traditional interest in theology without which noEnglish premier is complete. "

Pursued by this parting shot, Barron retired, and Flaxman went backthoughtfully to his wife's sitting-room. Should he tell her? Certainly. Her ready wits and quick brain were indispensable in the battle thatmight be coming. Now that he was relieved from Barron's bodily presence, he was by no means inclined to pooh-pooh the communication which had beenmade to him. 

As he approached his wife's door he heard voices. Catharine! Heremembered that she was to lunch and spend the day with Rose. Now what todo! Devoted as he was to his sister-in-law, he was scarcely inclined totrust her with the incident of the morning. 

But as soon as he opened the door, Rose ran upon him, drew him in andclosed it. Catharine was sitting on the sofa--with a pale, kindledlook--a letter in her hand. 

"Catharine has had an abominable letter, Hugh!--the most scandalousthing!"

Flaxman took it from Catharine's hand, looked it through, and turned itover. The same script, a little differently disguised, and practicallythe same letter, as that which had been shown him in the library! But itbegan with a reference to the part which Mrs. Elsmere and her daughterhad played in the terrible accident of the preceding week, which showedthat the rogue responsible for it was at least a rogue possessed of somelocal and personal information. 

Flaxman laid it down, and looked at his sister-in-law. 

"Well?"

Catharine met his eyes with the clear intensity of her own. 

"Isn't it hard to understand how anybody can do such a thing as that?"she said, with her patient sigh--the sigh of an angel grieving over theperversity of men. 

Flaxman dropped on the sofa beside her. 

"You feel with me, that it is a mere clumsy attempt to injure Meynell, inthe interests of the campaign against him?" he asked her, eagerly. 

"I don't know about that, " said Catharine slowly--a shining sadness inher look. "But I do know that it could only injure those who are tryingto fight his errors--if it could be supposed that they had stooped tosuch weapons!"

"You dear woman!" cried Flaxman, impulsively, and he raised her hand tohis lips. Catharine and Rose looked their astonishment. Whereupon he gavethem the history of the hour he had just passed through. 

CHAPTER XII

But although what one may call the natural freemasonry of the children oflight had come in to protect Catharine from any touch of that greedycredulity which had fastened on Barron; though she and Rose and HughFlaxman were at one in their contemptuous repudiation of Barron's readingof the story, the story itself, so far as it concerned Alice Puttenhamand Hester, found in all their minds but little resistance. 

"It may--it may be true, " said Catharine gently. "If so--what she hasgone through! Poor, poor thing!"

And as she spoke--her thin fingers clasped on her black dress, thenun-like veil falling about her shoulders, her aspect had the franksimplicity of those who for their Lord's sake have faced the ugly thingsof life. 

"What a shame--what an outrage--that any of us here should know a wordabout it!" cried Rose, her small foot beating on the floor, the hotcolour in her cheek. "How shall we ever be able to face her to-night?"

Flaxman started. 

"Miss Puttenham is coming to-night?"

"Certainly. She comes with Mary--who was to pick her up--after dinner. "

Flaxman patrolled the room a little, in meditation. Finally he stoppedbefore his wife. 

"You must realize, darling, that we may be all walking on the edge of avolcano to-night. "

"If only Henry Barron were!--and I might be behind to give the lastlittle _chiquenade_!" cried Rose. 

Flaxman devoutly echoed the wish. 

"But the point is--are there any more of these letters out? If so, we mayhear of others to-night. Then--what to do? Do I make straight forMeynell?"

They pondered it. 

"Impossible to leave Meynell in ignorance, " said Flaxman--"if the thingspreads Meynell of course would be perfectly justified--in his ward'sinterests--in denying the whole matter absolutely, true or no. But canhe?--with Barron in reserve--using the Sabin woman's tale for his ownpurposes?"

Catharine's face, a little sternly set, showed the obscure conflictbehind. 

"He cannot say what is false, " she said stiffly. "But he can refuse toanswer. "

Flaxman looked at her with an expression as confident as her own. 

"To protect a woman, my dear Catharine--a man may say anything in theworld--almost. "

Catharine made no reply, but her quiet face showed she did not agree withhim. 

"That child Hester!" Rose emerged suddenly from a mental voyageof recollection and conjecture. "Now one understands why LadyFox-Wilton--stupid woman!--has never seemed to care a rap for her. Itmust indeed be annoying to have to mother a child so much handsomer thanyour own. "

"I think I am very sorry for Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton, " said Catharine, aftera moment. 

Rose assented. 

"Yes!--just an ordinary dull, pig-headed country gentleman confrontedwith a situation that only occurs in plays to which you don't demeanyourself by going!--and obliged to tell and act a string of lies, whenlies happen to be just one of the vices you're not inclined to! And thenafterward you find yourself let in for living years and years with a badconscience--hating the cuckoo-child, too, more and more as it grows up. Yes!--I am quite sorry for Sir Ralph!"

"By the way!"--Flaxman looked up--"Do you know I am sure that I sawMiss Fox-Wilton--with Philip Meryon--in Hewlett's spinney this morning. Icame back from Markborough by a path I had never discovered before--andthere, sure enough, they were. They heard me on the path, I think, andvanished most effectively. The wood is very thick. But I am sure it wasthey--though they were some distance from me. "

Rose exclaimed. 

"Naughty, _naughty_ child: She has been absolutely forbidden to seehim, the whole Fox-Wilton family have made themselves into gaolers andspies--and she just outwits them all! Poor Alice Puttenham hovers abouther--trying to distract and amuse her--and has no more influence than afly. And as for the Rector, it would be absurd, if it weren't enraging!Look at all there is on his shoulders just now--the way people appeal tohim from all over England to come and speak--or consult--or organize--(Idon't want to be controversial, Catharine, darling!--but there it is). And he can't make up his mind to leave Upcote for twenty-four hours tillthis girl is safely off the scene! He means to take her to Paris himselfon Monday. I only hope he has found a proper sort of Gorgon to leave herwith!"

Flaxman could not but reflect that the whole relation of Meynell to hisward might well give openings to such a scoundrel like the writer of theanonymous letters, who was certainly acquainted with local affairs. Buthe did not express this feeling aloud. Meanwhile Catharine, who showed aninterest in Hester which surprised both him and Rose, began to questionhim on the subject of Philip Meryon. Meryon's mother, it seemed, had beenan intimate friend of one of Flaxman's sisters, Lady Helen Varley, andFlaxman was well acquainted with the young man's most unsatisfactoryrecord. He drew a picture of the gradual degeneracy of the handsome ladwho had been the hope and delight of his warm-hearted, excitable mother;of her deepening disappointment and premature death. 

"Helen kept up with him for a time, for his mother's sake, but unluckilyhe has put himself beyond the pale now, one way and another. It is toodisastrous about this pretty child! What on earth does she see in him?"

"Simply a means of escaping from her home, " said Rose--"the situationworking out! But who knows whether he hasn't got a wife already? Nobodyshould trust this young man farther than they can see him. "

"It musn't--it can't be allowed!" said Catharine, with energy. And, asshe spoke, she seemed to feel again the soft bloom of Hester's youngcheek against her own, just as when she had drawn the girl to her, inthat instinctive caress. The deep maternity in Catharine had never yetfound scope enough in the love of one child. 

Then, with a still keener sense of the various difficulties rising alongMeynell's path, Flaxman and Rose returned to the anxious discussion ofBarron's move and how to meet it. Catharine listened, saying little; andit was presently settled that Flaxman should himself call on Dawes, thecolliery manager, that afternoon, and should write strongly to Barron, putting on paper the overwhelming arguments, both practical and ethical, in favour of silence--always supposing there were no furtherdevelopments. 

"Tell me"--said Rose presently, when Flaxman had left the sistersalone--"Mary of course knows nothing of that letter?"

Catharine flushed. 

"How could she?" She looked almost haughtily at her sister. 

Rose murmured an excuse. "Would it be possible to keep all knowledge fromMary that there _was_ a scandal--of some sort--in circulation, if thething developed?"

Catharine, holding her head high, thought it would not only be possible, but imperative. 

Rose glanced at her uncertainly. Catharine was the only person of whomshe had ever been afraid. But at last she took the plunge. 

"Catharine!--don't be angry with me--but I think Mary is interested inRichard Meynell. "

"Why should I be angry?" said Catharine. She had coloured a little, butshe was perfectly composed. With her gray hair, and her plain widow'sdress, she threw her sister's charming mondanity into bright relief. Butbeauty--loftily understood--lay with Catharine. 

"It _is_ ill luck--his opinions!" cried Rose, laying her hand upon hersister's. 

"Opinions are not 'luck, '" said Catharine, with a rather cold smile. 

"You mean we are responsible for them? Perhaps we are, if we areresponsible for anything--which I sometimes doubt. But you likehim--personally?" The tone was almost pleading. 

"I think he is a good man. "

"And if--if--they do fall in love--what are we all to do?"

Rose looked half whimsically--half entreatingly at her sister. 

"Wait till the case arises, " said Catharine, rather sharply. "And pleasedon't interfere. You are too fond of match-making, Rose!"

"I am--I just ache to be at it, all the time. But I wouldn't do anythingthat would be a grief to you. "

Catharine was silent a moment. Then she said in a tone that went to thelistener's heart:

"Whatever happened--will be God's will. "

She sat motionless, her eyes drooped, her features a little drawn andpale; her thoughts--Rose knew it--in the past. 

 * * * * *

Flaxman came back from his interview with Dawes, reporting that nothingcould have been in better taste or feeling than Dawes's view of thematter. As far as the Rector was concerned--and he had told Mr. Barronso--the story was ridiculous, the mere blunder of a crazy woman; and, forthe rest, what had they to do in Upcote with ferreting into otherpeople's private affairs? He had locked up the letter in case it mightsome time be necessary to hand it to the police, and didn't intendhimself to say a word to anybody. If the thing went any further, why ofcourse the Rector must be informed. Otherwise silence was best. He hadgiven a piece of his mind to Mr. Barron and "didn't want to be mixed upin any such business. " "As far as I'm concerned, Mr. Flaxman, I'mfighting for the Church and her Creeds--I'm not out for backbiting!"

"Nice man!"--said Rose, with enthusiasm--"Why didn't I ask him to-night!"

"But"--resumed Flaxman--"he warned me that if any letter of the kind gotinto the hands of a certain Miss Nairn in the village there might betrouble. "

"Miss Nairn?--Miss Nairn?" The sisters looked at each other. "Oh, Iknow--the lady in black we saw in church the day the revolution began--astrange little shrivelled spinster-thing who lives in that house by thepost-office. She quarrelled mortally with the Rector last year, becauseshe ill-treated a little servant girl of hers, and the Rectorremonstrated. "

"Well, she's one of the 'aggrieved. '"

"They seem to be an odd crew! There's the old sea-captain that lives inthat queer house with the single yew tree and the boarded-up window onthe edge of the Heath. He's one of them. He used to come to church aboutonce a quarter and wrote the Rector interminable letters on the meaningof Ezekiel. Then there's the publican--East--who nearly lost his licenselast year--he always put it down to the Rector and vowed he'd be evenwith him. I must say, the church in Upcote seems rather put to it fordefenders!"

"In Upcote, " corrected Flaxman. "That's because of Meynell's personalhold. Plenty of 'em--quite immaculate--elsewhere. However, Dawes is aperfectly decent, honest man, and grieved to the heart by the Rector'sperformances. "

Catharine had waited silently to hear this remark, and then went away towrite a letter. 

"Poor darling! Will she go and call on Dawes--for sympathy?" saidFlaxman, mischievously to his wife as the door closed. 

"Sympathy?" Rose's face grew soft. "It's much as it was with Robert. Itought to be so simple--and it is so mixed! Nature of course _ought_ tohave endowed all unbelievers with the proper horns and tail. And therethey go--stealing your heart away!--and your daughter's. "

The Flaxmans and Catharine--who spent the day with her sister, before theevening party--were more and more conscious of oppression as the hourswent on; as though some moral thunder hung in the air. 

Flaxman asked himself again and again--"Ought I to go to Meynell atonce?" and could not satisfy himself with any answer; while he, hiswife, and his sister-in-law, being persons of delicacy, were allashamed of finding themselves the possessors, against their will, offacts--supposing they were facts--to which they had no right. Meynell'signorance--Alice Puttenham's ignorance--of their knowledge, tormentedtheir consciences. And it added to their discomfort that they sharedtheir knowledge with such a person as Henry Barron. However, there was nohelp for it. 

A mild autumn day drew to its close, with a lingering gold in the westand a rising moon. The charming old house, with its faded furniture, andits out-at-elbows charm, was lit up softly, with lamps that made a dimbut friendly shining in its wide spaces. It had never belonged to richpeople, but always to people of taste. It boasted no Gainsboroughs orRomneys; but there were lesser men of the date, possessed of prettytalents of their own, painters and pastellists, who had tried their handson the family, of whom they had probably been the personal friends. Theoriginals of the portraits on the walls were known neither to history norscandal; but their good, modest faces, their brave red or blue coats, their white gowns, and drooping feathers looked winningly out from thesoft shadows of the rooms. At Maudeley, Rose wore her simplest dresses, and was astonished at the lightness of the household expenses. The houseindeed had never known display, or any other luxury than space; and tolive in it was to accept its tradition. 

The week-enders arrived at tea-time; Mr. Norham with a secretary and avalet, much preoccupied, and chewing the fag-end of certain Cabinetdeliberations in the morning; Flaxman's charming sister, Lady HelenVarley, and her husband; his elder brother, Lord Wanless, unmarried, anexpert on armour, slightly eccentric, but still, in the eyes of allintriguing mothers, and to his own annoyance, more than desirable as ahusband owing to the Wanless collieries and a few other trifles of thesame kind; the Bishop of Markborough; Canon France and his sister; ayoung poet whose very delicate muse had lodged itself oddly in the frameof an athlete; a high official in the Local Government Board, Mr. Spearman, whom Rose regarded with distrust as likely to lead Hugh intotoo much talk about workhouses; Lady Helen's two girls just out, asdainty and well-dressed, as gayly and innocently sure of themselvesand their place in life as the "classes" at their best know how toproduce; and two or three youths, bound for Oxford by the end ofthe week, samples, these last, of a somewhat new type in that oldUniversity--combining the dash, family, and insolence of the old "tuft"or Bullingdon man, with an amazing aptitude for the classics, rare indeedamong the "tufts" of old. Two out of the three had captured almost everydistinction that Oxford offers; and all three had been either gated forlengthy periods or "sent down, " or otherwise trounced by an angrycollege, puzzled by the queer connection between Irelands and Hertfordson the one hand and tipsy frolics on the other. 

Meynell appeared for dinner--somewhat late. It was only with greatdifficulty that the Flaxmans had prevailed on him to come, for thepurpose of meeting Mr. Norham. But the party within the church which, foreseeing a Modernist defeat in the church courts, was appealing toParliament to take action, was strengthening every week; Meynell'sSaturday articles in the _Modernist_, the paper founded by the Reformers'League, were already providing these parliamentarians with a policy andinspiration; and if the Movement were to go on swelling during thewinter, the government might have to take very serious cognizance of itduring the spring. Mr. Norham therefore had expressed a wish for someconversation with the Modernist leader, who happened to be Rector ofUpcote; and Meynell, who had by now cut himself adrift from all socialengagements, had with difficulty saved an evening. 

As far as Norham was concerned Meynell would have greatly preferred totake the Home Secretary for a Sunday walk on the Chase; but he had begunto love the Flaxmans, and could not make up his mind to say No to them. Moreover, was it not more than probable that he would meet at Maudeley"one simple girl, " of whom he did not dare in these strenuous days to lethimself think too much?

 * * * * *

So that Rose, as she surveyed her dinner table, could feel that she wasmaintaining the wide social traditions of England, by the mingling of asmany contraries as possible. But the oil and vinegar were after allcunningly mixed, and the dinner went well. The Bishop was separated fromMeynell by the length of the table, and Norham was carefully protectedfrom Mr. Spearman, in his eyes a prince of bores, who was alwaysbothering the Home Office. 

The Bishop, who was seated beside Rose at one end of the table, noticedthe black patch on Meynell's temple, and inquired its origin. Rose gavehim a graphic account both of the accident and the riot. The Bishopraised his eyebrows. 

"How does he contrive to live the two lives?" he said in a tone slightlyacid. "If he continues to lead this Movement, he will have to give upfighting mobs and running up and down mines. "

"What is going to happen to the Movement?" Rose asked him, with her mostsympathetic smile. Socially and in her own house she was divinely allthings to all men. But the Bishop was rather suspicious of her. 

"What can happen to it but defeat? The only other alternative is thebreak-up of the Church. And for that, thank God, they are not strongenough. "

"And no compromise is possible?"

"None. In three months Meynell and all his friends will have ceased tobelong to the English Church. It is very lamentable. I am particularlysorry for Meynell himself--who is one of the best of men. "

Rose felt her colour rising. She longed to ask--"But supposing _England_has something to say?--suppose she chooses to transform her NationalChurch? Hasn't she the right and the power?"

But her instincts as hostess stifled her pugnacity. And the little Bishoplooked so worn and fragile that she had no heart for anything butcossetting him. At the same time she noticed--as she had done before onother occasions--the curious absence of any ferocity, any smell ofbrimstone, in the air! How different from Robert's day! Then thepresumption underlying all controversy was of an offended authorityranged against an apologetic rebellion. A tone of moral condemnation onthe one side, a touch of casuistry on the other, confused the issues. Andnow--behind and around the combatants--the clash of equal hosts!--overground strewn with dead assumptions. The conflict might be no lessstrenuous; nay! from a series of isolated struggles it had developed intoa world-wide battle; but the bitterness between man and man was less. 

Yes!--for the nobler spirits--the leaders and generals of each army. Butwhat of the rank and file? And at the thought of Barron she laughed atherself for supposing that religious rancour and religious slander haddied out of the world!

"Can we have some talk somewhere?" said Norham languidly, in Meynell'sear, as the gentlemen left the dining-room. 

"I think Mrs. Flaxman will have arranged something, " said Meynell, with asmile--detecting the weariness of the political Atlas. 

And indeed Rose had all her dispositions made. They found her in thedrawing-room, amid a bevy of bright gowns and comely faces, illumined bythe cheerful light of a big wood fire--a circle of shimmering stuffs andgems, the blaze sparkling on the pointed slippers, the white necks andglossy hair of the girls, and on the diamonds of their mothers. 

But Rose, the centre of the circle, sprang up at once, at sight of hertwo _gros bonnets_. 

"The green drawing-room!" she murmured in Meynell's ear, and tripped onbefore them, while the incoming crowd of gentlemen, mingling with theladies, served to mask the movement. 

Not, however, before the Bishop had perceived the withdrawal of thepolitician and the heretic. He saw that Canon France, who followed him, had also an eye to the retreating figures. 

"I trust we too shall have our audience. " said the Bishop, ironically. 

Canon France shrugged his shoulders, smiling. 

Then his small shrewd eyes scanned the Bishop intently. Nothing in thatdelicate face beyond the sentiments proper to the situation?--the publicsituation? As to the personal emotion involved, that, the Canon knew, wasfor the time almost exhausted. The Bishop had suffered much during thepreceding months--in his affections, his fatherly feeling toward hisclergy, in his sense of the affront offered to Christ's seamless vestureof the Church. But now, France thought, pain had been largely deadened bythe mere dramatic interest of the prospect ahead, by the anodyne of animmense correspondence, and of a vast increase in the business of theday, caused by the various actions pending. 

Nothing else--new and disturbing--in the Bishop's mind? He moved on, chatting and jesting with the young girls who gathered round him. He wasevidently a favourite with them, and with all nice women. Finally he sankinto an armchair beside Lady Helen Varley, exchanging Mrs. Flaxman'scossetting for hers. His small figure was almost lost in the armchair. The firelight danced on his slender stockinged legs, on his episcopalshoe buckles, on the cross which adorned his episcopal breast, and thenon the gleaming snow of his hair, above his blue eyes with their slightunearthliness, so large and flower-like in his small white face. Heseemed very much at ease--throwing off all burdens. 

No!--the Slander which had begun to fly through the diocese, like anarrow by night, had not yet touched the Bishop. 

Nor Meynell himself?

Yet France was certain that Barron had not been idle, that he had notlet it drop. "I advised him to let it drop"--he said uneasily tohimself--"that was all I could do. "

Then he looked round him, at the faces of the women present. He scarcelyknew any of them. Was she among them--the lady of Barron's tale? Hethought of the story as he might have thought of the plot of a novel. When medieval charters were not to be had, it made an interesting subjectof speculation. And Barron could not have confided it to any one in thediocese, so discreet--so absolutely discreet--as he. 

 * * * * *

"I gather this Movement of yours is rapidly becoming formidable?" saidNorham to his companion. 

He spoke with the affectation of interest that all politicians in officemust learn. But there was no heart in it, and Meynell wondered why thegreat man had desired to speak with him at all. 

He replied that the growth of the Movement was certainly a startlingfact. 

"It is now clear that we must ultimately go to Parliament. The immediateresult in the Church courts is of course not in doubt. But our hope liesin such demonstrations in the country as may induce Parliament"--hepaused, laying a quiet emphasis on each word--"to reconsider--andresettle--the conditions of membership and office in the English Church. "

"Good heavens!" cried Norham, throwing up his hand--"What a prospect! Ifthat business once gets into the House of Commons, it'll have everythingelse out. "

"Yes. It's big enough to ask for time--and take it. "

Norham suppressed a slight yawn as he turned in his chair. 

"The House of Commons, alas!--never shows to advantage in anecclesiastical debate. You'd think it was in the condition of SydneySmith with a cold--not sure whether there were nine Articles andThirty-Nine Muses--or the other way on!"

Meynell looked at the Secretary of State in silence--his eyes twinkling. He had heard from various friends of this touch of insolence in Norham. He awaited its disappearance. 

Edward Norham was a man still young; under forty indeed, though markedprematurely by hard work and hard fighting. His black hair had receded onthe temples, and was obviously thinning on the crown of the head; he worespectacles, and his shoulders had taken the stoop of office work. But theeyes behind the spectacles lost nothing that they desired to see; and thegeneral impression was one of bull-dog strength, which could beimpertinent and aggressive, and could also masque itself in a good humourand charm by no means insincere. In his political career, he was on theeve of great things; and he would owe them mainly to a power of work, supreme even in these hard-driven days. This power of work enabled him toglean in many fields, and keep his eye on many chances that hiscolleagues perforce neglected. The Modernist Movement was one of thesechances. For years he had foreseen great changes ahead in the relationsof Church and State, and this group of men seemed to be forcing the pace. 

Suddenly, as his eyes perused the strong humanity of the face beside him, Norham changed his manner. He sat up and put down the paper-knife he hadbeen teasing. As he did so there was a little crash at his elbow andsomething rolled on the floor. 

"What's that?"

"No harm done, " said Meynell, stooping--"one of our host's Greek coins. What a beauty!" He picked up the little case and the coin which hadrolled out of it--a gold coin of Velia, with a head of Athene--one ofthe great prizes of the collector. 

Norham took it with eagerness. He was a Cambridge man, and a finescholar, and such things delighted him. 

"I didn't know Flaxman cared for these things. "

"He inherited them, " said Meynell, pointing to the open cabinet on thetable. "But he loves them too. Mrs. Flaxman always has them put out ongreat occasions. It seems to me they ought to have a watcher! Theyare quite priceless, I believe. Such things are soon lost. "

"Oh!--they are safe enough here, " said Norham, returning the coin to itsplace, with another loving look at it. Then, with an effort, he pulledhimself together, and with great rapidity began to question hiscompanion as to the details and progress of the Movement. All the factsup to date, the number of Reformers enrolled since the foundation of theLeague, the League's finances, the astonishing growth of its petition toParliament, the progress of the Movement in the Universities, among theardent and intellectual youth of the day, its spread from week to weekamong the clergy: these things came out steadily and clearly in Meynell'sreplies. 

"The League was started in July--it is now October. We have fiftythousand enrolled members, all communicants in Modernist churches. Meetings and demonstrations are being arranged at this moment all overEngland; and in January or February there will be a formal inaugurationof the new Liturgy in Dunchester Cathedral. "

"Heavens!" said Norham, dropping all signs of languor. "Dunchester willventure it?"

Meynell made a sign of assent. 

"It is of course possible that the episcopal proceedings against theBishop, which, as you see, have just begun, may have been brought to aclose, and that the Cathedral may be no longer at our disposal, but--"

"The Dean, surely, has power to close it!"

"The Dean has come over to us, and the majority of the Canons. "

Norham threw back his head with a laugh of amazement. 

"The first time in history that a Dean has been of the same opinion ashis Bishop! Upon my word, the government has been badly informed or Ihave not kept up. I had no idea--simply no idea--that things had gone sofar. Markborough of course gives us very different accounts--he and theBishops acting with him. "

"A great deal is going on which our Bishop here is quite unaware of. "

"You can substantiate what you have been saying?"

"I will send you papers to-morrow morning. But of course"--added Meynell, after a pause--"a great many of us will be out of our berths, in a fewmonths, temporarily at least. It will rest with Parliament whether weremain so!"

"The Non-Jurors of the twentieth century!" murmured Norham, with ahalf-sceptical intonation. 

"Ah, but this _is_ the twentieth century!"--said Meynell smiling. "And inour belief the _dénouement_ will be different. "

"What will you do--you clergy--when you are deprived?"

"In the first place, it will take a long time to deprive us--and so longas there are any of us left in our livings, each will come to the help ofthe other. "

"But you yourself?"

"I have already made arrangements for a big barn in the village"--saidMeynell, smiling--"a great tithe-barn of the fifteenth century, amagnificent old place, with a forest of wooden arches, and a vault like achurch. The village will worship there for a while. We shall make itbeautiful!"

Norham was silent for a moment. He was stupefied by the energy, thepassion of religious hope in the face beside him. Then the criticaltemper in him conquered his emotion, and he said, not without sarcasm:

"This is all very surprising--very interesting--but what are the _ideas_behind you? A thing like this cannot live without ideas--and I confess Ihave always thought the ideas of Liberal Christianity a rather beggarlyset-out--excuse the phrase!"

"There is nothing to excuse!--the phrase fits. 'A reducedChristianity'--as opposed to a 'full Christianity'--that is thedescription lately given, I think, by a divinity professor. I don'tquarrel with it at all. Who can care for a 'reduced' anything! But a_transformed_ Christianity--that is another matter. "

"Why 'Christianity' at all?"

Meynell looked at him in a smiling silence. He--the man of religion--wasunwilling in these surroundings to play the prophet, to plunge into thecentral stream of argument. But Norham, the outsider and dilettante, wasconscious of a kindled mind. 

"That is the question to which it always seems to me there is noanswer, " he said easily, leaning back in his chair. "You think youcan take what you like of a great historical religion and leave therest--that you can fall back on its pre-suppositions and build it anew. But the pre-suppositions themselves are all crumbling. 'God, '--'soul, ''free-will, ' 'immortality'--even human identity--is there one of the oldfundamental notions that still stands, unchallenged? What are we in theeyes of modern psychology--but a world of automata--dancing to stimulifrom outside? What has become of conscience--of the moral law--of Kant'simperative--in the minds of writers like these?"

He pointed to two recent novels lying on the table, both of thembrilliant glorifications of sordid forms of adultery. 

Meynell's look fired. 

"Ah!--but let us distinguish. _We_ are not anarchists--as those men are. Our claim is precisely that we are, and desire to remain, a part of a_Society_--a definite community with definite laws--of a NationalChurch--of the nation, that is, in its spiritual aspect. The question forwhich we are campaigning is as to the terms of membership in thatsociety. But terms and conditions there must always be. The 'wild livingintellect of man' must accept conditions in the Church, as _we_ conceiveit, no less than in the Church as Newman conceived it. "

Norham shrugged his shoulders. 

"Then why all this bother?"

"Because the conditions must be adjusted from time to time! Otherwise thechurch suffers and souls are lost--wantonly, without reason. But there isno church--no religion--without some venture, some leap of faith! If youcan't make any leap at all--any venture--then you remain outside--and youthink yourself, perhaps, entitled to run amuck--as these men do!" Hepointed to the books. "But _we_ make the venture!--_we_ accept the greathypothesis--of faith. "

The sound of voices came dimly to them from the farther rooms. Norhampointed toward them. 

"What difference then between you--and your Bishop?"

"Simply that in his case--as _we_ say--the hypothesis of faith isweighted with a vast mass of stubborn matter that it was never meant tocarry--bad history, bad criticism, an out-grown philosophy. To makeit carry it--in our belief--you have to fly in the face of that gradualeducation of the world--education of the mind, education of theconscience--which is the chief mark of God in the world. But thehypothesis of Faith, itself, remains--take it at its lowest--as rational, as defensible, as legitimate as any other!"

"What do you mean by it? God--conscience--responsibility?"

"Those are the big words!" said Meynell, smiling--"and of course the trueones. But what the saint means by it, I suppose, in the first instance, is that there is in man something mysterious, superhuman--a Life inlife--which can be indefinitely strengthened, enlightened, purified, tillit reveal to him the secret of the world, till it 'toss him' to the'breast' of God!--or again, can be weakened, lost, destroyed, till herelapses into the animal. Believe it, we say! Live by it!--make theventure. _Verificatur vivendo_!"

 * * * * *

Again the conversation paused. From the distance once more came the merryclamour of the farther drawing-room. A din of young folk, chaffing andteasing each other--a girl's defiant voice above it--outbursts oflaughter. Norham, who had in him a touch of dramatic imagination, enjoyedthe contrast between the gay crowd in the distance and this quiet roomwhere he sat face to face with a visionary--surely altogether remote fromthe marrying, money-making, sensuous world. Yet after all the League wasa big, practical, organized fact. 

"What you have expressed--very finely, if I may say so--is of course themystical creed, " he replied at last, with suave politeness. "But why callit Christianity?"

As he spoke, he was conscious of a certain pride in himself. He feltcomplacently that he understood Meynell and appreciated him; and thathardly any of his colleagues would, or could have done so. 

"Why call it Christianity?" he repeated. 

"Because Christianity _is_ this creed!--'embodied in a tale. ' And mankindmust have tales and symbols. "

"And the life of Christ is your symbol?"

"More!--it is our Sacrament--the supreme Sacrament--to which all othersymbols of the same kind lead--in which they are summed up. "

"And that is _why you_ make so much of the Eucharist?"

"It is--to us--just as full of mystical meaning, just as much themeeting-place of God and man, as to the Catholic--Roman or Anglican. "

"Strange that there should be so many of you!" said Norham, after amoment, with an incredulous smile. 

"Yes--that has been the discovery of the last six months. But we mightall have guessed it. The fuel has been long laid--now comes the kindling, and the blaze!"

There was a pause. Then Norham said abruptly--

"Now what is it you want of Parliament?"

The two men plunged into a discussion, in which the politician becamepresently aware that the parish priest, the visionary, possessed asurprising amount of practical and statesman-like ability. 

 * * * * *

Meanwhile--a room or two away--in the great bare drawing-room, withits faded tapestries, and its warm mixture of lamplight and firelight, the evening guests had been arriving. Rose stood at the door of thedrawing-room, receiving, her husband beside her, Catharine a little waybehind. 

"Oh!" cried Rose suddenly, under her breath, only heard by Hugh--a littlesound of perturbation. 

Outside, in the hall, hardly lit at intervals by oil-lamps, a group couldbe seen advancing; in front Alice Puttenham and Mary, and behind, theFox-Wilton party, Hester's golden head and challenging gait drawing all_eyes_ as she passed along. 

But it was on Alice Puttenham that Rose's gaze was fixed. She camedreamily forward; and Rose saw her marked out, by the lovely oval of theface, its whiteness, its melancholy, from all the moving shapes aroundher. She wore a dress of black gauze over white; a little scarf of oldlace lay on her shoulders; her still abundant hair was rolled back fromher high brow and sad eyes. She looked very small and childish--as frailas thistledown. 

And behind her, Hester's stormy beauty! Rose gave a little gulp. Then shefound herself pressing a cold hand, and was conscious of sudden relief. Miss Puttenham's shy composure was unchanged. She could not have lookedso--she could not surely have confronted such a gathering of neighboursand strangers, if--

No, no! The Slander--Rose, in her turn, saw it under an image, as thougha dark night-bird hovered over Upcote--had not yet descended on thisgentle head. With eager kindness, Hugh came forward--and Catharine. Theyfound her a place by the fire, where presently the glow seemed to makeits way to her pale cheeks, and she sat silent and amused, watching thetriumph of Hester. 

For Hester was no sooner in the room than, resenting perhaps thedecidedly cool reception that Mrs. Flaxman had given her, she at once setto work to extinguish all the other young women there. And she had verysoon succeeded. The Oxford youths, Lord Wanless, the sons of two or threeneighbouring squires, they were all presently gathered about her, asthick as bees on honeycomb, recognizing in her instantly one of thosebeings endowed from their cradle with a double portion of sex-magic, wholeave such a wild track behind them in the world. 

By her chair stood poor Stephen Barron, absorbed in her every look andtone. Occasionally she threw him a word--Rose thought for pure mischief;and his whole face would light up. 

In the centre of the circle round Hester stood one of the Oxford lads, amagnificent fellow, radiating health and gayety, who was trying to wearher down in one of the word-games of the day. They fought hard andbreathlessly, everybody listening partly for the amusement of the game, partly for the pleasure of watching the good looks of the young creaturesplaying it. At last the man turned on his heel with a cry of victory. 

"Beaten!--beaten!--by a hair. But you're wonderful, Miss Fox-Wilton. Inever found anybody near so good as you at it before, except a man I metonce at Newmarket--Philip Meryon--do you know him? Never saw a fellow sogood at games. But an awfully queer fish!"

It seemed to the morbid sensitiveness of Rose that there was aninstantaneous and a thrilling silence. Hester tossed her head; hercolour, after the first start, ebbed away; she grew pale. 

"Yes, I do know him. Why is he a queer fish? You only say that because hebeat you!"

The young man gave a half-laugh, and looked at his friends. Then hechanged the subject. But Hester got up impatiently from her seat, andwould not play any more. Rose caught the sudden intentness with whichAlice Puttenham's eyes pursued her. 

Stephen Barron came to the help of his hostess, and started more games. Rose was grateful to him--and quite intolerably sorry for him. 

"But why was I obliged to shake hands with the other brother?" shethought rebelliously, as she watched the disagreeable face of MauriceBarron, who had been standing in the circle not far from Hester. He had alook of bad company which displeased her; and she resented what seemed toher an inclination to stare at the pretty women--especially at Hester, and Miss Puttenham. Heavens!--if that odious father had betrayed anythingto such a son! Surely, surely it was inconceivable!

The party was beginning to thin when Meynell, impatient to be quit of hisCabinet Minister that he might find Mary Elsmere before it was too late, hurried from the green drawing-room, in the wake of Mr. Norham, andstumbled against a young man, who in the very imperfect illumination hadnot perceived the second figure behind the Home Secretary. 

"Hullo!" said Meynell brusquely, stepping back. "How do you do? IsStephen here?"

Maurice Barron answered in the affirmative--and added, as though from theneed to say something, no matter what:

"I hear there are some coins to be seen in there?"

"There are. "

Meynell passed on, his countenance showing a sternness, a contempteven, that was rare with him. He and Norham passed through the nextdrawing-room, and met various acquaintances at the farther door. MauriceBarron stood watching them. The persons invading the room had comeintending to see the coins. But meeting the Home Secretary they turnedback with him, and Meynell followed them, eager to disengage himself fromthem. At the door some impulse made him turn and look back. He sawMaurice Barron disappearing into the green drawing-room. 

 * * * * *

The night was soft and warm. Catharine and Mary had come prepared to walkhome, Catharine eagerly resuming, now that her health allowed it, theSpartan habits of their normal life. Flaxman was drawn by the beauty ofthe moonlight and the park to offer to escort them to the lower lodge. Hester declared that she too would walk, and carelessly acceptedStephen's escort. Meynell stepped out from the house with them, and inthe natural sequence of things he found himself with Mary. 

Flaxman and Catharine, who led the way, hardly spoke to each other. Theywalked, pensive and depressed. Each knew what the other was thinking of, and each felt that nothing was to be gained for the moment by any freshtalk about it. Just behind them they could hear Hester laughing andsparring with Stephen; and when Catharine looked back she could seeMeynell and Mary far away, in the distance of the avenue they werefollowing. 

 * * * * *

The great lime-trees on either side threw long shadows on grass coveredwith the fresh fallen leaf, which gleamed, a pale orange, through thedusk. The sky was dappled with white cloud, and the lime-boughs overheadbroke it into patterns of delight. The sharp scent of the fallen leaveswas in the air; and the night for all its mildness prophesied winter. Meynell seemed to himself to be moving on enchanted ground, beneathenchanted trees. The tension of his long talk with Norham, the cares ofhis leadership--the voices of a natural ambition, dropped away. Mary in ablue cloak, a white scarf wound about her head, summed up for him thepure beauty of nature and the night. For the first time he did notattempt to check the thrill in his veins; he began to hope. It wasimpossible to ignore the change in Mrs. Elsmere's attitude toward him. Hehad no idea what had caused it; but he felt it. And he realized also thatthrough unseen and inexplicable gradations Mary had come mysteriouslynear to him. He dared not have spoken a word of love to her; but suchfeeling as theirs, however restrained, penetrates speech and gesture, andirresistibly makes all things new. 

They spoke of the most trivial matters, and hardly noticed what theysaid. He all the time was thinking: "Beyond this tumult there will berest some day--then I may speak. We could live hardly and simply--neitherof us wants luxury. But _now_ it would be unjust--it would bring toogreat a burden on her--and her poor mother. I must wait! But we shall seeeach other--we shall understand each other!"

Meanwhile she, on her side, would perhaps have given the world to sharethe struggle from which he debarred her. 

Nevertheless, for both, it was an hour of happiness and hope. 

CHAPTER XIII

"So I see your name this morning, Stephen, on their list. "

Henry Barron held up a page of the _Times_ and pointed to its firstcolumn. 

"I sent it in some time ago. "

"And pray what does your parish think of it?"

"They won't support me. "

"Thank God!"

Barron rose majestically to his feet, and from the rug surveyed his thin, fair-haired son. Stephen had just ridden over from his own tiny vicarage, twelve miles away, to settle some business connected with a family legacywith his father. Since the outbreak of the Reform Movement there had beenfrequent disputes between the father and son, if aggressive attack on theone side and silent endurance on the other make a dispute. Barron scornedhis eldest son, as a faddist and a dreamer; while Stephen could neverremember the time when his father had not seemed to him the livingembodiment of prejudice, obstinacy, and caprice. He had always reckonedit indeed the crowning proof of Meynell's unworldly optimism that, at themoment of his father's accession to the White House estate, there shouldhave been a passing friendship between him and the Rector. Yet wheneverthoughts of this kind presented themselves explicitly to Stephen he triedto suppress them. His life, often, was a constant struggle between agenuine and irrepressible dislike of his father and a sore sense that noChristian priest could permit himself such a feeling. 

He made no reply to his father's interjection. But Barron knew very wellthat his son's self-control was no indication of lack of will; quite thecontrary; and the father was conscious of a growing exasperation as hewatched the patient compression of the young mouth. He wanted somehow toconvict and crush Stephen; and he believed that he held the means theretoin his hand. He had not been sure before Stephen arrived whether heshould reveal the situation or not. But the temptation was too great. That the son's mind and soul should finally have escaped his father, "like a bird out of the snare of the fowler, " was the unforgivableoffence. What a gentle, malleable fellow he had seemed in his school andcollege days!--how amenable to the father's spiritual tyranny! It wasBarron's constant excuse to himself for his own rancorous feeling--thatMeynell had robbed him of his son. 

"You probably think it strange"--he resumed harshly--"that I shouldrejoice in what of course is your misfortune--that your people rejectyou; but there are higher interests than those of personal affectionconcerned in this business. We who are defending her must think first ofthe Church!"

"Naturally, " said Stephen. 

His father looked at him in silence for a moment, at the mild pliantfigure, the downcast eyes. 

"There is, however, one thing for which I have cause--we all havecause--to be grateful to Meynell, " he said, with emphasis. 

Stephen looked up. 

"I understand he refused to sanction your engagement to HesterFox-Wilton. "

The young man flushed. 

"It would be better, I think, father, if we are to talk over thesematters quietly--which I understood is the reason you asked me to comehere to-day--that you should avoid a tone toward myself and my affairswhich can only make frank conversation difficult or impossible betweenus. "

"I have no desire to be offensive, " said Barron, checking himself withdifficulty, "and I have only your good in view, though you may notbelieve it. My reason for approving Meynell in the matter is that he wasaware--and you were not aware"--he fell into the slow phrasing he alwaysaffected on important occasions--"of facts bearing vitally on yourproposal; and that in the light of them he acted as any honest man wasbound to act. "

"What do you mean!" cried Stephen, springing to his feet. 

"I mean"--the answer was increasingly deliberate--"that HesterFox-Wilton--it is very painful to have to go into these things, but it isnecessary, I regret to say--is not a Fox-Wilton at all--and has no rightwhatever to her name!"

Stephen walked up to the speaker. 

"Take care, father! This is a question of a _girl_--an unprotected girl!What right have you to say such an abominable thing!"

He stood panting and white, in front of his father. 

"The right of truth!" said Barron. "It happens to be true. "

"Your grounds?"

"The confession of the woman who nursed her mother--who was _not_ LadyFox-Wilton. "

Barron had now assumed the habitual attitude--thumbs in his pockets, legsslightly apart--that Stephen had associated from his childhood with thelong bullying, secular and religious, that Barron's family owed toBarron's temperament. 

In the pause, Stephen's quick breathing could be heard. 

"Who was she?"

The son's tone had caught the father's sharpness. 

"Well, my dear Stephen, I am not sure that I shall tell you while youlook at me in that fashion! Believe me--it is not my fault, but mymisfortune, that I happen to be acquainted with this very disagreeablesecret. And I have one thing to say--you must give me your promise thatyou will regard any communication from me as entirely confidential, before I say another word. "

Stephen walked away to the window and came back. 

"Very well. I promise. "

"Sit down. It is a long story. "

The son obeyed mechanically, his frowning eyes fixed upon his father. Barron at once plunged into an account of his interview with JudithSabin, omitting only those portions of it which connected the story withMeynell. It was evident, presently, that Stephen--to the dawning triumphof his father--listened with an increasingly troubled mind. And indeed, at the first whisper of the story, there had flashed through the youngman's memory the vision of Meynell arguing and expostulating on thatJuly afternoon, when he, Stephen, had spoken so confidingly, sounsuspectingly of his love for Hester. He recalled his own amazement, hissense of shock and strangeness. What Meynell said on that occasionseemed to have so little relation to what Meynell habitually was. Meynell, for whom love, in its spiritual aspect, was the salt andsignificance of life, the foundation of all wisdom--Meynell on thatoccasion had seemed to make comparatively nothing of love!--to deny itssimplest rights--to put it despotically out of count. Stephen, as he hadlong recognized, had been overborne and silenced by Meynell's personalityrather than by Meynell's arguments--by the disabling force mainly of hisown devotion to the man who bade him wait and renounce. But in his hearthe had never quite forgiven, or understood; and for all the subsequenttrouble about Hester, all his own jealousy and pain, he had not been ableto prevent himself from blaming Meynell. And now--now!--if this storywere true--he began to understand. Poor child--poor mother! With themarriage of the child, must come--he felt the logic of it--the confessionof the mother. A woman like Alice Puttenham, a man like Meynell, were notlikely to give Hester to her lover without telling that lover what he hada right to know. Small blame to them if they were not prepared to bringabout that crisis prematurely, while Hester was still so young! It mustbe faced--but not, _not_ till it must!

Yes, he understood. A rush of warm and pitiful love filled his heart;while his intelligence dismally accepted and endorsed the story hisfather was telling with that heavy tragic touch which the soninstinctively hated as insincere and theatrical. 

"Now then, perhaps, "--Barron wound up--"you will realize why it is I feelMeynell has acted considerately, and as any true friend of yours wasbound to act. He knew--and you were ignorant. Such a marriage could nothave been for your happiness, and he rightly interposed. "

"What difference does it make to Hester herself, " cried Stephenhotly--"supposing the thing is true? I admit--it may be true, " and as hespoke a host of small confirmations came thronging into his unwillingmind. "But in any case--"

He walked up to his father again. 

"What have you done about it, father?" he said, sharply. "I suppose youwent to Meynell at once. "

Barron smiled, with a lift of the eyebrows. He knocked off the end of hiscigarette, and paused. 

"Of course you have seen Meynell?" Stephen repeated. 

"No, I haven't. "

"I should have thought that was your first duty. "

"It was not easy to decide what my duty was, " said Barron, with the sameemphasis, "not at all easy. "

"What do you mean, father? There seems to be something more behind. Ifthere is, considering my feeling for Hester, it seems to me that havingtold me so much you are bound to tell me _all_ you know. Remember--thisstory concerns the girl I love!"

Passion and pain spoke in the young man's voice. His father looked at himwith an involuntary sympathy. 

"I know. I am very sorry for you. But it concerns other people also. "

"What is known of the father?" said Stephen abruptly. 

"Ah, that is the point!" said Barron, making an abstracted face. 

"It is a question to which I am surely entitled to have an answer!"

"I am not sure that I can give it you. I can tell you of course what theview of Judith Sabin was--what the facts seem to point to. But--in anycase, whether I believe Judith Sabin or no, I should not have said a wordto you on the subject but for the circumstance that--unfortunately--thereare other people in the case. "

Whereupon--watching his son carefully--Barron repeated the story that hehad already given to Flaxman. 

The effect upon Meynell's young disciple and worshipper may be imagined. He grew deadly pale, and then red; choked with indignant scorn; and couldscarcely bring himself to listen at all, after he had once gathered thereal gist of what his father was saying. 

Yet, by this time, the story was much better worth listening to than ithad been when Barron had first presented it to Flaxman. By dint of muchbrooding, and under the influence of an angry obstinacy which must haveits prey, Barron had made it a good deal more plausible than it had beento begin with, and would no doubt make it more plausible still. He hadbrought in by now a variety of small local observations bearing on therelations between the three figures in the drama--Hester, AlicePuttenham, Meynell--which Stephen must and did often recognize as trueand telling. It was true that there was much friction and differencebetween Hester and the Fox-Wilton family; that Alice Puttenham'sposition and personality had always teased the curiosity of theneighbourhood; that the terms of Sir Ralph's will were perplexing; andthat Meynell was Hester's guardian in a special sense, a fact for whichthere was no obvious explanation. It was true also that there emerged attimes a singular likeness in Hester's beauty--a likeness of expressionand gesture--to the blunt and powerful aspect of the Rector.... 

And yet! Did his father believe, for a moment, the preposterous things hewas saying? The young man sharpened his wits as far as possible forHester's and his friend's sake, and came presently to the conclusion thatit was one of those violent, intermittent half-beliefs which, in theservice of hatred and party spirit, can be just as effective anddangerous as any other. And when the circumstantial argument passedpresently into the psychological--even the theological--this became themore evident. 

For in order to explain to himself and others how Meynell could possiblyhave behaved in a fashion so villainous, Barron had invented by now awhole psychological sequence. He was prepared to show in detail how thething had probably evolved; to trace the processes of Meynell's mind. The sin once sinned, what more natural than Meynell's proceeding?Marriage would not have mended the disgrace, or averted the practicalconsequences of the intrigue. He certainly could not have kept his livinghad the facts been known. On the one hand his poverty--his brothers toeducate, --his benefice to be saved. On the other, the natural desire ofthe Fox-Wiltons and of Alice Puttenham to conceal everything that hadoccurred. The sophistries of love would come in--repentance--the desireto make a fresh start--to protect the woman he had sacrificed. 

And all that might have availed him against sin and temptation--asteadfast Christian faith--was already deserting him; must have beenalready undermined. What was there to wonder at?--what was thereincredible in the story? The human heart was corrupt and desperatelywicked; and nothing stood between any man, however apparently holy, andmoral catastrophe but the grace of God. 

Stephen bore the long, incredible harangue, as best he could, forMeynell's sake. He sat with his face turned away from his father, hishand closing and unclosing on his knee, his nerves quivering under theexasperation of his father's monstrous premises, and still more monstrousdeductions. At the end he faced round abruptly. 

"I do not wish to offend you, father, but I had better say at once that Ido not accept, for a single instant, your arguments or your conclusion. Iam positive that the facts, whatever they may be, are _not_ what yousuppose them to be! I say that to begin with. But now the question is, what to do. You say there are anonymous letters about. That decides it. It is clear that you must go to Meynell at once! And if you do not, Imust. "

Barron's look flashed. 

"You gave me your promise"--he said imperiously--"before I told you thisstory--that you would not communicate it without my permission. Iwithhold the permission. "

"Then you must go yourself, " said the young man vehemently--"You must!"

"I am not altogether unwilling to go, " said Barron slowly. "But I shallchoose my own time. "

And as he raised his cold eyes upon his son it pleased his spirit ofintrigue, and of domination through intrigue, that he had alreadyreceived a letter from Flaxman giving precisely opposite advice, and didnot intend to tell Stephen anything about it. Stephen's impulsivecandour, however, appealed to him much more than Flaxman's reticence. Itwould indeed be physically and morally impossible for him--anonymousletters or no--to lock the scandal much longer within his own breast. Ithad become a living and burning thing, like some wild creature strainingat a leash. 

