11 files changed, 71748 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/9614-8.txt b/9614-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ae81d45
--- /dev/null
+++ b/9614-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,17950 @@
+Project Gutenberg's The Case of Richard Meynell, by Mrs. Humphrey Ward
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Case of Richard Meynell
+
+Author: Mrs. Humphrey Ward
+
+Posting Date: December 8, 2011 [EBook #9614]
+Release Date: January, 2006
+First Posted: October 10, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CASE OF RICHARD MEYNELL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Mary
+Meehan and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                      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 acquainted
+with the conditions of English rural and religious life to remember that
+the dominant factor in it--the factor on which the story of Richard
+Meynell depends--is the existence of the State Church, of the great
+ecclesiastical corporation, the direct heir of the pre-Reformation
+Church, which owns the cathedrals and the parish churches, which
+by right of law speaks for the nation on all national occasions, which
+crowns and marries and buries the Kings of England, and, through her
+bishops in the House of Lords, exercises a constant and important
+influence on the lawmaking of the country? This Church possesses half the
+elementary schools, and is the legal religion of the great public schools
+which shape the ruling upper class. She is surrounded with the prestige
+of centuries, and it is probable that in many directions she was never so
+active or so well served by her members as she is at present.
+
+At the same time, there are great forces of change ahead. Outside the
+Anglican Church stands quite half the nation, gathered in the various
+non-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 every
+village and small town this warfare exists. The non-conformist desires to
+deprive the Church of her worldly and political privileges; the churchman
+talks of the sin of schism, or draws up schemes of reunion which drop
+still-born. Meanwhile, alike in the Church, in non-conformity, and in the
+neutral world which owes formal allegiance to neither, vast movements of
+thought have developed in the last hundred years, years as pregnant with
+the germs of new life as the wonderful hundred years that followed the
+birth 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 the
+strife of tongues, whether the ideas of modernism; rife in all forms of
+Christianity, can be accommodated to the ancient practices and given a
+share in the great material possessions of a State Church; how individual
+lives are affected in the passionate struggle of spiritual faiths and
+practical interests involved in such an attempt; how conscience may be
+enriched by its success or sterilized by its failure; how the fight
+itself, ably waged, may strengthen the spiritual elements, the power of
+living and suffering in men and women--it is with such themes that this
+story attempts to deal. Twenty-two years ago I tried a similar subject in
+"Robert Elsmere." Since then the movement of ideas in religion and
+philosophy has been increasingly rapid and fruitful. I am deeply
+conscious how little I may be able to express it. But those who twenty
+years ago welcomed the earlier book--and how can I ever forget its
+reception in America!--may perhaps be drawn once again to some of the old
+themes 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 scene
+not intended for his eyes"
+
+"He shook hands with the Dean"
+
+"'I wonder whether she's ever had any real joy--a week's--a
+day's--happiness--in her life?'"
+
+"The old shepherd looked after her doubtfully"
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+
+
+
+MEYNELL
+
+
+"Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear
+The longest date do melt like frosty rime,
+That in the morning whitened hill and plain
+And is no more; drop like the tower sublime
+Of yesterday, which royally did wear
+His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain
+Some 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 at
+the summons and dismounted. The Rector approached him from the road, and
+the 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 the
+Rector's hands.
+
+The recipient smiled.
+
+"My word, what a post! I say, Preston, I add to your burdens pretty
+considerably."
+
+"It don't matter, sir, I'm sure," said the postman civilly. "There's not
+a deal of letters delivered in this village."
+
+"No, we don't trouble pen and ink much in Upcote," said the Rector; "and
+it's my belief that half the boys and girls that do learn to read and
+write at school make a point of forgetting it as soon as they can--for
+all practical purposes, anyway."
+
+"Well, there's a deal of newspapers read now, sir, compared to what there
+was."
+
+"Newspapers? Yes, I do see a _Reynolds_ or a _People_ or two about on
+Sunday. Do you think anybody reads much else than the betting and the
+police news, eh, Preston?"
+
+Preston looked a little vacant. His expression seemed to say, "And why
+should they?" The Rector, with his arms full of the post, smiled again
+and 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--he
+makes her go careful."
+
+"Quite right. Has Miss Puttenham been looking after her?"
+
+"She's been most kind, sir, most attentive, she have," said the postman
+warmly, his long hatchet face breaking into animation.
+
+"Lucky for you!" said the Rector, walking away. "When she cuts in, she's
+worth a regiment of doctors. Good-day!"
+
+The speaker passed on through the gate of the Rectory, pausing as he did
+so with a rueful look at the iron gate itself, which was off its hinges
+and sorely in want of a coat of new paint.
+
+"Disgraceful!" he said to himself; "must have a go at it to-morrow. And
+at the garden, too," he added, looking round him. "Never saw such a
+wilderness!"
+
+[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 an
+old clergy house, of which all traces had been ruthlessly effaced. The
+front garden lying before it was a tangle of old and for the most part
+ugly trees; elms from which heavy, decayed branches had recently fallen;
+acacias choked by the ivy which had overgrown them; and a crowded
+thicket of thorns and hazels, mingled with three or four large and
+vigorous though very ancient yews, which seemed to have drunk up for
+themselves all that life from the soil which should have gone to maintain
+the ragged or sickly shrubbery. The trees also had gradually encroached
+upon the house, and darkened all the windows on the porch side. On a
+summer afternoon, the deep shade they made was welcome enough; but on a
+rainy day the Rector's front-garden, with its coarse grass, its few
+straggling rose-bushes, and its pushing throng of half-dead or funereal
+trees, shed a dank and dripping gloom upon the visitor approaching his
+front door. Of this, however, the Rector himself was rarely conscious;
+and to-day, as he with difficulty gathered all the letters and packets
+taken from the postman into one hand, while he opened his front door with
+the other, his face showed that the state of his garden had already
+ceased to trouble him.
+
+He had no sooner turned the handle of the door than a joyous uproar of
+dogs arose within, and before he had well stepped over the threshold a
+leaping trio were upon him--two Irish terriers and a graceful young
+collie, 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-down
+sofa already littered with books and papers, and returned to the
+hall-table for the letter. He tore it open, read it with slightly
+frowning brows and a mouth that worked unconsciously, then thrust it into
+his pocket and returned to his sitting-room.
+
+"All right!" he said to himself. "He's got an odd list of 'aggrieved
+parishioners!'"
+
+The tidings, however, which the letter contained did not seem to distress
+him. On the contrary, his aspect expressed a singular and cheerful
+energy, as he sat a few moments on the sofa, softly whistling to himself
+and staring at the floor. That he was a person extravagantly beloved by
+his dogs was clearly shown meanwhile by the exuberant attentions and
+caresses with which they were now loading him.
+
+He shook them off at last with a friendly kick or two, that he might turn
+to his letters, which he sorted and turned over, much as an epicure
+studies his _menu_ at the Ritz, and with an equally keen sense of
+pleasure to come.
+
+A letter from Jena, and another from Berlin, addressed in small German
+handwriting and signed by names familiar to students throughout the
+world; two or three German reviews, copies of the _Revue Critique_ and
+the _Revue Chrétienne_, a book by Solomon Reinach, and three or four
+French letters, one of them shown by the cross preceding the signature to
+be the letter of a bishop; a long letter from Oxford, enclosing the proof
+of an article in a theological review; and, finally, a letter sealed with
+red wax and signed "F. Marcoburg" in a corner of the envelope, which the
+Rector twirled in his hands a moment without opening.
+
+"After tea," he said at last, with the sudden breaking of a smile. And he
+put 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 a
+sun-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 the
+tea before him on a chair cleared with difficulty from some of the
+student's litter that filled the room.
+
+"All the more reason for tea," said Meynell, seizing thirstily on the
+teapot. "And you're quite mistaken, Anne. I had a magnificent bath-bun at
+the station."
+
+"Much good you'll get out of that!" was the scornful reply. "You know
+what 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 and
+crossed 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 at
+last.
+
+"So you did. But he said he must see his missus and hear how his little
+girl had done in her music exam."
+
+Mrs. Wellin delivered this piece of news very fast and with evident
+gusto. It might have been thought she enjoyed inflicting it on her
+master.
+
+The Rector laughed out.
+
+"And this was a man sent me a week ago by the Birmingham Distress
+Committee--nine weeks out of work--family in the workhouse--everything up
+the spout. Goodness gracious, Anne, how did he get the money? Return
+fare, 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 Rector
+helplessly.
+
+"Thought he might," said Anne, briefly.
+
+"How kind of him! Music exam! Lord save us! And three-and-ten thrown into
+the gutter on a week-end ticket--with seven children to keep--and all
+your possessions gone to 'my uncle.' And it isn't as though you'd been
+starving 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'll
+be 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 look
+after 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, and
+she won't nurse him--that's flat."
+
+"No reason why she should shovel him off on other people as wants their
+night'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 the
+windows were still wide open, and the Rector, who had had a long journey
+that day to take a funeral for a friend, lay back in sybaritic ease, now
+sipping his tea and now cutting open letters and parcels. The letter
+signed "F. Marcoburg" in the corner had been placed, still unopened, on
+the mantelpiece now facing him.
+
+The Rector looked at it from time to time; it might have been said by a
+close observer that he never forgot it; but, all the same, he went on
+dipping into books and reviews, or puzzling--with muttered imprecations
+on 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 single
+one of them! And what matter? Who's the worse? Is it any less wonderful
+when 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 the
+comfort of his own fireside. Yet, now that the face was at rest, certain
+cavernous hollows under the eyes, and certain lines on the forehead and
+at the corners of the mouth, as though graven by some long fatigue,
+showed themselves disfiguringly. The personality, however, on which this
+fatigue had stamped itself was clearly one of remarkable vigour, physical
+and mental. A massive head covered with strong black hair, curly at the
+brows; eyes grayish-blue, small, with some shade of expression in them
+which made them arresting, commanding, even; a large nose and irregular
+mouth, the lips flexible and kind, the chin firm--one might have made
+some such catalogue of Meynell's characteristics; adding to them the
+strength of a broad-chested, loose-limbed frame, made rather, one would
+have thought, for country labours than for the vigils of the scholar. But
+the hands were those of a man of letters--bony and long-fingered, but
+refined, touching things with care and gentleness, like one accustomed to
+the small tools of the writer.
+
+At last the Rector threw himself back in his chair, while some of the
+litter on his lap fell to the floor, temporarily dislodging one of the
+terriers, 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 had
+finished it he put it down and thought a while, then stretched out his
+hand for it again and reread the last paragraph:
+
+"You will, I am sure, realize from all I have said, my dear Meynell, that
+the last thing I personally wish to do is to interfere with the parochial
+work of a man for whom I have so warm a respect as I have for you. I have
+given you all the latitude I could, but my duty is now plain. Let me have
+your assurance that you will refrain from such sermons as that to which I
+have drawn your attention, and that you will stop at once the
+extraordinary innovations in the services of which the parishioners
+have complained, and I shall know how to answer Mr. Barron and to compose
+this whole difficult matter. Do not, I entreat you, jeopardize the noble
+work you are doing for the sake of opinions and views which you hold
+to-day, but which you may have abandoned tomorrow. Can you possibly put
+what you call 'the results of criticism'--and, remember, these results
+differ for you, for me, and for a dozen others I could name--in
+comparison with that work for souls God has given you to do, and in which
+He 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 act
+to 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 dear
+Meynell--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 down
+the letter; but even as he spoke the softness in his face passed into
+resolution. He sank once more into reverie.
+
+The stillness, however, was soon broken up. A step was heard outside, and
+the dogs sprang up in excitement. Amid a pandemonium of noise, the Rector
+put 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 clerical
+garb, and carried a couple of books under his arm.
+
+"I came to return these," he said, placing them beside the Rector; "and
+also--can you give me twenty minutes?"
+
+"Forty, if you want them. Sit down."
+
+The newcomer turned out various French and German books from a
+dilapidated armchair, and obeyed. He was a fresh-coloured, handsome
+youth, some fifteen years younger than Meynell, the typical public-school
+boy in appearance. But his expression was scarcely less harassed than the
+Rector'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 he
+had taken from the hall-table on coming in. But he pursued the subject no
+further.
+
+The young man fidgeted a moment.
+
+"All one can say is"--he broke out at last--"that if it had not been my
+father, it would have been some one else--the Archdeacon probably. The
+fight was bound to come."
+
+"Of course it was!" The Rector sprang to his feet, and, with his hands
+under his coat-tails and his back to the fire, faced his visitor. "That's
+what we're all driving at. Don't be miserable about it, dear fellow. I
+bear your father no grudge whatever. He is under orders, as I am. The
+parleying time is done. It has lasted two generations. And now comes
+war--honourable, necessary war!"
+
+The speaker threw back his head with emphasis, even with passion. But
+almost immediately the smile, which was the only positive beauty of the
+face, obliterated the passion.
+
+"And don't look so tragic over it! If your father wins--and as the law
+stands he can scarcely fail to win--I shall be driven out of Upcote. But
+there will always be a corner somewhere for me and my books, and a pulpit
+of 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!-you
+Liberals will have to take your part, and fire your shot some day, of
+course--fathers or no fathers."
+
+"I didn't mean that. I shall fire my shot, of course. But aren't you
+exposing yourself prematurely--unnecessarily?" said the young man, with
+vivacity. "It is not a general's part to do that."
+
+"You're wrong, Stephen. When my father was going out to the campaign
+in which he was killed, my mother said to him, as though she were
+half asking a question, half pleading--I can hear her now, poor
+darling!--'John, it's _right_ for a general to keep out of danger?' and
+he smiled and said, 'Yes, when it isn't right for him to go into it, head
+over ears.' However, that's nonsense. It doesn't apply to me. I'm no
+general. And I'm not going to be killed!"
+
+Young Barron was silent, while the Rector prepared a pipe, and began upon
+it; 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 his
+eyes 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--in
+Elsmere'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 now
+altogether changed. _I_ am not going till I am turned out; and there will
+be others with me. The world wants a heresy trial, and it is going to get
+one 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 father
+has a horribly strong will. And he will think every means legitimate."
+
+"I know. In the Roman Church, what the Curia could not do by argument
+they have done again and again--well, no use to inquire how! One must be
+prepared. All I can say is, I know of no skeletons in the cupboard at
+present. Anybody may have my keys!"
+
+He laughed as he spoke, spreading his hands to the blaze, and looking
+round at his companion. Barron's face in response was a face of
+hero-worship, undisguised. Here plainly were leader and disciple;
+pioneering will and docile faith. But it might have been observed that
+Meynell did nothing to emphasize the personal relation; that, on the
+contrary, he shrank from it, and often tried to put it aside.
+
+After a few more words, indeed, he resolutely closed the personal
+discussion. They fell into talk about certain recent developments of
+philosophy in England and France--talk which showed them as familiar
+comrades in the intellectual field, in spite of their difference of age.
+Barron, a Fellow of King's, had but lately left Cambridge for a small
+College living. Meynell--an old Balliol scholar--bore the marks of Jowett
+and Caird still deep upon him, except, perhaps, for a certain deliberate
+throwing over, here and there, of the typical Oxford tradition--its
+measure and reticence, its scholarly balancing of this against that. A
+tone as of one driven to extremities--a deep yet never personal
+exasperation--the poised quiet of a man turning to look a hostile host in
+the face--again and again these made themselves felt through his chat
+about new influences in the world of thought--Bergson or James, Eucken or
+Tyrell.
+
+And to this under-note, inflections or phrases in the talk of the other
+seemed to respond. It was as though behind the spoken conversation they
+carried on another unheard.
+
+And the unheard presently broke in upon the heard.
+
+"You mentioned Elsmere just now," said Barron, in a moment's pause, and
+with apparent irrelevance. "Did you know that his widow is now staying
+within a mile of this place? Some people called Flaxman have taken
+Maudeley End, and Mrs. Flaxman is a sister of Mrs. Elsmere. Mrs. Elsmere
+and her daughter are going to settle for the summer in the cottage near
+Forkéd Pond. Mrs. Elsmere seems to have been ill for the first time in
+her life, and has had to give up some of her work."
+
+"Mrs. Elsmere!" said Meynell, raising his eyebrows. "I saw her once
+twenty years ago at the New Brotherhood, and have never forgotten the
+vision of her face. She must be almost an old woman."
+
+"Miss Puttenham says she is quite beautiful still, in a wonderful, severe
+way. I think she never shared Elsmere's opinions?"
+
+"Never."
+
+The two fell silent, both minds occupied with the same story and the same
+secret comparisons. Robert Elsmere, the Rector of Murewell, in Surrey,
+had made a scandal in the Church, when Meynell was still a lad, by
+throwing up his orders under the pressure of New Testament criticism, and
+founding a religious brotherhood among London workingmen for the
+promotion of a simple and commemorative form of Christianity.
+
+Elsmere, a man of delicate physique, had died prematurely, worn out by
+the struggle to find new foothold for himself and others; but something
+in his personality, and in the nature of his effort--some brilliant,
+tender note--had kept his memory alive in many hearts. There were many
+now, however, who thrilled to it, who could never speak of him without
+emotion, who yet felt very little positive agreement with him. What he
+had done or tried to do made a kind of landmark in the past; but in the
+course of time it had begun to seem irrelevant to the present.
+
+"To-day--would he have thrown up?--or would he have held on?" Meynell
+presently said, in a tone of reverie, amid the cloud of smoke that
+enveloped him. Then, in another voice, "What do you hear of the
+daughter? I remember her as a little reddish-haired thing at her mother's
+side."
+
+"Miss Puttenham has taken a great fancy to her. Hester Fox-Wilton told me
+she had seen her there. She liked her."
+
+"H'm!" said the Rector. "Well, if she pleased Hester--critical little
+minx!"
+
+"You may be sure she'll please _me_!" said Barron suddenly, flushing
+deeply.
+
+The Rector looked up, startled.
+
+"I say?"
+
+Barron cleared his throat.
+
+"I'd better tell you at once, Rector. I got Hester's leave yesterday
+to tell you, when an opportunity occurred--you know how fond she is
+of you? Well, I'm in love with her--head over ears in love with her--I
+believe I have been since she was a little girl in the schoolroom. And
+yesterday--she said--she'd marry me some day."
+
+The young voice betrayed a natural tremor. Meanwhile, a strange look--a
+close observer would have called it a look of consternation--had rushed
+into Meynell's face. He stared at Barron, made one or two attempts to
+speak, 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 too
+young! 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, my
+dear boy, that there shall be nothing irrevocable--no engagement! I
+should strongly oppose it."
+
+The eyes of the two men met. Barron was evidently dumb with surprise; but
+the vivacity and urgency of Meynell's expression drove him into speech.
+
+"We thought you would have sympathized," he stammered. "After all, what
+is 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 would
+certainly object. And so should I. And, as you know, I am co-guardian of
+the children with her."
+
+Then, as the lover quivered under these barbs, Meynell suddenly recovered
+himself.
+
+"My dear fellow! No woman ought to marry under twenty-one. And every girl
+ought to have time to look round her. It's not right; it's not just--it
+isn'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 a
+strain of earnest and affectionate entreaty, which presently had a marked
+effect on the younger man. His chivalry was appealed to--his
+consideration for the girl he loved; and his aspect began to show the
+force of the attack. At last he said gravely:
+
+"I'll tell Hester what you say--of course I'll tell her. Naturally we
+can't marry without your consent and her mother's. But if Hester persists
+in wishing we should be engaged?"
+
+"Long engagements are the deuce!" said the Rector hotly. "You would be
+engaged for three years. Madness!--with such a temperament as Hester's.
+My dear Stephen, be advised--for her and yourself. There is no one who
+wishes your good more earnestly than I. But don't let there be any talk
+of an engagement for at least two years to come. Leave her free--even
+if you consider yourself bound. It is folly to suppose that a girl of
+such marked character knows her own mind at seventeen. She has all her
+development 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 forced
+laugh. "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 of
+the situation--holding out distant hopes. The young man's face gradually
+cleared. He was of a docile, open temper, and deeply attached to his
+mentor.
+
+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 are
+you up to now?"
+
+"There's a drunken fellow in the village--dying--and his wife won't look
+after 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 the
+village," 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 the
+Rector, settling himself in his chair and putting an old shawl over his
+knees. "And as you go out, just tell Anne, will you, to keep herself to
+herself for an hour and not to disturb me?"
+
+Stephen Barron moved to the door, and as he opened it he turned back a
+moment to look at the man in the chair, and the room in which he sat. It
+was as though he asked himself by what manner of man he had been
+thus gripped and coerced, in a matter so intimate, and, to himself, so
+vital.
+
+Meynell's eyes were already shut. The dogs had gathered round him, the
+collie's nose laid against his knee, the other two guarding his feet. All
+round, the walls were laden with books, so were the floor and the
+furniture. 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 choir
+decoration that Meynell and a class of village boys were making for the
+church, where the Rector had already carved with his own hand many of the
+available surfaces, whether of stone or wood. The carving, which was
+elaborate and rich, was technically faulty, as an Italian primitive is
+faulty, but _mutatis mutandis_ it had much of the same charm that belongs
+to Italian primitive work: the same joyous sincerity, the same passionate
+love of natural things, leaves and flowers and birds.
+
+For the rest, the furniture of the room was shabby and ugly. The pictures
+on the walls were mostly faded Oxford photographs, or outlines by
+Overbeck and Retsch, which had belonged to Meynell's parents and were
+tenderly cherished by him. There were none of the pretty, artistic
+trifles, the signs of travel and easy culture, which many a small country
+vicarage possesses in abundance. Meynell, in spite of his scholar's
+mastery 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 while
+still at Balliol, and had to bring up his two younger brothers. He had
+done it. They were both in Canada now and prospering. But the signs of
+the struggle were on this shabby house, and on this shabby, frugal,
+powerfully built man. Yet now he might have been more at ease; the
+living, though small, was by no means among the worst in the diocese.
+Ah, well! Anne, the housekeeper and only servant, knew how the money
+went--and didn't go, and she had passed on some of her grievances to
+Barron. They two knew--though Barron would never have dared to show his
+knowledge--what a wrestle it meant to get the Rector to spend what was
+decently necessary on his own food and clothes; and Anne spent hours of
+the night in indignantly guessing at what he spent on the clothes and
+food of other people--mostly, in her opinion, "varmints."
+
+These things flitted vaguely through the young man's sore mind. Then in a
+flash they were absorbed in a perception of a wholly different kind. The
+room seemed to him transfigured; a kind of temple. He thought of the
+intellectual life which had been lived there; the passion for truth which
+had burnt in it; the sermons and books that had been written on those
+crowded tables; the personality and influence that had been gradually
+built up within it, so that to him, as to many others, the dingy study
+was a place of pilgrimage, breathing inspiration; and his heart went out,
+first in discipleship, and then in a pain that was not for himself. For
+over his friend's head he saw the gathering of clouds not now to be
+scattered or dispersed; and who could foretell the course of the storm?
+
+The young man gently closed the door and went his
+way. He need not have left the house so quietly. The
+Rector got no sleep that evening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+The church clock of Upcote Minor was just striking nine o'clock as
+Richard 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 be
+balmy, and Meynell, who was an ardent sun-lover, shivered as he walked
+along, buttoning a much-worn parson's coat against the sharp air. Before
+him 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 hidden
+behind walls and trees. It was evidently a large village, almost a
+country town, with a considerable variety of life. At this hour of the
+evening 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 lights
+here and there, and in the houses of the gentility.
+
+The Rector passed the fine perpendicular church standing back from the
+road, with its churchyard about it; and just beyond it, he turned, his
+pace 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 wind
+shook the lime-blossom, and flung the scent in Meynell's face; while at
+the same time the dim masses of roses in the garden sent out their
+sweetness 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 a
+delicate and plaintive face, moving among the rose-beds she loved, her
+light dress trailing on the grass. The recollection stirred in him
+affection, and an impulse of sympathy, stronger than the mere thought of
+the flowers, and the woman's tending of them, could explain. It passed
+indeed immediately into something else--a touch of new and sharp anxiety.
+
+"And she's been very peaceful of late," he said to himself ruefully, "as
+far 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. It
+would help her. Anyway, we can't have everything rooted up again just
+yet--before the time."
+
+He walked on, and as the farther corner of the house came into view, he
+saw a thinly curtained window with a light inside it, and it seemed to
+him that he distinguished a figure within.
+
+"Reading?--or embroidering? Probably, at her work. She had that
+commission 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 use
+not 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 since
+Ralph's death--to insist on keeping her little house and her
+independence. 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 little
+house, and left it behind him. Before him, the village street, with its
+green and its pond, widened under the scudding sky. Far ahead, about a
+quarter of a mile away, among surrounding trees, certain outlines were
+visible through the July twilight. The accustomed eye knew them for the
+chimneys of the Fox-Wiltons' house, owned now, since the recent death
+of its master, Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton, by his widow, the sister of the lady
+with the cat and the embroidery, and mother of many children, for the
+most part an unattractive brood, peevish and slow-minded like their
+father. Hester was the bright, particular star in that house, as Stephen
+Barron had now found out.
+
+Alack!--alack! The Rector's face resumed for a moment the expression of
+painful or brooding perplexity it had worn during his conversation of the
+afternoon 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 the
+northern end of the village, was evidently doing trade. The Rector did
+not look up as he passed it; but in general he turned an indulgent eye
+upon it. Before entering upon the living, he had himself worked for a
+month as an ordinary miner, in the colliery whose tall chimneys could be
+seen to the east above the village roofs. His body still vividly retained
+the physical memory of those days--of the aching muscles, and the
+gargantuan thirsts.
+
+At last the rows of new-built cottages attached to the colliery came
+in 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 white
+house--stately and separate--dominating the village, the church, the
+collieries, and the Fox-Wiltons' plantations.
+
+The Rector threw a glance at it. It was from that house had come the
+letter he had found on his hall-table that afternoon; a letter in a
+handwriting large and impressive like the dim house on the hill. The
+handwriting of a man accustomed to command, whether his own ancestral
+estate, or the collieries which had been carved out of its fringe, or the
+village spreading humbly at his feet, or the church into which he walked
+on Sunday with heavy tread, and upright carriage, conscious of his
+threefold 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 to
+hate him--not at all--rather to respect and sympathize with him. I
+provoke the fight--and I may be thankful to have lit on a strong
+antagonist. What's Stephen afraid of? What can they do? Let 'em try!"
+
+A smile--contemptuous and good-humoured--crossed the Rector's face. Any
+angry bigot determined to rid his parish of a heretical parson might no
+doubt be tempted to use other than legal and theological weapons, if he
+could get them. A heretic with unpaid bills and some hidden vice is
+scarcely in a position to make much of his heresy. But the Rector's smile
+showed him humorously conscious of an almost excessive innocence of
+private life. The thought of how little an enemy could find to lay hold
+on in his history or present existence seemed almost to bring with it a
+kind of shamefacedness--as for experience irrevocably foregone, warm,
+tumultuous, human experience, among the sinners and sufferers of the
+world. For there are odd, mingled moments in the lives of most scholars
+and saints--like Renan in his queer envy of Théophile Gautier--when such
+men inevitably ask themselves whether they have not missed something
+irreplaceable, the student, by his learning--the saint even, by his
+goodness.
+
+Here now was "Miners' Row." As the Rector approached the cottage of which
+he was in search the clouds lightened in the east, and a pale moonshine,
+suffusing the dusk, showed in the far distance beyond the village, the
+hills of Fitton Chase, rounded, heathy hills, crowned by giant firs.
+Meynell looked at them with longing, and a sudden realization of his own
+weariness. A day or two, perhaps a week or two, among the fells, with
+their winds and scents about him, and their streams in his ears--he must
+allow himself that, before the fight began.
+
+No. 8. A dim light showed in the upper window. The Rector knocked at the
+door. A woman opened--a young and sweet-looking nurse in her bonnet and
+long cloak.
+
+"You look pretty done!" exclaimed the Rector. "Has he been giving
+trouble?"
+
+"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 whether
+she 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 believe
+she'd go near him."
+
+The Rector stepped in and asked a few questions as to arrangements for
+the night. The patient, it seemed, was asleep, in consequence of a
+morphia injection, and likely to remain so for an hour or two. He was
+dying of an internal injury inflicted by a fall of rock in the mine
+some ten days before. Surgery had done what it could, but signs of
+blood-poisoning had appeared, and the man's days were numbered.
+
+The doctor had left written instructions, which the nurse handed over to
+Meynell. If certain symptoms appeared, the doctor was to be summoned. But
+in all probability the man's fine constitution, injured though it had
+been by drink, would enable him to hold out another day or two. And the
+hideous pain of the first week had now ceased; mortification had almost
+certainly set in, and all that could be done was to wait the slow and
+sure failure of the heart.
+
+The nurse took leave. Meynell was hanging up his hat in the little
+passageway, when the door of the front parlour opened, after being
+unlocked.
+
+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 than
+thirty-five, and youth and comeliness had been long since battered
+from her face, partly by misery of mind, partly by direct ill usage of
+which 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 what
+the doctor was thinkin' of him."
+
+"The doctor thinks he may live through to-night and to-morrow night--not
+much more. He is your husband, Mrs. Bateson, and whatever you have
+against him, you'll be very sorry afterward if you don't give him help
+and 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 the
+shadow, as though to lead her.
+
+But she stepped backward.
+
+"I know what I'm about," she said, breathing quick. "He made a fule o' me
+wi' that wanton Lizzie Short, and he near killt me the last morning afore
+he went. And I'd been a good wife to him for fifteen year, and never
+a word between us till that huzzy came along. And she's got a child by
+him, 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, he
+said. And I sat and prayed God to punish him. An' He did. The roof came
+down 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 yourself
+come to die. He has sinned toward you--but remember!--he's a young man
+still--in the prime of life. He has suffered horribly--and he has only a
+few hours or days to live. He has asked for you already to-day, he is
+sure to ask for you to-night. Forgive him!--ask God to help him to die in
+peace!"
+
+While he spoke she stood motionless, impassive. Meynell's voice had
+beautiful inflections, and he spoke with strong feeling. Few persons whom
+he so addressed could have remained unmoved. But Mrs. Bateson only
+retreated farther into the dreary little parlour, with its wool mats and
+antimacassars, and a tray of untasted tea on the table. She passed her
+tongue 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 for
+ourselves. If there's anything you want I can get for you, you knock
+twice on the floor--I shall hear you. But I'm not comin' up."
+
+Meynell turned away discouraged, and went upstairs. In the room above lay
+the dying man--breathing quickly and shallowly under the influence of the
+drug 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, and
+he seemed even in his sleep to be fighting for air. In the twelve hours
+that had elapsed since Meynell had last seen him he had travelled with
+terrible rapidity toward the end. He looked years older than in the
+morning; it was as though some sinister hand had been at work on the
+face, expanding here, contracting there, substituting chaos and
+nothingness for the living man.
+
+The Rector sat down beside him. The room was small and bare--a little
+strip of carpet on the boards, a few chairs, and a little table with food
+and nourishment beside the bed. On the mantelpiece was a large printed
+card containing the football fixtures of the winter before. Bateson had
+once been a fine player. Of late years, however, his interest had been
+confined to betting heavily on the various local and county matches, and
+it was to his ill-luck as a gambler no less than to the influence of the
+flimsy little woman who had led him astray that his moral break-up might
+be traced.
+
+A common tale!--yet more tragic than usual. For the bedroom contained
+other testimonies to the habits of a ruined man. There was a hanging
+bookcase on the wall, and the Rector sitting by the bed could just make
+out the titles of the books in the dim light.
+
+Mill, Huxley, a reprint of Tom Paine, various books by Blatchford, the
+sixpenny editions of "Literature and Dogma," and Renan's "Life of
+Christ," some popular science volumes of Browning and Ruskin, and a group
+of well-thumbed books on the birds of Mercia--the little collection,
+hardly earned, and, to judge from its appearance, diligently read, showed
+that its owner had been a man of intelligence. The Rector looked from it
+to the figure in the bed with a pang at his heart.
+
+All was still in the little cottage. Through the open window the Rector
+could see fold after fold of the Chase stretching north and west above
+the village. The moorland ridges shone clear under the moon, now bare, or
+scantily plumed by gaunt trees, and now clothed in a dense blackness of
+wood. Meynell, who knew every yard of the great heath and loved it well,
+felt himself lifted there in spirit as he looked. The "bunchberries" must
+just be ripening on the high ground--nestling scarlet and white amid
+their glossy leaves. And among them and beside them, the taller, slender
+bilberries, golden green; the exquisite grasses of the heath, pale pink,
+and silver, and purple, swaying in the winds, clothing acre after acre
+with a beauty beyond the looms of men; the purple heather and the ling
+flushing toward its bloom: and the free-limbed scattered birch trees,
+strongly scrawled against the sky. The scurry of the clouds over the
+purple sweeps of moor, the beat of the wind, and then suddenly, pools of
+fragrant air sun-steeped--he drew in the thought of it all, as he might
+have drunk the moorland breeze itself, with a thrill of pleasure, which
+passed 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 the
+sleeper, and leaning forward tried to meditate and pray. But to-night he
+found it hard. He realized anew his physical and mental fatigue, and a
+certain confused clamour of thought, strangely persistent behind the more
+external experience alike of body and mind; like the murmur of a distant
+sea heard from far inland, as the bond and background of all lesser
+sounds.
+
+The phrases of the letter he had found on the hall-table recurred to him
+whether he would or no. They were mainly legal and technical, intimating
+that an application had been made to the Bishop of Markborough to issue a
+Commission of Inquiry into certain charges made by parishioners of Upcote
+Minor against the Rector of the parish. The writer of the letter was one
+of the applicants, and gave notice of his intention to prosecute the
+charges named, with the utmost vigour through all the stages prescribed
+by ecclesiastical law.
+
+But it was, rather, some earlier letters from the same hand--letters more
+familiar, intimate, and discursive--that ultimately held the Rector's
+thoughts as he kept his watch. For in those letters were contained almost
+all the objections that a sensitive mind and heart had had to grapple
+with before determining on the course to which the Rector of Upcote was
+now committed. They were the voice of the "adversary," the "accuser."
+Crude or conventional, as the form of the argument might be, it yet
+represented the "powers and principalities" to be reckoned with. If the
+Rector's conscience could not sustain him against it, he was henceforth a
+dishonest and unhappy man; and when his lawyers had failed to protect him
+against its practical result--as they must no doubt fail--he would be a
+dispossessed priest:
+
+"What discipline in life or what comfort in death can such a faith as
+yours bring to any human soul? Do, I beg of you, ask yourself this
+question. If the great miracles of the Creed are not true, what have you
+to give the wretched and the sinful? Ought you not in common human
+charity to make way for one who can offer the consolations, utter the
+warnings, or hold out the heavenly hopes from which you are debarred?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Rector fixed his gaze upon the sick man. It was as though the
+question of the letter were put to him through those parched lips. And as
+he 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 and
+milk, 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 fast
+enough."
+
+The Rector hesitated, but only for a moment. He took the stick and
+rapped.
+
+Almost immediately the sound of a turning key was heard through the small
+thinly built cottage. The door below opened and footsteps came up the
+stairs. But before they reached the landing the sound ceased. The two men
+listened 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 the
+Rector'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's
+eyes. "Aye!"
+
+Meynell made him drink a little more brandy, and then he went out to the
+person 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--he
+says you can see for yourself that he can't wrong you any more. Come--and
+be merciful!"
+
+The woman paused. The Rector could see the shiver of her thin shoulders
+under her print dress. Then she turned and quietly descended the cottage
+stairway. Half way down she looked up.
+
+"Tell him I should do him nowt but harm. I"--her voice trembled for the
+first time--"I doan't bear him malice; I hope he'll not suffer. But I'm
+not comin'."
+
+"Wait a moment, Mrs. Bateson! I was to tell you that in spite of all, he
+loved 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 him
+I'd have got Lizzie Short to come an' nurse 'im, if I could. It's her
+place. 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--she
+said 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 the
+sick-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 a
+queer thing. She wasn't used to be a tough 'un. I could most make her do
+what I wanted. Well, never mind, Rector, never mind. Sit tha down--mebbe
+you'd be wanting to say a prayer. You're welcome. I reckon it'll do me no
+harm."
+
+His lips parted in a smile--a smile of satire. But his brows frowned, and
+his 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 will
+say them."
+
+"But I doan't believe in 'em," said the sick man, smiling again, "an' you
+doan't believe in 'em, noather, if folk say true! Don't tha be vexed--I'm
+not saying it to cheek tha. But Mr. Barron, ee says ee'll make tha give
+up. Ee's been goin' roun' the village, talkin' to folk. I doan't care
+about that--an' I've never been one o' your men--not pious enough, be a
+long 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 in
+life.
+
+The Rector started. The inward challenge had taken voice.
+
+"Certainly I will tell you, if it will help you--if you're strong
+enough."
+
+Bateson waved his hand contemptuously.
+
+"I feel as strong as onything. That sup o' brandy has put some grit in
+me. Give me some more. Thank tha ... Does tha believe in God, Rector?"
+
+His whimsical, half-teasing, yet, at bottom, anxious look touched Meynell
+strangely.
+
+"With all my life--and with all my strength!"
+
+Meynell's gaze was fixed intently on his questioner. The night-light in
+the basin on the farther side of the room threw the strong features into
+shadowy relief, illumining the yearning kindliness of the eyes.
+
+"What made tha believe in Him?"
+
+"My own life--my own struggles--and sins--and sufferings," said
+Meynell, stooping toward the sick man, and speaking each word with an
+intensity behind which lay much that could never be known to his
+questioner. "A good man, Bateson, put it once in this way, 'There is
+something 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 is
+always a voice within--it may be weak or it may be strong--that asks of
+him to be--instead--pure and sober and kind. And perhaps he denies the
+Voice, refuses it--talks it down--again and again. Then the joy in his
+life dies out bit by bit, and the world turns to dust and ashes. Every
+time that he says No to the Voice he is less happy--he has less power of
+being 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 suppose
+he obeys, like a child stumbling. Then every time he stretches and bends
+his 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 him
+to love--to love men and women, not with lust, but with pure love; and as
+he obeys, as he loves--he _knows_--he knows that it is God asking, and
+that God has come to him and abides with him. So when death overtakes him
+he 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 nothing
+speak to you, nothing try to stop you?"
+
+The bright half-mocking eyes below Meynell's wandered a little--wavered
+in expression.
+
+"It was the hot blood in me--aye, an' in her too. Yo cawn't help them
+things."
+
+"Can't you? When your wife suffered, didn't that touch you? Wouldn't you
+undo 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 you
+gave 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 your
+heart--ask Him to give you love--love to Him, who has been pleading with
+you all your life--love to your wife, and your fellow men--love--and
+repentance--and faith."
+
+Meynell's voice shook. He was in an anguish at what seemed to him the
+weakness, 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 an
+infidel. But he hasn't read the books you an' I have read, I'll uphold
+yer!"
+
+The dying man raised his hand to the bookshelves beside him with a proud
+gesture.
+
+The Rector slowly raised himself. An expression as of some passion
+within, trying at once to check and to utter itself, became visible on
+his face in the half light.
+
+"It's not books that settle it, Jim. I'll try and put it to you--just as
+I see it myself--just in the way it comes to me."
+
+He paused a moment, frowning under the effort of simplification. The
+hidden need of the dying man seemed to be mysteriously conveyed to
+him--the pang of lonely anguish that death brings with it; the craving
+for comfort beneath the apparent scorn of faith; the human cry expressed
+in this strange catechism.
+
+"Stop me if I tire you," he said at last. "I don't know if I can make it
+plain--but to me, Bateson, there are two worlds that every man is
+concerned with. There is this world of everyday life--work and business,
+sleeping and talking, eating and drinking--that you and I have been
+living 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, and
+follow that voice I spoke of just now. Jesus Christ called that other
+world 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 that
+Love--see it under different shapes. To us--to you and to me--it speaks
+under the name and form of Jesus Christ. And so I come to say--so all
+Christians come to say--_'I believe--in Jesus Christ our Lord_'. For it
+is His life and His death that still to-day--as they have done for
+hundreds of years--draw men and women into the Kingdom--the Kingdom of
+Love--and so to God. He draws us to love--and so to God. And in God alone
+is the soul of man satisfied; _satisfied--and at rest_."
+
+The last words were but just breathed--yet they carried with them the
+whole 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 grave
+on 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 one
+thing that matters to you now--it's to feel God with you--to be giving
+your soul to God."
+
+The two men gazed at each other.
+
+"What are tha nursin' me for, Rector?" said Bateson, abruptly--"I'm nowt
+to you."
+
+"For the love of Christ," said Meynell, steadily, taking his hand--"and
+of 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 great
+chimneys of the colliery were becoming plain; the tints and substance of
+the hills were changing. Dim forms of cattle moved in the newly shorn
+grass; 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 the
+cry--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 home
+there first--as married folk. Tell her I'm goin'--goin' fast."
+
+He fell back, panting. Meynell gave him food and medicine. Then he went
+quickly downstairs, and knocked at the parlour door. After an interval of
+evident hesitation on the part of the occupant of the room, it was
+reluctantly 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 a
+peremptory hand on her arm.
+
+"I command you--in God's name. Come!"
+
+A struggle shook her. She yielded suddenly--and began to cry. Meynell
+patted her on the shoulder as he might have patted a child, said kind,
+soothing things, gave her her husband's message, and finally drew her
+from the room.
+
+She went upstairs, Meynell following, anxious about the physical result
+of 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 his
+side, 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 motionless
+and voiceless; a spectacle little less piteous, little less deathlike,
+than the man on the pillows. He still smiled at her, in a kind of
+triumph; also silent, but his lips trembled. Then, groping, she put out
+her hand--her disfigured, toil-worn hand--and took his, raising it to her
+lips. The touch of his flesh seemed to loosen in her the fountains of the
+great deep. She slid to her knees and kissed him--enfolding him with her
+arms, the two murmuring together.
+
+Meynell went out into the dawn. His mystical sense had beheld the Lord in
+that small upper room; had seen as it were the sacred hands breaking to
+those two poor creatures the sacrament of love. His own mind was for the
+time being tranquillized. It was as though he said to himself, "I know
+that trouble will come back--I know that doubts and fears will pursue me
+again; but this hour--this blessing--is from God!"...
+
+The sun was high in a dewy world, already busy with its first labours of
+field and mine, when Meynell left the cottage. The church clock was on
+the stroke of eight.
+
+He passed down the village street, and reached again the little gabled
+house which he had passed the night before. As he approached, there was a
+movement in the garden. A lady, who was walking among the roses, holding
+up 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 seen
+you 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 her
+among the roses Meynell perceived another lady--a girl, with bright
+reddish hair.
+
+"Mary!" said Miss Puttenham.
+
+The girl approached. Meynell had an impression of mingled charm and
+reticence as she gave him her hand. The eyes were sweet and shy. But the
+unconscious dignity of bearing showed that the shyness was the shyness of
+strong character, rather than of mere youth and innocence.
+
+"This is my new friend, Mary Elsmere. You've heard they're at Forkéd
+Pond?" Alice Puttenham said, smiling, as she slipped her arm round the
+girl. "I captured her for the night, while Mrs. Elsmere went to town. I
+want you to know each other."
+
+"Elsmere's daughter!" thought Meynell, with a thrill, as he followed the
+two 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 young
+face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+"I am in love with the house--I adore the Chase--I like heretics--and I
+don't think I'm ever going home again!"
+
+Mrs. Flaxman as she spoke handed a cup of tea to a tall gentleman, Louis
+Manvers by name, the possessor of a long, tanned countenance; of thin
+iron-gray hair, descending toward the shoulders; of a drooping moustache,
+and eyes that mostly studied the carpet or the knees of their owner. A
+shy, laconic person at first sight, with the manner of one to whom
+conversation, of the drawing-room kind, was little more than a series of
+doubtful experiments, that seldom or never came off.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman, on the other hand, was a pretty woman of forty, still young
+and slender, in spite of two boys at Eton, one of them seventeen, and in
+the Eleven; and her talk was as rash and rapid as that of her companion
+was the reverse. Which perhaps might be one of the reasons why they were
+excellent friends, and always happy in each other's society.
+
+Mr. Manvers overlooked a certain challenge that Mrs. Flaxman had thrown
+out, took the tea provided, and merely inquired how long the rebuilding
+of the Flaxmans' own house would take. For it appeared that they were
+only tenants of Maudeley House--furnished--for a year.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman replied that only the British workman knew. But she looked
+upon herself as homeless for two years, and found the prospect as
+pleasant as her husband found it annoying.
+
+"As if life was long enough to spend it in one county, and one house
+and park! I have shaken all my duties from me like old rags. No more
+school-treats, no more bean-feasts, no more hospital committees, for two
+whole years! Think of it! Hugh, poor wretch, is still Chairman of the
+County 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, next
+year. 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 can
+see a lion kill from the front windows, and zebras stub up your kitchen
+garden. That's Hugh's show. Then of course there'll be Japan--and by that
+time there'll be airships to the North Pole, and we can take it on our
+way home!"
+
+"Souvent femme varie!" Mr. Manvers raised a pair of surprisingly shrewd
+eyes from the carpet. "I remember the years when I used to try and dig
+you and Hugh out of Bagley, and drive you abroad--without the smallest
+success."
+
+"Those were the years when one was moral and well-behaved! But everybody
+who is worth anything goes a little mad at forty. I was forty last
+week"--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," said
+Manvers dryly. "Why should you be so much younger than anybody else in
+the 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 as
+much as you like. They will not prevent me from telling you that you are
+one 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 her
+teaspoon 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 most
+tempting 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--I
+should 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 Church
+of England--services, doctrines and all--off his own bat, so to
+speak--without a 'with your leave or by your leave'; his parishioners
+backing him up; his Bishop in a frightful taking and not the least
+knowing 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--and
+yet--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 each
+other.
+
+"Very sorry--but it leaves me quite cold. Heresy in the Church of England
+comes to nothing. Our heretics are never violent enough. They forget the
+excellent text about the Kingdom of Heaven! Now the heretics in the
+Church of Rome are violent. That is what makes them so far more
+interesting."
+
+"This man seems to be drastic enough!"
+
+"Oh, no!" said the other, gently but firmly incredulous. "Believe me--he
+will resign, or apologize--they always do."
+
+"Believe _me_!--you don't--excuse me!--know anything about it. In
+the first place, Mr. Meynell has got his parishioners--all except a
+handful--behind him--"
+
+"So had Voysey," interjected Manvers, softly.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman took no notice.
+
+"--And he has hundreds of other supporters--thousands perhaps--and some
+of them parsons--in this diocese, and outside it. And they are all
+convinced that they must fight--fight to the death--and _not_ give in.
+That, you see, is what makes the difference! My brother-in-law"--the
+voice speaking changed and softened--"died twenty years ago. I remember
+how sad it was. He seemed to be walking alone in a world that hardly
+troubled 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 the
+strain 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 world
+behind him?" Mrs. Flaxman persisted, as the man beside her slowly shook
+his 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, and
+there were scores of people from other villages and towns--a kind of
+demonstration. Then, as to the service--neither of us could find our way
+about. 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 the
+chancel steps that they were not fit to be read in a Christian church; we
+altered this prayer and that prayer; we listened to an extempore prayer
+for the widows and orphans of some poor fellows who have been killed in a
+mine ten miles from here, which made me cry like baby; and, most amazing
+of all, when it came to the Creeds--"
+
+Manvers suddenly threw back his head, his face for the first time
+sharpening 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 the
+congregation--and with just a word of preface--'Here follows the Creed,
+commonly called the Apostles' Creed,'--or 'Here follows the Nicene
+Creed.' And we all stood and listened--and nobody said a word. It was the
+strangest moment! You know--I'm not a serious person--but I just held my
+breath."
+
+"As though you heard behind the veil the awful Voices--'_Let us depart
+hence_?'" said Manvers, after a pause. His expression had gradually
+changed. Those who knew him best might have seen in it a slight and
+passing trace of conflicts long since silenced and resolutely forgotten.
+
+"If you mean by that that the church was irreverent--or disrespectful--or
+hostile--well, you are quite wrong!" cried Mrs. Flaxman impetuously. "It
+was like a moment of new birth--I can't describe it--as though a Spirit
+entered in. And when the Rector finished--there was a kind of breath
+through the church--like the rustling of new leaves--and I thought of
+the wind blowing where it listed.... And then the Rector preached on the
+Creeds--how they grew up and why. Fascinating!--why aren't the clergy
+always telling us such things? And he brought it all round to impressing
+upon us that some day _we_ might be worthy of another Christian creed--by
+being faithful--that it would flower again out of our lives and souls--as
+the old had done.... I wonder what it all meant!" she said abruptly, her
+light voice dropping.
+
+Manvers smiled. His emotion had quite passed away.
+
+"Ah! but I forgot"--she resumed hurriedly--"we left out several of the
+Commandments--and we chanted the Beatitudes--and then I found there was a
+little service paper in the seat, and everybody in the church but Hugh
+and 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 to
+him the remark of the Bishop of Cork on the Dean of Cork--'Excellent
+sermon!--eloquent, clever, argumentative!--and not enough gospel in it to
+save a tom-tit!"'
+
+Mrs. Flaxman looked at him oddly.
+
+"Well, but--the extraordinary thing was that Hugh made me stay for the
+second 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 course
+Ritualistic is the wrong word. Should I have said 'sacramental'? I only
+meant that it was full of symbolism. There were lights--and flowers, and
+music, but there was nothing priestly--or superstitious"--she frowned in
+her effort to explain. "It was all poetic--and mystical--and yet
+practical. There were a good many things changed in the Service,--but
+I hardly noticed--I was so absorbed in watching the people. Almost every
+one stayed for the second service. It was quite short--so was the first
+service. And a great many communicated. But the spirit of it was the
+wonderful thing. It had all that--that magic--that mystery--that one gets
+out of Catholicism, even simple Catholicism, in a village church--say at
+Benediction; 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 people
+that were saying them; things that you did believe, or could believe,
+instead of things that you only pretended to believe, or couldn't
+possibly believe! I haven't got over it yet, and as for Hugh, I have
+never seen him so moved since--since Robert died."
+
+Manvers was aware of Mrs. Flaxman's affection for her brother-in-law's
+memory; and it seemed to him natural and womanly that she should be
+touched--artist and wordling though she was--by this fresh effort in
+a similar direction. For himself, he was touched in another way: with
+pity, or a kindly scorn. He did not believe in patching up the Christian
+tradition. 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! And
+if 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 and
+looking through the open window beside her. "What do you think we've
+done? We have evoked him! _Parlez du diable_, etc. How stupid of us! But
+there's his carriage trotting up the drive--I know the horses. And that's
+his deaf daughter--poor, downtrodden thing!--sitting beside him. Now
+then--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 the
+colour in her fair skin. Manvers looked longingly at the door leading to
+the 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 is
+on 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 of
+magnificent, superior way. He never loses his temper--whereas the others
+would often like to flay him alive. Now then"--Mrs. Flaxman laid a finger
+on her mouth--"'Papa, potatoes, prunes, and prism'!"
+
+Steps were heard in the hall, and the butler announced "Mr. and Miss
+Barron."
+
+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 the
+newcomers with her sweetest smiles, set the deaf daughter down on the
+hearing 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 a
+portly man of fifty-five, with a penetrating look, and a composed manner;
+well dressed, yet with no undue display. Louis Manvers, struggling with
+an habitual plague of shyness, and all but silenced by the discovery that
+his neighbour was even deafer than himself, watched the "six-foot-two
+Inquisitor" with curiosity, but could find nothing lurid nor torturous in
+his aspect. There was indeed something about him which displeased a
+rationalist scholar and ascetic. But his information and ability, his
+apparent adequacy to any company, were immediately evident. It seemed to
+Manvers that he had very quickly disarmed Mrs. Flaxman's vague prejudice
+against him. At any rate she was soon picking his brains diligently on
+the subject of the neighbourhood and the neighbours, and apparently
+enjoying the result, to judge from her smiles and her questions.
+
+Mr. Barron indeed had everything that could be expected of him to say on
+the subject of the district and its population. He descanted on the
+beauty of the three or four famous parks, which in the eighteenth century
+had been carved out of the wild heath lands; he showed an intimate
+knowledge of the persons who owned the parks, and of their families,
+"though I myself am only a newcomer here, being by rights a Devonshire
+man"; he talked of the local superstitions with indulgence, and a proper
+sense of the picturesque; and of the colliers who believed the
+superstitions he spoke in a tone of general good humour, tempered by
+regret that "agitators" should so often lead them into folly. The
+architecture of the district came in, of course, for proper notice. There
+were 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 is
+Sandford Abbey from here?"
+
+Her visitor paused a moment before replying.
+
+"Sandford Abbey is about five miles from you--across the park. The two
+estates 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 old
+friend of Hugh's family."
+
+Mr. Barron was silent.
+
+"Is he such a scamp?" said Mrs. Flaxman, raising her fine eyes, with a
+laugh 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 gathers
+some strange company at the Abbey. He is there now for the fishing."
+
+Manvers inquired who this gentleman might be; and Mrs. Flaxman gave him a
+lightly touched account. A young man of wealth and family, it seemed, but
+spoilt from his earliest days, and left fatherless at nineteen, with only
+an adoring but quite ineffectual mother to take account of. Some
+notorious love affairs at home and abroad; a wild practical joke or two,
+played on prominent people, and largely advertised in the newspapers; an
+audacious novel, and a censored play--he had achieved all these things by
+the age of thirty, and was now almost penniless, and still unmarried.
+
+"Hugh says that the Abbey is falling into ruin--and that the young man
+has about a hundred a year left out of his fortune. On this he keeps
+apparently an army of servants and a couple of hunters! The strange
+thing is--Hugh discovered it when he went to call on the Rector the other
+day--that this preposterous young man is a first cousin of Mr. Meynell's.
+His mother, Lady Meryon, and the Rector's mother were sisters. The
+Rector, 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 the
+charms, both of villainy and mystery, let the subject drop.
+
+Mr. Barron returned, as though with relief, to architecture, talked
+agreeably 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 whole
+disappointing--inferior to those of other districts within reach.
+Here, indeed, he showed himself an expert; and a far too minute
+discourse on the relative merits of the church architecture of two or
+three of the midland counties flowed on and on through Mrs. Flaxman's
+tea-making, while the deaf daughter became entirely speechless; and
+Manvers--disillusioned--gradually assumed an aspect of profound
+melancholy, which merely meant that his wits were wool gathering.
+
+"Well, I thought Upcote Minor church a very pretty church," said
+Rose Flaxman at last, with a touch of revolt. "The old screen is
+beautiful--and who on earth has done all that carving of the
+pulpit--and the reredos?"
+
+Mr. Barron's expression changed. He bent toward his hostess, striking one
+hand 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 recovered
+their animation.
+
+"You were present then," said Mr. Barron with passionate energy, "at a
+scandalous 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. The
+slight pomposity of look and manner had disappeared.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman hesitated. Then she said gravely: "It was certainly very
+astonishing. 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 is
+impossible for him to be honest!"
+
+Mrs. Flaxman slowly poured out another cup of tea for Mr. Manvers, who
+was standing before her in a drooping attitude, like some long crumpled
+fly, apparently deaf and blind to what was going on, his hair falling
+forward 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 to
+me--everybody in the church appeared to us to be enjoying what the Rector
+was 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 all
+the worse. When I came here three years ago he had not yet done any of
+these things--publicly; these perfectly monstrous things. Up to last
+Sunday, indeed, he kept within certain bounds as to the services; though
+frequent complaints of his teaching had been made to the Bishop, and
+proceedings even had been begun--it might have been difficult to touch
+him. But last Sunday!--" He stopped with a little sad gesture of the hand
+as though the recollection were too painful to pursue. "I saw, however,
+within six months of my coming here--he and I were great friends at
+first--what his teaching was, and whither it was tending. He has taught
+the people systematic infidelity for years. Now we have the results!"
+
+"He also seems to have looked after their bodies," said Mrs. Flaxman, in
+a skirmishing tone that simply meant she was not to be brought to close
+quarters. "I am told that it was he brought the water-supply here; and
+that he has forced the owners to rebuild some of the worst cottages."
+
+Mr. Barron looked attentively at his hostess. It was as though he were
+for 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, he
+was not asked to take vows about the water-supply! But he did promise and
+vow at his ordination to hold the Faith--to 'banish and drive away
+strange doctrines'!"
+
+"What are 'strange doctrines' nowadays?" said a mild, falsetto voice in
+the distance.
+
+Barron turned to the speaker--the long-haired dishevelled person whose
+name he had not caught distinctly as Mrs. Flaxman introduced him. His
+manner unconsciously assumed a note of patronage.
+
+"No need to define them, I think--for a Christian. The Church has her
+Creeds."
+
+"Of course. But while this gentleman shelves them--no doubt a
+revolutionary proceeding--are there not excesses on the other side? May
+there not be too much--as well as too little?"
+
+And with an astonishing command of ecclesiastical detail Manvers gave an
+account--gently ironic here and there--of some neo-Catholic functions of
+which he had lately been a witness.
+
+Barron fidgeted.
+
+"Deplorable, I admit--quite deplorable! I would put that kind of thing
+down, just as firmly as the other."
+
+Manvers smiled.
+
+"But who are '_you_'? if I may ask it philosophically and without
+offence? The man here does not agree with you--the people I have been
+describing would scout you. Where's your authority? What _is_ the
+authority in the English Church?"
+
+"Well, of course we have our answer to that question," said Barron, after
+a moment.
+
+Manvers gave a pleasant little laugh. "Have you?"
+
+Barron hesitated again, then evidently found the controversial temptation
+too strong. He plunged headlong into a great gulf of cloudy argument,
+with the big word "authority" for theme. But he could find no foothold
+in the maze. Manvers drove him delicately from point to point,
+involving him in his own contradictions, rolling him in his own
+ambiguities, till--suddenly--vague recollections began to stir in the
+victim's mind. _Manvers_? Was that the name? It began to recall to
+him certain articles in the reviews, the Church papers. Was there not a
+well-known writer--a Dublin man--a man who had once been a clergyman, and
+had resigned his orders?
+
+He drew himself together with dignity, and retreated in as good order as
+he could. Turning to Mrs. Flaxman, who was endeavouring to make a few
+commonplaces audible to Miss Barron, while throwing occasional sly
+glances toward the field of battle, he somewhat curtly asked for his
+carriage.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman's hand was on the bell, when the drawing-room door opened to
+admit a gentleman.
+
+"Mr. Meynell!" said the butler.
+
+And at the same moment a young girl slipped in through the open French
+window, and with a smiling nod to Mrs. Flaxman and Mr. Manvers went up to
+the tea-table and began to replenish the teapot and relight the kettle.
+
+Mr. Barron made an involuntary movement of annoyance as the Rector
+entered. But a few minutes of waiting before the appearance of his
+carriage was inevitable. He stood motionless therefore in his place, a
+handsome, 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 friendly
+nod. 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 an
+evident look of pleasure.
+
+"I have just read your Bishop Butler article in the _Quarterly_," said
+Meynell eagerly. "Splendid! Have you seen it?" He turned to his hostess,
+with one of the rapid movements that expressed the constant energy of the
+man.
+
+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 bit
+from it?" The speaker turned to Manvers again. "There is a clerical
+conference 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, to
+his hostess: "Will you mind if I drink a good deal? I have just been down
+a 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 thought
+he 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 all
+away, married. Nobody to nurse him as usual. I say!"--he bent forward,
+looking into his hostess's face with his small, vivacious eyes--"how
+long 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, and
+it will do a lot of good," said the Rector earnestly. "The people here
+are awfully good to each other--but they don't know anything--poor
+souls--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 sat
+the squire of the parish, silent and impassive. Common report made Henry
+Barron a wealthy man. He could, no doubt, have provided half a dozen
+nurses for Upcote Minor if he had so chosen. Yet here was she, the
+newcomer of a few weeks, appealed to instead! It seemed to her that the
+Rector 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 difficulty
+in controlling, endeavoured nevertheless to strike the same easy note as
+the rest. He gave his reasons for thinking that a parish nurse was not
+really required in Upcote, the women in the village being in his opinion
+quite 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 all
+very well for Meynell to show this levity, this callous indifference to
+the situation. But he, Barron, could not forget it. That very week, the
+first steps had been taken which were to drive this heretical and
+audacious priest from the office and benefice he had no right to hold,
+and had so criminally misused. If he submitted and went quietly, well and
+good. But of course he would do nothing of the kind. There was a
+lamentable amount of disloyalty and infidelity in the diocese, and he
+would be supported. An ugly struggle was inevitable--a struggle for the
+honour of Christ and his Church. It would go down to the roots of things
+and was not to be settled or smoothed over by a false and superficial
+courtesy. The days of friendship, of ordinary social intercourse, were
+over. Barron did not intend to receive the Rector again within his own
+doors, intimate as they had been at one time; and it was awkward and
+undesirable that they should be meeting in other people's drawing-rooms.
+
+All these feelings were running through his mind while aloud he was
+laboriously giving Mrs. Flaxman his reasons for thinking a parish nurse
+unnecessary in Upcote Minor. When he came to the end of them, Meynell
+looked at him with amused exasperation.
+
+"Well, all I know is that in the last case of typhoid we had here--a poor
+lad on Reynolds's farm--his mother got him up every day while she made
+his 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 else
+they do with them--unless I stay and see them put on. Ah, well, never
+mind. 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 new
+German 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. Yet
+the eyes for all their intensity looked out from a face furrowed and
+pale--overshadowed by physical and mental strain. The girl sitting at the
+tea-table could scarcely take her eyes from it. It appealed at once to
+her heart and her intelligence. And yet there were other feelings in her
+which resisted the appeal. Once or twice she looked wistfully at Barron.
+She would gladly have found in him a more attractive champion of a
+majestic cause.
+
+"What can my coachman be about?" said Barron impatiently. "Might I
+trouble 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. "At
+once!"
+
+But the minutes passed on, and while trying to keep up a desultory
+conversation with his hostess, and with the young lady at the tea-table,
+to whom he was not introduced, Mr. Barron was all the while angrily
+conscious of the conversation going on between the Rector and Manvers.
+There seemed to be something personally offensive and humiliating to
+himself in the knowledge displayed by these two men--men who had deserted
+or were now betraying the Church--of the literature of Anglican
+apologetics, and of the thought of the great Anglican bishop. Why this
+parade of useless learning and hypocritical enthusiasm? What was Bishop
+Butler to them? He could hardy sit patiently through it, and it was with
+most evident relief that he rose to his feet when his carriage was
+announced.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"How pretty Mrs. Flaxman is!" said his daughter as they drove away. "Yet
+I'm sure she's forty, papa."
+
+Her face still reflected the innocent pleasure that Rose Flaxman's
+kindness had given her. It was not often that the world troubled itself
+much about her. Her father, however, took no notice. He sat absent and
+pondering, and soon he stretched out a peremptory hand and lowered the
+window which his daughter had raised against an east wind to protect a
+delicate ear and throat which had been the torment of her life. It was
+done with no conscious unkindness; far from it. He was merely absorbed in
+the planning of his campaign. The next all-important point was the
+selection of the Commission of Inquiry. No effort must be spared by the
+Church party to obtain the right men.
+
+Meanwhile, in the drawing-room which he had left, there was silence for a
+moment 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 the
+tea-table.
+
+"Oh, I had had quite enough of Mr. Barron. Mr. Meynell, have I ever
+introduced you to my niece?"
+
+"Oh, but we know each other!" said Meynell, eagerly. "We met first at
+Miss Puttenham's, a week ago--and since then--Miss Elsmere has been
+visiting a woman I know."
+
+"Indeed?"
+
+"A woman who lost her husband some days since--a terrible case. We are
+all so grateful to Miss Elsmere."
+
+He looked toward her with a smile and a sigh; then as he saw the shy
+discomfort in the girl's face, he changed the subject at once.
+
+The conversation became general. Some feeling that she could not explain
+to herself led Mrs. Flaxman into a closer observation of her niece Mary
+than usual. There was much affection between the aunt and the niece, but
+on Mrs. Flaxman's side, at least, not much understanding. She thought of
+Mary as an interesting creature, with some striking gifts--amongst them
+her mother's gift for goodness. But it seemed to the aunt that she was
+far too grave and reserved for her age; that she had been too strenuously
+brought up, and in a too narrow world. Rose Flaxman had often impatiently
+tried to enliven the girl's existence, to give her nice clothes, to take
+her to balls and to the opera. But Mary's adoration for her mother stood
+in 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 was
+talking--softly, and with a delicate and rather old-fashioned choice of
+words, but certainly with no lack of animation. And it was quite evident
+to an inquisitive aunt with a notorious gift for match making that the
+tired heretic with the patches of coal dust on his coat found her very
+attractive.
+
+But as the clock struck six Meynell sprang up.
+
+"I must go. Miss Elsmere"--he looked toward her--"has kindly promised to
+take me on to see your sister at the Cottage--and after to-day I may not
+have another opportunity." He hesitated, considering his hostess--then
+burst out: "You were at church last Sunday--I know--I saw you. I want to
+tell you--that you have a church quite as near to you as the parish
+church, where everything is quite orthodox--the church at Haddon End. I
+wish I could have warned you. I--I did ask Miss Elsmere to warn her
+mother."
+
+Rose looked at the carpet.
+
+"You needn't pity us," she said, demurely. "Hugh wants to talk to you
+dreadfully. But--I am afraid I am a Gallio."
+
+"Of course--you don't need to be told--it was all a deliberate defiance
+of the law--in order to raise vital questions. We have never done
+anything half so bad before. We determined on it at a public meeting last
+week, 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 laymen
+in the Church want a real franchise--a citizenship they can exercise--and
+a law of their own making!"
+
+There was silence a moment. Mary Elsmere took up her hat, and kissed her
+aunt; Meynell made his farewells, and followed the girl's lead into the
+garden.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman and Manvers watched them open the gate of the park and
+disappear behind a rising ground. Then the two spectators turned to each
+other by a common impulse, smiling at the same thought. Mrs. Flaxman's
+smile, however, was almost immediately drowned in a real concern. She
+clasped 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 hill
+and in a northwest direction across one of the most beautiful parks in
+England. It lay on the fringe of the Chase and contained, within its
+slopes and glades, now tracts of primitive woodland whence the charcoal
+burners 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, a
+seemly Georgian pile, with a columnar front, had the good fortune to
+belong to a man not rich enough to live in or rebuild it, but
+sufficiently attached to it to spend upon its decent maintenance the
+money he got by letting it. So the delicately faded beauty of the house
+had survived unspoilt; while there had never been any money to spend upon
+the park, where the woods and fences looked after themselves year by
+year, and colliers from the neighbouring villages poached freely.
+
+The two people walking through the ferny paths leading to the cottage of
+Forkéd Pond were not, however, paying much attention to the landscape
+round them. Meynell showed himself at first preoccupied and silent. A
+load of anxiety depressed his vitality; and on this particular day long
+hours of literary work and correspondence, beginning almost with the dawn
+and 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 to
+create a soothing and liberating atmosphere in which it was possible to
+speak with frankness, though without effort or excitement.
+
+The Rector indeed had so far very little precise knowledge of what his
+companion's feeling might be toward his own critical plight. He would
+have liked to get at it; for there was something in this winning,
+reserved girl that made him desire her good opinion. And yet he shrank
+from any discussion with her.
+
+He knew of course that the outlines of what had happened must be known to
+her. During the ten days since their first meeting both the local and
+London newspapers had given much space to the affairs of Upcote Minor. An
+important public meeting in which certain decisions had been taken with
+only three dissentients had led up to the startling proceedings in the
+village church which Mrs. Flaxman had described to Louis Manvers. The
+Bishop had written another letter, this time of a more hurried and
+peremptory kind. An account of the service had appeared in the _Times_,
+and columns had been devoted to it in various Mercian newspapers. After
+years of silence, during which his heart had burned within him; after a
+shorter period of growing propaganda and expanding utterance, Meynell
+realized fully that he had now let loose the floodgates. All round him
+was rising that wide response from human minds and hearts--whether in
+sympathy or in hostility--which tests and sifts the man who aspires to be
+a leader of men--in religion or economics. Every trade union leader
+lifted on the wave of a great strike, representing the urgent physical
+need of his fellows, knows what the concentration of human passion can
+be--in matters concerned with the daily bread and the homes of men.
+Religion can gather and bring to bear forces as strong. Meynell knew it
+well; and he was like a man stepping down into a rushing stream from
+which there is no escape. It must be crossed--that is all the wayfarer
+knows; but as he feels the water on his body he realizes that the moment
+is perhaps for life or death.
+
+Such crises in life bring with them, in the case of the nobler
+personalities, a great sensitiveness; and Meynell seemed to be living in
+a world where not only his own inner feelings and motives but those of
+others were magnified and writ large. As he walked beside Mary Elsmere
+his mind played round what he knew of her history and position; and it
+troubled him to think that, both for her and her mother, contact with him
+at this particular moment might be the reviving of old sorrows.
+
+As they paused on the top of a rising ground looking westward he looked
+at her with sudden and kindly decision.
+
+"Miss Elsmere, are you sure your mother would like to see me? It was very
+good of you to request that I should accompany you to-night--but--are you
+sure?"
+
+Mary coloured deeply and hesitated a moment.
+
+"Don't you think I'd better turn back?" he asked her, gently. "Your path
+is clear before you." He pointed to it winding through the fern. "And you
+know, I hope, that anything I could do for you and your mother during
+your stay here I should be only too enchanted to do. The one thing I
+shrink from doing is to interfere in any way with her rest here. And I am
+afraid just now I might be a disturbing element."
+
+"No, no! please come!" said Mary, earnestly. Then as she turned her head
+away, she added: "Of course--there is nothing new--to her--"
+
+"Except that my fight is waged from inside the Church--and your father's
+from 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 so
+terrible to her."
+
+"Any break with the old things? But doesn't it ever present itself to
+her--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 the
+trouble he divined in her. A great natural dignity in the girl--delicacy
+of feeling in the man--prevented it.
+
+None the less her betrayal of emotion had altered their relation; or
+rather had carried it farther. For he had already seen her in contact
+with tragic and touching things. A day or two after that early morning
+when he had told the outlines of the Batesons' story to the two ladies
+who had entertained him at breakfast he had found her in Bateson's
+cottage 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 friendly
+timid ways had stirred, as it were, the dark air of the house with a
+breath of tenderness. She would sit beside the widow, sewing at a black
+dress, or helping her to choose the text to be printed on the funeral
+card; or she would come with her hands full of wild flowers, and coax
+Mrs. Bateson to go in the dusk to the churchyard with them. She had
+shown, indeed, wonderful inventiveness in filling the first week of loss
+and anguish with such small incident as might satisfy feeling, and yet
+take 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 mind
+of her companion. It was a remarkable face; the lower lip a little
+prominent, and the chin firmly rounded. But the smile, though rare, was
+youth and sweetness itself, and the dark eyes beneath the full mass of
+richly coloured hair were finely conscious and attentive--disinterested
+also; so that they won the spectator instead of embarrassing him. She was
+very lightly and slenderly made, yet so as to convey an impression of
+strength and physical health. Meynell said to himself that there was
+something cloistered in her look, like one brought up in a grave
+atmosphere--an atmosphere of "recollection." At the same time nothing
+could 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 both
+their minds. Insensibly the barrier between them and it broke away.
+Neither, indeed, forgot the interposing shadow of Catharine Elsmere. But
+the 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 reveal
+them to each other. The growing delight of their conversation was
+presently beyond Meynell's resisting. And in Mary, the freedom of it, no
+less than the sense of personal conflict and tragic possibilities that
+lay behind it, awakened the subtlest and deepest feelings. Poignant,
+concrete images rushed through her mind--a dying face to which her own
+had been lifted, as a tiny child; the hall of the New Brotherhood, where
+she sat sometimes beside her veiled mother; the sad nobility of that
+mother's life; a score of trifling, heartpiercing things, that, to think
+of, 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 thought
+and doubt, of faith and denial, in a living and daring world. And yet
+again, times of passionate remorse, in which all movement of revolt had
+died 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-thwarted
+force. And under the pressure of her quick, searching sympathy his talk
+became insensibly more personal, more autobiographical. He was but little
+given to confession, but she compelled it. It was as though through his
+story she sought to understand her father's--to unveil many things yet
+dark to her.
+
+Thus gradually, through ways direct and indirect, the intellectual story
+of the man revealed itself to the pure and sensitive mind of the girl.
+She divined his home and upbringing--his father an Evangelical soldier of
+the old school, a home imbued with the Puritan and Biblical ideas. She
+understood something of the struggle provoked--after his ordination, in a
+somewhat late maturity--by the uprising of the typical modern problems,
+historical, critical, scientific. She pieced together much that only came
+out incidentally as to the counsellors within the Church to whom he had
+gone in his first urgent distress--the Bishop whom he reverenced--his
+old 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 small
+French books by a French priest and the sudden uprush of new life
+in the Roman Church had brought to the remote English clergyman at once
+the crystallization of doubt and the passion of a freed faith.
+"Modernism"--the attempt of the modern spirit, acting religiously, to
+refashion Christianity, not outside, but _inside_, the warm limits of the
+ancient churches--was born; and Richard Meynell became one of the first
+converts in England.
+
+"Ah, if your father had but lived!" he said at last, turning upon her
+with emotion. "He died his noble death twenty years ago--think of the
+difference between then and now! Then the Broad Church movement was
+at an end. All that seemed so hopeful, so full of new life in the
+seventies, had apparently died down. Stanley, John Richard Green, Hugh
+Pearson were dead, Jowett was an old man of seventy; Liberalism within
+the Church hardly seemed to breathe; the judgment in the Voysey case--as
+much a defiance of modern knowledge as any Papal encyclical--though
+people had nearly forgotten it, had yet in truth brought the whole
+movement to a stand. All _within_ the gates seemed lost. Your father went
+out into the wilderness, and there, amid everything that was poor and
+mean 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 of
+it depends now only on the faithfulness of those within it."
+
+Mary was moved and silenced. The man's power, his transparent purity of
+heart, affected her, as they had already affected thousands. She was
+drawn to him also, unconsciously, by that something in personality which
+determines the relations of men and women. Yet there were deep instincts
+in her that protested. Girl as she was, she felt herself for the moment
+more alive than he to the dead weight of the World, fighting the tug of
+those who would fain move it from its ancient bases.
+
+He seemed to guess at her thought; for he passed on to describe the
+events by which, amid his own dumb or hidden struggle, he had become
+aware of the same forces working all round him; among the more
+intelligent and quick-witted miners, hungry for history and science,
+reading voraciously a Socialist and anti-Christian literature, yet all
+the while cherishing deep at heart certain primitive superstitions, and
+falling periodically into hot abysses of Revivalism, under the influence
+of Welsh preachers; or among the young men of the small middle class, in
+whom a better education was beginning to awaken a number of new
+intellectual and religious wants; among women, too, sensitive,
+intelligent women--
+
+"Ah! but," said Mary, quickly interrupting him, "don't imagine there are
+many 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 very
+little part in this particular movement. I never know whether she is
+really with us. She stands outside the old things, but I can never make
+myself happy by the hope that I have been able to win her to the new!"
+
+Mary looked puzzled--interrogative. But she checked her question, and
+drew him back instead to his narrative--to the small incidents and signs
+which had gradually revealed to him, among even his brother clergy, years
+before that date, the working of ideas and thoughts like his own. And
+now--
+
+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 other
+counties. It made me think of what a French Catholic Modernist said to me
+two years ago--'Pius X may write encyclicals as he pleases--I could show
+him whole dioceses in France that are practically Modernist, where the
+Seminaries are Modernist, and two thirds of the clergy. The Bishop knows
+it quite well, and is helpless. Over the border perhaps you get an
+Ultramontane diocese, and an Ultramontane bishop. But the process goes
+on. Life and time are for _us_!'" He paused and laughed. "Ah, of course I
+don't pretend things are so here--yet. Our reforms in England--in Church
+and State--broaden slowly down. In France, reform, when it moves at all,
+tends to be catastrophic. But in the Markborough diocese alone we have
+won over perhaps a fifth of the clergy, and the dioceses all round are
+moving. As to the rapidity of the movement in the last few months it has
+been nothing short of amazing!"
+
+"And what is the end to be? Not only--oh! Not only--_to destroy_!" said
+Mary. The soft intensity of the voice, the beauty of the look, touched
+him strangely.
+
+He smiled, and there was a silence for a minute, as they wandered
+downward through a purple stretch of heather to a little stream,
+sun-smitten, that lay across their path. Once or twice she looked at him
+timidly, 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 yet
+intenser fellowship. We want to say to our fellowmen: 'Cease from groping
+among ruins!--from making life and faith depend upon whether Christ was
+born at Bethlehem or at Nazareth, whether He rose or did not rise,
+whether Luke or some one else wrote the Third Gospel, whether the Fourth
+Gospel 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 purify
+the gold. Take the cup of cold water to the thirsty, heal the sick, tend
+the dying, and feel it thrill within you--the ineffable, the immortal
+life! Let the false miracle go!--the true has grown out of it, up from
+it, as the flower from the sheath.' Ah! but then"--he drew himself up
+unconsciously; his tone hardened--"we turn to the sons of tradition, and
+we say: 'We too must have our rights in what the past has built up, the
+past has bequeathed--as well as you! Not for you alone, the institutions,
+the buildings, the arts, the traditions, that the Christ-life has so far
+fashioned for itself. They who made them are Our fathers no less than
+yours--give us our share in them!--we claim it! Give us our share in the
+cathedrals and churches of our country--our share in the beauty and
+majesty of our ancestral Christianity.' The men who led the rebellion
+against Rome in the sixteenth century claimed the _plant_ of English
+Catholicism. 'We are our fathers' sons, and these things are _ours!_'
+they said, as they looked at Salisbury and Winchester. We say the
+same--with a difference. 'Give us the rights and the citizenship that
+belong to us! But do not imagine that we want to attack yours. In God's
+name, follow your own forms of faith--but allow us ours also--within
+the common shelter of the common Church. We are children of the same
+God--followers of the same Master. Who made you judges and dividers over
+us? You shall not drive us into the desert any more. A new movement of
+revolt has come--an hour of upheaval--and the men, with it!'"
+
+Both stood motionless, gazing over the wide stretch of country--wood
+beyond wood, distance beyond distance, that lay between them and the
+Welsh border. Suddenly, as a shaft of light from the descending sun
+fled ghostlike across the plain, touching trees and fields and farms in
+its path, two noble towers emerged among the shadows--characters, as it
+were, that gave a meaning to the scroll of nature. They were the towers
+of Markborough Cathedral. Meynell pointed to them as he turned to his
+companion, his face still quivering under the strain of feeling.
+
+"Take the omen! It is for _them_, in a sense--a spiritual sense--we are
+fighting. They belong not to any body of men that may chance to-day to
+call itself the English Church. They belong to _England_--in her aspect
+of faith--and to the English people!"
+
+There was a silence. His look came back to her face, and the prophetic
+glow died from his own. "I should be very, very sorry"--he said
+anxiously--"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--of
+others." Her voice trembled.
+
+The words seemed to suggest everything that in her own personal history
+had stamped her with this sweet, shrinking look. Meynell was deeply
+touched. But he did not answer her, or pursue the conversation any
+farther. He gathered a great bunch of harebells for her, from the
+sun-warmed dells in the heather; and was soon making her laugh by his
+stories of colliery life and speech, _ŕ propos_ of the colliery villages
+fringing the plain at their feet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The stream, as they neared it, proved to be the boundary between the
+heath land and the pastures of the lower ground. It ran fresh and
+brimming between its rushy banks, shadowed here and there by a few light
+ashes and alders, but in general open to the sky, of which it was the
+mirror. It shone now golden and blue under the deepening light of the
+afternoon; and two or three hundred yards away Mary Elsmere distinguished
+two 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. There
+should be a capital rise to-night. If that man has the sense to put on a
+sedge-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, on
+the other side of the stream. "What a wonderful old place!"
+
+For the house that revealed itself stood with an impressive dignity among
+its stern and blackish woods. The long, plain front suggested a monastic
+origin; 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 have
+grown into the landscape, and to be so deeply rooted in it that one could
+not imagine it away.
+
+Meynell glanced at it.
+
+"That is Sandford Abbey. It belongs, I regret to say, to a neer-do-weel
+cousin of mine who has spent all his time since he came into it in
+neglecting his duties to it. Provided the owner of it is safely away, I
+should 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 own
+sentiments!"
+
+Mary followed the house with her eyes as they walked along the bank of
+the stream toward the two figures on the opposite bank.
+
+A sudden exclamation from her companion caught her ear--and a light
+musical laugh. Startled by something familiar in it, Mary looked across
+the stream. She saw on the farther bank a few yards ahead a young man
+fishing, and a young girl in white sitting beside him.
+
+"Hester!--Miss Fox-Wilton!"--the tone showed her surprise; "and who is
+that with her?"
+
+Meynell, without replying, walked rapidly along the stream to a point
+immediately opposite the pair.
+
+"Good afternoon, Philip. I did not know you were here. Hester, I am going
+round 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't
+think what a rise there is. I have caught two myself. Sir Philip has been
+teaching me."
+
+"She frames magnificently!" said the young man. "How d'ye do, Meynell? A
+long time since we've met."
+
+"A long time," said Meynell briefly. "Hester, will you meet Miss Elsmere
+and 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 yards
+farther 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 good
+luck I wouldn't go with mother to dine at the White House! Don't you hate
+dinner parties? I told Mr. Barron that spiders were so much more refined
+than humans--they did at least eat their flies by themselves! He was
+quite angry--and I am afraid Stephen was too!"
+
+She laughed again, and so did the man beside her. He was a dark, slim
+fellow, finely made, dressed in blue serge, and a felt hat, which
+seemed at the moment to be slipping over the back of his handsome head.
+From a little distance he produced an impression of Apollo-like strength
+and good looks. As the spectator came closer, this impression was a good
+deal modified by certain loose and common lines in the face. But from
+Mary Elsmere's position only Sir Philip Meryon's good points were
+visible, and he appeared to her a dazzling creature.
+
+And in point of looks his companion was more than his match. They made
+indeed 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. In
+pushing along the overgrown stream, the coils of her hair had been
+disarranged 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 and
+smile shone out triumphantly. Exceptionally tall, with clear-cut aquiline
+features, with the movements and the grace of a wood nymph, the girl
+carried her beautiful brows and her full throat with a provocative and
+self-conscious arrogance. One might have guessed that fear was unknown
+to her; perhaps tenderness also. She looked much older than seventeen,
+until she moved or spoke; then the spectator soon realized that in spite
+of her height and her precocious beauty she was a child, capable still of
+a 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 across
+the stream. Meynell's peremptory voice reached her now and then, and she
+could not help hearing a sharp final demand that the truant should
+transfer 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 will
+allow me to join you. Miss Elsmere, I am very sorry, but I am afraid I
+must 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 I
+please!"
+
+Meanwhile Sir Philip Meryon had laid aside his rod and was apparently
+enjoying the encounter between his companion and the Rector.
+
+"Perhaps you have forgotten--this is _my_ side of the river, Meynell!" he
+shouted across it.
+
+"I am quite aware of it," said the Rector, as he shook hands with the
+embarrassed Mary. She was just moving away with a shy good-bye to the
+angry young goddess on the farther bank, when the goddess said:
+
+"Don't go, Mary! Here, Sir Philip--take the fly-book!" She flung it
+toward him. "Goodnight."
+
+And turning her back upon him without any further ceremony, she walked
+quickly along the stream toward the little bridge which Meynell had
+pointed out.
+
+"Congratulations!" said Meryon, with a mocking wave of the hand to the
+Rector, who made no reply. He ran to catch up Mary, and the two joined
+the girl in white at the bridge. The owner of Sandford Abbey stood
+meanwhile with his hand on his hip watching the receding figures. There
+was a smile on his handsome mouth, but it was an angry one; and his
+muttered remark as he turned away belied the unconcern he had affected.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"That comes, you see, of not letting me be engaged to Stephen!" said
+Hester 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 well
+that your mother does not approve of Sir Philip Meryon, and does not wish
+you to be in his company."
+
+"Precisely. But as I am not to be allowed to marry Stephen, I must of
+course 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'm
+bound."
+
+"At present all you're asked"--said Meynell dryly--"is not to disobey
+your mother. But don't you think it's rather rude to Miss Elsmere to be
+discussing private affairs she doesn't understand?"
+
+"Why shouldn't she understand them? Mary, my guardian here and my mother
+say that I mustn't be engaged to Stephen Barron--that I'm too young--or
+some nonsense of that kind. And Stephen--oh, well, Stephen's too good for
+this world! If he really loved me, he'd do something desperate, wouldn't
+he?--instead of giving in. I don't much mind, myself--I don't really care
+so much about marrying Stephen--only if I'm not to marry him, and
+somebody else wants to please me, why shouldn't I let him?"
+
+She turned her beautiful wild eyes upon Mary Elsmere. And as she
+did so Mary was suddenly seized with a strong sense of likeness in the
+speaker--her gesture--her attitude--to something already familiar. She
+could not identify the something, but her gaze fastened itself on the
+face before her.
+
+Meynell meanwhile answered Hester's tirade.
+
+"I'm quite ready to talk this over with you, Hester, on our way home. But
+don't you see that you are making Miss Elsmere uncomfortable?"
+
+"Oh, no, I'm not," said Hester coolly. "You've been talking to her of
+all 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 out
+more--you'd be so pretty! Let me do it for you. And you shouldn't wear
+that hat--no, you really shouldn't. It's a brute! I could trim you
+another 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, and
+it was evident that her temper was passing away.
+
+"I don't agree with you at all about my hat," said Mary with spirit. "I
+trimmed 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 what
+you like. I wonder what you _have_ been talking to her about? I shall
+make 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 explained
+again that Mr. Meynell and she were on the way to the Forkéd Pond
+cottage, 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 no
+good your saying she will. I saw her in the village yesterday. I'm not
+her sort. Let me go home by myself."
+
+Mary half laughed, half coaxed her into coming with them. But she went
+very unwillingly; fell completely silent, and seemed to be in a dream all
+the way to the cottage. Meynell took no notice of her; though once or
+twice she stole a furtive look toward him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The tiny house in which Catharine Elsmere and her daughter had settled
+themselves for the summer stood on a narrow isthmus of land belonging to
+the Maudeley estate, between the Sandford trout-stream and a large rushy
+pond of two or three acres. It was a very lonely and a very beautiful
+place, though the neighbourhood generally pronounced it damp and
+rheumatic. The cottage, sheltered under a grove of firs, looked straight
+out on the water, and over a bed of water-lilies. All round was a summer
+murmur of woods, the call of waterfowl, and the hum of bees; for, at the
+edges of the water, flowers and grasses pushed thickly out into the
+sunlight from the shadow of the woods.
+
+By the waterside, with a book on her knee, sat a lady who rose as they
+came in sight.
+
+Meynell approached her, hat in hand, his strong irregular face, which had
+always in it a touch of _naiveté_, of the child, expressing both timidity
+and pleasure. The memory of her husband was enshrined deep in the minds
+of all religious liberals; and it was known to many that while the
+husband and wife had differed widely in opinion, and the wife had
+suffered profoundly from the husband's action, yet the love between them
+had 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, very
+lightly touched with gray and arranged with the utmost simplicity, framed
+a face in which the passage of years had emphasized and sharpened all
+the main features, replacing also the delicate smoothness of youth by a
+subtle network of small lines and shadows, which had turned the original
+whiteness of the skin into a brownish ivory, full of charm. The eyes
+looked steadily out from their deep hollows; the mouth, austere and
+finely cut, the characteristic hands, and the unconscious dignity of
+movement--these personal traits made of Elsmere's wife, even in late
+middle age, a striking and impressive figure.
+
+Yet Meynell realized at once, as she just touched his offered hand, that
+the sympathy and the homage he would so gladly have brought her would be
+unwelcome; and that it was a trial to her to see him.
+
+He sat down beside her, while Mary and Hester--who, on her introduction
+to 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--on
+anything and everything that was not Upcote Minor, its parish, or its
+church. Mrs. Elsmere's gentle courtesy never failed; yet behind it he was
+conscious of a steely withdrawal of her real self from any contact with
+his. 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 the
+wild flowers and birds of the Chase; he did his best; but never once
+was 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 of
+such a personality once formed were probably irrevocable. Would she
+discourage any acquaintance with her daughter? It startled him to feel
+how much the unspoken question hurt.
+
+Meanwhile the eyes of his hostess pursued the two girls, and she
+presently called to them, greeting their reappearance with an evident
+change and relaxation of manner. She made Hester sit near her, and it was
+not long before the child, throwing off her momentary awe, was chattering
+fast and freely, yet, as Mary perceived, with a tact, conscious or
+unconscious, that kept the chatter within bounds.
+
+Mrs. Elsmere watched the girl's beauty with evident delight, and when
+Meynell rose to go, and Hester with him, she timidly drew the radiant
+creature 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 some
+constraint:
+
+"You walked with him from Maudeley?"
+
+"Mr. Meynell? Yes, I found him there at tea. He was very anxious to pay
+his 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. Then
+she slipped her hand into her mother's.
+
+"You didn't mind, dearest? Aunt Rose likes him very much, and--and I
+wanted him to know you!" She smiled into her mother's eyes. "But we
+needn'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, rather
+stiffly. "But there is no need we should see him, is there?"
+
+"No," said Mary; her cheek dropped against her mother's knee, her eyes on
+the water. "No--not that I know of." After a moment she added with
+apparent 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 out
+of 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 service
+last Sunday. Your father would never--never--have done such a thing!"
+
+The repressed passion with which the last words were spoken startled
+Mary. She made no reply, but her face, now once more turned toward the
+sunlit pond, had visibly saddened. Inwardly she found herself asking--"If
+father had lived?--if father were here now?"
+
+Her reverie was broken by her mother's voice--softened--breathing
+a 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's
+words, were in her mind--little traits too and incidents of his
+parochial life that she had come across in the village. A man might
+preach 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 them
+Richard Meynell held, was not to be done by any mere pretender, any
+spiritual charlatan. How well his voice pleased her!--his tenderness to
+children--his impatience--his laugh.
+
+The thoughts, too, he had expressed to her on their walk ran kindling
+through her mind. There were in her many half-recognized thirsts and
+desires of the spirit that seemed to have become suddenly strong and
+urgent under the spur of his companionship.
+
+She sat dreaming; then her mother called her to the evening meal, and she
+went in. They passed the evening together, in the free and tender
+intimacy which was their habitual relation. But in the mind of each there
+were 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--by
+Hester's guardian. Disobedience to her mother's wishes; disloyalty toward
+those who loved her, including himself; deceit, open and unabashed, if
+the paradox may be allowed--all these had to be brought home to her. He
+talked, now tenderly, now severely, dreading to hurt her, yet hoping to
+make his blows smart enough to be remembered. She was not to make friends
+with Sir Philip Meryon. She was not to see him or walk with him. He was
+not a fit person for her to know; and she must trust her elders in the
+matter.
+
+"You are not going to make us all anxious and miserable, dear Hester!" he
+said 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 to
+trust 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 be
+far better if you took yourself in hand."
+
+"Why did you stop my being engaged to Stephen?" she cried, raising her
+head 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, and
+if 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. "I
+don't care about him now. But I should have cared about him if I had been
+engaged 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 to
+North Leigh, Lady Fox-Wilton's house. As she perceived it Hester suddenly
+took to flight, and her light form was soon lost to view in the summer
+dusk.
+
+The Rector did not attempt to pursue her. He turned back toward the
+Rectory, perturbed and self-questioning. But it was not possible, after
+all, to set a tragic value on the love affair of a young lady who, within
+a week of its breaking off, had already consoled herself with another
+swain. Anything less indicative of a broken heart than Hester's behaviour
+during that week the Rector could not imagine. Personally he believed
+that she spoke the simple truth when she said she no longer cared for
+Stephen. 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 take
+him half the night. But they must lie there a bit longer. At Miss
+Puttenham's gate he paused, hesitated a moment, then went straight into
+the twilight garden, where he imagined that he should find its mistress.
+
+He found her, in a far corner, among close-growing trees and with her
+usual occupations, her books and her embroidery, beside her. But she was
+neither reading nor sewing. She sprang up to greet him, and for an hour
+of summer twilight they held a rapid, low-voiced conversation.
+
+When he pressed her hand at parting they looked at each other, still
+overshadowed by the doubt and perplexity which had marked the opening of
+their 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, and
+as for the escapade to-day--"
+
+The woman before him shook her head.
+
+"She means to marry at the earliest possible moment--simply to escape
+from Edith--and that house. We sha'n't delay it long. And who knows what
+may happen if we thwart her too much?"
+
+"We _must_ delay it a year or two, if we possibly can--for her sake--and
+for yours," said Meynell firmly. "Good night, my dear friend. Try and
+sleep--put the anxiety away. When the moment comes--and of course I admit
+it must come--you will reap the harvest of the love you have sown. She
+does love you!--I am certain of that."
+
+He heard a low sound--was it a sobbing breath?--as Alice Puttenham
+disappeared in the darkness which had overtaken the garden.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Breakfast at the White House, Upcote Minor, was an affair of somewhat
+minute regulation.
+
+About a fortnight after Mr. Barron's call on the new tenants of Maudeley
+Hall, his deaf daughter Theresa entered the dining-room as usual on the
+stroke of half-past eight. She glanced round her to see that all was in
+order, the breakfast table ready, and the chairs placed for prayers. Then
+she went up to a side-table on which was placed a large Bible and
+prayer-book and a pile of hymn-books. She looked at the lessons and
+psalms for the day and placed markers in the proper places. Then she
+chose a hymn, and laid six open hymn-books one upon another. After which
+she stood for a moment looking at the first verse of the psalm for the
+day: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my
+help." The verse was one of her favourites, and she smiled vaguely, like
+one who recognizes in the distance a familiar musical phrase.
+
+Theresa Barron was nearly thirty. She had a long face with rather high
+cheek-bones, and timid gray eyes. Her complexion was sallow, her figure
+awkward. Her only beauty indeed lay in a certain shy and fleeting charm
+of expression, which very few people noticed. She passed generally for a
+dull and plain woman, ill-dressed, with a stoop that was almost a
+deformity, and a deafness that made her socially useless. But the young
+servants whom she trained, and the few poor people on her father's estate
+to 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 more
+unpopular than he was, indoors and out. The wounds made by his brusque or
+haughty manner to his inferiors were to a certain extent healed by the
+gentleness and the good heart of his daughter. And a kind of glory was
+reflected on him by her unreasoning devotion to him. She suffered under
+his hardness or his self-will, but she adored him all the time; nor was
+her ingenuity ever at a loss for excuses for him. He always treated her
+carelessly, sometimes contemptuously; but he would not have known how to
+get through life without her, and she was aware of it.
+
+On this August morning, having rung the bell for the butler, she placed
+the Bible and prayer-book beside her father's chair, and opening the door
+between the library and the dining-room, she called, "Papa!"
+
+Through the farther door into the hall there appeared a long procession
+of servants, headed by the butler, majestically carrying the tea-urn.
+Something in this daily procession, and its urn-bearer, had once
+sent Stephen Barron, the eldest son--then an Eton boy just home from
+school--into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, which had cost him his
+father's good graces for a week. But the procession had been in no way
+affected, and at this later date Stephen on his visits home took it as
+gravely as anybody else.
+
+The tea-urn, pleasantly hissing, was deposited on the white cloth; the
+servants settled themselves on their chairs, while Theresa distributed
+the open hymn-books amongst them; and when they were all seated, the
+master 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, and
+he read it with an emphasis which the footman opposite to him secretly
+though 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 servants
+remained stolidly silent, the Scotch cook in particular looking straight
+before her with dark-spectacled eyes and a sulky expression. She was
+making up her mind that either she must be excused from prayers in
+future, or Mr. Barron must be content with less cooking for breakfast.
+
+After the hymn, the prayer lasted about ten minutes. Stephen, a fervently
+religious mind, had often fidgeted under the minute and detailed
+petitions of it, which seemed to lay down the Almighty's precise course
+of action toward mankind in general for the ensuing day. But Theresa, who
+was no less spiritual, under other forms, took it all simply and
+devoutly, and would have been uncomfortable if any item in the long
+catalogue had been omitted. When the Amen came, the footman, who never
+knew what to do with his legs during the time of kneeling, sprang up with
+particular alacrity.