 * * * * *

A little while later Stephen found himself alone. He believed himself tohave got an undertaking from his father that Meynell should becommunicated with promptly--perhaps that very evening. But the termsof the promise were not very clear; and the young man's mind was full ofa seething wrath and unhappiness. If the story were true, so far asHester and her unacknowledged mother were concerned--and, as we haveseen, there was that in his long and intimate knowledge of Hester'ssituation which, as he listened, had suddenly fused and flashed in a mostunwilling conviction--then, what dire, what pitiful need, on their part, of protection and of help! If indeed any friendly consideration forhim, Stephen, had entered into Meynell's conduct, the young man angrilyresented the fact. 

He paced up and down the library for a time, divided thus between afierce contempt for Meynell's slanderers and a passionate pity forHester. 

His father had gone to Markborough. Theresa was, he believed, in thegarden giving orders. Presently the clock on the bookcase struck three, and Stephen awoke with a start to the engagements of the day. 

He was in the act of opening the library door when he suddenlyremembered--Maurice!

He blamed himself for not having remembered earlier that Maurice was athome--for not having asked his father about him. He went to look for him, could not find him in any of the sitting-rooms, and finally mounted tothe second-floor bedroom which had always been his brother's. 

"Maurice!" He knocked. No answer. But there was a hurried movementinside, and something that sounded like the opening of a drawer. 

He called again, and tried the door. It was locked. But after furthershuffling inside, as though some one were handling papers, it was thrownopen. 

"Well, Maurice, I hope I haven't disturbed you in anything veryimportant. I thought I must come and have a look at you. Are you allright?"

"Come in, old fellow, " said Maurice with affected warmth--"I was onlywriting a few letters. No room for anybody downstairs but the pater andTheresa, so I have to retreat up here. "

"And lock yourself in?" said Stephen, laughing. "Any secrets going?" Andas he took a seat on the edge of the bed, while Maurice returned to hischair, he could not prevent himself from looking with a certain keenscrutiny both at the room and his younger brother. 

He and Maurice had never been friends. There was a gap of nearly tenyears between them, and certain radical and profound differences oftemperament. And these differences nature had expressed, with an entireabsence of subtlety, in their physique--in the slender fairness andwholesomeness of Stephen, as contrasted with the sallowness, the stoop, the thin black hair, the furtive, excitable look of Maurice. 

"Getting on well with your new work?" he asked, as he took unwilling noteof the half-consumed brandy and soda on the table, of the saucer ofcigarette ends beside it, and the general untidiness and stuffiness ofthe room. 

"Not bad, " said Maurice, resuming his cigarette. 

"What is it?"

"An agency--one of these new phonographs--Yankee of course. I manage theoffice. A lot of cads--but I make 'em sit up. "

And he launched into boasting of his success in the business--the ordershe had secured, the economies he had brought about in the office. Stephenfound himself wondering meanwhile what kind of a business it could bethat entrusted its affairs to Maurice. But he betrayed no scepticism, andthe two talked in more or less brotherly fashion for a few minutes, tillStephen, with a look at his watch, declared that he must find his horseand go. 

"I thought you were only coming for the week-end, " he said as he movedtoward the door. 

"I got seedy--and took a week off. Besides, I found pater in such astew. "

Stephen hesitated. 

"About the Rector?"

Maurice nodded. 

"Pater is in an awful way about it. I've been trying to cheer him up. Meynell will be turned out, of course. "

"Probably, " said Stephen gravely. "So shall I. "

"What'll you do?"

"Become a preacher somewhere--under Meynell. "

The younger brother looked with a sort of inquisitive grin at the elder. 

"You're ready to put your money on him to that extent? Well, all I knowis, father's dead set against him--and I've no use for him--never had!"

"That's because you didn't know him, " said Stephen briefly. "What did youever have against him?"

He looked sharply at his brother. The disagreeable idea crossed his mindthat his father, whose weakness for Maurice he well knew, might have toldthe story to the lad. 

Maurice laughed, and pulled his scanty moustache as he turned away. 

"Oh! I don't know--we never hit it off. My fault, of course. Ta, ta. "

As Stephen rode away he was haunted for a few minutes by somedisagreeable reminiscences of a school holiday when Maurice had beendiscovered drunk in one of the public-houses of the village by theRector, who had firmly dug him out and walked him home. But this andother recollections, not dissimilar, soon passed away, under the steadyassault of thoughts far more compelling.... 

 * * * * *

He took the bridle-path through Maudeley, and was presently aware, in aclearing of the wood, of the figure of Meynell in front of him. 

The Rector was walking in haste, without his dogs. He was therefore outon business, which indeed was implied by the energy of his wholemovement. 

He looked round, frowning as Stephen overtook him. 

"Is that you, Stephen? Are you going home?"

"Yes. And you?"

Meynell did not immediately reply. The autumn wood, a splendour ofgold and orange leaf overhead, of red-brown leaf below, with passageshere and there where the sun struck through the beech trees, of purestlemon-yellow, or intensest green, breathed and murmured round them. Alight wind sang in the tree-tops, and every now and then the plain brokein--purple through the gold; with its dim colliery chimneys, its wreathsof smoke, and its paler patches which stood for farms and villages. 

Meynell walked by the horse in silence for a while, till, suddenly wipinga hot brow, he turned and looked at Stephen. 

"I think I shall have to tell you, Stephen, where I am going, and why, "he said, eyeing the young man with a deprecating look, almost a look ofremorse. 

Stephen stared at him in silence. 

"Flaxman walked home with me last night--came into the Rectory, and toldme that--yesterday--he saw Meryon and Hester together--in Hewlett'swood--as you know, a lonely place where nobody goes. It was a great blowto me. I had every reason to believe him safely out of the neighbourhood. All his servants have clearly been instructed to lie--and Hester!--well, I won't trust myself to say what I think of her conduct! I went up thismorning to see her--found the whole household in confusion! Nobody knewwhere Hester was. She had gone out immediately after breakfast, withthe maid who is supposed to be always with her. Then suddenly--about anhour later--one of the boys appeared, having seen this woman at thestation--and no Hester. The woman, taken by surprise--young Fox-Wiltonjust had a few words with her as the train was moving off--confessed shewas going into Markborough to meet Hester and come back with her. Shedidn't know where Miss Hester was. She had left her in the village, andwas to meet her at a shop in Markborough. After that, things began tocome out. The butler told tales. The maid is clearly an unprincipledhussy, and has probably been in Meryon's pay all the time--"

"Where is Hester?--where are you going to?" cried Stephen in impatientmisery, slipping from his horse, as he spoke, to walk beside the Rector. 

"In my belief she is at Sandford Abbey. "

"At Sandford!" cried the young man under his breath. "Visit thatscoundrel in his own house!"

"It appears she has once or twice declared that, in spite of us all, shewould go and see his house and his pictures. In my belief, she has doneit this morning. It is her last chance. We go to Paris to-morrow. However, we shall soon know. "

The Rector pushed on at redoubled speed. Stephen kept up with him, hislips twitching. 

"Why did you separate us?" he broke out at last, in a low, bitter voice. 

And yet he knew why--or suspected! But the inner smart was so great hecould not help the reproach. 

"I tried to act for the best, " said Meynell, after a moment, his eyes onthe ground. 

Stephen watched his friend uncertainly. Again and again he was on thepoint of crying out--

"Tell me the truth about Hester!"--on the point also of warning andinforming the man beside him. But he had promised his father. He held histongue with difficulty. 

When they reached the spot where Stephen's path diverged from that whichled by a small bridge across the famous trout-stream to Sandford Abbey, Stephen suddenly halted. 

"Why shouldn't I come too? I'll wait at the lodge. She might like to ridehome. She can sit anything--with any saddle. I taught her. "

"Well--perhaps, " said Meynell dubiously. And they went on together. 

Presently Sandford Abbey emerged above the road, on a rising ground--amelancholy, dilapidated pile; and they struck into a long and neglectedevergreen avenue leading up to it. At the end of the avenue there was anenclosure and a lodge, with some iron gates. A man saw them, and came outto the gate. 

"Sir Philip's gone abroad, sir, " he said, affably, when he saw them. "Shall I take your card?"

"Thank you. I prefer to leave it at the house, " said Meynell shortly, motioning to him to open the gate. The man hesitated, then obeyed. The Rector went up the drive, while Stephen turned back a little alongthe road, letting his horse pasture on its grassy fringe. The lodgekeeper--sulky and puzzled--watched him a few moments and then went backinto the house. 

 * * * * *

The Rector paused to reconnoitre as he came in sight of the house. It wasa strange, desolate, yet most romantic spot. Although, seen from the roadand the stream, it seemed to stand on an eminence, it was really at thebottom of a hill which encircled it on three sides, and what with its owndilapidation, its broken fences and gates, the trees which crowded aboutit, and the large green-grown pond in front of it, it produced a dank andsinister impression. The centre of the building, which had evidently beenrebuilt about 1700, to judge from its rose-red brick, its Frenchclassical lunettes, its pedimented doors and windows, and its fine_perron_, was clearly the inhabited portion of the building. The twowings of much earlier date, remains of the old Abbey, were falling intoruin. In front of one a garage had evidently been recently made, and amotor was standing at its door. To the left of the approaching spectatorwas a small deserted church, of the same date as the central portion ofthe Abbey, with twin busts of William and Mary still inhabiting a nicheabove the classical entrance, and marking the triumph of the ProtestantSuccession over the crumbling buildings of the earlier faith. The windowsof the church were boarded up and a few tottering tombstones surroundedit. 

No sign of human habitation appeared as the Rector walked up to the door. A bright sunshine played on the crumbling brick, the small-paned windows, the touches of gilding in the railings of the _perron;_ and on the slimypond a few ducks moved to and fro, in front of a grass-grown sun-dial. Meynell walked up to the door, and rang. 

The sound of the bell echoed through the house behind, but, for a while, no one came. One of the lunette windows under the roof opened overhead;and after another pause the door was slowly opened a few inches by a manin a slovenly footman's jacket. 

"Very sorry, sir, but Sir Philip is not at home. "

"When did he leave?"

"The end of last week, sir, " said the man, with a jaunty air. 

"That, I think, is not so, " said Meynell, sternly. "I shall not troubleyou to take my card. "

The youth's expression changed. He stood silent and sheepish, whileMeynell considered a moment, on the steps. 

Suddenly a sound of voices from a distance became audible through thegrudgingly opened door. It appeared to come from the back of the house. The man looked behind him, his mouth twitching with repressed laughter. Meynell ran down the steps and turned to the left, where a door ledthrough a curtain-wall to the garden. Meanwhile the house door washastily banged behind him. 

 * * * * *

"Uncle Richard!"

Behind the house Meynell came upon the persons he sought. In an overgrownformal garden, full of sun, he perceived an old stone bench, under anoverhanging yew. Upon it sat Hester, bareheaded, the golden masses of herhair shining against the blackness of the tree. Roddy mounted guardbeside her, his nose upon her lap; and on a garden chair in front of herlounged Philip Meryon, smoking and chatting. At sight of Meynell theyboth sprang to their feet. Roddy first growled, and then, as soon as herecognized Meynell, wagged his tail. Philip, with a swaying step, advanced toward the newcomer, cigar in hand. 

"How do you do, Richard! It is not often you honour me with a visit. "

For a moment Meynell looked from one to the other in silence. 

And they, whether they would or no, could not but feel the power of therugged figure in the short clerical coat and wide-awake, and of thesearching look with which he regarded them. Hester nervously began toput on her hat. Philip threw away his cigar, and braced himself angrily. 

"Your mother has been anxious about you, Hester, " said Meynell, at last. "And I have come to bring you home. "

Then turning to Meryon he said--"With you, Philip, I will reckon lateron. The lies you have instructed your servants to tell are a sufficientindication that you are ashamed of your behaviour. This young lady isunder age. Her mother and I, who are her lawful guardians, forbid heracquaintance with you. "

"By what authority, I should like to know?" said Philip sneeringly. "Hester is not a child--nor am I. "

"All that we will discuss when we meet, " said the Rector. "I propose tocall upon you to-morrow. "

"This time you may really find me fled, " laughed Philip, insolently. Buthe had turned white. 

Meynell made no reply. He went to Hester, and lifting the girl's silkcape, which had fallen off, he put it round her shoulders. He felt themtrembling. But she looked at him fiercely, put him aside, and ran toMeryon. 

"Good-bye, Philip, good-bye!--it won't be for long!" And she held outher two hands--pleadingly. Meryon took them, and they stared at eachother--while the Rector was conscious of a flash of dismay. 

What if there was now more in the business than mere mischief andwantonness? Hester was surprisingly lovely, with this touching, tremulouslook, so new, and, to the Rector, so intolerable!

"I must ask you to come at once, " he said, walking up to her, and thegirl, with compressed lips, dropped Meryon's hands and obeyed. 

Meryon walked beside them to the garden door, very pale, and breathingquick. 

"You can't separate us"--he said to Meynell--"though of course you'lltry. Hester, don't believe anything he tells you--till I confirm it. "

"Not I!" she said proudly. 

Meynell led her through the door, and then turning peremptorily desiredMeryon not to follow them. Philip hesitated, and yielded. He stood in thedoorway, his hands in his pockets, watching them, a splendid figure, withhis melodramatic good looks and vivid colour. 

CHAPTER XIV

Hester and Meynell walked down the avenue, side by side. Behind them, thelunette window under the roof opened again, and a woman's face, framed inblack, touzled hair, looked out, grinned and disappeared. 

Hester carried her head high, a scornful defiance breathing from theflushed cheeks and tightened lips. Meynell made no attempt atconversation, till just as they were nearing the lodge he said--"We shallfind Stephen a little farther on. He was riding, and thought you mightlike his horse to give you a lift home. "

"Oh, a _plot_!"--cried Hester, raising her chin still higher--"andStephen in it too! Well, really I shouldn't have thought it was worthanybody's while to spy upon my very insignificant proceedings like this. What does it matter to him, or you, or any one else what I do?"

She turned her beautiful eyes--tragically wide and haughty--upon hercompanion. There was absurdity in her pose, and yet, as Meynelluncomfortably recognized, a new touch of something passionate and real. 

The Rector made no reply, for they were at the turn of the road andbehind it Stephen and his horse were to be seen waiting. 

Stephen came to meet them, the bridle over his arm. 

"Hester, wouldn't you like my horse? It is a long way home. I can sendfor it later. "

She looked proudly from one to the other. Her colour had suddenly faded, and from the pallor, the firm, yet delicate, lines of the featuresemerged with unusual emphasis. 

"I think you had better accept, " said Meynell gently. As he looked ather, he wondered whether she might not faint on their hands with angerand excitement. But she controlled herself, and as Stephen brought thebrown mare alongside, and held out his hand, she put her foot in it, andhe swung her to the saddle. 

"I don't want both of you, " she said, passionately. "One warder isenough!"

"Hester!" cried Stephen, reproachfully. Then he added, trying to smile, "I am going into Markborough. Any commission?"

Hester disdained to answer. She gathered up the reins and set the horsein motion. Stephen's way lay with them for a hundred yards. He tried tomake a little indifferent conversation, but neither Meynell nor Hesterreplied. Where the lane they had been following joined the Markboroughroad, he paused to take his leave of them, and as he did so he saw histwo companions brought together, as it were, into one picture by theovercircling shade of the autumnal trees which hung over the road; and hesuddenly perceived as he had never yet done the strange likeness betweenthem. Perplexity, love--despairing and jealous love--a passionatechampionship of the beauty that was being outraged and insulted by thecommon talk and speculation of indifferent and unfriendly mouths; anearnest desire to know the truth, and the whole truth, that he might thebetter prove his love, and protect his friend; and a dismal certaintythrough it all that Hester had been finally snatched from him--theseconflicting feelings very nearly overpowered him. It was all he could doto take a calm farewell of them. Hester's eyes under their fierce browsfollowed him along the road. 

Meanwhile she and Meynell turned into a bridle-path through the woods. Hester sat erect, her slender body adjusting itself with unconsciousgrace to the quiet movements of the horse, which Meynell was leading. Overhead the October day was beginning to darken, and the yellow leavesshaken by occasional gusts were drifting mistily down on Hester's hairand dress, and on the glossy flanks of the mare. 

At last Meynell looked up. There was intense feeling in his face--a deepand troubled tenderness. 

"Hester!--is there no way in which I can convince you that if you go onas you have been doing--deceiving your best friends--and letting this manpersuade you into secret meetings--you will bring disgrace on yourself, and sorrow on us? A few more escapades like to-day, and we might not beable to save you from disgrace. "

He looked at her searchingly. 

"I am going to choose for myself!" said Hester after a moment, in a low, resolute voice; "I am not going to sacrifice my life to anybody. "

"You _will_ sacrifice it if you go on flirting with this man--if you willnot believe me--who am his kinsman and have no interest whatever inblackening his character--when I tell you that he is a bad man, corruptedby low living and self-indulgence, with whom no girl should trustherself. The action you have taken to-day, your deliberate defiance of usall, make it necessary that I should speak in even plainer terms to youthan I have done yet; that I should warn you as strongly as I can that byallowing this man to make love to you--perhaps to propose a runaway matchto you--how do I know what villainy he may have been equal to?--you arerunning risks of utter disaster and disgrace. "

"Perhaps. That is my affair. "

The girl's voice shook with excitement. 

"No!--it is not your affair only. No man liveth to himself, and no mandieth to himself! It is the affair of all those who love you--of yourfamily--of your poor Aunt Alice, who cannot sleep for grieving--"

Hester raised her free hand, and angrily pushed back the masses of fairhair that were falling about her face. 

"What is the good of talking about 'love, ' Uncle Richard?" She spoke witha passionate impatience--"You know very well that _nobody_ at home lovesme. Why should we all be hypocrites? I have got, I tell you, to lookafter _myself_, to plan my life for myself! My mother can't help it ifshe doesn't love me. I don't complain; but I do think it a shame youshould say she does, when you know--know--_know_--she doesn't! My sistersand brothers just dislike me--that's all there is in that! All my lifeI've known it--I've felt it. Why, when I was a baby they never playedwith me--they never made a pet of me--they wouldn't have me in theirgames. My father positively disliked me. Whenever the nurse brought medownstairs--he used to call to her to take me up again. Oh, how tired Igot of the nursery!--I hated it--I hated nurse--I hated all the oldtoys--for I never had any new ones. Do you remember"--she turned onhim--"that day when I set fire to all the clean clothes--that were airingbefore the fire?"

"Perfectly!" said the Rector, with an involuntary smile that relaxed thepale gravity of his face. 

"I did it because I hadn't been downstairs for three nights. I mighthave been dead for all anybody cared. Then I was determined they shouldcare--and I got hold of the matches. I thought the clothes would burnfirst--and then my starched frock would catch fire--and then--everybodywould be sorry for me at last. But unfortunately I got frightened, andran up the passage screaming--silly little fool! That might have made anend of it--once for all--"

Meynell interrupted--

"And after it, " he said, looking her in the eyes--"when the fuss wasover--I remember seeing you in Aunt Alsie's arms. Have you forgotten howshe cried over you, and defended you--and begged you off? You were illwith terror and excitement; she took you off to the cottage, and nursedyou till you were well again, and it had all blown over; as she did againand again afterward. Have you forgotten _that_--when you say that no oneloved you?"

He turned upon her with that bright penetrating look, with its touch ofaccusing sarcasm, which had so often given him the mastery over erringsouls. For Meynell had the pastoral gift almost in perfection; thecourage, the ethical self-confidence and the instinctive tendernesswhich belong to it. The certitudes of his mind were all ethical; and inthis region he might have said with Newman that "a thousand difficultiescannot make one doubt. "

Hester had often yielded, to this power of his in the past, and it wasevident that she trembled under it now. To hide it she turned upon himwith fresh anger. 

"No, I haven't forgotten it!--and I'm _not_ an ungrateful fiend--thoughof course you think it. But Aunt Alsie's like all the others now. She--she's turned against me!" There was a break in the girl's voice thatshe tried in vain to hide. 

"It isn't true, Hester! I think you know it isn't true. "

"It _is_ true! She has secrets from me, and when I ask her to trustme--then she treats me like a child--and shakes me off as if I were justa stranger. If she holds me at arm's-length, I am not going to tell herall _my_ affairs!"

The rounded bosom under the little black mantle rose and felltumultuously, and angry tears shone in the brown eyes. Meynell had raisedhis head with a sudden movement, and regarded her intently. 

"What secrets?"

"I found her--one day--with a picture--she was crying over. It--it wassome one she had been in love with--I am certain it was--a handsome, darkman. And I _begged_ her to tell me--and she just got up and went away. Sothen I took my own line!"

Hester furiously dashed away the tears she had not been able to stop. 

Meynell's look changed. His voice grew strangely pitiful and soft. 

"Dear Hester--if you knew--you couldn't be unkind to Aunt Alice. "

"Why shouldn't I know? Why am I treated like a baby?"

"There are some things too bitter to tell, "--he said gravely--"somegriefs we have no right to meddle with. But we can heal them--or makethem worse. You"--his kind eyes scourged her again--"have been makingeverything worse for Aunt Alsie for a long time past. "

Hester shrugged her shoulders passionately, as though to repel thecharge, but she said nothing. They moved on in silence for a little. InMeynell's mind there reigned a medley of feelings--tragic recollections, moral questionings, which time had never silenced, perplexity as to thepresent and the future, and with it all, the liveliest and sorest pityfor the young, childish, violent creature beside him. It was not forthose who, with whatever motives, had contributed to bring her to thatstate and temper, to strike any note of harshness. 

Presently, as they neared the end of the woody path, he looked up again. He saw her sitting sullenly on the gently moving horse, a vision ofbeauty at bay. The sight determined him toward frankness. 

"Hester!--I have told you that if you go on flirting with Philip Meryonyou run the risk of disgrace and misery, because he has no conscience andno scruples, and you are ignorant and inexperienced, and have no idea ofthe fire you are playing with. But I think I had better go farther. I amgoing to say what you force me to say to you--young as you are. My strongbelief is that Philip Meryon is either married already, or so entangledthat he has no right to ask any decent woman to marry him. I havesuspected it a long time. Now you force me to prove it. "

Hester turned her head away. 

"He told me I wasn't to believe what you said about him!" she said in hermost obstinate voice. 

"Very well. Then I must set at once about proving it. The reasonswhich make me believe it are not for your ears. " Then his tonechanged--"Hester!--my child!--you can't be in love with that fellow--thatfalse, common fellow!--you can't!"

Hester tightened her lips and would not answer. A rush of distress cameover Meynell as he thought of her movement toward Philip in the garden. He gently resumed:

"Any day now might bring the true lover, Hester!--the man who wouldcomfort you for all the past, and show you what joy really means. Bepatient, dear Hester--be patient! If you wanted to punish us for notmaking you happy enough, well, you have done it! But don't plunge us allinto despair--and take a little thought for your old guardian, who seemsto have the world on his shoulders, and yet can't sleep at nights, forworrying about his ward, who won't believe a word he says, and sets allhis wishes at defiance. "

His manner expressed a playful and reproachful affection. Their eyes met. Hester tried hard to maintain her antagonism, and he was well aware thathe was but imperfectly able to gauge the conflict of forces in her mind. He resumed his pleading with her--tenderly--urgently. And at last shegave way, at least apparently. She allowed him to lay a friendly hand onhers that held the reins, and she said with a long bitter breath:

"Oh, I know I'm a little beast!"

"My old-fashioned ideas don't allow me to apply that epithet to youngwomen! But if you'll say 'I want to be friends, Uncle Richard, and Iwon't deceive you any more, ' why, then, you'll make an old fellowhappy! Will you?"

Slowly she let her cold fingers slip into his warm, protecting palmas he smiled upon her. She yielded to the dignity and charm ofMeynell's character as she had done a thousand times before; but in theproud, unhappy look she bent upon him there were new and disquietingthings--prophecies of the coming womanhood, not to be unravelled. Meynellpressed her hand, and put it back upon the reins with a sigh he could notrestrain. 

He began to talk with a forced cheerfulness of their coming journey--ofthe French _milieu_ to which she was going. Hester answered inmonosyllables, every now and then--he thought--choking back a sob. Andagain and again the discouraging thought struck through him--"Has thisfellow touched her heart?"--so strong was the impression of an emergingsoul and a developing personality. 

Suddenly through the dispersing trees a light figure came hurriedlytoward them. It was Alice Puttenham. 

She was pale and weary, and when she saw Hester, with Meynell beside her, she gave a little cry. But Meynell, standing behind Hester, put hisfinger on his lips, and she controlled herself. Hester greeted herwithout any sign of emotion; and the three went homeward along the mistyways of the park. The sun had been swallowed up by rising fog; all colourhad been sucked out of the leaves and the heather, even from the goldenglades of fern. Only Hester's hair, and her white dress as she passedalong, uplifted, made of her a kind of luminous wraith, and beside her, like the supports of an altar-piece, moved the two pensive figures ofMeynell and Alice. 

From a covert of thorn in the park, a youth who had retreated into itsshelter on their approach watched them with malicious eyes. Another manwas with him--a sheepish, red-faced person, who peered curiously at thelittle procession as it passed about a hundred yards away. 

"Quite a family party!" said Maurice Barron with a laugh. 

 * * * * *

In the late evening Meynell returned to the Rectory a wearied man, butwith hours of occupation and correspondence still before him. He had leftHester with Alice Puttenham, in a state which Meynell interpreted as atonce alarming and hopeful; alarming because it suggested that there mightbe an element of passion in what had seemed to be a mere escapadedictated by vanity and temper; and hopeful because of the emotion thegirl had once or twice betrayed, for the first time in the experienceof any one connected with her. When they entered Alice Puttenham'sdrawing-room, for instance--for Hester had stipulated she was not to betaken home--Alice had thrown her arms round her, and Hester had brokensuddenly into crying, a thing unheard of. Meynell of course had hastilydisappeared. 

Since then the parish had taken its toll. Visits to two or three sickpeople had been paid. The Rector had looked in at the schools, where achildren's evening was going on, and had told the story of Aladdin withriotous success; he had taken off his coat to help in putting updecorations for an entertainment in the little Wesleyan meeting-house ofcorrugated iron; the parish nurse had waylaid him with reports, and hehad dashed into the back parlour of a small embarrassed tradesman, inmortal fear of collapse and bankruptcy, with the offer of a loan, sternlyconditional upon facing the facts, and getting in an auditor. LadyFox-Wilton of course had been seen, and the clamour of her mostunattractive offspring allayed as much as possible. And now, emergingfrom this tangle of personal claims and small interests, in the silenceand freedom of the night hours, Meynell was free to give himself oncemore to the intellectual and spiritual passion of the Reform Movement. His table was piled with unopened letters; on his desk lay a half-writtenarticle, and two or three foreign books, the latest products of theModernist Movement abroad. His crowded be-littered room smiled upon him, as he shut its door upon the outer world. For within it, he lived moretruly, more vividly, than anywhere else; and all the more since itsthreadbare carpet had been trodden by Mary Elsmere. 

Yet as he settled himself by the fire with his pipe and his letters forhalf an hour's ease before going to his desk, his thoughts were stillfull of Hester. The incurable optimism, the ready faith where hisaffections were concerned, which were such strong notes of his character, was busy persuading him that all would be well. At last, between them, they had made an impression on the poor child; and as for Philip, heshould be dealt with this time with a proper disregard of either his ownor his servants' lying. Hester was now to spend some months with acharming and cultivated French family. Plenty of occupation, plenty ofamusement, plenty of appeal to her intelligence. Then, perhaps, travelfor a couple of years, with Aunt Alice--as much separation as possible, anyway, from the Northleigh family and house. Alice was not rich, but shecould manage as much as that, if he advised it, and he would advise it. Then with her twenty-first year, if Stephen or any other wooer were tothe fore, the crisis must be faced, and the child must know! and it wouldbe a cold-blooded lover that would weigh her story against her face. 

Comfort himself as he would, however, dream as he would, Meynell'sconscience was always sore for Hester. Had they done right?--or hideouslywrong? Had not all their devices been a mere trifling with nature--a mereattempt to "bind the courses of Orion, " with the inevitable result inHester's unhappy childhood and perverse youth?

The Rector as he pulled at his pipe could still feel the fluttering ofher slender hand in his. The recollection stirred in him again all theintolerable pity, the tragic horror of the past. Poor, poor little girl. But she should be happy yet, "with rings on her fingers, " and everythingproper!

Then from this fatherly and tender preoccupation he passed into a moreintimate and poignant dreaming. Mary!--in the moonlight, under theautumn trees, was the vision that held him; varied sometimes by the dreamof her in that very room, sitting ghostly in the chair beside him, herlovely eyes wandering over its confusion of books and papers. He thoughtof her exquisite neatness of dress and delicacy of movement, and smiledhappily to himself. "How she must have wanted to tidy up!" And he daredto think of a day when she would come and take possession of himaltogether--books, body and soul, and gently order his life.... 

"Why, you rascals!"--he said, jealously, to the dogs--"she fed you--Iknow she did--she patted and pampered you, eh, didn't she? She likesdogs--you may thank your lucky stars she does!"

But they only raised their eager heads, and turned their loving eyes uponhim, prepared to let loose pandemonium as soon as he showed signs ofmoving. 

"Well, you don't expect me to take you out for a walk at ten o'clock atnight, do you?--idiots!" he hurled at them reprovingly; and after anothermoment of bright-eyed interrogation, disappointment descended, and downwent their noses on their paws again. 

 * * * * *

His trust in the tender steadfastness of Mary's character made itselfpowerfully felt in these solitary moments. She knew that while thesestrenuous days were on he could allow himself no personal aims. But thegrowing knowledge that he was approved by a soul so pure and so devouthad both strung up all his powers and calmed the fevers of battle. Heloved his cause the more because it was ever more clear to him thatshe passionately loved it too. And sensitive and depressed as he oftenwas--the penalty of the optimist--her faith in him had doubled his faithin himself. 

There was a singular pleasure also in the link his love for her hadforged between himself and Elsmere--the dead leader of an earliergeneration. "Latitudinarianism is coming in upon us like a flood!"--criedthe _Church Times_, wringing its hands. In other words, thought Meynell, "a New Learning is at last penetrating the minds and consciences ofmen--in the Church, no less than out of it. " And Elsmere had been one ofits martyrs. Meynell thought with emotion of the emaciated form he hadlast seen in the thronged hall of the New Brotherhood. "_Our_ venture ispossible--because _you_ suffered, " he would say to himself, addressingnot so much Elsmere, as Elsmere's generation, remembering its struggles, its thwarted hopes, and starved lives. 

And Elsmere's wife?--that rigid, pathetic figure, who, before he knew herin the flesh, had been to him, through the reports of many friends, akind of legendary presence--the embodiment of the Old Faith. Meynell onlyknew that as far as he was concerned something had happened--somethingwhich he could not define. She was no longer his enemy; and he blessedher humbly in his heart. He thought also, with a curious thankfulness, ofher strong and immovable convictions. Each thinking mind, as it were, carries within it its own Pageant of the Universe, and lights the showwith its own passion. Not to quench the existing light in any humanbreast--but to kindle and quicken where no light is: to bring forever newlamp-bearers into the Lampadephoria of life, and marshal them there intheir places, on equal terms with the old, neither excluded, norexcluding: this, surely this was the ideal of Modernism. 

Elsmere's widow might never admit his own claim to equal rights withinthe Christian society. What matter! It seemed to him that in somemysterious way she had now recognized the spiritual necessity laid uponhim to fight for that claim; had admitted him, so to speak, to the rightsof a belligerent. And that had made all the difference. 

He did not know how it had happened. But he was strangely certain that ithad happened. 

But soon the short interval of rest and dream he had allowed himself wasover. He turned to his writing-table. 

What a medley of letters! Here was one from a clergyman in the Midlands:

"We introduced the new Liturgy last Sunday, and I cannot describe theemotion, the stirring of all the dead-bones it has brought about. Therehas been of course a secession; but the church at Patten End amplyprovides for the seceders, and among our own people one seems to realizeat last something of what the simplicity and sincerity of the firstChristian feeling must have been! No 'allowances' to make for scandalousmistranslations and misquotations--no foolish legends, or unedifyingtales of barbarous people--no cursing psalms--no old Semitic nonsenseabout God resting on the seventh day, delivered in the solemn sing-songwhich makes it not only nonsense but hypocrisy.... 

"I have held both a marriage and a funeral this week under the newservice-book. I think that all persons accustomed to think of what theyare saying felt the strangest delight and relief in the disappearance ofthe old marriage service. It was like the dropping of a weight to whichour shoulders had become so accustomed that we hardly realized it till itwas gone. Instead of pompous and futile absurdity--as in the existingexhortation, and homily--beautiful and fitting quotation from the unusedtreasures of the Bible. Instead of the brutal speech, the crudelyphysical outlook of an earlier day, the just reticence and noblerperceptions of our own, combined with perfectly plain and tenderstatement as to the founding of the home and the family. Instead ofbesmirching bits of primitive and ugly legend like the solemnintroduction of Adam's rib into the prayers, a few new prayers of greatbeauty--some day you must tell me who wrote them, for I suppose you know?(and, by the way, why should we not write as good prayers, to-day, as inany age of the Christian Church?). Instead of the old 'obey, ' for thewoman, which has had such a definitely debasing effect, as I believe, onthe position of women, especially in the working classes--a formula, onlyslightly altered, but the same for the man and the woman.... 

"In short, a seemly, and beautiful, and moving thing, instead of aceremony which in spite of its few fine, even majestic, elements, hadbecome an offence and a scandal. All the fine elements have been kept, and only the scandal amended. Why was it not done long ago?

"Then as to the burial service. The Corinthian chapter stripped of itsarguments which are dead, and confined to its cries of poetry and faithwhich are immortal, made a new and thrilling impression. I confess Ithought I should have broken my heart over the omission of 'I know thatmy Redeemer liveth'--and yet now that it is gone, there is a sense ofmoral exhilaration in having let it go! One knew all the time thatwhoever wrote the poem of Job neither said what he was made to say in thefamous passage, nor meant what he was supposed to mean. One was perfectlyaware, from one's Oxford days, as the choir chanted the great words, thatthey were a flagrant mistranslation of a corrupt and probablyinterpolated passage. And yet the glory of Handel's music, the glamourof association overcame one. But now that it is cut ruthlessly awayfrom those moments in life when man can least afford any make-believewith himself or his fellows--now that music alone declaims and fathersit--there is the strangest relief! One feels, as I have said, the joythat comes from something difficult and righteous _done_--in spite ofeverything!

"I could go on for hours telling you these very simple and obvious thingswhich must be so familiar to you. To me the amazement of this Movement isthat it has taken so long to come. We have groaned under the oppressionof what we have now thrown off, so long and so hopelessly; the Revisionthat the High Churchmen made such a bother about a few years ago came toso little; that now, to see this thing spreading like a great spring-tideover the face of England is marvellous indeed! And when one knows what itmeans--no mere liturgical change, no mere lopping off here and changingthere, but a transformation of the root ideas of Christianity; atransference of its whole proof and evidence from the outward to theinward field, and therewith the uprush of a certainty and joy unknown toour modern life; one can but bow one's head, as those that hearmysterious voices on the wind. 

"For so into the temple of man's spirit, age by age, comes the renewingMaster of man's life--and makes His tabernacle with man. 'Lift up yourheads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, And the Kingof Glory shall come in. '"

Meynell bowed his head upon his hands. The pulse of hope and passion inthe letter was almost overpowering. It came, he knew, from an elderlyman, broken by many troubles, and tormented by arthritis, yet a truesaint, and at times a great preacher. 

The next letter he opened came from a priest in the diocese of Aix.... 

"The effect of the various encyclicals and of the ill-advised attempt tomake both clergy and laity sign the Modernist decrees has had aprodigious effect all over France--precisely in the opposite sense tothat desired by Pius X. The spread of the Movement is really amazing. Fifteen years ago I remember hearing a French critic say--Edmond Scherer, I think, the successor of Sainte Beuve--'The Catholics have not a singleintellectual of any eminence--and it is a misfortune for _us_, theliberals. We have nothing to fight--we seem to be beating the air. '

"Scherer could not have said this to-day. There are Catholicseverywhere--in the University, the Ecole Normale, the front ranks ofliterature. But with few exceptions _they are all Modernist_; they havethrown overboard the whole _fatras_ of legend and tradition. Christianityhas become to them a symbolical and spiritual religion; not onlypersonally important and efficacious, but of enormous significance fromthe national point of view. But as you know, _we_ do not at presentaspire to outward or ceremonial changes. We are quite content to leaventhe meal from within; to uphold the absolute right and necessity of thetwo languages in Christianity--the popular and the scientific, themythological and the mystical. If the Pope could have his way, Catholicism would soon be at an end--except as a peasant-cult--in theLatin countries. But, thank God, he will not have his way. One hears of aModernist freemasonry among the Italian clergy--of a secret press--anenthusiasm, like that of the Carboneria in the forties. So the spirit ofthe Most High blows among the dead clods of the world--and, in a momentthe harvest is there!"

 * * * * *

Meynell let the paper drop. He began to write, and he wrote withoutstopping with great ease and inspiration for nearly two hours. Then asmidnight struck, he put down his pen, and gazed into the dying fire. Hefelt as Wordsworth's skater felt on Esthwaite, when, at a sudden pause, the mountains and cliffs seemed to whirl past him in a vast headlongprocession. So it was in Meynell's mind with thoughts and ideas. Gradually they calmed and slackened, till at last they passed into anabstraction and ecstasy of prayer. 

When he rose, the night had grown very cold. He hurriedly put his papersin order, before going to bed, and as he did so, he perceived twounopened letters which had been overlooked. 

One was from Hugh Flaxman, communicating the news of the loss of twovaluable gold coins from the collection exhibited at the party. "We areall in tribulation. I wonder whether you can remember seeing them whenyou were talking there with Norham? One was a gold stater of Velia with ahead of Athene. "... 

The other letter was addressed in Henry Barron's handwriting. Meynelllooked at it in some surprise as he opened it, for there had been nocommunication between him and the White House for a long time. 

"I should be glad if you could make it convenient to see me to-morrowmorning. I wish to speak with you on a personal matter of someimportance--of which I do not think you should remain in ignorance. Willit suit you if I come at eleven?"

Meynell stood motionless. But the mind reacted in a flash. He thought--

"_Now_ I shall know what she told him in those two hours!"

CHAPTER XV

"The Rector will be back, sir, direckly. I was to I tell you sopertickler. They had 'im out to a man in the Row, who's been drinkin'days, and was goin' on shockin'--his wife was afraid to stop in thehouse. But he won't be long, sir. "

And Anne, very stiff and on her dignity, relieved one of the twoarmchairs of its habitual burden of books, gave it a dusting with herapron, and offered it to the visitor. It was evident that she regardedhis presence with entire disfavour, but was prepared to treat him withprudence for the master's sake. Her devotion to Meynell had made hershrewd; she perfectly understood who were his enemies, and who hisfriends. 

Barron, with a sharp sense of annoyance that he should be kept waiting, merely because a drunken miner happened to be beating his wife, coldlyaccepted her civilities, and took up a copy of the _Times_ which waslying on the table. But when Anne had retired, he dropped the newspaper, and began with a rather ugly curiosity to examine the room. He walkedround the walls, looking at the books, raising his eyebrows at the rowsof paper-bound German volumes, and peering closely into the titles of theEnglish ones. Then his attention was caught by a wall-map, in which anumber of small flags attached to pins were sticking. It was an outlinemap of England, apparently sketched by Meynell himself, as the notes andletterings were in his handwriting. It was labelled "Branches of theReform League. " All over England the little flags bristled, thicker here, and thinner there, but making a goodly show on the whole. Barron's facelengthened as he pondered the map. 

Then he passed by the laden writing-table. On it lay an open copy of the_Modernist_, with a half-written "leader" of Meynell's between thesheets. Beside it was a copy of Thomas à Kempis, and Father Tyrrell'sposthumous book, in which a great soul, like a breaking wave, had foameditself away; a volume of Sanday, another of Harnack, into the open coverof which the Rector had apparently just pinned an extract from a Churchpaper. Barron involuntarily stooped to read it. It ran:

"This is no time for giving up the Athanasian Creed. The moment when thesewage of continental unbelief is pouring into England is not the momentfor banishing to a museum a screen that was erected to guard thesanctuary. "

Beneath it, in Meynell's writing:

"A gem, not to be lost! The muddle of the metaphor, the corruption of thestyle, everything is symbolic. In a preceding paragraph the writer makesan attack on Harnack, who is described as 'notorious for opposing' thedoctrines of the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection. That history has aright to its say on so-called historical events never seems to haveoccurred to this gentleman; still less that there is a mystical andsacred element in all truth, all the advancing knowledge of mankind, including historical knowledge, and that therefore his responsibility, his moral and spiritual risk even, in disbelieving Harnack, is probablyinfinitely greater than Harnack's in dealing historically with the BirthStories. The fact is the whole onus is now on the orthodox side. It isnot we that are on our defence; but they. "

Barron raised himself with a flushed cheek, and a stiffened mouth. Meynell's note had removed his last scruples. It was necessary to dealdrastically with a clergyman who could write such things. 

A step outside. The sleeping dogs on the doorstep sprang up and noisilygreeted their master. Meynell shut them out, to their great disgust, andcame hurriedly toward the study. 

Barron, as he saw him in the doorway, drew back with an exclamation. TheRector's dress and hair were dishevelled and awry, and his face--pale, drawn, and damp with perspiration--showed that he had just come through apersonal struggle. 

"Sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Barron. But that fellow, Pinches--you remember?--the new blacksmith--has been drinking for nearlya week, and went quite mad this morning. We just prevented him fromkilling his wife, but it was a tough business. I'll go and wash andchange my coat, if you will allow me. "

So he went away, and Barron had a few more minutes in which to meditateon the room and its owner. When at last Meynell came back, and settledhimself in the chair opposite to his visitor, with a quiet "Now I amquite at your service, " Barron found himself overtaken with a curious andunwelcome hesitation. The signs--a slightly strained look, a quickenedbreathing--that Meynell still bore upon him of a physical wrestle, combined perhaps with a moral victory, suddenly seemed, even in Barron'sown eyes, to dwarf what he had to say--to make a poor mean thing out ofhis story. And Meynell's shining eyes, divided between close attention tothe man before him and some recent and disturbing recollections in whichBarron had no share, reinforced the impression. 

But he recaptured himself quickly. After all, it was at once a charitableand a high-judicial part that he had come to play. He gathered hisdignity about him, resenting the momentary disturbance of it. 

"I am come to-day, Mr. Meynell, on a very unpleasant errand. "

The formal "Mr. " marked the complete breach in their once friendlyrelations. Meynell made a slight inclination. 

"Then I hope you will tell it me as quickly as may be. Does it concernyourself, or me? Maurice, I hope, is doing well?"

Barron winced. It seemed to him an offence on the Rector's part thatMeynell's tone should subtly though quite innocently remind him of dayswhen he had been thankful to accept a strong man's help in dealing withthe escapades of a vicious lad. 

"He is doing excellently, thank you--except that his health is not all Icould wish. My business to-day, " he continued, slowly--"concerns a woman, formerly of this village, whom I happened by a strange accident to seejust after her return to it--"

"You are speaking of Judith Sabin?" interrupted Meynell. 

"I am. You were of course aware that I had seen her?"

"Naturally--from the inquest. Well?"

The quiet, interrogative tone seemed to Barron an impertinence. With asuddenly heightened colour he struck straight--violently--for the heartof the thing. 

"She told me a lamentable story--and she was led to tell it me byseeing--and identifying--yourself--as you were standing with a lady inthe road outside the cottage. "

"Identifying me?" repeated Meynell, with a slight accent of astonishment. "That I think is hardly possible. For Judith Sabin had never seen me. "

"You were not perhaps aware of it--but she had seen you. "

Meynell shook his head. 

"She was mistaken--or you are. However, that doesn't matter. I gather youwish to consult me about something that Judith Sabin communicated toyou?"

"I do. But the story she told me turns very closely on her identificationof yourself; and therefore it does matter, " said Barron, with emphasis. 

A puzzled look passed again over Meynell's face. But he said nothing. Hisattitude, coldly expectant, demanded the story. 

Barron told it--once more. He repeated Judith Sabin's narrative in thestraightened, rearranged form he had now given to it, postponing, however, any further mention of Meynell's relation to it till a lastdramatic moment. 

He did not find his task so easy on this occasion. There was something inthe personality of the man sitting opposite to him which seemed to make anarrative that had passed muster elsewhere sound here a mere vulgarimpertinence, the wanton intrusion of a common man on things sacredly andjustly covered from sight. 

He laboured through it, however, while Meynell sat with bent head, looking at the floor, making no sign whatever. And at last the speakerarrived at the incident of the Grenoble visitor. 

"I naturally find this a very disagreeable task, " he said, pausing amoment. He got, however, no help from Meynell, who was dumb; and hepresently resumed--"Judith Sabin saw the gentleman who came distinctly. She felt perfectly certain in her own mind as to his relation to MissPuttenham and the child; and she was certain also, when she saw you andMiss Puttenham standing in the road, while I was with her that--"

Meynell looked up, slightly frowning, awaiting the conclusion of thesentence--

--"that she saw--the same man again!"

Barron's naturally ruddy colour had faded a little; his eyes blinked. Hedrew his coat forward over his knee, and put it back again nervously. 

Meynell's face was at first blank, or bewildered. Then a light ofunderstanding shot through it. He fell back in his chair with an oddsmile. 

"So _that_--is what you have in your mind?"

Barron coughed a little. He was angrily conscious of an anxiety andmisgiving he had not expected. He made all the greater effort to recoverwhat seemed to him the proper tone. 

"It is all most sad--most lamentable. But I had, you perceive, thepositive statement of a woman who should have known the facts first-hand, if any one did. Owing to her physical state, it was impossible tocross-examine her, and her sudden death made it impossible to refer herto you. I had to consider what I should do--"

"Why should you have done anything--" said Meynell dryly, raising hiseyes--"but forget as quickly as possible a story you had no means ofverifying, and which bore its absurdity on the face of it?"

Barron allowed himself a slight and melancholy smile. 

"I admit of course--at once--that I could not verify it. As to its _primafacie_ absurdity, I desire to say nothing offensive to you, but therehave been many curious circumstances connected with your relation tothe Fox-Wilton family which have given rise before now to gossip in thisneighbourhood. I could not but perceive that the story told me threwlight upon them. The remarkable language of Sir Ralph's will, theposition of Miss Hester in the Fox-Wilton family, your relation toher--and to--to Miss Puttenham. "

Meynell's composure became a matter of some difficulty, but he maintainedit. 

"What was there abnormal--or suspicious--in any of these circumstances?"he asked, his eyes fixed intently on his visitor. 

"I see no purpose to be gained by going into them on this occasion, " saidBarron, with all the dignity he could bring to bear. "For the unfortunatething is--the thing which obliged me whether I would or no--and you willsee from the dates that I have hesitated a long time--to bring JudithSabin's statement to your notice--is that she seems to have talked tosome one else in the neighbourhood before she died, besides myself. Herson declares that she saw no one. I have questioned him; of coursewithout revealing my object. But she must have done so. And whoever itwas has begun to write anonymous letters--repeating the story--in fulldetail--_with_ the identification--that I have just given you. "

"Anonymous letters?" repeated Meynell, raising himself sharply. "Towhom?"

"Dawes, the colliery manager, received the first. "

"To whom did he communicate it?"

"To myself--and by his wish, and in the spirit of entire friendliness toyou, I consulted your friend and supporter, Mr. Flaxman. "

Meynell raised his eyebrows. 

"Flaxman? You thought yourself justified?"

"It was surely better to take so difficult a matter to a friend of yours, rather than to an enemy. "

Meynell smiled--but not agreeably. 

"Any one else?"

"I have heard this morning on my way here that Miss Nairn has received acopy. "

"Miss Nairn? That means the village. "

"She is a gossipping woman, " said Barron. 

Meynell pondered. He got up and began to pace the room--coming presentlyto an abrupt pause in front of his visitor. 

"This story then is now all over the village--will soon be all over thediocese. Now--what was your object in yourself bringing it to me?"

"I thought it right to inform you--to give you warning--perhaps also tosuggest to you that a retreat from your present position--"

"I see--you thought it a means of bringing pressure to bear upon me?--youpropose, in short, that I should throw up the sponge, and resign myliving?"

"Unless, of course, you can vindicate yourself publicly. "

Barron to his annoyance could not keep his hand which held a glove fromshaking a little. The wrestle between their personalities was rapidlygrowing in intensity. 

"Unless I bring an action, you mean--against any one spreading the story?No--I shall not bring an action--I shall _not_ bring an action!" Meynellrepeated, with emphasis. 

"In that case--I suggest--it might be better to meet the wishes of yourBishop, and so avoid further publicity. "

"By resigning my living?"

"Precisely. The scandal would then drop of itself. For Miss Puttenham'ssake alone you must, I think, desire to stop its development. "

Meynell flushed hotly. He took another turn up the room--while Barron satsilent, looking straight before him. 

"I shall not take action"--Meynell resumed--"and I shall not dream ofretreating from my position here. Judith Sabin's story is untrue. She didnot see me at Grenoble and I am not the father of Hester Fox-Wilton. Asto anything else, I am not at liberty to discuss other people's affairs, and I shall not answer any questions whatever on the subject. "

The two men surveyed each other. 

"Your Bishop could surely demand your confidence, " said Barron coldly. 

"If he does, it will be for me to consider. "

A silence. Barron looked round for his stick. Meynell stood motionless, his hands in his baggy pockets, his eyes on Barron. Lightings of thoughtand will seemed to pass through his face. As Barron rose, he began tospeak. 