+
+As soon as the father and daughter were seated at breakfast--close
+together, for the benefit of Theresa's deafness--Mr. Barron opened the
+post-bag and took out the letters. They arrived half an hour before
+breakfast, but were not accessible to any one till the master of the
+house 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. Her
+father nodded, adding after a minute, as he began upon his egg:
+
+"However, I must have some conversation with Stephen before long. He
+knows that I have not felt able to stay my hand to meet his wishes; and
+perhaps 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 has
+fallen more and more under Meynell's influence of late, and I more than
+suspect that when the time comes he will take sides openly with him. It
+will be a bitter blow to me, but that he doesn't consider. I don't expect
+consideration from him, either as to that--or other things. Has he been
+hanging 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 about
+Stephen, so I waited. But the Rector and Lady Fox-Wilton have quite
+forbidden 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 father
+violently, staring at her.
+
+Theresa nodded.
+
+"A girl of the most headstrong and frivolous character!--a trouble to
+everybody about her. Lady Fox-Wilton has often complained to me that she
+is perfectly unmanageable with her temper and her vanity! The worst
+conceivable wife for a clergyman! Really, Stephen--"
+
+The master of the house pushed his plate away from him in speechless
+disgust.
+
+"And both Lady Fox-Wilton and the Rector have always taken such trouble
+about her--much more than about the other children!" murmured Theresa,
+helplessly.
+
+"What sort of a bringing up do you think Meynell can give anybody?" said
+her father, turning upon her.
+
+Theresa only looked at him silently, with her large mild eyes. She knew
+it was of no use to argue. Besides, on the subject of the Rector she very
+much agreed with her father. Her deafness and her isolation had entirely
+protected her from Meynell's personal influence.
+
+"A man with no religious principles--making a god of his own
+intellect--steeped in pride and unbelief--what can he do to train a girl
+like Hester? What can he do to train himself?" thundered Barron, bringing
+his 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 thrown
+over the Christian faith, may fall into sin at any moment. His unbelief
+is the result of sin. He can neither help himself--nor other people--and
+you need never be surprised to find that his supposed goodness is a mere
+sham 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 his
+letters, and presently Theresa saw his brow darken afresh over one of
+them.
+
+"Anything wrong, father?"
+
+"There's always something wrong on this estate. Crawley [Crawley was the
+head keeper] has caught those boys of John Broad again trespassing and
+stealing wood in the west plantation! Perfectly abominable! It's the
+second or third time. I shall give Broad notice at once, and we must put
+somebody 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 boys
+have no mother--and John works very hard."
+
+"Let him find another cottage all the same," said Barron briefly. "I
+shall go round, if I do get back from Markborough, and have a talk with
+him this evening."
+
+There was silence for a little. Theresa was evidently sad. "Perhaps Lady
+Fox-Wilton would find him something," she said anxiously at last. "His
+mother was her maid long ago. First she was their schoolroom maid--then
+she went back to them, when her husband died and John married, and was a
+kind of maid housekeeper. Nobody knew why Lady Fox-Wilton kept her so
+long. They tell you in the village she had a shocking temper, and wasn't
+at all a good servant. Afterward I believe she went to America and I
+think she died. But she was with them a long while. I daresay they'd do
+something for John."
+
+Barron made no reply. He had not been listening, and was already deep in
+other correspondence.
+
+One letter still remained unopened. Theresa knew very well that it was
+from her brother Maurice, in London. And presently she pushed it toward
+Barron.
+
+"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 he
+read it.
+
+"Not a bad report. He seems to like the work, and says they treat him
+kindly. He would like to come down for the Sunday--but he wants some
+money."
+
+"He oughtn't to!" cried Theresa, flushing. "You gave him plenty."
+
+"He makes out an account," said her father, glancing at the letter; "I
+shall send him a small cheque. I must say, Theresa, you are always rather
+inclined 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 when
+breakfast was over and her father had left the room, Theresa remained
+sitting idly by the table, her eyes fixed on the envelope of Maurice's
+letter, which had fallen to the floor. Maurice's behaviour was
+simply disgraceful! He had lost employment after employment by lazy
+self-indulgence, trusting always to his father's boundless affection for
+him, and abusing it time after time. Theresa was vaguely certain that he
+was besmirched by all sorts of dreadful things--drinking, and betting--if
+not worse. Her woman's instinct told her much more than his father had
+ever discovered about him. Though at the same time she had the good sense
+to remind herself that her own small knowledge of the world might lead
+her to exaggerate Maurice's misdoings. And for herself and Stephen, no
+less than for her father, Maurice was still the darling and Benjamin of
+the family, commended to them by a precious mother whose death had left
+the whole moral structure of their common life insecure.
+
+She was still absorbed in uneasy thoughts about her brother, when the
+library 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 the
+heading--"Extraordinary meeting at Markborough. Proceedings against the
+Rector of Upcote. Other clergy and congregations rally to his support."
+
+She read the account with stupefaction. It described a meeting summoned
+by the "Reformers' Club" of Markborough to consider the announcement that
+a Commission of Inquiry had been issued by the Bishop of Markborough in
+the case of the Rector of Upcote Minor, and that legal proceedings
+against him for heretical teaching and unauthorized services would be
+immediately begun by certain promoters, as soon as the Bishop's formal
+consent had been given.
+
+The meeting, it seemed, had been so crowded and tumultuous that
+adjournment had been necessary from the rooms of the Reformers' Club to
+the Town Hall. And there, in spite of a strong orthodox opposition, a
+resolution in support of the Rector of Upcote had been passed, amid
+scenes of astonishing enthusiasm. Three or four well-known local clergy
+had made the most outspoken speeches, declaring that there must be room
+made within the church for the liberal wing, as well as for the Ritualist
+wing; that both had a right to the shelter of the common and ancestral
+fold; and that the time had come when the two forms of Christianity now
+prevailing in Christendom should be given full and equal rights within
+the Church of the nation.
+
+Meynell himself had spoken, urging on the meeting the profound
+responsibility resting on the Reformers--the need for gentleness no less
+than for courage; bidding them remember the sacredness of the ground they
+were treading, the tenacity and depth of the roots they might be thought
+to be disturbing.
+
+"Yet at the same time we must _fight!_--and we must fight with all our
+strength. For over whole classes of this nation, Christianity is either
+dying or dead; and it is only we--and the ideas we represent--that can
+save it."
+
+The speech had been received with deep emotion rather than applause; and
+the meeting had there and then proceeded to the formation of a
+"Reformers' League" to extend throughout the diocese. "It is already
+rumoured," said the _Post_, "that at least sixteen or eighteen beneficed
+clergy, with their congregations, have either joined, or are about to
+join, the Reformers. The next move now lies with the Bishop, and with the
+orthodox majority of the diocese. If we are not mistaken, Mr. Meynell and
+his companions in heresy will very soon find out that the Church has
+still power enough to put down such scandalous rebellions against her
+power and authority as that of the Rector of Upcote, and to purge her
+borders of disloyal and revolutionary priests." Theresa looked up. Her
+face had grown pale. "How _terrible_, father! Did you know they were to
+hold the meeting?"
+
+"I heard something about a debate at this precious club. What does that
+matter? Let them blaspheme in private as they please, it hurts nobody but
+themselves. But a public meeting at the Bishop's very door--and eighteen
+of 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. "If
+there are dry bones on our side, this will put life into them. Those
+fellows have given themselves into our hands!"
+
+He paused in his walk, falling into a profound reverie in which he lost
+all sense of his daughter's presence. She dared not rouse him; and indeed
+the magnitude of the scandal and distress left her speechless. She could
+only think of the Bishop--their frail, saintly Bishop whom every one
+loved. 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 a
+letter from his pocket.
+
+"That is for Maurice. Put in anything you like, but don't miss the
+morning post."
+
+"Do you see the Bishop this morning, father?"
+
+"No--this afternoon. But there will be plenty to do this morning." He
+named two or three heads of the church party in Markborough on whom he
+must call. He must also see his solicitor, and find out whether the
+counsel whom the promoters of the writ against Meynell desired to secure
+had been already retained.
+
+He kissed his daughter absently and departed, settling all his home
+business before he left the house in his usual peremptory manner, leaving
+behind him indeed in the minds of his butler and head gardener, who had
+business with him, a number of small but smarting wraths, which would
+ultimately have to be smoothed away by Theresa.
+
+But when Theresa explored the open envelope he had given her for her
+brother, she found in it a cheque for Ł50, and a letter which seemed to
+Maurice's sister--unselfish and tender as she was--deplorably lacking in
+the scolding it ought to have contained. If only her father had ever
+shown the same affection for Stephen!
+
+Meanwhile as Barron journeyed to Markborough, under the shadow of the
+great Cathedral, quite another voice than his was in possession of the
+episcopal ear. Precisely at eleven o'clock Richard Meynell appeared on
+the doorstep of the Palace, and was at once admitted to the Bishop's
+study.
+
+As he entered the large book-lined room his name was announced in a tone
+which did not catch the Bishop's attention, and Meynell, as he
+hesitatingly advanced, became the spectator of a scene not intended for
+his eyes. On the Bishop's knee sat a little girl of seven or eight. She
+was crying bitterly, and the Bishop had his arms round her and was
+comforting her.
+
+[Illustration: "Meynell, as he hesitatingly advanced, became the
+spectator of a scene not intended for his eyes"]
+
+"There _was_ bogies, grandfather!--there _was!_--and Nannie said I told
+lies--and I didn't tell lies."
+
+"Darling, there aren't bogies anywhere--but I'm sure you didn't tell
+lies. What did you think they were like?"
+
+"Grandfather, they was all black--and they jumped--and wiggled--and
+spitted--o-o-oh!"
+
+And the child went off in another wail, at which moment the Bishop
+perceived 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 his
+little granddaughter that the "bogie" had really been "cook's black cat,"
+generally condemned to the kitchen and blackbeetles, but occasionally let
+loose to roam the upper floors in search of nobler game. The child dried
+her eyes, and listened, gravely weighing his remarks. Her face gradually
+cleared, and when at the end he said slyly, "And even if there were
+bogies, little girls shouldn't throw hairbrushes at their Nannies!" she
+nodded a judicial head, adding plaintively:
+
+"But then Nannies mustn't talk _all_ the time, grandfather! Little girls
+must 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 distance
+caught 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 it
+nicely."
+
+Barbara threw her arm round his neck and hugged him passionately. Then he
+set her down, and she ran happily away, through a door at the farther end
+of the room.
+
+Meynell advanced, and the Bishop came to meet him. Over both faces, as
+they approached each other, there dropped a sudden shadow--a tremor as of
+men who knew themselves on the brink of a tragical collision--decisive
+of many things. And yet they smiled, the presence of the child still
+enwrapping them.
+
+"Excuse these domesticities," said the Bishop, "but there was such woe
+and 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, and
+sat down himself.
+
+Francis Craye, Bishop of Markborough, was physically a person of great
+charm. He was small--not more than five foot seven; but so slenderly and
+perfectly made, so graceful and erect in bearing, that his height, or
+lack of it, never detracted in the smallest degree from his dignity, or
+from the reverence inspired by the innocence and unworldliness of his
+character. A broad brow, overshadowing and overweighting the face,
+combined, with extreme delicacy of feature, a touch of emaciation, and a
+pure rose in the alabaster of the cheeks, to produce the aspect of a most
+human ghost--a ghost which had just tasted the black blood, and recovered
+for an hour all the vivacity of life. The mouth, thin-lipped and mobile
+to excess, was as apt for laughter as for tenderness; the blue eyes were
+frankness and eagerness itself. And when the glance of the spectator
+pursued the Bishop downward, it was to find that his legs, in the
+episcopal gaiters, were no less ethereal than his face; while his silky
+white hair added the last touch of refinement to a personality of spirit
+and fire.
+
+Meynell was the first to speak.
+
+"My lord! let me begin this conversation by once more thanking you--from
+my heart--for all the personal kindness that you have shown me in the
+last 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 all
+that--after the letters I have written you this week--after the meeting
+of yesterday--you should have sent me that telegram last night, saying
+that you wished to see me to-day. That was like you--that touched me
+indeed!" He spoke with visible emotion.
+
+The Bishop looked up.
+
+"There can be no question, Meynell, of any personal enmity between
+yourself and me," he said gravely. "I shall act in the matter entirely as
+the responsibilities of my office dictate--that you know. But I have owed
+you much in the past--much help--much affection. This diocese owes you
+much. I felt I must make one last appeal to you--terrible as the
+situation has grown. You could not have foreseen that meeting of
+yesterday!" 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 many
+years."
+
+There was no answer for a moment. The Bishop sat with clasped hands, his
+legs stretched out before him, his white head bent. At last, without
+moving, he said:
+
+"There are grave times coming on this diocese, Meynell--there are grave
+times coming on the Church!"
+
+"Does any living church escape them?" said Meynell, watching him--with a
+heavy 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 męlée, Strife and Confusion and
+Fate--"red with the blood of men." What can you--and those who were at
+that meeting yesterday--hope to gain by these proceedings? If you could
+succeed, you would break up the Church, the strongest weapon that exists
+in this country against sin and selfishness--and who would be the
+better?"
+
+"Believe me--we sha'n't break it up."
+
+"Certainly you will! Do you imagine that men who are the spiritual sons
+and heirs of Pusey and Liddon are going to sit down quietly in the same
+church with you and the eighteen who started this League yesterday? They
+would sooner die."
+
+Meynell bore the onslaught quietly.
+
+"It depends upon our strength," he said slowly, "and the strength we
+develop, as the fight goes on."
+
+"Not at all!--a monstrous delusion!" The Bishop raised an indignant
+brow. "If you overwhelmed us--if you got the State on your side, as in
+France at the Revolution--you would still have done nothing toward your
+end--nothing whatever! We refuse--we shall always refuse--to be unequally
+yoked with those who deny the fundamental truths of the Faith!"
+
+"My lord, you are so yoked at the present moment," said Meynell
+firmly--the colour had flashed back into his cheeks--"it is the
+foundation of our case that half the educated men and women we gather
+into our churches to-day are--in our belief--Modernists already. Question
+them!--they are with us--not with you. That is to say, they have tacitly
+shaken off the old forms--the Creeds and formularies that bind the
+visible, the legal, church. They do not even think much about them.
+Forgive me if I speak plainly! They are not grieving about the old. Their
+soul--those of them, I mean that have the gift of religion--is
+travailing--dumbly travailing--with the new. Slowly, irresistibly, they
+are evolving for themselves new forms, new creeds, whether they know it
+or not. You--the traditional party--you, the bishops and the orthodox
+majority--can help them, or hinder them. If you deny them organized
+expression and outlet, you prolong the dull friction between them and the
+current Christianity. You waste where you might gather--you quench where
+you might kindle. But there they are--in the same church with you--and
+you 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 his
+own master let each man stand or fall. But you ask us--_us_, the
+appointed guardians of the Faith--the _ecclesia docens_--the historic
+episcopate--to deny and betray the Faith! You ask us to assent formally
+to the effacing of all difference between Faith and Unfaith--you bid us
+tell the world publicly that belief matters nothing--that a man may deny
+all the Divine Facts of Redemption, and still be as good a Christian as
+any one else. History alone might tell you--and I am speaking for the
+moment as a student to a student--that the thing is inconceivable!"
+
+"Unless--_solvitur vivendo_!" said Meynell in a low voice. "What great
+change in the religious life of men has not seemed inconceivable--till it
+happened? Think of the great change that brought this English Church into
+being! Within a couple of generations men had to learn to be baptized,
+and married, and buried, with rites unknown to their fathers--to stand
+alone and cut off from the great whole of Christendom--to which they
+had once belonged--to see the Mass, the cult of Our Lady and the Saints,
+disappear from their lives. What change that any Modernist proposes could
+equal that? But England lived through it!--England emerged!--she
+recovered her equilibrium. Looking back upon it all now, we see--you and
+I agree there--that it was worth while--that the energizing, revealing
+power behind the world was in the confusion and the dislocation; and that
+England gained more than she lost when she made for herself an English
+and a national Church in these islands, out of the shattered débris of
+the Roman System."
+
+He bent forward, and looked intently into the Bishop's face. "What if
+another hour of travail be upon us? And is any birth possible without
+pain?"
+
+"Don't let us argue the Reformation!" said the Bishop, with a new
+sharpness of note. "We should be here all night. But let me at least
+point out to you that the Church kept her Creeds!--the Succession!--the
+four great Councils!--the unbroken unity of essential dogma. But you"--he
+turned with renewed passion on his companion--"what have you done with
+the Creeds? Every word in them steeped in the heart's blood of
+generations!--and you put them aside as a kind of theological
+bric-ŕ-brac that concerns us no more. Meynell!--you have no conception of
+the forces that this movement of yours, if you persist in it, will
+unchain against you! You are like children playing with the lightning!"
+
+Denunciation and warning sat with a curious majesty on the little Bishop
+as he launched these words. It was with a visible effort that Meynell
+braced 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 that
+makes the novelty of the situation. Till now there has never been
+equality enough for war. The heretic has been an excrescence to be cut
+away. Now you will have to make some terms with him! For the ideas behind
+him have invaded your inmost life. They are all about you and around
+you--and when you go out to fight him, you will discover that you are
+half on his side!"
+
+"If that means," said the Bishop impatiently, "that the Church is
+accessible to new ideas--that she is now, as she has always been, a
+learned Church--the Church of Westcott and Lightfoot, of a host of
+younger scholars who are as well acquainted with the ideas and
+contentions of Modernism--as you call it--as any Modernist in Europe--and
+are still the faithful servants and guardians of Christian dogma--why,
+then, you say what is true! We perfectly understand your positions--and
+we reject them."
+
+Through Meynell's expression there passed a gleam--slight and gentle--of
+something like triumph.
+
+"Forgive me!--but I think you have given me my point. Let me recall to
+you the French sayings--'Comprendre, c'est pardonner--Comprendre, c'est
+aimer.' 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--it
+is for that very reason that we regard the field as half won, before the
+battle is even joined."
+
+The Bishop gazed upon him with a thin, dropping lip--an expression of
+suffering in the clear blue eyes.
+
+"That Christians"--he said under his breath--"should divide the forces of
+Christ--with the sin and misery of this world devouring and defiling our
+brethren day by day!"
+
+"What if it be not 'dividing'--but doubling--the forces of Christ!" said
+Meynell, with pale resolution. "All that we ask is the Church should
+recognize existing facts--that organization should shape itself to
+reality. In our eyes, Christendom is divided to-day--or is rapidly
+dividing itself--into two wholly new camps. The division between Catholic
+and Protestant is no longer the supreme division; for the force that is
+rising affects both Protestant and Catholic equally. Each of the new
+divisions has a philosophy and a criticism of its own; each of them has
+an immense hold on human life, though Modernism is only now slowly
+realizing and putting out its power. Two camps!--two systems of
+thought!--both of them _Christian_ thought. Yet one of them, one only,
+_is in possession_ of the churches, the forms, the institutions; the
+other is everywhere knocking at the gates. 'Give us our portion!'--we
+say--'in Christ's name.' But _only our portion!_ We do not dream of
+dispossessing the old--it is the last thing, even, that we desire. But
+for the sake of souls now wandering and desolate, we ask to live side by
+side with the old--in brotherly peace, in equal right--sharing what the
+past has bequeathed! Yes, even the loaves and fishes!--they ought to be
+justly divided out like the rest. But, above all, the powers, the
+opportunities, the trials, the labours of the Christian Church!"
+
+"In other words, so far as the English Church is concerned, you propose
+to reduce us within our own borders to a peddling confusion of sects,
+held together by the mere physical link of our buildings and our
+endowments!" said the Bishop, as he straightened himself in his chair.
+
+He spoke with a stern and contemptuous force which transformed the small
+body and sensitive face. In the old room, the library of the Palace, with
+its rows of calf-bound folios, and its vaulted fifteenth century roof, he
+sat as the embodiment of ancient, inherited things, his gentleness lost
+in that collective, that corporate, pride which has been at once the
+noblest 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?--is
+all well with the Church? How often have I found you here--forgive
+me!--grieving for the loss of souls--the decline of faith--the empty
+churches--the dwindling communicants--the spread of secularist
+literature--the hostility of the workmen! And yet what devotion, what
+zeal, there is in this diocese, beginning with our Bishop. Have we not
+often asked ourselves what such facts could possibly mean--why God seemed
+to have forsaken us?"
+
+"They mean luxury and selfishness--the loss of discipline at home and
+abroad," said the Bishop, with bitter emphasis. "It is hard indeed to
+turn the denial of Christ into an argument against His Gospel!"
+
+Meynell was silent. His heart was burning within him with a passionate
+sense at once of the vast need and hungry unrest so sharply dismissed by
+the Bishop, and of the efficacy of that "new teaching" for which he
+stood. But he ceased to try and convey it by argument. After a few
+moments he began in his ordinary voice to report various developments of
+the Movement in the diocese of which he believed the Bishop to be still
+ignorant.
+
+"We wish to conceal nothing from you," he said at last with emotion; "and
+consistently with the trial of strength that must come, we desire to
+lighten the burden on our Bishop as much as we possibly can. This will be
+a solemn testing of great issues--we on our side are determined to do
+nothing 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 promises
+of your ordination."
+
+"I was a boy then"--said Meynell slowly--"I am a man now. I took those
+vows sincerely, in absolute good faith; and all the changes in me have
+come about, as it seems to me, by the inbreathing of a spirit not my
+own--partly from new knowledge--partly in trying to help my people to
+live--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 certain
+rules and conditions. Now that I break them, must I not resign the
+position dependent on them? Clearly, if it were a question of any
+ordinary society. But the Christian Church is not an ordinary society! It
+is the sum of Christian life!"
+
+The Bishop raised a hand of protest, but without speaking. Meynell
+resumed:
+
+"And that Life makes the Church--moulds it afresh, from age to age. There
+are times--we hold--when the Church very nearly expresses the Life; there
+are others when there are great discordances between the Life, and its
+expression in the Church. We believe that there are such discordances now
+because--once more--of a New Learning. And we believe that to withdraw
+from the struggle to make the Church more fully represent the Life would
+be 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 the
+present--we speak out! We are inconsistent indeed with a past pledge; but
+are we any more inconsistent than the High Churchman who repudiates the
+'blasphemous fables' of the Mass when he signs the Articles, and then
+encourages adoration of the Reserved Sacrament in his church?"
+
+The Bishop made no immediate reply. He was at that moment involved in a
+struggle with an incumbent in Markborough itself who under the very
+shadow of the Cathedral had been celebrating the Assumption of the
+Blessed Virgin in flat disobedience to his diocesan. His mind wandered
+for a minute or two to this case. Then, rousing himself, he said
+abruptly, with a keen look at Meynell:
+
+"I know of course that, in your case, there can be no question of
+clinging to the money of the Church."
+
+Meynell flushed.
+
+"I had not meant to speak of it--but your lordship knows that all I
+receive from my living is given back to church purposes. I support myself
+by what I write. There are others of us who risk much more than I--who
+risk indeed their all!"
+
+"You have done a noble work for your people, Meynell." The Bishop's voice
+was 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 the
+dissenters. Mr. Barron, as you know, is the chief complainant, and there
+are 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 of
+repeating the service of last Sunday?"
+
+"Not at present. But the League will go to work at once on a revised
+service-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--breaches
+of 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 my
+request?"
+
+"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 at
+once to the Court of Arches preferring charges of heretical teaching and
+unauthorized services against yourself and two other clergy. I shall be
+represented by so-and-so." He named the lawyers.
+
+They stood, exchanging a few technical informations of this kind for a
+few 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 God
+that 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 moved
+to the window and stood looking out. Across the green of the quadrangle
+rose the noble mass of the Cathedral. His lips moved in prayer; but all
+the time it was as though he saw beside the visible structure--its
+ordered beauty, its proud and cherished antiquity--a ruined phantom of
+the great church, roofless and fissured, its sacred places open to the
+winds and rains, its pavements broken and desolate.
+
+The imagination grew upon him, and it was only with a great effort that
+he escaped from it.
+
+"My bogies are as foolish as Barbara's," he said to himself with a smile
+as he went back to the daily toil of his letters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Meynell left the Palace shaken and exhausted. He carried in his mind the
+image of his Bishop, and he walked in bitterness of soul. The quick,
+optimistic imagination which had alone made the action of these last
+weeks possible had for the moment deserted him, and he was paying the
+penalty of his temperament.
+
+He turned into the Cathedral, and knelt there some time, conscious less
+of articulate prayer than of the vague influences of the place; the warm
+gray of its shadows, the relief of its mere space and silence, the beauty
+of the creeping sunlight--gules, or, and purple--on the spreading
+pavements. And vaguely--while the Bishop's grief still, as it were,
+smarted within his own heart--there arose the sense that he was the mere
+instrument of a cause; that personal shrinking and compunction were not
+allowed him; that he was the guardian of nascent rights and claims far
+beyond anything affecting his own life. Some such conviction is essential
+to the religious leader--to the enthusiast indeed of any kind; and it was
+not withheld from Richard Meynell.
+
+When he rose and went out, he saw coming toward him a man he knew
+well--Fenton, the Vicar of a church on the outskirts of Markborough,
+famous for its "high" doctrine and services; a young boyish fellow, curly
+haired, in whom the "gayety" that Catholicism, Anglican or Roman,
+prescribes to her most devout children was as conspicuous as an ascetic
+and labourious life. Meynell loved and admired him. At a small clerical
+meeting the two men had once held an argument that had been long
+remembered--Fenton maintaining hotly the doctrine of an intermediate
+and purgatorical state after death, basing it entirely on a vision of
+Saint Perpetua recorded in the Acta of that Saint. Impossible, said the
+fair-haired, frank-eyed priest--who had been one of the best wicket-keeps
+of his day at Winchester--that so solemn a vision, granted to a martyr,
+at the moment almost of death, could be misleading. Purgatory therefore
+must be accepted and believed, even though it might not be expedient to
+proclaim it publicly from an Anglican pulpit. "Since the evening when I
+first read the Acta of SS. Perpetua and Felicitas," said the speaker,
+with an awed sincerity, "I have never doubted for myself, nor have I
+dared to hide from my penitents what is my own opinion."
+
+In reply, Meynell, instead of any general argument, had gently taken the
+very proof offered him--_i.e.,_ the vision--dissecting it, the time in
+which it arose, and the mind in which it occurred, with a historical
+knowledge and a quick and tender penetration which had presently absorbed
+the little company of listeners, till Fenton said abruptly, with a frown
+of perplexity:
+
+"In that way, one might explain anything--the Transfiguration for
+instance--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 been
+associated not long afterward in a heroic attempt to stop some dangerous
+rioting arising out of a strike in one of the larger collieries.
+
+Meynell watched the young figure of Fenton approaching through the bands
+of light and shadow in the great nave. As it came nearer, some instinct
+made him stand still, as though he became the mere spectator of what was
+about to happen. Fenton lifted his head; his eyes met Meynell's, and,
+without the smallest recognition, his gaze fixed on the pavement, he
+passed on toward the east end of the Cathedral.
+
+Meynell straightened himself for a minute's "recollection," and went his
+way. On the pavement outside the western portal he ran into another
+acquaintance--a Canon of the Cathedral--hurrying home to lunch from a
+morning's work in the Cathedral library. Canon France looked up, saw who
+it was, and Meynell, every nerve strained to its keenest, perceived the
+instant change of expression. But there was no ignoring him, though the
+Canon 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. But
+France--a man of sixty-five, with a large Buddha-like face, and a pair of
+remarkably shrewd and humorous black eyes--looked him quickly over from
+top to toe, and hurried on, throwing a "good-bye" over his shoulder. When
+he and Meynell had last met it had been to talk for a friendly hour over
+Monseigneur Duchesne's last book and its bearing on Ultramontane
+pretensions; 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 any
+secret of my opinions."
+
+All the same, as he walked on, he forced himself to acknowledge to the
+full the radical change in the situation. Acts of war suspend the normal
+order; and no combatant has any right to complain.
+
+Then a moment's weariness seized him of the whole train of thought to
+which his days and nights were now committed, and he turned with
+eagerness to look at the streets of Markborough, full of a market-day
+crowd, and of "the great mundane movement." Farmers and labourers were
+walking up and down; oxen and sheep in the temporary pens of the
+market-place were waiting for purchasers; there was a Socialist lecturer
+in one corner, and a Suffragist lady on a wagon in another. The late
+August sun shone upon the ruddy faces and broad backs of men to whom
+certainly it did not seem to be of great importance whether the
+Athanasian Creed were omitted from the devotions of Christian people or
+no. There was a great deal of chaffering going on; a little courting, and
+some cheating. Meynell recognized some of his parishioners, spoke to a
+farmer 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 the
+pits and come to "hire" himself at Markborough.
+
+It was plain to him, however, after a little, that although he might wish
+to forget himself among the crowd, the crowd was on the contrary rather
+sharply aware of the Rector of Upcote. He perceived as he moved slowly up
+the street that he was in fact a marked man. Looks followed him; and the
+men he knew greeted him with a difference.
+
+A little beyond the market-place he turned down a narrow street leading
+to the mother church of the town--an older foundation even than the
+Cathedral. Knocking at the door in the wall, he was admitted to an old
+rectory house, adjacent to the church, and in its low-ceiled dining-room
+he found six of the already famous "eighteen" assembled, among them the
+two other clergy who with himself had been singled out for the first
+testing prosecution. A joint letter was being drawn up for the press.
+
+Meynell was greeted with rejoicing--a quiet rejoicing, as of men occupied
+with grave matters, that precluded any ebullience of talk. With Meynell's
+appearance, the meeting became more formal, and it was proposed to put
+the 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 in
+days when double-firsts were everything, and in a class-list not much
+more modern than Mr. Gladstone's. He was a gentle, scholarly person,
+silent and timid in ordinary life, and his adhesion to the "eighteen" had
+been an astonishment to friends and foes. But he was not to be inveigled
+into 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 jurgia
+finis!_--let there be an age-limit in all things! Put Meynell in. It is
+he that has brought us all into this business."
+
+So, for some hours or more, Meynell and the six grappled with the letter
+that was to convey the challenge of the revolted congregations to the
+general public through the _Times_. It was not an easy matter, and some
+small jealousies and frictions lifted their heads that had been wholly
+lost 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 to
+lead 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 the
+recent flowing back of intellectual forces into the Church which for
+nearly half a century had abandoned her; Petitôt, Swiss by origin, small,
+black-eyed, irrepressible, with a great popularity among the hosiery
+operatives of whom his parish was mainly composed; Derrick, the
+Socialist, of humble origin and starved education, yet possessed
+Of a natural sway over men, given him by a pair of marvellous blue
+eyes, a character of transparent simplicity, a tragic honesty and the
+bitter-sweet gift of the orator; Chesham, a man who had left the army for
+the Church, had been grappling for ten years with a large parish of
+secularist artisans, and was now preaching Modernism with a Franciscan
+fervour and success; and Rollin, who owned a slashing literary style, was
+a passionate Liberal in all fields, had done excellent work in the
+clearing and cleaning of slums, with much loud and unnecessary talk by
+the way, and wrote occasionally for the _Daily Watchman_. Chesham and
+Darwen were Meynell's co-defendants in the suit brought by the Bishop.
+
+Rollin alone seemed out of place in this gathering of men, drawing tense
+breath under a new and almost unbearable responsibility. He was so in
+love with the sensational, notoriety side of the business, so eager to
+pull wires, and square editors, so frankly exultant in the "big row"
+coming on, that Meynell, with the Bishop's face still in his mind, could
+presently hardly endure him. He felt as Renan toward Gavroche. Was it
+worth while to go through so much that Rollin might cut a figure, and
+talk at large about "modern thought?"
+
+However Darwen and Waller, Derrick also, were just as determined as
+Meynell to keep down the frothy self-advertising element in the campaign
+to the minimum that human nature seems unable to do without. So that
+Rollin found himself gradually brought into line, being not a bad fellow,
+but only a common one; and he abandoned with much inward chagrin the
+project of a flaming "interview" for the _Daily Watchman_ on the
+following day.
+
+And indeed, as this handful of men settled down to the consideration of
+the agenda for a large conference to be held in Markborough the following
+week, there might have been discerned in six of them, at least, a temper
+that glorified both them and their enterprise; a temper of seriousness,
+courage, unalterable conviction, with such delicacy of feeling as befits
+men whose own brethren and familiar companions have become their foes.
+They were all pastors in the true sense, and every man of them knew that
+in a few months he would probably have lost his benefice and his
+prospects. Only Treherne was married, and only he and Rollin had private
+means.
+
+Meynell was clearly their leader. Where the hopefulness of the others was
+intermittent his was constant; his knowledge of the English situation
+generally, as well as of the lie of forces in the Markborough district,
+was greater than theirs; and his ability as a writer made him their
+natural 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 had
+so heightened in them the sense of mission, so cheered them with the
+vision of a wide response from the mind of England, that all lesser
+thoughts were sunk, and they parted in quietness and courage.
+
+Meynell left the outskirts of Markborough by the Maudeley road, meaning
+to walk to Upcote by Forkéd Pond and Maudeley Park.
+
+It was now nearly a fortnight since he had seen Mary Elsmere, and for the
+first time, almost, in these days of storm and stress could the mind make
+room for some sore brooding on the fact. He had dined at Maudeley, making
+time with infinite difficulty; Mrs. Elsmere and her daughter were not
+there. He had asked Mrs. Flaxman to tea at the Rectory, and had suggested
+that she should bring her sister and her niece. Mr. and Mrs. Flaxman
+appeared--without companions. Once or twice he had caught sight of Mary
+Elsmere's figure in the distance of Miss Puttenham's garden. Yet he had
+not ventured to intrude upon the two friends. It had seemed to him by
+then it must be her will to avoid him, and he respected it.
+
+As to other misgivings and anxieties, they were many. As Meynell entered
+the Maudeley lane, with the woods of Sandford Abbey on his left, and the
+little trout-stream flashing and looping through the water meadows on his
+right, his mind was often occupied by a conversation between himself and
+Stephen Barron which had taken place the night before. Meynell could not
+but think of it remorsefully.
+
+"And I can explain nothing--to make it easier for the poor old
+fellow--nothing! He thinks if we had allowed the engagement, it would
+all have come right--he would have got a hold upon her, and been able to
+shape 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 indeed
+she has settled her destiny for herself by then, without any reference
+to us. And Stephen shall know--what there is to know!"
+
+As to Hester herself, she seemed to have been keeping the Fox-Wilton
+household in perpetual fear. She went about in her mocking, mysterious
+way, denying that she knew anything about Sir Philip Meryon, or had any
+dealings with him. Yet it was shrewdly suspected that letters had passed
+between them, and Hester's proceedings were so quick-silverish and
+incalculable that it was impossible to keep a constant watch upon her. In
+the wilderness of Maudeley Park, which lay directly between the two
+houses, they might quite well have met--they probably had met. Meynell
+noticed and rebuked in himself a kind of settled pessimism as to Hester's
+conduct and future. "Do what you will," it seemed to say--"do all you
+can--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 private
+trust much older than it, and no less sacred. In the midst of the turmoil
+of these weeks he had been corresponding on Lady Fox-Wilton's behalf with
+a lady in Paris to whom a girl of Hester's age and kind might be safely
+committed for the perfecting of her French and music. It had been
+necessary to warn the lady that in the case of such a pensionnaire as
+Hester the male sex might give trouble; and Hester had not yet signified
+her gracious consent to go.
+
+But she would go--she must go--and either he or Alice Puttenham would
+take her over and install her. Good heavens, if one had only Edith
+Fox-Wilton to depend on in these troubles!
+
+As for Philip Meryon, he was, of course, now and always, a man of vicious
+habits and no scruples. He seemed to be staying at Sandford with the
+usual crew of flashy, disreputable people, and to allow Hester to run any
+risks with regard to him would be simply criminal. Yet with so
+inefficient a watch-dog as Lady Fox-Wilton, who could guarantee anything?
+Alice, of course, thought of nothing else than Hester, night and day. But
+it was part of the pathos of the situation that she had so little
+influence on the child's thoughts and deeds.
+
+Poor, lonely woman! In Alice's sudden friendship for Mary Elsmere, her
+junior by some twelve years, the Rector, with an infinite pity, read the
+confession of a need that had become at last intolerable. For these
+seventeen years he had never known her make an intimate friend, and to
+see her now with this charming, responsive girl was to realize what the
+long hunger for affection must have been. Yet even now, how impossible to
+satisfy it, as other women could satisfy it! What ghosts and shadows
+about the path of friendship!
+
+"A dim and perilous way," his mind went sounding back along the
+intricacies of Alice Puttenham's story. The old problems arose in
+connection with it--problems now of ethics, now of expediency. And
+interfused with them a sense of dull amazement and yet of intolerable
+repetition--in this difficulty which had risen with regard to Hester. The
+owner of Sandford--_and Hester!_ When he had first seen them together, it
+had seemed a thing so sinister that his mind had refused to take it
+seriously. A sharp word to her, a word of warning to her natural
+guardians--and surely all was mended. Philip never stayed more than three
+weeks in the old house; he would very soon be gone, and Hester's fancy
+would turn to something else.
+
+But that the passing shock should become anything more! There rose before
+Meynell's imagination a vision of the two by the river, not in the actual
+brightness of the August afternoon, but bathed, as it were, in angry
+storm-light; behind them, darkness, covering "old, unhappy, far-off
+things." From that tragical gloom it seemed as though their young figures
+had but just emerged, unnaturally clear; and yet the trailing clouds were
+already threatening the wild beauty of the girl.
+
+He blamed himself for lack of foresight. It should have been utterly
+impossible for those two to meet! Meryon generally appeared at Sandford
+three times a year, for various sporting purposes. Hester might easily
+have been sent away during these descents. But the fact was she had grown
+up so rapidly--yesterday a mischievous child, to-day a woman in her first
+bloom--that they had all been taken by surprise. Besides, who could have
+imagined any communication whatever between the Fox-Wilton household and
+the riotous party at Sandford Abbey?
+
+As to the girl herself, Meynell was always conscious of being engaged in
+some long struggle to save and protect his ward against her will. There
+were circumstances connected with Hester that should have stirred in the
+few 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 watch
+over her upbringing; he had brought her to her first communion, and tried
+hard, and quite in vain, to instil into her the wholesome mysticisms of
+the Christian faith; and the more efforts he made, the more sharply was
+he aware of the hard, egotistical core of the girl's nature, of Hester's
+fatal difference from other girls.
+
+And yet, as he thought of her with sadness and perplexity, there came
+across him the memory of Mrs. Elsmere's sudden movement toward Hester;
+how she had drawn the child to her and kissed her--she, so unearthly
+and so spiritual, whose very aspect showed her the bondswoman of Christ.
+
+The remembrance rebuked him, and he fell into fresh plans about the
+child. She must be sent away at once!--and if there were really any sign
+of entanglement he must himself go to Sandford and beard Philip in his
+den. There was knowledge in his possession that might be used to frighten
+the fellow. He thought of his cousin with loathing and contempt.
+
+But--to do him justice--Meryon knew nothing of those facts that gave such
+an intolerable significance to any contact whatever between his
+besmirched 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 had
+been for years the terror of three lives--was she alive still? Ralph
+Fox-Wilton had originally made it well worth her while to go to the
+States. That was in the days when he was prepared to pay anything. Then
+for years she had received an allowance, which, however, Meynell believed
+had stopped sometime before Sir Ralph's death. Meynell remembered that
+the stopping of it had caused some friction between Ralph and his wife.
+Lady Fox-Wilton had wished it continued. But Ralph had obstinately
+refused to pay any more. Nothing had been heard of her, apparently, for a
+long while. But she had still a son and grand-children living in Upcote
+village.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meynell opened the gate leading into the Forkéd Pond enclosure. The pond
+had been made by the damming of part of the trout stream at the point
+where it entered the Maudeley estate, and the diversion of the rest to a
+new channel. The narrow strip of land between the pond and the new
+channel made a little waterlocked kingdom of its own for the cottage,
+which had been originally a fishing hut, built in an Izaak Walton-ish
+mood by one of the owners of Maudeley. But the public footpath through
+the park ran along the farther side of the pond, and the doings of the
+inhabitants of the cottage, thick though the leafage was, could sometimes
+be observed from it.
+
+Involuntarily Meynell's footsteps lingered as the little thatched
+house became visible, its windows set wide to the sounds and scents of
+the September day. There was conveyed to him a sense of its warm
+loneliness in the summer nights, of the stars glimmering upon it through
+the trees, of the owls crying round it. And within--in one of those upper
+rooms--those soft deep eyes, at rest in sleep?--or looking out, perhaps,
+into the breathing glooms of the wood?--the sweet face propped on the
+slender hand.
+
+He felt certain that the inner life of such a personality as Mary Elsmere
+was rich and passionate. Sometimes, in these lonely hours, did she think
+of the man who had told her so much of himself on that, to him, memorable
+walk? Meynell looked back upon the intimate and autobiographical talk
+into which he had been led, with some wonder and a hot cheek. He had
+confessed himself partly to Elsmere's daughter, on a hint of sympathy, as
+to one entitled to such a confidence, so to speak, by inheritance, should
+she desire it; but still more--he owned it--to a delightful woman. It was
+the first time in Meynell's strenuous life, filled to the brim with
+intellectual and speculative effort on the one hand, and with the care
+of his parish on the other, that he had been conscious of any such
+feeling as now possessed him. In his first manhood it had been impossible
+for him to marry, because he had his brothers to educate. And when they
+were safely out in the world the Rector, absorbed in the curing of sick
+bodies and the saving of sick souls, could not dream of spending the
+money thus set free on a household for himself.
+
+He had had his temptations of the flesh, his gusts of inclination, like
+other 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 of
+sight. The sun was sinking in a golden haze, the first prophecy of
+autumnal mists. Broad lights lay here and there upon the water, to be
+lost again in depths of shadow, wherein woods of dream gave back
+the woods that stooped to them from the shore. Everything was so still he
+could hear the fish rising, the run of a squirrel along a branch, the
+passage of a coot through the water.
+
+The very profoundity of nature's peace suddenly showed him to himself. A
+man engaged in a struggle beyond his power!--committed to one of those
+tasks that rend and fever the human spirit even while they ennoble it! He
+had talked boldly to Stephen and the Bishop of "war"--"inevitable" and
+"necessary war." At the same time there was no one who would suffer from
+war more than he. The mere daily practice of Christianity, as a man's
+life-work, is a daily training in sensitiveness, involves a daily
+refining of the nerves. When a man so trained, so refined, takes up the
+public tasks of leadership and organization, in this noisy, hard-hitting
+world, his nature is set at enmity with itself. Meynell did not yet know
+whether the mystic in him would allow the fighter in him to play his
+part.
+
+If the memory of Fenton's cold, unrecognizing eyes and rigid mouth, as
+they passed each other in the silence of the Cathedral, had power to
+cause so deep a stab of pain, how was he to brace himself in the future
+to what must come?--the alienation of friend after friend, the
+condemnation 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 by
+the mind of faith! "_Thou, Thou art being and breath_!--Thine is this
+truth, which, like a living hand, bridles and commands me. Grind my life
+as corn in Thy mill!--but forsake me not! Nay, Thou wilt not, Thou canst
+not forsake me!"
+
+No hope for a man attempting such an enterprise as Meynell's but in this
+simplicity, this passion of self-surrender. Without it no adventure in
+the spiritual fight has ever touched and fired the heart of man. Meynell
+was sternly and simply aware of it.
+
+But how is this temper, this passion, kindled?
+
+The answer flashed. Everywhere the divine ultimate Power mediates itself
+through the earthly elements and forces, speaks through small, childish
+things, incarnates itself in lover, wife, or friend--flashing its mystic
+fire through the web of human relations. It seemed to Meynell, as he
+stood in the evening stillness by the pond, hidden from sight by the
+light brushwood round him, that, absorbed as he had been from his youth
+in the symbolism and passion of the religious life, as other men are
+absorbed in art or science, he had never really understood one of these
+great words by which he imagined himself to live--Love, or Endurance, or
+Sacrifice, or Joy--because he had never known the most sacred, the most
+intimate, things of human life out of which they grow.
+
+And there uprose in him a sudden yearning--a sudden flame of desire--for
+the revealing love of wife and child. As it thrilled through him, he
+seemed to be looking down into the eyes--so frank, so human--of Mary
+Elsmere.
+
+Then while he watched, lost in feeling, yet instinctively listening for
+any movement in the wood, there was a flicker of white among the trees
+opposite. A girl, book in hand, came down to the water's edge, and paused
+there a little, watching the glow of sunset on the water. Meynell
+retreated farther into the wood; but he was still able to see her.
+Presently she sat down, propping herself against a tree, and began to
+read.
+
+Her presence, the grace of her bending neck, informed the silence of the
+woods with life and charm. Meynell watched her a few moments in a trance
+of pleasure. But memory broke in upon the trance and scattered all his
+pleasure. What reasonable hope of winning the daughter of that quiet,
+indomitable woman, who, at their first meeting, had shown him with such
+icy 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's
+life the same tragic conflict, in new form, which had already rent and
+seared it, was madness. He read his dismissal in her quiet avoidance of
+him 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 same
+kind, on such a mother. Meynell bowed his head, and went slowly away. It
+was as though he left youth and all delightfulness behind him, in the
+deepening dusk of the woods.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+While Meynell was passing through the woods of Forkéd Pond a very
+different scene, vitally connected with the Rector and his fortunes, was
+passing a mile away, in a workman's cottage at Upcote Minor.
+
+Barron had spent an agitated day. After his interview with the Bishop, in
+which he was rather angrily conscious that his devotion and his zeal were
+not rewarded with as much gratitude or as complete a confidence on the
+Bishop's part as he might have claimed, he called on Canon France.
+
+To him he talked long and emphatically on the situation, on the excessive
+caution of the Bishop, who had entirely refused to inhibit any one of the
+eighteen, at present, lest there should be popular commotions; on the
+measures that he and his friends were taking, and on the strong feeling
+that he believed to be rising against the Modernists. It was evident that
+he was discontented with the Bishop, and believed himself the only
+saviour of the situation.
+
+Canon France watched him, sunk deep in his armchair, the plump fingers of
+one hand playing with certain charter rolls of the fourteenth century,
+with their seals attached, which lay in a tray beside him. He had just
+brought them over from the Cathedral Library, and was longing to be at
+work 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 his
+impatience. He prophesied a speedy end to a ridiculous movement; wondered
+what on earth would happen to some of the men, who had nothing but their
+livings, and finally said, with a humorous eye, and no malicious
+intention:
+
+"The Romanists have always an easy way of settling these things. They
+find 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. "Of
+course 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 is
+becoming a great puzzle to mankind."
+
+"Apparent goodness," said Barron hotly.
+
+The Canon smiled again. He wished--and this time more intensely--that
+Barron would go, and let him get to his charters.
+
+And in a few minutes Barron did take his departure. As he walked to the
+inn to find his carriage he pondered the problem of the virtuous
+unbeliever. A certain Bampton lecture by a well-known and learned Bishop
+recurred to him, which most frankly and drastically connected "Unbelief"
+with "Sin." Yet somehow the view was not borne out, as in the interests
+of a sound theology it should have been, by experience.
+
+After all, he reached Upcote in good time before dinner, and remembering
+that he had to inflict a well-deserved lecture on the children who had
+been caught injuring trees and stealing wood in his plantations, he
+dismissed the carriage and made his way, before going home, to the
+cottage, which stood just outside the village, on the way from Maudeley
+to the Rectory and the church.
+
+He knocked peremptorily. But no one came. He knocked again, chafing at
+the 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 going
+away, in the belief that the cottage was empty, when there was a rattling
+sound at the front door. It opened, and an old woman stood in the
+doorway.
+
+"You've made a pretty noise," she said grimly, "but there's no one in but
+me."
+
+"I am Mr. Barron," said her visitor, sharply. "And I want to see John
+Broad. My keepers have been complaining to me about his children's
+behaviour 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. He
+did not allow his tenants to take in lodgers.