"I have no doubt you think yourself justified in taking the lineyou clearly do take in this matter. I can hardly imagine that youreally believe the story you say you got from Judith Sabin--which youtook to Flaxman--and have, I suppose, discussed with Dawes. I amconvinced--forgive me if I speak plainly--that you cannot and do notbelieve anything so preposterous--or at any rate you would not believe itin other circumstances. As it is, you take it up as a weapon. You think, no doubt, that everything is fair in controversy as in war. Of course thething has been done again and again. If you cannot defeat a man in fairfight, the next best thing is to blacken his character. We see thateverywhere--in politics--in the church--in private life. This story _may_serve you; I don't think it will ultimately, but it may serve you for atime. All I can say is, I would rather be the man to suffer from it thanthe man to gain from it!"

Barron took up his hat. "I cannot be surprised that you receive me inthis manner, " he said, with all the steadiness he could muster. "But asyou cannot deal with this very serious report in the ordinary way, eitherby process of law, or by frank explanation to your friends--"

"My 'friends'!" interjected Meynell. 

"--Let me urge you at least to explain matters to your diocesan. Youcannot distrust either the Bishop's discretion, or his good will. If hewere satisfied, we no doubt should be the same. "

Meynell shook his head. 

"Not if I know anything of the _odium theologicum!_ Besides, the MissNairns of this world pay small attention to bishops. By the way--I forgotto ask--you can tell me nothing on the subject of the writer of theanonymous letters?--you have not identified him?"

"Not in the least. We are all at sea. "

"You don't happen to have one about you?"

Barron hesitated and fumbled, and at last produced from his breast-pocketthe letter to Dawes, which he had again borrowed from its owner thatmorning. Meynell put it into a drawer of his writing-table withoutlooking at it. 

The two men moved toward the door. 

"As to any appeal to you on behalf of a delicate and helplesslady--" said Meynell, betraying emotion for the first time--"that Isuppose is useless. But when one remembers her deeds of kindness in thisvillage, her quiet and irreproachable life amongst us all these years, one would have thought that any one bearing the Christian name would havecome to me as the Rector of this village on one errand only--to consulthow best to protect her from the spread of a cruel and preposterousstory! You--I gather--propose to make use of it in the interests of yourown Church party. "

Barron straightened himself, resenting at once what seemed to him theintrusion of the pastoral note. 

"I am heartily sorry for her"--he said coldly. "Naturally it is the womenwho suffer in these things. But of course you are right--though you putthe matter from your own point of view--in assuming that I regard this asno ordinary scandal. I am not at liberty to treat it as such. The honourconcerned--is the honour of the Church. To show the intimate connectionof creed and life may be a painful--it is also an imperative duty!"

He threw back his head with a passion which, as Meynell clearlyrecognized, was not without its touch of dignity. 

Meynell stepped back. 

"We have talked enough, I think. You will of course take the course thatseems to you best, and I shall take mine. I bid you good day. "

 * * * * *

From the study window Meynell watched the disappearing figure of hisadversary. The day was wet, and the funereal garden outside was dank withrain. The half-dead trees had shed such leaves as they had been able toput forth, and behind them was a ragged sky of scudding cloud. 

In Meynell's soul there was a dull sense of catastrophe. In Barron'spresence he had borne himself as a wronged man should; but he knew verywell that a sinister thing had happened, and that for him, perhaps, to-morrow might never be as yesterday. 

What was passing in the village at that moment? His quick visualizingpower showed him the groups in the various bar parlours, discussing theScandal, dividing it up into succulent morsels, serving it up with everyvariety of personal comment, idle or malicious; amplyfying, exaggerating, completing. He saw the neat and plausible spinster from whose cruel handshe had rescued a little dumb, wild-eyed child, reduced by ill-treatmentto skin and bone--he saw her gloating over the anonymous letter, puttingtwo and two maliciously together, whispering here, denouncing there. Heseemed to be actually present in the most disreputable public-house ofthe village, a house he had all but succeeded in closing at the precedinglicensing sessions. How natural, human, inevitable, would be the coarse, venomous talk--the inferences--the gibes!

There would be good men and true of course, his personal friends in thevillage, the members of his Parish Council, who would suffer, and standfirm. The postponed meeting of the Council, for the acceptance of the newLiturgy, was to be held the day after his return from Paris. To them hewould speak--so far as he could; yes, to them he would speak! Then histhought spread to the diocese. Charges of this kind spread withextraordinary rapidity. Whoever was writing the anonymous letters hadprobably not confined himself to two or three. Meynell prepared himselffor the discovery of the much wider diffusion. 

He moved back to his writing-table, and took the letter from the drawer. Its ingenuity, its knowledge of local circumstance, astonished him as heread. He had expected something of a vulgarer and rougher type. Thehandwriting was clearly disguised, and there was a certain amount ofintermittent bad spelling, which might very easily be a disguise also. But whoever wrote it was acquainted with the Fox-Wilton family, withtheir habits and his own, as well as with the terms of Sir Ralph's will, so far as--mainly he believed through the careless talk of the elderFox-Wilton girls--it had become a source of gossip in the village. Thewriter of it could not be far away. Was it a man or a woman? Meynellexamined the handwriting carefully. He had a vague impression that he hadseen something like it before, but could not remember where or in whatconnection. 

He put it back in his drawer, and as he did so his eyes fell upon hishalf-written article for the _Modernist _and on the piles ofcorrespondence beside it. A sense of bitter helplessness overcame him, apang not for himself so much as for his cause. He realized the inevitableeffect of the story in the diocese, weighted, as it would be, with allthe colourable and suspicious circumstances that could undoubtedly beadduced in support of it; its effect also beyond the diocese, throughthe Movement of which he was the life and guiding spirit; throughEngland--where his name was rapidly becoming a battle-cry. 

And what could he do to meet it? Almost nothing! The story indeed as awhole could be sharply and categorically denied, because it involved afundamental falsehood. He was not the father of Hester Fox-Wilton. 

But simple denial was all that was open to him. He could neither explain, nor could he challenge inquiry. His mouth was shut. He had made no formalvow of secrecy to any one. He was free to confide in whom he would. Butall that was tender, pitiful, chivalrous in his soul stood up andpromised for him, as he stood looking out into the October rain, that forno personal--yes!--and for no public advantage--would he trifle with whathe had regarded for eighteen years as a trust, laid upon him by the dyingwords of a man he had loved, and enforced more and more sharply with timeby the constant appeal of a woman's life--its dumb pain, the paradox ofits frail strength, its shrinking courage. That life had depended uponhim during the worst crisis of its fate as its spiritual guide. He hadtoward Alice Puttenham the feeling of the "director, " as the saints haveunderstood it; and toward her story something of the responsibility of apriest toward a confession. To reveal it in his own interest was simplyimpossible. If the Movement rejected him--it must reject him. 

"Not so will I fight for thee, my God!--not so!" he said to himself ingreat anguish of mind. 

It was true indeed that at some future time Alice Puttenham's poor secretmust be told--to a specified person, with her consent, and by the expressdirection of that honest, blundering man, her brother-in-law, whose life, sorely against his will, had been burdened with it. But theindiscriminate admission of the truth, after the lapse of years, would, he believed, simply bring back the old despair, and paralyze what hadalways been a frail vitality. And as to Hester, the sudden divulgence ofit might easily upset the unstable balance in her of mind and nerve anddrive her at once into some madness. He _must_ protect them, if he could. 

Could he? He pondered it. 

At any moment one of these letters might reach Alice. What if this hadalready happened? Supposing it had, he might not be able to prevent herfrom doing what would place the part played toward her by himself in itstrue light. She would probably insist upon his taking legal action, andallowing her to make her statement in court. 

The thought of this was so odious to him that he promptly put it fromhim. He should assume that she knew nothing; though as a practical man hewas well aware that she could not long remain ignorant; certainly not ifshe continued to live in Upcote. Then, it was a question probably of daysor hours. Her presence in the cottage, when once the village was in fullpossession of the slander, would be a perpetual provocation. One way oranother the truth must penetrate to her. 

An idea occurred to him. Paris! So far he had insisted on going himselfwith Hester to Paris because of his haunting feeling of responsibilitytoward the girl, and his resolve to see with his own eyes the householdin which he was placing her. But suppose he made excuses? The burden ofwork upon him was excuse enough for any man. Suppose he sent Alice in hisstead, and so contrived as to keep her in or near Paris for a while? ThenEdith Fox-Wilton would of course have the forwarding of her sister'scorrespondence, and might, it seemed to him, take the responsibility ofintercepting whatever might inform or alarm her. 

Not much prospect of doing so indefinitely!--that he plainly saw. But togain time was an immense thing; to prevent her from taking at onceQuixotic steps. He knew that in health she had never been the same sincethe episode of Judith's return and death. She seemed suddenly to havefaded and drooped, as though poisoned by some constant terror. 

He stood lost in thought a little longer by his writing-table. Then hishand felt slowly for a parcel in brown paper that lay there. 

He drew it toward him and undid the wrappings. Inside it was a littlevolume of recent poems of which he had spoken to Mary Elsmere on theirmoonlit walk through the park. He had promised to lend her his copy, andhe meant to have left it at the cottage that afternoon. Now helingeringly removed the brown paper, and walking to the bookcase, hereplaced the volume. 

He sat down to write to Alice Puttenham, and to scribble a note to LadyFox-Wilton asking her to see him as soon as possible. Then Anne forcedsome luncheon on him, and he had barely finished it when a step outsidemade itself heard. He looked up and saw Hugh Flaxman. 

"Come in!" said the Rector, opening the front door himself. "You are verywelcome. "

Flaxman grasped--and pressed--the proffered hand, looking at Meynell thewhile with hesitating interrogation. He guessed from the Rector's facethat the errand on which he came had been anticipated. 

Meynell led him into the study and shut the door. 

"I have just had Barron here, " he said, turning abruptly, after he hadpushed a chair toward his guest. "He told me he had shown one of theseprecious documents to you. " He held up the anonymous letter. 

Flaxman took it, glanced it over in silence and returned it. 

"I can only forgive him for doing it when I reflect that I maythereby--perhaps--be enabled to be of some little use to you. Barronknows what I think of him, and of the business. "

"Oh! for him it is a weapon--like any other. Though to do him justicehe might not have used it, but for the other mysterious person in thecase--the writer of these letters. You know--" he straightened himselfvehemently--"that I can say nothing--except that the story is untrue?"

"And of course I shall ask you nothing. I have spent twenty-four hours inarguing with myself as to whether I should come to you at all. Finally Idecided you might blame me if I did not. You may not be aware of theletter to my sister-in-law?"

Meynell's start was evident. 

"To Mrs. Elsmere?"

"She brought it to us on Friday, before the party. It was, I think, identical with this letter"--he pointed to the Dawes envelope--"exceptfor a few references to the part Mrs. Elsmere had played in helping thefamilies of those poor fellows who were killed in the cage-accident. "

"And Miss Elsmere?" said Meynell in a tone that wavered in spite ofhimself. He sat with his head bent and his eyes on the floor. 

"Knows, of course, nothing whatever about it, " said Flaxman hastily. "Nowwill you give us your orders? A strong denial of the truth of the story, and a refusal to discuss it at all--with any one--that I think is whatyou wish?"

Meynell assented. 

"In the village, I shall deal with it at the Reform meeting on Thursdaynight. " Then he rose. "Are you going to Forkéd Pond?"

"I was on my way there. "

"I will go with you. If Mrs. Elsmere is free, I should like to have someconversation with her. "

They started together through a dripping world on which the skies had butjust ceased to rain. On his way through the park Meynell took off his hatand walked bareheaded through the mist, evidently feeling it a physicalrelief to let the chill, moist air beat freely on brow and temples. Flaxman could not help watching him occasionally--the forehead with itsdeep vertical furrow, the rugged face, stamped and lined everywhere bytravail of mind and body, and the nobility of the large grizzled head. Inthe voluminous cloak--of an antiquity against which Anne protested invain--which was his favourite garb on wet days, he might have been afriar of the early time, bound on a preaching tour. The spiritual, evangelic note in the personality became--so Flaxman thought--ever moreconspicuous. And yet he walked to-day in very evident trouble, without, however, allowing to this trouble any spoken expression whatever. 

As they neared the Forkéd Pond enclosure, Meynell suddenly paused. 

"I had forgotten--I must go first to Sandford--where indeed I amexpected. "

"Sandford? I trust there is no fresh anxiety?"

"There _is_ anxiety, " said Meynell briefly. 

Flaxman expressed an unfeigned sympathy. 

"What is Miss Hester doing to-day?"

"Packing, I hope. She goes to-morrow. "

"And you--are going to interview this fellow?" asked Flaxman reluctantly. 

"I have done it already--and must now do it again. This time I am goingto threaten. "

"With anything to go upon?"

"Yes. I hope at last to be able to get some grip on him; though no doubtmy chances are not improved since yesterday, " said Meynell, with a grimshadow of a smile, "supposing that anybody from Upcote has beengossipping at Sandford. It does not exactly add to one's moral influenceto be regarded as a Pharisaical humbug. "

"I wish I could take the business off your shoulders!" said Flaxman, heartily. 

Meynell gave him a slight, grateful look. They walked on briskly to thehigh road, Flaxman accompanying his friend so far. There they parted, andHugh returned slowly to the cottage by the water, Meynell promising tojoin him there within an hour. 

BOOK III

CATHARINE

"Such was my mother's way, learnt from Thee in the school of the heart, where Thou art Master. "

CHAPTER XVI

In the little drawing-room at Forkéd Pond Catharine and Mary Elsmere weresitting at work. Mary was embroidering a curtain in a flowing Venetianpattern--with a handful of withered leaves lying beside her to which sheoccasionally matched her silks. Catharine was knitting. Outside the rainwas howling through the trees; the windows streamed with it. But within, the bright wood-fire threw a pleasant glow over the simple room, and thefigures of the two ladies. Mary's trim jacket and skirt of prune-colouredserge, with its white blouse fitting daintily to throat and wrist, seemedby its neatness to emphasize the rebellious masses and the fare colour ofher hair. She knew that her hair was beautiful, and it gave her apleasure she could not help, though she belonged to that type ofEnglishwoman, not yet nearly so uncommon as modern newspapers and bookswould have us believe, who think as little as they can of personaladornment and their own appearance, in the interests of some hidden idealthat "haunts them like a passion; of which even the most innocent vanityseems to make them unworthy. "

In these feelings and instincts she was, of course, her mother'sdaughter. Catharine Elsmere's black dress of some plain woollen stuffcould not have been plainer, and she wore the straight collar and cuffs, and--on her nearly white hair--the simple cap of her widowhood. But thespiritual beauty which had always been hers was hers still. One mightguess that she, too, knew it; that in her efforts to save persons in sinor suffering she must have known what it was worth to her; what the giftof lovely line and presence is worth to any human being. But if she hadbeen made to feel this--passingly, involuntarily--she had certainlyshrunk from feeling it. 

Mary put her embroidery away, made up the fire, and sat down on a stoolat her mother's feet. 

"Darling, how many socks have you knitted since we came here? Enough tostock a shop?"

"On the contrary. I have been very idle, " laughed Catharine, putting herknitting away. "How long is it? Four months?" she sighed. 

"It _has_ done you good?--yes, it has!" Mary looked at her closely. 

"Then why don't you let me go back to my work?--tyrant!" said Catharine, stroking the red-gold hair. 

"Because the doctor said 'March'--and you sha'n't be allowed to put yourfeet in London a day earlier, " said Mary, laying her head on Catharine'sknee. "You needn't grumble. Next week you'll have your fells and yourbecks--as much Westmoreland as ever you want. Only ten days more here, "and this time it was Mary who sighed, deeply, unconsciously. 

The face above her changed--unseen by Mary. 

"You've liked being here?"

"Yes--very much. "

"It's a dear little house, and the woods are beautiful. "

"Yes. And--I've made a new friend. "

"You like Miss Puttenham so much?"

"More than anybody I have seen for years, " said Mary, raising herself andspeaking with energy; "but, oh dear, I wish I could do something forher!"

Catharine moved uneasily. 

"Do what?"

"Comfort her--help her--make her tell me what's the matter. "

"You think she's unhappy?"

Mary propped her chin on her hand, and looked into the fire. 

"I wonder whether she's ever had any real joy--a week's--aday's--happiness--in her life?"

[Illustration: "'I wonder whether she's ever had any real joy--aweek's--a day's--happiness--in her life?'"]

She said it musingly but intensely. Catharine did not know how to answerher. All the day long, and a good deal of the night, she had beendebating with herself what to do--toward Mary. Mary was no longer achild. She was a woman, of nearly six and twenty, strong in character, and accustomed of late to go with her mother into many of the dark placesof London life. The betrayal--which could not be hidden from her--of ayoung servant girl in their employ, the year before, and the fiercetenderness with which Mary had thrown herself into the saving of the girland her child, had brought about--Catharine knew it--a great deepeningand overshadowing of her youth. Catharine had in some ways regretted itbitterly; for she belonged to that older generation which believed--andwere amply justified in believing--that it is well for the young to beignorant, so long as they can be ignorant, of the ugly and tragic thingsof sex. It was not that her Mary seemed to her in the smallest degreebesmirched by the experience she had passed through; that any bloom hadbeen shaken from the flower. Far from it. It was rather that some touchof careless joy was gone forever from her child's life; and how thatmay hurt a mother, only those know who have wept in secret hours over thefirst ebbing of youth in a young face. 

So that she received Mary's outburst in silence. For she said to herselfthat she could have no right to reveal Alice Puttenham's secret, even toMary. That cruel tongues should at that moment be making free with itburnt like a constant smart in Catharine's mind. Was the poor thingherself aware of it?--could it be kept from her? If not, Mary mustknow--would know--sooner or later. "But for me to tell her withoutpermission"--thought Catharine firmly--"would not be right--or just. Besides, I know nothing--directly. "

As to the other and profounder difficulty involved, Catharine waveredperpetually between two different poles of feeling. The incidents of thepreceding weeks had made it plain that her resistance to Meynell'sinfluence with Mary had strangely and suddenly broken down. Owing to anexperience of which she had not yet spoken to Mary, her inner will hadgiven way. She saw with painful clearness what was coming; she was blindto none of the signs of advancing love; and she felt herself powerless. An intimation had been given her--so it seemed to her--to which shesubmitted. Her submission had cost her tears often, at night, whenthere was no one to see. And yet it had brought her also a strangehappiness--like all such yieldings of soul. 

But if she had yielded, if there was in her a reluctant practicalcertainty that Mary would some day be Meynell's wife, then herconscience, which was that of a woman who had passionately loved herhusband, began to ask: "Ought she not to be standing by him in thistrouble? If we keep it all from her, and he suffers and perhaps breaksdown, when she might have sustained him, will she not reproach us? ShouldI not have bitterly reproached any one who had kept me from helpingRobert in such a case?"

A state of mind, it will be seen, into which there entered not a trace ofordinary calculations. It did not occur to her that Mary might be injuredin the world's eyes by publicly linking herself with a man under a cloud. Catharine, whose temptation to "scruple" in the religious sense wasconstant and tormenting, who recoiled in horror from what to others werethe merest venial offences, in this connection asked one thing only. Where Barron had argued that an unbeliever must necessarily have a carnalmind, Catharine had simply assured herself at once by an unfailinginstinct that the mind was noble and the temper pure. In those mattersshe was not to be deceived; she knew. 

That being so, and if her own passionate objections to the marriage wereto be put aside, then she could only judge for Mary as she would judgefor herself. _Not_ to love--_not_ to comfort--could there be--forLove--any greater wound, any greater privation? She shrank, in a kind ofterror, from inflicting it on Mary--Mary, unconscious and unknowing. 

... The soft chatter of the fire, the plashing of the rain, filled theroom with the atmosphere of reverie. Catharine's thoughts passed from herobligations toward Mary to grapple anxiously with those she might beunder toward Meynell himself. The mere possession of the anonymousletter--and Flaxman had not given her leave to destroy it--weighed uponher conscience. It seemed to her she ought not to possess it; and she hadbeen only half convinced by Flaxman's arguments for delay. She wasrapidly coming to the belief that it should have been handed instantly tothe Rector. 

A step outside. 

"Uncle Hugh!" said Mary, springing up. "I'll go and see if there are anyscones for tea!" And she vanished into the kitchen, while Catharineadmitted her brother-in-law. 

"Meynell is to join me here in an hour or so, " he said, as he followedher into the little sitting-room. Catharine closed the door, and lookedat him anxiously. He lowered his voice. 

"Barron called on him this morning--had only just gone when I arrived. Meynell has seen the letter to Dawes. I informed him of the letter toyou, and I think he would like to have some talk with you. "

Catharine's face showed her relief. 

"Oh, I am glad--I am _glad_ he knows!"--she said, with emphasis. "We werewrong to delay. "

"He told me nothing--and I asked nothing. But, of course, what thesituation implies is unfortunately clear enough!--no need to talk of it. He won't and he can't vindicate himself, except by a simple denial. Atany ordinary time that would be enough. But now--with all the hot feelingthere is on the other subject--and the natural desire to discredithim--" Flaxman shrugged his shoulders despondently. "Rose's maid--youknow the dear old thing she is--came to her last night, in utter distressabout the talk in the village. There was a journalist here, a reporterfrom one of the papers that have been opposing Meynell most actively--"

"They are quite right to oppose him, " interrupted Catharine quickly. Herface had stiffened. 

"Perfectly! But you see the temptation?"

Catharine admitted it. She stood by the window looking out into the rain. And as she did so she became aware of a figure--the slight figure of awoman--walking fast toward the cottage along the narrow grass causewaythat ran between the two ponds. On either side of the woman the autumntrees swayed and bent under the rising storm, and every now and then amist of scudding leaves almost effaced her. She seemed to be breathlesslystruggling with the wind as she sped onward, and in her whole aspectthere was an indescribable forlornness and terror. 

Catharine peered into the rain.... 

"Hugh!"--She turned swiftly to her brother-in-law--"There is some onecoming to see me. Will you go?"--she pointed to the garden door on thefarther side of the drawing-room--"and will you take Mary? Go round tothe back. You know the old summer-house at the end of the wood-walk. Wehave often sheltered there from rain. Or there's the keeper's cottage alittle farther on. I know Mary wanted to go there this afternoon. Please, dear Hugh!"

He looked at her in astonishment. Then through the large French window hetoo saw the advancing form. In an instant he had disappeared by thegarden door. Catharine went into the hall, opened the door of the kitchenand beckoned to Mary, who was standing there with their little maid. "Don't come back just yet, darling!" she said in her ear--"Get yourthings on, and go with Uncle Hugh. I want to be alone. "

Mary stepped back bewildered, and Catharine shut her in. Then she wentback to the hall, just as a bell rang faintly. 

"Is Mrs. Elsmere--"

Then as the visitor saw Catharine herself standing in the open doorway, she said with broken breath: "Can I come in--can I see you?"

Catharine drew her in. 

 * * * * *

"Dear Miss Puttenham!--how tired you are--and how wet! Let me take thecloak off. "

And as she drew off the soaked waterproof, Catharine felt the tremblingof the slight frame beneath. 

"Come and sit by the fire, " she said tenderly. 

Alice sank into the chair that was offered her, her eyes fixed onCatharine. Every feature in the delicate oval face was pinched and drawn. The struggle with wild weather had drained the lips and the cheeks ofcolour, and her brown hair under her serge cap fell limply about hersmall ears and neck. She was an image not so much of grief as of someunendurable distress. 

Catharine began to chafe her hands--but Alice stopped her--

"I am not cold--oh no, I'm not cold. Dear Mrs. Elsmere! You must think itso strange of me to come to you in this way. But I am in trouble--suchgreat trouble--and I don't know what to do. Then I thought I'd come toyou. You--you always seem to me so kind--you won't despise--or repulseme--I know you won't!"

Her voice sank to a whisper. Catharine took the two icy hands in her warmgrasp. 

"Tell me if there is anything I can do to help you. "

"I--I want to tell you. You may be angry--because I've been Mary'sfriend--when I'd no right. I'm not what you think. I--I have asecret--or--I had. And now it's discovered--and I don't know what I shalldo--it's so awful--so awful!"

Her head dropped on the chair behind her--and her eyes closed. Catharine, kneeling beside her, bent forward and kissed her. 

"Won't you tell me?" she said, gently. 

Alice was silent a moment. Then she suddenly opened her eyes--and spokein a whisper. 

"I--I was never married. But Hester Fox-Wilton's--my child!"

The tears came streaming from her eyes. They stood in Catharine's. 

"You poor thing!" said Catharine brokenly, and raising one of the coldhands, she pressed it to her lips. 

But Alice suddenly raised herself. 

"You knew!"--she said--"You knew!" And her eyes, full of fear, staredinto Catharine's. Then as Catharine did not speak immediately she went onwith growing agitation, "You've heard--what everybody's saying? Oh! Idon't know how I can face it. I often thought it would come--some time. And ever since that woman--since Judith--came home--it's been anightmare. For I felt certain she'd come home because she was angry withus--and that she'd said something--before she died. Then nothinghappened--and I've tried to think--lately--it was all right. But lastnight--"

She paused for self-control. Catharine was alarmed by her state--by itsanguish, its excitement. It required an effort of her whole being beforethe sufferer could recover voice and breath, before she hurried on, holding Catharine's hands, and looking piteously into her face. 

"Last night a woman came to see me--an old servant of mine who's nursedme sometimes--when I've been ill. She loves me--she's good to me. And shecame to tell me what people were saying in the village--how there wereletters going round, about me--and Hester--how everybody knew--and theywere talking in the public-houses. She thought I ought to know--shecried--and wanted me to deny it. And of course I denied it--I was fierceto her--but it's true!"

She paused a moment, her pale lips moving soundlessly, unconsciously. 

"I--I'll tell you about that presently. But the awful thing was--she saidpeople were saying--that the Rector--that Mr. Meynell--was Hester'sfather--and Judith Sabin had told Mr. Barron so before her death. Andthey declared the Bishop would make him resign--and give up his living. It would be such a scandal, she said--it might even break up the League. And it would ruin Mr. Meynell, so people thought. Of course there weremany people who were angry--who didn't believe a word--but this woman whotold me was astonished that so many _did_ believe.... So then I thoughtall night--what I should do. And this morning I went to Edith, my sister, and told her. And she went into hysterics, and said she always knew Ishould bring disgrace on them in the end--and her life had been a burdento her for eighteen years--oh! that's what she says to me so often!But the strange thing was she wanted to make me promise I would saynothing--not a word. We were to go abroad, and the thing would die away. And then--"

She withdrew her hands from Catharine, and rising to her feet shepressed the damp hair back from her face, and began to pace theroom--unconsciously--still talking. 

"I asked her what was to happen about Richard--about the Rector. I saidhe must bring an action, and I would give evidence--it must all come out. And then she fell upon me--and said I was an ungrateful wretch. My sinhad spoilt her life--and Ralph's. They had done all they could--and nowthe publicity--if I insisted--would disgrace them all--and ruin thegirls' chances of marrying, and I don't know what besides. But if I heldmy tongue--we could go away for a time--it would be forgotten, and nobodyout of Upcote need ever hear of it. People would never believe such athing of Richard Meynell. Of course he would deny it--and of course hisword would be taken. But to bring out the whole story in a law-court--"

She paused beside Catharine, wringing her hands, gathering up as it wereher whole strength to pour it--slowly, deliberately--into the words thatfollowed:

"But I--will run no risk of ruining Richard Meynell! As for me--what doesit matter what happens to me! And darling Hester!--we could keep it fromher--we would! She and I could live abroad. And I don't see how it coulddisgrace Edith and the girls--people would only say she and Ralph hadbeen very good to me. But Richard Meynell!--with these trials comingon--and all the excitement about him--there'll be ever so many who wouldbe wild to believe it! They won't care how absurd it is--they'll wantto _crush_ him! And he--he'll _never_ say a word for himself--toexplain--never! Because he couldn't without telling all my story. Andthat--do you suppose Richard Meynell would ever do _that_?--to any poorhuman soul that had trusted him?"

The colour had rushed back into her cheeks; she held herself erect, transfigured by the emotion that possessed her. Catharine looked at herin doubt--trouble--amazement. And then, her pure sense divinedsomething--dimly--of what the full history of this soul had been; and herheart melted. She put out her hands and drew the speaker down again intothe seat beside her. 

"I think you'll have to let him decide that for you. He's a strongman--and a wise man. He'll judge what's right. And I ought to warn youthat he'll be here probably--very soon. He wanted to see me. "

Alice opened her startled eyes. 

"About this? To see you? I don't understand. "

"I had one of these letters--these wicked letters, " said Catharinereluctantly. 

Alice shrank and trembled. "It's terrible!"--her voice was scarcely to beheard. "Who is it hates me so?--or Richard?"

There was silence a moment. And in the pause the stress and tumult ofnature without, the beating of the wind, and the plashing of the rain, seemed to be rushing headlong through the little room. But neitherCatharine nor Alice was aware of it, except in so far as it playedobscurely on Alice's tortured nerves, fevering and goading them the more. Catharine's gaze was bent on her companion; her mind was full of projectsof help, which were also prayers; moments in that ceaseless dialogue witha Greater than itself, which makes the life of the Christian. And it wasas though, by some secret influence, her prayers worked on Alice; forpresently she turned in order that she might look straight into the facebeside her. 

"I'd like to tell you"--she said faintly--"oh--I'd like to tell you!"

"Tell me anything you will. "

"It was when I was so young--just eighteen--like Hester. Oh! but youdon't know about Neville--no one does now. People seem all to haveforgotten him. But he came into his property here--the Abbey--the oldAbbey--just when I was growing up. I saw him here first--but only once ortwice. Then we met in Scotland. I was staying at a house near hisshooting. And we fell in love. Oh, I knew he was married!--I can neversay that I didn't know, even at the beginning. But his wife was so cruelto him--he was very, very unhappy. She couldn't understand him--or makeallowances for him--she despised him, and wouldn't live with him. He wasmiserable--and so was I. My father and mother were dead! I had to livewith Ralph and Edith; and they always made me feel that I was in theirway. It wasn't their fault!--I _was_ in the way. And then Neville came. He was so handsome, and so clever--so winning and dear--he could doeverything. I was staying with some old cousins in Rossshire, who used toask me now and then. There were no young people in the house. My cousinswere quite kind to me, but I spent a great deal of time alone--andNeville and I got into a way of meeting--in lonely places--on the moors. No one found out. He taught me everything I ever knew, almost. He gave mebooks--and read to me. He was sorry for me--and at last--he loved me! Andwe never looked ahead. Then--in one week--everything happened together. Ihad to go home. He talked of going to Sandford, and implored me still tomeet him. And I thought how Ralph and Edith would watch us, and spy uponus, and I implored him never to go to Sandford when I was at Upcote. Wemust meet at other places. And he agreed. Then the day came for me to gosouth. I travelled by myself--and he rode twenty miles to a junctionstation and joined me. Then we travelled all day together. "

Her voice failed her. She pressed her thin hands together under the onsetof memory, and that old conquered anguish which in spite of all the lifethat had been lived since still smouldered amid the roots of being. 

"I may tell you?" she said at last, with a piteous look. Catharine bentover her. 

"Anything that will help you. Only remember I don't ask or expect you tosay anything. "

"I ought"--said Alice miserably--"I ought--because of Mary. "

Catharine was silent. She only pressed the hand she held. Alice resumed:

"It was a day that decided all my life. We were so wretched. We thoughtwe could never meet again--it seemed as though we were both--with everystation we passed--coming nearer to something like death--something worsethan death. Then--before we got to Euston--I couldn't bear it--I--I gaveway. We sent a telegram from Euston to Edith that I was going to staywith a school friend in Cornwall--and that night we crossed to Paris--"

She covered her face with her hands a moment; then went on more calmly:

"You'll guess all the rest. I was a fortnight with him in Paris. Then Iwent home. In a few weeks Edith guessed--and so did Judith Sabin, who wasEdith's maid. Edith made me tell her everything. She and Ralph werenearly beside themselves. They were very strict in those days; Ralph wasa great Evangelical, and used to speak at the May meetings. All his partylooked up to him so--and consulted him. It was a fearful blow to him. ButEdith thought of what to do--and she made him agree. We went abroad, sheand I--with Judith. It was given out that Edith was delicate, and musthave a year away. We stopped about in little mountain places--and Hesterwas born at Grenoble. And then for the last and only time, they letNeville come to see me--"

Her voice sank. She could only go on in a whisper. 

"Three weeks later he was drowned on the Donegal coast. It was called anaccident--but it wasn't. He had hoped and hoped to get his wife todivorce him--and make amends. And when Mrs. Flood's--his wife's--finalletter came--she was a Catholic and nothing would induce her--he justtook his boat out in a storm, and never came back--"

The story lost itself in a long sobbing sigh that came from the depths oflife. When she spoke again it was with more strength:

"But he had written the night before to Richard--Richard Meynell. Youknow he was the Rector's uncle, though he was only seven years older? Ihad never seen Richard then. But I had often heard of him from Neville. Neville had taken a great fancy to him a year or two before, when Richardwas still at college, and Neville was in the Guards. They used to talk ofreligion and philosophy. Neville was a great reader always--and theybecame great friends. So on his last night he wrote to Richard, tellinghim everything, and asking him to be kind to me--and Hester. AndRichard--who had just been appointed to the living here--came out tothe Riviera, and brought me the letter--and the little book that was inhis pocket--when they found him. So you see ... "

She spoke with fluttering colour and voice, as though to find words atall were a matter of infinite difficulty:

"You see that was how Richard came to take an interest in us--in Hesterand me--how he came to be the friend too of Ralph and Edith. PoorRalph!--Ralph was often hard to me, but he meant kindly--he would neverhave got through at all but for Richard. If Richard was away for a week, he used to fret. That was eighteen years ago--and I too should never havehad any peace--any comfort in life again--but for Richard. He foundsomebody to live with me abroad for those first years, and then, when Icame back to Upcote, he made Ralph and Edith consent to my living in thatlittle house by myself--with my chaperon. He would have preferred--indeedhe urged it--that I should go on living abroad. But there wasHester!--and I knew by that time that none of them had the least bit oflove for her!--she was a burden to them all. I couldn't leave her tothem--I _couldn't!_... Oh! they were terrible, those years!" And againshe caught Catharine's hands and held them tight. "You see, I was soyoung--not much over twenty--and nobody suspected anything. Nobody in theworld knew anything--except Judith Sabin, who was in America, and _she_never knew who Hester's father was--and my own people--and Richard!Richard taught me how to bear it--oh! not in words--for he never preachedto me--but by his life. I couldn't have lived at all--but for him. Andnow you see--you see--how I am paying him back!"

And again, as the rush of emotion came upon her, she threw herself into awild pleading, as though the gray-haired woman beside her were thwartingand opposing her. 

"How can I let my story--my wretched story--ruin his life--and all hiswork? I can't--I can't! I came to you because you won't look at it asEdith does. You'll think of what's right--right to others. Last night Ithought one must die of--misery. I suppose people would call it shame. Itseemed to me I heard what they were all saying in the village--how theywere gloating over it--after all these years. It seemed to strip one ofall self-respect--all decency. And to-day I don't care about that! I careonly that Richard shouldn't suffer because of what he did for me--andbecause of me. Oh! do help me, do advise me! Your look--your manner--haveoften made me want to come and tell you"--her voice was broken now withstifled sobs--"like a child--a child. Dear Mrs. Elsmere!--what ought I todo?"

And she raised imploring eyes to the face beside her, so finely worn withliving and with human service. 

"You must think first of Hester, " said Catharine, with gentle steadiness, putting her arm round the bent shoulders. "I am sure the Rector wouldtell you that. She is your first--your sacredest duty. "

Alice Puttenham shivered as though something in Catharine's tender voicereproached her. 

"Oh, I know--my poor Hester! My life has set hers all wrong. Wouldn'tit have been better to face it all from the beginning--to tell thetruth--wouldn't it?" She asked it piteously. 

"It might have been. But the other way was chosen; and now to undoit--publicly--affects not you only, but Hester. It mayn't be possible--itmayn't be right. "

"I must!--I must!" said Alice impetuously, and rising to her feet shebegan to pace the room again with wild steps, her hands behind her, herslender form drawn tensely to its height. 

At that moment Catharine became aware of some one standing in the porchjust beyond the drawing-room of the tiny cottage. 

"This may be Mr. Meynell. " She rose to admit him. 

Alice stood expectant. Her outward agitation disappeared. Some murmuredconversation passed between the two persons in the little hall. ThenCatharine came in again, followed by Meynell, who closed the door, andstood looking sadly at the pale woman confronting him. 

"So they haven't spared even you?" he said at last, in a voice bitterlysubdued. "But don't be too unhappy. It wants courage and wisdom on ourpart. But it will all pass away. "

He quietly pushed a chair toward Alice, and then took off his drippingcloak, carried it into the passage outside, and returned. 

"Don't go, Mrs. Elsmere, " he said, as he perceived Catharine'suncertainty. "Stay and help us, if you will. "

Catharine submitted. She took her accustomed seat by the fire; Alice, orthe ghost of Alice, sat opposite to her, in Mary's chair, surrounded byMary's embroidery things; and Meynell was between them. 

He looked from one to the other, and there was something in his aspectwhich restrained Alice's agitation, and answered at once to some highexpectation in Catharine. 

"I know, Mrs. Elsmere, that you have received one of the anonymousletters that are being circulated in this neighbourhood, and I presumealso--from what I see--that Miss Puttenham has given you her confidence. We must think calmly what is best to do. Now--the first person who mustbe in all our minds--is Hester. "

He bent forward, looking into Alice's face, without visible emotion;rather with the air of peremptory common sense which had so often helpedher through the difficulties of her life. 

She sat drooping, her head on her hand, making no sign. 

"Let us remember these facts, " he resumed. "Hester is in a critical stateof life and mind. She imagines herself to be in love with my cousinPhilip Meryon, a worthless man, without an ounce of conscience wherewomen are concerned, who, in my strong belief, is already marriedunder the ambiguities of Scotch law, though his wife, if she is his wife, left him some years ago, detests him, and has never been acknowledged. Ihave convinced him at last--this morning--that I mean to bring this hometo him. But that does not dispose of the thing--finally. Hester is indanger--in danger from herself. She is at war with her family--with theworld. She believes nobody loves her--that she is and always has been apariah at home--and with her temperament she is in a mood for desperatethings. Tell her now that she is illegitimate--let your sister Edith gotalking to her about 'disgrace'--and there is no saying what will happen. She will say--and think--that she has no responsibilities, and may dowhat she pleases. There is no saying what she might do. We might have atragedy that none of us could prevent. "

Alice lifted her head. 

"I could go away with her, " she said, imploringly. "I could watch overher day and night. But let me put this thing straight now publicly. Indeed--indeed, it is time. "

"You mean you wish to bring an action? In that case you would have toreturn to give evidence. "

"Yes--for a short time. But that could be managed. She should never seethe English papers--I could promise that. "

"And what is to prevent Philip Meryon telling her? At present he isentirely ignorant of her parentage. I have convinced myself of that thismorning. He has no dealings with the people here, nor they with him. What has been happening here has not reached him. And he is really offto-night. We must, of course, always take the risk of his knowing, and ofhis telling her. A libel action would convert that risk into a certainty. Would it not simply forward whatever designs he may have on her--for I donot believe for a moment he will abandon them--it will be a duel, rather, between him and us--would it not actually forward his designs--to tellher?"

Alice did not reply. She sat wringing her delicate hands in a silentdesperation; while Catharine opposite was lost in the bewilderment of thesituation--the insistence of the woman, the refusal of the man. 

"My advice is this"--continued Meynell, still addressing Alice--"that youshould take her to Paris tomorrow in my stead, and should stay near herfor some months. Lady Fox-Wilton--whom I have just seen--she overtook medriving on the Markborough road half an hour ago, and we had someconversation--talks of taking a house at Tours for a year--an excellentthing--for them all. We don't want her on the spot any longer--we don'twant any of them!" said the Rector, dismissing the Fox-Wilton family withan emphatic gesture which probably represented what he had gone throughin the interview with Edith. ... "In that way the thing will soon diedown. There will be nobody here--nobody within reach--for the scoundrelwho is writing these letters to attack--except, of course, myself--andI shall know how to deal with it. He will probably tire of the amusement. Other people will be ashamed of having read the letters and believedthem. I even dare to hope that Mr. Barron--in time--may be ashamed. "

Alice looked at him in tremulous despair. 

"Nobody to attack!" she said--"nobody to attack! And you, Richard--_you_?"

A dry smile flickered on his face. 

"Leave that to me--I assure you you may leave it to me. "

"Richard!" said Alice imploringly--"just think. I know what you say isvery important--very true. But for me personally"--she looked round theroom with wandering eyes; then found a sudden passionate gesture, pressing back the hair from her brow with both hands--"for mepersonally--to tell the truth--to face the truth--would berelief--infinite relief! It would kill the fear in which I have lived allthese years--kill it forever. It would be better for all of us if we hadtold the truth--from the beginning. And as for Hester--she must know--yousay yourself she must know before long--when she is of age--when shemarries--"

Meynell's face took an unconscious hardness. 

"Forgive me!--the matter must be left to me. The only person who couldreasonably take legal action would be myself--and I shall not take it. Ibeg you, be advised by me. " He bent forward again. "My dear friend!"--andnow he spoke with emotion--"in your generous consideration for me you donot know what you are proposing--what an action in the courts would mean, especially at this moment. Think of the party spirit that would bebrought into it--the venom--the prejudice--the base insinuations. No!--believe me--that is out of the question--for your sake--andHester's. "

"And your work--your influence?"

"If they suffer--they must suffer. But do not imagine that I shall notdefend myself--and you--you above all--from calumny and lies. Of course Ishall--in my own way. "

There was silence--a dismal silence. At the end of it Meynell stretchedout his hand to Alice with a smile. She placed her own in it, slowly, with a look which filled Catharine's eyes once more with tears. 

"Trust me!" said Meynell, as he pressed the hand. "Indeed you may. " Thenhe turned to Catharine Elsmere--

"I think Mrs. Elsmere is with me--that she approves?"

"With one reservation. " The words came gravely, after a moment's doubt. 

His eyes asked her to be frank. 

"I think it would be possible--I think it would be just--if MissPuttenham were to empower you to go to your Bishop. He too has rights!"said Catharine, her clear skin reddening. 

Meynell paused: then spoke with hesitation. 

"Yes--that I possibly might do--if you permit me?" He turned again toAlice. 

"Go to him--go to him at once!" she said with a sob she could notrepress. 

Another silence. Then Meynell walked to the window and looked at theweather. 

"It is not raining so fast, " he said in his cheerful voice. "Oughtn't youto be going home--getting ready and arranging with Hester? It's an awfulbusiness going abroad. "

Alice rose silently. Catharine went into the kitchen to fetch thewaterproof which had been drying. 

Alice and Meynell were left alone. 

She looked up. 

"It is so hard to be hated!" she said passionately--"to see you hated. Itseems to burn one's heart--the coarse and horrible things that are beingsaid--"

He frowned and fidgeted--till the thought within forced its way:

"Christ was hated. Yet directly the least touch of it comes to us, werebel--we cry out against God. "

"It is because we are so weak--we are not Christ!" She covered her facewith her hands. 

"No--but we are his followers--if the Life that was in him is in us too. '_Life that in me has rest_--_as I_--_Undying Life_--_have power inThee_!'" He fell--murmuring--into lines that had evidently been in histhoughts, smiling upon her. 

Then Catharine returned. Alice was warmly wrapped up, and Catharine tookher to the door, leaving Meynell in the sitting-room. 

"We will come and help you this evening--Mary and I, " she said tenderly, as they stood together in the little passage. 

"Mary?" Alice looked at her in a trembling uncertainty. 

"Mary--of course. "

Alice thought a moment, and then said with a low intensity, a force towhich Catharine had no clue--"I want you--to tell her--the whole story. Will you?"

Catharine kissed her cheek in silence, and they parted. 

 * * * * *

Catharine went slowly back to the little sitting-room. Meynell wasstanding abstracted before the fire, his hands clasped in front of him, his head bent. Catharine approached him--drawing quick breath. 

"Mr. Meynell--what shall I do--what do you wish me to do or say--withregard to my daughter?"

He turned--pale with amazement. 

And so began what one may call--perhaps--the most romantic action of anoble life!

CHAPTER XVII

When Catharine returned to the little sitting-room, in which the darknessof a rainy October evening was already declaring itself, she came shakenby many emotions in which only one thing was clear--that the man beforeher was a good man in distress, and that her daughter loved him. 

If she had been of the true bigot stuff she would have seen in thethreatened scandal a means of freeing Mary from an undesirableattachment. But just as in her married life, her heart had not been ableto stand against her husband while her mind condemned him, so now. Whilein theory, and toward people with whom she never came in contact, she hadgrown even more bitter and intransigent since Robert's death than she hadbeen in her youth, she had all the time been living the daily life ofservice and compassion which--unknown to herself--had been the realsaving and determining force. Impulses of love, impulses of sacrificetoward the miserable, the vile, and the helpless--day by day she had feltthem, day by day she had obeyed them. And thus all the arteries, so tospeak, of the spiritual life had remained soft and pliant--that lifeitself in her was still young. It was there in truth that herChristianity lay; while she imagined it to lie in the assent to certainhistorical and dogmatic statements. And so strong was this inward andvital faith--so strengthened in fact by mere living--that when she wasfaced with this second crisis in her life, brought actually to closegrips with it, that faith, against all that might have been expected, carried her through the difficult place with even greater sureness thanat first. She suffered indeed. It seemed to her all through that she wasendangering Mary, and condoning a betrayal of her Lord. And yet she couldnot act upon this belief. She must needs act--with pain often, and yetwith mysterious moments of certainty and joy, on quite another faith, thefaith which has expressed itself in the perennial cry of Christianity:"Little children, love one another!" And therein lay the differencebetween her and Barron. 

It was therefore in this mixed--and yet single--mood that she came backto Meynell, and asked him--quietly--the strange question: "What shall Ido--what do you wish me to do or say--with regard to my daughter?"

Meynell could not for a moment believe that he had heard aright. Hestared at her in bewilderment, at first pale, and then in a sudden heatand vivacity of colour. 

"I--I hardly understand you, Mrs. Elsmere. "

They stood facing each other in silence. 

"Surely we need not inform her, " he said, at last, in a low voice. 

"Only that a wicked and untrue story has been circulated--that youcannot, for good reasons, involving other persons, prosecute thoseresponsible for it in the usual way. And if she comes across any signs ofit, or its effects, she is to trust your wisdom in dealing with it--andnot to be troubled--is not that what you would like me to say?"

"That is indeed what I should like you to say. " He raised his eyes to hergravely. 

"Or--will you say it yourself?"

He started. 

"Mrs. Elsmere!"--he spoke with quick emotion--"You are wonderfully goodto me. " He scanned her with an unsteady face--then made an agitated steptoward her. "It almost makes me think--you permit me--"

"No--no, " said Catharine, hurriedly, drawing back. "But if you would liketo speak to Mary--she will be here directly. "

"No!"--he said, after a moment, recovering his composure--"I couldn't!But--will you?"

"If you wish it. " Then she added, "She will of course never ask aquestion; it will be her business to know nothing of the matter--initself. But she will be able to show you her confidence, and to feel thatwe have treated her as a woman--not a child. "'

Meynell drew a deep breath. He took Catharine's hand and pressed it. Shefelt with a thrill--which was half bitterness--that it was already ason's look he turned upon her. 

"You--you have guessed me?" he said, almost inaudibly. 

"I see there is a great friendship between you. "

"_Friendship!_" Then he restrained himself sharply. "But I ought not tospeak of it--to intrude myself and my affairs on her notice at all atthis moment.... " He looked at his companion almost sternly. "Is it notclear that I ought not? I meant to have brought her a book to-day. I havenot brought it. I have been even glad--thankful--to think you were goingaway, although--" But again he checked the personal note. "The truth is Icould not endure that through me--through anything connected with me--shemight be driven upon facts and sorrows--ugly facts that would distressher, and sorrows for which she is too young. It seemed to me indeed Imight not be able to help it. But at the same time it was clear to me, to-day, that at such a time--feeling as I do--I ought not in the smallestdegree to presume upon her--and your--kindness to me. Above all"--hisvoice shook--"I could not come forward--I could not speak to her--as atanother time I might have spoken. I could not run the smallest risk--ofher name being coupled with mine--when my character was being seriouslycalled in question. It would not have been right for her; it would nothave been seemly for myself. So what was there--but silence? And yet Ifelt--that through this silence--we should somehow trust each other!"

He paused a moment, looking down upon his companion. Catharine wassitting by the fire near a small table on which her elbow rested, herface propped on her hand. There was something in the ascetic refinement, the grave sweetness of her aspect, that played upon him with a tonic andconsoling force. He remembered the frozen reception she had given him attheir first meeting; and the melting of her heart toward him seemed awonderful thing. And then came the delicious thought--"Would she so treathim, unless Mary--_Mary_!--"

But, at the same time, there was in him the mind of the practical man, which plainly and energetically disapproved her. And presently he tried, with much difficulty, to tell her so, to impress upon her--upon her, Mary's mother--that Mary must not be allowed to hold any communicationwith him, to show any kindness toward him, till this cloud had whollycleared away, and the sky was clear again. He became almost angry as heurged this; so excited, indeed, and incoherent that a charming smilestole into Catharine's gray eyes. 

"I understand quite what you feel, " she said as she rose, "and why youfeel it. But I am not bound to follow your advice--or to agree withyou--am I?"

"Yes, I think you are, " he said stoutly. 

Then a shadow fell over her face. 