+
+And the more he examined her the stranger did her aspect seem. She was
+evidently a woman of seventy or upward, and it struck him that she looked
+haggard and ill. Her grayish-white hair hung untidily about a thin, bony
+face; the eyes, hollow and wavering, infected the spectator with their
+own distress; yet the distress was so angry that it rather repelled than
+appealed. Her dress was quite out of keeping with the labourer's cottage
+in which she stood. It was a shabby blue silk, fashionably cut, and set
+off 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 mother
+alive." But as he spoke some vague recollection of Theresa's talk in the
+morning 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've
+been away this eighteen year, come October."
+
+Barron, as she spoke, was struck with her accent, and recalled her
+mention of "the cars."
+
+"Why, you've been in the States," he said.
+
+"That's it--eighteen year." Then suddenly, pressing her hand to her
+forehead, she said angrily: "I don't know what you mean. What do you come
+bothering me for? I don't know who you are--and I don't know nothing
+about 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, and
+her jewellery, above all her sudden appearance on the scene as the mother
+of a man whom he had always supposed to be alone in the world, with three
+motherless, neglected children, puzzled him.
+
+So as one accustomed to keep a sharp eye on the morals and affairs of his
+cottage tenants, he began to question her about herself. She had thrown
+herself confusedly on a chair, and sat with her head thrown back, and her
+eyes half closed--as though in pain. The replies he got from her were
+short and grudging, but he made out from them that she had married a
+second 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 no
+idea as to his own identity was not surprising, for she had left Upcote
+for the States years before his succession to the White House estate.
+But her memory in all directions was confused, and her strange talk made
+him suspect drugs. She had also, it seemed, the usual grievances of the
+unsound mind, and believed herself to be injured and assailed by persons
+to 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 just
+returned to a scene once familiar and trying, with a clouded brain, to
+recover 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 wild
+astonishment.
+
+"That's her!--that's my Miss Alice!"
+
+Barron, following her gesture, perceived through the half-open door two
+figures standing in the road on the farther side of a bit of village
+green. Meynell, who had just emerged from Maudeley Park upon the
+highroad, had met Alice Puttenham on her way to pay an evening visit to
+the Elsmeres, and had stopped to ask a question about some village
+affairs. Miss Puttenham's face was turned toward John Broad's cottage;
+the Rector had his back to it. They were absorbed in what they were
+talking 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 that
+the level light now flooding the village street shone full upon him. Mrs.
+Sabin tottered back from the door, with another stifled cry, and sank
+into her chair. Her eyes seemed to be starting out of her head. "But--but
+they 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 know
+I'm not. But they give me my money for fifteen year--and then they
+stopped giving it--three year ago. I suppose they thought I'd never be
+back 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 and
+fifty pounds--and that was to be the last, they said. So when Mr. Sabin
+died, I said I'd come over and see for myself. But I'm ill--you see--and
+John's a fool--and I must find some one as 'ull tell me what to do. If
+you're a gentleman living here"--she peered into his face--"perhaps
+you'll tell me? Lady Fox-Wilton's left comfortable, I know. Why shouldn't
+she do what's handsome? Perhaps you'll give me a word of advice, sir? But
+you mustn't tell!--not a word to anybody. Perhaps they'll be for putting
+me 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 had
+grown white.
+
+"If you want my advice you must try and tell me plainly what all this
+means," he said, sternly.
+
+She looked at him--with a mad expression flickering between doubt and
+desire.
+
+"Then you must shut the door, sir," she said at last. Yet as he moved to
+do 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 half
+perplexed, half resentful. Then she turned peremptorily to Barron.
+
+"Shut the door!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Half an hour later Barron emerged into the road, from the cottage. He
+walked like a man bewildered. All that was evil in him rejoiced; all that
+was good sorrowed. He felt that God had arisen, and scattered his
+enemies; he also felt a genuine horror and awe in the presence of
+human frailty.
+
+All night long he lay awake, pondering how to deal with the story which
+had been told him; how to clear up its confusions and implications; to
+find some firm foothold in the mad medley of the woman's talk--some
+reasonable scheme of time and place. Much of what she had told him had
+been frankly incoherent; and to press her had only made confusion worse.
+He was tolerably certain that she was suffering from some obscure brain
+trouble. The effort of talking to him had clearly exhausted her; but he
+had not been able to refrain from making her talk. At the end of the half
+hour he had advised her--in some alarm at her ghastly look--to see a
+doctor. 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 John
+Broad's mother, Mrs. Richard Sabin, who had arrived from America only
+forty-eight hours before, had died suddenly in the night. The bursting
+of an unsuspected aneurism in the brain was, according to the doctor
+called in, the cause of death.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+
+
+
+HESTER
+
+
+"Light as the flying seed-balls is their play
+The 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 Sarah
+Fox-Wilton discontentedly.
+
+"Spend twenty guineas on it, my dear, as Lady Edith did on hers, and
+it'll be all right," said a mocking voice.
+
+Sarah frowned. She went on pinning and adjusting a serge skirt in the
+making, which hung on the dummy before her. "Oh, we all know what _you_
+would like to spend on your dress, Hester!" she said angrily, but
+indistinctly, as her mouth was full of pins.
+
+"Because really nice frocks are not to be had any other way," said Hester
+coolly. "You pay for them--and you get them. But as for supposing you can
+copy Lady Edith's frocks for nothing, why, of course you can't, and you
+don'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't
+eat any more toffy!"--and she flung out a mischievous hand and captured a
+box that was lying on the table, before a girl, who was sitting near it
+with 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, till
+Hester suddenly let it go.
+
+"Take it then--and good luck to you! I wouldn't spoil my teeth and my
+complexion as you do--not for tons of sweets. Hullo!"--the speaker sprang
+up--"the rain's over, and it's quite a decent evening. I shall go out for
+a 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 you
+are not to go out alone."
+
+Hester flushed. "Do you think I can't escape you all--if I want to? Of
+course I can. What geese you are! None of you will ever prevent me from
+doing what I want to do. It really would save such a lot of time and
+trouble if you would get that into your heads."
+
+"Where do you mean to go?" said Sarah stolidly, without taking any notice
+of her remark. "Because if you'll go to the village, I can get some
+binding I want."
+
+"I have no intention whatever of going out for your convenience, thank
+you!" said Hester, laughing angrily. "I am going into the garden, and you
+can come or not as you please." She opened the French window as she spoke
+and stepped out.
+
+"Has mamma heard from that Paris woman yet?" asked Lulu, looking after
+Hester, who was now standing on the lawn playing with a terrier-puppy she
+had lately brought home as a gift from a neighbouring farmer--much to
+Lady Fox-Wilton's annoyance. Hester had an absurd way of making friends
+with 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. She
+was a heavily made girl of twenty, with sleepy eyes and a dull
+complexion. She took little exercise, was inordinately fond of sweet
+things, helped her mother a little in the housekeeping, and was
+intimately acquainted with all the gossip of the village. So was Sarah;
+but her tongue was sharper than Lulu's, and her brain quicker. She was
+therefore the unpopular sister; while for Lulu her acquaintances felt
+rather a contemptuous indulgence. Sarah had had various love affairs,
+which had come to nothing, and was regarded as "disappointed" in the
+village. Lulu was not interested in young men, and had never yet been
+observed to take any trouble to capture one. So long as she was allowed
+sufficient sixpenny novels to read, and enough sweet things to eat, she
+was good-humoured enough, and could do kind things on occasion for her
+friends. Sarah was rarely known to do kind things; but as her woman
+friends were much more afraid of her than of Lulu, she was in general
+treated with much more consideration.
+
+Still it could not be said that Lady Fox-Wilton was to be regarded as
+blessed in either of her two elder daughters. And her sons were quite
+frankly a trouble to her. The eldest, Sarah's junior by a year and a
+half, had just left Oxford suddenly and ignominiously, without a degree,
+and was for the most part loafing at home. The youngest, a boy of
+fifteen, was supposed to be delicate, and had been removed from school by
+his mother on that account. He too was at home, and a tutor who lodged in
+the village was understood to be preparing him for the Civil Service. He
+was a pettish and spiteful lad, and between him and Hester existed
+perpetual 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 earliest
+childhood. They all felt instinctively that she despised them and the
+slow, lethargic temperament which was in most of them an inheritance from
+a father cast in one of the typical moulds of British Philistinism. There
+was some insurmountable difference between her and them. In the first
+place, her beauty set her apart from the rest; and, beside her, Sarah's
+sharp profile, and round apple-red cheeks, or Lulu's clumsiness, made,
+as both girls were secretly aware, an even worse impression than they
+need have made. And in the next, there were in her strains of romantic,
+egotistic ability to which nothing in them corresponded. She could
+play, she could draw--brilliantly, spontaneously--up to a certain
+point, when neither Sarah nor Lulu could stumble through a "piece," or
+produce anything capable of giving the smallest satisfaction to their
+drawing-master. She could chatter, on occasion, so that a room full of
+people instinctively listened. And she had read voraciously, especially
+poetry, where they were content with picture-papers and the mildest of
+novels. Hester brought nothing to perfection; but there could be no
+question that in every aspect of life she was constantly making, in
+comparison with her family, a dashing or dazzling effect all the more
+striking because of the unattractive _milieu_ out of which it sprang.
+
+The presence of Lady Fox-Wilton, in particular, was needed to show these
+contrasts at their sharpest.
+
+As Hester still raced about the lawn, with the dog, that lady came round
+the corner of the house, with a shawl over her head, and beckoned to the
+girl 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, and
+arrived laughing and breathless beside the newcomer. Edith Fox-Wilton was
+a 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 blue
+eyes were still appealing, especially when she smiled. But she did not
+smile often, and she had the expression of one perpetually protesting
+against all the agencies--this-worldly or other-worldly--which had the
+control of her existence. Her weak fretfulness depressed all the
+vitalities near her; only Hester resisted.
+
+At the moment, however, her look was not so much fretful as excited. Her
+thin cheeks were much redder than usual; she constantly looked round as
+though expecting or dreading some interruption; and in a hand which shook
+she held a just opened letter.
+
+"What is the matter, mamma?" asked Hester, a sharp challenging note in
+her gay voice. "You look as though something had happened."
+
+"Nothing has happened," said Lady Fox-Wilton hastily. "And I wish you
+wouldn't romp with the puppy in that way, Hester. He's always doing some
+damage to the flowers. I'm going out, and I wished to give you a message
+from the Rector."
+
+"Is that from Uncle Richard?" said Hester, glancing carelessly at the
+letter.
+
+Lady Fox-Wilton crushed it in her hand.
+
+"I told you it was. Why do you ask unnecessary questions? The Rector has
+heard 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 possible
+recommendations. You will enjoy it very much. They can get you the best
+lessons in Paris, they say. They know everybody."
+
+"H'm--" said Hester, reflectively. Then she looked at the speaker. "Do
+you 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 do
+what 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't
+want to."
+
+"You can behave like a naughty, troublesome girl, without any proper
+feeling, of course!--if you choose," said Lady Fox-Wilton warmly. "But I
+trust you will do nothing of the kind. We are your guardians till you are
+twenty-one; and you ought to be guided by us."
+
+"Well, of course I can't be engaged to Stephen, if you say I
+mayn't--because there's Stephen to back you up. But if Queen Victoria
+could be a queen at eighteen, I don't see why _I_ shouldn't be fit at
+eighteen to manage my own wretched affairs! Anyway--I--am--not--going to
+Paris--unless I want to go. So I don't advise you to promise that lady
+just 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-Wilton
+helplessly. "I try to keep you--the Rector tries to keep you--out of
+mischief that any girl ought to be ashamed--of--and--"
+
+"What mischief?" demanded Hester peremptorily. "Don't run into
+generalities, mamma."
+
+"You know very well what mischief I mean!"
+
+"I know that you think I shall be running away some day with Sir Philip
+Meryon!" said the girl, laughing, but with a fierce gleam in her eyes. "I
+have no intention at present of doing anything of the kind. But if
+anything could make me do it, it would be the foolish way in which you
+and the others behave. I don't believe the Rector ever told you to set
+Sarah and Lulu on to dog me wherever I go!"
+
+"He told me you were not to be allowed to meet that man. You won't
+promise me not to meet him--and what can we do? You know what the Rector
+feels. You know that he spent an hour yesterday arguing and pleading with
+you, when he had been up most of the night preparing papers for this
+commission. What's the matter with you, Hester? Are you quite in your
+right senses?"
+
+The girl had clasped her hands behind her back, and stood with one foot
+forward, "on tiptoe for a flight," her young figure and radiant look
+expressing the hot will which possessed her. At the mention of Meynell's
+name 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. He
+does not care twopence about me, and it's mere humbug and hypocrisy all
+his pretending to care."
+
+"And your Aunt Alice--who's always worshipped you? Why, she's just
+miserable about you!"
+
+"She says exactly what you and Uncle Richard tell her to say--she always
+has! Well, I don't know about Paris, mamma--I'll think about it. If you
+and Sarah will just let me be, I'll take Roddy for a stroll, and then
+after tea I'll tell you what I'll do." And, turning, she beckoned to a
+fine collie lazily sunning himself on the drawing-room steps, and he
+sprang 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. "I
+haven't the smallest intention of meeting him. Come, Roddy!"
+
+The eyes of the two met--in those of the older woman, impatience, a kind
+of cold exasperation; in Hester's, defiance. It was a strange look to
+pass 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 Alice
+something if you were going that way."
+
+"Mamma!"
+
+Sarah suddenly emerged from the schoolroom window and ran excitedly
+across the lawn toward her mother. "Have you heard this extraordinary
+story 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 have
+seen that her bright colour precipitately left her.
+
+"Why, what harm was it?" cried Sarah, wondering. "He told me, because it
+seems Mrs. Sabin used to be a servant of ours long ago. Do you remember
+her, 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 off
+some 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 thought
+she was dead. He hadn't heard of her for four years. But she turned
+up on Tuesday--the queerest old woman! She sat there boasting and
+chattering--in a silk dress with gold bracelets!--they thought she was
+going to make all their fortunes. But she must just have been off her
+head, for she died last night in her sleep, and there were only a few
+shillings on her--not enough to bury her. There's to be an inquest this
+evening, they say."
+
+"Don't spend all your time chattering in the village, Sarah," said Lady
+Fox-Wilton severely, as, still with her back toward the girls, she moved
+away in the direction of the drive. "You'll never get your dress done if
+you 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 the
+family. So that she at once resented the remark.
+
+"If she's worrying about anything, she's worrying about you," said Sarah
+tartly, as she went back to the house. "We all know that."
+
+Hester, with her dog beside her, went strolling leisurely through the
+village street, past Miss Puttenham's cottage on the one hand and the
+Rectory gates on the other, making for a footpath that led from the back
+of the village, through fields and woods, on to the Chase.
+
+As she passed beneath the limes that overhung Miss Puttenham's railings
+she perceived some distant figures in the garden. Uncle Richard, with
+mamma and Aunt Alice on either side of him. They were walking up and down
+in close conversation; or, rather, Uncle Richard seemed to be talking
+earnestly, addressing now one lady, now the other.
+
+What a confabulation! No doubt all about her own crimes and
+misdemeanours. 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 into
+the footpath and began to mount toward the borders of the Chase. It was a
+brilliant September afternoon, and the new grass in the shorn hayfields
+was vividly green. In front rose the purple hills of the Chase, while
+to the left, on the far borders of the village, the wheels and chimneys
+of two collieries stood black against a blaze of sun. But the sharp
+emphasis of light and colour, which in general would have set her own
+spirits racing, was for a while lost on Hester. As soon as she was out
+of sight of the village, or any passers-by, her aspect changed. Once or
+twice she caught her breath in what was very like a sob; and there were
+moments when she could only save herself from the disgrace of tears by a
+wild burst of racing with Roddy. It was evident that her brush with Lady
+Fox-Wilton had not left her as callous as she seemed.
+
+Presently the path forsook the open fields and entered a plantation of
+dark and closely woven trees where the track was almost lost in the
+magnificence of the bracken. Beyond this, a short climb of broken slopes,
+and Hester was out on the bare heath, with the moorland wind blowing
+about her.
+
+She sat down on a bank beneath a birch tree, twisted and tortured out of
+shape by the northwesterly gales that swept the heath in winter. All
+round her a pink and purple wilderness, with oases of vivid green and
+swaying grass. Nothing in sight but a keeper's hut, and some grouse butts
+far away; an ugly red building on the horizon, in the very middle of the
+heath, the Markborough isolation hospital; and round the edge of the vast
+undulating plateau in all directions the faint smoke of the colliery
+chimneys. But the colour of the heath was the marvel. The world seemed
+stained in crimson, and in every shade and combination of it. Close at
+hand the reds and pinks were diapered with green and gold as the
+bilberries and the grasses ran in and out of the heather; but on every
+side the crimson spread and billowed to the horizon, covering the hollows
+and hills of the Chase, absorbing all lesser tones into itself. After the
+rain of the morning, the contours of the heath, the distances of the
+plain, were unnaturally clear; and as the sunshine, the high air, the
+freshly moving wind, played upon Hester, her irritation passed away in a
+sensuous delight.
+
+"Why should I let them worry me? I won't! I am here! I am alive! I am
+only eighteen! I am going to manage my life for myself--and get out of
+this 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-heather
+intergrown with bunchberries. And while a whole vague series of thoughts
+and memories passed through her mind she was still vividly conscious of
+the pink bells, the small bright leaves. Sensation in her was
+exceptionally keen, whether for pleasure or pain. She knew it and had
+often coolly asked herself whether it meant that she would wear out--life
+and brain--quicker than other people--burn faster to the socket. So much
+the better if it did.
+
+What was it she really wanted?--what did she mean to do? Proudly, she
+refused 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 did
+not melt her. She knew very well that she had nothing to blame her
+guardian for; that year after year from her childhood up she had repelled
+and resisted him, that her whole relation to him had been one of
+stubbornness and caprice. Well, there were reasons for it; she was not
+going to repent or change.
+
+Of late his conduct with regard to Stephen's proposal had stirred in her
+a kind of rage. It was not that she imagined herself in love with
+Stephen; but she had chosen to be engaged to him; and that any one should
+affect to control her in such a matter, should definitely and decidedly
+cross her will, was intolerable to her wild pride. If Stephen had
+rebelled with her, she might have fallen fiercely in love with him--for a
+month. But he had submitted--though it was tolerably plain what it had
+cost him; and all her careless liking for him, the fruit of years of very
+poorly requited devotion on his part, seemed to have disappeared in a
+night.
+
+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. She
+recalled her interview with Meynell, in which the Rector had roused in
+her a new and deeper antagonism than any she had yet felt toward his
+efforts to control her. It was as though he did not altogether believe in
+his own arguments; as though there were something behind which she could
+not get at. But if there were something behind, she had a right to know
+it. She had a right to know the meaning of her father's extraordinary
+letter to Meynell--the letter attached to his will--in which she had been
+singled out by name as needing the special tutelage of the Rector. So far
+as the Rector's guardianship of the other children was concerned, it was
+almost a nominal thing. Another guardian had been named in the will, Lady
+Fox-Wilton's elder brother, and practically everything that concerned the
+other children was settled by him, in concert with the mother. The Rector
+never interfered, was never indeed consulted, except on purely formal
+matters of business. But for her--for her only--Uncle Richard--as she
+always called her guardian--was to be the master--the tyrant!--close at
+hand. For so Sir Ralph had laid it down, in his testamentary letter--"I
+commend Hester to your special care. And in any difficulties that may
+arise in connection with her, I beg for our old friendship's sake that
+you 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 years
+before, the story of it had got about; and the injustice, as she held, of
+her position under it had sunk deep into the girl's passionate sense, and
+made her infinitely more difficult to manage than she had been before. Of
+course everybody said it was because of her temper; because of the
+constant friction between her and her father; people believed the hateful
+things he used sometimes to say about her.
+
+Nor was it only the guardianship--there was the money too! Provision made
+for all of them by name--and nothing for her! She had made Sarah show her
+a copy of the will--she knew! Nothing indeed for any of them--the girls
+at least--till Lady Fox-Wilton's death, or till they married; but nothing
+for _her_, under any circumstances.
+
+"Well, why should there be?" Sarah had said. "You know you'll have Aunt
+Alice'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 up
+to scorn by your own father!
+
+A flood of bitterness surged in the girl's heart. And then they expected
+her 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 might
+not be engaged to Stephen--for two years at any rate; and yet if she
+amused herself with any one else she was to be packed off to Paris, to
+some house of detention or other, under lock and key.
+
+Her cheeks flamed. When had she first come across Philip Meryon? Only the
+day before that evening when Uncle Richard had found her fishing with
+him. She knew very well that he was badly spoken of; trust Upcote for
+gossip and scandal! Well, so was she!--they were outcasts together.
+Anyway, he was more amusing to walk and talk with than her sisters, or
+the dreadful young men they sometimes gathered about them. Why shouldn't
+she walk and talk with him? As if she couldn't protect herself! As if she
+didn'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-tattle
+of 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 French
+books, which she had read eagerly--at night or in the woods--wherever
+she could be alone and unobserved. Why shouldn't she read them? There was
+one among them--"Julie de Trecoeur," by Octave Feuillet, that still
+seemed running, like a great emotion, through her veins. The tragic
+leap of Julie, as she sets her horse to the cliff and thunders to her
+death, was always in Hester's mind. It was so that she herself would like
+to die, spurning submission and patience, and all the humdrum virtues.
+
+She raised herself, and the dog beside her sprang up and barked. The sun
+was just dropping below a bank of fiery cloud, and a dazzling and garish
+light lay on the red undulations of the heath. As she stood up she
+suddenly perceived the figure of a man about a hundred yards off emerging
+from a gully--a sportsman with his gun over his shoulder. He had
+apparently just parted from the group with whom he had been shooting, who
+were disappearing in another direction.
+
+Philip Meryon! Now she remembered! He and two other men had taken the
+shooting on this side of the Chase. Honestly she had forgotten it;
+honestly her impression was that he had gone to Scotland. But of course
+none of her family would ever believe it. They would insist she had
+simply come out to meet him.
+
+What was she to do? She was in a white serge dress, and with Roddy
+beside her, on that bare heath, she was an object easily recognized.
+Indeed, as she hesitated, she heard a call in the distance, and saw that
+Meryon was waving to her and quickening his pace. Instantly, with a
+leaping pulse, she turned and fled, Roddy beside her, barking his
+loudest. She ran along the rough track of the heath, as though some vague
+wild terror had been breathed into her by the local Pan. She ran fleet
+and light as air--famous as a runner from her childhood. But the man
+behind 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 path
+ran 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-set
+trees, whence the light had already departed, and lain close among the
+fern. 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 through
+the fern. "Now what do you deserve--for running away?"
+
+"A _gentleman_ would not have tried to catch me!" she said haughtily, as
+she 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 the
+vision before him--this angry wood-nymph, half-vanishing like another
+Daphne into the deep fern amid which she stood. But at the same time he
+was puzzled--and checked--by her expression. There was no mere
+provocation in it, no defiance that covers a yielding mind; but, rather,
+an energy of will, a concentrated force, that held at bay a man whose
+will was the mere register of his impulses.
+
+"You forget," said Hester coolly, "that I have Roddy with me." And as she
+spoke the dog couching at her side poked up his slender nose through the
+fern and growled. He did not like Sir Philip.
+
+Meryon looked upon her smiling--his hands on his sides. "Do you mean to
+say that when you ran you did not mean me to follow?"
+
+"On the contrary, if I ran, it was evidently because I wished to get
+away."
+
+"Then you were very ungrateful and unkind; for I have at this moment in
+my pocket a book you asked me to get for you. That's what I get for
+trying 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 I
+managed to borrow it, and there it is." He pointed triumphantly to a
+yellow-paper-bound volume sticking out of his coat pocket. "Of course you
+know George Sand is a sort of old Johnnie now; nobody reads her. But
+that's your affair. Will you have it?" He offered it.
+
+The excitement, the wild flush in the girl's face, had subsided. She
+looked at the book, and at the man holding it out.
+
+"What is it?" She stooped to read the title--"Mauprat." "What's it
+about?"
+
+"Some nonsense about a cad tamed by a sentimental young woman." He
+shrugged his shoulders, "I tried to read it, and couldn't. But they say
+it's one of her best. If you want it, there it is."
+
+She took it reluctantly, and moved on along the downward path, he
+following, 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 shall
+get some more by that man."
+
+"Well, you'd better be careful!" He laughed. "I've got some others, but I
+didn't want to recommend them to you. Lady Fox-Wilton wouldn't exactly
+approve."
+
+"I don't tell mamma what I read." The girl's young voice sounded sharply
+beside him in the warm autumnal dusk. "But if you lent me anything you
+oughtn'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 I
+ought to have lent you 'Julie de Trécoeur' if it comes to that."
+
+"Why not?" Hester turned her great, astonished eyes upon him. "One might
+as 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 in
+Scotland?"
+
+"Because I had to go to London instead. Beastly nuisance! But there was
+some 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 a
+trace in her manner of timidity or tremor. In spite of her flight from
+him he could not flatter himself that he had made any impression on her
+nerves. Whereas her beauty and her provocative way were beginning to tell
+deeply on his own.
+
+"Well, I daresay!" His laugh was as frank as her question. "I'm generally
+in 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 had
+had to write another, that would have been work; and I should probably
+have loathed it."
+
+"That I don't believe," she said, shaking her head. "One can always do
+what succeeds. It's like pouring petrol into the motor."
+
+"So you think I'm only idle because I'm a failure?" he asked her, his
+tone 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 why
+you allow yourself these _franchises_!"
+
+"Because I am interested in you--rather. Why won't the neighbourhood call
+on you--why do you have disreputable people to stay with you? It is all
+so foolish!" she said, with childish and yet passionate emphasis. "You
+needn't do it!"
+
+Meryon had turned rather white.
+
+"When you grow a little older," he said severely, "you will know better
+than to believe all the gossip you hear. I choose the friends that suit
+me--and the life too. My friends are mostly artists and actors--they are
+quite content to be excluded from Upcote society--so am I. I don't gather
+you 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 amiable
+cousin--allows himself to make all kinds of impertinent statements about
+me. Well, you'll understand some day that there's no such bad judge of
+men as a clergyman. When he's not ignorant he's prejudiced--and when he's
+not 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 he
+should be cousins!"
+
+"Well, we do happen to be cousins. And I've no doubt that you would
+like me to resemble him. Unfortunately I can't accommodate you. If I
+am to take a relation for a model, I prefer a very different sort of
+person--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, Hester
+carelessly turned her head to look at a squirrel that had run across the
+glade 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 a
+Frenchman--that's a superb thing. He was the best fencer in England--and
+one of the best shots. He had a beautiful voice--he could write--he could
+do anything he pleased. Of course he got into scrapes--such men do--and
+if Richard ever talked to you about him, of course he'd crab him. All the
+same, if one must be like one's relations--which is, of course, quite
+unnecessary--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 a
+certain Ralph Flood, my grandfather, an old hunting squire, a regular bad
+lot! Oh! I can tell you the family history doesn't give me much chance!
+He came from Lincolnshire originally, having made the county there too
+hot to hold him, and bought the Abbey, which he meant to restore and
+never did. He worried his wife into her grave, and she left him three
+children: Neville, who succeeded his father; and two daughters--Meynell's
+mother, who was a good deal older than Neville and married Colonel
+Meynell, as he was then; and my mother, who was much the youngest, and
+died three years ago. She was Neville's favourite sister, and as he knew
+Richard didn't want the Abbey, he left it to me. A precious white
+elephant--not worth a fiver to anybody. I was only thirteen when Neville
+was drowned--"
+
+"Drowned?"
+
+Meryon explained that Neville Flood had lost his life in a storm on an
+Irish lough; a queer business, which no one had ever quite got to the
+bottom of. Many people had talked of suicide. There was no doubt he was
+in very low spirits just before it happened. He was unhappily married,
+mainly through his own fault. His wife could certainly have got a divorce
+from him if she had applied for it. But very soon after she separated
+from Flood she became a Catholic, and nothing would induce her to divorce
+him. And against her there was never a breath. It was said of course that
+he was in love with some one else, and broken-hearted that his wife
+refused to lend herself to a divorce. But nobody knew anything.
+
+"And, by Jove, I wonder why I'm telling you all these shady tales. You
+oughtn'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 see
+that picture."
+
+"What--of my Uncle Neville?"
+
+Meryon eyed her curiously, as they strolled on through the arched green
+of the woodland. Every now and then there were openings through which
+poured a fiery sun, illuminating Hester's face and form.
+
+"Do you know"--he said at last--"there is an uncommonly queer likeness
+between 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 Uncle
+Richard--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 Neville
+was a deal handsomer than old Richard. However, nobody can account for
+likenesses. If you come to think of it, we are all descended from a small
+number of people. But it has often struck me--" He looked at her again
+attentively. "The setting of the ear--and the upper lip--and the shape
+of the brow--I shall bring you a photograph of the picture."
+
+"What does it matter!" said Hester impatiently. "Besides, I am going away
+directly--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'm
+such an idle dog. I'm nothing of the sort. I've nearly finished a whole
+new play. Only--well, I couldn't talk to you about it--it's not a play
+for _jeunes filles_. But after all I might read you a few scenes. That
+wouldn't do any harm. You're so deuced clever!--your opinion would be
+worth having. I can tell you the managers are all after it! I'm getting
+letters by every post asking for parts. What do you say? Can you meet
+me somewhere? I'll choose some of the best bits. Just name your time!"
+
+Her face had kindled, answering to the vivacity--the peremptoriness--in
+his. 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, wild
+thing!"
+
+"Take care!" Hester sprang away from him as he put out an incautious
+hand. "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 new
+stimulus through jaded nerves. Had he met her in London on equal terms
+with other men he knew instinctively that he would have had but small
+chance with her. It was the circumstances of this quiet country place,
+where young men of Hester's class were the rarest of apparitions, and
+where Philip, flying from his creditors and playing the part of a needy
+Don Juan amid the picturesque dilapidations of the Abbey, was gravelled
+day after day for lack of occupation--it was these surroundings that had
+made the flirtation possible. Well, she was a handsome daredevil little
+minx. It amused him to make love to her, and in spite of his parsonical
+cousin, he should continue to do so. And that the proceeding annoyed
+Richard Meynell made it not less, but more, enticing. Parsons, cousins or
+no, 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 took
+no notice of any one till, just as she was nearing the Cowroast, she saw
+groups 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 an
+evident 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 for
+once she had been out by herself without a keeper. He took no notice of
+her tone, and walked on beside her, his eyes on the ground. Presently she
+wondered whether he had heard her reply at all, he was so evidently
+thinking of something else. In her turn she began to ask questions.
+
+"What's happening in the village? Why are those people coming out of the
+Cowroast?"
+
+"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 her
+head?"
+
+"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, Uncle
+Richard--good night! You go too slow for me."
+
+She walked away with a defiant air, intended to show him that he was in
+her black books. He stood a moment looking after her, compunction and sad
+affection in his kind eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Meanwhile, for Catharine Elsmere and Mary these days of early autumn were
+passing in a profound external quiet which bore but small relation to the
+mental 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. She
+set no limit to her own calls, or to her readiness to be called upon. The
+Flaxman dinner and tennis parties were soon an institution in the
+neighbourhood; and the distinguished persons who gathered at Maudeley for
+the Flaxman week-ends shed a reflected lustre on Upcote itself. But Rose
+Flaxman stoutly protected her widowed sister. Mrs. Elsmere was delicate
+and in need of rest; she was not to be expected to take part in any
+social 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 brought
+steadily closer to her by the mere passage of life. Rose was an artist
+and an optimist. In her youth she had been an eager and exquisite
+musician; in her middle life she was a loving and a happy woman, though
+she too had known a tragic moment in her first youth. Catharine, her
+elder by some years, still maintained, beneath an exquisite refinement,
+the strong north-country characteristics of the Westmoreland family to
+which the sisters belonged. Her father had been an Evangelical scholar
+and 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 married
+life beside a nature so plastic and sensitive as Elsmere's, and of her
+passionate love for her husband, it was the early influences on her
+character 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 a
+slender connection that no one misunderstood with the New Brotherhood,
+the slow effect of his withdrawal from her life made itself inevitably
+felt. She stiffened and narrowed intellectually; while for all sinners
+and sufferers, within the lines of sympathy she gradually traced out
+for herself, she would have willingly given her body to be burned, so
+strong was the Franciscan thirst in her for the self-effacement and
+self-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 extent
+balanced the claims of what many might have thought a devastating and
+depersonalizing charity. Catharine was a tender though an austere mother;
+she became and deserved to become the idol of her daughter. But as Mary
+grew up she was drawn inevitably into her mother's activities; and
+Catharine, in the blindness of her ascetic faith, might have injured the
+whole spring of the girl's youth by the tremendous strain thus put upon
+it by affection on the one hand and pity on the other.
+
+Mercifully, perhaps, for them both, Catharine's nerve and strength
+suddenly gave way; and with them that abnormal exaltation and clearness
+of spiritual vision which had carried her through many sorrowing years.
+She entered upon a barren and darkened path; the Christian joy deserted
+her, and there were hours and days when little more than the Christian
+terrors remained. It was her perception of this which roused such a
+tender and desperate pity in Mary. Her mother's state fell short indeed
+of religious melancholy; but for a time it came within sight of it.
+Catharine dreaded to be found herself a castaway; and the memory of
+Robert's denials of the faith--magnified by her mental state, like trees
+in mist--had now become an ever-haunting misery which tortured her
+unspeakably. Her mind was possessed by the parables of judgment--the
+dividing of the sheep from the goats, the shutting of the door of
+salvation on those who had refused the heavenly offers, and by all those
+sayings of the early Church that make "faith" the only passport to
+eternal safety.
+
+Her saner mind struggled in vain against what was partly a physical
+penalty for defied physical law. And Mary also, her devoted companion,
+whose life depended hour by hour on the aspects and changes of her
+mother, must needs be drawn within the shadow of Catharine's dumb and
+phantom-ridden pain. The pain itself was dumb, because it concerned the
+deepest feelings of a sternly reserved woman. But mingled with the pain
+were other matters--resentments, antagonisms--the expression of which
+often half consciously relieved it. She rose in rebellion against those
+sceptical and deadly forces of the modern world which had swept her
+beloved from the narrow way. She fled them for herself; she feared them
+for Mary, in whom she had very early divined the working of Robert's
+aptitudes and powers.
+
+And now--by ill-fortune--a tired and suffering woman had no sooner found
+refuge and rest in the solitude of Forkéd Pond than, thanks partly to the
+Flaxmans' new friendship for Upcote's revolutionary parson, and partly to
+all the public signs, not to be escaped, of the commotion brewing in the
+diocese, and in England generally, the same agitations, the same troubles
+which had destroyed her happiness and peace of mind in the past, came
+clattering 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 of
+the Bishop; the characters and motives of his opponents; the chances of
+the struggle--and the points on which it turned; even in the little
+solitary house between the waters Catharine could not escape them. The
+Bishop, too, was an old friend; before his promotion he had been the
+incumbent of a London parish in which Catharine had worked. She was no
+sooner settled at Forkéd Pond than he came to see her; and what more
+natural than he should speak of the anxieties weighing upon him to one so
+able to feel for them?
+
+Then!--the first involuntary signs of Mary's interest in, Mary's sympathy
+with, the offender! In Catharine's mind a thousand latent terrors sprang
+at once to life. For a time--some weeks--she had succeeded in checking
+all developments. Invitations were refused; meetings were avoided. But
+gradually the situation changed. Points of contact began inevitably to
+multiply between Mary and the disturber of Christ's peace in Upcote.
+Mary's growing friendship for Alice Puttenham, her chance encounters with
+Meynell there, or in the village, or in the Flaxmans' drawing-room, were
+all distasteful and unwelcome to Catharine Elsmere. At least her Robert
+had sacrificed himself--had done the honest and honourable thing. But
+this man--wounding the Church from within--using the opportunities of the
+Church for the destruction of the Church--who would make excuses for such
+a combatant?
+
+And the more keenly she became aware of the widening gulf between her
+thoughts and Mary's--of Mary's involuntary, instinctive sympathy with the
+enemy--the greater was her alarm.
+
+For the first time in all her strenuous, self-devoted life she would
+sometimes make much of her physical weakness in these summer days, so as
+to keep Mary with her, to prevent her from becoming more closely
+acquainted with Meynell and Meynell's ideas. And in fact this new anxiety
+interfered with her recovery; she had only to let herself be ill, and ill
+most genuinely she was.
+
+Mary understood it all, and submitted. Her mother's fears were indeed
+amply justified! Mary's secret mind was becoming absorbed, from a
+distance, in Meynell's campaign; Meynell's personality, through all
+hindrance and difficulty--nay, perhaps, because of them--was gradually
+seizing upon and mastering her own; and processes of thought that, so
+long as she and her mother were, so to speak, alone in the world
+together, were still immature and potential, grew apace. The woods and
+glades of Maudeley, the village street, the field paths, began to be for
+her places of magic, whence at any moment might spring flowers of joy
+known to her alone. To see him pass at a distance, to come across him in
+a miner's cottage, or in Miss Puttenham's drawing-room--these rare
+occasions were to her the events of the summer weeks. Nevertheless, when
+September arrived, she had long since forbidden herself to hope for
+anything more.
+
+Meanwhile, Rose Flaxman was the only person who ever ventured to feel and
+show the irritation of the natural woman toward her sister's
+idiosyncrasies.
+
+"Do for heaven's sake stop her reading these books!" she said impatiently
+one evening to Mary, when she had taken leave of Catharine, and her niece
+was strolling back with her toward Maudeley.
+
+"What books?"
+
+"Why, lives of bishops and deans and that kind of thing! I never come but
+I find a pile of them beside her. It should be made absolutely illegal to
+write the life of a clergyman! My dear, your mother would be well in a
+week 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 the
+postman just now while I was with her, and I looked at the book she had
+been reading with her mark in it. I should like to have thrown it into
+the pond! Some tiresome canon or other writing to a friend about Eternal
+Punishment. What does he know about it? I should like to ask! I declare I
+hope he may know something more about it some day! There was your mother
+as white as her ruffles, with dark lines under her eyes. I tell you
+clerical intimidation should be made a punishable offence. It's just as
+bad as any other!"
+
+Mary let her run on. She moved silently along the grassy path, her pretty
+head bent, her hands clasped behind her. And presently her aunt resumed:
+"And the strange thing is, my dear, saving your presence--that your
+beloved mother is quite lax in some directions, while she is so strict in
+others. I never can make her pay the smallest attention to the things I
+tell her about Philip Meryon, for instance, that Hugh tells me. 'Poor
+fellow!' she always calls him, as though his abominable ways were like
+the measles--something you couldn't help. And as for that wild minx
+Hester!--she has positively taken a fancy to her. It reminds me of what
+an old priest said to me once in Rome--'Sins, madame!--the only sins that
+matter are those of the intellect!' There!--send me off--before I say any
+more _inconvenances_!"
+
+Mary waved farewell to her vivacious aunt, and walked slowly back to the
+cottage. She was conscious of inner smart and pain; conscious also for
+the first time of a critical mind toward the mother whose will had been
+the 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 last
+aloud--with an impetuous energy; and then, with a swift return upon
+herself--"Mother, _darling_!--mother, who has no one in the world--but
+me!"
+
+As the words escaped her, she came in sight of the cottage, and saw that
+her mother was sitting in her usual place beside the water. Catharine's
+hands were resting on a newspaper they had evidently just put down, and
+she was gazing absently across the lights and shadows, the limpid blues
+and 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 her
+mother's knee was the _Church Guardian_, in which a lively correspondence
+on the subject of Meynell and the Modernist Movement generally was at the
+moment proceeding.
+
+"Yes, I have been reading," said Catharine slowly--"and I have been very
+sad."
+
+"Then I wish you wouldn't read!" cried Mary, kissing her hand. "I should
+like to burn all the newspapers!"
+
+"What good would that do?" said Catharine, trying to smile. "I have been
+reading Bishop Craye's letter to the _Guardian_. Poor Bishop!--what a
+cruel, 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 her
+daughter's.
+
+There was silence for a little, broken by Catharine, speaking with the
+same quiet vehemence:
+
+"I cannot understand how you, Mary, or any one else can defend what this
+man--Mr. Meynell--is doing. If he cannot agree with the Church, let him
+leave 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 and
+opportunities--with everything they want. They are not asked to give
+anything up--nobody thinks of interfering with them--they have all the
+old dear things, the faiths and the practices they love--and that help
+_them_. They are only asked to tolerate other people who want different
+things. Mr. Meynell stands--I suppose--for the people--who are starved,
+whose souls wither, or die, for lack of the only food that could nourish
+them."
+
+"'I am the bread of life,'" said Catharine with an energy that shook her
+slight frame. "The Church has no other food to give. Let those who refuse
+it go outside. There are other bodies, and other means."
+
+"But, mother, this is the _National_ Church!" pleaded Mary, after a
+moment. "The Modernists too say--don't they?--that Christ--or what
+Christ stands for--is the bread of life. Only they understand the
+words--differently from you. And if"--she came closer to her mother, and
+putting her hands on Catharine's knees, she looked up into the elder
+woman's face--"if there were only a few here and there, they could of
+course do nothing; they could only suffer, and be silent. But there are
+so many of them--so many! What is the 'Church' but the living souls that
+make it up? And now thousands of these living souls want to change things
+in the Church. Their consciences are hurt--they can't believe what they
+once believed. What is the justice of driving them out--or leaving them
+starved--forever? They were born in the Church; baptized in the Church!
+They love the old ways, the old buildings, the old traditions. 'Comfort
+our consciences!' they say; 'we will never tyrannize over yours. Give us
+the teaching and the expression we want; you will always have what you
+want! Make room for us--beside you. If your own faith is strong it will
+only be the stronger because you let ours speak and live--because you
+give us our bare rights, as free spirits, in this Church that belongs to
+the whole English people.' Dear mother, you are so just always--so
+loving--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 answered
+slowly.
+
+Mary turned away, shading her eyes with her hand.
+
+"Yes," she said, with shrinking; "at least I know it is what he would
+say."
+
+"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's
+neck.
+
+"I will never hurt you, my beloved! you know I won't."
+
+The two gazed into each other's eyes, questions and answers, unspoken yet
+understood, passing between them. Then Catharine disengaged herself,
+rose, and went away.
+
+During the night that followed Mary slept little. She was engaged in
+trying to loosen and tear away those tendrils of the heart that had begun
+to climb and spread more than she knew. Toward the early dawn it seemed
+to her she heard slight sounds in her mother's room. But immediately
+afterward she fell asleep.
+
+The next day, Mary could not tell what had happened; but it was as
+though, in some inexplicable way, doors had been opened and weights
+lifted; as though fresh winds had been set blowing through the House of
+Life. Her mother seemed shaken and frail; Mary hovered about her with
+ministering tenderness. There were words begun and left unfinished,
+movements and looks that strangely thrilled and bewildered the younger
+woman. She had no key to them; but they seemed to speak of change--of
+something in her mother that had been beaten down, and was still faintly,
+pitifully striving. But she dared say nothing. They read, and wrote
+letters, and strolled as usual; till in the evening, while Mary was
+sitting 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 the
+Reformers' 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 tears
+sprang to her eyes. "I want to go nowhere--to do nothing--that gives you
+pain!"
+
+"I know that," said Catharine quietly. "But I--I should like to
+understand him."
+
+And with a light touch of her hand on Mary's red-gold hair, she went back
+into the house. Mary wandered away by herself into the depths of the
+woods, weeping, she scarcely knew why. But some sure instinct, lost in
+wonder as she was, bade her ask her mother no questions; to let time
+show.
+
+The day of the League meeting came. It happened also to be the date on
+which the Commission of Inquiry into the alleged heresies and
+irregularities of the Rector of Upcote was holding its final meeting at
+Markborough.
+
+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 great
+monastery formerly connected with it had disappeared, except for the
+Library and a vaulted room below it which now made a passageway from the
+Deanery to the north transept.
+
+The Library offered a worthy setting for high themes. The walls were, of
+course, wreathed in the pale golds and dignified browns of old books. A
+light gallery ran round three sides of the room, while a large
+perpendicular window at the farther end contained the armorial bearings
+of various benefactors of the see. Beneath the window was a bookcase
+containing several chained books--a Vulgate, a Saint Augustine, the
+_Summa_ of St. Thomas; precious possessions, and famous in the annals of
+early printing. And wherever there was a space of wall left free,
+pictures or engravings of former bishops and dignitaries connected with
+the Cathedral enforced the message and meaning of the room.
+
+A seemly, even beautiful place--pleasantly scented with old leather, and
+filled on this September afternoon with the sunshine which, on the Chase,
+was at the same moment kindling the heather into a blood-red
+magnificence. Here the light slipped in gently, subdued to the quiet note
+and standard of the old Library.
+
+The Dean was in the Chair. He was a man of seventy who had only just
+become an old man, submitting with difficulty, even with resentment, to
+the weight of his years. He wore a green shade over his eyes, beneath
+which his long sharp nose and pointed chin--in the practical absence of
+the eyes--showed with peculiar emphasis. He was of heavy build, and
+suffered from chronic hoarseness. In his youth he had been a Broad
+churchman and a Liberal, and had then passed, through stages mysterious
+to his oldest friends, into an actively dogmatic and ecclesiastical
+phase. 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 high
+orthodoxy in the Chapter, and an advocate of disestablishment as the only
+means of restoring "Catholic liberty" to the Church.
+
+The Dean's enemies, of whom he had not a few, brought various charges
+against him. It was said that he was a worldling with an undue leaning to
+notabilities. And indeed in every gathering, social or ecclesiastical,
+the track of the Dean's conversation sufficiently indicated the relative
+importance of the persons present. Others declared that during his long
+tenure of a country living he had left the duties of it mainly to a
+curate, and had found it more interesting to live in London, conferring
+with Cabinet Ministers on educational reform; while the women-folk of the
+Chapter pitied his wife, whose subdued or tremulous aspect certainly
+suggested that the Dean's critical and sarcastic temper sharpened itself
+at home for conflicts abroad.
+
+On the Dean's right hand sat Canon Dornal, a man barely forty, who owed
+his canonry to the herculean work he had done for fourteen years in a
+South London parish, work that he would never have relinquished for the
+comparative ease of the Markborough precincts but for a sudden failure in
+health which had pulled him up in mid-career, and obliged him to think of
+his wife and children. He had insisted, however, on combining with his
+canonry a small living in the town, where he could still slave as he
+pleased; and his sermons in the Cathedral were generally held to be, next
+to the personality of the Bishop, all that was noblest in Markborough
+Christianity. His fine head, still instinct with the energy of youth, was
+covered with strong black hair; dark brows shadowed Cornish blue eyes,
+simple, tranquil, almost _naif_, until of a sudden there rushed into them
+the 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. He
+was a man in whom conscience was a gadfly, remorseless and tormenting. He
+was himself overstrained and his influence sometimes produced in others a
+tension on which they looked back with resentment. But he was a saint;
+open, pure, and loving as a child; yet often tempest-driven with new
+ideas, since he possessed at once the imagination that frees a man from
+tradition, and the piety which clings to it.
+
+Beside him sat a University professor, the young holder of an important
+chair, who had the face, the smile, the curly hair of a boy of twenty, or
+appeared to have them, till you came to notice the subtleties of the
+mouth and the crow's-feet which had gathered round the eyes. And the
+paradox of his aspect only repeated the paradox within. His "History and
+the Gospels," recently published, would have earned him excommunication
+under 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 who
+admired and applauded him did not read his books. It was rumoured indeed
+that there were many things in them which were unsound; but the rumour
+only gave additional zest to the speeches in which at Church Congresses
+and elsewhere he flattered clerical prejudice, and encouraged clerical
+ignorance. To him there was no more "amusing" study--using "amusing" in
+the French sense as meaning something that keeps a man intellectually
+happy and awake--than the study of the Gospels. They presented an endless
+series of riddles, and riddles were what he liked. But the scientific
+treatment of these riddles had, according to him, nothing to do with the
+discipline of the Church; and to the discipline of the Church this young
+man, with the old eyes and mouth, was rigorously attached. He was a
+bachelor and a man of means--facts which taken together with his literary
+reputation and his agreeable aspect made him welcome among women; of
+which he was well aware.