"I suppose I am doing a strange thing"--her manner faltered alittle--"but it seems to me right--I have been _led_--else why wasit so plain?"

She raised her clear eyes, and he understood that she spoke of those"hints" and "voices" of the soul that play so large a part in the moremystical Christian experience. She hurried on:

"When two people--two people like you and Mary--feel such a deepinterest in each other--surely it is God's sign. " Then, suddenly, thetears shone. "Oh, Mr. Meynell!--trial brings us nearer to our Saviour. Perhaps--through it--you and Mary--will find Him!"

He saw that she was trembling from head to foot; and his own emotion wasgreat. 

He took her hand again, and held it in both his own. 

"Do you imagine, " he said huskily "that you and I are very far apart?"

And again the tenderness of his manner was a son's tenderness. 

She shook her head, but she could not speak. She gently withdrew herhand, and turned aside to gather up some letters on the table. 

A sound of footsteps could be heard outside. Catharine moved to thewindow. 

"It is Mary, " she said quietly. "Will you wait a little while I meether?" And without giving him time to reply, she left the room. 

He walked up and down, not without some humorous bewilderment in spite ofhis emotion. The saints, it seemed, are persons of determination! But, after a minute, he thought of nothing, realized nothing, save that Marywas in the little house again, and that one of those low voices he couldjust hear, as a murmur in the distance, through the thin walls of thecottage, was hers. 

The door opened softly, and she came in. Though she had taken off herhat, she still wore her blue cloak of Irish frieze, which fell round herslender figure in long folds. Her face was rosy with rain and wind; thesame wind and rain which had stamped such a gray fatigue on AlicePuttenham's cheeks. Amid the dusk, the fire-light touched her hair andher ungloved hand. She was a vision of youth and soft life; and hercomposure, her slight, shy smile, would alone have made her beautiful. 

Their hands met as she gently greeted him. But there was that in his lookwhich disturbed her gentleness--which deepened her colour. She hurried tospeak. 

"I am so glad that mother made you stay--just that I might tellyou. " Then her breath began to hasten. "Mother says you are--or maybe--unjustly attacked--that you don't think it right to defend yourselfpublicly--and those who follow you, and admire you, may be hurt andtroubled. I wanted to say--and mother approves--that whoever is hurt andtroubled, I can never be--except for you. Besides, I shall know and asknothing. You may be sure of that. And people will not dare to speak tome. "

She stood proudly erect. 

Meynell was silent for a moment. Then, by a sudden movement, he stoopedand kissed a fold of her cloak. She drew back with a little stifled cry, putting out her hands, which he caught. He kissed them both, droppedthem, and walked away from her. 

When he returned it was with another aspect. 

"Don't let's make too much of this trouble. It may all die away--or itmay be a hard fight. But whatever happens, you are going to Westmorelandimmediately. That is my great comfort. "

"Is it?" She laughed unsteadily. 

He too smiled. There was intoxication he could not resist--in herpresence--and in what it implied. 

"It is the best possible thing that could be done. Then--whateverhappens--I shall not be compromising my friends. For a while--there mustbe no communication between them and me. "

"Oh, yes!" she said, involuntarily clasping her hands. "Friends maywrite. "

"May they?" He thought it over, with a furrowed brow, then raised it, clear. "What shall they write about?"

An exquisite joyousness trembled in her look. 

"Leave it to them!"

Then, as she once more perceived the anxiety and despondency in him, the brightness clouded; pity possessed her: "Tell me what you arepreaching--and writing. "

"_If_ I preach--_if_ I write. And what will you tell me?"

"'How the water comes down at Lodore, '" she said gayly. "What themountains look like, and how many rainy days there are in a week. "

"Excellent! I perceive you mean to libel the country I love!"

"You can always come and see!" she said, with a shy courage. 

He shook his head. 

"No. My Westmoreland holiday is given up. "

"Because of the Movement?"

And sitting down by the fire, still with that same look of suppressed andtremulous joy, she began to question him about the meetings andengagements ahead. But he would not be drawn into any talk about them. Itwas no doubt quite possible--though not, he thought, probable--that hemight soon be ostracized from them all. But upon this he would not dwell, and though her understanding of the whole position was far too vagueto warn her from these questions, she soon perceived that he wasunwilling to answer them as usual. Silence indeed fell between them; butit was a silence of emotion. She had thrown off her cloak, and satlooking down, in the light of the fire; she knew that he observed her, and the colour on her cheek was due to something more than the flame ather feet. As they realized each other's nearness indeed, in the quiet ofthe dim room, it was with a magic sense of transformation. Outside theautumn storm was still beating--symbol of the moral storm whichthreatened them. Yet within were trust and passionate gratitude andtender hope, intertwined, all of them, with the sacred impulse of thewoman toward the man, and of the man toward the woman. Each moment as itpassed built up one of those watersheds of life from which henceforwardthe rivers flow broadening to undreamt-of seas. 

 * * * * *

When Catharine returned, Meynell was hat in hand for departure. There wasno more expression of feeling or reference to grave affairs. They stood afew moments chatting about ordinary things. Incidentally Hugh Flaxman'sloss of the two gold coins was mentioned. Meynell inquired when they werefirst missed. 

"That very evening, " said Mary. "Rose always puts them away herself. Shemissed the two little cases at once. One was a coin of Velia, with a headof Athene--"

"I remember it perfectly, " said Meynell. "It dropped on the floor when Iwas talking to Norham--and I picked it up--with another, if I rememberright--a Hermes!"

Mary replied that the Hermes too was missing--that both were exceedinglyrare; and that in the spring a buyer for the Louvre had offered Hugh fourhundred pounds for the two. 

"They feel most unhappy and uncomfortable about it. None of the servantsseems to have gone into that room during the party. Rose put all thecoins on the table herself. She remembers saying good-bye to Canon Franceand his sister in the drawing-room--and two or three others--andimmediately afterward she went into the green drawing-room to lock up thecoins. There were two missing. "

"She doesn't remember who had been in the room?"

"She vaguely remembers seeing two or three people go in and out--theBishop!--Canon Dornal!"

They both laughed. Then Meynell's face set sharply. A sudden recollectionshot through his mind. He beheld the figure of a sallow, dark-hairedyoung man slipping--alone--through the doorway of the green drawing-room. And this image in the mind touched and fired others, like a spark runningthrough dead leaves.... 

 * * * * *

When he had gone, Catharine turned to Mary, and Mary, running, wound herarms close round her mother, and lay her head on Catharine's breast. 

"You angel!--you darling!" she said, and raising her mother's hand shekissed it passionately. 

Catharine's eyes filled with tears, and her heart with mingled joy andrevolt. Then, quickly, she asked herself as she stood there in herchild's embrace whether she should speak of a certain event--certainexperience--which had, in truth, though Mary knew nothing of it, vitallyaffected both their lives. 

But she could not bring herself to speak of it. 

So that Mary never knew to what, in truth, she owed the painful breakingdown of an opposition and a hostility which might in time have poisonedall their relations to each other. 

But when Mary had gone away to change her damp clothes, the visionaryexperience of which Catharine could not tell came back upon her; andagain she felt the thrill--the touch of bodiless ecstasy. 

It had been in the early morning, when all such things befall. For thenthe mind is not yet recaptured by life and no longer held by sleep. Thereis in it a pure expectancy, open to strange influences: influences frommemory and the under-soul. It visualizes easily, and dream and fact areone. 

In this state Catharine woke on a September morning and felt beside her apresence that held her breathless. The half-remembered images andthoughts of sleep pursued her--became what we call "real. "

"Robert!" she said, aloud--very low. 

And without voice, it seemed to her that some one replied. A dialoguebegan into which she threw her soul. Of her body, she was not conscious;and yet the little room, its white ceiling, its open windows, and thedancing shadows of the autumn leaves were all present to her. She pouredout the sorrow, the anxiety--about Mary--that pressed so heavy on herheart, and the tender voice answered, now consoling, now rebuking. 

"And we forbade him, because he followed not us ... Forbid himnot--_forbid him not_!"--seemed to go echoing through the quiet air. 

The words sank deep into her sense--she heard herself sobbing--andthe unearthly presence came nearer--though still always remote, intangible--with the same baffling distance between itself and her.... 

The psychology of it was plain. It was the upthrust into consciousness ofthe mingled ideas and passions on which her life was founded, piercingthrough the intellectualism of her dogmatic belief. But though she wouldhave patiently accepted any scientific explanation, she believed in herheart that Robert had spoken to her, bidding her renounce her repugnanceto Mary's friendship with Meynell--to Mary's love for Meynell. 

She came down the morning after with a strange, dull sense of changeand disaster. But the currents of her mind and will had set firmly in afresh direction. It was almost mechanically--under a strong sense ofguidance--that she had made her hesitating proposal to Mary to go withher to the Upcote meeting. Mary's look of utter astonishment had sent newwaves of disturbance and compunction through the mother's mind. 

 * * * * *

But if these things could not be told--even to Mary--there were otherrevelations to make. 

When the lamp had been brought in, and the darkness outside shut out, Catharine laid her hand on Mary's, and told the story of Alice Puttenham. 

Mary heard it in silence, growing very pale. Then, with another embraceof her mother, she went away upstairs, only pausing at the door of thesitting-room to ask when they should start for the cottage. 

Upstairs Mary sat for long in the dark, thinking.... Through heruncurtained windows she watched the obscure dying away of the storm, thecalming of the trees, and the gradual clearing of the night sky. Betweenthe upfurling clouds the stars began to show; tumult passed into a greattranquillity; and a breath of frost began to steal through the woods, andover the water.... 

Catharine too passed an hour of reflection--and of yearning over theunhappy. Naturally, to Mary, her lips had been sealed on that deepestsecret of all, which she had divined for a moment in Alice. She hadclearly perceived what was or had been the weakness of the woman, together with the loyal unconsciousness and integrity of the man. Andhaving perceived it, not only pity but the strain in Catharine of plainsimplicity and common sense bade her bury and ignore it henceforward. It was what Alice's true mind must desire; and it was the only way tohelp her. She began however to understand what might be the full meaningof Alice's last injunction--and her eyes grew wet. 

 * * * * *

Mother and daughter started about eight o'clock for the cottage. They hada lantern with them, but they hardly needed it, for through thetranquillized air a new moon shone palely, and the frost made way. Catharine walked rejoicing apparently in renewed strength and recoveredpowers of exertion. Some mining, crippling influence seemed to have beenremoved from her since her dream. And yet, even at this time, she was notwithout premonitions--physical premonitions--as to the future--faintsignal-voices that the obscure life of the body can often communicate tothe spirit. 

They found the cottage all in light and movement. Servants were flyingabout; boxes were in the hall; Hester had come over to spend the night atthe cottage that she and "Aunt Alice" might start by an early train. 

Alice came out to meet her visitors in the little hall. Catharine slippedinto the drawing-room. Alice and Mary held each other enwrapped in one ofthose moments of life that have no outward expression but dimmed eyesand fluttering breath. 

"Is it all done? Can't I help?" said Mary at last, scarcely knowing whatshe said, as Alice released her. 

"No, dear, it's all done--except our books. Come up with me while I packthem. "

And they vanished upstairs, hand in hand. 

Meanwhile Hester in her most reckless mood was alternately flouting andcaressing Catharine Elsmere. She was not in the least afraid ofCatharine, and it was that perhaps which had originally drawn Catharine'sheart to her. Elsmere's widow was accustomed to feel herself avoided byyoung people who discussed a wild literature, and appeared to be withoutawe toward God, or reverence toward man. Yet all the time, through heroften bewildered reprobation of them, she hungered for their affection, and knew that she carried in herself treasures of love to give--though nodoubt, on terms. 

But Hester had always divined these treasures, and was, besides, as arule, far too arrogant and self-centred to restrain herself in anythingshe wished to say or do for fear of hurting or shocking her elders. 

At this moment she had declared herself tired out with packing, andwas lounging in an armchair in the little drawing-room. A Japanesedressing-gown of some pale pink stuff sprayed with almond blossom floatedabout her, disclosing a skimpy silk petticoat and a slender foot fromwhich she had kicked its shoe. Her pearly arms and neck were almost bare;her hair tumbled on her shoulders; her eyes shone with excitementprovoked by a dozen hidden and conflicting thoughts. In her beauty, herardent and provocative youth, she seemed to be bursting out of the littleroom, with its artistic restraint of colour and furnishing. 

"Don't please do any more fussing, " she said imploringly to Catharine. "It's all done--only Aunt Alice thinks it's never done. Do sit down andtalk. "

And she put out an impatient hand, and drew the stately Catharine towarda chair beside her. 

"You ought to be in bed, " said Catharine, retaining her hand. The girl'signorance of all that others knew affected her strangely--produced agreat softness and compunction. 

"I shouldn't sleep. I wonder when I shall get a decent amount of sleepagain!" said Hester, pressing back the hair from her cheeks. Then sheturned sharply on her visitor:

"Of course you know, Mrs. Elsmere, that I am simply being sent away--indisgrace. "

"I know"--Catharine smiled, though her tone was grave--"that those wholove you think there ought to be a change. "

"That's a nice way of putting it--a real gentlemanly way, " said Hester, swaying backward and forward, her hands round her knees. "But all thesame it's true. They're sending me away because they don't know whatI'll do next. They think I'll do something abominable. "

The girl's eyes sparkled. 

"Why will you give your guardians this anxiety?" asked Catharine, notwithout severity. "They are never at rest about you. My dear--they onlywish your good. "

Hester laughed. She threw out a careless hand and laid it on Catharine'sknee. 

"Isn't it odd, Mrs. Elsmere, that you don't know anything about me, though--you won't mind, will you?--though you're so kind to me, and I dolike you so. But you can't know anything, can you, about girls--likeme?"

And looking up from where she lay deep in the armchair, she turnedhalf-mocking eyes on her companion. 

"I don't know--perhaps--about girls like you, " said Catharine, smiling, and shyly touching the hand on her knee. "But I live half my life--withgirls. "

"Oh--poor girls? Girls in factories--girls that wear fringes, and shampearl beads, and six ostrich feathers in their hats on Sundays? No, Idon't think I'm like them. If I were they, I shouldn't care aboutfeathers or the sham pearls. I should be more likely to try and stealsome real ones! No, but I mean really girls like me--rich girls, thoughof course I'm not rich--but you understand? Do you know any girls whogamble and paint--their faces I mean--and let men lend them money, andpay for their dresses?"

Hester sat up defiantly, looking at her companion. 

"No, I don't know any of that kind, " said Catharine quietly. "I'mold-fashioned, you see--they wouldn't want to know me. "

Hester's mouth twitched. 

"Well, I'm not that kind exactly! I don't paint because--well, I supposeI needn't! And I don't play for money, because I've nobody to play with. As for letting men lend you money--"

"That you would never disgrace yourself by doing!" said Catharinesharply. 

Hester's look was enigmatic. 

"Well, I never did it. But I knew a girl in London--very pretty--and asmad as you like. She was an orphan and her relatives didn't care twopenceabout her. She got into debt, and a horrid old man offered to lend her acouple of hundred pounds if she'd give him a kiss. She said no, and thenshe told an older woman who was supposed to look after her. And what doyou suppose she said?"

Catharine was silent. 

"'Well, you _are_ a little fool!' That was all she got for her pains. Menare villains--_I_ think! But they're exciting!" And Hester clasped herhands behind her head, and looked at the ceiling, smiling to herself, while the dressing-gown sleeves fell back from her rounded arms. 

Catharine frowned. She suddenly rose, and kneeling down by Hester'schair, she took the girl in her arms. 

"Hester, dear!--if you want a friend--whenever you want a friend--come tome! If you are ever in trouble send for me. I would always come--always!"

She felt the flutter of the girl's heart as she enfolded her. Then Hesterlightly freed herself, though her voice shook--

"You're the kindest person, Mrs. Elsmere--you're awfully, awfully, kind. But I'm going to have a jolly good time in Paris. I shall read all kindsof things--I shall go to the theatre--I shall enjoy myself famously. "

"And you'll have Aunt Alice all to yourself. "

Hester was silent. The lovely corners of her mouth stiffened. 

"You must be very good to her, Hester, " said Catharine, with entreaty inher voice. "She's not well--and very tired. "

"Why doesn't she _trust_ me?" said Hester, almost between her teeth. 

"What do you mean?"

After a hesitating pause, the girl broke out with the story of theminiature. 

"How can I love her when she won't trust me?" she cried again, withstormy breath. 

Catharine's heart melted within her. 

"But you _must_ love her, Hester! Why, she has watched over you all yourlife. Can't you see--that she's had trouble--and she's not strong!"

And she looked down with emotion on the girl thus blindly marching to aveiled future, unable, by no fault of her own, to distinguish her loversfrom her foes. Had a lie, ever yet, in human history, justified itself?So this pure moralist!--to whom morals had come, silently, easily, irresistibly, as the sun slips into the sky. 

"Oh, I'll look after her, " said Hester shortly; "why, of course I will. I'm very glad she's going to Paris--it'll be good for her. And as foryou"--she bent forward like a queen, and lightly kissed Catharine on thecheek--"I daresay I'll remember what you've said--you're a great, greatdear! It was luck for Mary to have got you for a mother. But I'm allright--I'm all right!"

 * * * * *

When the Elsmeres were gone, Hester still sat on alone in thedrawing-room. The lamp had burnt dim, and the little room was cold. 

Presently she slipped her hand into the white bodice she wore. A letterlay there, and her fingers caressed it. "I don't know whether I love himor not--perhaps I do, and perhaps I don't. I don't know whether I believeUncle Richard--or this letter. But--I'm going to find out! I'm not goingto be stopped from finding out. "

And as she lay there, she was conscious of bonds she was half determinedto escape, half willing to bear; of a fluttering excitement and dread. Step by step, and with a childish bravado, she had come within theinfluences of sex; and her fate was upon her. 

CHAPTER XVIII

Meanwhile, amid this sensitive intermingling of the thoughts and feelingsof women, there arose the sudden tumult and scandal of the new elementswhich had thrust themselves into what was already known to the religiousworld throughout England as "the Meynell case. " During November andDecember that case came to include two wholly different things: theecclesiastical suit in the Court of Arches, which, owing to a series ofdelays and to the illness of the Dean of the Court, was not to be heardin all probability before February, and the personal charges broughtagainst the incumbent of Upcote Minor. 

These fresh charges were formally launched by Henry Barron, the chiefpromoter also, as we know, of the ecclesiastical suit, in a letterwritten by him to Bishop Craye, on the very night when Alice Puttenhamrevealed her secret to Catharine Elsmere. But before we trace the effectof the letter, let us look for a moment at the general position of theMovement when this second phase of Meynell's connection with it began. 

At that time the pending suits against the Modernist leaders--for therewere now five instituted by different bishops, as test cases, indifferent parts of England--were already the subject of the keenestexpectation and debate not only in church circles, but amid sections ofthe nation which generally trouble themselves very little about clericalor religious disputes. New births of time were felt to be involved in thelegal struggle; passionate hopes and equally passionate fears hung uponit. There were old men in quiet country parsonages who, when they readthe _Modernist_ and followed the accounts of the Movement, were inclinedto say to themselves with secret joy and humility that other men wereentering into their labours, and the fields were at last whitening toharvest; while others, like Newman of old, had "fierce thoughts towardthe Liberals, " talked and spoke of Meynell and the whole band ofModernist clergy as traitors with whom no parley could be kept, and wereready to break up the Church at twenty-four hours' notice rather than sitdown at the same table of the Lord with heretics and Socinians. 

Between these two groups of men, each equally confident and clear, thoughby no means equally talkative, there was a middle region that containedmany anxious minds and some of the wisest heads in England. If, at thetime of Norham's visit to Maudeley, Bishop Craye of Markborough, and manyother bishops with him, were still certain that the Movement would bepromptly and easily put down, so far at least as its organic effect onthe Church of England was concerned, yet, as November and December woreon, anxieties deepened, and confidence began to waver. The passion of theMovement was beginning to run through England, as it seemed to many, likethe flame of an explosion through a dusty mine. What amazed and terrifiedthe bishops was the revelation of pent-up energies, rebellions, ideals, not only among their own flocks, but in quarters, and among men andwomen, hitherto ruled out of religious affairs by general consent. Theypondered the crowds which had begun to throng the Modernist churches, theextraordinary growth of the Modernist press, and the figures reported dayby day as to the petition to be presented to Parliament in February. There was no orthodox person in authority who was not still determined onan unconditional victory; but it was admitted that the skies weredarkening. 

The effect of the Movement on the Dissenters--on that half of religiousEngland which stands outside the National Church, where "grace" takes theplace of authority, and bishops are held to be superfluities incompatiblewith the pure milk of the Word--was in many respects remarkable. Themajority of the Wesleyan Methodists had thrown themselves strongly onto the side of the orthodox party in the Church; but among theCongregationalists and Presbyterians there was visible a great ferment ofopinion and a great cleavage of sympathy; while, among the PrimitiveMethodists, a body founded on the straitest tenets of Bible worship, yetinterwoven, none the less, with the working class life of England andWales, and bringing day by day the majesty and power of religion to bearupon the acts and consciences of plain, poor, struggling men, there wasvisible a strong and definite current of acquiescence in Modernist ideas, which was inexplicable, till one came to know that among Meynell'sfriends at Upcote there were two or three Primitive local preachers whohad caught fire from him, were now active members of his Church Council, and ardent though persecuted missionaries to their own body. 

Meanwhile the Unitarians--small and gallant band!--were like personsstanding on tiptoe before an opening glory. In their isolated and oftenmistaken struggle they had felt themselves for generations stricken withchill and barrenness; their blood now began to feel the glow of newkinships, the passion of large horizons. So, along the banks of someslender and much hindered stream, there come blown from the nearing seaprophetic scents and murmurs, and one may dream that the pent water knowsat last the whence and whither of its life. 

But the strangest spectacle of all perhaps was presented by the orthodoxcamp. For, in proportion as the Modernist attack developed, was therevival of faith among those hostile to it, or unready for it. For thefirst time in their lives, religion became interesting--thrillingeven--to thousands of persons for whom it had long lost all real savour. Fierce question and answer, the hot cut and thrust of argument, thepassion of honest fight on equal terms--without these things, surely, there has been no religious epoch, of any importance, in man's history. English orthodoxy was at last vitally attacked; and it began to show anew life, and express itself in a new language. These were times when menon all sides felt that stretching and straining of faculty which ushersin the days of spiritual or poetic creation; times when the mostconfident Modernist of them all knew well that he, no more than any oneelse, could make any guess worth having as to the ultimate future. 

Of all this rapid and amazing development the personality and thewritings of Richard Meynell had in few months become the chief popularsymbol. There were some who thought that he was likely to take muchthe same place in the Modernist Movement of the twentieth century asNewman had taken in the Oxford Movement of the nineteenth; and men werebeginning to look for the weekly article in the _Modernist_ with thesame emotion of a passionate hero-worship on the one hand, and of angryrepulsion on the other, with which the Oxford of the thirties had beenwont to look for each succeeding "Tract, " or for Newman's weekly sermonat St. Mary's. To Newman's high subtleties of brain, to Newman's magic ofstyle, Richard Meynell could not pretend. But he had two advantages overthe great leader of the past: he was the disciple of a new learning whichwas inaccessible to Newman; and he was on fire with social compassionsand enthusiasms to which Newman, the great Newman, was alwayspathetically a stranger. In these two respects Meynell was therepresentative of his own generation; while the influences flowing fromhis personal character and life were such that thousands who had neverseen him loved and trusted him wholly. Men who had again and againwatched great causes break down for want of the incommunicable somethingwhich humanity exacts from its leaders felt with a quiet and confidentgladness that in Meynell they had got the man they wanted, theefficacious, indispensable man. 

And now--suddenly--incredible things began to be said. It was actuallymaintained that the leader round whom such feelings had gathered hadbeen, since his ordination, the betrayer of a young and innocentgirl, belonging to a well-known family; that although it had been in hispower for twenty years to marry the lady he had wronged, he had neverattempted to do so, but had rather, during all that time, activelyconnived at the fraud by which his illegitimate child had passed as thedaughter of Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton; while over the whole period he had keptup relations--and who knew of what character?--with the child's mother, an inhabitant of the very village where he himself was Rector. 

Presently--it was added that Mr. Henry Barron, of Upcote Minor, one ofthe prosecutors in the ecclesiastical suit, had obtained unexpected andstartling confirmation of these extraordinary facts from the confessionof a woman who had been present at the birth of the child and hadidentified the Rector of Upcote as the father. Then, very soon, paragraphs of a veiled sort began to appear in some of the lessresponsible newspapers. The circulation of the anonymous letters beganto be known; and the reader of a Modernist essay at an Oxford meetingcaused universal consternation by telling an indiscreet friend, whopresently spread it abroad, that Barron had already written to the Bishopof Markborough, placing in his hands a mass of supporting evidencerelating to "this most lamentable business. "

At first Meynell's friends throughout the country regarded these rumoursas a mere device of the evil one. Similar things they said, and withtruth, are constantly charged against heretics who cannot be put down. Slander is the first weapon of religious hatred. Meynell, theytriumphantly answered, will put the anonymous letters in the hands of thepolice, and proceed against Henry Barron. And they who have taken up sucha weapon shall but perish by it themselves the sooner. 

But the weeks passed on. Not only were no proceedings taken, or, apparently, in prospect, by Meynell against his accusers; not only didthe anonymous letters reappear from time to time, untracked andunpunished, but reports of a meeting held at Upcote itself began tospread--a meeting where Meynell had been definitely and publiclychallenged by Barron to take action for the vindication of his character, and had definitely and publicly refused. 

The world of a narrow and embittered orthodoxy began to breathe again;and there was black depression in the Modernist camp. 

Let us, however, go back a little. 

Barron's letter to the Bishop was the first shot in the direct andresponsible attack. It consisted of six or seven closely written sheets, and agreed in substance with four or five others from the same hand, addressed at the same moment to the chief heads of the Orthodox party. 

The Bishop received it at breakfast, just after he had concluded a hotpolitical argument with his little granddaughter Barbara. 

"All Tories are wicked, " said Barbara, who had a Radical father, "exceptgrandpapa, and he, mummy says, is weally a Riberal. "

With which she had leaped into the arms of her nurse, and was carried offgurgling, while the Bishop threatened her from afar. 

Then, with a sigh of impatience, as he recognized the signature on theenvelope, he resigned himself to Barron's letter. When he had done it, sitting by the table in his library, he threw it from him withindignation, called for his coat, and hurried across his garden to theCathedral for matins. After service, as with a troubled countenance hewas emerging from the transept door, he saw Dornal in the Close andbeckoned to him. 

"Come into the library for ten minutes. I very much want to speak toyou. "

The Bishop led the way, and as soon as the door was shut he turnedeagerly on his companion:

"Do you know anything of these abominable stories that are being spreadabout Richard Meynell?"

Dornal looked at him sadly. 

"They are all over Markborough--and there is actually a copy of one ofthe anonymous letters--with dashes for the names--in the _Post_ to-day?"

"I never hear these things!" said the Bishop, with an impatience whichwas meant, half for a scandal-mongering world, and half for himself. "ButBarron has written me a perfectly incredible letter to-day. He seems tobe the head and front of the whole business. I don't like Barron, and Idon't like his letters!"

And throwing one slender leg over the other, while the tips of his longfingers met in a characteristic gesture, the little Bishop stared intothe fire before him with an expression of mingled trouble and disgust. 

Dornal, clearly, was no less unhappy. Drawing his chair close to theBishop's he described the manner in which the story had reached himself. When he came to the curious facts concerning the diffusion and variety ofthe anonymous letters, the Bishop interrupted him:

"And Barron tells me he knows nothing of these letters!"

"So I hear also. "

"But, my dear Dornal, if he doesn't, it makes the thing inexplicable!Here we have a woman who comes home dying, and sees one persononly--Henry Barron--to whom she tells her story. "

The Bishop went through the points of Barron's narrative, and concluded:

"Then, on the top of this, after her death--her son denying all knowledgeof his mother's history--comes this crop of extraordinary letters, showing, you tell me, an intimate acquaintance with the neighbourhoodand the parties concerned. And yet Barron--the only person Mrs. Sabinsaw--knows nothing of them! They are a mystery to him. But, my dearDornal, how _can_ they be?" The Bishop faced round with energy on hiscompanion. "He must at least have talked incautiously before some one!"

Dornal agreed, but could put forward no suggestion of his own. He satdrooping by the Bishop's fire, his aspect expressing the deep distress hedid not shape in words. That very distress, however, was what made hiscompany so congenial to the much perturbed Bishop, who felt, moreover, awarmer affection for Dornal than for any other member of his Chapter. 

The Bishop resumed:

"Meanwhile, not a word from Meynell himself! That I confess wounds me. "He sighed. "However, I suppose he regards our old confidential relationsas broken off. To me--until the law has spoken--he is always one of my'clergy'"--the Bishop's voice showed emotion--"and he would get myfatherly help just as freely as ever, if he chose to ask for it. But Idon't know whether to send for him. I don't think I can send for him. Thefact is--one feels the whole thing an outrage!"

Dornal looked up. 

"That's the word!" he said gratefully. Then he added--hesitating--"Iought perhaps to tell you that I have written to Meynell--I wrote whenthe first report of the thing reached me. And I am sure that he can haveno possible objection to my showing you his reply!" He put his hand intohis pocket. 

"By all means, my dear Dornal!" cried the Bishop with a brighteningcountenance. "We are both his friends, in spite of all that has happenedand may happen. By all means, show me the letter. "

Dornal handed it over. It ran as follows:

"MY DEAR DORNAL: It was like you to write to me, and with such kindnessand delicacy. But even to you I can only say what I say to otherquestioners of a very different sort. The story to which you refer isuntrue. But owing to peculiar circumstances it is impossible for me todefend myself in the ordinary way, and my lips are sealed with regard toit. I stand upon my character as known to my neighbours and the diocesefor nearly twenty years. If that is not enough, I cannot help it. 

"Thank you always for the goodness and gentleness of your letter. I wishwith all my heart I could give you more satisfaction. "

The two men looked at each other, the same conjectures passing throughboth minds. 

"I hear the Fox-Wiltons and Miss Puttenham have all gone abroad, " saidthe Bishop thoughtfully. "Poor things! I begin to see a glimmer. It seemsto me that Meynell has been the repository of some story he feels hecannot honourably divulge. And then you tell me the letters show thehandiwork of some one intimately acquainted with the local circumstances, who seems to have watched Meynell's daily life. It is of course possiblethat he may have been imprudent with regard to this poor lady. Let usassume that he knew her story and advised her. He may not have beensufficiently careful. Further, there is that striking and unfortunatelikeness of which Barron of course makes the most. I noticed it myself, on an evening when I happened, at Maudeley, to see that handsome girl andMeynell in the same room. It is difficult to say in what it consists, butit must occur to many people who see them together. "

There was silence a moment. Then Dornal said:

"How will it all affect the trial?"

"In the Court of Arches? Technically of course--not at all. But it willmake all the difference to the atmosphere in which it is conducted. Onecan imagine how certain persons are already gloating over it--what usethey will make of it--how they will magnify and embroider everything. Andsuch an odious story! It is the degradation of a great issue!"

The little Bishop frowned. As he sat there in the dignity of hisgreat library, so scrupulously refined and correct in every detail ofdress, yet without a touch of foppery, the gleam of the cross on hisbreast answering the silver of the hair and the frank purity of theeyes, it was evident that he felt a passionate impatience--half moral, half esthetic--toward these new elements of the Meynell case. It wasthe fastidious impatience of a man for whom personal gossip and scandalranked among the forbidden indulgences of life. "Things, not persons!"had been the time-honoured rule for conversation at the Palacetable--persons, that is, of the present day. In those happy persons whohad already passed into biography and history, in their peccadilloes noless than their virtues, the Bishop's interest was boundless. Thedistinction tended to make him a little super- or infra-human; but itenhanced the fragrance and delicacy of his personality. 

Dornal was no less free from any stain of mean or scandalous gossip thanthe Bishop, but his knowledge of the human heart was far deeper, hissympathy far more intimate. It was not only that he scorned the slander, but, hour by hour, he seemed to walk in the same cloud with Meynell. 

After some further discussion, the Bishop took up Barron's letter again. "I see there is likely to be a most painful scene at the Church Councilmeeting--which of course will be also one of their campaign meetings--theday after to-morrow. Barron declares that he means to challenge Meynellpublicly to vindicate his character. Can I do anything?"

Dornal did not see anything could be done. The parish was already in openrebellion. 

"It is a miserable, miserable business!" said the Bishop unhappily. "Howcan I get a report of the meeting--from some one else than Barron?"

"Mr. Flaxman is sure to be there?"

"Ah!--get him to write to me?"

"And you, my lord--will send for Meynell?"

"I think"--said the Bishop, with returning soreness--"that as he hasneither written to me, nor consulted me, I will wait a little. We mustwatch--we must watch. Meanwhile, my dear fellow!"--he laid his handon Dornal's shoulder--"let us think how to stop the talk! It will spoileverything. Those who are fighting with us must understand there areweapons we cannot stoop to use!"

 * * * * *

As Dornal left the Palace, on his way past the Cathedral, he met youngFenton, the High Churchman who some months earlier had refused torecognize Meynell after the first Modernist meeting in Markborough. Fenton was walking slowly and reading the local newspaper--thesame which contained the anonymous letter. His thin, finely modelledface, which in a few years would resemble the Houdon statue of St. Bruno, expressed an eager excitement that was not unlike jubilation. Dornal waspractically certain that he was reading the paragraph that concernedMeynell, and certain also that it gave him pleasure. He hurriedlypassed over to the other side of the street, that Fenton might not accosthim. 

Afterward, he spent the evening, partly in writing urgently in Meynell'sdefence to certain of his own personal friends in the diocese, and partlyin composing an anti-Modernist address, full of a sincere and earnesteloquence, to be delivered the following week at a meeting of the Churchparty in Cambridge. 

 * * * * *

Meanwhile Cyril Fenton had also spent the evening in writing. He kept anelaborate journal of his own spiritual state; or rather he had begun tokeep it about six months before this date, at the moment when theemergence of the Modernist Movement had detached him from his nascentfriendship with Meynell, and had thrown him back, terrified, on a moreresolute opposition than ever to the novelties and presumptions of freeinquiry. The danger of reading anything, unawares, that might cause himeven a moment's uneasiness had led to his gradually cutting himself offentirely from modern newspapers and modern books, in which, indeed, hehad never taken any very compelling interest. His table was covered byvarious English and French editions of the Fathers--of St. Cyprian inparticular, for whom he had a cult. On the bare walls of his studywere various pictures of saints, a statuette of the Virgin, and anotherof St. Joseph, both of them feebly elegant in the Munich manner. Throughhis own fresh youthfulness, once so winning and wholesome, somethingpinched and cloistered had begun to thrust itself. His natural sweetnessof temper was rapidly becoming sinful in his own eyes, his natural loveof life also, and its harmless, even its ideal, pleasures. 

It was a bitter winter day, and he had not allowed himself a greatcoat. In consequence he felt depressed and chilled; yet he could not make uphis mind to go to bed earlier than usual, lest he should be therebypampering the flesh. He was thoroughly dissatisfied with his ownspiritual condition during the day, and had just made ample confessionthereof in the pages of his diary. A few entries from that document willshow the tone of a mind morbid for lack of exercise:

"D. Came to see me this morning. We discussed war a good deal. Ingeneral, of course, I am opposed to war, but when I think of this ghastlyplague of heresy which is sweeping away so many souls at the presentmoment, I feel sometimes that the only war into which I could enterwith spirit would be a civil war.... In a great deal of my talk with D. Iposed abominably. I talked of shooting and yachting as though I knew allabout them. I can't be content that people should think me 'out' ofanything, or a dull fool. It was the same with my talk to S. About churchmusic. I talked most arrogantly; and in reality I know hardly anythingabout it. 

"As to my vow of simplicity in food, I must keep my attention more on thealert. Yet to-day I have not done so badly; some cold ends of herring atbreakfast, and a morsel of mackerel at lunch are the only things I haveto reproach myself with; the only lapses from the strict rule ofsimplicity. But the quantity was deplorable--no moderation--not even areal attempt at it. Whenever I am disgusted with myself for having eatentoo much at dinner, I constantly fail to draw the proper inference--thatI should eat less at tea.... 

"I feel that this scandal about poor Meynell is probably providential. Itmust and will weaken the Modernist party enormously. To thank God forsuch a thing sounds horrible, but after all, have we any right to be moresqueamish than Holy Writ? 'Let God arise and let His enemies bescattered. ' The warnings and menaces of what are called the ImprecatoryPsalms show us plainly that His enemies must be ours. "

He closed his book, and came to shiver over the very inadequate firewhich was all he allowed himself. Every shilling that he could put asidewas being saved in order to provide his church with a new set of altarfurniture. The congregation of the church was indeed fast ebbingaway, and his heart was full of bitterness on the subject. But how coulda true priest abate any fraction of either his Church principles, or hissound doctrine, to appease persons who were not and could not be judgesof what was necessary to their own spiritual health?

As he warmed his thin hands, his bodily discomfort increased hisreligious despondency. Then, of a sudden, his eyes fell upon the portraitof a child standing on the mantelpiece--his sister's child, aged four. The cloud on the still boyish brow lightened at once. 

"Tommy's birthday to-morrow, " he said to himself. "Jolly little chap!Must write to him. Here goes!"

And reaching out his hand for his writing-case he wrote eagerly, a letterall fun and baby-talk, and fantastic drawings, in the course of whichTommy grew up, developed moustaches, and became a British Grenadier. 

When he had finished it and put it up, he lay back laughing to himself, adifferent being. 

But the gleam was only momentary. A recurring sense of chill and physicaloppression dispersed it. Presently he rose heavily, glanced at his opendiary, reread the last page with a sigh, and closed it. Then, as it wasnearly midnight, he retreated upstairs to his bare and icy bedroom, wherehalf-an-hour's attempt to meditate completed the numbness of body andmind, in which state ultimately he went to bed, though not to sleep. 

 * * * * *

The meeting of the Church Council of Upcote was held in the Church Houseof the village a few days after the Bishop's conversation with CanonDornal. It was an evening long remembered by those who shared in it. The figure of Meynell instinct with a kind of fierce patience; the facerugged as ever, but paler and tenderer in repose, as of one who, mystically sustained, had been passing through deep waters; his speech, sternly repressed, and yet for the understanding ear, enriched by newtones and shades of feeling--on those who believed in him the effectof these slight but significant changes in the man they loved waselectrical. 

And five-sixths of those present believed in him, loved him, and werehotly indignant at the scandals which had arisen. They were, some ofthem, the élite of the mining population, men whom he had knownand taught from childhood; there were many officials from thesurrounding collieries; there was a miners' agent, who was also one ofthe well-known local preachers of the district; there were half a dozenwomen--the schoolmistress, the wife of the manager of the coöperativestore, and three or four wives of colliers--women to whom other women inchildbirth, or the girl who had gone astray, or the motherless child, might appeal without rebuff, who were in fact the Rector's agentsin any humanizing effort. 

All these persons had come to the meeting eagerly expecting to hear fromthe Rector's own lips the steps he proposed to take for the putting downof the slanders circulating in the diocese, and the punishment of theirauthors. In the rear of the Council--who had been themselves elected bythe whole parish--there were two or three rows of seats occupied by otherinhabitants of the village, who made an audience. In the front row satthe strange spinster, Miss Nairn, a thin, sharp nosed woman of fifty, inrusty black clothes, holding her head high; not far from her the dubiouspublican who had been Maurice Barron's companion on a certain walk somedays before. There too were Hugh and Rose Flaxman. And just as theproceedings were about to begin, Henry Barron opened the heavy door, hatin hand, came in with a firm step, and took a seat at the back, while athrill of excitement went through the room. 

It was an ancient room, near the church, and built like it, of redsandstone. It had been once the tiny grammar school of the village. Meynell had restored and adapted it, keeping still its old features--thelow ceiling heavily beamed with oak, and the row of desks inscribed withthe scholars' names of three centuries. Against the background of itswhite walls he stood thrown out in strong relief by the oil lamp on thetable in front of him, his eyes travelling over the rows of familiarfaces. 

He spoke first of the new Liturgy of which copies had been placed on theseats. He reminded them they were all--or nearly all--comrades with himin the great Modernist venture; that they had given him the help of theirapproval and support at every step, and were now rebels with him againstthe authorities of the day. He pointed to his approaching trial, and theprobability--nay the certainty--of his deprivation. He asked them to besteadfast with him, and he dwelt on the amazing spread of the Movement, the immense responsibility resting upon its first leaders and disciples, and the need for gentleness and charity. The room was hushed in silence. 

Next, he proceeded to put the adoption of the new Liturgy to the vote. Suddenly Barron rose from his seat at the back. Meynell paused. Theaudience looked in suppressed excitement from one to the other. 

"I regret, " said the Rector, courteously, "that we cannot hear Mr. Barronat this moment. He is not a member of the Church Council. When theproceedings of the Council are over, this will become an open meeting, and Mr. Barron will then of course say what he wishes to say. "

Barron hesitated a moment; then sat down. 

The revised Liturgy was adopted by twenty-eight votes to two. One of thetwo dissentients was Dawes, the colliery manager, a sincere andconsistent evangelical of the Simeon School, who made a short speech insupport of his vote, dwelling in a voice which shook on the troublescoming on the parish. 

"We may get another Rector, " he said as he sat down. "We shall never getanother Richard Meynell. " A deep murmur of acquiescence ran through theroom. 

Meynell rose again from his seat. 

"Our business is over. We now become an open meeting. Mr. Barron, Ibelieve, wishes to speak. "

The room was, at this point, densely crowded and every face turned towardthe tall and portly form rising from the back. In the flickeringlamplight it could be seen that the face usually so ruddy and full wasblanched by determination and passion. 

"My friends and neighbours!" said Barron, "it is with sorrow and griefthat I rise to say the few words that I intend to say. On the audacityand illegality of what you have just done I shall say nothing. Argument, I know, would be useless. But _this_ I have come to say: You have justbeen led--misled--into an act of heresy and rebellion by the man whoshould be your pastor in the Faith, who is responsible to God for yoursouls. _Why_ have you been misled?--_why_ do you follow him?" He flungout his hand toward Meynell. 

"Because you admire and respect him--because you believe him a goodman--a man of honest and pure life. And I am here to tell you, or ratherto remind you, for indeed you all know it--that your Rector lies at thismoment under a painful and disgraceful charge; that this charge has beencirculated--in a discreditable way--a way for which I have no defence andof which I know nothing--throughout this diocese, and indeed throughoutEngland; that your fair fame, as well as his are concerned; and, nevertheless, he refuses to take the only steps which can clear hischaracter, and repay you for the devotion you have shown him! I call uponyou, sir!"--the speaker bent forward, pointing impressively to thechairman of the meeting and emphasizing every word--"to take those stepsat once! They are open to you at any moment. Take them against myself!I have given, I will give, you every opportunity. But till that is donedo not continue, in the face of the congregation you have deceived andled astray, to assume the tone of hypocritical authority in which youhave just spoken! You have no moral right to any authority among us; younever had any such right; and in Christian eyes your infidel teaching hasled to its natural results. At any rate, I trust that now, at last, eventhese your friends and dupes will see the absolute necessity, beforemany weeks are over, of either _forcing_ you to resign your living, or_forcing_ you to take the only means open to honest men of protectingtheir character!"

He resumed his seat. The audience sat petrified a moment. Then HughFlaxman sprang to his feet, and two or three others, the local preacheramong them. But Meynell had also risen. 

"Please, Mr. Flaxman--my friends--!"

He waved a quiet hand toward those who had risen, and they unwillinglygave way. Then the Rector looked round the room for a few silentinstants. He was very white, but when he spoke it was with completecomposure. 

"I expected something of this kind to happen, and whether it had happenedor no I should have spoken to you on this matter before we separated. Iknow--you all know--to what Mr. Barron refers--that he is speaking of theanonymous letters concerning myself and others which have been circulatedin this neighbourhood. He calls upon me, I understand, to take legalaction with regard both to them and to the reports which he has himselfcirculated, by word of mouth, and probably by letter. Now I want youplainly to understand"--he bent forward, his hands on the table beforehim, each word clear and resonant--"that I shall take no such action!My reasons I shall not give you. I stand upon my life among you and mycharacter among you all these years. This only I will say to you, myfriends and my parishioners: The abominable story told in theseletters--the story which Mr. Barron believes, or tries to make himselfbelieve--is untrue. But I will say no more than that--to you, or any oneelse. And if you are to make legal action on my part a test of whetheryou will continue to follow me religiously--to accept me as your leader, or no--then my friends, we must part! You must go your way, and Imust go mine. There will be still work for me to do; and God knows ourhearts--yours and mine. "

He paused, looking intently into the lines of blanched faces before him. Then he added:

"You may wish to discuss this matter. I recognize it as natural youshould wish to discuss it. But I shall not discuss it with you. I shallwithdraw. Mr. Dawes--will you take the chair?"

He beckoned to the colliery manager, who automatically obeyed him. Theroom broke into a hubbub, men and women pressing round Meynell as he madehis way to the door. But he put them aside, gently and cheerfully. 

"Decide it for yourselves!" he said with his familiar smile. "It is yourright. "

And in another moment, the door had opened and shut, and he was gone. 

 * * * * *

He had no sooner disappeared than a tumultuous scene developed in theChurch room. 

Beswick, the sub-agent and local preacher, a sandy-haired, spectacled, and powerfully built man, sprang on to the platform, to the right hand ofDawes, and at last secured silence by a passionate speech in defence ofMeynell and in denunciation of the men who in order to ruin himecclesiastically were spreading these vile tales about him "and a poorlady that has done many a good turn to the folk of this village, andnothing said about it too!"

"Don't you, sir"--he said, addressing Barron with a threateningfinger--"don't you come here, telling us what to think about the manwe've known for twenty years in this parish! The people that don't knowRichard Meynell may believe these things if they please--it'll be theworse for them! But we've seen this man comforting and uplifting our oldpeople in their last hours--we've seen him teaching our children--andgiving just a kind funny word now an' again to keep a boy or a girlstraight--aye, an' he did it too--they knew he had his eye on 'em! We'veseen him go down these pits, when only a handful would risk their liveswith him, to help them as was perhaps past hope. We've seen him skinhimself to the bone that other men might have plenty--we've heard himSunday after Sunday. We _know_ him!" The speaker brought one massive handdown on the other with an emphasis that shook the room. "Don't you gotalking to us! If Richard Meynell won't go to law with you and the likesof you, sir, he's got his reasons, and his good ones, I'll be bound. Anddon't you, my friends"--he turned to the room--"don't you be turned backfrom this furrow you've begun to plough. You stick to your man! If youdon't, you're fools, aye, and ungrateful fools too! You know well enoughthat Albert Beswick isn't a parson's man! You know that I don't hold withMr. Meynell in many of his views. There's his views about 'election, ' andthe like o' that--quite wrong, in my 'umble opinion. But what does thatmatter? You know that I never set foot in Upcote Church till three yearsago--that bishops and ceremonies are nought to me--that I came to God, asmany of you did, by the Bible class and the penitent form. But I declareto you that Richard Meynell, and the men with him, are _out for a bigthing!_ They're out for breaking down barriers and letting in light. They're out for bringing Christian men together and letting them worshipfreely in the old churches that our fathers built. They're out for givingmen and women new thoughts about God and Christ, and for letting them putthem into new words, if they want to. Well, I say again, it's _a bigthing_! And Satan's out, too, for stopping it! Don't you make any mistakeabout it! This bad business--of these libels that are about--is one ofthe obstacles in our race he'll trip us up on, if he can. Now I put it toyou--let us clear it out o' the way this very night, as far as we'reconcerned! Let us send the Rector such a vote of confidence from thismeeting as'll show him fast enough where he stands in Upcote--aye, andshow others too! And as for these vile letters that are going round--I'dgive my right hand to know the man who wrote them!--and the story thatyou, sir"--he pointed again to Barron--"say you took from poor JudithSabin when her mind was clouded and she near her end--why, it's baseminds that harbour base thoughts about their betters! He shall be nofriend of mine--that I know--that spreads these tales. Friends andneighbours, let us keep our tongues from them--and our children'stongues! Let us show that we can trust a man that deserves our trust. Letus stand by a good man that's stood by us; and let us pray God to showthe right!"

The greater part of the audience, sincerely moved, rose to their feet andcheered. Barron endeavoured to reply, but was scarcely listened to. Thepublican East sat twirling his hat in his hands, sarcastic smiles goingout and in upon his fat cheeks, his furtive eyes every now and thenconsulting the tall spinster who sat beside him, grimly immovable, herspectacled eyes fixed apparently on the lamp above the platform. 

Flaxman wished to speak, but was deterred by the reflection that as anewcomer in the district he had scarcely a valid right to interfere. Heand Rose stayed till the vote of confidence had been passed by a largemajority--though not so large as that which had accepted the newLiturgy--after which they drove home rather depressed and ill at ease. For in truth the plague of anonymous letters was rather increasing thanabating. Flaxman had had news that day of the arrival of two more amongtheir own country-house acquaintance of the neighbourhood. He sat down, in obedience to a letter from Dornal, to write a doleful report of themeeting to the Bishop. 

 * * * * *

Meynell received the vote of confidence very calmly, and wrote a shortnote of thanks to Beswick. Then for some weeks, while the discussion ofhis case in its various aspects, old and new, ran raging through England, he went about his work as usual, calm in the centre of the whirlwind, though the earth he trod seemed to him very often a strange one. Heprepared his defence for the Court of Arches; he wrote for the_Modernist_; and he gave as much mind as he could possibly spare to theunravelling of Philip Meryon's history. 