+
+The Archdeacon, Doctor Froswick, and the Rural Dean, Mr. Brathay, who
+completed the Commission of Inquiry, were both men of middle age; the
+Archdeacon, fresh-coloured and fussy, a trivial, kindly person of no
+great account; the Rural Dean, broad-shouldered and square-faced, a
+silent, trustworthy man, much beloved in a small circle.
+
+A pile of books, MSS., and letters lay to the Chairman's right hand. On
+the blotting-pad before him was the voluminous written report of the
+commission 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 he
+arrived, and conversation had become general.
+
+"You have seen the leader in the _Oracle_ this morning?" asked the
+Archdeacon, nervously biting his quill. "Perfectly monstrous, I think! I
+shall withdraw my subscription."
+
+"With the _Oracle_," said the Professor, "it will be a mere question of
+success or failure. At present they are inclined to back the rebellion."
+
+"And not much wonder!" put in the Dean's hoarse voice. "The news this
+morning is uncommonly bad. Four more men joined the League here--a whole
+series of League meetings in Yorkshire!--half the important newspapers
+gone over or neutral--and a perfectly scandalous speech from the Bishop
+of Dunchester!"
+
+"I thought we should hear of Dunchester before long," said the Professor,
+with a sarcastic lip. "Anything that annoys his brethren has his constant
+support. But if the Church allows a Socinian to be put over her, she must
+take the consequences!"
+
+"What can the Church do?" said the Dean, shrugging his shoulders. "If we
+had accepted Disestablishment years ago, Dunchester would never have been
+a 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 be
+thrown against Disestablishment. There comes the dividing line between it
+and the past. I say again, we have missed our chance. If the High
+Churchmen had known their own minds--if they had joined hands boldly with
+the Liberation society, and struck off the State fetters--we should at
+least have been left in quiet possession of what remained to us. We
+should 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 endowments
+and our churches?" said Canon Dornal.
+
+The Dean flushed.
+
+"We have been called a nation of shopkeepers," he said vehemently, "but
+nobody has ever called us a nation of thieves."
+
+The Canon was silent. Then his eye caught the bulky MS. report lying
+before the Dean, and he made a restless movement as though the sight of
+it displeased him.
+
+"The demonstrations the papers report this morning are not all on one
+side," said the Rural Dean slowly but cheerfully, as though from a rather
+unsatisfactory 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 outrage
+people's dearest feelings for nothing. The scandal and misery of it! Of
+course we shall put it down--but the Church won't recover for a
+generation. And all that this handful of agitators may advertise
+themselves and their opinions!"
+
+Canon Dornal frowned and fidgeted.
+
+"We must remember," he said, "that--unfortunately--they have the greater
+part of European theology behind them."
+
+"European theology!" cried the Archdeacon. "I suppose you mean German
+theology?"
+
+"The same thing--almost," said the Canon, smiling a little sadly.
+
+"And what on earth does German theology matter to us?" retorted the
+Archdeacon. "Haven't we got theologians of our own? What have the Germans
+ever 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 have
+to give it up. I don't read German," said the Archdeacon, hastily, "but
+that's what I understand from the Church papers."
+
+Silence a moment. The Professor looked at the ceiling, a smile twitching
+the corners of his mouth. The green shade concealed the Dean's
+expression. He also knew no German, but it did not seem necessary to say
+so. Canon Dornal looked uncomfortable.
+
+"Do you see who it was that protected Darwen from the roughs outside his
+church?" he said presently.
+
+Brathay looked up.
+
+"A party of Wesleyans?--class-leaders? Yes, I saw. Oh! Darwen has always
+been on excellent terms with the Dissenters!"
+
+"Meynell too," said the Professor. "That of course is their game. Meynell
+has always gone for the inclusion of the Dissenters."
+
+"Well, it was Arnold's game!" said the Canon, his look kindling. "Don't
+let's forget that. Meynell's dream is not unlike his--to include
+everybody that would be included."
+
+"Except the Unitarians," said the Professor with emphasis--"the deniers
+of the Incarnation. Arnold drew the line there. So must we."
+
+He spoke with a crisp and smiling decision--as of one in authority. All
+kinds of assumptions lay behind his manner. Dornal looked at him with a
+rather troubled and hostile eye. This whole matter of the coming trial
+was to him deeply painful. He would have given anything to avoid it; but
+he did not see how it could be avoided. The extraordinary spread of the
+Movement indeed had made it impossible.
+
+At this moment one of the vergers of the Cathedral entered the room to
+say that Mr. Meynell was waiting below. The Dean directed that he should
+be shown up, and the whole commission dropped their conversational air
+and sat expectant.
+
+Meynell came in, rather hastily, brushing his hair back from his
+forehead. He shook hands with the Dean and the Archdeacon, and bowed
+to the other members of the commission. As he sat down, the Archdeacon,
+who was very sensitive to such things, and was himself a model of
+spick-and-span-ness, noticed that the Rector's coat was frayed, and one
+of the buttons loose. Anne indeed was not a very competent valet of her
+master; and nothing but a certain esthetic element in Meynell preserved
+him from a degree of personal untidiness which might perhaps have been
+excused in a man alternating, hour by hour, between his study-table and
+the humblest practical tasks among his people.
+
+[Illustration: "He shook hands with the Dean"]
+
+The other members of the commission observed him attentively. Perhaps all
+in their different ways and degrees were conscious of change in him: the
+change wrought insensibly in a man by some high pressure of emotion and
+responsibility--the change that makes a man a leader of his fellows,
+consecrates and sets him apart. Canon Dornal watched him with a secret
+sympathy and pity. The Archdeacon said to himself with repugnance that
+Meynell now had the look of a fanatic.
+
+The Dean took a volume from the pile beside him, and opened it at a
+marked page.
+
+"Before concluding our report to the Bishop, Mr. Meynell, we wished to
+have your explanation of an important passage in one of your recent
+sermons; and you have been kind enough to meet us with a view to giving
+us 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 marked
+sentences 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 of
+fact the continuous life of the spirit of Christ in mankind began with
+the death of Jesus of Nazareth. The Resurrection beliefs, so far as we
+can see, were the natural means by which that Life was secured."
+
+"Are we right in supposing, Mr. Meynell," said the Dean, slowly, "that in
+those sentences you meant to convey that the Resurrection narratives of
+the New Testament were not to be taken as historical fact, but merely as
+mythical--or legendary?"
+
+"The passage means, I think, what it says, Mr. Dean."
+
+"It is not, strictly speaking, logically incompatible," said the
+Professor, bending forward with a suave suggestiveness, "with acceptance
+of the statement in the Creed?"
+
+Meynell threw him a slightly perplexed look, and did not reply
+immediately. The Dean sharply interposed.
+
+"Do you in fact accept the statements of the Creed? In that case we might
+report to the Bishop that you felt you had been misinterpreted--and would
+withdraw the sermon complained of, in order to allay the scandal it has
+produced?"
+
+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 the
+speaker'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, must
+be 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 the
+statements in these volumes on this particular subject, much relief would
+be 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 teemed
+with heresy!
+
+But Meynell was for the moment only aware of his questioner. He leaned
+across the table as though addressing him alone.
+
+"To us too--the Resurrection is vital--the transposition of it, I
+mean--from the natural, or physical to the spiritual order."
+
+Dornal did not of course attempt to argue. But as Meynell met the
+sensitive melancholy of his look the Rector remembered that during the
+preceding year Dornal had lost a little son, a delicate, gifted child, to
+whom he had been peculiarly attached. And Meynell's quick imagination
+realized in a moment the haunted imagination of the other--the dear ghost
+that lived there--and the hopes that grouped themselves about it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A long wrestle followed between Meynell and the Professor. But Meynell
+could not be induced to soften or recant anything. He would often say
+indeed with an eager frown, when confronted with some statement of his
+own, "That was badly put! It should be so-and-so." And then would follow
+some vivid correction or expansion, which sometimes left the matter worse
+than before. The hopes of the Archdeacon, for one set of reasons, and of
+Dornal, for another, that some bridge of retreat might be provided by the
+interview, died away. The Dean had never hoped anything, and Mr. Brathay
+sat open-mouthed and aghast, while Meynell's voice and personality drove
+home 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 the
+whole critical onslaught--especially the German onslaught--was a beaten
+and discredited thing? It seemed to him terribly alive!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The library door opened again, and Meynell disappeared--ceremoniously
+escorted to the threshold by the Professor. When that gentleman was
+seated again, the Dean addressed the meeting.
+
+"A most unsatisfactory interview! There is nothing for it, I fear, but to
+send in our report unaltered to the Bishop. I must therefore ask you to
+append your signatures."
+
+All signed, and the meeting broke up.
+
+"Do you know at all when the case is likely to come on?" said Dornal to
+the Dean.
+
+"Hardly before November. The Letters of Request are ready. Then after the
+Arches will come the appeal to the Privy Council. The whole thing may
+take some time."
+
+"You see the wild talk in some of the papers this morning," said the
+Professor, interposing, "about a national appeal to Parliament to 'bring
+the Articles of the Church of England into accordance with modern
+knowledge.' If there is any truth in it, there may be an Armageddon
+before us."
+
+Dornal looked at him with distaste. The speaker's light tone, the note of
+relish in it, as of one delighting in the drama of life, revolted him.
+
+On coming out of the Cathedral Library, Dornal walked across to the
+Cathedral and entered. He found his way to a little chapel of St. Oswald
+on the north side, where he was often wont to sit or kneel for ten
+minutes' quiet in a busy day. As he passed the north transept he saw
+a figure sitting motionless in the shadow, and realized that it was
+Meynell.
+
+The silence of the great Cathedral closed round him. He was conscious of
+nothing but his own personality, and, as it seemed, of Meynell's. They
+two seemed to be alone together in a world outside the living world.
+Dornal could not define it, save that it was a world of reconciled
+enmities and contradictions. The sense of it alternated with a
+disagreeable recollection of the table in the Library and the men sitting
+round it, especially the cherubic face of the Professor; the thought also
+of the long, signed document which reported the "heresy" of Meynell.
+
+He had been quite right to sign it. His soul went out in a passionate
+adhesion to the beliefs on which his own life was built. Yet still the
+strange reconciling sense flowed in and round him, like the washing of a
+pure stream. He was certain that the Eternal Word had been made flesh in
+Jesus of Nazareth, had died and risen, and been exalted; that the Church
+was now the mysterious channel of His risen life. He must, in mere
+obedience and loyalty, do battle for that certainty--guard it as the
+most precious thing in life for those that should come after.
+Nevertheless he was conscious that there was in him none of the righteous
+anger, none of the moral condemnation, that his father or grandfather
+might have felt in the same case. As far as _feeling_ went, nothing
+divided him from Meynell. They two across the commission table--as
+accuser and accused--had recognized, each in the other, the man of faith.
+The same forces played on both, mysteriously linking them, as the same
+sea links the headland which throws back its waves with the harbour which
+receives 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 and
+excitement of the preceding weeks, and these moments of rest in the
+Cathedral were sometimes all that enabled him to go through his day. He
+endeavoured often at such times to keep his mind merely vacant and
+passive, avoiding especially the active religious thoughts which were
+more than brain and heart could continuously bear. "One cannot always
+think of it--one must not!" he would say to himself impatiently. And then
+he would offer himself eagerly to the mere sensuous impressions of the
+Cathedral--its beauty, its cool prismatic spaces, its silences.
+
+He did so to-day, though always conscious beyond the beauty, and the
+healing quiet, of the mysterious presence on which he "propped his
+soul."...
+
+Conscious, too, of a dear human presence, closely interwoven now with his
+sense of things ineffable.
+
+Latterly, as we have seen, he had not been without some scanty
+opportunities 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 the
+village, Mrs. Flaxman was beginning to give him generous help; the parish
+nurse was started. And sometimes when she came to consult, her niece was
+with her, and Meynell, while talking to the aunt either of his people or
+of the progress of the heresy campaign, was always keenly aware of the
+girlish figure beside her--of the quick, shy smile--the voice and its
+tones.
+
+She was with him in spirit--that he knew--passionately knew. But the
+barriers between them were surely insurmountable. Her sympathy with him
+was like some warm, stifled thing--some chafing bird "beating up against
+the wind."
+
+For a time, indeed, he had tried to put love from him, in the name of his
+high enterprise and its claims upon him. But as he sat tranced in the
+silence of the Cathedral that attempt finally gave way. His longing was
+hopeless, but it enriched his life. For it was fused with all that held
+him to his task; all that was divinest and sincerest in himself.
+
+One of the great bells of the Cathedral struck the quarter. His moment of
+communion and of rest broke up. He rose abruptly and left the Cathedral
+for the crowded streets outside, thinking hard as he walked of quite
+other things.
+
+The death of Mrs. Sabin in her son's cottage had been to Meynell like a
+stone flung into some deep shadowed pool--the ripples from it had been
+spreading 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 of
+the Rector within a few hours of its occurrence. His mother had returned
+home, he said, unexpectedly, after many years of wanderings in the
+States; he had not had very much conversation with her, as she had seemed
+ill and tired and "terrible queer" when she arrived. He and his boys had
+given up their room to her for the night, and she had been very late in
+coming 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 and
+unable to talk to him. She would not allow him to call any doctor, and
+had locked herself in her room. In the morning he had forced the door and
+had found her dead. He did not know that she had seen anybody but himself
+and his boys since her arrival.
+
+But she had seen some one else. As the Rector walked along the street he
+had in his pocket a cutting from the Markborough _Post_, containing the
+report of the inquest, from which it appeared--the Rector of course was
+well aware of it--that Mr. Henry Barron of the White House, going to the
+cottage to complain of the conduct of the children in the plantation, had
+found her there, and had talked to her for some time. "I thought her
+excited--and overtired--no doubt by the journey," he had said to the
+Coroner. "I tried to persuade her to let me send in a woman to look after
+her, but she refused."
+
+In Barron's evidence at the inquest, to which Meynell had given close
+attention, there had been no hint whatever as to the nature of his
+conversation with Mrs. Sabin. Nor had there been any need to inquire. The
+medical evidence was quite clear as to the cause of death--advanced brain
+disease, fatally aggravated by the journey.
+
+Immediately after his interview with John Broad the Rector had
+communicated the news of Mrs. Sabin's unexpected arrival and sudden death
+to two other persons in the village. He still thought with infinite
+concern of the effect it had produced on one of them. Since his hurried
+note telling her of Barron's evidence before the Coroner, and of his own
+impressions of it, he had not seen her. But he must not leave her too
+much to herself. A patient and tender pity, as of one on whom the burden
+of a struggling and suffering soul has long been thrown, dictated all his
+thoughts of her. He had himself perceived nothing which need alarm her in
+Barron's appearance at the inquest. Barron's manner to himself had been
+singularly abrupt and cold when they happened to run across each other,
+outside the room in which the inquest was held; but all that was
+sufficiently explained by the position of the heresy suit.
+
+Still anxiously pondering, Meynell passed the last houses in the
+Cathedral Close. The last of all belonged to Canon France, and Meynell
+had no sooner left it behind him than a full and portly figure emerged
+from its front door.
+
+Barron--for it was he--stood a moment looking after the retreating
+Rector. A hunter's eagerness gave sharpening, a grim sharpening, to the
+heavy face; yet there was perplexity mixed with the eagerness. His
+conversation with France had not been very helpful. The Canon's worldly
+wisdom and shrewd contempt for enthusiasts had found their natural food
+in the story which Barron had brought him. His comments had been witty
+and pungent enough. But when it had come to the practical use of the
+story, France had been of little assistance. His advice inclined too much
+to the Melbourne formula--"Can't you let it alone?" He had pointed out
+the risks, difficulties, and uncertainties of the matter with quite
+unnecessary iteration. Of course there were risks and difficulties; but
+was a man of the type of Richard Meynell to be allowed to play the
+hypocrite, as the rapidly emerging leader of a religious movement--a
+movement directed against the unity and apostolicity of the English
+Church--when there were those looking on who were aware of the grave
+suspicions resting on his private life and past history?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+On the same afternoon which saw the last meeting of the Commission of
+Inquiry at Markborough, the windows of Miss Puttenham's cottage in Upcote
+Minor were open to the garden, and the sun stealing into the half
+darkened drawing-room touched all the many signs it contained of a
+woman's refinement and woman's tastes. The room was a little austere. Not
+many books, but those clearly the friends and not the passing
+acquaintance of its mistress; not many pictures, and those rather slight
+suggestions on the dim blue walls than finished performances; a few
+"notes" in colour, or black and white, chosen from one or other of those
+moderns who can in a sensitive line or two convey the beauty or the
+harshness of nature. Over the mantelpiece there was a pencil drawing by
+Domenichino, of the Madonna and Child; a certain ecstatic languor in the
+Madonna, and, in all the lines of form and drapery, an exquisite flow and
+roundness.
+
+The little maidservant brought in the afternoon letters and with them a
+folded newspaper--the Markborough _Post_. A close observer might have
+detected that it had been already opened, and hurriedly refolded in the
+old folds. There was much interest felt in Upcote Minor in the inquest
+held on John Broad's mother; and the kitchen had taken toll before the
+paper reached the drawing-room.
+
+As though the maid's movement downstairs had been immediately perceived
+by a listening ear overhead, there was a quick sound of footsteps. Miss
+Puttenham ran downstairs, took the letters and the newspaper from the
+hands of the girl, and closed the door behind her.
+
+She opened the paper with eagerness, and read the account it gave of the
+Coroner's inquiry held at the Cowroast a week before. The newspaper
+dropped to the ground. She stood a moment, leaning against the
+mantelpiece, every feature in her face expressing the concentration of
+thought which held her; then she dropped into a chair, and raising her
+two hands to her eyes, she pressed the shut lids close, lifting her face
+as though to some unseen misery, while a little sound--infinitely
+piteous--escaped her.
+
+She saw a bedroom in a foreign inn--a vague form in the bed--a woman
+moving about in nurse's dress, the same woman who had just died in John
+Broad's cottage--and her sister Edith sitting by the fire. The door
+leading to the passage is ajar, and she is watching.... Or is it the
+figure 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, movement
+and life, like a rush of mountain air, come into the ugly shaded room. He
+is tall, with a long face, refined and yet violent, instinct with the
+character 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 a
+sound of bitter sobbing, of low words--
+
+Alice Puttenham's hands dropped from her face--and lay outstretched upon
+her 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 beauty
+at thirty-seven than she had been at twenty. And yet from childhood her
+face had been a winning one--with its childish upper lip and its thin
+oval, its delicate brunette colour, and the lovely clearness of its brown
+eyes. In youth its timid sweetness had been constantly touched with
+laughter. Now it shrank from you and appealed to you in one. But the
+departure of youth had but emphasized a certain distinction, a certain
+quality. Laughter was gone, but grace and character remained, imprinted
+also on the fragile body, the beautiful arms and hands. The only marring
+of the general impression came from an effect of restlessness and
+constraint. To live with Alice Puttenham was to conceive her as a
+creature subtly ill at ease, doing her best with a life which was, in
+some hidden way, injured at the core.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She thought herself quite alone this quiet afternoon, and likely to
+remain so. Hester, who had been lunching with her, had gone shopping into
+Markborough with the schoolroom maid, and was afterward to meet Sarah and
+Lulu at a garden party in the Cathedral Close. Lady Fox-Wilton had just
+left her sister's house after a long, querulous, excited visit, the
+latest 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 the
+event had reopened all the old wounds in Edith's mind, revived all the
+old grievances and terrors. Strange that a woman should be capable of one
+supreme act of help and devotion, and should then spend her whole after
+life in resenting it!
+
+"It was you and your story--that shocking thing we had to do for
+you--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'll
+be the good of all we've suffered!"
+
+That was Edith's attitude--the attitude of a small, vindictive soul. It
+never varied year by year; it showed itself both in trifles and on great
+occasions; it hindered all sisterly affection; and it was the explanation
+of her conduct toward Hester--it had indeed made Hester what she was.
+
+Again the same low sound of helpless pain broke from Alice Puttenham's
+lips. The sense of her unloved, solitary state, of all that she had borne
+and must still bear, roused in her anew a flame of memory. Torch-like it
+ran through the past, till she was shaken with anguish and revolt. She
+had 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 the
+present, that she had once had a man at her feet who had been the desired
+and adored of his day; that she had breathed her heart out in the passion
+of youth on his breast; that although he had wronged her, he had suffered
+because of her, had broken his heart for her, and had probably died
+because circumstances denied him the power to save and restore her, and
+he was not of the kind that bears patiently either thwarting from without
+or reproach from within.
+
+For his selfish passion, his weakness and his suffering, and her own
+woman's power to make him suffer; for his death, no less selfish indeed
+than his passion, for it had taken from her the community of the same
+air, and the same earth with him, the sense that somewhere in the world
+his warm life beat with hers, though they might be separated in bodily
+presence forever--for each and all of these things she had loved him. And
+there were still times when, in spite of the years that had passed away,
+and of other and perhaps profounder feelings that had supervened, she
+felt within her again the wild call of her early love, responding to it
+like an unhappy child, in vain appeal against her solitude, her sister's
+unkindness, and the pressure of irrevocable and unforgotten facts.
+
+Suddenly, she turned toward a tall and narrow chest of drawers that stood
+at her left hand. She chose a key from her watch-chain, a small gold key
+that in their childhood had been generally mistaken by her nieces and
+nephews 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. Her
+hand slipped in; she threw a hasty look round her, at the window, the
+garden. Not a sound of anything but the evening wind, which had just
+risen, and was making a smart rustling among the shrubs just outside. Her
+hand, a white, furtive thing, withdrew itself, and in it lay a packet,
+wrapped in some faded, green velvet. Hurriedly--with yet more pauses to
+listen and to look--the wrapping was undone; the case within fell open.
+
+It contained a miniature portrait of a man--French work, by an excellent
+pupil of Meissonier. The detail of it was marvellous; so, in Alice
+Puttenham's view, was the likeness. She remembered when and how it had
+been commissioned--the artist, and his bare studio in a street on the
+island, near Notre Dame; the chestnuts in the Luxembourg garden as
+they walked home; the dust of the falling blossoms, and the children
+playing in the alleys. And through it all, what passionate, guilty
+happiness--what dull sense of things irreparable!--what deliberate
+shutting 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 been
+her laughing name for him--her handsome, melancholy, eloquent _poseur!_
+Like many of his family, he was proud of his French culture, his French
+accent, and his knowledge of French books. The tradition that came
+originally from a French marriage had been kept up from father to son.
+They were not a learned or an industrious race, but their tongue soon
+caught the accent of the boulevards--of the Paris they loved and
+frequented. Her hand lifted the miniature the better to catch the
+slanting light.
+
+As she did so she was freshly struck with a resemblance she had long
+ceased to be conscious of. Familiarity with a living face, as so often
+happens, had destroyed for her its likeness--likeness in difference--to a
+face 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 in
+blue enamel--
+
+"_A ma mie!_"
+
+But before she could see it she must with her cold, quick fingers remove
+the fragment of stained paper that lay upon it like a veil. The half of a
+page of Moličre--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--but
+clingingly, as though it represented her only wealth, amid so much
+poverty. Then her hand, holding it, dropped to her knee again; the other
+hand came to close over it; and her eyes shut. Tears came slowly through
+the lashes.
+
+Amazing!--that that woman should have come back--and died--within a few
+hundred yards, and she, Alice, know nothing! In spite of all Richard's
+persuasions she tortured herself anew with the thought of the interview
+between Judith and Mr. Barron. What could they have talked about--so
+long? Judith was always an excitable, hot-tempered creature. Her silence
+had been heavily and efficiently bought for fifteen years. Then steps
+had been taken--insisted upon--by Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton. His wife and his
+sister-in-law had opposed him in vain. And Ralph had after all triumphed
+in Judith's apparent acquiescence.
+
+Supposing she had now come home, perhaps on a sudden impulse, with a view
+to further blackmail, would not her wisest move be to risk some
+indiscretion, some partial disclosure, so that her renewed silence
+afterward might have the higher price? An hour's _tete-a-tete_ with
+that shrewd, hard-souled man, Henry Barron! Alice Puttenham guessed that
+her own long-established dislike of him as acquaintance and neighbour was
+probably returned with interest; that he classed her now as one of
+"Meynell's lot," and would be only too glad to find himself possessed of
+any secret information that might, through her, annoy and harass Richard
+Meynell, her friend and counsellor.
+
+Was it conceivable that nothing should have been said in that lengthy
+interview as to the causes for Judith's coming home?--or of the reasons
+for her original departure? What else could have accounted for so
+prolonged a conversation between two persons, so different in social
+grade, and absolute strangers to each other?
+
+Richard had told her, indeed, and she saw from the _Post_, that at the
+inquest Barron had apparently accounted for the conversation. "She gave
+me a curious history of her life in the States. I was interested by her
+strange personality--and touched by her physical condition."
+
+Richard was convinced that there was no reasonable cause for alarm. But
+Richard 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, not
+from the springs of the past, but from the deepest sources of the
+present.
+
+_Richard!_
+
+That little villa on the Cap Martin--the steep pathway to it--and Richard
+mounting it, with that pale look, those tattered, sea-stained leaves in
+his hand--and the tragedy that had to be told, in his eyes, and on his
+lips. Could any other human being have upheld her as he did through that
+first year--through the years after? Was it not to him that she owed
+everything that had been recovered from the wreck; the independence and
+freedom of her daily life; protection from her hard brother-in-law, and
+from her sister's reproaches; occupation--hope--the gradual healing of
+intolerable wounds--the gradual awakening of a spiritual being?
+
+Thus--after passion--she had known friendship; its tenderness, its
+disinterested affection and care.
+
+_Tenderness?_ Her hand dashed away some more impetuous tears, then locked
+itself in the other, the tension of the muscles answering to the inward
+effort for self-control. Thank God, she had never asked him for more; had
+often seemed indeed to ask him for much less; had made herself
+irresponsive, difficult, remote. At least she had never lost her dignity
+in his eyes--(ah! in whose eyes but his had she ever possessed it?)--she
+had never forfeited--never risked even--her sacred place in his life, as
+the soul he had helped through dark places, true servant as he was of the
+Master of Pity.
+
+The alarms of the week died away, as this emotion gained upon her. She
+bethought her of certain central and critical years, when, after long
+dependence on him as comrade and friend, suddenly, she knew not how, her
+own pulse had quickened, and the sharpest struggle of her life had come
+upon her. It was the crisis of the mature woman, as compared with that of
+the innocent and ignorant girl; and in the silent mastering of it she
+seemed to have parted with her youth.
+
+But she had never parted with self-control and self-respect. She had
+never persuaded herself that the false was true. She had kept her
+counsel, and her sanity, and the wage of it had not been denied her. She
+had emerged more worthy of his friendship, more capable of rewarding it.
+
+Yes, but with a clear and sad perception of the necessities laid upon
+her--of the sacrifices involved.
+
+He believed her--she knew it--indifferent to the great cause of religious
+change and reform which he had at heart. In these matters, indeed, she
+had quietly, unwaveringly held aloof. There are efforts and endurances
+that can only be maintained--up to a point. Beyond that point resistance
+breaks. The life that is fighting emotion must not run too many risks of
+emotion. At the root of half the religious movements of the world lies
+the appeal of the preacher and the prophet--to women. Because women are
+the creatures and channels of feeling; and feeling is to religion as air
+to life.
+
+But _she_--must starve feeling--not feed and cherish it. Richard's voice
+was too powerful with her already. To hear it dealing with the most
+intimate and touching things of the soul would have tested the resistance
+of her will too sorely. Courage and honour alike told her that she would
+be defeated and undone did she attempt to meet and follow him--openly--in
+the paths of religion. _Entbehren sollst du_--_sollst entbehren!_
+
+So, long before this date, she had chosen her line of action. She took no
+part in the movement, and she rarely set foot in the village church,
+which was close to her gates. Meynell sadly believed her unshakeable--one
+of the natural agnostics or pessimists of the world who cannot be
+comforted through religion.
+
+And meanwhile secretly, ardently, she tracked all the footsteps of his
+thoughts, reading what he read, thinking as far as possible what he
+thought, and revealing nothing.
+
+Except that, lately, she had been indiscreet sometimes in talk with Mary
+Elsmere. Mary had divined her--had expressed her astonishment that her
+friend should declare herself and her sympathies so little; and Alice had
+set up some sort of halting explanation.
+
+But in this nascent friendship it was not Mary alone who had made
+discoveries....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Alice Puttenham sat very still, in the quiet shadowy room, her eyes
+closed, her hands crossed over the miniature, the Markborough paper lying
+on the floor beside her. As the first activity of memory, stirred and
+goaded by an untoward event, lost its poignancy; as she tried in
+obedience 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 never
+absent from Alice Puttenham's consciousness. One face, one problem, more
+or less acutely realized, haunted her life continuously. But this
+afternoon they had, for the moment, receded into the background. Hester
+had been, surely, more reasonable, more affectionate lately. Philip
+Meryon had now left Sandford; a statement to that effect had appeared in
+the _Post_; and Hester had even shown some kindness to poor Stephen. She
+had at last declared her willingness to go to Paris, and the arrangements
+were all made. The crisis in her of angry revolt, provoked apparently by
+the refusal of her guardian to allow her engagement to Stephen, seemed to
+be over.
+
+So that for once Alice Puttenham was free to think and feel for her own
+life and what concerned it. From the events connected with Judith Sabin's
+death--through the long history of Meynell's goodness to her--the mind
+of this lonely woman travelled on, to be filled and arrested by the
+great new fact of the present. She had made a new friend. And at the
+same moment she had found in her--at last--the rival with whom her
+own knowledge of life had threatened her these many years. A rival so
+sweet--so unwitting! Alice had read her. She had scarcely yet read
+herself.
+
+Alice opened her eyes--to the quiet room, and the windy sky
+outside. She was very pale, but there were no tears. "It is not
+renouncing"--she whispered to herself--"for I never possessed. It
+is accepting--loving--giving--all one has to give."
+
+And vaguely there ran through her mind immortal words--"_good
+measure--pressed down, and running over_."
+
+A smile trembled on her lip. She closed her eyes again, lost in one of
+those spiritual passions accessible only to those who know the play and
+heat of the spiritual war. The wind was blowing briskly outside, and from
+the wood-shed in the back garden came a sound of sawing. Miss Puttenham
+did not hear a footstep approaching on the grass outside.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hester paused at the window--smiling. There was wildness--triumph--in her
+look, as though for her this quiet afternoon had seen some undisclosed
+adventure. Her cheek was hotly flushed, her loosened hair made a glory in
+the evening sun. Youth, selfishly pitiless--youth, the supplanter and
+destroyer--stood embodied in the beautiful creature looking down upon
+Alice Puttenham, on the still intensity of the plaintive face, the closed
+eyes, the hands holding the miniature.
+
+Mischievously the girl came closer. She took the stillness before her for
+sleep.
+
+"Auntie! Aunt Alsie!"
+
+With a start, Alice Puttenham sprang up. The miniature dropped from
+her hands to the floor, opening as it fell. Hester looked at it
+astonished--and her hand stooped for it before Miss Puttenham had
+perceived her loss.
+
+"Were you asleep, Aunt Alsie?" she asked, wondering. "I got tired of
+that stupid party--and I--well, I just slipped away"--the clear high
+voice had grown conscious--"and I looked in here, because I left a book
+behind 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 returned
+it. In the act she caught the inscription and her face kindled.
+
+Impetuously throwing herself down beside Miss Puttenham, the girl looked
+up 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, "though
+you 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 your
+things by heart--and now you've been keeping something from me!" The
+girl's tone had changed to one of curious resentment. "You know how you
+scold _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 her
+knee, prevented it.
+
+"Why is it different?" she said, audaciously. "You always say
+you--you--want to be everything to me--and then you hide things from
+me--and I--"
+
+She raised herself, sitting upright on the floor, her hands round her
+knees, 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_ care
+about are the people who _live_--and feel--and do things! There's verse
+in one of your books"--she pointed to a little bookshelf of poets on a
+table 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 loathe
+all the humdrum _bourgeois_ talk--'don't do this--don't do that!' Aunt
+Alsie, 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 came
+with vehemence through the white teeth. "And how can we escape it--we
+women--except through freedom--through asserting ourselves--through love,
+of course? It all comes to love!--love that mamma says one ought not to
+talk about. I wouldn't talk about it, if it only meant what it means to
+Sarah and Lulu--I'd scorn to!"
+
+She stopped--and looked with her blazing and wonderful eyes at her
+companion--her lips parted. Then she suddenly stooped and kissed the cold
+hand trying to withdraw itself from hers.
+
+"Who was he, dear?"--she laid the hand caressingly against her
+cheek--"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 any
+one--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 overtired
+this morning."
+
+And she went feebly toward the door.
+
+Hester looked after her, panting and wounded. Aunt Alsie repel--refuse
+her!--Aunt Alsie!--who had always been her special possession and
+chattel. 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, at
+least, never failed. Hester's clothes were Miss Puttenham's special care;
+it was for Hester that she stitched and embroidered. Hester was to
+inherit her jewels and her money. In all Hester's scrapes it was Aunt
+Alice who stood by her, who had often carried her off bodily out of reach
+of 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, had
+never been specially grateful, or much more amenable to counsels from
+Aunt Alice than from anybody else. The slender, graceful woman, so
+gentle, plaintive and reserved, so easily tyrannized over, had never
+seemed to mean much to her. Yet now, as she stood looking at the door
+through which Miss Puttenham had disappeared, the girl was conscious of a
+profound 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 the
+window and down the steps into the garden.
+
+"If she had told me"--she said to herself, with the childish fury that
+mingled 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 face
+pressed 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 much
+less food than usual, with--all the while--the pressure of a vague
+corrosive terror on nerve and brain. The shock of that miniature in
+Hester's hands had just turned the scale; endurance had given way.
+
+The quick footsteps receded. Yet she could do nothing to arrest them. Her
+mind floated in darkness.
+
+Presently out of the darkness emerged a sound, a touch--a warm hand on
+hers.
+
+"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 not
+hear. 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 to
+lavish on a sufferer. Gradually Alice mastered herself, but more than a
+broken 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 been
+weighing 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. The
+servant whispered, and she returned at once.
+
+"Mr. Meynell is here," she said, hesitating. "You will let me send him
+away?"
+
+Alice Puttenham opened her eyes.
+
+"I can't see him. But please--give him some tea. He'll have walked--from
+Markborough."
+
+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's
+nothing"--she raised herself in the chair--"only bad nights! I'll go to
+bed--that'll be best. Go down--give him tea. And Mrs. Flaxman's going
+with you?"
+
+"No. Mother said she wished to go," said Mary, slowly. "She and I were to
+meet 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 the
+meeting. I--I want you to be there. Good night."
+
+And she gently pushed the girl from her, putting up her pale lips to be
+kissed, and asking that the little parlour-maid should be sent to help
+her undress.
+
+Mary went unwillingly. She gave Miss Puttenham's message to the maid, and
+when the girl had gone up to her mistress she lingered a moment at the
+foot of the stairs, her hands lightly clasped on her breast, as though to
+quiet the stir within.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meynell, expecting to see the lady of the house, could not restrain the
+start of surprise and joy with which he turned toward the incomer. He
+took her hand in his--pressing it involuntarily. But it slipped away, and
+Mary explained with her soft composure why she was there alone--that Miss
+Puttenham was suffering from a succession of bad nights and was keeping
+her room--that she sent word the Rector must please rest a little before
+going home, and allow Mary to give him tea.
+
+Meynell sank obediently into a chair by the open window, and Mary
+ministered to him. The lines of his strong worn face relaxed. His look
+returned to her again and again, wistfully, involuntarily; yet not so as
+to cause her embarrassment.
+
+She was dressed in some thin gray stuff that singularly became her; and
+with the gray dress she wore a collar or ruffle of soft white that gave
+it a slight ascetic touch. But the tumbling red-gold of the hair, the
+frank dignity of expression, belonged to no mere cloistered maid.
+
+Meynell heard the news of Miss Puttenham's collapse with a sigh--checked
+at 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 the
+cottage during the preceding week.
+
+Mary reported that she had been in and out as usual, and seemed
+reconciled to the prospect of Paris.
+
+"Are you--is Miss Puttenham sure that she hasn't still been meeting that
+man?"
+
+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 I
+could--but at this time--what use am I?"
+
+The Rector threw himself back wearily in his chair, his hands behind his
+head. Mary was conscious of some deep throb of feeling that must not come
+to words. Even since she had known it the face had grown older--the
+lines deeper--the eyes finer. She stooped forward a little.
+
+"It is hard that you should have this anxiety too. Oh! but I _hope_ there
+is no need!"
+
+He raised himself again with energy.
+
+"There is always need with Hester. Oh! don't suppose I have forgotten
+her! I have written to that fellow, my cousin. I went, indeed, to see him
+the day before yesterday, but the servants at Sandford declared he had
+gone to town, and they were packing up to follow. Lady Fox-Wilton and
+Miss 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 is
+quite kind to me--she tells me when she thinks my frock is hideous--or
+my 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 the
+sofa-cushion."
+
+Meynell shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"She has no bump of respect--never had!" and he began to give a half
+humorous account of the troubles and storms of Hester's bringing up. "I
+often ask myself whether we haven't all--whether I, in particular,
+haven't been a first-class bungler and blundered all through with regard
+to Hester. Did we choose the wrong governesses? They seemed most
+estimable people. Did we thwart her unnecessarily? I can't remember a
+time 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. "But
+he was kind to her--according to his lights; and--he said some very sound
+and 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 upon
+me--just now."
+
+"Just now?"
+
+"Here am I preaching to others," he said slowly, "leading what people
+call a religious movement, and this homely elementary task seems to be
+all going wrong. I don't seem to be able to protect this child confided
+to me."
+
+"Oh, but you will protect her!" cried Mary, "you will! She mayn't seem to
+give way--when you talk to her; but she has said things to me--to my
+mother 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--how
+you've cared for her," said Mary, stammering a little.
+
+"I have done nothing but my plainest, simplest duty. I have made
+innumerable mistakes; and if I fail with her, it's quite clear that I'm
+not fit to teach or lead anybody."
+
+The words were spoken with an impatient emphasis to which Mary did not
+venture a reply. But she could not restrain an expression in her gray
+eyes which was a balm to the harassed combatant beside her.
+
+They said no more of Hester. And presently Mary's hunger for news of
+the Reform Movement could not be hid. It was clear she had been reading
+everything she could on the subject, and feeding upon it in a loneliness,
+and under a constraint, which touched Meynell profoundly. The conflict
+in her between a spiritual heredity--the heredity of her father's
+message--and her tender love for her mother had never been so plain to
+him. Yet he could not feel that he was abetting any disloyalty in
+allowing the conversation. She was mature. Her mind had its own rights!
+
+Mary indeed, unknown to him, was thrilling under a strange and secret
+sense 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, her
+sympathy, 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 the
+campaign; its astonishing developments; the kindling on all sides of the
+dry bones of English religion.
+
+The new--or re-written--Liturgy of the Reform was, it seemed, almost
+completed. From all parts: from the Universities, from cathedral
+cloisters, from quiet country parishes, from the clash of life in the
+great towns, men had emerged as though by magic to bring to the making of
+it their learning and their piety, the stored passion of their hearts.
+And the mere common impulse, the mere release of thoughts and aspirations
+so long repressed, had brought about an extraordinary harmony, a
+victorious selflessness, among the members of the commission charged with
+the task. The work had gone with rapidity, yet with sureness, as in those
+early years of Christianity, which saw so rich and marvellous an upgrowth
+from the old soil of humanity. With surprising ease and spontaneity the
+old had passed over into the new; just as in the first hundred years
+after Christ's death the psalms and hymns and spiritual songs of the
+later Judaism had become, with but slight change, the psalms and hymns of
+Christianity; and a new sacred literature had flowered on the stock of
+the old.
+
+"To-night--here!--we submit the new marriage service and the new burial
+service to the Church Council. And the same thing will be happening, at
+the same moment, in all the churches of the Reform--scattered through
+England."
+
+"How many churches now?" she asked, with a quickened breath.
+
+"Eighteen in July--this week, over a hundred. But before our cases come
+on for trial there will be many more. Every day new congregations come in
+from new dioceses. The beacon fire goes leaping on, from point to point!"
+
+But the emotion which the phrase betrayed was instantly replaced by the
+business tone of the organizer as he went on to describe some of the
+practical developments of the preceding weeks: the founding of a
+newspaper; the collection of propagandist funds; the enrolment of
+teachers 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 hoped
+to see the spread of such a force in the dusty modern world! You remember
+the fairy story of the prince whose heart was bound with iron bands--and
+how one by one, the bands give way? I have seen it like that--in life
+after life."
+
+"And the fighting?"
+
+She had propped her face on her hands, and her eyes, with their eager
+sympathy, their changing lights, rained influence on the man beside her;
+an influence insensibly mingling with and colouring the passion for ideas
+which 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 to
+feel 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 shut
+out, 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 it
+natural you should miscalculate the forces against you? Oh! they are so
+strong! 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 you
+are right. Now let me tell you what the other side are doing. That
+chastens one! There is a conference of Bishops next week; there was one
+a week ago. These are of course thundering resolutions in Convocation.
+The English Church Union has an Albert Hall meeting; it will be
+magnificent. A 'League of the Trinity' has started against us, and will
+soon be campaigning all over England. The orthodox newspapers are all in
+full cry. Meanwhile the Bishops are only waiting for the decision of my
+case--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 Privy
+Council. A hundred cases--that will take time! Meanwhile--from us--a
+monster petition--first to the Bishops for the assembling of a full
+Council of the English Church, then to Parliament for radical changes in
+the 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 the
+conflict before him.
+
+"That," he said quietly, "is nothing to us. We are but soldiers under
+command."
+
+He rose; and, suddenly, she realized with a fluttering heart how empty
+that 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 Council
+consists 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. They
+are my spiritual brothers, or sons--picked men--the leaders of their
+fellows--far better Christians than I. I wish you could see them--and
+hear 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 an
+instant, and then said with gentle emphasis:
+
+"I don' think there will be anything to wound her. At any rate, there
+will 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 be
+going 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 the
+Lakes, in Long Whindale. We came here because mother was ill--and Aunt
+Rose begged us. But--"
+
+"Do you know"--he interrupted her impetuously--"that for six months I've
+had a hunger for just one fortnight up there among the fells?"
+
+"You love them?" Her face bloomed with pleasure. "You know the dear
+mountains?"
+
+He smiled.
+
+"It doesn't do to think of them, does it? You should see the letters on
+my table! But I may have to take a few days' rest, some time. Should I
+find you in Long Whindale--if I dropped down on you--over Goat Scar?"
+
+"Yes--from December till March!" Then she suddenly checked the happiness
+of 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 up
+round them in which every tone and movement had suddenly become
+magnified--significant.
+
+Meynell recovered himself. He held out his hand in farewell, but he had
+scarcely turned away from her, when she made a startled movement toward
+the open window.
+
+"What is that?"
+
+There was a sound of shouting and running in the street outside. A
+crowd seemed to be approaching. Meynell ran out into the garden to
+listen. By this time the noise had grown considerably, and he thought
+he distinguished his own name among the cries.
+
+"Something has happened at the colliery!" he said to Mary, who had
+followed him.
+
+And he hurried toward the gate, bareheaded, just as a gray-haired lady in
+black entered the garden.
+
+"Mother," cried Mary, in amazement.
+
+Catharine Elsmere paused--one moment; she looked from her daughter to
+Meynell. Then she hurried to the Rector.
+
+"You are wanted!" she said, struggling to get her breath. "A terrible
+thing has happened. They think four lives have been lost--some accident
+to the cage--and people blame the man in charge. They've got him shut up
+in the colliery office--and declare they'll kill him. The crowd looks
+dangerous--and there are very few police. I heard you were here--some
+one, the postman, saw you come in--you must stop it. The people will
+listen to you."
+
+Her fine, pale face, framed in her widow's veil, did not so much ask as
+command. He replied by a gesture--then by two or three rapid inquiries.
+Mary--bewildered--saw them for an instant as allies and equals, each
+recognizing the other. Then Meynell ran to the gate, and was at once
+swallowed up in the moving groups which had gathered there, and seemed to
+carry him back with them toward the colliery.
+
+Catharine Elsmere turned to follow--Mary at her side. Mary looked at her
+in 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 they
+hurried on; "their faces were like wild beasts. They have telephoned to
+Cradock for police. If Mr. Meynell can keep them in check for half an
+hour, there may be hope."
+
+They ran on, swept along by the fringe of the crowd till they reached the
+top of a gentle descent at the farther end of the village. At the bottom
+of this hill lay the colliery, with its two huge chimneys, its shed and
+engine houses, its winding machinery, and its heaps of refuse. Within the
+enclosure, from the height where they stood, could be seen a thin line of
+police surrounding a small shed--the pay-office. On the steps of it stood
+the manager, and the Rector, to be recognized by his long coat and his
+bare head, had just joined him. Opposite to the police, and separated
+from the shed by about ten yards and a wooden paling, was a threatening
+and vociferating mob, which stretched densely across the road and up the
+hill on either side; a mob largely composed of women--dishevelled,
+furious women--their white faces gleaming amid the coal-blackened forms
+of the miners.
+
+"They'll have 'im out," said a woman in front of Mary Elsmere. "Oh, my
+God!--they'll have 'im out! It was he caused the death of the boy--yo
+mind 'im--young Jimmy Ragg--a month sen; though the crowner's jury did
+let '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 the
+cage 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 yan
+goes down, as the other cooms up. An' there's catches as yo mun knock
+away to let 'un go down--an' this banksman--ee's a devil!--he niver so
+much as walked across to the other shaft to see--an' theer was the
+catches fast--an' instead o' goin' down, theer was the cage stuck, an'
+the rope uncoilin' itsel', and fallin' off the drum--an' foulin' the
+other rope--An' then all of a suddent, just as them poor fellows wor
+nearin' top--the drum began to work t'other way--run backards, you
+unnerstan?--an' the engineman lost 'is head an' niver thowt to put on
+t'breaks--an'--oh! Lord save us!--whether they was drownt at t'bottom
+i' the sump, or killt afore they got theer--theer's no one knows
+yet--They're getten of 'em up now."
+
+And as she spoke, a great shout which became a groan ran through the
+crowd. Men climbed up the railings at the side of the road that they
+might see better. Women stood on tiptoe. A confused clamour came from
+below, 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 the
+crowd made way. Up the hill they came, a great wail preceding and
+surrounding them; behind them the murmurs of an ungovernable indignation.
+
+As the procession neared them Mary saw a gray-haired woman throw up her
+arm, 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's
+juries?--Let's settle it oursel's!"
+
+Deep murmurs answered her.
+
+"And it's this same Jenkins," said another fierce voice, "as had a sight
+to 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't
+murder 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' if
+them 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 their
+heads, and the women wailing. In front came a piteous group--a young
+half-fainting wife, supported by an older woman, with children clinging
+to her skirts. Catharine went forward, and lifted a baby or two that was
+being dragged along the ground. Mary took up another child, and they both
+joined the procession.
+
+As they did so, there was a shout from below.
+
+Mary, white as her dress, asked an elderly miner beside her, who had
+shown no excitement whatever, to tell her what had happened. He clambered
+up on the bank to look and came back to her.
+
+"They've beaten 'un back, miss," he said in her ear. "They've got the
+surface men to help, and Muster Meynell he's doing his best; if there's
+anybody can hold 'em, he can; but there's terrible few on 'em. It is time
+as the Cradock men came up. They'll be trying fire before long, an' the
+women 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 memory
+of Meynell on the steps--speaking, gesticulating--and the surging crowd
+in front of him.
+
+There was that to do, however, which deadened fear. In the main street
+the procession was met by hurrying doctors and nurses. For those broken
+bodies indeed--young men in their prime--nothing could be done, save to
+straighten 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 no
+office and no sight, however terrible. But she would not permit them to
+Mary, and they were presently separated.
+
+Mary had a trio of sobbing children on her knee, in the living-room of
+one of the cottages, when there was a sudden tramp outside. Everybody in
+Miners' Row, including those who were laying out the dead, ran to the
+windows.
+
+"The police from Cradock!"--fifty of them.
+
+The news passed from mouth to mouth, and even those who had been maddest
+half an hour before felt the relief of it.