In this matter, however, he made but very slow and disappointingprogress. He became more and more convinced, and his solicitor with him, that there had been a Scotch marriage some eighteen months before thisdate between Meryon and the sister of a farmer in the Lothians, with whomhe had come in contact during a fishing tenancy. But what appeared in thecourse of investigation was that the woman concerned and all her kindredwere now just as anxious--aided by the ambiguities of the Scotch marriagelaw--to cover up and conceal the affair as was Meryon himself. She couldnot be got to put forward any claim; her family would say nothing; andthe few witnesses hitherto available were tending to disappear. No doubtPhilip was at work corrupting them; and the supposed wife was evidentlyquite willing, if not eager, to abet him. 

Every week he heard from Mary, letters which, written within bounds fullyunderstood by them both and never transgressed, revealed to him thetremulous tenderness and purity of the heart he knew--though he would notconfess it to himself--he had conquered. These letters became to him thestay of life, the manna which fed him, the water of healing and strength. It was evident that, according to his wish, she did not know and wasdetermined not to know the details of his struggle; and nothing helpedhim more than the absolute trust of her ignorance. 

He heard also constantly from Alice Puttenham. She, too, poor soul--buthow differently!--was protecting herself as best she could from an odiousknowledge. 

"Edith writes to me, full of terrible things that are being said inEngland; but as I can do nothing, and must do nothing according to you, Ido not read her letters. She sends me a local newspaper sometimes, scoredwith her marks and signs that are like shrieks of horror, and I put it inthe fire. What I suffer I will keep to myself. Perhaps the worst part ofevery day comes when I take Hester out and amuse her in this gay Paris. She is so passionately vital herself, and one dreads to fail her inspirits or buoyancy. 

"She is very well and wonderfully beautiful; at present she is havinglessons in dancing and elocution, and turning the heads of her teachers. It is amusing--or would be amusing, to any one else than me--to see howthe quiet family she is with clucks after her in perpetual anxiety, andhow cavalierly she treats them. I think she is fairly happy; she nevermentions Meryon's name; but I often have a strange sense that she islooking for some one--expects some one. When we turn into a new street, or a new alley of the Bois, I have sometimes seemed to catch a wild_listening_ in her face. I live only for her--and I cannot feel that itmatters to her in the least whether I do or not. Perhaps, some day. Meanwhile you may be sure I think of nothing else. She knows nothing ofwhat is going on in England--and she says she adores Paris. "

 * * * * *

One night in December Meynell came in late from a carpentering class ofvillage boys. The usual pile of letters and books awaited him, and hebegan upon them reluctantly. As he read them, and put them aside, oneby one, his face gradually changed and darkened. He recalled a saying ofAmiel's about the French word "consideration"--what it means to a man tohave enjoyed unvarying and growing "consideration" from his world; andthen, suddenly, to be threatened with the loss of it. Life andconsciousness drop, all in a moment, to a lower and a meaner plane. 

Finally, he lit on a letter from one of his colleagues on the CentralModernist Committee. For some months it had been a settled thing thatMeynell should preach the sermon in Dunchester Cathedral on the greatoccasion in January when the new Liturgy of the Reform was to beinaugurated with all possible solemnity in one of England's most famouschurches. 

His correspondent wrote to suggest that after all the sermon would bemore fitly entrusted to the Modernist Bishop of Dunchester himself. "Hehas worked hard, and risked much for us. I may say that inquiries havebeen thrown out, and we find he is willing. "

No apology--perfunctory regrets--and very little explanation! Meynellunderstood. 

He put the letter away, conscious of a keenly smarting mind. It was nowclear to him that he had made a grave misreckoning; humiliating, perhapsirreparable. He had counted, with a certain confident simplicity, onthe power of his mere word, backed by his character and reputation, toput the thing down; and they were not strong enough. Barron's influenceseemed to him immense and increasing. A proud and sensitive man forcedhimself to envisage the possibility of an eventual overthrow. 

He opened a drawer in order to put away the letter. The drawer was veryfull, and in the difficulty of getting it out he pulled it too far andits contents fell to the floor. He stooped to pick them up--perceivedfirst the anonymous letter that Barron had handed to him, the letteraddressed to Dawes; and then, beneath it, a long envelope deep indust--labelled "M. B. --Keep for three years. " He took up both letter andenvelope with no distinct intention. But he opened the anonymous letter, and once more looked searchingly at the handwriting. 

Suddenly an idea struck him. With a hasty movement, he lifted the longenvelope and broke the seal. Inside was a document headed, "AConfession. " And at the foot of it appeared a signature--"MauriceBarron. "

Meynell put the two things together--the "confession" and the anonymousletter. Very soon he began to compare word with word and stroke withstroke, gradually penetrating the disguise of the later handwriting. At the end of the process he understood the vague recollection which haddisturbed him when he first saw the letter. 

He stood motionless a little, expressions chasing each other across hisface. Then he locked up both letters, reached a hand for his pipe, calleda good night to Anne, who was going upstairs to bed, and with his dogsabout him fell into a long meditation, while the night wore on. 

CHAPTER XIX

It was in the week before Christmas that Professor Vetch--the sameProfessor who had been one of the Bishop's Commission of Inquiry inRichard Meynell's case--knocked one afternoon at Canon France's door toask for a cup of tea. He had come down to give a lecture to the ChurchClub which had been recently started in Markborough in opposition to theReformers' Club; but his acceptance of the invitation had been a gooddeal determined by his very keen desire to probe the later extraordinarydevelopments of the Meynell affair on the spot. 

France was in his low-ceiled study, occupied as usual with drawers fullof documents of various kinds; most of them mediaeval deeds and charterswhich he was calendaring for the Cathedral Library. His table and thefloor were littered by them; a stack of the Rolls publications was on hisright hand; a Dugdale's "Monasticon" lay open at a little distance; andcurled upon a newspaper beside it lay a gray kitten. The kitten had thatmorning upset an inkstand over three sheets of the Canon's laborioushandwriting. At the time he had indeed dropped her angrily by the scruffof the neck into a wastepaper basket to repent of her sins; but here shewas again, and the Canon had patiently rewritten the sheets. 

There were not many softnesses in the Canon's life. The kitten was one;of the other perhaps only his sister, nearly as old as himself, wholived with him, was aware. Twenty years before--just after hisappointment to the canonry--he had married a young and--in the opinion ofhis family--flighty wife, who had lived a year and then died. She hadpassed like a spring flower; and after a year or two all that wasremembered about her was that she had chosen the drawing-room paper, which was rather garishly pink, like her own cheeks. In the course oftime the paper had become so discoloured and patchy that Miss France wasashamed of it. For years her brother turned a deaf ear to her remarks onthe subject. At last he allowed her to repaper the room. But shepresently discovered that close to the seat he generally occupied in thedrawing-room of an evening there was a large hole in the new paper madeby the rubbing and scraping of the Canon's fingers as he sat at tea. Through it the original pink reappeared. More than once Miss Francecaught her brother looking contentedly at his work of mischief. But shedared not speak of it to him, nor do anything to repair the damage. 

As France perceived the identity of the visitor whom his old manservantwas showing into the study, a slight shade of annoyance passed over hisface. But he received the Professor civilly, cleared a chair of books inorder that he might sit down, and gave a vigorous poke to the fire. 

The Professor did not wish to appear too inquisitive on the subject ofMeynell, and he therefore dallied a little with matters of Biblicalcriticism. France, however, took no interest whatever in them; and evenan adroit description of a paper recently read by the speaker himselfat an Oxford meeting failed to kindle a spark. Vetch found himself drivenupon the real object of his visit. 

He desired to know--understanding that the Canon was an old friend ofHenry Barron--where the Meynell affair exactly was. 

"Am I an old friend of Henry Barron?" said France slowly. 

"He says you are, " laughed the Professor. "I happened to go up to town inthe same carriage with him a fortnight ago. "

"He comes here a good deal--but he never takes my advice, " said France. 

The Professor inquired what the advice had been. 

"To let it alone!" France looked round suddenly at his companion. "I havecome to the conclusion, " he added dryly, "that Barron is not a person ofdelicacy. "

The Professor, rather taken aback, argued on Barron's behalf. Wouldit have been seemly or right for a man--a Churchman of Barron'sprominence--to keep such a thing to himself at such a critical moment?Surely it had an important bearing on the controversy. 

"I see none, " said France, a spark of impatience in the small black eyesthat shone so vividly above his large hanging cheeks. "Meynell says thestory is untrue. "

"Ah! but let him prove it!" cried the Professor, his young-old faceflushing. "He has made a wanton attack upon the Church; he cannotpossibly expect any quarter from us. We are not in the least bound tohold him immaculate--quite the contrary. Men of that impulsive, undisciplined type are, as we all know, very susceptible to woman. "

France faced round upon his companion in a slow, contemptuous wonder. 

"I see you take your views from the anonymous letters?"

The Professor laughed awkwardly. 

"Not necessarily. I understand Barron has direct evidence. Anyway, letMeynell take the usual steps. If he takes them successfully, we shall allrejoice. But his character has been made, so to speak, one of the piecesin the game. We are really not bound to accept it at his own valuation. "

"I think you will have to accept it, " said France. 

There was a pause. The Professor wondered secretly whether France too wasbeginning to be tarred with the Modernist brush. No!--impossible. Forthat the Canon was either too indolent or too busy. 

At last he said:

"Seriously, I should like to know what you really think. "

"It is of no importance what I think. But what suggests itself, ofcourse, is that there is some truth in the story, but that Meynell is notthe hero. And he doesn't see his way to clear himself by dishing otherpeople. "

"I see. " The obstinacy in the smooth voice rasped France. "If so, mostunlucky for him! But then let him resign his living, and go quietly intoobscurity. He owes it to his own side. For them the whole thing isdisaster. He _must_ either clear himself or go. "

"Oh, give him a little time!" said France sharply, "give him a littletime. " Then, with a change of tone--"The anonymous letters, of course, are the really interesting things in the case. Perhaps you have a theoryabout them?"

The Professor shrugged his shoulders. 

"None whatever. I have seen three--including that published in the_Post_. I understand about twenty have now been traced; and thatthey grow increasingly dramatic and detailed. Evidently some cleverfellow--who knows a great deal--with a grudge against Meynell?"

"Ye--es, " said France, with hesitation. 

"You suspect somebody?"

"Not at all. It is a black business. "

Then with one large and powerful hand, France restrained the kitten, whowas for deserting his knee, and with the other he drew toward him thefolio volume on which he had been engaged when the Professor came in. 

Vetch took the hint, said a rather frosty good-bye, and departed. 

"A popinjay!" said France to himself when he was left alone, thinkingwith annoyance of the Professor's curly hair, of his elegant serge suit, and the gem from Knossos that he wore on the little finger of his lefthand. Then he took up a large pipe which lay beside his books, filled it, and hung meditatively over the fire. He was angry with Vetch, anddisgusted with himself. 

"Why haven't I given Meynell a helping hand? Why did I talk like that toBarron when he first began this business? And why have I let him comehere as he has done since--without telling him what I really thoughtof him?"

He fell for some minutes into an abyss of thought; thought which seemedto range not so much over the circumstances connected with Meynell asover the whole of his own past. 

But he emerged from it with a long shake of the head. 

"My habits are my habits!" he said to himself with a kind of bitterdecision, and laying down his pipe he went back to his papers. 

 * * * * *

Almost at the same moment the Bishop was interviewing Henry Barron in thelittle book-lined room beyond the main library, which he kept for thebusiness he most disliked. He never put the distinction into words, butwhen any member of his clergy was invited to step into the farther room, the person so invited felt depressed. 

Barron's substantial presence seemed to fill the little study, as, verymuch on his defence, he sat _tête-à-tête_ with the Bishop. He hadrecognized from the beginning that nothing of what he had done was reallywelcome or acceptable to Bishop Craye. While he, on his side, felthimself a benefactor to the Church in general, and to the Bishop ofMarkborough in particular, instinctively he knew that the Bishop's tasteungratefully disapproved of him; and the knowledge contributed an extrashade of pomposity to his manner. 

He had just given a sketch of the church meeting at Upcote, and of thesituation in the village up to date. The Bishop sat absently patting histhin knees, and evidently very much concerned. 

"A most unpleasant--a most painful scene. I confess, Mr. Barron, I thinkit would have been far better if you had avoided it. "

Barron held himself rigidly erect. 

"My lord, my one object from the beginning has been to force Meynell intothe open. For his own sake--for the parish's--the situation must bebrought to an end, in some way. The indecency of it at present isintolerable. "

"You forget. The trial is only a few weeks off. Meynell will certainly bedeprived. "

"No doubt. But then there is the Privy Council Appeal. And even when heis deprived, Meynell does not mean to leave the village. He has made allhis arrangements to stay and defy the judgment. We _must_ prove to him, even if we have to do it with what looks like harshness, that until heclears himself of this business this diocese at least will have none ofhim!"

"Why, the great majority of the people adore him!" cried the Bishop. "Andmeanwhile I understand the other poor things are already driven away. They tell me the Fox-Wiltons' house is to let, and Miss Puttenham gone toParis indefinitely. "

Barron slightly shrugged his shoulders. "We are all very sorry for them, my lord. It is indeed a sad business. But we must remember at the sametime that all these persons have been in a conspiracy together to imposea falsehood on their neighbours; and that for many years we have beenadmitting Miss Puttenham to our house and our friendship--to thecompanionship of our daughters--in complete ignorance of her character. "

"Oh, poor thing! poor thing!" said the Bishop hastily. "The thoughtof her haunts me. She must know what is going on--or a great deal ofit--though indeed I hope she doesn't--I hope with all my heart shedoesn't! Well, now, Mr. Barron--you have written me long letters--and Itrust that you will allow me a little close inquiry into some of thesematters. "

"The closer the better, my lord. "

"You have not as yet come to any opinion whatever as to the authorship ofthese letters?"

Barron looked troubled. 

"I am entirely at a loss, " he said, emphatically. "Once or twice I havethought myself on the track. There is that man East, whose licenseMeynell opposed--"

"One of the 'aggrieved parishioners', " said the Bishop, raising his handsand eyebrows. 

"You regret, my lord, that we should be mixed up with such a person? Sodo I. But with a whole parish in a conspiracy to support the law-breakingthat was going on, what could we do? However, that is not now the point. I have suspected East. I have questioned him. He showed extraordinarylevity, and was--to myself personally--what I can only call insolent. Buthe swore to me that he had not written the letters; and indeed I amconvinced that he could not have written them. He is almost anilliterate--can barely read and write. I still suspect him. But if he isin it, it is only as a tool of some one else. "

"And the son--Judith Sabin's son?"

"Naturally, I have turned my mind in that direction also. But John Broadis a very simple fellow--has no enmity against Meynell, quite thecontrary. He vows that he never knew why his mother went abroad with LadyFox-Wilton, or why she went to America; and though she talked a lot ofwhat he calls 'queer stuff' in the few hours he had with her before myvisit, he couldn't make head or tail of a good deal of it, and didn'ttrouble his head about it. And after my visit, he found her incoherentand delirious. Moreover, he declared to me solemnly that he knew nothingabout the letters; and I certainly have no means of bringing it home tohim. "

The Bishop's blue eyes were sharply fixed upon the speaker. But on thewhole Barron's manner in these remarks had favourably impressed hiscompanion. 

"We come then"--he said gravely--"to the further question which you will, of course, see will be asked--must be asked. Can you be certain that yourown conversation--of course quite unconsciously on your part--has notgiven hints to some person, some unscrupulous third person, an enemy ofMeynell's, who has been making use of information he may have got fromyou to write these letters? Forgive the inquiry--but you will realize howvery important it is--for Church interests--that the suit against Meynellin the Church Courts should not be in any way mixed up with this wretchedand discreditable business of the anonymous letters!"

Barron flushed a little. 

"I have of course spoken of the matter in my own family, " he saidproudly. "I have already told you, my lord, that I confided the wholething to my son Stephen very early in the day. "

The Bishop smiled. 

"We may dismiss Stephen I think--the soul of honour and devoted toMeynell. Can you remember no one else?"

Barron endeavoured to show no resentment at these inquiries. But it wasclear that they galled. 

"The only other members of my household are my daughter Theresa, andoccasionally, for a week or two, my son Maurice. I answer for them both. "

"Your son Maurice is at work in London. "

"He is in business--the manager of an office, " said Barron stiffly. 

The Bishop's face was shrewdly thoughtful. After a pause he said:

"You have, of course, examined the handwriting? But I understand thatrecently all the letters have been typewritten?"

"All but two--the letter to Dawes, and a letter which I believe wasreceived by Mrs. Elsmere. I gave the Dawes letter to Meynell at hisrequest. "

"Having failed to identify the handwriting?"

"Certainly. "

Yet, even as he spoke, for the first time, a sudden misgiving, like thepinch of an insect, brushed Barron's consciousness. He had not, as amatter of fact, examined the Dawes letter very carefully, having been, ashe now clearly remembered, in a state of considerable mental excitementduring the whole time it was in his possession and thinking much more ofthe effect of the first crop of letters on the situation, than of thedetails of the Dawes letter itself. But he did remember, now that theBishop pressed him, that when he first looked at the letter he had beenconscious of a momentary sense of likeness to a handwriting he knew; toMaurice's handwriting, in fact. But he had repelled the suggestion asabsurd in the first instance, and after a momentary start, he angrilyrepelled it now. 

The Bishop emerged from a brown study. 

"It is a most mysterious thing! Have you been able to verify thepostmarks?"

"So far as I know, all the letters were posted at Markborough. "

"No doubt by some accomplice, " said the Bishop. He paused and sighed. Then he looked searchingly, though still hesitatingly, at his companion. 

"Mr. Barron, I trust you will allow me--as your Bishop--one littlereminder. As Christians, we must be slow to believe evil. "

Barron flushed again. 

"I have been slow to believe it, my lord. But in all things I have putthe Church's interest first. "

Something in the Bishop suddenly and sharply drew away from the manbeside him. He held himself with a cold dignity. 

"For myself, personally--I tell you frankly--I cannot bring myself tobelieve a word of this story, so far as it concerns Meynell. I believethere is a terrible mistake at the bottom of it, and I prefer to trusttwenty years of noble living rather than the tale of a poor distraughtcreature like Judith Sabin. At the same time, of course, I recognizethat you have a right to your opinions, as I have to mine. But, my dearsir"--and here the Bishop rose abruptly--"let me urge upon you one thing. Keep an open mind--not only for all that tells against Meynell, but allthat tells for him! Don't--you will allow me this friendly word--don'tland yourself in a great, perhaps a life-long self-reproach!"

There was a note of sternness in the speaker's voice; but the smallparchment face and the eyes of china-blue shone, as though kindled fromwithin by the pure and generous spirit of the man. 

"My lord, I have said my say. " Barron had also risen, and stood toweringover the Bishop. "I leave it now in the hands of God. "

The Bishop winced again, and was holding out a limp hand for good-bye, when Barron said suddenly:

"Perhaps you will allow me one question, my lord? Has Meynell been to seeyou? Has he written to you even? I may say that I urged him to do so. "

The Bishop was taken aback and saw no way out. 

"I have had no direct communication with him, " he said, reluctantly; "nodoubt because of our already strained relations. "

On Barron's lips there dawned something which could hardly be called asmile--or triumphant; but the Bishop caught it. In another minute thedoor had closed upon his visitor. 

 * * * * *

Barron walked away through the Close, his mind seething with anger andresentment. He felt that he had been treated as an embarrassment ratherthan an ally; and he vowed to himself that the Bishop's whole attitudehad been grudging and unfriendly. 

As he passed on to the broad stone pavement that bordered the southtransept he became aware of a man coming toward him. Raising his eyes hesaw that it was Meynell. 

There was no way of avoiding the encounter. As the two men passed Barronmade a mechanical sign of recognition. Meynell lifted his head and lookedat him full. It was a strange look, intent and piercing, charged with thepersonality of the man behind it. 

Barron passed on, quivering. He felt that he hated Meynell. The disguiseof a public motive dropped away; and he knew that he hated himpersonally. 

At the same time the sudden slight misgiving he had been conscious of inthe Bishop's presence ran through him again. He feared he knew not what;and as he walked to the station the remembrance of Meynell's expressionmingled with the vague uneasiness he tried in vain to put from him. 

Meynell walked home by Forkéd Pond to Maudeley. He lingered a little inthe leafless woods round the cottage, now shut up, and he chose thelonger path that he might actually pass the very window near which Maryhad stood when she spoke those softly broken words--words from a woman'ssoul--which his memory had by heart. And his pulse leapt at the scarcelyadmitted thought that perhaps--now--in a few weeks he might be walkingthe dale paths with Mary. But there were stern things to be done first. 

At Maudeley he found Flaxman awaiting him, and the two passed into thelibrary, where Rose, though bubbling over with question and conjecture, self-denyingly refrained from joining them. The consultation of the twomen lasted about an hour, and when Flaxman rejoined his wife, he camealone. 

"Gone?" said Rose, with a disappointed look. "Oh! I did want to shake hishand!"

Flaxman's gesture was unsympathetic. 

"It is not the time for that yet. This business has gone deep with him. Idon't exactly know what he will do. But he has made me promise variousthings. "

"When does he see--Torquemada?" said Rose, after a pause. 

"I think--to-morrow morning. "

"H'm! Good luck to him! Please let me know also precisely when I maycrush Lady St. Morice. "

Lady St. Morice was the wife of the Lord Lieutenant, and had at a recentdinner party, in Rose's presence, hotly asserted her belief in thecharges brought against the Rector of Upcote. She possessed a privatechapel adorned with pre-Raphaelite frescoes, and was the sister of one ofthe chief leaders of the High Orthodox party in convocation. 

"She doesn't often speak to the likes of me, " said Rose; "which of courseis a great advantage for the likes of me. But next time I shall speak toher--which will be so good for her. My dear Hugh, don't let Meynell betoo magnanimous--I can't stand it. "

Flaxman laughed, but rather absently. It was evident that he was stillunder the strong impression of the conversation he had just passedthrough. 

Rose stole up to him, and put her lips to his ear. 

"Who--was--Hester's father?"

Flaxman looked up. 

"I haven't the least idea. "

"But of course we must all know some time, " said Rose discontentedly. "Catharine knows already. "

 * * * * *

Meynell passed that evening in his study, after some hours spent in theChristmas business of a large parish. His mind was full of agitation, andwhen midnight struck, ushering in Christmas Eve, he was still undecidedas to his precise course. 

Among the letters of the day lying scattered beside him on the floorthere was yet further evidence of the power of Barron's campaign. Therewere warm expressions indeed of sympathy and indignation to be foundamong them, but on the whole Meynell realized that his own side's beliefin him was showing some signs of distress, while the attack upon him wasincreasing in violence. His silence even to his most intimate friends, even to his Bishop; the disappearance from England of the other personsnamed in the scandal; the constant elaborations and embellishments of thestory as it passed from mouth to mouth--these things were telling againsthim steadily and disastrously. 

As he hung over the fire, he anxiously reconsidered his conduct towardthe Bishop, while Catharine's phrase--"He, too, has his rights!" lingeredin his memory. He more than suspected that his silence had given pain;and his affection for the Bishop made the thought a sore one. 

But after all what good would have been done had he even put the Bishopin possession of the whole story? The Bishop's bare denial would havebeen added to his; nothing more. There could have been no explanation, public or private; nothing to persuade those who did not wish to bepersuaded. 

His thought wandered hither and thither. From the dim regions of the pastthere emerged a letter.... 

"My dear old Meynell, the thing is to be covered up. Ralph willacknowledge the child, and all precautions are to be taken. I thinkwhat he does he will do thoroughly. Alice wishes it--and what can I do, either for her or for the child? Nothing. And for me, I see but one wayout--which will be the best for her too in the end, poor darling. Mywife's letter a week ago destroyed my last hope. I am going outto-night--and I shall not come back. Stand by her, Richard. I think thiskind of lie on which we are all embarked is wrong (not that you hadanything to do with it!) But it is society which is wrong and imposes iton us. Anyway, the choice is made, and now you must support and protecther--and the child--for my sake. For I know you love me, dear boy--littleas I deserve it. It is part of your general gift of loving, which hasalways seemed to me so strange. However--whatever I was made for, youwere made to help the unhappy. So I have the less scruple in sending youthis last word. She will want your help. The child's lot in thathousehold will not be a happy one; and Alice will have to look on. But, help her!--help her above all to keep silence, for this thing, once done, must be irrevocable. Only so can my poor Alice recover her youth--think, she is only twenty now!--and the child's future be saved. Alice, Ihope, will marry. And when the child marries, you may--nay, I think youmust--tell the husband. I have written this to Ralph. But for all therest of the world, the truth is now wiped out. The child is no longermine--Alice was never my love--and I am going to the last sleep. Mysister Fanny Meryon knows something; enough to make her miserable; but nonames or details. Well!--good-bye. In your company alone have I everseemed to touch the life that might have been mine. But it is too late. The will in me--the mainspring--is diseased. This is a poor return--butforgive me!--my very dear Richard! Here comes the boat; and there is asplendid sea rising. "

 * * * * *

There, in a locked drawer, not far from him, lay this letter. Meynell'sthought plunged back into the past; into its passionate feeling, itsburning pity, its powerless affection. He recalled his young hero-worshipfor his brilliant kinsman; the hour when he had identified the batteredform on the shore of the Donegal Lough; the sight of Alice's younganguish; and all the subsequent effort on his part, for Christ's sake, for Neville's sake, to help and shield a woman and child, effort fromwhich his own soul had learnt so much. 

Pure and sacred recollections!--mingled often with the moral orintellectual perplexities that enter into all things human. 

Then--at a bound--his thoughts rushed on to the man who, without pity, without shame, had dragged all these sad things, these helpless, irreparable griefs, into the cruel light of a malicious publicity--in thename of Christ--in the name of the Church!

To-morrow! He rose, with a face set like iron, and went back to his tableto finish a half-written review. 

 * * * * *

"Theresa--after eleven--I shall be engaged. See that I am not disturbed. "

Theresa murmured assent, but when her father closed the door of hersitting-room, she did not go back immediately to her household accounts. Her good, plain face showed a disturbed mind. 

Her father's growing excitability and irritation, and the bad accounts ofMaurice, troubled her sorely. It was only that morning Mr. Barron hadbecome aware that Maurice had lost his employment, and was again adriftin the world. Theresa had known it for a week or two, but had not beenallowed to tell. And she tried not to remember how often of late herbrother had applied to her for money. 

Going back to her accounts with a sigh, she missed a necessary receiptand went into the dining-room to look for it. While she was there thefront door bell rang and was answered, unheard by her. Thus it fell outthat as she came back into the hall she found herself face to face withRichard Meynell. 

She stood paralyzed with astonishment. He bowed to her gravely and passedon. Something in his look seemed to her to spell calamity. She went backto her room, and sat there dumb and trembling, dreading what she mightsee or hear. 

Meanwhile Meynell had been ushered into Barron's study by the old butler, who was no less astonished than his mistress. 

Barron rose stiffly to meet his visitor. The two men stood opposite eachother as the door closed. 

Barron spoke first. 

"You will, I trust, let me know, Mr. Meynell, without delay to what I owethis unexpected visit. I was of course quite ready to meet your desirefor an interview, but your letter gave me no clue--"

"I thought it better not, " said Meynell quietly. "May we sit down?"

Barron mechanically waved the speaker to a chair, and sat down himself. Meynell seemed to pause a moment, his eyes on the ground. Then suddenlyhe raised them. 

"Mr. Barron, what I have come to say will be a shock to you. I havediscovered the author of the anonymous letters which have now for nearlythree months been defiling this parish and diocese. "

Barron's sudden movement showed the effect of the words. But he heldhimself well in hand. 

"I congratulate you, " he said coldly. "It is what we have all been tryingto discover. "

"But the discovery will be painful to you. For the author of theseletters, Mr. Barron--is--your son Maurice. "

At these words, spoken with an indescribable intensity and firmness, Barron sprang from, his seat. 

"It was not necessary, I think, sir, to come to my house in order toinsult my family and myself! It would have been better to write. And youmay be very sure that if you cannot punish your slanderers we can--andwill!"

His attitude expressed a quivering fury. Meynell took a packet from hisbreast-pocket and quietly laid it on the table beside him. 

"In this envelope you will find a document--a confession of a piece ofwrongdoing on Maurice's part of which I believe you have never beeninformed. His poor sister concealed it--and paid for it. Do you remember, three years ago, the letting loose of some valuable young horses fromFarmer Grange's stables--the hue and cry after them--and the difficultythere was in recapturing them on the Chase?"

Barron stared at the speaker--speechless. 

"You remember that a certain young fellow was accused--James Aston--oneof my Sunday school teachers--who had proposed to Grange's daughter, and had been sent about his business by the father? Aston was in factjust about to be run in by the police, when a clue came to my hands. Ifollowed it up. Then I found out that the ringleader in the whole affairhad been your son Maurice. If you remember, he was then at home, hangingabout the village, and he had had a quarrel with Grange--I forget aboutwhat. He wrote an anonymous post-card accusing Aston. However, I got onthe track; and finally I made him give me a written confession--toprotect Aston. Heavy compensation was paid to Grange--by yourdaughter--and the thing was hushed up. I was always doubtful whether Iought not to have come to you. But it was not long after the death ofyour wife. I was very sorry for you all--and Maurice pleaded hard. I didnot even tell Stephen; but I kept the confession. I came upon it a nightor two ago, in the drawer where I had also placed the letter to Daweswhich I got from you. Suddenly, the likeness in the handwritings struckme; and I made a very careful comparison. "

He opened the packet, and took out the two papers, which he offered toBarron. 

"I think, if you will compare the marked passages, you will see at leasta striking resemblance. "

With a shaking hand Barron refused the papers. 

"I have no doubt, sir, you can manufacture any evidence you please!--butI do not intend to follow you through it. Handwriting, as we all know, can be made to prove anything. Reserve your documents for your solicitor. I shall at once instruct mine. "

"But I am only at the beginning of my case, " said Meynell with the samecomposure. "I think you had better listen ... A passage in one of therecent letters gave me a hint--an idea. I went straight to East thepublican, and taxed him with being the accomplice of the writer. Iblustered a little--he thought I had more evidence than I had--and atlast I got the whole thing out of him. The first letter was written"--thespeaker raised his finger, articulating each word with slow precision, "by your son Maurice, and posted by East, the day after the cage-accidentat the Victoria pit; and they have pursued the same division of labourever since. East confesses he was induced to do it by the wish to revengehimself on me for the attack on his license; and Maurice occasionallygave him a little money. I have all the dates of the letters, and astatement of where they were posted. If necessary, East will giveevidence. "

A silence. Barron had resumed his seat, and was automatically lifting asmall book which lay on a table near him and letting it fall, whileMeynell was speaking. When Meynell paused, he said thickly--

"A plausible tale no doubt--and a very convenient one for you. But allowme to point out, it rests entirely on East's word. Very likely he wrotethe letters himself, and is attempting to make Maurice the scapegoat. "

"Where do you suppose he could have got his information from?" saidMeynell, looking up. "There is no suggestion that _he_ saw Judith Sabinbefore her death. "

Barron's face worked, while Meynell watched him implacably. At last hesaid:

"How should I know? The same question applies to Maurice. "

"Not at all. There the case is absolutely clear. Maurice got hisinformation from you. "

"A gratuitous statement, sir!--which you cannot prove. "

"From you"--repeated Meynell. "And from certain spying operations that heand East undertook together. Do you deny that you told Maurice all thatJudith Sabin told you--together with her identification of myself?"

The room seemed to wait for Barron's reply. He made none. He burst outinstead--

"What possible motive could Maurice have had for such an action? Thething isn't even plausible!"

"Oh, Maurice had various old scores to settle with me, " said Meynell, quietly. "I have come across him more than once in this parish--no needto say how. I tried to prevent him from publicly disgracing himselfand you; and I did prevent him. He saw in this business an easy revengeon a sanctimonious parson who had interfered with his pleasures. "

Barron had risen and was pacing the room with unsteady steps. Meynellstill watched him, with the same glitter in the eye. Meynell's wholenature indeed, at the moment, had gathered itself into one avengingforce; he was at once sword and smiter. The man before him seemed to himembodied cruelty and hypocrisy; he felt neither pity nor compunction. Andpresently he said abruptly--

"But I am afraid I have much more serious matter to lay before you thanthis business of the letters. "

"What do you mean?"

Taking another letter from his pocket, Meynell glanced at it a moment, and then handed it to Barron. Barron was for an instant inclined torefuse it, as he had refused the others. But Meynell insisted. 

"Believe me, you had better read it. It is a letter from Mr. Flaxman tomyself, and it concerns a grave charge against your son. I bring you achance of saving him from prosecution; but there is no time to be lost. "

Barron took the letter, carried it to the window, and stood reading it. Meynell sat on the other side of the room watching him, still in the sameimpassive "possessed" state. 

Suddenly, Barron put his hand over his face, and a groan he could notrepress broke from him. He turned his back and stood bending over theletter. 

At the same instant a shiver ran through Meynell, like the return to lifeof some arrested energy, some paralyzed power. The shock of that sound ofsuffering had found him iron; it left him flesh. The spiritual habit of alifetime revived; for "what we do we are. "

He rose slowly, and went over to the window. 

"You can still save him--from the immediate consequences of this atleast--if you will. I have arranged that with Flaxman. It was my seeinghim enter the room alone where the coins were, the night of the party, that first led to the idea that he might have taken them. Then, as yousee, certain dealers' shops were watched by a private detective. Mauriceappeared--sold the Hermes coin--was traced to his lodgings andidentified. So far the thing has not gone beyond private inquiry; for thedealer will do what Flaxman wants him to do. But Maurice still has themore famous of the two coins; and if he attempts to sell that, after thenotices to the police, there may be an exposure any day. You must go upto London as soon as you can--"

"I will go to-night, " said Barron, in a tone scarcely to be heard. Hestood with his hands on his sides, staring out upon the wintry gardenoutside, just as a gardener's boy laden with holly and ivy for thecustomary Christmas decorations of the house was passing across the lawn. 

There was silence a little. Meynell walked slowly up and down the room. At last Barron turned toward him; the very incapacity of the plump andruddy face for any tragic expression made it the more tragic. 

"I propose to write to the Bishop at once. Do you desire a publicstatement?"

"There must be a public statement, " said Meynell gravely. "The thing hasgone too far. Flaxman and I have drawn one up. Will you look at it?"

Barron took it, and went to his writing-table. 

"Wait a moment!" said Meynell, following him, and laying his hand on theopen page. "I don't want you to sign that by _force majeure_. Dismiss--ifyou can--any thought of any hold I may have upon you, because ofMaurice's misdoing. You and I, Barron, have known each other some years. We were once friends. I ask you--not under any threat--not under anycompulsion--to accept my word as an honest man that I am absolutelyinnocent of the charge you have brought against me. "

Barron, who was sitting before his writing-table, buried his face in hishands a moment, then raised it. 

"I accept it, " he said, almost inaudibly. 

"You believe me?"

"I believe you. "

Meynell drew a long breath. Then he added, with a first sign ofemotion--"And I may also count upon your doing henceforth what you can toprotect that poor lady, Miss Puttenham, and her kinsfolk, from theconsequences of this long persecution?"

Barron made a sign of assent. Meynell left him to read and sign thepublic apology and retraction, which Flaxman had mainly drawn up; whilethe Rector himself took up a Bradshaw lying on the table, and walked tothe window to consult it. 

"You will catch the 1. 40, " he said, as Barron rose from thewriting-table. "Let me advise you to get him out of the country for atime. "

Barron said nothing. He came heavily toward the window, and the two menstood looking at each other, overtaken both of them by a mounting wave ofconsciousness. The events, passions, emotions of the preceding monthspressed into memory, and beat against the silence. But it was Meynell whoturned pale. 

"What a pity--to spoil the fight!" he said in a low voice. "It would havebeen splendid--to fight it--fair. "

"I shall of course withdraw my name from the Arches suit, " said Barron, leaning over a chair, his eyes on the ground. 

Meynell did not reply. He took up his hat; only saying as he went towardthe door:

"Remember--Flaxman holds his hand entirely. The situation is with you. "Then, after a moment's hesitation, he added simply, almost shyly--"Godhelp you! Won't you consult your daughter?"

Barron made no answer. The door opened and shut. 

BOOK IV

MEYNELL AND MARY

".... But Life ere longCame on me in the public ways and bentEyes deeper than of old; Death met I too, And saw the dawn glow through. "

CHAPTER XX

A mild January day on the terrace of St. Germains. After a morning ofhoar-frost the sun was shining brightly on the terrace, and on thepanorama it commands. A pleasant light lay on the charming houses thatfront the skirts of the forest, on the blue-gray windings of the Seine, on the groves of leafless poplars interwoven with its course, on theplain with its thickly sown villages, on the height of Mont Valérien, behind which lay Paris. In spite of the sunshine, however, it was winter, and there was no movement in St. Germains. The terrace and the roadleading from it to the town were deserted; and it was easy to see fromthe aspect of the famous hotel at the corner of the terrace that, although not closed, it despaired of visitors. Only a trio of Frenchofficers in the far distance of the terrace, and a white-capped_bonne_ struggling against the light wind with a basket on her arm, offered any sign of life to the observant eyes of a young man who wasbriskly pacing up and down that section of the terrace which abuts on thehotel. 

The young man was Philip Meryon. His dark tweed suit and fur waistcoatdisclosed a figure once singularly agile and slender, on whichself-indulgence was now beginning to tell. Nevertheless, as the _bonne_passed him she duly noted and admired his pictorial good looks, opiningat the same time that he was not French. Why was he there? She decided inher own mind that he was there for an assignation, by which she meant, ofcourse, a meeting with a married woman; and she smiled the incorrigibleFrench smile. 

Assignation or no, she would have seen, had she looked closer, that theyoung man in question was in no merely beatific or expectant frame ofmind. Meryon's look was a look both of excitement--as of one under theinfluence of some news of a startling kind--and of anxiety. 

Would she come? And if she came would he be able to bring and hold her toany decision, without--without doing what even he shrank from doing?

For that ill chance in a thousand which Meynell had foreseen, and hoped, as mortals do, to baffle, had come to pass. That morning, a carelessletter enclosing the payment of a debt, and written by a young actor, whohad formed part of one of the bohemian parties at the Abbey, during thesummer, and had now been playing for a week in the Markborough theatre, had given Meryon the clue to the many vague conjectures or perplexitieswhich had already crossed his mind with regard to Hester's origin andhistory. 

 * * * * *

"Your sanctified cousin, Richard Meynell" [wrote the young man] "seemsafter all to be made of the common clay. There are strange stories goingthe round about him here; especially in a crop of anonymous letters ofwhich the author can't be found. I send you a local newspaper which hasdared to print one of them with dashes for the names. The landlord of theinn told me how to fill them up, and you will see I have done it. Thebeauteous maiden herself has vanished from the scene--as no doubt youknow. Indeed you probably know all about it. However, as you are abroad, and not likely to see these local rags, and as no London paper will printthese things, you may perhaps be interested in what I enclose. Alack, mydear Philip, for the saints! They seem not so very different from you andme. "

 * * * * *

The eagerness with which Philip had read the newspaper cutting enclosedin the letter was only equalled by the eagerness with which afterward hefell to meditating upon it; pursuing and ferreting out the truth, througha maze of personal recollection and inference. 

Richard!--nonsense! He laughed, from a full throat. Not for one momentwas Philip misled by Judith Sabin's mistake. He was a man of greatnatural shrewdness, blunted no doubt by riotous living; but there wasenough of it left, aided by his recent forced contacts with his cousinRichard all turning on the subject of Hester, to keep him straight. Sothat without any demur at all he rejected the story as it stood. 

But then, what was the fact behind it? Impossible that Judith Sabin'sstory should be all delusion! For whom did she mistake Richard?

Suddenly, as he sat brooding and smoking, a vision of Hester flashed uponhim as she had stood laughing and pouting, beneath the full lengthpicture of Neville Flood, which hung in the big hall of the Abbey. He hadpointed it out to her on their way through the house--where she hadperemptorily refused to linger--to the old garden behind. 

He could hear his own question: "There!--aren't you exactly like him?Turn and look at yourself in the glass opposite. Oh, you needn't beoffended! He was the handsome man of his day. "

Of course! The truth jumped to the eyes, now that one was put in the wayof seeing it. And on this decisive recollection there had followed a rushof others, no less pertinent: things said by his dead mother about thebrother whom she had loved and bitterly regretted. So the wronged ladywhom he would have married but for his wife's obstinacy was "Aunt Alice!"Philip remembered to have once seen her from a distance in the Upcotewoods. Hester had pointed her out, finger on lip, as they stood hiding ina thicket of fern; a pretty woman still. His mother had never mentioned aname; probably she had never known it; but to the love-affair she hadalways attributed some share in her brother's death. 

From point to point he tracked it, the poor secret, till he had run itdown. By degrees everything fitted in; he was confident that he hadguessed the truth. 

Then, abruptly, he turned to look at its bearing on his own designs andfortunes. 

He supposed himself to be in love with Hester. At any rate he wasviolently conscious of that hawk-like instinct of pursuit which he wasaccustomed to call love. Hester's mad and childish imprudences, which thecooler self in Meryon was quite ready to recognize as such, had made thehawking a singularly easy task so far. Meynell, of course, had put updifficulties; with regard to this Scotch business it had been necessaryto lie pretty hard, and to bribe some humble folk in order to get roundhim. But Hester, by the double fact that she was at once so far removedfrom the mere _ingénue_, and so incredibly ready to risk herself, out ofsheer ignorance of life, both challenged and tempted the man whom adisastrous fate had brought across her path, to such a point that he hadlong since lost control of himself, and parted with any scruples ofconscience he might possess. 

At the same time he was by no means sure of her. He realized hisincreasing power over her; he also realized the wild, independent streakin her. Some day--any day--the capricious, wilful nature might tire, might change. The prey might escape, and the hawk go empty home. Nodallying too long! Let him decide what to risk--and risk it. 

Meantime that confounded cousin of his was hard at work, through somevery capable lawyers, and unless the instructions he--Philip--hadconveyed to the woman in Scotland, who, thank goodness, was no lessanxious to be rid of him than he to be rid of her, were very shrewdlyand exactly carried out, facts might in the end reach Hester which wouldgive even her recklessness pause. He knew that so far Meynell had beenbaffled; he knew that he carried about with him evidence that, for thepresent, could be brought to bear on Hester with effect; but things wereby no means safe. 

For his own affairs, they were desperate. As he stood there, he wasnothing more in fact than the common needy adventurer, possessed, however, of greater daring, and the _dèbris_ of much greater pretensions, than most such persons. His financial resources were practically at anend, and he had come to look upon a clandestine marriage with Hester asthe best means of replenishing them. The Fox-Wilton family passed forrich; and the notion that they must and would be ready to come forwardwith money, when once the thing was irrevocable, counted for much in themuddy plans of which his mind was full. His own idea was to go to SouthAmerica--to Buenos Ayres, where money was to be made, and where he hadsome acquaintance. In that way he would shake off his creditors, and theScotch woman together; and Meynell would know better than to interfere. 

 * * * * *

Suddenly a light figure came fluttering round the corner of the roadleading to the château and the town. Philip turned and went to meet her. And as he approached her he was shaken afresh by the excitement of herpresence, in addition to his more sordid preoccupation. Her wild, provocative beauty seemed to light up the whole wintry scene; and the fewpassers-by, each and all, stopped to stare at her. Hester laughed aloudwhen she saw Meryon; and with her usual recklessness held up her umbrellafor signal. It pleased her that two _rapins_ in large black ties andsteeple hats paid her an insolent attention as they passed her; and shestopped to pinch the cheek of a chubby child that had planted itselfstraight in her path. 

"Am I late?" she said, as they met. "I only just caught the train. Oh! Iam so hungry! Don't let's talk--let's _déjeuner_. "

Philip laughed. 

"Will you dare the hotel?"

And he pointed to the Pavillion Henri Quatre. 

"Why not? Probably there won't be a soul. "

"There are always Americans. "

"Why not, again? _Tant mieux_! Oh, my hair!"

And she put up her two ungloved hands to try and reduce it to somethinglike order. The loveliness of the young curving form, of the prettyhands, of the golden brown hair, struck full on Meryon's turbid sense. 

They turned toward the hotel, and were presently seated in a corner ofits glazed gallery, with all the wide, prospect of plain and river spreadbeneath them. Hester was in the highest spirits, and as she sat waitingfor the first _plat_, chattering, and nibbling at her roll, her blackfelt hat with its plume of cock feathers falling back from the brillianceof her face, she once more attracted all the attention available; fromthe two savants who, after a morning in the Chateau, were lunching at afarther table; from an American family of all ages reduced to silenceby sheer wonder and contemplation; from the waiters, and, not least, fromthe hotel dog, wagging his tail mutely at her knee. 

Philip felt himself an envied person. He was, indeed, vain of hiscompanion; but certain tyrannical instincts asserted themselves once ortwice. When, or if, she became his possession, he would try and moderatesome of this chatter and noise. 

For the present he occupied himself with playing to her lead, glancingevery now and then mentally, with a secret start, at the information hehad possessed about her since the morning. 

She described to him, with a number of new tricks of gesture caught fromher French class-mates, how she had that morning outwitted all herguardians, who supposed that she had gone to Versailles with one of thesenior members of the class she was attending at the Conservatoire, ayoung teacher, "_très sage_, " with whom she had been allowed once ortwice to go to museums and galleries. To accomplish it had required anelaborate series of deceptions, which Hester had carried through, apparently, without a qualm. Except that at the end of her story therewas a passing reference to Aunt Alice--"poor darling!"--"who would have afit if she knew. "

Philip, coffee-cup in hand, half smiling, looked at her meantime throughhis partially closed lids. Richard, indeed! She was Neville all through, the Neville of the picture, except for the colour of the hair, and thesoft femininity. And here she sat, prattling--foolish dear!--about"mamma, " and "Aunt Alice, " and "my tiresome sisters!"

"Certainly you shall not pay for me!--not a _sou, _" said Hester flushing. "I have plenty of money. Take it please, at once. " And she pushed hershare over the table, with a peremptory gesture. 

Meryon took it with a smile and a shrug, and she, throwing away thecigarette she had been defiantly smoking, rose from the table. 

"Now then, what shall we do? Oh! no museums! I am being educated todeath! Let us go for a walk in the forest; and then I must catch mytrain, or the world will go mad. "

So they walked briskly into the forest, and were soon sufficiently deepamong its leaf-strewn paths, to be secure from all observation. Two hoursremained of wintry sunlight before they must turn back toward thestation. 

Hester walked along swinging a small silk bag in which she carried herhandkerchief and purse. Suddenly, in a narrow path girt by some tallhollies and withered oaks, she let it fall. Both stooped for it, theirhands touched, and as Hester rose she found herself in Meryon's arms. 

She made a violent effort to free herself, and when it failed, she stoodstill and submitted to be kissed, like one who accepts an experience, with a kind of proud patience. 

"You think you love me, " she said at last, pushing him away. "I wonderwhether you do!"

And flushed and panting, she leant against a tree, looking at him with astrange expression, in which melancholy mingled with resentment; passingslowly into something else--that soft and shaken look, that yearning ofone longing and yet fearing to be loved, which had struck dismay intoMeynell on the afternoon when he had pursued her to the Abbey. 

Philip came close to her. 

"You think I have no Roddy!" she said, with bitterness. "Don't kiss meagain!"

He refrained. But catching her hand, and leaning against the trunk besideher, he poured into her ear protestations and flattery; the ordinarylanguage of such a man at such a moment. Hester listened to it with akind of eagerness. Sometimes, with a slight frown, as though ear and mindwaited, intently, for something that did not come. 

"I wonder how many people you have said the same things to before!" shesaid suddenly, looking searchingly into his face. "What have you got totell me about that Scotch girl?"

"Richard's Scotch girl?"--he laughed, throwing his handsome head backagainst the tree--"whom Richard supposes me to have married? Well, I hada great flirtation with her, I admit, two years ago, and it is sometimesrather difficult in Scotland to know whether you are married or no. Youknow of course that all that's necessary is to declare yourselves man andwife before witnesses? However--perhaps you would like to see a letterfrom the lady herself on the subject?"

"You had it ready?" she said, doubtfully. 

"Well, considering that Richard has been threatening me for months, notonly with the loss of you, but with all sorts of pains and penaltiesbesides, I have had to do something! Of course I have done a great deal. This is one of the documents in the case. It is an affidavit really, drawn up by my solicitor and signed by the lady whom Richard supposes tobe my injured wife!"

He placed an envelope in her hands. 

Hester opened it with a touch of scornful reluctance. It contained acategorical denial and repudiation of the supposed marriage. 

"Has Uncle Richard seen it?" she asked coldly, as she gave it back tohim. 

"Certainly he has, by now. " He took another envelope from his pocket. "Iwon't bother you with anything more--the thing is really too absurd!--buthere, if you want it, is a letter from the girl's brother. Brothers aregenerally supposed to keep a sharp lookout on their sisters, aren't they?Well, this brother declares that Meynell's inquiries have come tonothing, absolutely nothing, in the neighbourhood--except that they havemade people very angry. He has got no evidence--simply because there isnone to get! I imagine, indeed, that by now he has dropped the wholebusiness. And certainly it is high time he did; or I shall have to betaking action on my own account before long!"

He looked down upon her, as she stood beside him, trying to make out herexpression. 

"Hester!" he broke out, "don't let's talk about this any more--it'sdamned nonsense! Let's talk about ourselves. Hester!--darling!--I wantto make you happy!--I want to carry you away. Hester, will you marry meat once? As far as the French law is concerned, I have arranged it all. You could come with me to a certain Mairie I know, to-morrow, and wecould marry without anybody having a word to say to it; and then, Hester, I'd carry you to Italy! I know a villa on the Riviera--the ItalianRiviera--in a little bay all orange and lemon and blue sea. We'dhoneymoon there; and when we were tired of honeymooning--though how couldany one tire of honeymooning, with you, you darling!--we'd go to SouthAmerica. I have an opening at Buenos Ayres which promises to make me arich man. Come with me!--it is the most wonderful country in the world. You would be adored there--you would have every luxury--we'd travel andride and explore--we'd have a glorious life!"

He had caught her hands again, and stood towering over her, intoxicatedwith his own tinsel phrases; almost sincere; a splendid physicalpresence, save for the slight thickening of face and form, the loosenessof the lips, the absence of all freshness in the eyes. 

But Hester, after a first moment of dreamy excitement, drew herselfdecidedly away. 

"No, no!--I can't be such a wretch--I can't! Mamma and Aunt Alice wouldbreak their hearts. I'm a selfish beast, but not quite so bad as that!No, Philip--we can meet and amuse ourselves, can't we?--and get to knoweach other?--and then if we want to, we can marry--some time. "

"That means you don't love me!" he said, fiercely. 

"Yes, yes, I do!--or at least I--I like you. And perhaps in time--if youlet me alone--if you don't tease me--I--I'll marry you. But let's do itopenly. It's amusing to get one's own way, even by lies, up to a certainpoint. They wouldn't let me see you, or get to know you, and I wasdetermined to know you. So I had to behave like a little cad, or give in. But marrying's different. "

He argued with her hotly, pointing out the certainty of Meynell'sopposition, exaggerating the legal powers of guardians, declaringvehemently that it was now or never. Hester grew very white as theywandered on through the forest, but she did not yield. Some last scrupleof conscience, perhaps--some fluttering fear, possessed her. 

So that in the end Philip was pushed to the villainy that even he wouldhave avoided. 

Suddenly he turned upon her. 

"Hester, you drive me to it! I don't want to--but I can't help it. Hester, you poor little darling!--you don't know what has happened--youdon't know what a position you're in. I want to save you from it. Iwould have done it, God knows, without telling you the truth if I could;but you drive me to it!"

"What on earth do you mean?"

She stopped beside him in a clearing of the forest. The pale afternoonsun, now dropping fast to westward, slipped through the slender oaks, onwhich the red leaves still danced, touched the girl's hair and shone intoher beautiful eyes. She stood there so young, so unconscious; a victim, on the threshold of doom. Philip, who was no more a monster than othermen who do monstrous things, felt a sharp stab of compunction; and then, rushed headlong at the crime he had practically resolved on before theymet. 

He told her in a few agitated words the whole--and the true--story of herbirth. He described the return of Judith Sabin to Upcote Minor, and thenarrative she had given to Henry Barron, without however a word ofMeynell in the case, so far at least as the original events wereconcerned. For he was convinced that he knew better, and that there wasno object in prolonging an absurd misunderstanding. His version of theaffair was that Judith in a fit of excitement had revealed Hester'sparentage to Henry Barron; that Barron out of enmity toward Meynell, Hester's guardian, and by way of getting a hold upon him, had not keptthe matter to himself, but had either written or instigated anonymousletters which had spread such excitement in the neighbourhood that LadyFox-Wilton had now let her house, and practically left Upcote for good. The story had become the common talk of the Markborough district; and allthat Meynell, and "your poor mother, " and the Fox-Wilton family could do, was to attempt, on the one hand, to meet the rush of scandal by absenceand silence; and on the other to keep the facts from Hester herself aslong as possible. 

The girl had listened to him with wide, startled eyes. Occasionally asound broke from her--a gasp--an exclamation--and when he paused, pursuedby almost a murderer's sense of guilt, he saw her totter. In an instanthe had his arm round her, and for once there was both real passion andreal pity in the excited words he poured into her ears. 

"Hester, dearest!--don't cry, don't be miserable, my own beautifulHester! I am a beast to have told you, but it is because I am not onlyyour lover, but your cousin--your own flesh and blood. Trust yourselfto me! You'll see! Why should that preaching fellow Meynell interfere?I'll take care of you. You come to me, and we'll show these damnedscandal-mongers that what they say is nothing to us--that we don't care afig for their cant--that we are the masters of our own lives--not they!"

And so on, and so on. The emotion was as near sincerity as he could pushit; but it did not fail to occur, at least once, to a mind steeped inthird-rate drama, what a "strong" dramatic scene might be drawn from thewhole situation. 

Hester heard him for a few minutes, in evident stupefaction; then with arecovery of physical equilibrium she again vehemently repulsed him. 

"You are mad--you are _mad_! It is abominable to talk to me like this. What do you mean? 'My poor mother'--who is my mother?"

She faced him tragically, the certainty which was already dawning in hermind--prepared indeed, through years, by all the perplexities andrebellions of her girlhood--betraying itself in her quivering face, andlips. Suddenly, she dropped upon a fallen log beside the path, hiding herface in her hands, struggling again with the sheer faintness of theshock. And Philip, kneeling in the dry leaves beside her, completed hiswork, with the cruel mercy of the man who kills what he has wounded. 

He asked her to look back into her childhood; he reminded her of the manycomplaints she had made to him of her sense of isolation within hersupposed family; of the strange provisions of Sir Ralph's will; of thearrangement which had made her Meynell's ward in a special sense. 

"Why, of course, that was so natural! You remember I suggested to youonce that Richard probably judged Neville from the same Puritanicalstandpoint that he judged me? Well, I was a fool to talk like that. Iremember now perfectly what my mother used to say. They were of differentgenerations, but they were tremendous friends; and there was only a fewyears between them. I am certain it was by Neville's wish that Richardbecame your guardian. " He laughed, in some embarrassment. "He couldn'texactly foresee that another member of the family would want to cut in. Ilove you--I adore you! Let's give all these people the slip. Hester, mypretty, pretty darling--look at me! I'll show you what life means--whatlove means!"

And doubly tempted by her abasement, her bewildered pain, he tried againto take her in his arms. 

But she held him at arm's length. 

"If, " she said, with pale lips--"if Sir Neville was my father--and AuntAlsie"--her voice failed her--"were they--were they never married?"

He slowly and reluctantly shook his head. 

"Then I'm--I'm--oh! but that's monstrous--that's absurd! I don't believeit!"

She sprang to her feet. Then, as she stood confronting his silence, thewhole episode of that bygone September afternoon--the miniature--AuntAlice's silence and tears--rushed back on memory. She trembled, andthe iron entered into her soul. 

"Let's go back to the station, " she said, resolutely. "It's time. "

They walked back through the forest paths, for some time withoutspeaking, she refusing his aid. And all the time swiftly, inexorably, memory and inference were at work, dragging to light thedeposit--obscure, or troubling, or contradictory--left in her by thefacts and feelings of her childhood and youth. 

She had told him with emphasis at luncheon that he was not to be allowedto accompany her home; that she would go back to Paris by herself. Butwhen, at the St. Germains station, Meryon jumped into the empty railwaycarriage beside her, she said nothing to prevent him. She sat in thedarkest corner of the carriage, her arms hanging beside her, her eyesfixed on objects of which she saw nothing. Her pride in herself, herideal of herself, which is to every young creature like the protectivesheath to the flower, was stricken to the core. She thought of Sarah andLulu, whom she had all her life despised and ridiculed. But they had aright to their name and place in the world!--and she was their namelessinferior, the child taken in out of pity, accepted on sufferance. Shethought of the gossip now rushing like a mud-laden stream through everyUpcote or Markborough drawing-room. All the persons whom she had snubbedor flouted were concerning themselves maliciously with her and heraffairs--were pitying "poor Hester Fox-Wilton. "

Her heart seemed to dry and harden within her. The strange thought of herreal mother--her suffering, patient, devoted mother--did not move her. Itwas bound up with all that trampled on and humiliated her. 

And, moreover, strange and piteous fact, realized by them both! thissudden sense of fall and degradation had in some mysterious way alteredher whole relation to the man who had brought it upon her. His evil powerover her had increased. He felt instinctively that he need not in futurebe so much on his guard. His manner toward her became freer. She hadnever yet returned him the kisses which, as on this day, she hadsometimes allowed him to snatch. But before they reached Paris she hadkissed him; she had sought his hands with hers; and she had promised tomeet him again. 

While these lamentable influences and events were thus sweeping Hester'slife toward the abyss, mocking all the sacrifices and the efforts thathad been made to save her, the publication of Barron's apology had openedyet another stage in "the Meynell case. "

As drafted by Flaxman, it was certainly comprehensive enough. Forhimself, Meynell would have been content with much less; but in dealingwith Barron, he was the avenger of wrongs not his own, both public andprivate; and when his own first passion of requital had passed away, killed in him by the anguish of his enemy, he still let Flaxman decidefor him. And Flaxman, the mildest and most placable of men, showedhimself here inexorable, and would allow no softening of terms. So thatBarron "unreservedly withdrew" and "publicly apologized" "for those falseand calumnious charges, which to my great regret, and on erroneousinformation, I have been led to bring against the character and conductof the Rev. Richard Meynell, at various dates, and in various ways, during the six months preceding the date of this apology. "

With regard to the anonymous letters--"although they were not written, nor in any way authorized, by me, I now discover to my sorrow that theywere written by a member of my family on information derived from me. I apologize for and repudiate the false and slanderous statements theseletters contain, and those also included in letters I myself have writtento various persons. I agree that a copy of this statement shall be sentto the Bishop of Markborough, and to each parish clergyman in the dioceseof Markborough; as also that it shall be published in such newspapers asthe solicitors of the Rev. Richard Meynell may determine. "

The document appeared first on a Saturday, in all the local papers, andwas greedily read and discussed by the crowds that throng intoMarkborough on market day, who again carried back the news to thevillages of the diocese. It was also published on the same day inthe _Modernist_ and in the leading religious papers. Its effect onopinion was rapid and profound. The Bishop telegraphed--"Thank God. Comeand see me. " France fidgeted a whole morning among his papers, began twoor three letters to Meynell, and finally decided that he could writenothing adequate that would not also be hypocritical. Dornal wrote alittle note that Meynell put away among those records that are themilestones of life. From all the leading Modernists, during January, came a rush of correspondence and congratulations, in all possible notesand tones of indignant triumph; and many leaders on the other side wrotewith generous emotion and relief. Only in the extreme camp of the extremeRight there was, of course, silence and chagrin. Compared to the eternalinterests of the Church, what does one man's character matter?

The old Bishop of Dunchester, a kind of English Döllinger, the learnedleader of a learned party, and ready in the last years of life to riskwhat would have tasked the nerves and courage of a man in the prime ofphysical and mental power, wrote:

"MY DEAR RICHARD MEYNELL: Against my better judgment, I was persuadedthat you might have been imprudent. I now know that you have only beenheroic. Forgive me--forgive us all. Nothing will induce me to preach thesermon of our opening day. And if you will not, who will, or can?"

Rose meanwhile descended upon the Rectory, and with Flaxman's help, though in the teeth of Anne's rather jealous opposition, she carried offMeynell to Maudeley, that she might "help him write his letters, " andwatch for a week or two over a man wearied and overtaxed. It was by hermeans also that the reaction in public opinion spread far beyond Meynellhimself. It is true that even men and women of good will looked at eachother in bewilderment, after the publication of the apology, and askedeach other under their breaths--"Then is there no story!--and was JudithSabin's whole narrative a delusion?" But with whatever might be true inthat narrative no public interest was now bound up; and discussion grewfirst shamefaced, and then dropped. The tendency strengthened indeed toregard the whole matter as the invention of a half-crazy and dying woman, possessed of some grudge against the Fox-Wilton family. Many surmisedthat some tragic fact lay at the root of the tale, since those concernedhad not chosen to bring the slanderer to account. But what had once beenmere matter for malicious or idle curiosity was now handled withcompunction and good feeling. People began to be very sorry for theFox-Wiltons, very sorry for "poor Miss Puttenham. " Cards were left, andfriendly inquiries were made; and amid the general wave of scepticism andregret, the local society showed itself as sentimental, and as futile asusual. 

Meanwhile poor Theresa had been seen driving to the station with redeyes; and her father, it was ascertained, had been absent from home sincethe day before the publication of the apology. It was very commonlyguessed that the "member of my family" responsible for the letters wasthe unsatisfactory younger son; and many persons, especially in Churchcircles, were secretly sorry for Barron, while everybody possessed of anyheart at all was sorry for his elder son Stephen. 

Stephen indeed was one of Meynell's chief anxieties during theseintermediate hours, when a strong man took a few days' breathing spacebetween the effort that had been, and the effort that was to be. Theyoung man would come over, day by day, with the same crushed, patientlook, now bringing news to Meynell which they talked over where nonemight overhear, and now craving news from Paris in return. As toStephen's own report, Barron, it seemed, had made all arrangementsto send Maurice to a firm of English merchants trading at Riga. The headof the firm was under an old financial obligation to Henry Barron, andStephen had no doubt that his father had made it heavily worth theirwhile to give his brother this fresh chance of an honest life. Therehad been, Stephen believed, some terrible scenes between the father andson, and Stephen neither felt nor professed to feel any hope for thefuture. Barron intended himself to accompany Maurice to Riga and settlehim there. Afterward he talked of a journey to the Cape. Meanwhile theWhite House was shut up, and poor Theresa had come to join Stephen in thelittle vicarage whence the course of events in the coming year wouldcertainly drive him out. 

So much for the news he gave. As to the news he hungered for, Meynell hadbut crumbs to give him. To neither Stephen nor any one else could AlicePuttenham's letters be disclosed. Meynell's lips were sealed upon herstory now as they had ever been; and, however shrewdly he might guess atStephen's guesses, he said nothing, and Stephen asked nothing on thesubject. 

As to Hester, he was told that she was well, though often moody andexcitable, that she seemed already to have tired of the lessons andoccupations she had taken up with such prodigious energy at the beginningof her stay, and that she had made violent friends with a young teacherfrom the École Normale, a refined, intelligent woman, in every way fit tobe her companion, with whom on holidays she sometimes made longexcursions out of Paris. 

But to Meynell, poor Alice Puttenham poured out all the bitterness of herheart:

"It seems to me that the little hold I had over her, and the smallaffection she had for me when we arrived here, are both now less thanthey were. During the last week especially (the letter was dated thefourteenth of January) I have been at my wits' end how to amuse or pleaseher. She resents being watched and managed more than ever. One feelsthere is a tumult in her soul to which we have no access. Her teacherscomplain of her temper and her caprice. And yet she dazzles andfascinates as much as ever. I suspect she doesn't sleep--she has a wornlook quite unnatural at her age--but it makes her furious to be asked. Sometimes, indeed, she seems to melt toward me; the sombre look passesaway, and she is melancholy and soft, with tears in her eyes now andthen, which I dare not notice. 

"Oh, my dear friend, I am grateful for all you tell me of the changedsituation at Markborough. But after all the thing is done--there can beno undoing it. The lies mingled with the truth have been put down. Perhaps people are ready now to let the truth itself slip back withthe lies into the darkness. But how can we--Edith and I--and Hester--everlive the old life again? The old shelter, the old peace, are gone. We arewanderers and pilgrims henceforward!

"As far as I know, Hester is still in complete ignorance of all that hashappened. I have told her that Edith finds Tours so economical that sheprefers to stay abroad for a couple of years, and to let the Upcotehouse. And I have said also that when she herself is tired of Paris, Iam ready to take her to Germany, and then to Italy. She laughed, asthough I had said something ridiculous! One never knows her real mind. But at least I see no sign of any suspicion in her; and I am sure thatshe has seen no English newspaper that could have given her a clue. As toPhilip Meryon, as I have told you before, I often feel a vagueuneasiness; but watch as I will, I can find nothing to justify it. Oh!Richard, my heart is broken for her. A little love from her, and thewhole world would change for me. But even what I once possessed theselast few months seem to have taken from me!"

"The thing is done!--there can be no undoing it. " That was the soreburden of all Meynell's thoughts, awakening in him, at times, the "bittercraving to strike heavy blows" at he knew not what. What, indeed, couldever undo the indecency, the cruelty, the ugly revelations of thesethree months? The grossness of the common public, the weakness offriends, the solemn follies to which men are driven by hate or bigotry:these things might well have roused the angry laughter that lives in allquick and honest souls. But the satiric mood, when it appeared, soonvanished. He remembered the saying of Meredith concerning the spectacleof Bossuet over the dead body of Molière--"at which the dark angels may, but men do not, laugh. "

This bitterness might have festered within him, but for the blessednessof Mary Elsmere's letters. She had seen the apology; she knew nothing ofits causes. But she betrayed a joy that was almost too proud to knowitself as joy; since what doubt could there ever have been but that rightand nobleness would prevail? Catharine wrote the warmest and kindest ofletters. But Mary's every word was balm, just because she knew nothing, and wrote out of the fulness of her mere faith in him, ready to let hertrust take any shape he would. And though she knew nothing, she seemed bysome divine instinct to understand also the pain that overshadowed thetriumph; to be ready to sit silent with him before the irreparable. Dayby day, as he read these letters, his heart burned within him; and Rosenoted the growing restlessness. But he had heavy arrears of parishbusiness upon him, of correspondence, of literary work. He struggled on, the powers of mind and body flagging, till one night, when he had beennearly a week at Maudeley, Rose came to him one evening, and said with asmile that had in it just a touch of sweet mockery--

"My dear friend, you are doing no good here at all! Go and see Mary!"

He turned upon her, amazed. 

"She has not sent for me. "

Rose laughed out. 

"Did you expect her to be as modern as that?"

He murmured--

"I have been waiting for a word. "

"What right had you to wait? Go and get it out of her! Where will youstay?"

He gasped. 

"There is the farm at the head of the valley. "

"Telegraph to-night. "

He thought a little--the colour flooding into his face. And then hequietly went to Rose's writing-table, and wrote his telegram. 

CHAPTER XXI

But before he took the midday train from Markborough to the North, on thefollowing day, Meynell spent half an hour with his Bishop in theepiscopal library. 

It was a strange meeting. When Bishop Craye first caught sight of theentering figure, he hurried forward, and as the door closed upon thefootman, he seized Meynell's hand in both his own. 

"I see what you have gone through, " he said, with emotion; "and you wouldnot let me help you!"

Meynell smiled faintly. 

"I knew you wished to help me--but--"

Then his voice dropped, and the Bishop would not have pressed him for theworld. They fell upon the anonymous letters, a comparatively safe topic, and the relation of Barron to them. Naturally Meynell gave the Bishop nohint whatever of the graver matter which had finally compelled Barron'ssurrender. He described his comparison of the Dawes letters with "adocument in the young man's handwriting which I happened to have in mypossession, " and the gradual but certain conviction it had brought about. 

"I was extraordinarily blind, however, not to find the clue earlier. "

"It is not only you, my dear Meynell, that need regret it!" cried theBishop. "I hope you have sometimes given a thought to the men on our sidecompelled to see the fight waged--"

"With such a weapon? I knew very well that no one under your influence, my lord, would touch it, " said Meynell simply. 

The Bishop observed him, and with an inner sympathy, one might almost saya profound and affectionate admiration, which contrasted curiously withthe public position in which they stood to each other. It was now verygenerally recognized, and especially in Markborough and its diocese, thatMeynell had borne himself with extraordinary dignity and patience underthe ordeal through which he had passed. And the Bishop--whose guess hadso nearly hit the truth, who had been persuaded that in the whole matterMeynell was but the victim of some trust, some duty, which honour andconscience would not let him betray in order to save himself--the Bishopwas but the more poignantly of this opinion now that he had the manbefore him. The weeks of suffering, the long storm of detraction, hadleft their mark; and it was not a light one. The high-hearted littleBishop felt himself in some way guilty, obscurely and representatively, if not directly. 

Yet, at the same time, when the personal matter dropped away, and theypassed, as they soon did, to a perfectly calm discussion of the action inthe Court of Arches which was to begin within a week, nothing could beclearer or more irrevocable than the differences, ecclesiastical andintellectual, which divided these two men, who in matters of personalfeeling were so sensitively responsive the one to the other. 

Meynell dwelt on the points of law raised in the pleadings, on thebearing of previous cases--the _Essays and Reviews_ case above all--uponthe suit. The antecedents of the counsel employed on both sides, theidiosyncrasies of the judge, the probable length of the trial; their talkranged round these matters, without ever striking deeper. It was assumedbetween them that the expulsion of the Modernist clergy was only aquestion of months--possibly weeks. Once indeed Meynell referred slightlyto the agitation in the country, to the growing snowball of the petitionto Parliament, to the now certain introduction of a Bill "To promote anamended constitution for the Church of England. " The Bishop's eyebrowswent up, his lip twitched. It was the scorn of a spiritual aristocracythreatened by the populace. 

But in general they talked with extraordinary frankness and mutual goodfeeling; and they grasped hands more than cordially at the end. Theymight have been two generals, meeting before a battle, under the whiteflag. 

 * * * * *

Still the same mild January weather; with unseasonable shoots puttingforth, and forebodings on the part of all garden-lovers, as fresh andresentful as though such forebodings, with their fulfilments, were notthe natural portion of all English gardeners. 

In the Westmoreland dales, the month was rainier than elsewhere, but ifpossible, milder. Yellow buds were already foolishly breaking on thegorse, and weak primroses, as though afraid to venture, and yetventuring, were to be found in the depths of many woods. 

Meynell had slept at Whindale. In the morning a trap conveyed him and hisbag to the farmhouse at the head of the valley; and the winter sun hadonly just scattered the mists from the dale when, stick in hand, he foundhimself on the road to Mrs. Elsmere's little house, Burwood. 

With every step his jaded spirits rose. He was a passionate lover ofmountains, with that modern spirit which finds in them man's best refugefrom modernness. The damp fragrance of the mossy banks and bare hedges;the racing freshness of the stream, and the little eddies of foam blownfrom it by the wind; the small gray sheep in the fields; the cragsoverhead dyed deep in withered heather; the stone farmhouses with theirtouch of cheerful white on door and window; all the exquisite detail ofgrass, and twig and stone; and overhead the slowly passing clouds in thewide sweep of the dale--these things to him were spiritual revival, theydressed and prepared him for that great hour to which dimly, yet throughall his pulses, he felt he was going. 

The little house sent up a straight column of blue smoke into the quietair. Its upper windows were open; the sun was on its lichened porch, andon the silver stem of the birch tree which rose from the mossy grassbeside it. 

He did not need to knock. Mary was in the open doorway, her face alllight and rose colour; and in the shadows of the passage behind her stoodCatharine. When with the touch of Mary's hand still warm in his, Meynellturned to greet her mother, he was seized, even through the quiet emotionwhich held them all, by an impression of change. Some energy of physicallife had faded from the worn nobility of Catharine's face, instead a"grave heavenliness" which disquieted the spectator, beautiful as it was. 

But the momentary shock was lost in the quiet warmth of her greeting. 

"You are going to take her for a walk?" she asked wistfully, as Mary leftthem alone in the little sitting-room. 

"You allow it?" said Meynell, hardly knowing what he said, and stillretaining her hand. 

Catharine smiled. 

"Mary is her own mistress. " Then she added, with a deep, involuntarysigh: "Whatever she says to you, she knows she has her mother'sblessing. "

Meynell stooped and kissed her hand. 

A few minutes later, he and Mary had taken the road along the dale. 

Catharine stood under the little porch to look after them. Mingledsweetness and bitterness filled her mind. She pictured to herself for aninstant what it would have been if she had been giving Mary to aChristian pastor of the stamp of her own father, "sound in the faith, " a"believer, " entering upon what had always seemed to her from herchildhood the ideal and exalted life of the Christian ministry. As thingswere, in a few weeks, Richard Meynell would be an exile and a wanderer, chief among a regiment of banished men, driven out by force from theNational Church; without any of the dignity--that dignity which had beenher husband's--of voluntary renunciation. And Mary would become his wifeonly to share in his rebellion, his defiance, and his exile. 

She crossed her hands tightly upon her breast as though she wereimprinting these sad facts upon her consciousness, learning to face them, to bear them with patience. And yet--in some surprising way--they did nothurt her as sharply as they would once have done. Trembling--almost interror--she asked herself whether her own faith was weakening. And amidthe intensity of aspiration and love with which her mind threw itself onthe doubt, she turned back, tottering a little, to her chair by the fire. She was glad to be alone, passionately as she loved her Mary. And as shesat now following Meynell and Mary in thought along the valley, and nowlistening vaguely to the murmur of the fire or the stream outside, therecame upon her a first gentle premonition--as though a whisper, from faraway--of the solitude of death. 

Lines from the _Christian Year_, the book on which her girlhood had beennourished, stole into her mind:

Why should we faint and fear to live alone, Since all alone, so Heaven has willed, we die?

Never had sunshine seemed to Meynell so life-giving as this pale wintrywarmth. The soft sound of Mary's dress beside him; the eyes she turnedupon him when she spoke, so frank and sweet, yet for her lover, so fullof mystery; the lines of her young form, compact of health and grace; thesound of her voice, the turn of her head--everything about her filled himwith a tumult of feeling not altogether blissful, though joy wasuppermost. For now that the great moment was come, now that he trembledon the verge of a happiness he had every reason to think was his, he wasa prey to many strange qualms and tremors. In the first place he wassuddenly and sorely conscious of his age! Forty-four to her twenty-six!Was it fitting?--was it right? And more than that! Beside her freshness, her springing youth, he realized his own jaded spirit, almost with asense of guilt. These six months of strenuous battle and leadership, these new responsibilities, and the fierce call which had been made onevery gift and power, ending in the dumb, proud struggle, the growinghumiliation of the preceding weeks, had left him ripened indeed, magnified indeed, as a personality; but it was as though down theshadowed vista of life he saw his youth, as "Another self, " aDoppelgänger, disappearing forever. 

While she!--before _her_ were all the years of glamour, of happyinstinctive action, when a man or woman is worth just what they dream, when dream and act flow together. Could he give her anything worth herhaving in exchange for this sheer youth of hers? He saw before him a longand dusty struggle; the dust of it choking, often, the purest sources offeeling. Cares about money; cares about health; the certain enmity ofmany good men; the bitterness that waits on all controversial success orfailure: all these there must be--he could not shield her from them. 

She, on her part, saw plainly that he was depressed, knew well that hehad suffered. As the Bishop had perceived, it was written on his aspect. But her timidity as yet prevented her from taking the initiative withhim, as later she would learn to do. She felt for him at this stagepartly the woman's love, partly the deep and passionate loyalty of thedisciple. And it was possibly this very loyalty in her from which Meynellshrank. He felt toward himself and his role, in the struggle to which hewas committed, a half despairing, half impatient irony, which saved himfrom anything like a prophetic pose. Some other fellow would do it somuch better! But meanwhile it had to be done. 

So that, charged as was the atmosphere between them, it was some timebefore they found a real freedom of speech. The openings, the gambits, which were to lead them to the very heart of the game, were at firstmasked and hesitating. They talked a little--perfunctorily--about thedale and its folk, and Mary fell without difficulty now and then into thebroad Westmoreland speech, which delighted Meynell's ear, and brought thelaugh back to his eyes. Then, abruptly, he told her that the campaign ofslander was over, and that the battle, instead of "infinite mess anddislocation, " was now to be a straight and clean one. He said nothing ofBarron; but he spoke tenderly of the Bishop, and Mary's eyes swam alittle. 

She on her part dared to speak of Alice and Hester. And very soon it wasquietly recognized between these two that Alice's story was known toMary; and, for the first time in his life, Meynell spoke with freeemotion and self-criticism of the task which Neville Flood had laidupon him. Had there been in Mary some natural dread of the moment whenshe must first hear the full story of his relation to Alice? If so, itwas soon dispelled. He could not have told the story more simply; but itsbeauty shone out. Only, she was startled, even terrified, by certainglimpses which his talk gave her into his feeling with regard to Hester. She saw plainly that the possibility of a catastrophe, in spite of all hecould do, was ever present to him; and she saw also, or thought she saw, that his conception of his own part in the great religious campaign wasstrangely--morbidly--dependent upon the fate of Hester. If he was able tosave her from herself and from the man who threatened her, well and good;if not, as he had said to Mary once before, he was not fit to be anyman's leader, and should feel himself the Jonah of any cause. There was acertain mystical passion in it, the strong superstition of a man in whoma great natural sensitiveness led often and readily to despondency; asthough he "asked for a sign. "

They passed the noisy little river by the stepping-stones and thenclimbed a shoulder of fell between Long Whindale and the next valley. Descending a sunny mountainside, they crossed some water meadows, andmounted the hill beyond, to a spot that Mary had marked in her walks. Beside a little tumbling stream and beneath a thicket of holly, lay aflat-topped rock commanding all the spectacle of flood and fell. Maryguided him there; and then stood silent and flushed, conscious that sheherself had brought the supreme moment to its birth. The same perceptionrushed upon Meynell. He looked into her eyes, smiling and masterful, allhis hesitations cleared away.... 

"Sit there, my lady of the fells!"

He led her to the rocky throne, and, wrapped in his old Inverness cloak, he took a place on a lesser stone at her feet. Suddenly, he raised a handand caught hers. She found herself trembling, and looking down into hisupturned face. 

"Mary!--Mary _darling_!--is it mine?"

The question was just whispered, and she whispered her reply. They werealone in a lovely wilderness of fell and stream. Only a shepherd walkedwith his flock in a field half a mile away, and across the valley aploughman drove his horses. 

At the murmur in his ear, Meynell, this time, put up both hands, and drewher down to him. The touch of her fresh lips was rapture. And yet--

"My rose!" he said, almost with a groan. "What can you make of such anold fellow? I love you--_love_ you--but I am not worthy of you!"

"I am the judge of that, " she said softly. And looking up he saw thecolour in her cheeks fluttering, and two bright tears in her eyes. Timidly she took one hand away from him and began to stroke back the hairfrom his brow. 

"You look so tired!"--she murmured--"as though you had been in trouble. And I wasn't there!"

"You were always there!"

And springing from his lowly seat, he came to the rock beside her, anddrew her within the shelter of his cloak, looking down upon her withinfinite tenderness. 

"You don't know what you're undertaking, " he said, his eyes moist, hislips smiling. "I am an old bachelor, and my ways are detestable! Can youever put up with the pipes and the dogs? I am the untidiest man alive!"

"Will Anne ever let me touch your papers?"

"Goodness! what will Anne say to us! I forgot Anne, " he said, laughing. Then, bending over her, "We shall be poor, darling!--and veryuncomfortable. Can you really stand it--and me?"

"Shall we have a roof over our heads at all?" asked Mary, but so dizzilyhappy that she knew but vaguely what she said. 

"I have already bespoken a cottage. They are going to make me Editor ofthe _Modernist_. We shall have bread and butter, dearest, but not muchmore. "

"I have a little, " said Mary, shyly. 

Meynell looked rather scared. 

"Not much, I hope!"

"Enough for gowns!--and--and a little more. "

"I prefer to buy my wife's gowns--I will!" said Meynell with energy. "Promise me, darling, to put all your money into a drawer--or amoney-box. Then when we want something really amusing--a cathedral--ora yacht--we'll take it out. "

So they laughed together, he all the while holding her close crushedagainst him, and she deafened almost by the warm beating of a man's heartbeneath her cheek. 

And presently silence came, a silence in which one of the rare ecstasiesof life came upon them and snatched them to the third heaven. From thefold of the hill in which they sat, sheltered both by the fell itself, and by the encircling hollies, they overlooked a branching dale, halfveiled, and half revealed by sunny cloud. Above the western fells theyhad just crossed, hung towers and domes of white cumulus, beneath which apearly sunshine slipped through upon the broad fell-side, making of itone wide sunlit pleasance, dyed in the red and orange of the witheredfern, and dotted with black holly and juniper. Round the head of the dalethe curtain of cloud hung thicker, save where one superb crag tore itasunder, falling sheer into the green gentleness of the fields. In thesilence, all the voices of nature spoke; the rising wind, which flungitself against the hill-slopes at their feet; the insistent flow of theriver, descending from the reservoirs far away; and the sharp chatter ofthe little beck leaping at their side from stone to stone. Passionately, in Meynell's heart the "buried life" awoke, which only love can free fromthe cavern where it lies, and bring into the full energy of day. 

"One goes on talking--preaching--babbling--about love, " he said to her;"what else is there to preach about? If love is not the key to life, thenthere is no key, and no man need preach any more. Only, my Amor has beentill now a stern God! He has in his hands!--I know it!--all the noblestrewards and ecstasies of life; but so far, I have seen him wring them outof horror, or pain. The most heavenly things I have ever seen have beenthe things of suffering. I think of a poor fellow dying in the pit andtrying to give me his last message to his wife; of a mother fading out oflife, still clasping her babes, with hands twisted almost out of humanshape by hard work; or a little lad--" his voice dropped--"only lastweek!--who saved his worthless brother's life by giving him warning ofsome escaping trucks, and was crushed himself. 'I couldn't help it, sir!'--_apologizing_ to me and the foreman, as we knelt by him!--'I knewJim had the drink in him. ' In all these visions, Love was divine--butawful! And here!--_here_!--I see his wings outspread upon thatmountain-side; he comes clothed, not in agony, but in this goldenpeace--this beauty--this wild air; he lays your head upon my breast!"

Or again:

"There is a new philosophy which has possessed me for months; the thoughtof a great man, which seizes upon us dull lesser creatures, and seems togive us, for a time at least, new eyes and ears, as though, likeMelampus, we had caught the hidden language of the world! It restson the notion of the endless creativeness and freedom of life. It is thenegation of all fate, all predestination. _Nothing_ foreknown, nothingpredestined! No _necessity_--no _anangké_--darling!--either in the worldprocess, or the mind of God, that you and I should sit here to-day, heartto heart! It was left for our wills to do, our hearts to conceive, Godlending us the world, so to speak, to work on! All our past cuttinginto--carving out--this present; all our past alive in the present; asall this present shall be alive in the future. There is no 'iron law' forlife and will, beloved--they create, they are the masters, they areforever new. All the same!"--his tone changed--"I believe firmly thatthis rock knew from all eternity that you and I should sit here to-day!"

Presently, Mary disengaged herself. Her hat was not what it had been; herhair had escaped its bounds, and must be rigorously put to rights. Shesat there flushed and bareheaded, her hands working; while Meynell'seyes devoured her. 

"It is January, Richard, and the sun is sinking. "

"In your world perhaps, dear, not in mine. "

"We must go back to mother. " She laid a hand on his. 

"We will go back to mother!" he said, joyously, with a tender emphasis onthe word, without moving however. "Mary!--next to you I love yourmother!"

Mary's sweet face darkened a little; she buried it in her hands. Meynelldrew them tenderly away. 

"All that affection can do to soften the differences between us, shall bedone, " he said, with his whole heart. "I believe too that the sense ofthem will grow less and less. "

Mary made no reply, except by the slight pressure of her fingers on his. She sat in an absorbed sadness, thinking of her mother's life, and theconflict which had always haunted and scorched it, between love andreligion; first in the case of her husband, and then in that of herdaughter. "But oh! how could I--how could I help it?" was the cry ofMary's own conscience and personality. 

She turned with painful eagerness to Meynell. "How did you thinkher?--how does she strike you?"

"Physically?" He chose his words. "She is so beautiful! But--sometimes--Ithink she looks frail. "

The tears sprang to Mary's eyes. She quickly threw herself upon hismisgiving, and tried to argue it away, both in herself and him. She dweltupon her mother's improvement in sleep and appetite, her cheerfulness, her increased power of walking; she was insistent, almost resentful, herwhite brow furrowed with pain, even while her hand lay warm in Meynell's. He must needs comfort her; must needs disavow his own impression. Afterall, what value had such an impression beside the judgment of her dailyand hourly watchfulness?--the favourable opinion too, so she insisted, oftheir local doctor. 

As they walked home, he startled her by saying that he should only havethree days in the valley. 

"Three days!" She looked her remonstrance. 

"You know the trial begins next week?"

Yes, she knew, but had understood that the pleadings were all ready, andthat a North-Western train would take him to London in six hours. 

"I have to preach at St. Hilda's, Westminster, " he said, with a shrug, and a look of distaste. 

Mary asked questions, and discovered that the sermon would no doubt bemade the opportunity for something like a demonstration; and that heshrank from the thought of it. 

She perceived, indeed, a certain general flagging of the merely combativeforces in him, not without dismay. Such moments of recoil are natural tosuch men--half saints, half organizers. The immediate effect of herperception of it was to call out something heroic and passionate inherself. She was very sweet, and very young; there were eighteen yearsbetween them; and yet in these very first hours of their engagement, hefelt her to be not only rest, but inspiration; not only sympathy, butstrength. 

When they neared the little ivy-covered house, on their return home, Marybroke from him. Her step on the gravel was heard by Catharine. She camequickly to the door and stood awaiting them. Mary ran forward and threwherself into the tender arms that drew her into the shadows of thepassage. 

"Oh, mother! mother!--he does love you!" she said, with a rush of tears. 

If Catharine's eyes also were dim, she only answered with a tendermockery. 

"Don't pretend that was all he said to you in these two hours!"

And still holding Mary, she turned, smiling, to Meynell, and let himclaim from her, for the first time, a son's greeting. 

For three blissful days, did Meynell pitch his tent in Long Whindale. Though the weather broke, and the familiar rain shrouded the fells, heand Mary walked incessantly among them, exploring those first hours oflove, when every tone and touch is charged, for lovers, with the wholemeaning of the world. And in the evenings he sat between the two women inthe little cottage room, reading aloud Catharine's favourite poets; or inthe familiar talk, now gay now grave, of their new intimacy, disclosinghimself ever more fully, and rooting himself ever more firmly in theirhearts. His sudden alarm as to Catharine's health passed away, and Mary'snew terror with it. Scarcely a word was said of the troubles ahead. Butit was understood that Mary would be in London to hear him preach at St. Hilda's. 

On the last day of Meynell's visit, Catharine, greatly to her surprise, received a letter from Hester Fox-Wilton. 

It contained a breathless account of an evening spent in seeingOedipus Rex played by Mounet Sully at the Comédie Française. In thishalf-sophisticated girl, the famous performance, traditional now throughtwo generations of playgoers, had clearly produced an emotion whereof theexpression in her letter greatly disquieted Catharine Elsmere. She felttoo--a little grimly--the humour of its address to herself. 

"Tell me how to answer it, please, " she said, handing it to Meynell witha twitching lip. "It is a language I don't understand! And why did theytake her to such a play?"

Meynell shared her disquiet. For the Greek conception of a remorselessfate, as it is forever shaped and embodied in the tale of Oedipus, hadled Hester apparently to a good deal of subsequent browsing in theliterature--the magazine articles at any rate--of French determinism; andshe rattled through some of her discoveries in this reckless letter:

"You talked to me so nicely, dear Mrs. Elsmere, that last evening atUpcote. I know you want me--you want everybody--'to be good!'

"But 'being good' has nothing to do with us. 

"How can it?--such creatures, such puppets as we are!

"Poor wretch, Oedipus! He never meant any one any harm--did he?--andyet--you see!

"'_Apollo, friends, Apollo it was, that brought all these my woes, mysore, sore woes!--to pass_. '

"Dear Mrs. Elsmere!--you can't think what a good doctrine it is afterall--how it steadies one! What chance have we against these blunderinggods?

"Nothing one can do makes any difference. It is, really very consoling ifyou come to think of it; and it's no sort of good being angry withApollo!"

 * * * * *

"Part nonsense, part bravado, " said Catharine, raising clear eyes, withhalf a smile in them, to Meynell. "But it makes one anxious. "

His puckered brow showed his assent. 

"As soon as the trial is over--within a fortnight certainly--I shall runover to see them. "

 * * * * *

Meynell and Mary travelled to town together, and Mary was duly depositedfor a few days with some Kensington cousins. 

On the night of their arrival--a Saturday--Meynell, not without somehesitation, made an appearance at the Reformers' Club, which had beenrecently organized as a London centre for the Movement, in AlbemarleStreet. 

It was no sooner known that he was in the building than a flutter ranthrough the well-filled rooms. That very morning an article in the_Modernist_ signed R. M. Had sounded a note of war, so free, lofty, anddetermined, that men were proud to be on Meynell's side in such a battle. On the following Tuesday the Arches Trial was to begin. Meynell was todefend himself; and the attention of the country would be fixed upon theduel between him and the great orthodox counsel, Sir Wilfrid Marsh. 

Men gathered quickly round him. Most of the six clergy who, with him, hadlaunched the first Modernist Manifesto, were present, in expectation ofthe sermon on the morrow, and the trial of the following week. Cheshamand Darwen, his co-defendants in the Arches suit, with whom he had beenin constant correspondence throughout the winter, came to discuss a fewlast points and understandings; Treherne, the dear old scholar in whosehouse they had met to draw up the Manifesto, under the shadow of theCathedral, pressed his hand and launched a Latin quotation; Rollin, fat, untidy and talkative as ever, could not refrain from "interviewing"Meynell, for a weekly paper; while Derrick, the Socialist and poet, talked to him in a low voice and with eyes that blazed, of certain"brotherhoods" that had been spreading the Modernist faith, and ModernistSacraments among the slums of a great midland town. 

And in the voices that spoke to him, and the eyes that met his, Meynellcould not but realize a wide and warm sympathy, an eagerness to makeamends--sometimes a half confessed compunction for a passing doubt. 

He stood among them, haggard and worn, but steeped in a content andgratitude that had more sources than they knew. And under the kindling oftheir faith and their affection, his own hesitations passed away; hiswill steeled itself to the tasks before him. 

The following day will be long remembered in the annals of the Movement. The famous church, crowded in every part with an audience representingscience, literature, politics, the best of English thought and Englishsocial endeavour, was but the outward and visible sign of things inwardand spiritual. 

"_Can these dry bones live_?"

As Meynell gave out the text, there were many who remembered the pictureof Oxford hanging in Newman's study at Edgbaston, and those same wordswritten below it. 

"_Can these dry bones live_?"--So Newman had asked in despair, of hisbeloved University, and of English religion, in the early years after hehad deserted Anglicanism for Rome. And now, more than half a centuryafterward, the leader of a later religious movement asked the samequestion on the eve of another contest which would either regenerate ordestroy the English Church. The impulse given by Newman and theTractarians had spent itself, though not without enormous and permanentresults within the life of the nation; and now it was the turn of thatLiberal reaction and recoil which had effaced Newman's work in Oxford, yet had been itself wandering for years without a spiritual home. Duringthose years it had found its way through innumerable channels of thenational life as a fertilizing and redeeming force. It had transformededucation, law, science and history. Yet its own soul had hungered. Andnow, thanks to that inner necessity which governs the spiritual progressof men, the great Liberal Movement, enriched with a thousand conquests, was sweeping back into the spiritual field; demanding its just share inthe National Church; and laying its treasures at the feet of a Christ, unveiled, illuminated, by its own labour, by the concentrated andpassionate effort of a century of human intelligence. 

Starting from this conception--the full citizen-right within the Churchof both Liberal and High Churchman--the first part of Meynell's sermonbecame a moving appeal for religious freedom; freedom of developmentand "variation, " within organized Christianity itself. Simpler Creeds, modernized tests, alternative forms, a "unity of the spirit in the bondof peace, "--with these ideas the Modernist preacher built up the visionof a Reformed Church, co-extensive with the nation, resting on ademocratic government, yet tenderly jealous of its ancient ceremonies, solong as each man might interpret them "as he was able, " and they were nolonger made a source of tyranny and exclusion. 

Then, from the orthodox opponent in whose eyes the Modernist faith was amere beggarly remnant, Meynell turned to the sceptic for whom it was onlya modified superstition. An eloquent prelude, dealing with thepreconceptions, the modern philosophy and psychology which lie at theroot of religious thought to-day--and the rest of the sermon flowed oninto what all Christian eloquence must ultimately be, the simple"preaching of Christ. "

Amid the hush of the crowded church Meynell preached the Christ of ourday--just as Paul of Tarsus preached the Christ of a Hellenized Judaismto the earliest converts; as St. Francis, in the Umbrian hills preachedthe Lord of Poverty and Love; as the Methodist preachers among thevillages of the eighteenth century preached the democratic individualismof the New Testament to the English nascent democracy. 

In each case the form of the preaching depended on the knowledge and thethought-world of the preacher. So with Meynell's Christ. 

Not the phantom of a Hellenistic metaphysic; not the Redeemer and Judgeof a misunderstood Judaism; not the mere ethical prophet of a Germanprofessorial theology; but the King of a spiritual kingdom, receivingallegiance, and asking love, from the free consciences of men; repeatingforever in the ears of those in whom a Divine influence has prepared theway, the melting and constraining message: "This do in remembrance ofme. "

"'Of me--and of all the just, all the righteous, all the innocent, of allthe ages, in me--pleading through me--symbolized in me! Are you forMan--or for the Beast that lurks in man? Are you for Chastity--orLust? Are you for Cruelty--or Love? Are you for Foulness or Beauty?Choose!--choose this day. '

"The Christ who thus speaks to you and me, my brethren, is no longera man made God, a God made man. Those categories of thought, for us, are past. But neither is he merely the crucified Galilean, theMessianic prophet of the first century. For by a mysterious and uniquedestiny--unique at least in degree--that life and death have becomeSpirit and Idea. The Power behind the veil, the Spirit from whom issuesthe world, has made of them a lyre, enchanted and immortal, through whichHe breathes His music into men. The setting of the melody varies with thegenerations, but the melody remains. And as we listen to it to-day, expressed through the harmonies of that thought which is ourselves--bloodof our blood, life of our life--we are listening now, listening always, as the disciples listened in Nazareth, to the God within us, the very Godwho was 'in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. '

"Of that God, all life is in some sense, the sacramental expression. Butin the course of ages some sacraments and symbols of the divine areapproved and verified beyond others--immeasurably beyond others. This iswhat has happened--and so far as we can see by the special will andpurpose of God--with the death-unto-life--with the Cross of Christ.... 

"The symbol of the Cross is concerned with our personal and profoundestbeing. But the symbol of the Kingdom is social, collective--the power ofevery reformer, every servant of men.... 

"Many thinkers, " said the preacher, in his concluding passage, while alleyes were fixed on the head sprinkled with gray, and the strong humanityof the face--"many men, in all ages and civilizations have dreamed of aCity of God, a Kingdom of Righteousness, an Ideal State, and a DivineRuler. Jesus alone has made of that dream, history; has forced it upon, and stamped it into history. The Messianic dream of Judaism--thoughwrought of nobler tissue--it's not unlike similar dreams in otherreligions; but in this it is unique, that it gave Jesus of Nazareth hisopportunity, and that from it has sprung the Christian Church. Jesusaccepted it with the heart of a child; he lived in it; he died for it;and by means of it, his spiritual genius, his faithfulness unto deathtransformed a world. He died indeed, overwhelmed; with the pathetic cryof utter defeat upon his lips. And the leading races of mankind haveknelt ever since to the mighty spirit who dared not only to conceiveand found the Kingdom of God, but to think of himself as its SpiritualKing--by sheer divine right of service, of suffering, and of death! Onlythrough tribulation and woe--through the _peirasmos_ or sore trial of theworld--according to Messianic belief, could the Kingdom be realized, andMessiah revealed. It was the marvellous conception of Jesus, inspired bythe ancient poetry and prophecy of his nation, that he might, as theSuffering Servant, concentrate in himself the suffering due from hisrace, and from the world, and by his death bring about--violently, "byforce"--the outpouring of the Spirit, the Resurrection, and the dawn ofthe heavenly Kingdom. He went up to Jerusalem to die; he provoked hisdeath; he died. And from the Resurrection visions which followednaturally on such a life and death, inspired by such conceptions, andbreathing them with such power into the souls of other men, arose theChristian Church. 

"The Parousia for which the Lord had looked, delayed. It delays still. The scope and details of the Messianic dream itself mean nothing to usany more. 

"But its spirit is immortal. The vision of a kingdom of Heaven--a polityof the soul, within, or superseding the earthly polity--once interfusedwith man's thought and life, has proved to be imperishable, a thing thatcannot die. 

"Only it must be realized afresh from age to age; embodied afresh in theconceptions and the language of successive generations. 

"And these developing embodiments and epiphanies of the kingdom can onlybe brought into being by the method of Christ--that is to say, by'_violence_'. 

"Again and again has the kingdom 'suffered violence'--has been broughtfragmentarily into the world '_by force_'--by the only irresistibleforce--that of suffering, of love, of self-renouncing faith. 

"To that 'force' we, as religious Reformers, appeal. 

"The parables of the mustard seed and the leaven do not express thewhole thought of Christ. When the work of preparation is over, still menmust brace themselves, as their Master did, to the last stroke of'violence'--to a final effort of resolute, and, if need be, revolutionaryaction--to the 'violence' that brings ideas to birth and shapes them intodeeds. 

"It was to 'violence' of this sacred sort that the Christian Church owedits beginning; and it is this same 'violence' that must, as thegenerations rise and fall, constantly maintain it among men. To cut awaythe old at need and graft in the new, requires the high courage and theresolute hand of faith. Only so can the Christian Life renew itself; onlyso can efficacy and movement return to powers exhausted or degenerate;only so 'can these dry bones live!'"

Amid the throng as it moved outward into the bustle of Westminster, Flaxman found himself rubbing shoulders with Edward Norham. Norham walkedwith his eyes on the ground, smiling to himself. 