+
+Meanwhile detachments of shouting men and women ran clattering at
+intervals through the village streets. Sometimes stragglers from them
+would drop into the cottages alongside--and from their panting talk, what
+had happened below became roughly clear. The police had arrived only just
+in time. The small band defending the office was worn out, the Rector had
+been struck, palings torn down; in another half-hour the rioters would
+have set the place on fire and dragged out the man of whom they were in
+search.
+
+The narrator's story was broken by a howl--
+
+"Here he comes!" And once again, as though by a rush of muddy water, the
+street filled up, and a strong body of police came through it, escorting
+the banksman who had been the cause of the accident. A hatless, hunted
+creature, with white face and loosened limbs, he was hurried along by the
+police, amid a grim silence that had suddenly succeeded to the noise.
+
+Behind came a group of men, officials of the colliery, and to the right
+of them walked the Rector, bareheaded as before, a bandage on the left
+temple. His eyes ran along the cottages, and he presently perceived Mary
+Elsmere standing at an open door, with a child that had cried itself to
+sleep in her arms.
+
+Stepping out of the ranks, he approached her. The people made way for
+him, a few here and there with sullen faces, but in the main with a
+friendly and remorseful eagerness.
+
+"It's all over," he said in Mary's ear. "But it was touch and go. An
+unpopular man--suspected of telling union secrets to the masters last
+year. He was concerned in another accident to a boy--a month ago; they
+all think he was in fault, though the jury exonerated him. And now--a
+piece of abominable carelessness!--manslaughter at least. Oh! he'll catch
+it hot! But we weren't going to have him murdered on our hands. If he
+hadn't got safe into the office, the women alone would have thrown him
+down the shaft. By the way, are you learned in 'first aid'?"
+
+He pointed, smiling, to his temple, and she saw that the wound beneath
+the rough bandage was bleeding afresh.
+
+"It makes me feel a bit faint," he said with annoyance; "and there is so
+much to do!"
+
+"May I see to it?" said her mother's voice behind her. And Catharine, who
+had just descended from an upper room, went quickly to a nurse's wallet
+which had been left on a table in the kitchen, and took thence an
+antiseptic 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 ray
+of strange sweetness stole through the tragedy of the day.
+
+In a very few minutes Meynell rose. They were in the cottage of one of
+the victims. The dead lay overhead, and the cries of wife and mother
+could be heard through the thin flooring.
+
+"Don't go up again!" he said peremptorily to Catharine. "It is too much
+for you."
+
+She looked at him gently.
+
+"They asked me to come back again. It is not too much for me. Please let
+me."
+
+He gave way. Then, as he was following her upstairs, he turned to say to
+Mary:
+
+"Gather some of the people, if you can, outside. I want to give a notice
+when I come down."
+
+He mounted the ladder-stairs leading to the upper room. Violent sounds of
+wailing broke out overhead, and the murmur of his voice could be heard
+between.
+
+Mary quietly sent a few messengers into the street. Then she gathered
+up the sleeping child again in her arms, and sat waiting. In spirit she
+was in the room overhead. The thought of those two--her mother and
+Meynell--beside a bed of death together, pierced her heart.
+
+After what seemed to her an age, she heard her mother's step, and the
+Rector following. Catharine stood again beside her daughter, brushing
+away 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 has
+been 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 hurried
+out to speak to them.
+
+Meanwhile evening had fallen, a late September evening, shot with gold
+and purple. Behind the village the yellow stubbles stretched up to the
+edge of the Chase and drifts of bluish smoke from the colliery chimneys
+hung in the still air.
+
+Meynell, standing on the raised footpath above the crowd, gave notice
+that a special service of mourning would be held in the church that
+evening. The meeting of the Church Council would of course be postponed.
+
+During his few words Mary made her way to the farther edge of the
+gathering, looking over it toward the speaker. Behind him ran the row of
+cottages, and in the doorway opposite she saw her mother, with her arm
+tenderly folded round a sobbing girl, the sister of one of the dead. The
+sudden tranquillity, the sudden pause from tumult and anguish seemed to
+draw a "wind-warm space" round Mary, and she had time, for a moment, to
+think of herself and the strangeness of this tragic day.
+
+How amazing that her mother should be here at all. This meeting of the
+Reformers' League to which she had insisted on coming--as a spectator of
+course, and with the general public--what did it mean? Mary did not yet
+know, long as she had pondered it.
+
+How beautiful was the lined face!--so pale in the golden dusk, in its
+heavy frame of black. Mary could not take her eyes from it. It betrayed
+an 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 swiftest
+and purest; through all the tragedy and the horror some burden seemed to
+have dropped from Catharine's soul. She met her daughter's eyes, and
+smiled.
+
+When Meynell had finished, the crowd silently drifted away, and he
+came back to the Elsmeres. They noticed the village fly coming toward
+them--saw it stop in the roadway.
+
+"I sent for it," Meynell explained rapidly. "You mustn't let your mother
+do any more. Look at her! Please, will you both go to the Rectory? My
+cook will give you tea; I have let her know. Then the fly will take you
+home."
+
+They protested in vain--must indeed submit. Catharine flushed a little at
+being so commanded; but there was no help for it.
+
+"I _would_ like to come and show you my den!" said Meynell, as he put
+them 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 she
+was, she was accustomed to have her way.
+
+They drove into the dark shrubbery that lay between the Rectory and the
+road. At the door of the little house stood Anne in a white cap and clean
+apron. But the white cap sat rather wildly on its owner's head; nor would
+she take any interest in her visitors till she had got from them a fuller
+account of the tumult at the pit than had yet reached her, and assurances
+that Meynell's wound was but slight. But when these were given she
+pounced 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-table
+spread.
+
+She bustled away to bring the tea.
+
+Then exhaustion seized on Catharine. She submitted to be put on the sofa
+after it had been cleared of its pile of books; and Mary sat by her a
+while, holding her hands. Death and the agony of broken hearts
+overshadowed them.
+
+But then the dogs came in, discreet at first, and presently--at scent of
+currant cake--effusively friendly. Mary fed them all, and Catharine
+watched the colour coming back to her face, and the dumb sweetness in the
+gray eyes.
+
+Presently, while her mother still rested, Mary took courage to wander
+round the room, looking at the books, the photographs on the walls, the
+rack of pipes, the carpenter's bench, and the panels of half-finished
+carving. Timidly, yet eagerly, she breathed in the message it seemed
+to bring her from its owner--of strenuous and frugal life. Was that
+half-faded miniature of a soldier his father--and that sweet gray-haired
+woman his mother? Her heart thrilled to each discovery.
+
+Then Anne invaded them, for conversation, and while Catharine, unable to
+hide her fatigue, lay speechless, Anne chattered about her master. Her
+indignation was boundless that any hand could be lifted against him in
+his own parish. "Why he strips himself bare for them, he does!"
+
+And--with Mary unconsciously leading her--out came story after story, in
+the racy Mercian vernacular, illustrating a good man's life, and all
+
+His little nameless unremembered acts
+Of kindness and of love.
+
+As they drove slowly home through the sad village street they perceived
+Henry Barron calling at some of the stricken houses. The squire was
+always punctilious, and his condolences might be counted on. Beside him
+walked a young man with a jaunty step, a bored sallow face, and a long
+moustache which he constantly caressed. Mary supposed him to be the
+squire's second son, "Mr. Maurice," whom nobody liked.
+
+Then the church, looming through the dusk; lights shining through its
+fine perpendicular windows, and the sound of familiar hymns surging out
+into 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 thirsty
+spoke 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 the
+tragic tumult, the human action of the day; let well alone!
+
+And for the first time, as she sat in the darkness, holding her mother's
+hand, 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 that
+afternoon through the extremes of hate and sorrow unpacked their hearts
+in singing and prayer. The hymns rose and fell through the dim red
+sandstone church--symbol of the endless plaint of human life, forever
+clamouring in the ears of Time; and Meynell's address, as he stood on the
+chancel steps, almost among the people, the disfiguring strips of
+plaster on the temple and brow sharply evident between the curly black
+hair and the dark hollows of the eyes, sank deep into grief-stricken
+souls. It was the plain utterance of a man, with the prophetic gift,
+speaking to human beings to whom, through years of checkered life, he had
+given all that a man can give of service and of soul. He stood there as
+the living expression of their conscience, their better mind, conceived
+as the mysterious voice of a Divine power in man; and in the name of that
+Power, and its direct message to the human soul embodied in the tale we
+call Christianity, he bade them repent their bloodthirst, and hope in God
+for their dead. He spoke amid weeping; and from that night forward one
+might have thought his power unshakeable, at least among his own people.
+
+But there were persons in the church who remained untouched by it. In the
+left aisle Hester sat a little apart from her sisters, her hard, curious
+look ranging from the preacher through the crowded benches. She surveyed
+it all as a spectacle, half thrilled, half critical. And at the western
+end of the aisle the squire and his son stood during the greater part of
+the service, showing plainly by their motionless lips and folded arms
+that 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 was
+posted in Markborough, and duly delivered the following morning to an
+address in Upcote Minor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+"What on earth can Henry Barron desire a private interview with me
+about?" said Hugh Flaxman looking up from his letters, as he and
+his wife sat together after breakfast in Mrs. Flaxman's sitting-room.
+
+"I suppose he wants subscriptions for his heresy hunt? The Church party
+seem to be appealing for funds in most of the newspapers."
+
+"I should have thought he knew I am not prepared to support him," said
+Flaxman quietly.
+
+"Where are you, old man?" His wife laid a caressing hand on his
+shoulder--"I don't really quite know."
+
+Flaxman smiled at her.
+
+"You and I are not theologians, are we, darling?" He kissed the hand. "I
+don't find myself prepared to swear to Meynell's precise 'words' any more
+than I was to Robert's. But I am ready to fight to prevent his being
+driven 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 place
+in 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 asked
+to meet him. I really do not think you ought to have asked Meynell."
+
+"There we must agree to differ," said Rose firmly. "Social relations in
+this country must be maintained--in spite of politics--in spite of
+religion--in spite of everything."
+
+"That's all very well--but if you mix people too violently, you make them
+uncomfortable."
+
+"My dear Hugh!--how many drawing-rooms are there?" His wife waved a vague
+hand toward the folding doors on her right, implying the suite of
+Georgian rooms that stretched away beyond them; "one for every _nuance_
+if it comes to that. If they positively won't mix I shall have to
+segregate them. But they will mix." Then she fell into a reverie for a
+moment, adding at the end of it--"I must keep one drawing-room for the
+Rector 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 member
+in a Cabinet headed by a Prime Minister in rapidly failing health; to
+whose place, either by death or retirement it was generally expected that
+Edward Norham would succeed.
+
+"Well, darling, I shall watch your manoeuvres with interest," said
+Flaxman, rising and gathering up his letters--"and, _longo intervallo_, I
+shall 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--and
+Alice Puttenham. How that sister of hers bullies her--horrid little
+woman! _And_ Mr. Barron!"--Flaxman made an exclamation--"and the deaf
+daughter--and the nice elder son--and the unpresentable younger one--in
+fact 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 big
+party. And as for the weekenders, you chose them yourself." She ran
+through the list, while Flaxman vainly protested that he had never in
+their joint existence been allowed to do anything of the kind. "But
+to-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 be
+followed 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 to
+date. Yes--from her observation of the two--she was certain there was a
+good 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 the
+accident--and the Church Council that was put off?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"Catharine made up her mind suddenly to go to that Church Council--after
+not 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--the
+first time she has done it. She arrived in the village just as the
+dreadful thing had happened in the pit. Then of course she and the Rector
+took command. Nobody who knew Catharine would have expected anything
+else. And now she and Mary and the Rector are busy looking after the poor
+survivors. '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 that
+Council for?"
+
+"Perhaps to lift up her voice?"
+
+"No. Catharine isn't that sort. She would have suffered dreadfully--and
+sat still."
+
+And with a thoughtful shake of the head, as though to indicate that the
+veins of meditation opened up by the case were rich and various, Rose
+went slowly away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then Hugh was left to his _Times_, and to speculations on the reasons why
+Henry Barron--a man whom he had never liked and often thwarted--should
+have asked for this interview in a letter marked "private." Flaxman made
+an agreeable figure, as he sat pondering by the fire, while the _Times_
+gradually slipped from his hands to the floor. And he was precisely what
+he looked--an excellent fellow, richly endowed with the world's good
+things, material and moral. He was of spare build, with grizzled hair;
+long-limbed, clean-shaven and gray-eyed. In general society he appeared
+as a person of polished manners, with a gently ironic turn of mind. His
+friends were more numerous and more devoted than is generally the case in
+middle age; and his family were rarely happy out of his company. Certain
+indeed of his early comrades in life were inclined to accuse him of a too
+facile contentment with things as they are, and a rather Philistine
+estimate of the value of machinery. He was absorbed in "business" which
+he did admirably. Not so much of the financial sort, although he was a
+trusted member of important boards. But for all that unpaid multiplicity
+of affairs--magisterial, municipal, social or charitable--which make the
+country gentleman's sphere Hugh Flaxman's appetite was insatiable. He was
+a born chairman of a county council, and a heaven-sent treasurer of a
+hospital.
+
+And no doubt this natural bent, terribly indulged of late years, led
+occasionally to "holding forth"; at least those who took no interest in
+the things which interested Flaxman said so. And his wife, who was much
+more concerned for his social effect than for her own, was often
+nervously on the watch lest it should be true. That her handsome, popular
+Hugh should ever, even for a quarter of an hour, sit heavy on the soul
+even of a youth of eighteen was not to be borne; she pounced on each
+incipient harangue with mingled tact and decision.
+
+But though Flaxman was a man of the world, he was by no means a
+worldling. Tenderly, unflinchingly, with a modest and cheerful devotion,
+he had made himself the stay of his brother-in-law Elsmere's harassed and
+broken life. His supreme and tyrannical common sense had never allowed
+him any delusions as to the ultimate permanence of heroic ventures like
+the New Brotherhood; and as to his private opinions on religious matters
+it is probable that not even his wife knew them. But outside the strong
+affections of his personal life there was at least one enduring passion
+in Flaxman which dignified his character. For liberty of experiment, and
+liberty of conscience, in himself or others, he would gladly have gone to
+the stake. Himself the loyal upholder of an established order, which he
+helped to run decently, he was yet in curious sympathy with many obscure
+revolutionists in many fields. To brutalize a man's conscience seemed to
+him worse than to murder his body. Hence a constant sympathy with
+minorities of all sorts; which no doubt interfered often with his
+practical efficiency. But perhaps it accounted for the number of his
+friends.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"We shall, I presume, be undisturbed?"
+
+The speaker was Henry Barron; and he and Flaxman stood for a moment
+surveying each other after their first greeting.
+
+"Certainly. I have given orders. For an hour if you wish, I am at your
+disposal."
+
+"Oh, we shall not want so long."
+
+Barron seated himself in the chair pointed out to him. His portly
+presence, in some faultlessly new and formal clothes, filled it
+substantially; 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 papers
+from his breast pocket--"but--after much thought--I came to the
+conclusion that there was no one in this neighbourhood I could consult
+upon 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 his
+host.
+
+Flaxman read it. His face changed and worked as he did so. He read it
+twice, turned it over to see if it contained any signature, and returned
+it 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 aggrieved
+parishioners in the Meynell case?"
+
+"He is. But he is by no means personally hostile to Meynell--quite the
+contrary. He brought it to me in much distress, thinking it well that we
+should take counsel upon it, in case other documents of the same kind
+should be going about."
+
+"And you, I imagine, pointed out to him the utter absurdity of the
+charge, 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 turned
+sharply on the speaker.
+
+"You mean to say you believe there is a word of truth in that
+preposterous story?"
+
+"I have good reason, unfortunately, to know that it cannot at once be put
+aside."
+
+Both paused--regarding each other. Then Flaxman said, in a raised accent
+of wonder:
+
+"You think it possible--_conceivable_--that a man of Mr. Meynell's
+character--and transparently blameless life--should have not only been
+guilty of an intrigue of this kind twenty years ago--but should have
+done nothing since to repair it--should actually have settled down to
+live in the same village side by side with the lady whom the letter
+declares to be the mother of his child--without making any attempt to
+marry her--though perfectly free to do so? Why, my dear sir, was there
+ever a more ridiculous, a more incredible tale!"
+
+Flaxman sprang to his feet, and with his hands in his pockets, turned
+upon his visitor, impatient contempt in every feature.
+
+"Wait a moment before you judge," said Barron dryly. "Do you remember a
+case of sudden death in this village a few weeks ago?--a woman who
+returned from America to her son John Broad, a labourer living in one of
+my 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 some
+curious medical evidence?"
+
+Barron nodded assent.
+
+"By the merest chance, I happened to see that woman the night after she
+arrived. I went to the cottage to remonstrate on the behaviour of John
+Broad's boys in my plantation. She was alone in the house, and she came
+to the door. By the merest chance also, while we stood there, Meynell and
+Miss Puttenham passed in the road outside. The woman--Mrs. Sabin--was
+terribly 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. I
+admit that she was scarcely responsible, that she died within a few hours
+of our conversation, of brain disease. But I still do not see--I wish to
+heaven I did!--any way out of what she told me--when one comes to combine
+it with--well, with other things. But whether I should finally have
+decided to make any use of the information I am not sure. But
+unfortunately"--he pointed to the letter still in Flaxman's hand--"that
+shows me that other persons--persons unknown to me--are in possession of
+some, at any rate, of the facts--and therefore that it is now vain to
+hope 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 or
+less. However--we will return presently to the letter. Mrs. Sabin's
+communication to you was of a nature to confirm the statements contained
+in it?"
+
+"Mrs. Sabin declared to me that having herself--independently--become
+aware of certain facts, while she was a servant in Lady Fox-Wilton's
+employment, that lady--no doubt in order to ensure her silence--took
+her abroad with herself and her young sister, Miss Alice, to a place in
+France she had some difficulty in pronouncing--it sounded to me like
+Grenoble; that there Miss Puttenham became the mother of a child, which
+passed thenceforward as the child of Sir Ralph and Lady Fox-Wilton, and
+received the name of Hester. She herself nursed Miss Puttenham, and no
+doctor was admitted. When the child was two months old, she accompanied
+the sisters to a place on the Riviera, where they took a villa. Here
+Sir Ralph Wilton, who was terribly broken and distressed by the whole
+thing, joined them, and he made an arrangement with her by which she
+agreed to go to the States and hold her tongue. She wrote to her people
+in Upcote--she had been a widow for some years--that she had accepted a
+nurse's situation in the States, and Sir Ralph saw her off from Genoa for
+New York. She seems to have married again in the States; and in the
+course of years to have developed some grievance against the Fox-Wiltons
+which ultimately determined her to come home. But all this part of her
+story was so excited and incoherent that I could make nothing of it. Nor
+does it matter very much to the subject--the real subject--we are
+discussing."
+
+Flaxman, who was standing in front of the speaker, intently listening,
+made no immediate reply. His eyes--half absently--considered the man
+before him. In Barron's aspect and tone there was not only the pompous
+self-importance of the man possessed of exclusive and sensational
+information; there were also indications of triumphant trains of
+reasoning 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 the
+ladies at Grenoble--we will say it was Grenoble--received a visitor. Miss
+Puttenham was still in her room. A gentleman arrived, and was admitted to
+see her. Mrs. Sabin was bundled out of the room by Lady Fox-Wilton. But
+it was a small wooden house, and Mrs. Sabin heard a good deal. Miss
+Puttenham was crying and talking excitedly. Mrs. Sabin was certain from
+what, 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 was
+necessary." 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 Lady
+Fox-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--such
+at least was her own story--from the door of her son's cottage, while I
+was with her, she saw Miss Puttenham--and Meynell--standing in the road
+outside."
+
+Flaxman took a turn along the room, and paused.
+
+"You admit that she was ill at the time she spoke to you--and in a
+distracted, incoherent state?"
+
+"Certainly I admit it." Barron drew himself erect, with a slight frown,
+as though tacitly protesting against certain suggestions in Flaxman's
+manner and voice. "But now let us look at another line of evidence. You
+as a newcomer are probably quite unaware of the gossip there has always
+been in this neighbourhood, ever since Sir Ralph Wilton's death, on the
+subject of Sir Ralph's will. That will in a special paragraph committed
+Hester Fox-Wilton to Richard Meynell's guardianship in remarkable terms;
+no provision whatever was made for the girl under Sir Ralph's will, and
+it is notorious that he treated her quite differently from his other
+children. From the moment also of the French journey, Sir Ralph's
+character and temper appeared to change. I have inquired of a good many
+persons as to this; of course with absolute discretion. He was a man of
+narrow Evangelical opinions"--at the word "narrow" Flaxman threw a
+sudden glance at the speaker--"and of strict veracity. My belief is that
+his later life was darkened by the falsehood to which he and his wife
+committed themselves. Finally, let me ask you to look at the young lady
+herself; at the extraordinary difference between her and her supposed
+family; at her extraordinary likeness--to the Rector."
+
+Flaxman raised his eyebrows at the last words, his aspect expressing
+disbelief and disgust even more strongly than before. Barron glanced at
+him, and then, after a moment, resumed in another manner, loftily
+explanatory:
+
+"I need not say that personally I find myself mixed up in such a business
+with the utmost reluctance."
+
+"Naturally," put in Flaxman dryly. "The risks attaching to it are simply
+gigantic."
+
+"I am aware of it. But as I have already pointed out to you, by some
+strange 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 my
+exclusive possession, and how many people are already aware of it and may
+be aware of it we cannot tell. I thought it well to come to you in the
+first instance, because I know that--you have taken some part lately--in
+Meynell'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 quite
+right. Both my wife and I greatly like and respect the Rector." He laid
+stress on the words.
+
+"It was for that very reason--let me repeat--that I came to you. You have
+influence 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 venture
+to suggest is that you should inform him of the stories that are now
+current. It is surely just that he should be informed. And then--we
+have to consider the bearings of this report on the unhappy situation in
+the diocese. How can we prevent its being made use of? It would be
+impossible. You know what the feeling is--you know what people are. In
+Meynell's own interest, and in that of the poor lady whose name is
+involved with his in this scandal, would it not be desirable in every
+way that he should now quietly withdraw from this parish and from
+the public contest in which he is engaged? Any excuse would be
+sufficient--health--overwork--anything. The scandal would then die out of
+itself. There is not one of us--those on Meynell's side, or those against
+him--who would not in such a case do his utmost to stamp it out. But--if
+he persists--both in living here, and in exciting public opinion as he is
+now doing--the story will certainly come out! Nothing can possibly stop
+it."
+
+Barron leant back and folded his arms. Flaxman's eyes sparkled. He felt
+an insane desire to run the substantial gentleman sitting opposite to the
+door and dismiss him with violence. But he restrained himself.
+
+"I am greatly obliged to you for your belief in the power of my good
+offices," he said, with a very frosty smile, "but I am afraid I must ask
+to be excused. Of course if the matter became serious, legal action would
+be taken very promptly."
+
+"How can legal action be taken?" interrupted Barron roughly. "Whatever
+may 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 in
+this village for many years is to be dragged to light--for what? In
+order--excuse my plain speaking--to blackmail Richard Meynell, and to
+force him to desist from the public campaign in which he is now engaged?
+These are hardly measures likely, I think, to commend themselves to some
+of 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 course
+guided by my own judgment and conscience. And I altogether protest
+against the word you have just employed. I came to you, Mr. Flaxman, I
+can honestly say, in the interests of peace!--in the interests of Meynell
+himself."
+
+"But you admit that there is really no evidence worthy of the name
+connecting Meynell with the story at all!" said Flaxman, turning upon
+him. "The crazy impression of a woman dying of brain disease--some gossip
+about 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 a
+rancorous obstinacy at last unveiled. "I believe that the woman's
+identification was a just one--though I admit that the proof is
+difficult. But then perhaps I approach the matter in one way, and you in
+another. A man, Mr. Flaxman, in my belief, does not throw over the faith
+of Christ for nothing! No! Such things are long prepared. Conscience, my
+dear sir, conscience breaks down first. The man becomes a hypocrite in
+his 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 kind
+of monstrosity. He thought of Meynell, of the eager refinement, the clean
+idealism, 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 perceive
+more plainly than he had yet done some of the intricacies of the
+situation.
+
+"I have nothing to do," he said, in a tone that he endeavoured to make
+reasonably calm, "nor has anybody, with generalization of that kind, in a
+case like this. The point is--could Meynell, being what he is, what we
+all know him to be, have not only betrayed a young girl, but have then
+failed to do her the elementary justice of marrying her? And the reply is
+that the thing is incredible!"
+
+"You forget that Meynell was extremely poor, and had his brothers to
+educate--"
+
+Flaxman shrugged his shoulders in laughing contempt.
+
+"Meynell desert the mother of his child--because of poverty--because of
+his brothers' education!--_Meynell_! You have known him some years--I
+only for a few months. But go into the cottages here--talk to the
+people--ask them, not what he believes, but what he _is_--what he has
+been to them. Get one of them, if you can, to credit this absurdity!"
+
+"The Rector's intimate friendship with Miss Puttenham has long been an
+astonishment--sometimes a scandal--to the village!" exclaimed Barron,
+doggedly.
+
+Flaxman stared at him in a blank amazement, then flushed. He took a turn
+up 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 the
+mere conversation were an insult to Meynell, in which he was forced to
+participate.
+
+He took a seat deliberately, and put on his magisterial manner, which,
+however, was much more delicately and unassumingly authoritative than
+that of other men.
+
+"I think we had better clear up our ideas. You bring me a story--a
+painful story--concerning a lady with whom we are both acquainted, which
+may 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 would
+certainly follow the diffusion of it. You invite me to connect with it
+the name of a man for whom I have the deepest respect and admiration; who
+bears an absolutely stainless record; and you threaten to make use of the
+charge in connection with the heresy trials now coming on. Now let me
+give you my advice--for what it may be worth. I should say--as you have
+asked my opinion--have nothing whatever to do with the matter! If anybody
+else brings you anonymous letters, tell them something of the law of
+libel--and something too of the guilt of slander! After all, with a
+little 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 is
+your influence, and not mine, which is important in this matter. You are
+a permanent resident, and I a mere bird of passage. And"--Flaxman's
+countenance kindled--"let me just remind you of this: if you want to
+strengthen Meynell's cause--if you want to win him thousands of new
+adherents--you have only to launch against him a calumny which is sure
+to break down--and will inevitably recoil upon you!"
+
+The two men had risen. Barron's face, handsome in feature, save for some
+thickened lines and the florid tint of the cheeks, had somehow emptied
+itself of expression while Flaxman was speaking.
+
+"Your advice is no doubt excellent," he said quietly, as he buttoned his
+coat, "but it is hardly practical. If there is one anonymous letter,
+there are probably others. If there are letters--there is sure to be
+talk--and talk cannot be stopped. And in time everything gets into the
+newspapers."
+
+Flaxman hesitated a moment. Something warned him not to push matters to
+extremities--to make no breach with Barron--to keep him in play.
+
+"I admit, of course, if this goes beyond a certain point it may be
+necessary to go to Meynell--it may be necessary for Meynell to go to his
+Bishop. But at present, if you _desire_ to suppress the thing, you have
+only to keep your own counsel--and wait. Dawes is a good fellow, and
+will, I am sure, say nothing. I could, if need be, speak to him myself. I
+was 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 to
+suppress it--always supposing that it could be suppressed--my convictions
+being what they are?"
+
+Then--suddenly--it was borne in on Flaxman that in the whole interview
+there had been no genuine desire whatever on Barron's part for advice and
+consultation. He had come determined on a certain course, and the object
+of the visit had been, in truth, merely to convey to one of Meynell's
+supporters a hint of the coming attack, and some intimation of its
+strength. 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," said
+Flaxman, with cold politeness. His manner changed instantly. Peremptorily
+dismissing the subject, he became, on the spot, the mere suave and
+courteous host of an interesting house; he pointed out the pictures and
+the view, and led the way to the hall.
+
+As he took leave, Barron stiffly intimated that he should not himself be
+able to attend Mrs. Flaxman's party that evening; but his daughter and
+sons hoped to have the pleasure of obeying her invitation.
+
+"Delighted to see them," said Flaxman, standing in the doorway, with his
+hands 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 before
+the year's out. My wife was determined to bring him and Meynell together.
+He seems to have the traditional interest in theology without which no
+English premier is complete."
+
+Pursued by this parting shot, Barron retired, and Flaxman went back
+thoughtfully to his wife's sitting-room. Should he tell her? Certainly.
+Her ready wits and quick brain were indispensable in the battle that
+might 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 been
+made to him.
+
+As he approached his wife's door he heard voices. Catharine! He
+remembered that she was to lunch and spend the day with Rose. Now what to
+do! Devoted as he was to his sister-in-law, he was scarcely inclined to
+trust her with the incident of the morning.
+
+But as soon as he opened the door, Rose ran upon him, drew him in and
+closed it. Catharine was sitting on the sofa--with a pale, kindled
+look--a letter in her hand.
+
+"Catharine has had an abominable letter, Hugh!--the most scandalous
+thing!"
+
+Flaxman took it from Catharine's hand, looked it through, and turned it
+over. The same script, a little differently disguised, and practically
+the same letter, as that which had been shown him in the library! But it
+began with a reference to the part which Mrs. Elsmere and her daughter
+had played in the terrible accident of the preceding week, which showed
+that the rogue responsible for it was at least a rogue possessed of some
+local 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 the
+perversity of men.
+
+Flaxman dropped on the sofa beside her.
+
+"You feel with me, that it is a mere clumsy attempt to injure Meynell, in
+the interests of the campaign against him?" he asked her, eagerly.
+
+"I don't know about that," said Catharine slowly--a shining sadness in
+her look. "But I do know that it could only injure those who are trying
+to fight his errors--if it could be supposed that they had stooped to
+such weapons!"
+
+"You dear woman!" cried Flaxman, impulsively, and he raised her hand to
+his lips. Catharine and Rose looked their astonishment. Whereupon he gave
+them the history of the hour he had just passed through.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+But although what one may call the natural freemasonry of the children of
+light had come in to protect Catharine from any touch of that greedy
+credulity which had fastened on Barron; though she and Rose and Hugh
+Flaxman were at one in their contemptuous repudiation of Barron's reading
+of the story, the story itself, so far as it concerned Alice Puttenham
+and Hester, found in all their minds but little resistance.
+
+"It may--it may be true," said Catharine gently. "If so--what she has
+gone through! Poor, poor thing!"
+
+And as she spoke--her thin fingers clasped on her black dress, the
+nun-like veil falling about her shoulders, her aspect had the frank
+simplicity of those who for their Lord's sake have faced the ugly things
+of life.
+
+"What a shame--what an outrage--that any of us here should know a word
+about it!" cried Rose, her small foot beating on the floor, the hot
+colour 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 stopped
+before his wife.
+
+"You must realize, darling, that we may be all walking on the edge of a
+volcano to-night."
+
+"If only Henry Barron were!--and I might be behind to give the last
+little _chiquenade_!" cried Rose.
+
+Flaxman devoutly echoed the wish.
+
+"But the point is--are there any more of these letters out? If so, we may
+hear of others to-night. Then--what to do? Do I make straight for
+Meynell?"
+
+They pondered it.
+
+"Impossible to leave Meynell in ignorance," said Flaxman--"if the thing
+spreads Meynell of course would be perfectly justified--in his ward's
+interests--in denying the whole matter absolutely, true or no. But can
+he?--with Barron in reserve--using the Sabin woman's tale for his own
+purposes?"
+
+Catharine's face, a little sternly set, showed the obscure conflict
+behind.
+
+"He cannot say what is false," she said stiffly. "But he can refuse to
+answer."
+
+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 the
+world--almost."
+
+Catharine made no reply, but her quiet face showed she did not agree with
+him.
+
+"That child Hester!" Rose emerged suddenly from a mental voyage
+of recollection and conjecture. "Now one understands why Lady
+Fox-Wilton--stupid woman!--has never seemed to care a rap for her. It
+must indeed be annoying to have to mother a child so much handsomer than
+your own."
+
+"I think I am very sorry for Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton," said Catharine, after
+a moment.
+
+Rose assented.
+
+"Yes!--just an ordinary dull, pig-headed country gentleman confronted
+with a situation that only occurs in plays to which you don't demean
+yourself by going!--and obliged to tell and act a string of lies, when
+lies happen to be just one of the vices you're not inclined to! And then
+afterward you find yourself let in for living years and years with a bad
+conscience--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 saw
+Miss Fox-Wilton--with Philip Meryon--in Hewlett's spinney this morning. I
+came back from Markborough by a path I had never discovered before--and
+there, sure enough, they were. They heard me on the path, I think, and
+vanished most effectively. The wood is very thick. But I am sure it was
+they--though they were some distance from me."
+
+Rose exclaimed.
+
+"Naughty, _naughty_ child: She has been absolutely forbidden to see
+him, the whole Fox-Wilton family have made themselves into gaolers and
+spies--and she just outwits them all! Poor Alice Puttenham hovers about
+her--trying to distract and amuse her--and has no more influence than a
+fly. 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 to
+him from all over England to come and speak--or consult--or organize--(I
+don'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 till
+this girl is safely off the scene! He means to take her to Paris himself
+on Monday. I only hope he has found a proper sort of Gorgon to leave her
+with!"
+
+Flaxman could not but reflect that the whole relation of Meynell to his
+ward might well give openings to such a scoundrel like the writer of the
+anonymous letters, who was certainly acquainted with local affairs. But
+he did not express this feeling aloud. Meanwhile Catharine, who showed an
+interest in Hester which surprised both him and Rose, began to question
+him on the subject of Philip Meryon. Meryon's mother, it seemed, had been
+an intimate friend of one of Flaxman's sisters, Lady Helen Varley, and
+Flaxman was well acquainted with the young man's most unsatisfactory
+record. He drew a picture of the gradual degeneracy of the handsome lad
+who 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 unluckily
+he has put himself beyond the pale now, one way and another. It is too
+disastrous about this pretty child! What on earth does she see in him?"
+
+"Simply a means of escaping from her home," said Rose--"the situation
+working out! But who knows whether he hasn't got a wife already? Nobody
+should trust this young man farther than they can see him."
+
+"It musn't--it can't be allowed!" said Catharine, with energy. And, as
+she spoke, she seemed to feel again the soft bloom of Hester's young
+cheek against her own, just as when she had drawn the girl to her, in
+that instinctive caress. The deep maternity in Catharine had never yet
+found scope enough in the love of one child.
+
+Then, with a still keener sense of the various difficulties rising along
+Meynell's path, Flaxman and Rose returned to the anxious discussion of
+Barron's move and how to meet it. Catharine listened, saying little; and
+it was presently settled that Flaxman should himself call on Dawes, the
+colliery 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 further
+developments.
+
+"Tell me"--said Rose presently, when Flaxman had left the sisters
+alone--"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 from
+Mary that there _was_ a scandal--of some sort--in circulation, if the
+thing 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 whom
+she had ever been afraid. But at last she took the plunge.
+
+"Catharine!--don't be angry with me--but I think Mary is interested in
+Richard Meynell."
+
+"Why should I be angry?" said Catharine. She had coloured a little, but
+she was perfectly composed. With her gray hair, and her plain widow's
+dress, she threw her sister's charming mondanity into bright relief. But
+beauty--loftily understood--lay with Catharine.
+
+"It _is_ ill luck--his opinions!" cried Rose, laying her hand upon her
+sister's.
+
+"Opinions are not 'luck,'" said Catharine, with a rather cold smile.
+
+"You mean we are responsible for them? Perhaps we are, if we are
+responsible for anything--which I sometimes doubt. But you like
+him--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 please
+don'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 anything
+that would be a grief to you."
+
+Catharine was silent a moment. Then she said in a tone that went to the
+listener's heart:
+
+"Whatever happened--will be God's will."
+
+She sat motionless, her eyes drooped, her features a little drawn and
+pale; her thoughts--Rose knew it--in the past.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Flaxman came back from his interview with Dawes, reporting that nothing
+could have been in better taste or feeling than Dawes's view of the
+matter. As far as the Rector was concerned--and he had told Mr. Barron
+so--the story was ridiculous, the mere blunder of a crazy woman; and, for
+the rest, what had they to do in Upcote with ferreting into other
+people's private affairs? He had locked up the letter in case it might
+some time be necessary to hand it to the police, and didn't intend
+himself to say a word to anybody. If the thing went any further, why of
+course the Rector must be informed. Otherwise silence was best. He had
+given a piece of his mind to Mr. Barron and "didn't want to be mixed up
+in any such business." "As far as I'm concerned, Mr. Flaxman, I'm
+fighting 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 got
+into the hands of a certain Miss Nairn in the village there might be
+trouble."
+
+"Miss Nairn?--Miss Nairn?" The sisters looked at each other. "Oh, I
+know--the lady in black we saw in church the day the revolution began--a
+strange little shrivelled spinster-thing who lives in that house by the
+post-office. She quarrelled mortally with the Rector last year, because
+she ill-treated a little servant girl of hers, and the Rector
+remonstrated."
+
+"Well, she's one of the 'aggrieved.'"
+
+"They seem to be an odd crew! There's the old sea-captain that lives in
+that queer house with the single yew tree and the boarded-up window on
+the edge of the Heath. He's one of them. He used to come to church about
+once a quarter and wrote the Rector interminable letters on the meaning
+of Ezekiel. Then there's the publican--East--who nearly lost his license
+last year--he always put it down to the Rector and vowed he'd be even
+with him. I must say, the church in Upcote seems rather put to it for
+defenders!"
+
+"In Upcote," corrected Flaxman. "That's because of Meynell's personal
+hold. Plenty of 'em--quite immaculate--elsewhere. However, Dawes is a
+perfectly decent, honest man, and grieved to the heart by the Rector's
+performances."
+
+Catharine had waited silently to hear this remark, and then went away to
+write a letter.
+
+"Poor darling! Will she go and call on Dawes--for sympathy?" said
+Flaxman, mischievously to his wife as the door closed.
+
+"Sympathy?" Rose's face grew soft. "It's much as it was with Robert. It
+ought to be so simple--and it is so mixed! Nature of course _ought_ to
+have endowed all unbelievers with the proper horns and tail. And there
+they go--stealing your heart away!--and your daughter's."
+
+The Flaxmans and Catharine--who spent the day with her sister, before the
+evening party--were more and more conscious of oppression as the hours
+went on; as though some moral thunder hung in the air.
+
+Flaxman asked himself again and again--"Ought I to go to Meynell at
+once?" and could not satisfy himself with any answer; while he, his
+wife, and his sister-in-law, being persons of delicacy, were all
+ashamed of finding themselves the possessors, against their will, of
+facts--supposing they were facts--to which they had no right. Meynell's
+ignorance--Alice Puttenham's ignorance--of their knowledge, tormented
+their consciences. And it added to their discomfort that they shared
+their knowledge with such a person as Henry Barron. However, there was no
+help for it.
+
+A mild autumn day drew to its close, with a lingering gold in the west
+and a rising moon. The charming old house, with its faded furniture, and
+its out-at-elbows charm, was lit up softly, with lamps that made a dim
+but friendly shining in its wide spaces. It had never belonged to rich
+people, but always to people of taste. It boasted no Gainsboroughs or
+Romneys; but there were lesser men of the date, possessed of pretty
+talents of their own, painters and pastellists, who had tried their hands
+on the family, of whom they had probably been the personal friends. The
+originals of the portraits on the walls were known neither to history nor
+scandal; but their good, modest faces, their brave red or blue coats,
+their white gowns, and drooping feathers looked winningly out from the
+soft shadows of the rooms. At Maudeley, Rose wore her simplest dresses,
+and was astonished at the lightness of the household expenses. The house
+indeed had never known display, or any other luxury than space; and to
+live in it was to accept its tradition.
+
+The week-enders arrived at tea-time; Mr. Norham with a secretary and a
+valet, much preoccupied, and chewing the fag-end of certain Cabinet
+deliberations in the morning; Flaxman's charming sister, Lady Helen
+Varley, and her husband; his elder brother, Lord Wanless, unmarried, an
+expert on armour, slightly eccentric, but still, in the eyes of all
+intriguing mothers, and to his own annoyance, more than desirable as a
+husband owing to the Wanless collieries and a few other trifles of the
+same kind; the Bishop of Markborough; Canon France and his sister; a
+young poet whose very delicate muse had lodged itself oddly in the frame
+of an athlete; a high official in the Local Government Board, Mr.
+Spearman, whom Rose regarded with distrust as likely to lead Hugh into
+too much talk about workhouses; Lady Helen's two girls just out, as
+dainty and well-dressed, as gayly and innocently sure of themselves
+and their place in life as the "classes" at their best know how to
+produce; and two or three youths, bound for Oxford by the end of
+the week, samples, these last, of a somewhat new type in that old
+University--combining the dash, family, and insolence of the old "tuft"
+or Bullingdon man, with an amazing aptitude for the classics, rare indeed
+among the "tufts" of old. Two out of the three had captured almost every
+distinction that Oxford offers; and all three had been either gated for
+lengthy periods or "sent down," or otherwise trounced by an angry
+college, puzzled by the queer connection between Irelands and Hertfords
+on the one hand and tipsy frolics on the other.
+
+Meynell appeared for dinner--somewhat late. It was only with great
+difficulty that the Flaxmans had prevailed on him to come, for the
+purpose of meeting Mr. Norham. But the party within the church which,
+foreseeing a Modernist defeat in the church courts, was appealing to
+Parliament to take action, was strengthening every week; Meynell's
+Saturday articles in the _Modernist_, the paper founded by the Reformers'
+League, were already providing these parliamentarians with a policy and
+inspiration; and if the Movement were to go on swelling during the
+winter, the government might have to take very serious cognizance of it
+during the spring. Mr. Norham therefore had expressed a wish for some
+conversation with the Modernist leader, who happened to be Rector of
+Upcote; and Meynell, who had by now cut himself adrift from all social
+engagements, had with difficulty saved an evening.
+
+As far as Norham was concerned Meynell would have greatly preferred to
+take the Home Secretary for a Sunday walk on the Chase; but he had begun
+to 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 let
+himself think too much?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So that Rose, as she surveyed her dinner table, could feel that she was
+maintaining the wide social traditions of England, by the mingling of as
+many contraries as possible. But the oil and vinegar were after all
+cunningly mixed, and the dinner went well. The Bishop was separated from
+Meynell by the length of the table, and Norham was carefully protected
+from Mr. Spearman, in his eyes a prince of bores, who was always
+bothering the Home Office.
+
+The Bishop, who was seated beside Rose at one end of the table, noticed
+the black patch on Meynell's temple, and inquired its origin. Rose gave
+him a graphic account both of the accident and the riot. The Bishop
+raised his eyebrows.
+
+"How does he contrive to live the two lives?" he said in a tone slightly
+acid. "If he continues to lead this Movement, he will have to give up
+fighting mobs and running up and down mines."
+
+"What is going to happen to the Movement?" Rose asked him, with her most
+sympathetic smile. Socially and in her own house she was divinely all
+things to all men. But the Bishop was rather suspicious of her.
+
+"What can happen to it but defeat? The only other alternative is the
+break-up of the Church. And for that, thank God, they are not strong
+enough."
+
+"And no compromise is possible?"
+
+"None. In three months Meynell and all his friends will have ceased to
+belong to the English Church. It is very lamentable. I am particularly
+sorry 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 National
+Church? Hasn't she the right and the power?"
+
+But her instincts as hostess stifled her pugnacity. And the little Bishop
+looked so worn and fragile that she had no heart for anything but
+cossetting him. At the same time she noticed--as she had done before on
+other occasions--the curious absence of any ferocity, any smell of
+brimstone, in the air! How different from Robert's day! Then the
+presumption underlying all controversy was of an offended authority
+ranged against an apologetic rebellion. A tone of moral condemnation on
+the one side, a touch of casuistry on the other, confused the issues. And
+now--behind and around the combatants--the clash of equal hosts!--over
+ground strewn with dead assumptions. The conflict might be no less
+strenuous; nay! from a series of isolated struggles it had developed into
+a world-wide battle; but the bitterness between man and man was less.
+
+Yes!--for the nobler spirits--the leaders and generals of each army. But
+what of the rank and file? And at the thought of Barron she laughed at
+herself for supposing that religious rancour and religious slander had
+died out of the world!
+
+"Can we have some talk somewhere?" said Norham languidly, in Meynell's
+ear, as the gentlemen left the dining-room.
+
+"I think Mrs. Flaxman will have arranged something," said Meynell, with a
+smile--detecting the weariness of the political Atlas.
+
+And indeed Rose had all her dispositions made. They found her in the
+drawing-room, amid a bevy of bright gowns and comely faces, illumined by
+the cheerful light of a big wood fire--a circle of shimmering stuffs and
+gems, the blaze sparkling on the pointed slippers, the white necks and
+glossy 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 her
+two _gros bonnets_.
+
+"The green drawing-room!" she murmured in Meynell's ear, and tripped on
+before them, while the incoming crowd of gentlemen, mingling with the
+ladies, served to mask the movement.
+
+Not, however, before the Bishop had perceived the withdrawal of the
+politician 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 that
+delicate face beyond the sentiments proper to the situation?--the public
+situation? As to the personal emotion involved, that, the Canon knew, was
+for the time almost exhausted. The Bishop had suffered much during the
+preceding months--in his affections, his fatherly feeling toward his
+clergy, in his sense of the affront offered to Christ's seamless vesture
+of the Church. But now, France thought, pain had been largely deadened by
+the mere dramatic interest of the prospect ahead, by the anodyne of an
+immense correspondence, and of a vast increase in the business of the
+day, 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 was
+evidently a favourite with them, and with all nice women. Finally he sank
+into an armchair beside Lady Helen Varley, exchanging Mrs. Flaxman's
+cossetting for hers. His small figure was almost lost in the armchair.
+The firelight danced on his slender stockinged legs, on his episcopal
+shoe buckles, on the cross which adorned his episcopal breast, and then
+on the gleaming snow of his hair, above his blue eyes with their slight
+unearthliness, so large and flower-like in his small white face. He
+seemed very much at ease--throwing off all burdens.
+
+No!--the Slander which had begun to fly through the diocese, like an
+arrow by night, had not yet touched the Bishop.
+
+Nor Meynell himself?
+
+Yet France was certain that Barron had not been idle, that he had not
+let it drop. "I advised him to let it drop"--he said uneasily to
+himself--"that was all I could do."
+
+Then he looked round him, at the faces of the women present. He scarcely
+knew any of them. Was she among them--the lady of Barron's tale? He
+thought 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 subject
+of speculation. And Barron could not have confided it to any one in the
+diocese, so discreet--so absolutely discreet--as he.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I gather this Movement of yours is rapidly becoming formidable?" said
+Norham to his companion.
+
+He spoke with the affectation of interest that all politicians in office
+must learn. But there was no heart in it, and Meynell wondered why the
+great man had desired to speak with him at all.
+
+He replied that the growth of the Movement was certainly a startling
+fact.
+
+"It is now clear that we must ultimately go to Parliament. The immediate
+result in the Church courts is of course not in doubt. But our hope lies
+in such demonstrations in the country as may induce Parliament"--he
+paused, laying a quiet emphasis on each word--"to reconsider--and
+resettle--the conditions of membership and office in the English Church."
+
+"Good heavens!" cried Norham, throwing up his hand--"What a prospect! If
+that business once gets into the House of Commons, it'll have everything
+else 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 an
+ecclesiastical debate. You'd think it was in the condition of Sydney
+Smith with a cold--not sure whether there were nine Articles and
+Thirty-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 marked
+prematurely by hard work and hard fighting. His black hair had receded on
+the temples, and was obviously thinning on the crown of the head; he wore
+spectacles, and his shoulders had taken the stoop of office work. But the
+eyes behind the spectacles lost nothing that they desired to see; and the
+general impression was one of bull-dog strength, which could be
+impertinent and aggressive, and could also masque itself in a good humour
+and charm by no means insincere. In his political career, he was on the
+eve 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 to
+glean in many fields, and keep his eye on many chances that his
+colleagues perforce neglected. The Modernist Movement was one of these
+chances. For years he had foreseen great changes ahead in the relations
+of 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 had
+been teasing. As he did so there was a little crash at his elbow and
+something 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 had
+rolled out of it--a gold coin of Velia, with a head of Athene--one of
+the great prizes of the collector.