"A little persecution!" he said, rubbing his hands, as he looked up--"andhow it would go!"

"Well--the persecution begins this week--in the Court of Arches. "

"Persecution--nonsense! You mean 'propaganda. ' I understand Meynell'sdefence will proceed on totally new lines. He means to argue each pointon its merits?"

"Yes. The Voysey judgment gave him his cue. You will remember, Voysey wasattacked by the Lord Chancellor of the day--old Lord Hatherley--as a'private clergyman, ' who 'of his own mere will, not founding himself uponany critical inquiry, but simply upon his own taste and judgment'maintained certain heresies. Now Meynell, I imagine, will give his judgesenough of 'critical inquiry' before they have done with him!"

Norham shrugged his shoulders. 

"All very well! Why did he sign the Articles?"

"He signed them at four-and-twenty!" said Flaxman hotly. "Will youmaintain that a system which insists upon a man's beliefs at forty-fourbeing identical with his beliefs at twenty-four is not condemned _ipsofacto_!"

"Oh I know what you say!--I know what you say!" cried Norhamgood-humouredly. "We shall all be saying it in Parliament presently--Goodheavens! Well, I shall look into the court to-morrow, if I can possiblyfind an hour, and hear Meynell fire away. "

"As Home Secretary, you may get in!"--laughed Flaxman--"on no otherterms. There isn't a seat to be had--there hasn't been for weeks. "

The trial came on. The three suits from the Markborough diocese tookprecedence, and were to be followed by half a dozen others--testcases--from different parts of England. But on the Markborough suitseverything turned. The Modernist defendants everywhere had practicallyresolved on the same line of defence; on the same appeal from the mind ofthe sixteenth century to the mind of the twentieth; from creeds andformularies to history; from a dying to a living Church. 

The chief counsel for the promoters, Sir Wilfrid Marsh, made a calm, almost a conciliatory opening. He was a man of middle height, with alarge, clean-shaven face, a domed head and smooth straight hair, stilljetty black. He wore a look of quiet assurance and was clearly a manof all the virtues; possessing a portly wife and a tribe of daughters. 

His speech was marked in all its earlier sections by a studied liberalityand moderation. "I am not going to appeal, sir, for that judgment in thepromoters' favour which I confidently claim, on any bigoted orobscurantist lines. The Church of England is a learned Church; she isalso a Church of wide liberties. "

No slavish submission to the letter of the Articles on the Liturgy wasnow demanded of any man. Subscription had been relaxed; the finaljudgment in the _Essays and Reviews_ case had given a latitude in theinterpretation of Scripture, of which, as many recent books showed, theclergy--"I refer now to men of unquestioned orthodoxy"--had takenreasonable advantage; prayer-book revision "within the limits of thefaith, " if constantly retarded by the divisions of the faithful, wasstill probable; both High Churchmen and Broad Churchmen--here an asidedropped out, "so far as Broad Churchmen still exist!"--are necessary tothe Church. 

But there are limits. "Critical inquiry, sir, if you will--reasonableliberty, within the limits of our formularies and a man's ordinationvow--by all means!

"But certain things are _vital_! With certain fundamental beliefs let noone suppose that either the bishops, or convocation, or these Churchcourts, or Parliament, or what the defendants are pleased to call thenation" [one must imagine the fine gesture of a sweeping hand] "canmeddle. " The _animus imponentis_ is not that of the Edwardian orElizabethan legislation, it is not that of the Bishops! it is that of theChristian Church itself!--handing down the _deposition fidei_ from theearliest to the latest times. 

"_The Creeds, sir, are vital_! Put aside Homilies, Articles, thejudgments and precedents of the Church Courts--all these are, in thisstruggle, beside the mark. _Concentrate on the Creeds_! Let us examinewhat the defendants in these suits have made of the Creeds ofChristendom. "

The evidence was plain. Regarded as historical statement, the defendantshad dealt drastically and destructively with the Creeds of Christendom;no less than with the authority of "Scripture, " understanding "authority"in any technical sense. 

It was indeed the chief Modernist contention, as the orator showed, thatformal creeds were mere "landmarks in the Church's life, "crystallizations of thought, that were no sooner formed than they becamesubject to the play, both dissolvent and regenerating, of the Christianconsciousness. 

"And so you come to that inconceivable entity, a Church without acreed--a mere chaos of private opinion, where each man is a law untohimself. "

On this theme, Sir Wilfrid--who was a man of singularly strong privateopinions, of all kinds and on all subjects--spoke for a whole day; fromthe rising almost to the going down of the sun. 

At the end of it Canon Dornal and a barrister friend, a devout Churchman, walked back toward the Temple along the Embankment. 

The walk was very silent, until midway the barrister said abruptly--

"Is it any plainer to you now, than when Sir Wilfrid began, whatauthority--if any--there is in the English Church; or what limits--ifany--there are to private judgment within it?"

Dornal hesitated. 

"My answer, of course, is Sir Wilfrid's. We have the Creeds. "

They walked on in silence a moment. Then the first speaker said:

"A generation ago would you not have said--what also Sir Wilfridcarefully avoided saying--'We have the Scriptures. '"

"Perhaps, " said Dornal despondently. 

"And as to the Creeds, " the other resumed, after another pause--"Do youthink that one per cent of the Christians that you and I know believe inthe Descent into Hell, or the Resurrection of the Body?"

Dornal made no reply. 

Cyril Fenton also walked home with a young priest just ordained. Bothwere extremely dissatisfied with the later portions of Sir Wilfrid'sspeech, which had seemed to them tainted in several passages withErastian complacency toward the State. Parliament especially, and apossible intervention of Parliament, ought never to have been so much asmentioned--even for denunciation--in an ecclesiastical court. 

"_Parliament!"_ cried Fenton, coming to a sudden stop beside the water inSt. James' Park, his eyes afire, "What is Parliament but the lay synod ofthe Church of England!"

During the three days of Sir Wilfrid's speech, Meynell took many notes, and he became perforce very familiar with some of the nearer faces in theaudience day after day; with the Bishop of S----, lank and long-jawed, with reddish hair turning to gray, a deprecating manner in society, butin the pulpit a second Warburton for truculence and fire; the Bishop ofD----, beloved, ugly, short-sighted, the purest and humblest soul alive;learned, mystical, poetical, in much sympathy with the Modernists, yetdeterred by the dread of civil war within the Church, a master of the OldLatin Versions, and too apt to address schoolgirls on the charms oftextual criticism; the Bishop of F----, courtly, peevish and distrusted;the Dean of Markborough, with the green shade over his eyes, and fretfulcomplaint on his lips of the "infection" generated by every Modernistincumbent; and near him, Professor Vetch, with yet another divinityprofessor beside him, a young man, short and slight, with roving, grasshopper eyes. 

The temperature of Sir Wilfrid's address rose day by day, and the casefor the prosecution closed thunderously in a fierce onslaught on theethics of the Modernist position, and on the personal honesty andveracity of each and every Modernist holding office in the AnglicanChurch, claiming sentences of immediate deprivation against thedefendants, of their vicarages and incumbencies, and of all profits andbenefits derived therefrom "unless within a week from this day they (thedefendants) should expressly and unreservedly retract the severalerrors in which they have so offended. "

The court broke up in a clamour of excitement and discussion, with crowdsof country parishioners standing outside to greet the three incriminatedpriests as they came out. 

The following morning Meynell rose. And for one brilliant week, hisdefence of the Modernist position held the attention of England. 

On the fourth or fifth day of his speech, the white-haired Bishop ofDunchester, against whom proceedings had just been taken in theArchbishop's Court, said to his son:

"Herbert, just before I was born there were two great religious leadersin England--Newman and Arnold of Rugby. Arnold died prematurely, atthe height of bodily and spiritual vigour; Newman lived to the age ofeighty-nine, and to be a Cardinal of the Roman Church. His Anglicaninfluence, continued, modified, distributed by the High Church movement, has lasted till now. To-day we have been listening again, as it were, tothe voice of Arnold, the great leader whom the Liberals lost in '42, Arnold was a devoutly orthodox believer, snatched from life in the verybirth-hour of that New Learning of which we claim to be the children. Buta church of free men, coextensive with the nation, gathering into onefold every English man, woman and child, that was Arnold's dream, just asit is Meynell's.... And yet though the voice, the large heart, thefearless mind, and the broad sympathies were Arnold's, some of thegoverning ideas were Newman's. As I listened, I seemed"--the old man'slook glowed suddenly--"to see the two great leaders, the two foes of acentury ago, standing side by side, twin brethren in a new battle, growing out of the old, with a great mingled host behind them. "

Each day the court was crowded, and though Meynell seemed to beaddressing his judges, he was in truth speaking quite as consciously to asweet woman's face in a far corner of the crowded hall. Mary went intothe long wrestle with him, as it were, and lived through every moment ofit at his side. Then in the evening there were half hours of uttersilence, when he would sit with her hands in his, just gathering strengthfor the morrow. 

Six days of Meynell's speech were over. On the seventh the Court openedamid the buzz of excitement and alarm. The chief defendant in the suitwas not present, and had sent--so counsel whispered to each other--ahurried note to the judge to the effect that he should be absentthrough the whole remainder of the trial owing to "urgent privatebusiness. "

In a few more hours it was known that Meynell had left England, and menon both sides looked at each other in dismay. 

Meanwhile Mary had forwarded to her mother a note written late at night, in anguish of soul:

"Alice wires to me to-night that Hester has disappeared--without thesmallest trace. But she believes she is with Meryon. I go to Paristo-night--Oh, my own, pray that I may find her!--R. M. "

CHAPTER XXII

The mildness of the winter had passed away. A bleak February afternoonlay heavy on Long Whindale. A strong and bitter wind from the north blewdown the valley with occasional spits and snatches of snow, not enough asyet to whiten the heights, but prophesying a wild night and a heavy fall. The blasts in the desolate upper reach of the dale were so fierce that ashepherd on the path leading over the pass to Marly Head could scarcelyhold himself upright against them. Tempestuous sounds filled all theupper and the lower air. From the high ridges came deep reverberatingnotes, a roaring in the wind; while the trees along the stream sent fortha shriller voice, as they whistled and creaked and tossed in the eddyinggusts. Cold gray clouds were beating from the north, hanging now over thecliffs on the western side, now over the bare screes and steep slopes ofthe northern and eastern walls. Gray or inky black, the sharp edges ofthe rocks cut into the gloomy sky; while on the floor of the valley, blanched grass and winding stream seemed alike to fly scourged before thepersecuting wind. 

A trap--Westmoreland calls it a car--a kind of box on wheels, wasapproaching the head of the dale from the direction of Whinborough. Itstopped at the foot of the steep and narrow lane leading to Burwood, anda young lady got out. 

"You're sure that's Burwood?" she said, pointing to the house partiallyvisible at the end of the lane. 

The driver answered in the affirmative. 

"Where Mrs. Elsmere lives?"

"Aye, for sure. " The man as he spoke looked curiously at the lady he hadbrought from Whinborough station. She was quite a young girl he guessed, and a handsome one. But there seemed to be something queer about her. Shelooked so tumbled and tired. 

Hester Fox-Wilton took out her purse, and paid him with an uncertainhand, one or more of the shillings falling on the road, where the driverand she groped for them. Then she raised the small bag she had broughtwith her in the car, and turned away. 

"Good day to yer, miss, " said the man as he mounted the box. She made noreply. After he had turned his horse and started on the return journey toWhinborough, he looked back once or twice. But the high walls of the lanehid the lady from him. 

Hester, however, did not go very far up the lane. She sank down very soonon a jutting stone beneath the left-hand wall, with her bag beside her, and sat there looking at the little house. It was a pleasant, home-likeplace, even on this bitter afternoon. In one of the windows was a glow offirelight; white muslin curtains everywhere gave it a dainty, refinedlook; and it stood picturesquely within the shelter of its trees, and ofthe yew hedge which encircled the garden. 

Yet Hester shivered as she looked at it. She was very imperfectly clothedfor such an afternoon, in a serge jacket and skirt supplemented by asmall fur collarette, which she drew closer round her neck from time totime, as though in a vain effort to get warm. But she was not consciousof doing so, nor of the cold as cold. All her bodily sensations weremiserable and uncomfortable. But she was only actively aware of thethoughts racing through her mind. 

There they were, within a stone's throw of her--Mary and Mrs. Elsmere--inthe warm, cosy little house, without an idea that she, Hester, thewretched, disgraced Hester, was sitting in the lane so close to them. Andyet they were perhaps thinking of her--they must have often thought abouther in the last fortnight. Mrs. Elsmere must of course have been sorry. Good people were always sorry when such things happened. And Mary?--whowas eight years older--_older!_ than this girl of eighteen who sat there, sickened by life, conscious of a dead wall of catastrophe drawn betweenher and the future. 

Should she go to them? Should she open their door and say--"Here Iam!--Horrible things have happened. No decent person will ever know me orspeak to me again. But you said--you'd help me--if I wanted it. Perhaps it was a lie--like all the rest?"

Then as the reddened eyelids fell with sheer fatigue, there rose on theinward sight the vision of Catharine Elsmere's face--its purity, itscalm, its motherliness. For a moment it drew, it touched, it gavecourage. And then the terrible sense of things irreparable, grim mattersof fact not to be dreamed or thought away, rushed in and swept theclinging, shipwrecked creature from the foothold she had almost reached. 

She rose hastily. 

"I can't! They don't want to see me--they've done with me. Or perhapsthey'll cry--they'll pray with me, and I can't stand that! Why did I evercome? Where on earth shall I go?"

And she looked round her in petulant despair, angry with herself forhaving done this foolish thing, angry with the loneliness and barrennessof the valley, where no inn opened doors of shelter for such as she, angry with the advancing gloom, and with the bitter wind that teased andstung her. 

A little way up the lane she saw a small gate that led into the Elsmeres'garden. She took her bag, and opening the gate, she placed it inside. Then she ran down the lane, drawing her fur round her, and shivering withcold. 

"I'll think a bit--" she said to herself--"I'll think what to say. Perhaps I'll come back soon. "

When she reached the main road again, she looked uncertainly to right andleft. Which way? The thought of the long dreary road back to Whinboroughrepelled her. She turned toward the head of the valley. Perhaps she mightfind a house which would take her in. The driver had said there was afarm which let lodgings in the summer. She had money--some pounds at anyrate; that was all right. And she was not hungry. She had arrived at ajunction station five miles from Whinborough by a night train. At sixo'clock in the morning she had found herself turned out of the express, with no train to take her on to Whinborough. But there was a stationhotel, and she had engaged a room and ordered a fire. There she hadthrown herself down without undressing on the bed, and had slept heavilyfor four or five hours. Then she had had some breakfast, and had takena midday train to Whinborough, and a trap to Long Whindale. 

She had travelled straight from Nice without stopping. She would not letherself think now as she hurried along the lonely road what it was shehad fled from, what it was that had befallen. The slightest glimpse intothis past made her begin to sob, she put it away from her with all herstrength. But she had had, of course, to decide where she should go, withwhom she should take refuge. 

Not with Uncle Richard, whom she had deceived and defied. Not with "AuntAlice. " No sooner did the vision of that delicate withered face, thatslender form come before her, than it brought with it terrible fancies. Her conduct had probably killed "Aunt Alice. " She did not want to thinkabout her. 

But Mrs. Elsmere knew all about bad men, and girls who got into trouble. She, Hester, knew, from a few things she had heard people say--thingsthat no one supposed she had heard--that Mrs. Elsmere had given years ofher life, and sacrificed her health, to "rescue" work. The rescue ofgirls from such men as Philip? How could they be rescued?--when--

All that was nonsense. But the face, the eyes--the shining, loving eyes, the motherly arms--yes, those, Hester confessed to herself, she hadthirsted for. They had brought her all the way from Nice to this northernvalley--this bleak, forbidding country. She shivered again from head tofoot, as she made her way painfully against the wind. 

Yet now she was flying even from Catharine Elsmere; even from thosetender eyes that haunted her. 

The road turned toward a bridge, and on the other side of the bridgedegenerated into a rough and stony bridle path, giving access to two grayfarms beneath the western fell. On the near side of the bridge theroad became a cart-track leading to the far end of the dale. 

Hester paused irresolute on the bridge, and looked back toward Burwood. Alight appeared in what was no doubt the sitting-room window. A lampperhaps that, in view of the premature darkening of the afternoon by theheavy storm-clouds from the north, a servant had just brought in. Hesterwatched it in a kind of panic, foreseeing the moment when the curtainswould be drawn and the light shut out from her. She thought of the littleroom within, the warm firelight, Mary with her beautiful hair--and Mrs. Elsmere. They were perhaps working and reading--as though that were allthere were to do and think about in the world! No, no! after all theycouldn't be very peaceful--or very cheerful. Mary was engaged to UncleRichard now; and Uncle Richard must be pretty miserable. 

The exhausted girl nearly turned back toward that light. Then a hand camequietly and shut it out. The curtains were drawn. Nothing now to be seenof the little house but its dim outlines in the oncoming twilight, thesmoke blown about its roof, and a faint gleam from a side-window, perhapsthe kitchen. 

Suddenly, a thought, a wild, attacking thought, leapt out upon her, andheld her there motionless, in the winding, wintry lane. 

When had she sent that telegram to Upcote? If she could only remember!The events of the preceding forty-eight hours seemed to be all confusedin one mad flux of misery. Was it _possible_ that they too could beHere--Uncle Richard, and "Aunt Alice?" She had said something about Mrs. Elsmere in her telegram--she could not recollect what. That had beenmeant to comfort them, and yet to keep them away, to make them leaveher to her own plans. But supposing, instead, its effect had been tobring them here at once, in pursuit of her?

She hurried forward, sobbing dry sobs of terror as though she alreadyheard their steps behind her. What was she afraid of? Simply theirlove!--simply their sorrow! She had broken their hearts; and what couldshe say to them?

The recollection of all her cruelty to "Aunt Alice" in Paris--herneglect, her scorn, her secret, unjust anger with those who had kept fromher the facts of her birth--seemed to rise up between her and all ideasof hope and help. Oh, of course they would be kind to her!--they wouldforgive her--but--but she couldn't bear it! Impatience with the veryscene of wailing and forgiveness she foresaw, as of something utterlyfutile and vain, swept through the quivering nerves. 

"And it can never be undone!" she said to herself roughly, as though shewere throwing the words in some one's face. "It can never, _never_ beundone! What's the good of talking?"

So the only alternative was to wander a while longer into these cloudsand storms that were beginning to beat down from the pass through thedarkness of the valley; to try and think things out; to find some shelterfor the night; then to go away again--somewhere. She was conscious now ofa first driving of sleet in her face; but it only lasted for a fewminutes. Then it ceased; and a strange gleam swept over the valley--alivid storm-light from the west, which blanched all the withered grassbeside her, and seemed to shoot along the course of the stream as shetoiled up the rocky path beside it. 

What a country, what a sky! Her young body was conscious of an angryrevolt against it, against the northern cold and dreariness; her body, which still kept as it were the physical memory of sun, and blue sea, andorange trees, of the shadow of olives on a thin grass, of the scent oforange blossom on the broken twigs that some one was putting into herhand. 

Another fit of shuddering repulsion made her quicken her pace, as though, again, she were escaping from pursuit. Suddenly, at a bend in the path, she came on a shepherd and his flock. The shepherd, an old white-hairedman, was seated on a rock, staff in hand, watching his dog collect thesheep from the rocky slope on which they were scattered. 

At sight of Hester, the old man started and stared. Her fair hairescaping in many directions from the control of combs and hairpins, andthe pale lovely face in the midst of it, shone in the stormy gleam thatfilled the basin of the hills. Her fashionable hat and dress amazed him. Who could she be?

She too stopped to look at him, and at his dog. The mere neighbourhood ofa living being brought a kind of comfort. 

"It's going to snow--" she said, as she stood beside him, surprised bythe sound of her own voice amid the roar of the wind. 

"Aye--it's onding o' snaw--" said the shepherd, his shrewd blue eyestravelling over her face and form. "An' it'll mappen be a rough night. "

"Are you taking your sheep into shelter?"

He pointed to a half-ruined fold, with three sycamores beside it, astone's throw away. The gate of it was open, and the dog was graduallychasing the sheep within it. 

"I doan't like leavin' 'em on t' fells this bitter weather. I'm afraidfor t' ewes. It's too cauld for 'em. They'll be for droppin' their lambstoo soon if this wind goes on. It juist taks t' strength out on 'em, doosthe wind. "

"Do you think it's going to snow a great deal?"

The old man looked round at the clouds and the mountains; at thepowdering of snow that had already whitened the heights. 

"It'll be more'n a bit!" he said cautiously. "I dessay we'll have to begettin' men to open t' roads to-morrow. "

"Does it often block the roads?"

"Aye, yance or twice i' t' winter. An' ye can't let 'em bide. What's terhappen ter foak as want the doctor?"

"Did you ever know people lost on these hills?" asked the girl, lookinginto the blackness ahead of them. Her shrill, slight voice rang out insharp contrast to the broad gutturals of his Westmoreland speech. 

"Aye, missy--I've known two men lost on t' fells sin I wor a lad. "

"Were they shepherds, like you?"

"Noa, missy--they wor tramps. Theer's mony a fellow cooms by this way i'th' bad weather to Pen'rth, rather than face Shap fells. They say it'sbetther walkin'. But when it's varra bad, we doan't let 'em go on--noa, it's not safe. Theer was a mon lost on t' fells nine year ago coomFebruary. He wor an owd mon, and blind o' yan eye. He'd lost the toother, dippin' sheep. "

"How could he do that?" Hester asked indifferently, still staring aheadinto the advancing storm, and trembling with cold from head to foot. 

"Why, sum o' the dippin' stuff got into yan eye, and blinded him. It wasmy son, gooin afther th' lambs i' the snaw, as found him. He heardsummat--a voice like a lile child cryin'--an he scratted aboot, andragged th' owd man out. He worn't deed then, but he died next mornin'. An t' doctor said as he'd fair broken his heart i' th' storm--not in afigure o' speach yo unnerstan--but juist th' plain truth. "

The old man rose. The sheep had all been folded. He called to his dog, and went to shut the gate. Then, still curiously eyeing Hester, he cameback, followed by his dog, to the place where she stood, listlesslywatching. 

"Doan't yo go too far on t' fells, missy. It's coomin' on to snaw, anit'll snaw aw neet. Lor bless yer, it's wild here i' winter. An when t'clouds coom down like yon--" he pointed up the valley--"even them asknaws t' fells from a chilt may go wrang. "

"Where does this path lead?" said Hester, absently. 

"It goes oop to Marly Head, and joins on to th' owd road--t' Roman road, foak calls it--along top o' t' fells. An' if yo follers that far enoofyou may coom to Ullswatter an' Pen'rth. "

"Thank you. Good afternoon, " said Hester, moving on. 

[Illustration: "The old shepherd looked after her doubtfully"]

The old shepherd looked after her doubtfully, then said to himself thatwhat the lady did was none of his business, and turned back toward one ofthe farms across the bridge. Who was she? She was a strange sort of bodyto be walking by herself up the head of Long Whindale. He supposed shecame from Burwood--there was no other house where a lady like that couldbe staying. But it was a bit queer anyhow. 

 * * * * *

Hester walked on. She turned a craggy corner beyond which she wasout of sight of any one on the lower stretches of the road. The strugglewith the wind, the roar of water in her ears, had produced in her a kindof trance-like state. She walked mechanically, half deafened, halfblinded, measuring her force against the wind, conscious every now andthen of gusts of snow in her face, of the deepening gloom overheadclimbing up and up the rocky path. But, as in that fatal moment when shehad paused in the Burwood lane, her mind was not more than vaguelyconscious of her immediate surroundings. It had become the prey ofswarming recollections--captured by sudden agonies, unavailing, horror-stricken revolts. 

At last, out of breath, and almost swooning, she sank down under theshelter of a rock, and became in a moment aware that white mists wereswirling and hurrying all about her, and that only just behind her, andjust above her, was the path clear. Without knowing it, she hadclimbed and climbed till she was very near the top of the pass. Shelooked down into a witch's cauldron of mist and vapour, already thickenedwith snow, and up into an impenetrable sky, as it seemed, close upon herhead, from which the white flakes were beginning to fall, steadily andfast. 

She was a little frightened, but not much. After all, she had only torest and retrace her steps. The watch at her wrist told her it was notmuch past four; and it was February. It would be daylight till half-pastfive, unless the storm put out the daylight. A little rest--just a littlerest! But she began to feel ill and faint, and so bitterly, bitterlycold. The sense of physical illness, conquering the vague overwhelminganguish of heart and mind, began to give her back some clearness ofbrain. 

Who was she?--why was she there? She was Hester Fox-Wilton--no! HesterMeryon, who had escaped from a man who had called himself, for a few daysat least, her husband; a man whom in scarcely more than a week she hadcome to loathe and fear; whose nature and character had revealed to herinfamies of which she had never dreamed; who had claimed to be hermaster, and use her as he pleased, and from whom she had escaped bynight, after a scene of which she still bore the marks. 

"You little wild-cat! You think you can defy me--do you?"

And then her arms held--and her despairing eyes looking down into hismocking ones--and the helpless sense of indignity and wrong--and of herown utter and criminal folly. 

And through her memory there ran in an ugly dance those things, thosemonstrous things, he had said to her about the Scotch woman. It was notat all absolutely sure that she, Hester, was his wife. He had shown herthose letters at St. Germains, of course, to reassure her; and theletters were perfectly genuine letters, written by the people theyprofessed to be written by. Still Scotch marriage law was a damnedbusiness--one never knew. He _hoped_ it was all right; but if she didhate him as poisonously as she said, if she did really want to get rid ofhim, he might perhaps be able to assist her. 

Had he after all tricked and ruined her? Yet as her consciousness framedthe question in the conventional phrases familiar to her throughnewspapers and novels, she hardly knew what they meant, this child ofeighteen, who in three short weeks had been thrust through the fire of anexperience on which she had never had time to reflect. Flattered vanity, and excitement, leading up almost from the first day to instinctive andfierce revolt--intervals of acquiescence, of wild determination to behappy, drowned in fresh rebellions of soul and sense--through thesealternations the hours had rushed on, culminating in her furtive andsudden escape from the man of whom she was now in mad fear--her blindflight for "home. "

The _commonness_ of her case, the absence of any romantic or poeticelement in it--it was that which galled, which degraded her in her owneyes. Only three weeks since she had felt that entire and arrogant beliefin herself, in her power over her own life and Philip's, on which she nowlooked back as merely ludicrous!--inexplicable in a girl of the mostordinary intelligence. What power had girls over men?--such men as PhilipMeryon?

Her vanity was bleeding to death--and her life with it. Since therevelation of her birth, she seemed to have been blindly struggling toregain her own footing in the world--the kind of footing she wasdetermined to have. Power and excitement; _not_ to be pitied, but to befollowed, wooed, adored; not to be forced on the second and third bestsof the world, but to have the "chief seat, " the daintest morsel, the_beau rôle_ always--had not this been her instinctive, unvarying demandon life? And now? If she were indeed married, she was tied to a man whoneither loved her, nor could bring her any position in the world; who waspenniless, and had only entrapped her that he might thereby get somemoney out of her relations; who, living or dead, would be a disgrace toher, standing irrevocably between her and any kind of honour orimportance in society. 

And if he had deceived her, and she were not his wife--she would be freeindeed; but what would her freedom matter to her? What decent man wouldever love her now--marry her--set her at his side? At eighteen--eighteen!all those chances were over for her. It was so strange that she couldhave laughed at her own thoughts; and yet at the same time it was soghastly true! No need now to invent a half-sincere chatter about "Fate. "She felt herself in miserable truth the mere feeble mouse wherewith thegreat cat Fate was playing. 

And yet--after all--she herself had done it!--by her own sheer madness. She seemed to see Aunt Alice's plaintive face, the eyes that followedher, the lip that trembled when she said an unkind or wanton thing; sheheard again the phrases of Uncle Richard's weekly letters, humorous, tender phrases, with here and there an occasional note of austerity, orwarning. 

Oh yes--she had done it--she had ruined herself. 

She felt the tears running over her cheeks, mingling with the snow as itpelted in her face. Suddenly she realized how cold she was, how soaked. She must--must go back to shelter--to human faces--to kind hands. She putout her own, groping helplessly--and rose to her feet. 

But the darkness was now much advanced, and the great snowstorm of thenight had begun. She could not see the path below her at all, and onlysome twenty yards of its course above her. In the whirling gloom and inthe fury of the wind, although she turned to descend the path, hercourage suddenly failed her. She remembered a stream she had crossedon a little footbridge with a rail; could she ever see to recross itagain?--above the greedy tumult of the water? Peering upward it seemed toher that she saw something like walls in front of her--perhaps anothersheepfold? That would give her shelter for a little, and perhaps the snowwould stop--perhaps it was only a shower. She struggled on, and up, andfound indeed some fragments of walls, beside the path, one of the manyabandoned places among the Westmoreland fells that testify to the closersettlement of the dales in earlier centuries. 

And just as she clambered within them, the clouds sweeping along thefell-side lifted and parted for the last time, and she caught a glimpseof a wide, featureless world, the desolate top of the fells, void ofshelter or landmark, save that straight across it, from gloom to gloom, there ran a straight white thing--a ghostly and forsaken track. The Romanroad, no doubt, of which the shepherd had spoken. And a vision spranginto her mind of Roman soldiers tramping along it, helmeted and speared, their heads bent against these northern storms--shivering like herself. She gazed and gazed, fascinated, till her bewildered eyes seemed toperceive shadows upon it, moving--moving--toward her. 

A panic fear seized her. 

"I must get home!--I must!--"

And sobbing, with the sudden word "mother!" on her lips, she ran out ofthe shelter she had found, taking, as she supposed, the path toward thevalley. But blinded with snow and mist, she lost it almost at once. Shestumbled on over broken and rocky ground, wishing to descend, yet keepinginstinctively upward, and hearing on her right from time to time, asthough from depths of chaos, the wild voices of the valley, the windtearing the cliffs, the rushing of the stream. Soon all was darkness; sheknew that she had lost herself; and was alone with rock and storm. Stillshe moved; but nerve and strength ebbed; and at last there came a stepinto infinity--a sharp pain--and the flame of consciousness went out. 

CHAPTER XXIII

The February afternoon in Long Whindale, shortened by the first heavysnowstorm of the winter, passed quickly into darkness. Down through allthe windings of the valley the snow showers swept from the north, becoming, as the wind dropped a little toward night, a steady continuousfall, which in four or five hours had already formed drifts of some depthin exposed places. 

Toward six o'clock, the small farmer living across the lane from Burwoodbecame anxious about some sheep which had been left in a high "intak" onthe fell. He was a thriftless, procrastinating fellow, and when thestorm came on about four o'clock had been taking his tea in a warmingle-nook by his wife's fire. He was then convinced that the storm would"hod off, " at least till morning, that the sheep would get shelter enoughfrom the stone walls of the "intak, " and that all was well. But a coupleof hours later the persistence of the snowfall, together with his wife'sreproaches, goaded him into action. He went out with his son andlanterns, intending to ask the old shepherd at the Bridge Farm to helpthem in their expedition to find and fold the sheep. 

Meanwhile, in the little sitting-room at Burwood Catherine Elsmere andMary were sitting, the one with her book, the other with her needlework, while the snow and wind outside beat on the little house. But Catharine'sneedlework often dropped unheeded from her fingers; and the pages ofMary's book remained unturned. The postman who brought letters up thedale in the morning, and took letters back to Whinborough at night, hadjust passed by in his little cart, hooded and cloaked against the storm, and hoping to reach Whinborough before the drifts in the roads had madetravelling too difficult. Mary had put into his hands a letter addressedto the Rev. Richard Meynell, Hotel Richelieu, Paris. And beside her onthe table lay a couple of sheets of foreign notepaper, covered closelywith Meynell's not very legible handwriting. 

Catharine also had some open letters on her lap. Presently she turned toMary. 

"The Bishop thinks the trial will certainly end tomorrow. "

"Yes, " said Mary, without raising her eyes. 

Catharine took her daughter's hand in a tender clasp. 

"I am so sorry!--for you both. "

"Dearest!" Mary laid her mother's hand against her cheek. "But I don'tthink Richard will be misunderstood again. "

"No. The Bishop says that mysterious as it all is, nobody blames him forbeing absent. They trust him. But this time, it seems, he _did_ write tothe Bishop--just a few words. "

"Yes, I know. I am glad. " But as she spoke, the pale severity of thegirl's look belied the word she used. During the fortnight of Meynell'sabsence, while he and Alice Puttenham in the south of France had beenfollowing every possible clue in a vain search for Hester, and the Archestrial had been necessarily left entirely to the management of Meynell'scounsel, and to the resources of his co-defendants, Darwen and Chesham, Mary had suffered much. To see his own brilliant vindication of himselfand his followers, in the face of religious England, snuffed out andextinguished in a moment by the call of this private duty had beenhard!--all the more seeing that the catastrophe had been brought about bymisconduct so wanton, so flagrant, as Hester's. There had sprung up inMary's mind, indeed, a _saeva indignatio, _ not for herself, but forRichard, first and foremost, and next for his cause. Dark as she knewMeynell's forebodings and beliefs to be, anxiety for Hester mustsometimes be forgotten in a natural resentment for high aims thwarted, and a great movement risked, by the wicked folly of a girl of eighteen, on whom every affection and every care had been lavished. 

"The roads will be impassable to-morrow, " said Catharine, drawing asidethe curtain, only to see a window already blocked with drifted snow. "But--who can be ringing on such a night!"

For a peal of the front door bell went echoing through the little house. 

Mary stepped into the hall, and herself opened the door, only to betemporarily blinded by the rush of wind and snow through the opening. 

"A telegram!" she exclaimed, in wonder. "Please come in and wait. Isn'tit very bad?"

"I hope I'll be able to get back!" laughed the young man who had broughtit. "The roads are drifting up fast. It was noa good bicycling. I got 'emto gie me a horse. I've just put him in your stable, miss. "

But Mary heard nothing of what he was saying. She had rushed back intothe sitting-room. 

"Mother!--Richard and Miss Puttenham will be here to-night. They haveheard of Hester. "

In stupefaction they read the telegram, which had had been sent fromCrewe:

"Received news of Hester on arrival Paris yesterday. She has left M. Saysshe has gone to find your mother. Keep her. We arrive to-nightWhinborough 7. 10. "

"It is now seven, " said Catharine, looking at her watch. "Butwhere--where is she?"

Hurriedly they called their little parlour-maid into the room andquestioned her with closed doors. No--she knew nothing of any visitor. Nobody had called; nobody, so far as she knew, had passed by, except theordinary neighbours. Once in the afternoon, indeed, she had thought sheheard a carriage pass the bottom of the lane, but on looking out from thekitchen she had seen nothing of it. 

Out of this slender fact, the only further information that could beextracted was a note of time. It was, the girl thought, about fouro'clock when she heard the carriage pass. 

"But it couldn't have passed, " Catharine objected, "or you would haveseen it go up the valley. "

The girl assented, for the kitchen window commanded the road up to thebridge. Then the carriage, if she had really heard it, must have come tothe foot of the lane, turned and gone back toward Whinborough again. There was no other road available. 

The telegraph messenger was dismissed, after a cup of coffee; andthankful for something to do, Catharine and Mary, with minds full ofconjecture and distress, set about preparing two rooms for their guests. 

"Will they ever get here?" Mary murmured to herself, when at last the tworooms lay neat and ready, with a warm fire in each, and she could allowherself to open the front door again, an inch or two, and look out intothe weather. Nothing to be seen but the whirling snow-flakes. The horridfancy seized her that Hester had really been in that carriage and hadturned back at their very door. So that again Richard, arriving weary andheart-stricken, would be disappointed. Mary's bitterness grew. 

But all that could be done was to listen to every sound without, in thehope of catching something else than the roaring of the wind, and to givethe rein to speculation and dismay. 

Catharine sat waiting, in her chair, the tears welling silently. Ittouched her profoundly that Hester, in her sudden despair, should havethought of coming to her; though apparently it was a project she had notcarried out. All her deep heart of compassion yearned over the lost, unhappy one. Oh, to bring her comfort!--to point her to the only help andhope in the arms of an all-pitying God. Catharine knew much more ofMeryon's history and antecedents--from Meynell--than did Mary. She wasconvinced that the marriage, if there had been a marriage, had been abogus one, and that the disgrace was irreparable. But in her stern, rich nature, now that the culprit had turned from her sin, there was nota thought of condemnation; only a yearning pity, an infinite tenderness. 

At last toward nine o'clock there were steps on the garden path. Maryflew to the door. In the porch there stood the old shepherd from theBridge Farm. His hat, beard, and shoulders were heavy with snow, and hisface shone like a red wrinkled apple, in the light of the hall lamp. 

"Beg your pardon, miss, but I've just coom from helpin' Tyson to get hissheep in. Varra careless of him to ha' left it so long!--aw mine wor safei't' fold by fower o'clock. An' I thowt, miss, as I'd mak bold, aforegoin' back to t' farm, to coom an' ast yo, if t' yoong leddy got safehoam this afternoon? I wor a bit worritted, for I thowt I saw her on t'Mardale Head path, juist afther I got hoam, from t' field abuve t' BridgeFarm, an' it wor noan weather for a stranger, miss, yo unnerstan', to beoot on t' fells, and it gettin' so black--"

"What young lady?" cried Mary. "Oh, come in, please. "

And she drew him hurriedly into the sitting-room, where Catharinehad already sprung to her feet in terror. There they questioned him. Yes--they had been expecting a lady. When had he seen her?--the younglady he spoke of? What was she like? In what direction had she gone? Heanswered their questions as clearly as he could, his own honest facegrowing steadily longer and graver. 

And all the time he carried, unconsciously, something heavy in his hand, on the top of which the snow had settled. Presently Mary perceived it. 

"Sit down, please!" she pushed a chair toward him. "You must be tiredout! And let me take that--"

She held out her hand. The old man looked down--recollecting. 

"That's noan o' mine, miss. I--"

Catharine cried out--

"It's hers! It's Hester's!"

She took the bag from Mary, and shook the snow from it. It was a smalldressing-bag of green leather and on it appeared the initials--"H. F. -W. "

They looked at each other speechless. The old man hastened to explainthat on opening the gate which led to the house from the lane his foothad stumbled against something on the path. By the light of his lanternhe had seen it was a bag of some sort, had picked it up and brought itin. 

"She _was_ in the carriage!" said Mary, under her breath, "and must havejust pushed this inside the gate before--"

Before she went to her death? Was that what would have to be added? Forthere was horror in both their minds. The mountains at the head of LongWhindale run up to no great height, but there are plenty of crags on themwith a sheer drop of anything from fifty to a hundred feet. Ten or twentyfeet would be quite enough to disable an exhausted girl. Five hours sinceshe was last seen!--and since the storm began; four hours, at least, since thick darkness had descended on the valley. 

"We must do something at once. " Catharine addressed the old man in quick, resolute tones. "We must get a party together. "

But as she spoke there were further sounds outside--of trampling feet andvoices--vying with the storm. Mary ran into the hall. Two figuresappeared in the porch in the light of the lamp as she held it up, with athird behind them, carrying luggage. In front stood Meynell, and anapparently fainting woman, clinging to and supported by his arm. 

"Help me with this lady, please!" said Meynell, peremptorily, notrecognizing who it was holding the light. "This last little climb hasbeen too much for her. Alice!--just a few steps more!"

And bending over his charge, he lifted the frail form over the threshold, and saw, as he did so, that he was placing her in Mary's arms. 

"She is absolutely worn out, " he said, drawing quick breath, while allhis face relaxed in a sudden, irrepressible joy. "But she would come. "Then, in a lower voice--"Is Hester here?" Mary shook her head, andsomething in her eyes warned him of fresh calamity. He stooped suddenlyto look at Alice, and perceived that she was quite unconscious. He andMary, between them, raised her and carried her into the sitting-room. Then, while Mary ministered to her, Meynell grasped Catharine'shand--with the brusque question--

"What has happened?"

Catharine beckoned to old David, the shepherd, and she, with David andMeynell, went across, out of hearing, into the tiny dining-room of thecottage. Meanwhile the horses and man who had brought the travellers fromWhinborough had to be put up for the night, for the man would not venturethe return journey. 

Meynell had soon heard what there was to tell. He himself was gray withfatigue and sleeplessness; but there was no time to think of that. 

"What men can we get?" he asked of the shepherd. 

Old David ruminated, and finally suggested the two sons of the farmeracross the lane, his own master, the young tenant of the Bridge Farm, andthe cowman from the same farm. 

"And the Lord knaws I'd goa wi you myself, sir"--said the fine-featuredold man, a touch of trouble in his blue eyes--"for I feel soomhow asthough there were a bit o' my fault in it. But we've had a heavy job ont' fells awready, an I should be noa good to you. "

He went over to the neighbouring farm, to recruit some young men, andpresently returned with them, the driver, also, from Whinborough, astalwart Westmoreland lad, eager to help. 

Meanwhile Meynell had snatched some food at Catharine's urgent entreaty, and had stood a moment in the sitting-room, his hand in Mary's, lookingdown upon the just reviving Alice. 

"She's been a plucky woman, " he said, with emotion; "but she's about atthe end of her tether. " And in a few brief sentences he described theagitated pursuit of the last fortnight; the rapid journeys, prompted nowby this clue, now by that; the alternate hopes and despairs; with no realinformation of any kind, till Hester's telegram, sent originally toUpcote and reforwarded, had reached Meynell in Paris, just as they hadreturned thither for a fresh consultation with the police atheadquarters. 

As the sound of men's feet in the kitchen broke in upon the hurriednarrative, and Meynell was leaving the room, Alice opened her eyes. 

"Hester?" The pale lips just breathed the name. 

"We've heard of her. " Meynell stooped to the questioner. "It's a realclue this time. She's not far away. But don't ask any more now. Let Mrs. Elsmere take you to bed--and there'll be more news in the morning. "

She made a feeble sign of assent. 

A quarter of an hour later all was ready, and Mary stood again in theporch, holding the lamp high for the departure of the rescuers. Therewere five men with lanterns, ropes, and poles, laden, besides, withblankets, and everything else that Catharine's practical sense couldsuggest. Old David would go with the rest as far as the Bridge Farm. 

The snow was still coming down in a stealthy and abundant fall, but thewind showed some signs of abating. 

"They'll find it easier goin', past t' bridge, than it would ha' been anhour since, " said old David to Mary, pitying the white anxiety of herface. She thanked him with a smile, and then while he marched ahead, sheput down the lamp and leant her head a moment against Meynell's shoulder, and he kissed her hair. 

Down went the little procession to the main road. Through the lane thelights wavered, and presently, standing at the kitchen window, Catharineand Mary could watch them dancing up the dale, now visible, nowvanishing. It must be at least, and at best, two or three hours beforethe party reappeared; it might be much more. They turned from uselessspeculation to give all their thoughts to Alice Puttenham. 

Too exhausted to speak or think, she was passive in their hands. She wassoon in bed, in a deep sleep, and Mary, having induced her mother to liedown in the sitting-room, and having made up fires throughout thehouse, sent the servants to bed, and herself began her watch in AlicePuttenham's room. 

Dreary and long, the night passed away. Once or twice through the waningstorm Mary heard the deep bell of the little church, tolling the hours;once or twice she went hurriedly downstairs thinking there were stepsin the garden, only to meet her mother in the hall, on the same bootlesserrand. At last, worn with thinking and praying, she fell fitfullyasleep, and woke to find moonlight shining through the white blind inAlice Puttenham's room. She drew aside the blind and saw with a shock ofsurprise that the storm was over; the valley lay pure white under awaning moon just dipping to the western fells; the clouds were upfurling;and only the last echoes of the gale were dying through the bare, snow-laden trees that fringed the stream. It was four o'clock. Six hours, since the rescue party had started. Alack!--they must have had far toseek. 

Suddenly--out of the dark bosom of the valley, lights emerged. Marysprang to her feet. Yes! it was they--it was Richard returning. 

One look at the bed, where the delicate pinched face still lay high onthe pillows, drenched in a sleep which was almost a swoon, and Mary stoleout of the room. 

There was time to complete their preparations and renew the fires. WhenCatharine softly unlatched the front door, everything was ready--warmblankets, hot milk, hot water bottles. But now they hardly daredspeak to each other; dread kept them dumb. Nearer and nearer came thesound of feet and lowered voices. Soon they could hear the swing of thegate leading into the garden. Four men entered, carrying something. Meynell walked in front with the lantern. 

As he saw the open door, he hurried forward. They read what he had to sayin his haggard look before he spoke. 

"We found her a long way up the pass. She has had a bad fall--but she isalive. That's all one can say. The exposure alone might have killed her. She hasn't spoken--not a word. That good fellow"--he nodded toward theWhinborough lad who had brought them from, the station--"will take one ofhis horses and go for the doctor. We shall get him here in a couple ofhours. "

Silently they brought her in, the stalwart, kindly men, they mounted thecottage stairs, and on Mary' bed they laid her down. 

O crushed and wounded youth! The face, drawn and fixed in pain, wasmarble-cold and marble-white; the delicate mire-stained hands hunghelpless. Masses of drenched hair fell about the neck and bosom; andthere was a wound on the temple which had been bandaged, but was nowbleeding afresh. Catharine bent over her in an anguish, feeling for pulseand heart. Meynell, whispering, pointed out that the right leg was brokenbelow the knee. He himself had put it in some rough splints, made out ofthe poles the shepherds were carrying. 

Both Catharine and Mary had ambulance training, and, helped by their twomaids, they did all they could. They cut away the soaked clothes. Theyapplied warmth in every possible form; they got down some spoonfuls ofwarm milk and brandy, dreading always to hear the first sounds ofconsciousness and pain. 

They came at last--the low moans of one coming terribly back to life. Meynell returned to the room, and knelt by her. 

"Hester--dear child!--you are quite safe--we are all here--the doctorwill be coming directly. "

His tone was tender as a woman's. His ghostly face, disfigured byexhaustion, showed him absorbed in pity. Mary, standing near, longed tokneel down by him, and weep; but there was an austere sense that not evenshe must interrupt the moment of recognition. 

At last it came. Hester opened her eyes--

"Uncle Richard?--Is that Uncle Richard?"

A long silence, broken by moaning, while Meynell knelt there, watchingher, sometimes whispering to her. 

At last she said, "I couldn't face you all. I'm dying. " She moved herright hand restlessly. "Give me something for this pain--I--I can't standit. "

"Dear Hester--can you bear it a little longer? We will do all we can. Wehave sent for the doctor. He has a motor. He will be here very soon. "

"I don't want to live. I want to stop the pain. Uncle Richard!"

"Yes, dear Hester. "

"I hate Philip--now. "

"It's best not to talk of him, dear. You want all your strength. "

"No--I must. There's not much time. I suppose--I've--I've made you veryunhappy?"

"Yes--but now we have you again--our dear, dear Hester. "

"You can't care. And I--can't say--I'm sorry. Don't you remember?"

His face quivered. He understood her reference to the long fits ofnaughtiness of her childhood, when neither nurse, nor governess, nor"Aunt Alice" could ever get out of her the stereotyped words "I'm sorry. "But he could not trust himself to speak. And it seemed as though sheunderstood his silence, for she feebly moved her uninjured hand towardhim; and he raised it to his lips. 

"Did I fall--a long way? I don't recollect--anything. "

"You had a bad fall, my poor child. Be brave!--the doctor will help you. "

He longed to speak to her of her mother, to tell her the truth. It wasborne in upon him that he _must_ tell her--if she was to die; that in thelast strait, Alice's arms must be about her. But the doctor must decide. 

Presently, she was a little easier. The warm stimulant dulled theconsciousness which came in gusts. 

Once or twice, as she recognized the faces near her, there was a touch oflife, even of mockery. There was a moment when she smiled at Catharine--

"You're sweet. You won't say--'I told you so'!"

In one of the intervals when she seemed to have lapsed again intounconsciousness Meynell reported something of the search. They had foundher a long distance from the path, at the foot of a steep and rockyscree, some twenty or thirty feet high, down which she must have slippedheadlong. There she had lain for some eight hours in the storm beforethey found her. She neither moved nor spoke when they discovered her, norhad there been any sign of life, beyond the faint beating of the pulse, on the journey down. 

The pale dawn was breaking when the doctor arrived. His verdict was atfirst not without hope. She _might_ live; if there were no internalinjuries of importance. The next few hours would show. He sent his motorback to Whinborough Cottage Hospital for a couple of nurses, andprepared, himself, to stay the greater part of the day. He had just gonedownstairs to speak to Meynell, and Catharine was sitting by the bed, when Hester once more roused herself. 

"How that man hurt me!--don't let him come in again. "

Then, in a perfectly hard, clear voice, she added imperiously--"I want tosee my mother. "

Catharine stooped toward her, in an agitation she found it difficult toconceal. 

"Dear Hester!--we are sending a telegram as soon as the post-office isopen to Lady Fox-Wilton. "

Hester moved her hand impatiently. 

"She's not my mother, and I'm glad. Where is--_my mother_?" She laid astrange, deep emphasis on the word, opening her eyes wide andthreateningly. Catharine understood at once that, in some undiscoveredway, she knew what they had all been striving to keep from her. It was notime for questioning. Catharine rose quietly. 

"She is here, Hester, I will go and tell her. "

Leaving one of the maids in charge, Catharine ran down to the doctor, whogave a reluctant consent, lest more harm should come of refusing theinterview than of granting it. And as Catharine ran up again to Mary'sroom she had time to reflect, with self-reproach, on the strangecompleteness with which she at any rate had forgotten that frailineffectual woman asleep in Mary's room from the moment of Hester'sarrival till now. 