+
+Norham took it with eagerness. He was a Cambridge man, and a fine
+scholar, 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 the
+table. "But he loves them too. Mrs. Flaxman always has them put out on
+great occasions. It seems to me they ought to have a watcher! They
+are quite priceless, I believe. Such things are soon lost."
+
+"Oh!--they are safe enough here," said Norham, returning the coin to its
+place, with another loving look at it. Then, with an effort, he pulled
+himself together,  and with great rapidity began to question his
+companion as to the details and progress of the Movement. All the facts
+up to date, the number of Reformers enrolled since the foundation of the
+League, the League's finances, the astonishing growth of its petition to
+Parliament, the progress of the Movement in the Universities, among the
+ardent and intellectual youth of the day, its spread from week to week
+among the clergy: these things came out steadily and clearly in Meynell's
+replies.
+
+"The League was started in July--it is now October. We have fifty
+thousand enrolled members, all communicants in Modernist churches.
+Meetings and demonstrations are being arranged at this moment all over
+England; and in January or February there will be a formal inauguration
+of the new Liturgy in Dunchester Cathedral."
+
+"Heavens!" said Norham, dropping all signs of languor. "Dunchester will
+venture it?"
+
+Meynell made a sign of assent.
+
+"It is of course possible that the episcopal proceedings against the
+Bishop, which, as you see, have just begun, may have been brought to a
+close, 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 as
+his Bishop! Upon my word, the government has been badly informed or I
+have not kept up. I had no idea--simply no idea--that things had gone so
+far. Markborough of course gives us very different accounts--he and the
+Bishops 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 few
+months, temporarily at least. It will rest with Parliament whether we
+remain so!"
+
+"The Non-Jurors of the twentieth century!" murmured Norham, with a
+half-sceptical intonation.
+
+"Ah, but this _is_ the twentieth century!"--said Meynell smiling. "And in
+our 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 long
+as there are any of us left in our livings, each will come to the help of
+the other."
+
+"But you yourself?"
+
+"I have already made arrangements for a big barn in the village"--said
+Meynell, smiling--"a great tithe-barn of the fifteenth century, a
+magnificent old place, with a forest of wooden arches, and a vault like a
+church. The village will worship there for a while. We shall make it
+beautiful!"
+
+Norham was silent for a moment. He was stupefied by the energy, the
+passion of religious hope in the face beside him. Then the critical
+temper 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 I
+have always thought the ideas of Liberal Christianity a rather beggarly
+set-out--excuse the phrase!"
+
+"There is nothing to excuse!--the phrase fits. 'A reduced
+Christianity'--as opposed to a 'full Christianity'--that is the
+description lately given, I think, by a divinity professor. I don't
+quarrel 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--was
+unwilling in these surroundings to play the prophet, to plunge into the
+central stream of argument. But Norham, the outsider and dilettante, was
+conscious of a kindled mind.
+
+"That is the question to which it always seems to me there is no
+answer," he said easily, leaning back in his chair. "You think you
+can take what you like of a great historical religion and leave the
+rest--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 old
+fundamental notions that still stands, unchallenged? What are we in the
+eyes of modern psychology--but a world of automata--dancing to stimuli
+from outside? What has become of conscience--of the moral law--of Kant's
+imperative--in the minds of writers like these?"
+
+He pointed to two recent novels lying on the table, both of them
+brilliant 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 National
+Church--of the nation, that is, in its spiritual aspect. The question for
+which we are campaigning is as to the terms of membership in that
+society. But terms and conditions there must always be. The 'wild living
+intellect of man' must accept conditions in the Church, as _we_ conceive
+it, 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 the
+church suffers and souls are lost--wantonly, without reason. But there is
+no church--no religion--without some venture, some leap of faith! If you
+can't make any leap at all--any venture--then you remain outside--and you
+think yourself, perhaps, entitled to run amuck--as these men do!" He
+pointed to the books. "But _we_ make the venture!--_we_ accept the great
+hypothesis--of faith."
+
+The sound of voices came dimly to them from the farther rooms. Norham
+pointed toward them.
+
+"What difference then between you--and your Bishop?"
+
+"Simply that in his case--as _we_ say--the hypothesis of faith is
+weighted with a vast mass of stubborn matter that it was never meant to
+carry--bad history, bad criticism, an out-grown philosophy. To make
+it carry it--in our belief--you have to fly in the face of that gradual
+education of the world--education of the mind, education of the
+conscience--which is the chief mark of God in the world. But the
+hypothesis 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 true
+ones. But what the saint means by it, I suppose, in the first instance,
+is that there is in man something mysterious, superhuman--a Life in
+life--which can be indefinitely strengthened, enlightened, purified, till
+it 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 he
+relapses into the animal. Believe it, we say! Live by it!--make the
+venture. _Verificatur vivendo_!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Again the conversation paused. From the distance once more came the merry
+clamour of the farther drawing-room. A din of young folk, chaffing and
+teasing each other--a girl's defiant voice above it--outbursts of
+laughter. Norham, who had in him a touch of dramatic imagination, enjoyed
+the contrast between the gay crowd in the distance and this quiet room
+where he sat face to face with a visionary--surely altogether remote from
+the marrying, money-making, sensuous world. Yet after all the League was
+a big, practical, organized fact.
+
+"What you have expressed--very finely, if I may say so--is of course the
+mystical creed," he replied at last, with suave politeness. "But why call
+it Christianity?"
+
+As he spoke, he was conscious of a certain pride in himself. He felt
+complacently that he understood Meynell and appreciated him; and that
+hardly 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 mankind
+must have tales and symbols."
+
+"And the life of Christ is your symbol?"
+
+"More!--it is our Sacrament--the supreme Sacrament--to which all other
+symbols 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 the
+meeting-place of God and man, as to the Catholic--Roman or Anglican."
+
+"Strange that there should be so many of you!" said Norham, after a
+moment, with an incredulous smile.
+
+"Yes--that has been the discovery of the last six months. But we might
+all 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 became
+presently aware that the parish priest, the visionary, possessed a
+surprising amount of practical and statesman-like ability.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile--a room or two away--in the great bare drawing-room, with
+its faded tapestries, and its warm mixture of lamplight and firelight,
+the evening guests had been arriving. Rose stood at the door of the
+drawing-room, receiving, her husband beside her, Catharine a little way
+behind.
+
+"Oh!" cried Rose suddenly, under her breath, only heard by Hugh--a little
+sound of perturbation.
+
+Outside, in the hall, hardly lit at intervals by oil-lamps, a group could
+be seen advancing; in front Alice Puttenham and Mary, and behind, the
+Fox-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 came
+dreamily forward; and Rose saw her marked out, by the lovely oval of the
+face, its whiteness, its melancholy, from all the moving shapes around
+her. She wore a dress of black gauze over white; a little scarf of old
+lace lay on her shoulders; her still abundant hair was rolled back from
+her high brow and sad eyes. She looked very small and childish--as frail
+as thistledown.
+
+And behind her, Hester's stormy beauty! Rose gave a little gulp. Then she
+found herself pressing a cold hand, and was conscious of sudden relief.
+Miss Puttenham's shy composure was unchanged. She could not have looked
+so--she could not surely have confronted such a gathering of neighbours
+and strangers, if--
+
+No, no! The Slander--Rose, in her turn, saw it under an image, as though
+a dark night-bird hovered over Upcote--had not yet descended on this
+gentle head. With eager kindness, Hugh came forward--and Catharine. They
+found her a place by the fire, where presently the glow seemed to make
+its way to her pale cheeks, and she sat silent and amused, watching the
+triumph of Hester.
+
+For Hester was no sooner in the room than, resenting perhaps the
+decidedly cool reception that Mrs. Flaxman had given her, she at once set
+to work to extinguish all the other young women there. And she had very
+soon succeeded. The Oxford youths, Lord Wanless, the sons of two or three
+neighbouring squires, they were all presently gathered about her, as
+thick as bees on honeycomb, recognizing in her instantly one of those
+beings endowed from their cradle with a double portion of sex-magic, who
+leave such a wild track behind them in the world.
+
+By her chair stood poor Stephen Barron, absorbed in her every look and
+tone. 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, a
+magnificent fellow, radiating health and gayety, who was trying to wear
+her down in one of the word-games of the day. They fought hard and
+breathlessly, everybody listening partly for the amusement of the game,
+partly for the pleasure of watching the good looks of the young creatures
+playing 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. I
+never found anybody near so good as you at it before, except a man I met
+once at Newmarket--Philip Meryon--do you know him? Never saw a fellow so
+good at games. But an awfully queer fish!"
+
+It seemed to the morbid sensitiveness of Rose that there was an
+instantaneous and a thrilling silence. Hester tossed her head; her
+colour, 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 he
+beat you!"
+
+The young man gave a half-laugh, and looked at his friends. Then he
+changed the subject. But Hester got up impatiently from her seat, and
+would not play any more. Rose caught the sudden intentness with which
+Alice 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?" she
+thought rebelliously, as she watched the disagreeable face of Maurice
+Barron, who had been standing in the circle not far from Hester. He had a
+look of bad company which displeased her; and she resented what seemed to
+her an inclination to stare at the pretty women--especially at Hester,
+and Miss Puttenham. Heavens!--if that odious father had betrayed anything
+to such a son! Surely, surely it was inconceivable!
+
+The party was beginning to thin when Meynell, impatient to be quit of his
+Cabinet Minister that he might find Mary Elsmere before it was too late,
+hurried from the green drawing-room, in the wake of Mr. Norham, and
+stumbled against a young man, who in the very imperfect illumination had
+not perceived the second figure behind the Home Secretary.
+
+"Hullo!" said Meynell brusquely, stepping back. "How do you do? Is
+Stephen here?"
+
+Maurice Barron answered in the affirmative--and added, as though from the
+need 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 contempt
+even, that was rare with him. He and Norham passed through the next
+drawing-room, and met various acquaintances at the farther door. Maurice
+Barron stood watching them. The persons invading the room had come
+intending to see the coins. But meeting the Home Secretary they turned
+back with him, and Meynell followed them, eager to disengage himself from
+them. At the door some impulse made him turn and look back. He saw
+Maurice Barron disappearing into the green drawing-room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The night was soft and warm. Catharine and Mary had come prepared to walk
+home, Catharine eagerly resuming, now that her health allowed it, the
+Spartan habits of their normal life. Flaxman was drawn by the beauty of
+the moonlight and the park to offer to escort them to the lower lodge.
+Hester declared that she too would walk, and carelessly accepted
+Stephen's escort. Meynell stepped out from the house with them, and in
+the natural sequence of things he found himself with Mary.
+
+Flaxman and Catharine, who led the way, hardly spoke to each other. They
+walked, 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 fresh
+talk about it. Just behind them they could hear Hester laughing and
+sparring with Stephen; and when Catharine looked back she could see
+Meynell and Mary far away, in the distance of the avenue they were
+following.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The great lime-trees on either side threw long shadows on grass covered
+with the fresh fallen leaf, which gleamed, a pale orange, through the
+dusk. The sky was dappled with white cloud, and the lime-boughs overhead
+broke it into patterns of delight. The sharp scent of the fallen leaves
+was in the air; and the night for all its mildness prophesied winter.
+Meynell seemed to himself to be moving on enchanted ground, beneath
+enchanted trees. The tension of his long talk with Norham, the cares of
+his leadership--the voices of a natural ambition, dropped away. Mary in a
+blue cloak, a white scarf wound about her head, summed up for him the
+pure beauty of nature and the night. For the first time he did not
+attempt to check the thrill in his veins; he began to hope. It was
+impossible to ignore the change in Mrs. Elsmere's attitude toward him. He
+had no idea what had caused it; but he felt it. And he realized also that
+through unseen and inexplicable gradations Mary had come mysteriously
+near to him. He dared not have spoken a word of love to her; but such
+feeling as theirs, however restrained, penetrates speech and gesture, and
+irresistibly makes all things new.
+
+They spoke of the most trivial matters, and hardly noticed what they
+said. He all the time was thinking: "Beyond this tumult there will be
+rest some day--then I may speak. We could live hardly and simply--neither
+of us wants luxury. But _now_ it would be unjust--it would bring too
+great a burden on her--and her poor mother. I must wait! But we shall see
+each other--we shall understand each other!"
+
+Meanwhile she, on her side, would perhaps have given the world to share
+the 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 first
+column.
+
+"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 legacy
+with his father. Since the outbreak of the Reform Movement there had been
+frequent disputes between the father and son, if aggressive attack on the
+one side and silent endurance on the other make a dispute. Barron scorned
+his eldest son, as a faddist and a dreamer; while Stephen could never
+remember the time when his father had not seemed to him the living
+embodiment of prejudice, obstinacy, and caprice. He had always reckoned
+it indeed the crowning proof of Meynell's unworldly optimism that, at the
+moment of his father's accession to the White House estate, there should
+have been a passing friendship between him and the Rector. Yet whenever
+thoughts of this kind presented themselves explicitly to Stephen he tried
+to suppress them. His life, often, was a constant struggle between a
+genuine and irrepressible dislike of his father and a sore sense that no
+Christian priest could permit himself such a feeling.
+
+He made no reply to his father's interjection. But Barron knew very well
+that his son's self-control was no indication of lack of will; quite the
+contrary; and the father was conscious of a growing exasperation as he
+watched the patient compression of the young mouth. He wanted somehow to
+convict and crush Stephen; and he believed that he held the means thereto
+in his hand. He had not been sure before Stephen arrived whether he
+should 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 unforgivable
+offence. What a gentle, malleable fellow he had seemed in his school and
+college days!--how amenable to the father's spiritual tyranny! It was
+Barron's constant excuse to himself for his own rancorous feeling--that
+Meynell had robbed him of his son.
+
+"You probably think it strange"--he resumed harshly--"that I should
+rejoice in what of course is your misfortune--that your people reject
+you; but there are higher interests than those of personal affection
+concerned in this business. We who are defending her must think first of
+the Church!"
+
+"Naturally," said Stephen.
+
+His father looked at him in silence for a moment, at the mild pliant
+figure, the downcast eyes.
+
+"There is, however, one thing for which I have cause--we all have
+cause--to be grateful to Meynell," he said, with emphasis.
+
+Stephen looked up.
+
+"I understand he refused to sanction your engagement to Hester
+Fox-Wilton."
+
+The young man flushed.
+
+"It would be better, I think, father, if we are to talk over these
+matters quietly--which I understood is the reason you asked me to come
+here to-day--that you should avoid a tone toward myself and my affairs
+which can only make frank conversation difficult or impossible between
+us."
+
+"I have no desire to be offensive," said Barron, checking himself with
+difficulty, "and I have only your good in view, though you may not
+believe it. My reason for approving Meynell in the matter is that he was
+aware--and you were not aware"--he fell into the slow phrasing he always
+affected on important occasions--"of facts bearing vitally on your
+proposal; and that in the light of them he acted as any honest man was
+bound to act."
+
+"What do you mean!" cried Stephen, springing to his feet.
+
+"I mean"--the answer was increasingly deliberate--"that Hester
+Fox-Wilton--it is very painful to have to go into these things, but it is
+necessary, I regret to say--is not a Fox-Wilton at all--and has no right
+whatever 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_ Lady
+Fox-Wilton."
+
+Barron had now assumed the habitual attitude--thumbs in his pockets, legs
+slightly apart--that Stephen had associated from his childhood with the
+long bullying, secular and religious, that Barron's family owed to
+Barron'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 you
+look at me in that fashion! Believe me--it is not my fault, but my
+misfortune, that I happen to be acquainted with this very disagreeable
+secret. And I have one thing to say--you must give me your promise that
+you 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 Judith
+Sabin, omitting only those portions of it which connected the story with
+Meynell. It was evident, presently, that Stephen--to the dawning triumph
+of his father--listened with an increasingly troubled mind. And indeed,
+at the first whisper of the story, there had flashed through the young
+man's memory the vision of Meynell arguing and expostulating on that
+July afternoon, when he, Stephen, had spoken so confidingly, so
+unsuspectingly of his love for Hester. He recalled his own amazement, his
+sense of shock and strangeness. What Meynell said on that occasion
+seemed to have so little relation to what Meynell habitually was.
+Meynell, for whom love, in its spiritual aspect, was the salt and
+significance of life, the foundation of all wisdom--Meynell on that
+occasion had seemed to make comparatively nothing of love!--to deny its
+simplest rights--to put it despotically out of count. Stephen, as he had
+long recognized, had been overborne and silenced by Meynell's personality
+rather than by Meynell's arguments--by the disabling force mainly of his
+own devotion to the man who bade him wait and renounce. But in his heart
+he had never quite forgiven, or understood; and for all the subsequent
+trouble about Hester, all his own jealousy and pain, he had not been able
+to prevent himself from blaming Meynell. And now--now!--if this story
+were true--he began to understand. Poor child--poor mother! With the
+marriage of the child, must come--he felt the logic of it--the confession
+of the mother. A woman like Alice Puttenham, a man like Meynell, were not
+likely to give Hester to her lover without telling that lover what he had
+a right to know. Small blame to them if they were not prepared to bring
+about that crisis prematurely, while Hester was still so young! It must
+be 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 his
+father was telling with that heavy tragic touch which the son
+instinctively hated as insincere and theatrical.
+
+"Now then, perhaps,"--Barron wound up--"you will realize why it is I feel
+Meynell has acted considerately, and as any true friend of yours was
+bound to act. He knew--and you were ignorant. Such a marriage could not
+have been for your happiness, and he rightly interposed."
+
+"What difference does it make to Hester herself," cried Stephen
+hotly--"supposing the thing is true? I admit--it may be true," and as he
+spoke a host of small confirmations came thronging into his unwilling
+mind. "But in any case--"
+
+He walked up to his father again.
+
+"What have you done about it, father?" he said, sharply. "I suppose you
+went to Meynell at once."
+
+Barron smiled, with a lift of the eyebrows. He knocked off the end of his
+cigarette, 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 same
+emphasis, "not at all easy."
+
+"What do you mean, father? There seems to be something more behind. If
+there is, considering my feeling for Hester, it seems to me that having
+told me so much you are bound to tell me _all_ you know. Remember--this
+story concerns the girl I love!"
+
+Passion and pain spoke in the young man's voice. His father looked at him
+with 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 the
+view of Judith Sabin was--what the facts seem to point to. But--in any
+case, whether I believe Judith Sabin or no, I should not have said a word
+to you on the subject but for the circumstance that--unfortunately--there
+are other people in the case."
+
+Whereupon--watching his son carefully--Barron repeated the story that he
+had 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 could
+scarcely bring himself to listen at all, after he had once gathered the
+real gist of what his father was saying.
+
+Yet, by this time, the story was much better worth listening to than it
+had been when Barron had first presented it to Flaxman. By dint of much
+brooding, and under the influence of an angry obstinacy which must have
+its prey, Barron had made it a good deal more plausible than it had been
+to begin with, and would no doubt make it more plausible still. He had
+brought in by now a variety of small local observations bearing on the
+relations between the three figures in the drama--Hester, Alice
+Puttenham, Meynell--which Stephen must and did often recognize as true
+and telling. It was true that there was much friction and difference
+between Hester and the Fox-Wilton family; that Alice Puttenham's
+position and personality had always teased the curiosity of the
+neighbourhood; that the terms of Sir Ralph's will were perplexing; and
+that Meynell was Hester's guardian in a special sense, a fact for which
+there was no obvious explanation. It was true also that there emerged at
+times a singular likeness in Hester's beauty--a likeness of expression
+and gesture--to the blunt and powerful aspect of the Rector....
+
+And yet! Did his father believe, for a moment, the preposterous things he
+was saying? The young man sharpened his wits as far as possible for
+Hester's and his friend's sake, and came presently to the conclusion that
+it was one of those violent, intermittent half-beliefs which, in the
+service of hatred and party spirit, can be just as effective and
+dangerous as any other. And when the circumstantial argument passed
+presently into the psychological--even the theological--this became the
+more evident.
+
+For in order to explain to himself and others how Meynell could possibly
+have behaved in a fashion so villainous, Barron had invented by now a
+whole psychological sequence. He was prepared to show in detail how the
+thing 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 practical
+consequences of the intrigue. He certainly could not have kept his living
+had the facts been known. On the one hand his poverty--his brothers to
+educate,--his benefice to be saved. On the other, the natural desire of
+the Fox-Wiltons and of Alice Puttenham to conceal everything that had
+occurred. The sophistries of love would come in--repentance--the desire
+to make a fresh start--to protect the woman he had sacrificed.
+
+And all that might have availed him against sin and temptation--a
+steadfast Christian faith--was already deserting him; must have been
+already undermined. What was there to wonder at?--what was there
+incredible in the story? The human heart was corrupt and desperately
+wicked; and nothing stood between any man, however apparently holy, and
+moral catastrophe but the grace of God.
+
+Stephen bore the long, incredible harangue, as best he could, for
+Meynell's sake. He sat with his face turned away from his father, his
+hand closing and unclosing on his knee, his nerves quivering under the
+exasperation of his father's monstrous premises, and still more monstrous
+deductions. At the end he faced round abruptly.
+
+"I do not wish to offend you, father, but I had better say at once that I
+do not accept, for a single instant, your arguments or your conclusion. I
+am positive that the facts, whatever they may be, are _not_ what you
+suppose 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, I
+must."
+
+Barron's look flashed.
+
+"You gave me your promise"--he said imperiously--"before I told you this
+story--that you would not communicate it without my permission. I
+withhold 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 shall
+choose my own time."
+
+And as he raised his cold eyes upon his son it pleased his spirit of
+intrigue, and of domination through intrigue, that he had already
+received a letter from Flaxman giving precisely opposite advice, and did
+not intend to tell Stephen anything about it. Stephen's impulsive
+candour, however, appealed to him much more than Flaxman's reticence. It
+would indeed be physically and morally impossible for him--anonymous
+letters or no--to lock the scandal much longer within his own breast. It
+had become a living and burning thing, like some wild creature straining
+at a leash.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A little while later Stephen found himself alone. He believed himself to
+have got an undertaking from his father that Meynell should be
+communicated with promptly--perhaps that very evening. But the terms
+of the promise were not very clear; and the young man's mind was full of
+a seething wrath and unhappiness. If the story were true, so far as
+Hester and her unacknowledged mother were concerned--and, as we have
+seen, there was that in his long and intimate knowledge of Hester's
+situation which, as he listened, had suddenly fused and flashed in a most
+unwilling conviction--then, what dire, what pitiful need, on their part,
+of protection and of help! If indeed any friendly consideration for
+him, Stephen, had entered into Meynell's conduct, the young man angrily
+resented the fact.
+
+He paced up and down the library for a time, divided thus between a
+fierce contempt for Meynell's slanderers and a passionate pity for
+Hester.
+
+His father had gone to Markborough. Theresa was, he believed, in the
+garden 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 suddenly
+remembered--Maurice!
+
+He blamed himself for not having remembered earlier that Maurice was at
+home--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 to
+the second-floor bedroom which had always been his brother's.
+
+"Maurice!" He knocked. No answer. But there was a hurried movement
+inside, and something that sounded like the opening of a drawer.
+
+He called again, and tried the door. It was locked. But after further
+shuffling inside, as though some one were handling papers, it was thrown
+open.
+
+"Well, Maurice, I hope I haven't disturbed you in anything very
+important. I thought I must come and have a look at you. Are you all
+right?"
+
+"Come in, old fellow," said Maurice with affected warmth--"I was only
+writing a few letters. No room for anybody downstairs but the pater and
+Theresa, so I have to retreat up here."
+
+"And lock yourself in?" said Stephen, laughing. "Any secrets going?" And
+as he took a seat on the edge of the bed, while Maurice returned to his
+chair, he could not prevent himself from looking with a certain keen
+scrutiny both at the room and his younger brother.
+
+He and Maurice had never been friends. There was a gap of nearly ten
+years between them, and certain radical and profound differences of
+temperament. And these differences nature had expressed, with an entire
+absence of subtlety, in their physique--in the slender fairness and
+wholesomeness 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 note
+of the half-consumed brandy and soda on the table, of the saucer of
+cigarette ends beside it, and the general untidiness and stuffiness of
+the room.
+
+"Not bad," said Maurice, resuming his cigarette.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"An agency--one of these new phonographs--Yankee of course. I manage the
+office. A lot of cads--but I make 'em sit up."
+
+And he launched into boasting of his success in the business--the orders
+he had secured, the economies he had brought about in the office. Stephen
+found himself wondering meanwhile what kind of a business it could be
+that entrusted its affairs to Maurice. But he betrayed no scepticism, and
+the two talked in more or less brotherly fashion for a few minutes, till
+Stephen, with a look at his watch, declared that he must find his horse
+and go.
+
+"I thought you were only coming for the week-end," he said as he moved
+toward the door.
+
+"I got seedy--and took a week off. Besides, I found pater in such a
+stew."
+
+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 know
+is, 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 you
+ever have against him?"
+
+He looked sharply at his brother. The disagreeable idea crossed his mind
+that his father, whose weakness for Maurice he well knew, might have told
+the 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 some
+disagreeable reminiscences of a school holiday when Maurice had been
+discovered drunk in one of the public-houses of the village by the
+Rector, who had firmly dug him out and walked him home. But this and
+other recollections, not dissimilar, soon passed away, under the steady
+assault of thoughts far more compelling....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He took the bridle-path through Maudeley, and was presently aware, in a
+clearing of the wood, of the figure of Meynell in front of him.
+
+The Rector was walking in haste, without his dogs. He was therefore out
+on business, which indeed was implied by the energy of his whole
+movement.
+
+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 of
+gold and orange leaf overhead, of red-brown leaf below, with passages
+here and there where the sun struck through the beech trees, of purest
+lemon-yellow, or intensest green, breathed and murmured round them. A
+light wind sang in the tree-tops, and every now and then the plain broke
+in--purple through the gold; with its dim colliery chimneys, its wreaths
+of smoke, and its paler patches which stood for farms and villages.
+
+Meynell walked by the horse in silence for a while, till, suddenly wiping
+a 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 of
+remorse.
+
+Stephen stared at him in silence.
+
+"Flaxman walked home with me last night--came into the Rectory, and told
+me that--yesterday--he saw Meryon and Hester together--in Hewlett's
+wood--as you know, a lonely place where nobody goes. It was a great blow
+to 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 this
+morning to see her--found the whole household in confusion! Nobody knew
+where Hester was. She had gone out immediately after breakfast, with
+the maid who is supposed to be always with her. Then suddenly--about an
+hour later--one of the boys appeared, having seen this woman at the
+station--and no Hester. The woman, taken by surprise--young Fox-Wilton
+just had a few words with her as the train was moving off--confessed she
+was going into Markborough to meet Hester and come back with her. She
+didn't know where Miss Hester was. She had left her in the village, and
+was to meet her at a shop in Markborough. After that, things began to
+come out. The butler told tales. The maid is clearly an unprincipled
+hussy, and has probably been in Meryon's pay all the time--"
+
+"Where is Hester?--where are you going to?" cried Stephen in impatient
+misery, 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 that
+scoundrel in his own house!"
+
+"It appears she has once or twice declared that, in spite of us all, she
+would go and see his house and his pictures. In my belief, she has done
+it 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, his
+lips 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 he
+could not help the reproach.
+
+"I tried to act for the best," said Meynell, after a moment, his eyes on
+the ground.
+
+Stephen watched his friend uncertainly. Again and again he was on the
+point of crying out--
+
+"Tell me the truth about Hester!"--on the point also of warning and
+informing the man beside him. But he had promised his father. He held his
+tongue with difficulty.
+
+When they reached the spot where Stephen's path diverged from that which
+led 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 ride
+home. 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--a
+melancholy, dilapidated pile; and they struck into a long and neglected
+evergreen avenue leading up to it. At the end of the avenue there was an
+enclosure and a lodge, with some iron gates. A man saw them, and came out
+to 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 along
+the road, letting his horse pasture on its grassy fringe. The lodge
+keeper--sulky and puzzled--watched him a few moments and then went back
+into the house.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Rector paused to reconnoitre as he came in sight of the house. It was
+a strange, desolate, yet most romantic spot. Although, seen from the road
+and the stream, it seemed to stand on an eminence, it was really at the
+bottom of a hill which encircled it on three sides, and what with its own
+dilapidation, its broken fences and gates, the trees which crowded about
+it, and the large green-grown pond in front of it, it produced a dank and
+sinister impression. The centre of the building, which had evidently been
+rebuilt about 1700, to judge from its rose-red brick, its French
+classical lunettes, its pedimented doors and windows, and its fine
+_perron_, was clearly the inhabited portion of the building. The two
+wings of much earlier date, remains of the old Abbey, were falling into
+ruin. In front of one a garage had evidently been recently made, and a
+motor was standing at its door. To the left of the approaching spectator
+was a small deserted church, of the same date as the central portion of
+the Abbey, with twin busts of William and Mary still inhabiting a niche
+above the classical entrance, and marking the triumph of the Protestant
+Succession over the crumbling buildings of the earlier faith. The windows
+of the church were boarded up and a few tottering tombstones surrounded
+it.
+
+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 slimy
+pond 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 man
+in 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 trouble
+you to take my card."
+
+The youth's expression changed. He stood silent and sheepish, while
+Meynell considered a moment, on the steps.
+
+Suddenly a sound of voices from a distance became audible through the
+grudgingly 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 led
+through a curtain-wall to the garden. Meanwhile the house door was
+hastily banged behind him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Uncle Richard!"
+
+Behind the house Meynell came upon the persons he sought. In an overgrown
+formal garden, full of sun, he perceived an old stone bench, under an
+overhanging yew. Upon it sat Hester, bareheaded, the golden masses of her
+hair shining against the blackness of the tree. Roddy mounted guard
+beside her, his nose upon her lap; and on a garden chair in front of her
+lounged Philip Meryon, smoking and chatting. At sight of Meynell they
+both sprang to their feet. Roddy first growled, and then, as soon as he
+recognized 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 the
+rugged figure in the short clerical coat and wide-awake, and of the
+searching look with which he regarded them. Hester nervously began to
+put 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 later
+on. The lies you have instructed your servants to tell are a sufficient
+indication that you are ashamed of your behaviour. This young lady is
+under age. Her mother and I, who are her lawful guardians, forbid her
+acquaintance 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 to
+call upon you to-morrow."
+
+"This time you may really find me fled," laughed Philip, insolently. But
+he had turned white.
+
+Meynell made no reply. He went to Hester, and lifting the girl's silk
+cape, which had fallen off, he put it round her shoulders. He felt them
+trembling. But she looked at him fiercely, put him aside, and ran to
+Meryon.
+
+"Good-bye, Philip, good-bye!--it won't be for long!" And she held out
+her two hands--pleadingly. Meryon took them, and they stared at each
+other--while the Rector was conscious of a flash of dismay.
+
+What if there was now more in the business than mere mischief and
+wantonness? Hester was surprisingly lovely, with this touching, tremulous
+look, so new, and, to the Rector, so intolerable!
+
+"I must ask you to come at once," he said, walking up to her, and the
+girl, with compressed lips, dropped Meryon's hands and obeyed.
+
+Meryon walked beside them to the garden door, very pale, and breathing
+quick.
+
+"You can't separate us"--he said to Meynell--"though of course you'll
+try. 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 desired
+Meryon not to follow them. Philip hesitated, and yielded. He stood in the
+doorway, his hands in his pockets, watching them, a splendid figure, with
+his melodramatic good looks and vivid colour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Hester and Meynell walked down the avenue, side by side. Behind them, the
+lunette window under the roof opened again, and a woman's face, framed in
+black, touzled hair, looked out, grinned and disappeared.
+
+Hester carried her head high, a scornful defiance breathing from the
+flushed cheeks and tightened lips. Meynell made no attempt at
+conversation, till just as they were nearing the lodge he said--"We shall
+find Stephen a little farther on. He was riding, and thought you might
+like his horse to give you a lift home."
+
+"Oh, a _plot_!"--cried Hester, raising her chin still higher--"and
+Stephen in it too! Well, really I shouldn't have thought it was worth
+anybody'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 her
+companion. There was absurdity in her pose, and yet, as Meynell
+uncomfortably recognized, a new touch of something passionate and real.
+
+The Rector made no reply, for they were at the turn of the road and
+behind 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 send
+for 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 features
+emerged with unusual emphasis.
+
+"I think you had better accept," said Meynell gently. As he looked at
+her, he wondered whether she might not faint on their hands with anger
+and excitement. But she controlled herself, and as Stephen brought the
+brown mare alongside, and held out his hand, she put her foot in it, and
+he swung her to the saddle.
+
+"I don't want both of you," she said, passionately. "One warder is
+enough!"
+
+"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 horse
+in motion. Stephen's way lay with them for a hundred yards. He tried to
+make a little indifferent conversation, but neither Meynell nor Hester
+replied. Where the lane they had been following joined the Markborough
+road, he paused to take his leave of them, and as he did so he saw his
+two companions brought together, as it were, into one picture by the
+overcircling shade of the autumnal trees which hung over the road; and he
+suddenly perceived as he had never yet done the strange likeness between
+them. Perplexity, love--despairing and jealous love--a passionate
+championship of the beauty that was being outraged and insulted by the
+common talk and speculation of indifferent and unfriendly mouths; an
+earnest desire to know the truth, and the whole truth, that he might the
+better prove his love, and protect his friend; and a dismal certainty
+through it all that Hester had been finally snatched from him--these
+conflicting feelings very nearly overpowered him. It was all he could do
+to take a calm farewell of them. Hester's eyes under their fierce brows
+followed 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 unconscious
+grace to the quiet movements of the horse, which Meynell was leading.
+Overhead the October day was beginning to darken, and the yellow leaves
+shaken by occasional gusts were drifting mistily down on Hester's hair
+and dress, and on the glossy flanks of the mare.
+
+At last Meynell looked up. There was intense feeling in his face--a deep
+and troubled tenderness.
+
+"Hester!--is there no way in which I can convince you that if you go on
+as you have been doing--deceiving your best friends--and letting this man
+persuade 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 be
+able 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 will
+not believe me--who am his kinsman and have no interest whatever in
+blackening his character--when I tell you that he is a bad man, corrupted
+by low living and self-indulgence, with whom no girl should trust
+herself. The action you have taken to-day, your deliberate defiance of us
+all, make it necessary that I should speak in even plainer terms to you
+than I have done yet; that I should warn you as strongly as I can that by
+allowing this man to make love to you--perhaps to propose a runaway match
+to you--how do I know what villainy he may have been equal to?--you are
+running 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 man
+dieth to himself! It is the affair of all those who love you--of your
+family--of your poor Aunt Alice, who cannot sleep for grieving--"
+
+Hester raised her free hand, and angrily pushed back the masses of fair
+hair that were falling about her face.
+
+"What is the good of talking about 'love,' Uncle Richard?" She spoke with
+a passionate impatience--"You know very well that _nobody_ at home loves
+me. Why should we all be hypocrites? I have got, I tell you, to look
+after _myself_, to plan my life for myself! My mother can't help it if
+she doesn't love me. I don't complain; but I do think it a shame you
+should say she does, when you know--know--_know_--she doesn't! My sisters
+and brothers just dislike me--that's all there is in that! All my life
+I've known it--I've felt it. Why, when I was a baby they never played
+with me--they never made a pet of me--they wouldn't have me in their
+games. My father positively disliked me. Whenever the nurse brought me
+downstairs--he used to call to her to take me up again. Oh, how tired I
+got of the nursery!--I hated it--I hated nurse--I hated all the old
+toys--for I never had any new ones. Do you remember"--she turned on
+him--"that day when I set fire to all the clean clothes--that were airing
+before the fire?"
+
+"Perfectly!" said the Rector, with an involuntary smile that relaxed the
+pale gravity of his face.
+
+"I did it because I hadn't been downstairs for three nights. I might
+have been dead for all anybody cared. Then I was determined they should
+care--and I got hold of the matches. I thought the clothes would burn
+first--and then my starched frock would catch fire--and then--everybody
+would be sorry for me at last. But unfortunately I got frightened, and
+ran up the passage screaming--silly little fool! That might have made an
+end of it--once for all--"
+
+Meynell interrupted--
+
+"And after it," he said, looking her in the eyes--"when the fuss was
+over--I remember seeing you in Aunt Alsie's arms. Have you forgotten how
+she cried over you, and defended you--and begged you off? You were ill
+with terror and excitement; she took you off to the cottage, and nursed
+you till you were well again, and it had all blown over; as she did again
+and again afterward. Have you forgotten _that_--when you say that no one
+loved you?"
+
+He turned upon her with that bright penetrating look, with its touch of
+accusing sarcasm, which had so often given him the mastery over erring
+souls. For Meynell had the pastoral gift almost in perfection; the
+courage, the ethical self-confidence and the instinctive tenderness
+which belong to it. The certitudes of his mind were all ethical; and in
+this region he might have said with Newman that "a thousand difficulties
+cannot make one doubt."
+
+Hester had often yielded, to this power of his in the past, and it was
+evident that she trembled under it now. To hide it she turned upon him
+with fresh anger.
+
+"No, I haven't forgotten it!--and I'm _not_ an ungrateful fiend--though
+of 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 that
+she 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 trust
+me--then she treats me like a child--and shakes me off as if I were just
+a stranger. If she holds me at arm's-length, I am not going to tell her
+all _my_ affairs!"
+
+The rounded bosom under the little black mantle rose and fell
+tumultuously, and angry tears shone in the brown eyes. Meynell had raised
+his 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 was
+some one she had been in love with--I am certain it was--a handsome, dark
+man. And I _begged_ her to tell me--and she just got up and went away. So
+then 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--"some
+griefs we have no right to meddle with. But we can heal them--or make
+them worse. You"--his kind eyes scourged her again--"have been making
+everything worse for Aunt Alsie for a long time past."
+
+Hester shrugged her shoulders passionately, as though to repel the
+charge, but she said nothing. They moved on in silence for a little. In
+Meynell's mind there reigned a medley of feelings--tragic recollections,
+moral questionings, which time had never silenced, perplexity as to the
+present and the future, and with it all, the liveliest and sorest pity
+for the young, childish, violent creature beside him. It was not for
+those who, with whatever motives, had contributed to bring her to that
+state 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 of
+beauty at bay. The sight determined him toward frankness.
+
+"Hester!--I have told you that if you go on flirting with Philip Meryon
+you run the risk of disgrace and misery, because he has no conscience and
+no scruples, and you are ignorant and inexperienced, and have no idea of
+the fire you are playing with. But I think I had better go farther. I am
+going to say what you force me to say to you--young as you are. My strong
+belief is that Philip Meryon is either married already, or so entangled
+that he has no right to ask any decent woman to marry him. I have
+suspected 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 her
+most obstinate voice.
+
+"Very well. Then I must set at once about proving it. The reasons
+which make me believe it are not for your ears." Then his tone
+changed--"Hester!--my child!--you can't be in love with that fellow--that
+false, common fellow!--you can't!"
+
+Hester tightened her lips and would not answer. A rush of distress came
+over 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 would
+comfort you for all the past, and show you what joy really means. Be
+patient, dear Hester--be patient! If you wanted to punish us for not
+making you happy enough, well, you have done it! But don't plunge us all
+into despair--and take a little thought for your old guardian, who seems
+to have the world on his shoulders, and yet can't sleep at nights, for
+worrying about his ward, who won't believe a word he says, and sets all
+his 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 that
+he was but imperfectly able to gauge the conflict of forces in her mind.
+He resumed his pleading with her--tenderly--urgently. And at last she
+gave way, at least apparently. She allowed him to lay a friendly hand on
+hers 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 young
+women! But if you'll say 'I want to be friends, Uncle Richard, and I
+won't deceive you any more,' why, then, you'll make an old fellow
+happy! Will you?"
+
+Slowly she let her cold fingers slip into his warm, protecting palm
+as he smiled upon her. She yielded to the dignity and charm of
+Meynell's character as she had done a thousand times before; but in the
+proud, unhappy look she bent upon him there were new and disquieting
+things--prophecies of the coming womanhood, not to be unravelled. Meynell
+pressed her hand, and put it back upon the reins with a sigh he could not
+restrain.
+
+He began to talk with a forced cheerfulness of their coming journey--of
+the French _milieu_ to which she was going. Hester answered in
+monosyllables, every now and then--he thought--choking back a sob. And
+again and again the discouraging thought struck through him--"Has this
+fellow touched her heart?"--so strong was the impression of an emerging
+soul and a developing personality.
+
+Suddenly through the dispersing trees a light figure came hurriedly
+toward 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 his
+finger on his lips, and she controlled herself. Hester greeted her
+without any sign of emotion; and the three went homeward along the misty
+ways of the park. The sun had been swallowed up by rising fog; all colour
+had been sucked out of the leaves and the heather, even from the golden
+glades of fern. Only Hester's hair, and her white dress as she passed
+along, uplifted, made of her a kind of luminous wraith, and beside her,
+like the supports of an altar-piece, moved the two pensive figures of
+Meynell and Alice.
+
+From a covert of thorn in the park, a youth who had retreated into its
+shelter on their approach watched them with malicious eyes. Another man
+was with him--a sheepish, red-faced person, who peered curiously at the
+little 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, but
+with hours of occupation and correspondence still before him. He had left
+Hester with Alice Puttenham, in a state which Meynell interpreted as at
+once alarming and hopeful; alarming because it suggested that there might
+be an element of passion in what had seemed to be a mere escapade
+dictated by vanity and temper; and hopeful because of the emotion the
+girl had once or twice betrayed, for the first time in the experience
+of any one connected with her. When they entered Alice Puttenham's
+drawing-room, for instance--for Hester had stipulated she was not to be
+taken home--Alice had thrown her arms round her, and Hester had broken
+suddenly into crying, a thing unheard of. Meynell of course had hastily
+disappeared.
+
+Since then the parish had taken its toll. Visits to two or three sick
+people had been paid. The Rector had looked in at the schools, where a
+children's evening was going on, and had told the story of Aladdin with
+riotous success; he had taken off his coat to help in putting up
+decorations for an entertainment in the little Wesleyan meeting-house of
+corrugated iron; the parish nurse had waylaid him with reports, and he
+had dashed into the back parlour of a small embarrassed tradesman, in
+mortal fear of collapse and bankruptcy, with the offer of a loan, sternly
+conditional upon facing the facts, and getting in an auditor. Lady
+Fox-Wilton of course had been seen, and the clamour of her most
+unattractive offspring allayed as much as possible. And now, emerging
+from this tangle of personal claims and small interests, in the silence
+and freedom of the night hours, Meynell was free to give himself once
+more to the intellectual and spiritual passion of the Reform Movement.
+His table was piled with unopened letters; on his desk lay a half-written
+article, and two or three foreign books, the latest products of the
+Modernist Movement abroad. His crowded be-littered room smiled upon him,
+as he shut its door upon the outer world. For within it, he lived more
+truly, more vividly, than anywhere else; and all the more since its
+threadbare carpet had been trodden by Mary Elsmere.
+
+Yet as he settled himself by the fire with his pipe and his letters for
+half an hour's ease before going to his desk, his thoughts were still
+full of Hester. The incurable optimism, the ready faith where his
+affections 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, he
+should be dealt with this time with a proper disregard of either his own
+or his servants' lying. Hester was now to spend some months with a
+charming and cultivated French family. Plenty of occupation, plenty of
+amusement, plenty of appeal to her intelligence. Then, perhaps, travel
+for a couple of years, with Aunt Alice--as much separation as possible,
+anyway, from the Northleigh family and house. Alice was not rich, but she
+could 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 to
+the fore, the crisis must be faced, and the child must know! and it would
+be a cold-blooded lover that would weigh her story against her face.
+
+Comfort himself as he would, however, dream as he would, Meynell's
+conscience was always sore for Hester. Had they done right?--or hideously
+wrong? Had not all their devices been a mere trifling with nature--a mere
+attempt to "bind the courses of Orion," with the inevitable result in
+Hester's unhappy childhood and perverse youth?
+
+The Rector as he pulled at his pipe could still feel the fluttering of
+her slender hand in his. The recollection stirred in him again all the
+intolerable pity, the tragic horror of the past. Poor, poor little girl.
+But she should be happy yet, "with rings on her fingers," and everything
+proper!
+
+Then from this fatherly and tender preoccupation he passed into a more
+intimate and poignant dreaming. Mary!--in the moonlight, under the
+autumn trees, was the vision that held him; varied sometimes by the dream
+of her in that very room, sitting ghostly in the chair beside him, her
+lovely eyes wandering over its confusion of books and papers. He thought
+of her exquisite neatness of dress and delicacy of movement, and smiled
+happily to himself. "How she must have wanted to tidy up!" And he dared
+to think of a day when she would come and take possession of him
+altogether--books, body and soul, and gently order his life....
+
+"Why, you rascals!"--he said, jealously, to the dogs--"she fed you--I
+know she did--she patted and pampered you, eh, didn't she? She likes
+dogs--you may thank your lucky stars she does!"
+
+But they only raised their eager heads, and turned their loving eyes upon
+him, prepared to let loose pandemonium as soon as he showed signs of
+moving.
+
+"Well, you don't expect me to take you out for a walk at ten o'clock at
+night, do you?--idiots!" he hurled at them reprovingly; and after another
+moment of bright-eyed interrogation, disappointment descended, and down
+went their noses on their paws again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His trust in the tender steadfastness of Mary's character made itself
+powerfully felt in these solitary moments. She knew that while these
+strenuous days were on he could allow himself no personal aims. But the
+growing knowledge that he was approved by a soul so pure and so devout
+had both strung up all his powers and calmed the fevers of battle. He
+loved his cause the more because it was ever more clear to him that
+she passionately loved it too. And sensitive and depressed as he often
+was--the penalty of the optimist--her faith in him had doubled his faith
+in himself.
+
+There was a singular pleasure also in the link his love for her had
+forged between himself and Elsmere--the dead leader of an earlier
+generation. "Latitudinarianism is coming in upon us like a flood!"--cried
+the _Church Times_, wringing its hands. In other words, thought Meynell,
+"a New Learning is at last penetrating the minds and consciences of
+men--in the Church, no less than out of it." And Elsmere had been one of
+its martyrs. Meynell thought with emotion of the emaciated form he had
+last seen in the thronged hall of the New Brotherhood. "_Our_ venture is
+possible--because _you_ suffered," he would say to himself, addressing
+not 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 her
+in the flesh, had been to him, through the reports of many friends, a
+kind of legendary presence--the embodiment of the Old Faith. Meynell only
+knew that as far as he was concerned something had happened--something
+which he could not define. She was no longer his enemy; and he blessed
+her humbly in his heart. He thought also, with a curious thankfulness, of
+her strong and immovable convictions. Each thinking mind, as it were,
+carries within it its own Pageant of the Universe, and lights the show
+with its own passion. Not to quench the existing light in any human
+breast--but to kindle and quicken where no light is: to bring forever new
+lamp-bearers into the Lampadephoria of life, and marshal them there in
+their places, on equal terms with the old, neither excluded, nor
+excluding: this, surely this was the ideal of Modernism.
+
+Elsmere's widow might never admit his own claim to equal rights within
+the Christian society. What matter! It seemed to him that in some
+mysterious way she had now recognized the spiritual necessity laid upon
+him to fight for that claim; had admitted him, so to speak, to the rights
+of a belligerent. And that had made all the difference.
+
+He did not know how it had happened. But he was strangely certain that it
+had happened.
+
+But soon the short interval of rest and dream he had allowed himself was
+over. 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 the
+emotion, the stirring of all the dead-bones it has brought about. There
+has been of course a secession; but the church at Patten End amply
+provides for the seceders, and among our own people one seems to realize
+at last something of what the simplicity and sincerity of the first
+Christian feeling must have been! No 'allowances' to make for scandalous
+mistranslations and misquotations--no foolish legends, or unedifying
+tales of barbarous people--no cursing psalms--no old Semitic nonsense
+about God resting on the seventh day, delivered in the solemn sing-song
+which makes it not only nonsense but hypocrisy....