But Mary had not forgotten her. When Catharine opened the door, it was tosee a thin, phantom-like figure, standing fully dressed, and leaning onMary's arm. Catharine went up to her with tears, and kissed her, holdingher hands close. 

"Hester asks for you--for her mother--her real mother. She knows. "

"_She knows_?" Alice stood paralyzed a moment, gazing at Catharine. Thenthe colour rushed back into her face. "I am coming--I am coming--atonce, " she said impetuously. "I am quite strong. Don't help me, please. And--let me go in alone. I won't do her harm. If you--and Mary--wouldstand by the door--I would call in a moment--if--"

They agreed. She went with tottering steps across the landing. On thethreshold, Catharine paused; Mary remained a little behind. Alice went inand shut the door. 

The blinds in Hester's room were up, and the snow-covered fells risingsteeply above the house filled it with a wintry, reflected light; adreary light, that a large fire could not dispel. On the white bedlay Hester, breathing quickly and shallowly; bright colour now ineach sunken cheek. The doctor himself had cut off a great part of herhair--her glorious hair. The rest fell now in damp golden curls about herslender neck, beneath the cap-like bandage which hid the forehead andtemples and gave her the look of a young nun. At first sight of her, Alice knew that she was doomed. Do what she would, she could not restrainthe low cry which the sight tore from the depths of life. 

Hester feebly beckoned. Alice came near, and took the right hand in hers, while Hester smiled, her eyelids fluttering. "Mother!"--she said, so asscarcely to be heard--and then again--"_Mother_!"

Alice sank down beside her with a sob, and without a word they gazed intoeach other's eyes. Slowly Hester's filled with tears. But Alice's weredry. In her face there was as much ecstasy as anguish. It was the firstlook that Hester's _soul_ had ever given her. All the past was in it; andthat strange sense, on both sides, that there was no future. 

At last Alice murmured:

"How did you know?"

"Philip told me. "

The girl stopped abruptly. It had been on her tongue to say--"It was thatmade me go with him. "

But she did not say it. And while Alice's mind, rushing miserably overthe past, was trying to piece together some image of what had happened, Hester began to talk intermittently about the preceding weeks. Alicetried to stop her; but to thwart her only produced a restless excitement, and she had her way. 

She spoke of Philip with horror, yet with a perfectly clear sense of herown responsibility. 

"I needn't have gone--but I would go. There was a devil in me--thatwanted to know. Now I know--too much. I'm glad it's over. This life isn'tworth while--not for me. "

So, from these lips of eighteen, came the voice of the world's olddespairs!

Presently she asked peremptorily for Meynell, and he came to her. 

"Uncle Richard, I want to be sure"--she spoke strongly and in her naturalvoice--"am I Philip's wife--or--or not? We were married on January 25th, at the Mairie of the 10th Arrondissement, by a man in a red scarf. Wesigned registers and things. Then--when we quarrelled--Philip said--hewasn't certain about that woman--in Scotland. You might be right. Tell methe truth, please. Am I--his wife?"

And as the words dropped faintly, the anxiety in her beautifuldeath-stricken eyes was strange and startling to see. Through all herrecklessness, her defiance of authority and custom, could be seen at lastthe strength of inherited, implanted things; the instinct of a race, afamily, overleaping deviation. 

Meynell bent over her steadily, and took her hand in both his own. 

"Certainly, you are his wife. Have no anxiety at all about that. Myinquiries all broke down. There was no Scotch marriage. "

Hester said nothing for a little; but the look of relief was clear. Aliceon the farther side of the bed dropped her face in her hands. Was it notonly forty-eight hours since, in Paris, Meynell had told her that he hadreceived conclusive evidence of the Scotch marriage, and that Hester wasmerely Philip's victim, not his wife? Passionately her heart thanked himfor the falsehood. She saw clearly that Hester's mortal wounds were notall bodily. She was dying partly of self-contempt, self-judgment. Meynell's strong words--his "noble lie"--had lifted, as it were, afraction of the moral weight that was destroying her; had made a space--afreedom, in which the spirit could move. 

So much Alice saw; blind meanwhile to the tragic irony of this piteousstress laid at such a moment, by one so lawless, on the social law!

Thenceforward the poor sufferer was touchingly gentle and amenable. Morphia had been given her liberally, and the relief was great. When thenurses came at midday, however, the pulse had already begun to fail. Theycould do nothing; and though within call, they left her mainly to thosewho loved her. 

In the early afternoon she asked suddenly for the Communion, and Meynelladministered it. The three women who were watching her received it withher. In Catharine's mind, as Meynell's hands brought her the sacred breadand wine, all thought of religious difference between herself and him hadvanished, burnt away by sheer heat of feeling. There was no difference!Words became mere transparencies, through which shone the ineffable. 

When it was over, Hester opened her eyes--"Uncle Richard!" The voice wasonly a whisper now. "You loved my father?"

"I loved him dearly--and you--and your mother--for his sake. "

He stooped to kiss her cheek. 

"I wonder what it'll be like"--she said, after a moment, with morestrength--"beyond? How strange that--I shall know before you! UncleRichard--I'm--I'm sorry!"

At that the difficult tears blinded him, and he could not reply. But shewas beyond tears, concentrating all the last effort of the mind on thesheer maintenance of life. Presently she added:

"I don't hate--even Philip now. I--I forget him. Mother!" And again sheclung to her mother's hand, feebly turning her face to be kissed. 

Once she opened her eyes when Mary was beside her, and smiled brightly. 

"I've been such a trouble, Mary--I've spoilt Uncle Richard's life. Butnow you'll have him all the time--and he'll have you. You dear!--Kiss me. You've got a golden mother. Take care of mine--won't you?--my poormother!"

So the hours wore on. Science was clever and merciful and eased her pain. Love encompassed her, and when the wintry light failed, her faintlybeating heart failed with it, and all was still.... 

"Richard!--Richard!--Come with me. "

So, with low, tender words, Mary tried to lead him away, after thattrance of silence in which they had all been standing round the dead. Heyielded to her; he was ready to see the doctor and to submit to theabsolute rest enjoined. But already there was something in his aspectwhich terrified Mary. Through the night that followed, as she lay awake, a true instinct told her that the first great wrestle of her life and herlove was close upon her. 

CHAPTER XXIV

On the day following Hester's death an inquest was held in thedining-room at Burwood. Meynell and old David, the shepherd, stood outchief among the witnesses. 

"This poor lady's name, I understand, sir, " said the gray-haired Coroner, addressing Meynell, when the first preliminaries were over, "was MissHester Fox-Wilton; she was the daughter of the late Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton;she was under age; and you and Lady Fox-Wilton--who is not here, I amtold, owing to illness--were her guardians?"

Meynell assented. He stood to the right of the Coroner, leaning heavilyon the chair before him. The doctor who had been called in to Hester satbeside him, and wondered professionally whether the witness would getthrough. 

"I understand also, " the Coroner resumed, "that Miss Fox-Wilton had leftthe family in Paris with whom you and Lady Fox-Wilton had placed her, some three weeks ago, and that you have since been in search of her, incompany I believe with Miss Fox-Wilton's aunt, Miss Alice Puttenham. MissPuttenham, I hope, will appear?"

The doctor rose--

"I am strongly of opinion, sir, that, unless for most urgent reasons, Miss Puttenham should not be called upon. She is in a very precariousstate, in consequence of grief and shock, and I should greatly fear theresults were she to make the effort. "

Meynell intervened. 

"I shall be able, sir, I think, to give you sufficient information, without its being necessary to call upon Miss Puttenham. "

He went on to give an account, as guarded as he could make it, ofHester's disappearance from the family with whom she was boarding, of theanxiety of her relations, and the search that he and Miss Puttenham hadmade. 

His conscience was often troubled. Vaguely, his mind was pronouncingitself all the while--"It is time now the truth were known. It is betterit should be known. " Hester's death had changed the whole situation. Buthe could himself take no step whatever toward disclosure. And he knewthat it was doubtful whether he should or could have advised Alice totake any. 

The inquiry went on, the Coroner avoiding the subject of Hester's Frenchescapade as much as possible. After all there need be--there was--noquestion of suicide; only some explanation had to be suggested of thedressing-bag left within the garden gate, and of the girl's recklessclimb into the fells, against old David's advice, on such an afternoon. 

Presently, in the midst of David's evidence, describing his meeting withHester by the bridge, the handle of the dining-room door turned. The dooropened a little way and then shut again. Another minute or two passed, and then the door opened again timidly as though some one were hesitatingoutside. The Coroner annoyed, beckoned to a constable standing behind thewitnesses. But before he could reach it, a lady had slowly pushed itopen, and entered the room. 

It was Alice Puttenham. 

The Coroner looked up, and the doctor rose in astonishment. Aliceadvanced to the table, and stood at the farther end from the Coroner, looking first at him and then at the jury. Her face--emaciated now beyondall touch of beauty--and the childish overhanging lip quivered as shetried to speak; but no words came. 

"Miss Puttenham, I presume?" said the Coroner. "We were told, madam, thatyou were not well enough to give evidence. "

Meynell was at her side. 

"What do you wish?" he said, in a low voice, as he took her hand. 

"I wish to give evidence, " she said aloud. 

The doctor turned toward the Coroner. 

"I think you will agree with me, sir, that as Miss Puttenham has made theeffort, she should give her evidence as soon as possible, and should giveit sitting. "

A murmur of assent ran round the table. Over the weather-beatenWestmoreland faces had passed a sudden wave of animation. 

Alice took her seat, and the oath. Meynell sitting opposite to hercovered his face with his hands. He foresaw what she was about to do, andhis heart went out to her. 

Everybody at the table bent forward to listen. The two shorthand writerslifted eager faces. 

"May I make a statement?" The thin voice trembled through the room. 

The Coroner assured the speaker that the Court was willing and anxious tohear anything she might have to say. 

Alice fixed her eyes on the old man, as though she would thereby shut outall his surroundings. 

"You are inquiring, sir--into the death--of my daughter. "

The Coroner made a sudden movement. 

"Your daughter, madam? I understood that, this poor young lady was thedaughter of the late Sir Ralph and Lady Fox-Wilton?"

"She was their adopted daughter. Her father was Mr. Neville Flood, andI--am her mother. Mr. Flood, of Sandford Abbey, died nearly twenty yearsago. He and I were never married. My sister and brother-in-law adoptedthe child. She passed always as theirs, and when Sir Ralph died, heappointed--Mr. Meynell--and my sister her guardians. Mr. Meynellhas always watched over her--and me. Mr. Flood was much attached to him. He wrote to Mr. Meynell, asking him to help us--just before his death. "

She paused a moment, steadying herself by the table. 

There was not a sound, not a movement in the room. Only Meynell uncoveredhis eyes and tried to meet hers, so as to give her encouragement. 

She resumed--

"Last August the nurse who attended me--in my confinement--camehome to Upcote. She made a statement to a gentleman there--a falsestatement--and then she died. I wished then to make the truth public--butMr. Meynell--as Hester's guardian--and for her sake, as well as mine--didnot wish it. She knew nothing--then; and he was afraid of its effect uponher. I followed his advice, and took her abroad, in order to protect herfrom a bad man who was pursuing her. We did all we could--but we were notable to protect her. They were married without my knowing--and she wentaway with him. Then he--this man--told her--or perhaps he had done itbefore, I don't know--who she was. I can only guess how he knew; but heis Mr. Flood's nephew. My poor child soon found out what kind of man hewas. She tried to escape from him. And because Mrs. Elsmere had beenalways very kind to her, she came here. She knew how--"

The voice paused, and then with difficulty shaped its words again. 

"She knew that we should grieve so terribly. She shrank from seeing us. She thought we might be here--and that--partly--made her wander awayagain--in despair--when she actually got here. But her death was a pureaccident--that I am sure of. At the last, she tried to get home--to me. That was the only thing she was conscious of--before she fell. When shewas dying--she told me she knew--I was her mother. And now--that she isdead--"

The voice changed and broke--a sudden cry forced its way through--

"Now that she is dead--no one else shall claim her--but me. She's minenow--my child--forever--only mine!"

She broke off incoherently, bowing her head upon her hands, her slightshoulders shaken by her sobs. 

The room was silent, save for a rather general clearing of throats. Meynell signalled to the doctor. They both rose and went to her. Meynellwhispered to her. 

The Coroner spoke, drawing his handkerchief hastily across his eyes. 

"The Court is very grateful to you, Miss Puttenham, for this frank andbrave statement. We tender you our best thanks. There is no need for usto detain you longer. "

She rose, and Meynell led her from the room. Outside was a nurse to whomhe resigned her. 

"My dear, dear friend!" Trembling, her eyes met the deep emotion in his. "That was right--that will bring you help. Aye! you have her now--all, all your own. "

On the day of Hester's burying Long Whindale lay glittering white under afitful and frosty sunshine. The rocks and screes with their steep beds ofwithered heather made dark scrawls and scratches on the white; the smokefrom the farmhouses rose bluish against the snowy wall of fell; and theriver, amid the silence of the muffled roads and paths, seemed the onlyaudible thing in the valley. 

In the tiny churchyard the new-made grave had been filled in with frozenearth, and on the sods lay flowers piled there by Rose Flaxman's kind andbusy hands. She and Hugh had arrived from the south that morning. 

Another visitor had come from the south, also to lay flowers on thatwintry grave. Stephen Barron's dumb pain was bitter to see. The silenceof spiritual and physical exhaustion in which Meynell had been wrappedsince the morning of the inquest was first penetrated and broken up bythe sight of Stephen's anguish. And in the attempt to comfort theyounger, the elder man laid hold on some returning power for himself. 

But he had been hardly hit; and the depth of the wound showed itselfstrangely--in a kind of fear of love itself, a fear of Mary! Meynell'sattitude toward her during these days was almost one of shrinking. Theatmosphere between them was electrical; charged with things unspoken, anda conflict that must be faced. 

 * * * * *

The day after Hester's funeral the newspapers were full of the sentencedelivered on the preceding day, in the Arches Court, on Meynell and hisco-defendants. A telegram from Darwen the evening before had conveyedthe news to Meynell himself. 

The sentence of deprivation _ab officio et beneficio_ in the Church ofEngland, on the ground of heretical opinion and unauthorized services, had been expressed by the Dean of Arches in a tone and phraseology ofconsiderable vehemence. According to him the proceedings of theModernists were "as contrary to morality as to law, " and he marvelled how"honest men" could consent to occupy the position of Meynell and hisfriends. 

Notice of appeal to the Privy Council was at once given by the Modernistcounsel, and a flame of discussion arose throughout England. 

Meanwhile, on the morning following the publication of the judgment, Meynell finished a letter, and took it into the dining-room, where Roseand Mary were sitting. Rose, reading his face, disappeared, and he putthe letter into Mary's hands. 

It was addressed to the Bishop of Dunchester. The great gathering inDunchester Cathedral, after several postponements to match the delays inthe Court of Arches, was to take place within a fortnight from this date, and Meynell had been everywhere announced as the preacher of the sermon, which was to be the battle-cry of the Movement, in the second period ofits history; the period of open revolt, of hot and ardent conflict. 

The letter which Mary was invited to read was short. It simply asked thatthe writer should be relieved from a task he felt he could not adequatelycarry out. He desired to lay it down, not for his own sake, but for thesake of the cause. "I am not the man, and this is not my job. Thisconviction has been borne in upon me during the last few weeks with anamazing clearness. I will only say that it seems to represent acommand--a prohibition--laid upon me, which I cannot ignore. There are ofcourse tragic happenings and circumstances connected with it, my dearlord, on which I will not dwell. The effect of them at present on my mindis that I wish to retire from a public and prominent part in our greatMovement; at any rate for a time. I shall carry through the Privy Councilappeal; but except for that intend to refuse all public appearance. Whenthe sentence is confirmed, as of course it will be, it will be best forme to confine myself to thinking and writing in solitude and behind thescenes. 'Those also serve who only stand and wait. ' The quotation ishackneyed, but it must serve. Through thought and self-proving, I believethat in the end I shall help you best. I am not the fighter I thoughtI was; the fighter that I ought to be to keep the position that has beenso generously given me. Forgive me for a while if I go into thewilderness--a rather absurd phrase, however, as you will agree, whenI tell you that I am soon to marry a woman whom I love with my wholeheart. But it applies to my connection with the Modernist Movement, andto my position as a leader. My old friends and colleagues--many of themat least--will, I fear, blame the step I am taking. It will seem to thema mere piece of flinching and cowardice. But each man's soul is in hisown keeping; and he alone can judge his own powers. "

The letter then became a quiet discussion of the best man to be chosen inthe writer's stead, and passed on into a review of the general situationcreated by the sentence of the Court of Arches. 

But of these later pages of the letter Mary realized nothing. She satwith it in her hands, after she had read the passage which has beenquoted, looking down, her mouth trembling. 

Meynell watched her uneasily--then came to sit by her, and took her hand. 

"Dearest!--you understand?" he said, entreatingly. 

"It is--because of Hester?" She spoke with difficulty. 

He assented, and then added--

"But that letter--shall only go with your permission. "

She took courage. "Richard, you know so much better than I, but--Richard!--did you ever neglect Hester?"

He tried to answer her question truly. 

"Not knowingly. "

"Did you ever fail to love her, and try to help her?"

He drew a long breath. 

"But there she lies!" He raised his head. Through the window, on a rockyslope, half a mile away, could be seen the tiny church of Long Whindale, and the little graveyard round it. 

"It is very possible that I see the thing morbidly"--he turned to heragain with a note of humility, of sad appeal, that struck most poignantlyon the woman's heart--"but I cannot resist it. What use can I be to anyhuman being as guide, or prophet, or counsellor--if I was so little useto her? Is there not a kind of hypocrisy--a dismal hypocrisy--in myclaim to teach--or inspire--great multitudes of people--when this onechild--who was given into my care--"

He wrung her hands in his, unable to finish his sentence. 

Bright tears stood in her eyes; but she persevered. She struck boldly forthe public, the impersonal note. She set against the tragic appeal of thedead the equally tragic appeal of the living. She had in her mind thememory of that London church, with the strained upturned faces, the"hungry sheep"--girls among them, perhaps, in peril like Hester, menassailed by the same vile impulses that had made a brute of PhilipMeryon. During the preceding months Mary's whole personality haddeveloped with great rapidity, after a somewhat taciturn and slowlyripening youth. The need, enforced upon her by love itself, of assertingherself even against the mother she adored; the shadow of Meynell's cloudupon her, and her suffering under it, during the weeks of slander; andnow this rending tragedy at her doors--had tempered anew the naturallyhigh heart, and firm will. At this critical moment, she saved Meynellfrom a fatal step by the capacity she showed of loving his cause, onlynext to himself. And, indeed, Meynell was made wholesomely doubtful onceor twice whether it were not in truth his cause she loved in him. Forthe sweet breakdowns of love which were always at her lips she banishedby a mighty effort, till she should have won or lost. Thus throughout sheshowed herself her mother's daughter--with her father's thoughts. 

It was long, however, before she succeeded in making any real impressionupon him. All she could obtain at first was delay, and that Catharineshould be informed. 

As soon as that had been done, the position became once more curiouslycomplex. Here was a woman to whom the whole Modernist Movement wasanathema, driven finally into argument for the purpose of compellingthe Modernist leader, the contriver and general of Modernist victory, toremain at his post!

For it was part of Catharine's robust character to look upon any pledge, any accepted responsibility, as something not to be undone by any merefeeling, however sharp, however legitimate. You had undertaken thething, and it must, at all costs, be carried through. That was thedominant habit of her mind; and there were persons connected with her onwhom the rigidity of it had at times worked harshly. 

On this occasion it was no doubt interfered with--(the Spirit of Comedywould have found a certain high satisfaction in the dilemma)--by the factthat Meynell's persistence in the course he had entered upon must be, in her eyes, and _sub specie religionis_, a persistence in heresy andunbelief. What decided it ultimately, however, was that she was not onlyan orthodox believer, but a person of great common sense--and Mary'smother. 

Her natural argument was that after the tragic events which had occurred, and the public reports of them which had appeared, Meynell's abruptwithdrawal from public life would once more unsettle and confuse thepublic mind. If there had been any change in his opinions--

"Oh! do not imagine"--she turned a suddenly glowing face upon him--"Ishould be trying to dissuade you, if that were your reason. No!--it isfor personal and private reasons you shrink from the responsibilityof leadership. And that being so, what must the world say--the ignorantworld that loves to think evil?"

He looked at her a little reproachfully. 

"Those are not arguments that come very naturally from you!"

"They are the right ones!--and I am not ashamed of them. My dearfriend--I am not thinking of you at all. I leave you out of count; I amthinking of Alice--and--Mary!"

Catharine unconsciously straightened herself, a touch of somethingresentful--nay, stern--in the gesture. Meynell stared in stupefaction. 

"Alice!--_Mary_!" he said. 

"Up to this last proposed action of yours, has not everything that hashappened gone to soften people's hearts? to make them repent doubly oftheir scandal, and their false witness? Every one knows the truthnow--every one who cares; and every one understands. But now--after theeffort poor Alice has made--after all that she and you have suffered--youinsist on turning fresh doubt and suspicion on yourself, your motives, your past history. Can't you see how people may gossip about it--how theymay interpret it? You have no right to do it, my dear Richard!--no rightwhatever. Your 'good report' belongs not only to yourself--but--to Mary!"

Catharine's breath had quickened; her hand shook upon her knee. Meynellrose from his seat, paced the room and came back to her. 

"I have tried to explain to Mary"--he said, desperately--"that I shouldfeel myself a hypocrite and pretender in playing the part of a spiritualleader--when this great--failure--lay upon my conscience. "

At that Catharine's tension gave way. Perplexity returned upon her. 

"Oh! if it meant--if it meant"--she looked at him with a sudden, sweettimidity--"that you felt you had tried to do for Hester what onlygrace--what only a living Redeemer--could do for her--"

She broke off. But at last, as Meynell, her junior by fifteen years--herson almost--looked down into her face--her frail, aging, illuminedface--there was something in the passion of her faith which challengedand roused his own; which for the moment, at any rate, and for the firsttime since the crisis had arisen revived in him the "fighter" he hadtried to shed. 

"The fault was not in the thing preached, " he said, with a groan; "or soit seems to me--but in the preacher. The preacher--was unequal to themessage. "

Catharine was silent. And after a little more pacing he said in a moreordinary tone--and a humble one--

"Does Mary share this view of yours?"

At this Catharine was almost angry. 

"As if I should say a word to her about it! Does she know--has she everknown--what you and I knew?"

His eyes, full of trouble, propitiated her. He took her hand and kissedit. 

"Bear with me, dear mother! I don't see my way, but Mary--is to me--mylife. At any rate, I won't do in a hurry what you disapprove. "

Thus a little further delay was gained. The struggle lasted indeedanother couple of days, and the aspect of both Meynell and Mary showeddeep marks of it by the end. Throughout it Mary made little or no appealto the mere womanly arts. And perhaps it was the repression of them thatcost her most. 

On the third day of discussion, while the letter still lay unposted inMeynell's writing-case, he went wandering by himself up the valley. Theweather was soft again, and breathing spring. The streams ran free; thebuds were swelling on the sycamores; and except on the topmost crags thesnow had disappeared from the fells. Harsh and austere the valley wasstill; the winter's grip would be slow to yield; but the turn of the yearhad come. 

That morning a rush of correspondence forwarded from Upcote had broughtmatters to a crisis. On the days immediately following the publication ofthe evidence given at the inquest on Hester the outside world had made nosign. All England knew now why Richard Meynell had disappeared from theArches Trial, only to become again the prey of an enormous publicity, asone of the witnesses to the finding and the perishing of his young ward. And after Alice Puttenham's statement in the Coroner's Court, for a fewdays the England interested in Richard Meynell simply held its breathand let him be. 

But he belonged to the public; and after just the brief respite thatdecency and sympathy imposed, the public fell upon him. The Archesverdict had been given; the appeal to the Privy Council had been lodged. With every month of the struggle indeed, as the Modernist attack hadgrown more determined, and its support more widespread, so the orthodoxdefence had gathered force and vehemence. Yet through the length andbreadth of the country the Modernist petition to Parliament was nowkindling such a fire as no resistance could put out. Debate in the Houseof Commons on the Modernist proposals for Church Reform would begin afterEaster. Already every member of the House was being bombarded from bothsides by his constituents. Such a heat of religious feeling, such apassion of religious hope and fear, had not been seen in England forgenerations. 

And meanwhile Meynell, whose action had first released the great forcesnow at work, who as a leader was now doubly revered, doubly honoured bythose who clamoured to be led by him, still felt himself utterlyunable to face the struggle. Heart and brain were the prey of a deadlydiscouragement; the will could make no effort; his confidence in himselfwas lamed and helpless. Not even the growing strength and intensity ofhis love for Mary could set him, it seemed, spiritually, on his feet. 

He left the old bridge on his left, and climbed the pass. And as hewalked, some words of Newman possessed him; breathed into his ear throughall the wind and water voices of the valley:

_Thou_ to wax fierceIn the cause of the LordTo threat and to pierceWith the heavenly sword!Anger and ZealAnd the Joy of the braveWho bade _thee_ to feel--

Dejectedly, he made his way along the fatal path; he found the ruin whereHester had sheltered; he gradually identified the route which the rescueparty had taken along the side of the fell; and the precipitous screewhere they had found her. The freshly disturbed earth and stones stillshowed plainly where she had fallen, and where he and the shepherds hadstood, trampling the ground round her. He sat down beside the spot, haunted by the grim memory of that helpless, bleeding form amid the snow. Not yet nineteen!--disgraced--ruined--the young body broken in its prime. Had he been able to do no better for Neville's child than that? The loadof responsibility crushed him; and he could not resign himself to such afate for such a human being. Before him, on the chill background of thetells, he beheld, perpetually, the two Hesters: here, the radiant, unmanageable child, clad in the magic of her teasing, provocative beauty;there, the haggard and dying girl, violently wrenched from life. Religious faith was paralyzed within him. How could he--a man so disownedof God--prophesy to his brethren?.... 

Thus there descended upon him the darkest hour of his history. It wassimply a struggle for existence on the part of all those powers of thesoul that make for action, against the forces that make for death andinertia. 

It lasted long; and it ended in the slow and difficult triumph, the finalascendency of the "Yeas" of Life over the "Nays, " which in truth hischaracter secured. He won the difficult fight not as a philosopher, butas a Christian; impelled, chastened, brought into line again, by purelyChristian memories and Christian ideas. The thought of Christ healedhim--gradually gave him courage to bear an agony of self-criticism, self-reproach, that was none the less overwhelming because his calmermind, looking on, knew it to be irrational. There was no prayer toChrist, no "Christe eleison" on his rips. But there was a solemn kneelingby the Cross; a solemn opening of the mind to the cleansing andstrengthening forces that flow from that life and death which areChristendom's central possession; the symbol through which, nowunderstood in this way, now in that, the Eternal speaks to the Christiansoul. 

So, amid "the cheerful silence of the fells, " a good man, heavily, tookback his task. From this wreck of affection, this ruin of hope, he mustgo forth to preach love and hope to other men; from the depths of hisgrief and his defeat he must summon others to struggle and victory. 

He submitted. 

Then--not till then--naked and stripped as he was of all personalcomplacency; smarting under the conviction of personal weakness anddefeat; tormented still, as he would ever be, by all the "might havebeens" of Hester's story, he was conscious of the "supersensualmoment, " the inrush of Divine strength, which at some time or otherrewards the life of faith. 

On his way back to Burwood through the gleams and shadows of the valley, he turned aside to lay a handful of green moss on the new-made grave. There was a figure beside it. It was Mary, who had been plantingsnowdrops. He helped her, and then they descended to the main roadtogether. Looking at his face, she hardly dared, close as his hand clungto hers, to break the silence. 

It was dusk, and there was no one in sight. In the shelter of a group oftrees, he drew her to him. 

"You have your way, " he said, sadly. 

She trembled a little, her delicate cheek close against his. 

"Have I persecuted you?"

He smiled. 

"You have taught me what the strength of my wife's will is going to be. "

She winced visibly, and the tears came into her eyes. 

"Dearest!--" he protested. "Must you not be strong? But for you--I shouldhave gone under. "

The primitive instinct of the woman, in this hour of painful victory, would have dearly liked to disavow her own power. The thought of rulingher beloved was odious. Yet as they walked on hand in hand, the modernin Mary prevailed, and she must needs accept the equal rights of a lovewhich is also life's supreme friendship. 

A few more days Meynell spent in the quiet of the valley, recovering, asbest he could, and through a struggle constantly renewed, some normalsteadiness of mood and nerve; dealing with an immense correspondence;and writing the Dunchester sermon; while Stephen Barron, who had alreadyresigned his own living, was looking after the Upcote Church and parish. Meanwhile Alice Puttenham lay upstairs in one of the little white roomsof Burwood, so ill that the doctors would not hear of her being moved. Edith Fox-Wilton had proposed to come and nurse her, in spite of "thisshocking business which had disgraced us all. " But Catharine at Alice'sentreaty had merely appealed to the indisputable fact that the tiny housewas already more than full. There was no danger, and they had a goodtrained nurse. 

Once or twice it was, in these days, that again a few passing terrors ranthrough Mary's mind, on the subject of her mother. The fragility whichhad struck Meynell's unaccustomed eye when he first arrived in the valleyforced itself now at times, though only at times, on her reluctant sense. There were nights when, without any definite reason, she could not sleepfor anxiety. And then again the shadow entirely passed away. Catharinelaughed at her; and when the moment came for Mary to follow Meynell tothe Dunchester meeting, it was impossible even for her anxious love topersuade itself that there was good reason for her to stay away. 

 * * * * *

Before Meynell departed southward there was a long conversation betweenhim and Alice; and it was at her wish, to which he now finally yielded, that he went straight to Markborough, to an interview with Bishop Craye. 

In that interview the Bishop learnt at last the whole story of Hester'sbirth and of her tragic death. The beauty of Meynell's relation to themother and child was plainly to be seen through a very reticentnarrative; and to the tale of those hours in Long Whindale no man ofheart like the little Bishop could have listened unmoved. At the end, thetwo men clasped hands in silence; and the Bishop looked wistfully at thepriest that he and the diocese were so soon to lose. 

For the rest, as before, they met as equals, curiously congenial to eachother, in spite of the battle in front. The Bishop's certainty of victorywas once more emphatically shown by the friendly ease with which he stillreceived his rebellious incumbent. Any agreeable outsider of whatevercreed--Renan or Loisy or Tyrrell--might have been thus welcomed at thePalace. It was true that till the appeal was decided Meynell remainedformally Rector of Upcote Minor. The church and the parish were still inhis hands; and the Bishop pointedly made no reference to either. But avery few weeks now would see Meynell's successor installed, and theparish reduced to order. 

Such at least was the Bishop's confidence, and in the position in whichhe found himself--with seven Modernist evictions pending in his diocese, and many more than seven recalcitrant parishes to deal with, he was notthe man to make needless friction. 

In Meynell's view, indeed, the Bishop's confidence was excessive; and thetriumph of the orthodox majority in the Church, if indeed it were totriumph, was neither so near, nor likely to be so complete, as the Bishopbelieved. He had not yet been able to resume all the threads ofleadership, but he was clear that there had been no ebbing whatever ofthe Modernist tide. On the contrary, it seemed to him that the functionat Dunchester might yet ring through England, and startle even suchan optimist as Bishop Craye. 

The next few days he spent among his own people, and with the Flaxmans. The old red sandstone church of Upcote Minor was closely packed onSunday; and the loyalty of the parish to their Rector, their answerto the Arches judgment, was shown in the passion, the loving intelligencewith which every portion of the beautiful Modernist service was followedby an audience of working men and women gathered both from Upcoteitself and from the villages round, who knew very well--and gloried inthe fact--that from their midst had started the flame now running throughthe country. Many of them had been trained by Methodism, and were nowreturning to the Church that Wesley had been so loath to leave. "TheRector's changed summat, " said men to each other, puzzled by thataspect--that unconscious aspect--of spiritual dignity that falls likea robe of honour, as life goes on, about the Knights of the Spirit. Butthey knew, at least, from their newspapers, how and when that beautifulgirl who had grown up from a child in their midst had perished; theyremembered the winter months of calumny and persecution; and their rough, kind hearts went out to the man who was so soon, against their will andtheir protest, to be driven out from the church where for twenty years hehad preached to his people a Christ they could follow, and a God theycould adore. 

The week passed, and the Dunchester meeting was at hand. Meynell was tospend the night before the great service with the old Bishop, againstwhom--together with the whole of his Chapter--Privy Council actionwas now pending. Mary was to be the guest of one of the Canons in thefamous Close. 

Meynell arrived to find the beautiful old town in commotion. As a protestagainst the Modernist demonstration, all the students from a famousTheological College in a neighbouring diocese under a High Church bishophad come over to attend a rival service in the second church of the town, where the congregation was to be addressed "on this outrage to our Lord"by one of the ablest and most saintly of the orthodox leaders--the Rev. Cyril Fenton, of the Markborough diocese--soon, it was rumoured, to beappointed to a Canonry of St. Paul's. The streets were full of rivalcrowds, jostling each other. Three hundred Modernist clergy were stayingin or near the town; the old Cathedral city stared at them amazed; andfrom all parts had come, besides, the lay followers of the new Movementthronging to a day which represented for them the first fruits of aharvest, whereof not they perhaps but their children would see the fullreaping. 

On the evening before the function Meynell went into the Cathedral withMary just as the lengthening March afternoon was beginning to wane. Theystepped through the western doors set open to the breeze and the sunshineinto a building all opal and ebony, faintly flooded with rose from thesky without; a building of infinite height and majesty, where clusteredcolumns of black marble, incredibly light, upheld the richness of thebossed roof, where every wall was broidered history, where every step wason "the ruined sides of Kings, " and the gathered fragments of ancientglass, jewels themselves, let through a jewelled light upon the creamystone. 

For the first time, since Hester's death, Meynell's sad face broke intojoy. The glorious church appeared to him as the visible attestation ofthe Divine creative life in men, flowing on endlessly, from the Past, through the Present, to the unknown Future. 

From the distance came a sound of chanting. They walked slowly up thenave, conscious of a strange tumult in the pulse, as though the greatbuilding with its immemorial history were half lending itself to, halfresisting, the emotion that filled them. In the choir a practice wasgoing on. Some thirty young clergy were going through the responses andcanticles of the new service-book, with an elder man, also in clericaldress, directing them. At the entrance of the southern choir aisle stoodthe senior verger of the Cathedral in his black gown--open-mouthed andmotionless, listening to the strange sounds. 

Meynell and Mary knelt for a moment of impassioned prayer, and then satdown to listen. Through the fast darkening church, chanted by half thechoir, there stole those words of noblest poetry:

"_A new commandment_--_a new commandment--I give unto you_ ... " To beanswered by the voices on the other side--"_That ye love--ye love oneanother_!"

And again:

"_I have called you friends. Ye are my friends_"--

With the reply:

"_If ye do the things which I command you_. "

And yet again:

"_The words that I speak unto you_:"--

"_They--they are spirit; and they are life_!"

A moment's silence, before all the voices, gathering into one harmony, sent the last versicle ringing through the arches of the choir, and thespringing tracery of the feretory, and of the Lady Chapel beyond. 

"_Lord to whom shall we go?--Thou--thou hast the words of eternal life_!"

"Only a few days or weeks, " murmured Meynell, as they passed out into theevening light, "and we two--and those men singing there--shall beoutcasts and wanderers, perhaps for a time, perhaps while we live. But to-day--and to-morrow--we are still children in the house of ourfathers--sons, not slaves!--speaking the free speech of our own day inthese walls, as the men who built them did in theirs. That joy, at least, no one shall take from us!"

At that "sad word Joy" Mary slipped her hand into his, and so they walkedsilently through the Close, toward the Palace, pursued by the rise andfall of the music from within. 

The great service was over, with its bold adaptation of the religiouslanguage of the past, the language which is wrought into the being ofChristendom, to the needs and the knowledge of the present. And nowMeynell had risen, and was speaking to that thronged nave, crowdedby men and women of many types and many distinctions, with that minglingof passion and simplicity which underlies success in all the poeticarts, and, first and foremost, the art of religious oratory. Thesermon was to be known in after years by the name of "The TwoChristianities"--and became one of the chief landmarks, or, rather, rallying cries of the Modernist cause. Only some fragments of it can besuggested here; one passage, above all, that Mary's brooding memory willkeep close and warm to her life's end:

"... Why are we here, my friends? For what purpose is this greatdemonstration, this moving rite in, which we have joined this day?One-sixth at least of this congregation stands here under a sentence ofecclesiastical death. A few weeks perhaps, and this mighty church willknow its white-haired Bishop no more. Bishop and Chapter will have beendriven out; and we, the rank and file, whose only desire is to cling tothe Church in which we were baptized and bred, will find ourselves exilesand homeless. 

"What is our crime? This only--that God has spoken in our consciences, and we have not been able to resist Him. Nor dare we desert our posts inthe National Church, till force drive us out. Why? Because there issomething infinitely greater at stake than any reproach that can behurled at us on the ground of broken pledges--pledges made too early, given in ignorance and good faith, and broken now, solemnly, in the faceof God and this people--for a greater good. What does our personalconsistency--which, mind you, is a very different thing from personalhonesty!--matter? We are as sensitive as any man who attacks us on thepoint of personal honour. But we are constrained of God; we bear in ourhands the cause of our brethren, the cause of half the nation; and we canno other. Ask yourselves what we have to gain by it. Nay! With expulsionand exile in sight--with years perhaps of the wilderness before us--westand here for the liberties of Christ's Church!--its liberties of growthand life.... 

"My friends, what is the life either of intellect or spirit but theresponse of man to the communication of God? Age by age, man'sconsciousness cuts deeper into the vast mystery that surrounds us;absorbs, transmutes, translates ever more of truth, into conceptions hecan use, and language he can understand. 

"From this endless process arise science--and history--and philosophy. But just as science, and history, and philosophy change with thisever-living and growing advance, so religion--man's ideas of God and hisown soul. 

"Within the last hundred years man's knowledge of the physical world hasbroadened beyond the utmost dreams of our fathers. But of far greaterimportance to man is his knowledge of himself. There, too, the centuryof which we are now the heirs has lifted the veil--for us first amongliving men--from secrets hitherto unknown. HISTORY has come into being. 

"What is history? Simply the power--depending upon a thousand laboriousprocesses--of constructing a magic lens within the mind which allows usto look deep into the past, to see its life and colour and movementagain, as no generation but our own has yet been able to see it. We holdour breath sometimes, as for a brief moment perhaps we catch its verygesture, its very habit as it lived, the very tone of its voices. It hasbeen a new and marvellous gift of our God to us; and it has transformedor is transforming Christianity. 

"Like science, this new discipline of the human mind is divine andauthoritative. It lessens the distance between our human thought and thethought of God, because, in the familiar phrase, it enables us to "think, in some sort, His thoughts after Him. " Like science it marches slowly onits way; through many mistakes; through hypothesis and rectification;through daring vision and laborious proof; to an ever-broadeningcertainty. History has taken hold of the Christian tradition. History hasworked upon it with an amazing tenderness, and patience, and reverence. And at the end of a hundred years what do we see?--that half ofChristendom, at least, which we in this church represent?

"We see a Christ stripped of Jewish legend, and Greek speculation, andmedieval scholasticism; moving simply and divinely among the ways of HisJewish world, a man among men. We can watch, dimly indeed by comparisonwith our living scrutiny of living men, but still more clearly than anygeneration of Christendom since the disappearance of the first has beenable to watch, the rise of His thoughts, the nature of His environment, the sequence of His acts, the original significance, the immediateinterpretation, the subsequent influence of His death. We know much moreof Jesus of Nazareth than the fathers of Nicaea knew; probably than St. Paul knew; certainly than Irenaeus or Clement knew. 

"But that is only half the truth; only half of what history has to tell. On the one side we have to do with the recovered fact: on the other withits working through two thousand years upon the world. 

"_There, _ for the Modernist, lies revelation!--in the unfolding of theChristian idea, through the successive stages of human thought andimagination, it has traversed, down to the burst of revelation in thepresent day. Yet we are only now at the beginning of an immensedevelopment. The content of the Christian idea of love--love, self-renouncing, self-fulfilling--is infinite, inexhaustible, like thatof beauty, or of truth. Why? At this moment, I am only concerned to giveyou the Christian answer, which is the answer of a reasonable faith. Because, like the streams springing forever from 'the pure founts ofCephisus, ' to nourish the swelling plains below, these governing ideas ofour life--tested by life, confirmed by life--have their source in thevery being of God, sharers in His Eternity, His Ever-Fruitfulness.... 

"But even so, you have not exhausted the wealth of Christianity; For tothe potency of the Christian idea is added the magic of an incomparableembodiment in human life. The story of Jesus bears the idea which itenshrines eternally through the world. It is to the idea as the vessel ofthe Grail. 

"... Do these conceptions make us love our Master less? Ask yourown hearts? There must be many in this crowded church that haveknown sorrow--intolerable anguish and disappointment--gnawingself-reproach--during the past year, or months, or weeks; many that havewatched sufferings which no philosophic optimism can explain, andcatastrophes that leave men dumb. Some among them will have beendriven back upon their faith--driven to the foot of the Cross. Throughall intellectual difference, has not the natural language of theirfathers been also their language? Is there anything in their changedopinions which has cut them off from that sacrifice

"Renewed in every pulse, That on the tedious Cross Told the long hours of death, as, one by one, The life-strings of that tender heart gave way?

"Is there anything in this new compelling knowledge that need--thatdoes--divide _us_--whose consciences dare not refuse it--from theimmortal triumph of that death? In our sharpest straits, are we notcomforted and cleansed and sustained by the same thoughts, the samevisions that have always sustained and comforted the Christian? No!--thesons of tradition and dogma have no monopoly in the exaltation, theliving passion of the Cross! We, too, watching that steadfastness growsteadfast; bowed before that innocent suffering, grow patient; drinkingin the wonder of that faith, amid utter defeat, learn to submit and goforward. In us too, as we behold--Hope 'masters Agony!'--and we follow, for a space at least, with our Master, into the heavenly house, and stillour sore hearts before our God. "

 * * * * *

Quietly and low, in tones that shook here and there, the words had fallenupon the spell-bound church. 

Mary covered her eyes. But they saw only the more intently the vision ofHester maimed and dying; and the face of Meynell bending over her. 

 * * * * *

Then from this intimity, this sacredness of feeling, the speakerpassed gradually and finally into the challenge, the ringing yetbrotherly challenge, it was in truth his mission to deliver. The note ofbattle--honourable, inevitable battle--pealed through the church, andwhen it ceased the immense congregation rose, possessed by one heat ofemotion, and choir and multitude broke into the magnificent Modernisthymn, "Christus Rex"--written by the Bishop of the See, and alreadyfamiliar throughout England. 

The service was over. Out streamed the great congregation. The Close wascrowded to see them come. Lines of theological students were drawn upthere, fresh-faced boys in round collars and long black coats, who, asthe main body of the Modernist clergy approached, began defiantly tochant the Creed. Meynell, with the old yet stately Bishop leaning on hisarm, passed them with a friendly, quiet look. He caught sight for amoment of the tall form of Fenton, standing at their rear--the long faceascetically white, and sternly fixed. 

He left the Bishop at the gates of the Palace, and went back quickly forMary. Suddenly he ran into an advancing figure and found his hand graspedby Dornal. 

The two men gazed at each other. 

"You were not there?" said Meynell, wondering. 

"I was. " Dornal hesitated a moment, and then his blue eyes melted andclouded. 

"And there was one man there--not a Modernist--who grieved, like aModernist, over the future!"

"Ah, the future!" said Meynell, throwing his head back. "That is not foryou or me--not for the bishops, nor for that body which we call theChurch--that is for _England_ to settle. "

 * * * * *

But another meeting remained. 

At the parting with Dornal, Meynell turned a corner and saw in front ofhim, walking alone, a portly gentleman, with a broad and substantialback. A start ran through him. After a moment's hesitation, he began toquicken his steps, and soon overtook the man in question. 

Barron--for it was he--stopped in some astonishment, some confusion even, which he endeavoured to hide. Meynell held out his hand--rather timidly;and Barron just touched it. 

"I have been attending the service at St. Mathias, " he said, stiffly. 

"I imagined so, " said Meynell, walking on beside him, and quiteunconscious of the fact that a passing group of clergy opposite werestaring across the street in amazement at the juxtaposition of the twomen, both well known to them. "Did it satisfy you?"

"Certainly. Fenton surpassed himself. "

"He has a great gift, " said Meynell, heartily. They moved on in silence, till at last Meynell said, with renewed hesitation--"Will you allow me toinquire after Maurice? I hope your mind is more at ease about him. "

"He is doing well--for the moment. " Another pause--broken by Barron, whosaid hurriedly in a different voice--"I got from him the whole story ofthe letters. There was nothing deliberate in it. It was a sudden, monkeyish impulse. He didn't mean as much harm by it as another man wouldhave meant. "

"No doubt, " said Meynell, struck with pity, as he looked at the sunkenface of the speaker. "And anyway--bygones are bygones. I hope yourdaughter is well?"

"Quite well, I thank you. We are just going abroad. "

There was no more to be said. Meynell knew very well that the orthodoxparty had no room in its ranks, at that moment, for Henry Barron; and itwas not hard to imagine what exclusion and ostracism must mean tosuch a temper. But the generous compunctions in his own mind could findno practical expression; and after a few more words they parted. 

 * * * * *

Next morning, while every newspaper in the country was eagerly discussingthe events at Dunchester, Catharine, in the solitude of Long Whindale, and with a full two hours yet to wait for the carrier who brought thepapers from Whinborough, was pondering letters from Rose and Mary writtenfrom Dunchester on the preceding afternoon. Her prayer-book lay besideher. Before the post arrived she had been reading by herself the Psalmsand Lessons, according to the old-fashioned custom of her youth. 

The sweetness of Mary's attempt to bring out everything in the Modernistdemonstration that might be bearable or even consoling to Catharine, andto leave untold what must pain her, was not lost upon her mother. Catharine sat considering it, in a reverie half sorrow, half tenderness, her thin hands clasped upon the letter:

 * * * * *

"Mother, beloved!--Richard and I talked of you all the way back to thePalace; and though there were many people waiting to see him, he iswriting to you now; and so am I. Through it all, he feels so near toyou--and to my father; so truly your son, your most loving son.... 

"Dearest--I am troubled to hear from Alice this morning that yesterdayyou were tired and even went to lie down. I know my too Spartan motherdoesn't do that without ten times as much reason as other people. Oh! dotake care of yourself, my precious one. To-morrow, I fly back to you withall my news. And you will meet me with that love of yours which hasnever failed me, as it never failed my father. It will take Richard andme a life time to repay it. But we'll try! ... Dear love to my poorAlice. I have written separately to her. "

 * * * * *

Rose's letter was in another vein. 

 * * * * *

"Dearest Catharine, it is all over--a splendid show, and Richard has comeout of it finely, though I must say he looks at times more like a ghostthan a man. From the Church point of view, dear, you were wise not tocome, for your feelings must have been sadly mixed, and you might havebeen compelled to take Privy Council proceedings against yourself. I neednot say that Hugh and I felt an ungodly delight in it--in the crowd andthe excitement--in Richard's sermon--in the dear, long-nosed old Bishop(rather like a camel, between you and me, but a very saintly one) and inthe throng of foolish youths from the Theological College who seemed tothink they settled everything by singing the Creed at us. (What a pityyou can't enjoy the latest description of the Athanasian Creed! It is bya Quaker. He compares it to 'the guesses of a ten-year old child at thecontents of his father's library. ' Hugh thinks it good--but I don'texpect you to. )"

 * * * * *

Then followed a vivacious account of the day and its happenings. 

"And now comes the real tug of war. In a few weeks the poor Modernistswill be all camping in tents, it seems, by the wayside. Very touching andvery exciting. But I am getting too sleepy to think about it. DearCathie--I run on--but I love you. Please keep well. Good-bye. "

 * * * * *

Catharine laid the letter down, still smiling against her will over someof its chatter, and unconsciously made happy by the affection thatbreathed from its pages no less than from Mary's. 

Yet certainly she was very tired. She became sharply conscious of herphysical weakness as she sat on by the fire, now thinking of her Mary, and now listening for Alice's step upon the stairs. Alice had grown verydear to Catharine, partly for her own sake, and partly because to be inbitter need and helplessness was to be sure of Catharine's tenderness. Very possibly they two, when Mary married, might make their hometogether. And Catharine promised herself to bring calm at least andloving help to one who had suffered so much. 

The window was half open to the first mild day of March; beside it stooda bowl of growing daffodils, and a pot of freesias that scented the room. Outside a robin was singing, the murmur of the river came up throughthe black buds of the ash-trees, and in the distance a sheep-dog could beheard barking on the fells. So quiet it was--the spring sunshine--and sosweet. Back into Catharine's mind there flowed the memory of her ownlove-story in the valley; her hand trembled again in the hand of herlover. 

Then with a sudden onset her mortal hour came upon her. She tried tomove, to call, and could not. There was no time for any pain of parting. For one remaining moment of consciousness there ran through the brainthe images, affections, adorations of her life. Swift, incredibly swift, the vision of an opening glory--a heavenly throng!... Then the tiredeyelids fell, the head lay heavily on the cushion behind it, and in thelittle room the song of the robin and the murmur of the stream flowedon--unheard. 

THE END