+
+"I have held both a marriage and a funeral this week under the new
+service-book. I think that all persons accustomed to think of what they
+are saying felt the strangest delight and relief in the disappearance of
+the old marriage service. It was like the dropping of a weight to which
+our shoulders had become so accustomed that we hardly realized it till it
+was gone. Instead of pompous and futile absurdity--as in the existing
+exhortation, and homily--beautiful and fitting quotation from the unused
+treasures of the Bible. Instead of the brutal speech, the crudely
+physical outlook of an earlier day, the just reticence and nobler
+perceptions of our own, combined with perfectly plain and tender
+statement as to the founding of the home and the family. Instead of
+besmirching bits of primitive and ugly legend like the solemn
+introduction of Adam's rib into the prayers, a few new prayers of great
+beauty--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 in
+any age of the Christian Church?). Instead of the old 'obey,' for the
+woman, which has had such a definitely debasing effect, as I believe, on
+the position of women, especially in the working classes--a formula, only
+slightly altered, but the same for the man and the woman....
+
+"In short, a seemly, and beautiful, and moving thing, instead of a
+ceremony which in spite of its few fine, even majestic, elements, had
+become 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 its
+arguments which are dead, and confined to its cries of poetry and faith
+which are immortal, made a new and thrilling impression. I confess I
+thought I should have broken my heart over the omission of 'I know that
+my Redeemer liveth'--and yet now that it is gone, there is a sense of
+moral exhilaration in having let it go! One knew all the time that
+whoever wrote the poem of Job neither said what he was made to say in the
+famous passage, nor meant what he was supposed to mean. One was perfectly
+aware, from one's Oxford days, as the choir chanted the great words, that
+they were a flagrant mistranslation of a corrupt and probably
+interpolated passage. And yet the glory of Handel's music, the glamour
+of association overcame one. But now that it is cut ruthlessly away
+from those moments in life when man can least afford any make-believe
+with himself or his fellows--now that music alone declaims and fathers
+it--there is the strangest relief! One feels, as I have said, the joy
+that comes from something difficult and righteous _done_--in spite of
+everything!
+
+"I could go on for hours telling you these very simple and obvious things
+which must be so familiar to you. To me the amazement of this Movement is
+that it has taken so long to come. We have groaned under the oppression
+of what we have now thrown off, so long and so hopelessly; the Revision
+that the High Churchmen made such a bother about a few years ago came to
+so little; that now, to see this thing spreading like a great spring-tide
+over the face of England is marvellous indeed! And when one knows what it
+means--no mere liturgical change, no mere lopping off here and changing
+there, but a transformation of the root ideas of Christianity; a
+transference of its whole proof and evidence from the outward to the
+inward field, and therewith the uprush of a certainty and joy unknown to
+our modern life; one can but bow one's head, as those that hear
+mysterious voices on the wind.
+
+"For so into the temple of man's spirit, age by age, comes the renewing
+Master of man's life--and makes His tabernacle with man. 'Lift up your
+heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, And the King
+of Glory shall come in.'"
+
+Meynell bowed his head upon his hands. The pulse of hope and passion in
+the letter was almost overpowering. It came, he knew, from an elderly
+man, broken by many troubles, and tormented by arthritis, yet a true
+saint, 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 to
+make both clergy and laity sign the Modernist decrees has had a
+prodigious effect all over France--precisely in the opposite sense to
+that 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 single
+intellectual of any eminence--and it is a misfortune for _us_, the
+liberals. We have nothing to fight--we seem to be beating the air.'
+
+"Scherer could not have said this to-day. There are Catholics
+everywhere--in the University, the Ecole Normale, the front ranks of
+literature. But with few exceptions _they are all Modernist_; they have
+thrown overboard the whole _fatras_ of legend and tradition. Christianity
+has become to them a symbolical and spiritual religion; not only
+personally important and efficacious, but of enormous significance from
+the national point of view. But as you know, _we_ do not at present
+aspire to outward or ceremonial changes. We are quite content to leaven
+the meal from within; to uphold the absolute right and necessity of the
+two languages in Christianity--the popular and the scientific, the
+mythological and the mystical. If the Pope could have his way,
+Catholicism would soon be at an end--except as a peasant-cult--in the
+Latin countries. But, thank God, he will not have his way. One hears of a
+Modernist freemasonry among the Italian clergy--of a secret press--an
+enthusiasm, like that of the Carboneria in the forties. So the spirit of
+the Most High blows among the dead clods of the world--and, in a moment
+the harvest is there!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meynell let the paper drop. He began to write, and he wrote without
+stopping with great ease and inspiration for nearly two hours. Then as
+midnight struck, he put down his pen, and gazed into the dying fire. He
+felt as Wordsworth's skater felt on Esthwaite, when, at a sudden pause,
+the mountains and cliffs seemed to whirl past him in a vast headlong
+procession. So it was in Meynell's mind with thoughts and ideas.
+Gradually they calmed and slackened, till at last they passed into an
+abstraction and ecstasy of prayer.
+
+When he rose, the night had grown very cold. He hurriedly put his papers
+in order, before going to bed, and as he did so, he perceived two
+unopened letters which had been overlooked.
+
+One was from Hugh Flaxman, communicating the news of the loss of two
+valuable gold coins from the collection exhibited at the party. "We are
+all in tribulation. I wonder whether you can remember seeing them when
+you were talking there with Norham? One was a gold stater of Velia with a
+head of Athene."...
+
+The other letter was addressed in Henry Barron's handwriting. Meynell
+looked at it in some surprise as he opened it, for there had been no
+communication between him and the White House for a long time.
+
+"I should be glad if you could make it convenient to see me to-morrow
+morning. I wish to speak with you on a personal matter of some
+importance--of which I do not think you should remain in ignorance. Will
+it 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 so
+pertickler. 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 the
+house. But he won't be long, sir."
+
+And Anne, very stiff and on her dignity, relieved one of the two
+armchairs of its habitual burden of books, gave it a dusting with her
+apron, and offered it to the visitor. It was evident that she regarded
+his presence with entire disfavour, but was prepared to treat him with
+prudence for the master's sake. Her devotion to Meynell had made her
+shrewd; she perfectly understood who were his enemies, and who his
+friends.
+
+Barron, with a sharp sense of annoyance that he should be kept waiting,
+merely because a drunken miner happened to be beating his wife, coldly
+accepted her civilities, and took up a copy of the _Times_ which was
+lying on the table. But when Anne had retired, he dropped the newspaper,
+and began with a rather ugly curiosity to examine the room. He walked
+round the walls, looking at the books, raising his eyebrows at the rows
+of paper-bound German volumes, and peering closely into the titles of the
+English ones. Then his attention was caught by a wall-map, in which a
+number of small flags attached to pins were sticking. It was an outline
+map of England, apparently sketched by Meynell himself, as the notes and
+letterings were in his handwriting. It was labelled "Branches of the
+Reform League." All over England the little flags bristled, thicker here,
+and thinner there, but making a goodly show on the whole. Barron's face
+lengthened 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 the
+sheets. Beside it was a copy of Thomas ŕ Kempis, and Father Tyrrell's
+posthumous book, in which a great soul, like a breaking wave, had foamed
+itself away; a volume of Sanday, another of Harnack, into the open cover
+of which the Rector had apparently just pinned an extract from a Church
+paper. Barron involuntarily stooped to read it. It ran:
+
+"This is no time for giving up the Athanasian Creed. The moment when the
+sewage of continental unbelief is pouring into England is not the moment
+for banishing to a museum a screen that was erected to guard the
+sanctuary."
+
+Beneath it, in Meynell's writing:
+
+"A gem, not to be lost! The muddle of the metaphor, the corruption of the
+style, everything is symbolic. In a preceding paragraph the writer makes
+an attack on Harnack, who is described as 'notorious for opposing' the
+doctrines of the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection. That history has a
+right to its say on so-called historical events never seems to have
+occurred to this gentleman; still less that there is a mystical and
+sacred 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 probably
+infinitely greater than Harnack's in dealing historically with the Birth
+Stories. The fact is the whole onus is now on the orthodox side. It is
+not 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 deal
+drastically with a clergyman who could write such things.
+
+A step outside. The sleeping dogs on the doorstep sprang up and noisily
+greeted their master. Meynell shut them out, to their great disgust, and
+came hurriedly toward the study.
+
+Barron, as he saw him in the doorway, drew back with an exclamation. The
+Rector's dress and hair were dishevelled and awry, and his face--pale,
+drawn, and damp with perspiration--showed that he had just come through a
+personal struggle.
+
+"Sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Barron. But that fellow,
+Pinches--you remember?--the new blacksmith--has been drinking for nearly
+a week, and went quite mad this morning. We just prevented him from
+killing his wife, but it was a tough business. I'll go and wash and
+change my coat, if you will allow me."
+
+So he went away, and Barron had a few more minutes in which to meditate
+on the room and its owner. When at last Meynell came back, and settled
+himself in the chair opposite to his visitor, with a quiet "Now I am
+quite at your service," Barron found himself overtaken with a curious and
+unwelcome hesitation. The signs--a slightly strained look, a quickened
+breathing--that Meynell still bore upon him of a physical wrestle,
+combined perhaps with a moral victory, suddenly seemed, even in Barron's
+own eyes, to dwarf what he had to say--to make a poor mean thing out of
+his story. And Meynell's shining eyes, divided between close attention to
+the man before him and some recent and disturbing recollections in which
+Barron had no share, reinforced the impression.
+
+But he recaptured himself quickly. After all, it was at once a charitable
+and a high-judicial part that he had come to play. He gathered his
+dignity 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 friendly
+relations. Meynell made a slight inclination.
+
+"Then I hope you will tell it me as quickly as may be. Does it concern
+yourself, or me? Maurice, I hope, is doing well?"
+
+Barron winced. It seemed to him an offence on the Rector's part that
+Meynell's tone should subtly though quite innocently remind him of days
+when he had been thankful to accept a strong man's help in dealing with
+the escapades of a vicious lad.
+
+"He is doing excellently, thank you--except that his health is not all I
+could wish. My business to-day," he continued, slowly--"concerns a woman,
+formerly of this village, whom I happened by a strange accident to see
+just 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 a
+suddenly heightened colour he struck straight--violently--for the heart
+of the thing.
+
+"She told me a lamentable story--and she was led to tell it me by
+seeing--and identifying--yourself--as you were standing with a lady in
+the 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 you
+wish to consult me about something that Judith Sabin communicated to
+you?"
+
+"I do. But the story she told me turns very closely on her identification
+of yourself; and therefore it does matter," said Barron, with emphasis.
+
+A puzzled look passed again over Meynell's face. But he said nothing. His
+attitude, coldly expectant, demanded the story.
+
+Barron told it--once more. He repeated Judith Sabin's narrative in the
+straightened, rearranged form he had now given to it, postponing,
+however, any further mention of Meynell's relation to it till a last
+dramatic moment.
+
+He did not find his task so easy on this occasion. There was something in
+the personality of the man sitting opposite to him which seemed to make a
+narrative that had passed muster elsewhere sound here a mere vulgar
+impertinence, the wanton intrusion of a common man on things sacredly and
+justly 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 speaker
+arrived at the incident of the Grenoble visitor.
+
+"I naturally find this a very disagreeable task," he said, pausing a
+moment. He got, however, no help from Meynell, who was dumb; and he
+presently resumed--"Judith Sabin saw the gentleman who came distinctly.
+She felt perfectly certain in her own mind as to his relation to Miss
+Puttenham and the child; and she was certain also, when she saw you and
+Miss Puttenham standing in the road, while I was with her that--"
+
+Meynell looked up, slightly frowning, awaiting the conclusion of the
+sentence--
+
+--"that she saw--the same man again!"
+
+Barron's naturally ruddy colour had faded a little; his eyes blinked. He
+drew his coat forward over his knee, and put it back again nervously.
+
+Meynell's face was at first blank, or bewildered. Then a light of
+understanding shot through it. He fell back in his chair with an odd
+smile.
+
+"So _that_--is what you have in your mind?"
+
+Barron coughed a little. He was angrily conscious of an anxiety and
+misgiving he had not expected. He made all the greater effort to recover
+what seemed to him the proper tone.
+
+"It is all most sad--most lamentable. But I had, you perceive, the
+positive statement of a woman who should have known the facts first-hand,
+if any one did. Owing to her physical state, it was impossible to
+cross-examine her, and her sudden death made it impossible to refer her
+to you. I had to consider what I should do--"
+
+"Why should you have done anything--" said Meynell dryly, raising his
+eyes--"but forget as quickly as possible a story you had no means of
+verifying, 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 _prima
+facie_ absurdity, I desire to say nothing offensive to you, but there
+have been many curious circumstances connected with your relation to
+the Fox-Wilton family which have given rise before now to gossip in this
+neighbourhood. I could not but perceive that the story told me threw
+light upon them. The remarkable language of Sir Ralph's will, the
+position of Miss Hester in the Fox-Wilton family, your relation to
+her--and to--to Miss Puttenham."
+
+Meynell's composure became a matter of some difficulty, but he maintained
+it.
+
+"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," said
+Barron, with all the dignity he could bring to bear. "For the unfortunate
+thing is--the thing which obliged me whether I would or no--and you will
+see from the dates that I have hesitated a long time--to bring Judith
+Sabin's statement to your notice--is that she seems to have talked to
+some one else in the neighbourhood before she died, besides myself. Her
+son declares that she saw no one. I have questioned him; of course
+without revealing my object. But she must have done so. And whoever it
+was has begun to write anonymous letters--repeating the story--in full
+detail--_with_ the identification--that I have just given you."
+
+"Anonymous letters?" repeated Meynell, raising himself sharply. "To
+whom?"
+
+"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 to
+you, 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 a
+copy."
+
+"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 presently
+to an abrupt pause in front of his visitor.
+
+"This story then is now all over the village--will soon be all over the
+diocese. Now--what was your object in yourself bringing it to me?"
+
+"I thought it right to inform you--to give you warning--perhaps also to
+suggest to you that a retreat from your present position--"
+
+"I see--you thought it a means of bringing pressure to bear upon me?--you
+propose, in short, that I should throw up the sponge, and resign my
+living?"
+
+"Unless, of course, you can vindicate yourself publicly."
+
+Barron to his annoyance could not keep his hand which held a glove from
+shaking a little. The wrestle between their personalities was rapidly
+growing 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!" Meynell
+repeated, with emphasis.
+
+"In that case--I suggest--it might be better to meet the wishes of your
+Bishop, and so avoid further publicity."
+
+"By resigning my living?"
+
+"Precisely. The scandal would then drop of itself. For Miss Puttenham's
+sake alone you must, I think, desire to stop its development."
+
+Meynell flushed hotly. He took another turn up the room--while Barron sat
+silent, looking straight before him.
+
+"I shall not take action"--Meynell resumed--"and I shall not dream of
+retreating from my position here. Judith Sabin's story is untrue. She did
+not see me at Grenoble and I am not the father of Hester Fox-Wilton. As
+to 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 thought
+and will seemed to pass through his face. As Barron rose, he began to
+speak.
+
+"I have no doubt you think yourself justified in taking the line
+you clearly do take in this matter. I can hardly imagine that you
+really believe the story you say you got from Judith Sabin--which you
+took to Flaxman--and have, I suppose, discussed with Dawes. I am
+convinced--forgive me if I speak plainly--that you cannot and do not
+believe anything so preposterous--or at any rate you would not believe it
+in 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 the
+thing has been done again and again. If you cannot defeat a man in fair
+fight, the next best thing is to blacken his character. We see that
+everywhere--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 a
+time. All I can say is, I would rather be the man to suffer from it than
+the man to gain from it!"
+
+Barron took up his hat. "I cannot be surprised that you receive me in
+this manner," he said, with all the steadiness he could muster. "But as
+you cannot deal with this very serious report in the ordinary way, either
+by 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. You
+cannot distrust either the Bishop's discretion, or his good will. If he
+were satisfied, we no doubt should be the same."
+
+Meynell shook his head.
+
+"Not if I know anything of the _odium theologicum!_ Besides, the Miss
+Nairns of this world pay small attention to bishops. By the way--I forgot
+to ask--you can tell me nothing on the subject of the writer of the
+anonymous 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-pocket
+the letter to Dawes, which he had again borrowed from its owner that
+morning. Meynell put it into a drawer of his writing-table without
+looking at it.
+
+The two men moved toward the door.
+
+"As to any appeal to you on behalf of a delicate and helpless
+lady--" said Meynell, betraying emotion for the first time--"that I
+suppose is useless. But when one remembers her deeds of kindness in this
+village, her quiet and irreproachable life amongst us all these years,
+one would have thought that any one bearing the Christian name would have
+come to me as the Rector of this village on one errand only--to consult
+how best to protect her from the spread of a cruel and preposterous
+story! You--I gather--propose to make use of it in the interests of your
+own Church party."
+
+Barron straightened himself, resenting at once what seemed to him the
+intrusion of the pastoral note.
+
+"I am heartily sorry for her"--he said coldly. "Naturally it is the women
+who suffer in these things. But of course you are right--though you put
+the matter from your own point of view--in assuming that I regard this as
+no ordinary scandal. I am not at liberty to treat it as such. The honour
+concerned--is the honour of the Church. To show the intimate connection
+of creed and life may be a painful--it is also an imperative duty!"
+
+He threw back his head with a passion which, as Meynell clearly
+recognized, was not without its touch of dignity.
+
+Meynell stepped back.
+
+"We have talked enough, I think. You will of course take the course that
+seems to you best, and I shall take mine. I bid you good day."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From the study window Meynell watched the disappearing figure of his
+adversary. The day was wet, and the funereal garden outside was dank with
+rain. The half-dead trees had shed such leaves as they had been able to
+put forth, and behind them was a ragged sky of scudding cloud.
+
+In Meynell's soul there was a dull sense of catastrophe. In Barron's
+presence he had borne himself as a wronged man should; but he knew very
+well 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 visualizing
+power showed him the groups in the various bar parlours, discussing the
+Scandal, dividing it up into succulent morsels, serving it up with every
+variety of personal comment, idle or malicious; amplyfying, exaggerating,
+completing. He saw the neat and plausible spinster from whose cruel hands
+he had rescued a little dumb, wild-eyed child, reduced by ill-treatment
+to skin and bone--he saw her gloating over the anonymous letter, putting
+two and two maliciously together, whispering here, denouncing there. He
+seemed to be actually present in the most disreputable public-house of
+the village, a house he had all but succeeded in closing at the preceding
+licensing 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 the
+village, the members of his Parish Council, who would suffer, and stand
+firm. The postponed meeting of the Council, for the acceptance of the new
+Liturgy, was to be held the day after his return from Paris. To them he
+would speak--so far as he could; yes, to them he would speak! Then his
+thought spread to the diocese. Charges of this kind spread with
+extraordinary rapidity. Whoever was writing the anonymous letters had
+probably not confined himself to two or three. Meynell prepared himself
+for 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 he
+read. He had expected something of a vulgarer and rougher type. The
+handwriting was clearly disguised, and there was a certain amount of
+intermittent bad spelling, which might very easily be a disguise also.
+But whoever wrote it was acquainted with the Fox-Wilton family, with
+their 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 elder
+Fox-Wilton girls--it had become a source of gossip in the village. The
+writer of it could not be far away. Was it a man or a woman? Meynell
+examined the handwriting carefully. He had a vague impression that he had
+seen something like it before, but could not remember where or in what
+connection.
+
+He put it back in his drawer, and as he did so his eyes fell upon his
+half-written article for the _Modernist _and on the piles of
+correspondence beside it. A sense of bitter helplessness overcame him, a
+pang not for himself so much as for his cause. He realized the inevitable
+effect of the story in the diocese, weighted, as it would be, with all
+the colourable and suspicious circumstances that could undoubtedly be
+adduced in support of it; its effect also beyond the diocese, through
+the Movement of which he was the life and guiding spirit; through
+England--where his name was rapidly becoming a battle-cry.
+
+And what could he do to meet it? Almost nothing! The story indeed as a
+whole could be sharply and categorically denied, because it involved a
+fundamental 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 formal
+vow of secrecy to any one. He was free to confide in whom he would. But
+all that was tender, pitiful, chivalrous in his soul stood up and
+promised for him, as he stood looking out into the October rain, that for
+no personal--yes!--and for no public advantage--would he trifle with what
+he had regarded for eighteen years as a trust, laid upon him by the dying
+words of a man he had loved, and enforced more and more sharply with time
+by the constant appeal of a woman's life--its dumb pain, the paradox of
+its frail strength, its shrinking courage. That life had depended upon
+him during the worst crisis of its fate as its spiritual guide. He had
+toward Alice Puttenham the feeling of the "director," as the saints have
+understood it; and toward her story something of the responsibility of a
+priest toward a confession. To reveal it in his own interest was simply
+impossible. If the Movement rejected him--it must reject him.
+
+"Not so will I fight for thee, my God!--not so!" he said to himself in
+great anguish of mind.
+
+It was true indeed that at some future time Alice Puttenham's poor secret
+must be told--to a specified person, with her consent, and by the express
+direction of that honest, blundering man, her brother-in-law, whose life,
+sorely against his will, had been burdened with it. But the
+indiscriminate admission of the truth, after the lapse of years, would,
+he believed, simply bring back the old despair, and paralyze what had
+always been a frail vitality. And as to Hester, the sudden divulgence of
+it might easily upset the unstable balance in her of mind and nerve and
+drive 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 had
+already happened? Supposing it had, he might not be able to prevent her
+from doing what would place the part played toward her by himself in its
+true light. She would probably insist upon his taking legal action, and
+allowing her to make her statement in court.
+
+The thought of this was so odious to him that he promptly put it from
+him. He should assume that she knew nothing; though as a practical man he
+was well aware that she could not long remain ignorant; certainly not if
+she continued to live in Upcote. Then, it was a question probably of days
+or hours. Her presence in the cottage, when once the village was in full
+possession of the slander, would be a perpetual provocation. One way or
+another the truth must penetrate to her.
+
+An idea occurred to him. Paris! So far he had insisted on going himself
+with Hester to Paris because of his haunting feeling of responsibility
+toward the girl, and his resolve to see with his own eyes the household
+in which he was placing her. But suppose he made excuses? The burden of
+work upon him was excuse enough for any man. Suppose he sent Alice in his
+stead, and so contrived as to keep her in or near Paris for a while? Then
+Edith Fox-Wilton would of course have the forwarding of her sister's
+correspondence, and might, it seemed to him, take the responsibility of
+intercepting whatever might inform or alarm her.
+
+Not much prospect of doing so indefinitely!--that he plainly saw. But to
+gain time was an immense thing; to prevent her from taking at once
+Quixotic steps. He knew that in health she had never been the same since
+the episode of Judith's return and death. She seemed suddenly to have
+faded and drooped, as though poisoned by some constant terror.
+
+He stood lost in thought a little longer by his writing-table. Then his
+hand felt slowly for a parcel in brown paper that lay there.
+
+He drew it toward him and undid the wrappings. Inside it was a little
+volume of recent poems of which he had spoken to Mary Elsmere on their
+moonlit walk through the park. He had promised to lend her his copy, and
+he meant to have left it at the cottage that afternoon. Now he
+lingeringly removed the brown paper, and walking to the bookcase, he
+replaced the volume.
+
+He sat down to write to Alice Puttenham, and to scribble a note to Lady
+Fox-Wilton asking her to see him as soon as possible. Then Anne forced
+some luncheon on him, and he had barely finished it when a step outside
+made itself heard. He looked up and saw Hugh Flaxman.
+
+"Come in!" said the Rector, opening the front door himself. "You are very
+welcome."
+
+Flaxman grasped--and pressed--the proffered hand, looking at Meynell the
+while with hesitating interrogation. He guessed from the Rector's face
+that 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 had
+pushed a chair toward his guest. "He told me he had shown one of these
+precious 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 may
+thereby--perhaps--be enabled to be of some little use to you. Barron
+knows what I think of him, and of the business."
+
+"Oh! for him it is a weapon--like any other. Though to do him justice
+he might not have used it, but for the other mysterious person in the
+case--the writer of these letters. You know--" he straightened himself
+vehemently--"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 in
+arguing with myself as to whether I should come to you at all. Finally I
+decided you might blame me if I did not. You may not be aware of the
+letter 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--"except
+for a few references to the part Mrs. Elsmere had played in helping the
+families of those poor fellows who were killed in the cage-accident."
+
+"And Miss Elsmere?" said Meynell in a tone that wavered in spite of
+himself. He sat with his head bent and his eyes on the floor.
+
+"Knows, of course, nothing whatever about it," said Flaxman hastily. "Now
+will 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 what
+you wish?"
+
+Meynell assented.
+
+"In the village, I shall deal with it at the Reform meeting on Thursday
+night." 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 some
+conversation with her."
+
+They started together through a dripping world on which the skies had but
+just ceased to rain. On his way through the park Meynell took off his hat
+and walked bareheaded through the mist, evidently feeling it a physical
+relief to let the chill, moist air beat freely on brow and temples.
+Flaxman could not help watching him occasionally--the forehead with its
+deep vertical furrow, the rugged face, stamped and lined everywhere by
+travail of mind and body, and the nobility of the large grizzled head. In
+the voluminous cloak--of an antiquity against which Anne protested in
+vain--which was his favourite garb on wet days, he might have been a
+friar of the early time, bound on a preaching tour. The spiritual,
+evangelic note in the personality became--so Flaxman thought--ever more
+conspicuous. 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 am
+expected."
+
+"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 going
+to threaten."
+
+"With anything to go upon?"
+
+"Yes. I hope at last to be able to get some grip on him; though no doubt
+my chances are not improved since yesterday," said Meynell, with a grim
+shadow of a smile, "supposing that anybody from Upcote has been
+gossipping at Sandford. It does not exactly add to one's moral influence
+to 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 the
+high road, Flaxman accompanying his friend so far. There they parted, and
+Hugh returned slowly to the cottage by the water, Meynell promising to
+join 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 were
+sitting at work. Mary was embroidering a curtain in a flowing Venetian
+pattern--with a handful of withered leaves lying beside her to which she
+occasionally matched her silks. Catharine was knitting. Outside the rain
+was howling through the trees; the windows streamed with it. But within,
+the bright wood-fire threw a pleasant glow over the simple room, and the
+figures of the two ladies. Mary's trim jacket and skirt of prune-coloured
+serge, with its white blouse fitting daintily to throat and wrist, seemed
+by its neatness to emphasize the rebellious masses and the fare colour of
+her hair. She knew that her hair was beautiful, and it gave her a
+pleasure she could not help, though she belonged to that type of
+Englishwoman, not yet nearly so uncommon as modern newspapers and books
+would have us believe, who think as little as they can of personal
+adornment and their own appearance, in the interests of some hidden ideal
+that "haunts them like a passion; of which even the most innocent vanity
+seems to make them unworthy."
+
+In these feelings and instincts she was, of course, her mother's
+daughter. Catharine Elsmere's black dress of some plain woollen stuff
+could 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 the
+spiritual beauty which had always been hers was hers still. One might
+guess that she, too, knew it; that in her efforts to save persons in sin
+or suffering she must have known what it was worth to her; what the gift
+of lovely line and presence is worth to any human being. But if she had
+been made to feel this--passingly, involuntarily--she had certainly
+shrunk from feeling it.
+
+Mary put her embroidery away, made up the fire, and sat down on a stool
+at her mother's feet.
+
+"Darling, how many socks have you knitted since we came here? Enough to
+stock a shop?"
+
+"On the contrary. I have been very idle," laughed Catharine, putting her
+knitting 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 your
+feet in London a day earlier," said Mary, laying her head on Catharine's
+knee. "You needn't grumble. Next week you'll have your fells and your
+becks--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 and
+speaking with energy; "but, oh dear, I wish I could do something for
+her!"
+
+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--a
+day's--happiness--in her life?"
+
+[Illustration: "'I wonder whether she's ever had any real joy--a
+week's--a day's--happiness--in her life?'"]
+
+She said it musingly but intensely. Catharine did not know how to answer
+her. All the day long, and a good deal of the night, she had been
+debating with herself what to do--toward Mary. Mary was no longer a
+child. 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 places
+of London life. The betrayal--which could not be hidden from her--of a
+young servant girl in their employ, the year before, and the fierce
+tenderness with which Mary had thrown herself into the saving of the girl
+and her child, had brought about--Catharine knew it--a great deepening
+and overshadowing of her youth. Catharine had in some ways regretted it
+bitterly; for she belonged to that older generation which believed--and
+were amply justified in believing--that it is well for the young to be
+ignorant, so long as they can be ignorant, of the ugly and tragic things
+of sex. It was not that her Mary seemed to her in the smallest degree
+besmirched by the experience she had passed through; that any bloom had
+been shaken from the flower. Far from it. It was rather that some touch
+of careless joy was gone forever from her child's life; and how that
+may hurt a mother, only those know who have wept in secret hours over the
+first ebbing of youth in a young face.
+
+So that she received Mary's outburst in silence. For she said to herself
+that she could have no right to reveal Alice Puttenham's secret, even to
+Mary. That cruel tongues should at that moment be making free with it
+burnt like a constant smart in Catharine's mind. Was the poor thing
+herself aware of it?--could it be kept from her? If not, Mary must
+know--would know--sooner or later. "But for me to tell her without
+permission"--thought Catharine firmly--"would not be right--or just.
+Besides, I know nothing--directly."
+
+As to the other and profounder difficulty involved, Catharine wavered
+perpetually between two different poles of feeling. The incidents of the
+preceding weeks had made it plain that her resistance to Meynell's
+influence with Mary had strangely and suddenly broken down. Owing to an
+experience of which she had not yet spoken to Mary, her inner will had
+given way. She saw with painful clearness what was coming; she was blind
+to 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 she
+submitted. Her submission had cost her tears often, at night, when
+there was no one to see. And yet it had brought her also a strange
+happiness--like all such yieldings of soul.
+
+But if she had yielded, if there was in her a reluctant practical
+certainty that Mary would some day be Meynell's wife, then her
+conscience, which was that of a woman who had passionately loved her
+husband, began to ask: "Ought she not to be standing by him in this
+trouble? If we keep it all from her, and he suffers and perhaps breaks
+down, when she might have sustained him, will she not reproach us? Should
+I not have bitterly reproached any one who had kept me from helping
+Robert in such a case?"
+
+A state of mind, it will be seen, into which there entered not a trace of
+ordinary calculations. It did not occur to her that Mary might be injured
+in the world's eyes by publicly linking herself with a man under a cloud.
+Catharine, whose temptation to "scruple" in the religious sense was
+constant and tormenting, who recoiled in horror from what to others were
+the merest venial offences, in this connection asked one thing only.
+Where Barron had argued that an unbeliever must necessarily have a carnal
+mind, Catharine had simply assured herself at once by an unfailing
+instinct that the mind was noble and the temper pure. In those matters
+she was not to be deceived; she knew.
+
+That being so, and if her own passionate objections to the marriage were
+to be put aside, then she could only judge for Mary as she would judge
+for herself. _Not_ to love--_not_ to comfort--could there be--for
+Love--any greater wound, any greater privation? She shrank, in a kind of
+terror, from inflicting it on Mary--Mary, unconscious and unknowing.
+
+... The soft chatter of the fire, the plashing of the rain, filled the
+room with the atmosphere of reverie. Catharine's thoughts passed from her
+obligations toward Mary to grapple anxiously with those she might be
+under toward Meynell himself. The mere possession of the anonymous
+letter--and Flaxman had not given her leave to destroy it--weighed upon
+her conscience. It seemed to her she ought not to possess it; and she had
+been only half convinced by Flaxman's arguments for delay. She was
+rapidly coming to the belief that it should have been handed instantly to
+the Rector.
+
+A step outside.
+
+"Uncle Hugh!" said Mary, springing up. "I'll go and see if there are any
+scones for tea!" And she vanished into the kitchen, while Catharine
+admitted her brother-in-law.
+
+"Meynell is to join me here in an hour or so," he said, as he followed
+her into the little sitting-room. Catharine closed the door, and looked
+at 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 to
+you, 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 were
+wrong to delay."
+
+"He told me nothing--and I asked nothing. But, of course, what the
+situation 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. At
+any ordinary time that would be enough. But now--with all the hot feeling
+there is on the other subject--and the natural desire to discredit
+him--" Flaxman shrugged his shoulders despondently. "Rose's maid--you
+know the dear old thing she is--came to her last night, in utter distress
+about the talk in the village. There was a journalist here, a reporter
+from one of the papers that have been opposing Meynell most actively--"
+
+"They are quite right to oppose him," interrupted Catharine quickly. Her
+face 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 a
+woman--walking fast toward the cottage along the narrow grass causeway
+that ran between the two ponds. On either side of the woman the autumn
+trees swayed and bent under the rising storm, and every now and then a
+mist of scudding leaves almost effaced her. She seemed to be breathlessly
+struggling with the wind as she sped onward, and in her whole aspect
+there was an indescribable forlornness and terror.
+
+Catharine peered into the rain....
+
+"Hugh!"--She turned swiftly to her brother-in-law--"There is some one
+coming to see me. Will you go?"--she pointed to the garden door on the
+farther side of the drawing-room--"and will you take Mary? Go round to
+the back. You know the old summer-house at the end of the wood-walk. We
+have often sheltered there from rain. Or there's the keeper's cottage a
+little 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 he
+too saw the advancing form. In an instant he had disappeared by the
+garden door. Catharine went into the hall, opened the door of the kitchen
+and beckoned to Mary, who was standing there with their little maid.
+"Don't come back just yet, darling!" she said in her ear--"Get your
+things on, and go with Uncle Hugh. I want to be alone."
+
+Mary stepped back bewildered, and Catharine shut her in. Then she went
+back 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 the
+cloak off."
+
+And as she drew off the soaked waterproof, Catharine felt the trembling
+of 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 on
+Catharine. Every feature in the delicate oval face was pinched and drawn.
+The struggle with wild weather had drained the lips and the cheeks of
+colour, and her brown hair under her serge cap fell limply about her
+small ears and neck. She was an image not so much of grief as of some
+unendurable 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 it
+so strange of me to come to you in this way. But I am in trouble--such
+great trouble--and I don't know what to do. Then I thought I'd come to
+you. You--you always seem to me so kind--you won't despise--or repulse
+me--I know you won't!"
+
+Her voice sank to a whisper. Catharine took the two icy hands in her warm
+grasp.
+
+"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's
+friend--when I'd no right. I'm not what you think. I--I have a
+secret--or--I had. And now it's discovered--and I don't know what I shall
+do--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 spoke
+in 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 cold
+hands, she pressed it to her lips.
+
+But Alice suddenly raised herself.
+
+"You knew!"--she said--"You knew!" And her eyes, full of fear, stared
+into Catharine's. Then as Catharine did not speak immediately she went on
+with growing agitation, "You've heard--what everybody's saying? Oh! I
+don'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 a
+nightmare. For I felt certain she'd come home because she was angry with
+us--and that she'd said something--before she died. Then nothing
+happened--and I've tried to think--lately--it was all right. But last
+night--"
+
+She paused for self-control. Catharine was alarmed by her state--by its
+anguish, its excitement. It required an effort of her whole being before
+the 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 nursed
+me sometimes--when I've been ill. She loves me--she's good to me. And she
+came to tell me what people were saying in the village--how there were
+letters going round, about me--and Hester--how everybody knew--and they
+were talking in the public-houses. She thought I ought to know--she
+cried--and wanted me to deny it. And of course I denied it--I was fierce
+to 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 said
+people were saying--that the Rector--that Mr. Meynell--was Hester's
+father--and Judith Sabin had told Mr. Barron so before her death. And
+they 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 were
+many people who were angry--who didn't believe a word--but this woman who
+told me was astonished that so many _did_ believe.... So then I thought
+all 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 I
+should bring disgrace on them in the end--and her life had been a burden
+to 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 say
+nothing--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 she
+pressed the damp hair back from her face, and began to pace the
+room--unconsciously--still talking.
+
+"I asked her what was to happen about Richard--about the Rector. I said
+he 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 sin
+had spoilt her life--and Ralph's. They had done all they could--and now
+the publicity--if I insisted--would disgrace them all--and ruin the
+girls' chances of marrying, and I don't know what besides. But if I held
+my tongue--we could go away for a time--it would be forgotten, and nobody
+out of Upcote need ever hear of it. People would never believe such a
+thing of Richard Meynell. Of course he would deny it--and of course his
+word 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 were
+her whole strength to pour it--slowly, deliberately--into the words that
+followed:
+
+"But I--will run no risk of ruining Richard Meynell! As for me--what does
+it matter what happens to me! And darling Hester!--we could keep it from
+her--we would! She and I could live abroad. And I don't see how it could
+disgrace Edith and the girls--people would only say she and Ralph had
+been very good to me. But Richard Meynell!--with these trials coming
+on--and all the excitement about him--there'll be ever so many who would
+be wild to believe it! They won't care how absurd it is--they'll want
+to _crush_ him! And he--he'll _never_ say a word for himself--to
+explain--never! Because he couldn't without telling all my story. And
+that--do you suppose Richard Meynell would ever do _that_?--to any poor
+human 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 her
+in doubt--trouble--amazement. And then, her pure sense divined
+something--dimly--of what the full history of this soul had been; and her
+heart melted. She put out her hands and drew the speaker down again into
+the seat beside her.
+
+"I think you'll have to let him decide that for you. He's a strong
+man--and a wise man. He'll judge what's right. And I ought to warn you
+that 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 Catharine
+reluctantly.
+
+Alice shrank and trembled. "It's terrible!"--her voice was scarcely to be
+heard. "Who is it hates me so?--or Richard?"
+
+There was silence a moment. And in the pause the stress and tumult of
+nature without, the beating of the wind, and the plashing of the rain,
+seemed to be rushing headlong through the little room. But neither
+Catharine nor Alice was aware of it, except in so far as it played
+obscurely on Alice's tortured nerves, fevering and goading them the more.
+Catharine's gaze was bent on her companion; her mind was full of projects
+of help, which were also prayers; moments in that ceaseless dialogue with
+a Greater than itself, which makes the life of the Christian. And it was
+as though, by some secret influence, her prayers worked on Alice; for
+presently she turned in order that she might look straight into the face
+beside 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 you
+don't know about Neville--no one does now. People seem all to have
+forgotten him. But he came into his property here--the Abbey--the old
+Abbey--just when I was growing up. I saw him here first--but only once or
+twice. Then we met in Scotland. I was staying at a house near his
+shooting. And we fell in love. Oh, I knew he was married!--I can never
+say that I didn't know, even at the beginning. But his wife was so cruel
+to him--he was very, very unhappy. She couldn't understand him--or make
+allowances for him--she despised him, and wouldn't live with him. He was
+miserable--and so was I. My father and mother were dead! I had to live
+with Ralph and Edith; and they always made me feel that I was in their
+way. 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 do
+everything. I was staying with some old cousins in Rossshire, who used to
+ask me now and then. There were no young people in the house. My cousins
+were quite kind to me, but I spent a great deal of time alone--and
+Neville 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 me
+books--and read to me. He was sorry for me--and at last--he loved me! And
+we never looked ahead. Then--in one week--everything happened together. I
+had to go home. He talked of going to Sandford, and implored me still to
+meet him. And I thought how Ralph and Edith would watch us, and spy upon
+us, and I implored him never to go to Sandford when I was at Upcote. We
+must meet at other places. And he agreed. Then the day came for me to go
+south. I travelled by myself--and he rode twenty miles to a junction
+station and joined me. Then we travelled all day together."
+
+Her voice failed her. She pressed her thin hands together under the onset
+of memory, and that old conquered anguish which in spite of all the life
+that had been lived since still smouldered amid the roots of being.
+
+"I may tell you?" she said at last, with a piteous look. Catharine bent
+over her.
+
+"Anything that will help you. Only remember I don't ask or expect you to
+say 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 thought
+we could never meet again--it seemed as though we were both--with every
+station we passed--coming nearer to something like death--something worse
+than death. Then--before we got to Euston--I couldn't bear it--I--I gave
+way. We sent a telegram from Euston to Edith that I was going to stay
+with 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 I
+went home. In a few weeks Edith guessed--and so did Judith Sabin, who was
+Edith's maid. Edith made me tell her everything. She and Ralph were
+nearly beside themselves. They were very strict in those days; Ralph was
+a great Evangelical, and used to speak at the May meetings. All his party
+looked up to him so--and consulted him. It was a fearful blow to him. But
+Edith thought of what to do--and she made him agree. We went abroad, she
+and I--with Judith. It was given out that Edith was delicate, and must
+have a year away. We stopped about in little mountain places--and Hester
+was born at Grenoble. And then for the last and only time, they let
+Neville 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 an
+accident--but it wasn't. He had hoped and hoped to get his wife to
+divorce him--and make amends. And when Mrs. Flood's--his wife's--final
+letter came--she was a Catholic and nothing would induce her--he just
+took his boat out in a storm, and never came back--"
+
+The story lost itself in a long sobbing sigh that came from the depths of
+life. When she spoke again it was with more strength:
+
+"But he had written the night before to Richard--Richard Meynell. You
+know he was the Rector's uncle, though he was only seven years older? I
+had 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 Richard
+was still at college, and Neville was in the Guards. They used to talk of
+religion and philosophy. Neville was a great reader always--and they
+became great friends. So on his last night he wrote to Richard, telling
+him everything, and asking him to be kind to me--and Hester. And
+Richard--who had just been appointed to the living here--came out to
+the Riviera, and brought me the letter--and the little book that was in
+his pocket--when they found him. So you see ..."
+
+She spoke with fluttering colour and voice, as though to find words at
+all were a matter of infinite difficulty:
+
+"You see that was how Richard came to take an interest in us--in Hester
+and me--how he came to be the friend too of Ralph and Edith. Poor
+Ralph!--Ralph was often hard to me, but he meant kindly--he would never
+have 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 have
+had any peace--any comfort in life again--but for Richard. He found
+somebody to live with me abroad for those first years, and then, when I
+came back to Upcote, he made Ralph and Edith consent to my living in that
+little house by myself--with my chaperon. He would have preferred--indeed
+he urged it--that I should go on living abroad. But there was
+Hester!--and I knew by that time that none of them had the least bit of
+love for her!--she was a burden to them all. I couldn't leave her to
+them--I _couldn't!_... Oh! they were terrible, those years!" And again
+she caught Catharine's hands and held them tight. "You see, I was so
+young--not much over twenty--and nobody suspected anything. Nobody in the
+world 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 preached
+to me--but by his life. I couldn't have lived at all--but for him. And
+now you see--you see--how I am paying him back!"
+
+And again, as the rush of emotion came upon her, she threw herself into a
+wild pleading, as though the gray-haired woman beside her were thwarting
+and opposing her.
+
+"How can I let my story--my wretched story--ruin his life--and all his
+work? I can't--I can't! I came to you because you won't look at it as
+Edith does. You'll think of what's right--right to others. Last night I
+thought one must die of--misery. I suppose people would call it shame. It
+seemed to me I heard what they were all saying in the village--how they
+were gloating over it--after all these years. It seemed to strip one of
+all self-respect--all decency. And to-day I don't care about that! I care
+only that Richard shouldn't suffer because of what he did for me--and
+because of me. Oh! do help me, do advise me! Your look--your manner--have
+often made me want to come and tell you"--her voice was broken now with
+stifled sobs--"like a child--a child. Dear Mrs. Elsmere!--what ought I to
+do?"
+
+And she raised imploring eyes to the face beside her, so finely worn with
+living 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 would
+tell you that. She is your first--your sacredest duty."
+
+Alice Puttenham shivered as though something in Catharine's tender voice
+reproached her.
+
+"Oh, I know--my poor Hester! My life has set hers all wrong. Wouldn't
+it have been better to face it all from the beginning--to tell the
+truth--wouldn't it?" She asked it piteously.
+
+"It might have been. But the other way was chosen; and now to undo
+it--publicly--affects not you only, but Hester. It mayn't be possible--it
+mayn't be right."
+
+"I must!--I must!" said Alice impetuously, and rising to her feet she
+began to pace the room again with wild steps, her hands behind her, her
+slender form drawn tensely to its height.
+
+At that moment Catharine became aware of some one standing in the porch
+just 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 murmured
+conversation passed between the two persons in the little hall. Then
+Catharine came in again, followed by Meynell, who closed the door, and
+stood looking sadly at the pale woman confronting him.
+
+"So they haven't spared even you?" he said at last, in a voice bitterly
+subdued. "But don't be too unhappy. It wants courage and wisdom on our
+part. But it will all pass away."
+
+He quietly pushed a chair toward Alice, and then took off his dripping
+cloak, carried it into the passage outside, and returned.
+
+"Don't go, Mrs. Elsmere," he said, as he perceived Catharine's
+uncertainty. "Stay and help us, if you will."
+
+Catharine submitted. She took her accustomed seat by the fire; Alice, or
+the ghost of Alice, sat opposite to her, in Mary's chair, surrounded by
+Mary's embroidery things; and Meynell was between them.
+
+He looked from one to the other, and there was something in his aspect
+which restrained Alice's agitation, and answered at once to some high
+expectation in Catharine.
+
+"I know, Mrs. Elsmere, that you have received one of the anonymous
+letters that are being circulated in this neighbourhood, and I presume
+also--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 must
+be 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 helped
+her 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 state
+of life and mind. She imagines herself to be in love with my cousin
+Philip Meryon, a worthless man, without an ounce of conscience where
+women are concerned, who, in my strong belief, is already married
+under 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. I
+have convinced him at last--this morning--that I mean to bring this home
+to him. But that does not dispose of the thing--finally. Hester is in
+danger--in danger from herself. She is at war with her family--with the
+world. She believes nobody loves her--that she is and always has been a
+pariah at home--and with her temperament she is in a mood for desperate
+things. Tell her now that she is illegitimate--let your sister Edith go
+talking to her about 'disgrace'--and there is no saying what will happen.
+She will say--and think--that she has no responsibilities, and may do
+what she pleases. There is no saying what she might do. We might have a
+tragedy that none of us could prevent."
+
+Alice lifted her head.
+
+"I could go away with her," she said, imploringly. "I could watch over
+her 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 to
+return to give evidence."
+
+"Yes--for a short time. But that could be managed. She should never see
+the English papers--I could promise that."
+
+"And what is to prevent Philip Meryon telling her? At present he is
+entirely ignorant of her parentage. I have convinced myself of that this
+morning. 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 off
+to-night. We must, of course, always take the risk of his knowing, and of
+his 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 do
+not 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 tell
+her?"
+
+Alice did not reply. She sat wringing her delicate hands in a silent
+desperation; while Catharine opposite was lost in the bewilderment of the
+situation--the insistence of the woman, the refusal of the man.
+
+"My advice is this"--continued Meynell, still addressing Alice--"that you
+should take her to Paris tomorrow in my stead, and should stay near her
+for some months. Lady Fox-Wilton--whom I have just seen--she overtook me
+driving on the Markborough road half an hour ago, and we had some
+conversation--talks of taking a house at Tours for a year--an excellent
+thing--for them all. We don't want her on the spot any longer--we don't
+want any of them!" said the Rector, dismissing the Fox-Wilton family with
+an emphatic gesture which probably represented what he had gone through
+in the interview with Edith. ... "In that way the thing will soon die
+down. There will be nobody here--nobody within reach--for the scoundrel
+who is writing these letters to attack--except, of course, myself--and
+I 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 believed
+them. 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 is
+very important--very true. But for me personally"--she looked round the
+room with wandering eyes; then found a sudden passionate gesture,
+pressing back the hair from her brow with both hands--"for me
+personally--to tell the truth--to face the truth--would be
+relief--infinite relief! It would kill the fear in which I have lived all
+these years--kill it forever. It would be better for all of us if we had
+told the truth--from the beginning. And as for Hester--she must know--you
+say yourself she must know before long--when she is of age--when she
+marries--"
+
+Meynell's face took an unconscious hardness.
+
+"Forgive me!--the matter must be left to me. The only person who could
+reasonably take legal action would be myself--and I shall not take it. I
+beg you, be advised by me." He bent forward again. "My dear friend!"--and
+now he spoke with emotion--"in your generous consideration for me you do
+not know what you are proposing--what an action in the courts would mean,
+especially at this moment. Think of the party spirit that would be
+brought into it--the venom--the prejudice--the base insinuations.
+No!--believe me--that is out of the question--for your sake--and
+Hester's."
+
+"And your work--your influence?"
+
+"If they suffer--they must suffer. But do not imagine that I shall not
+defend myself--and you--you above all--from calumny and lies. Of course I
+shall--in my own way."
+
+There was silence--a dismal silence. At the end of it Meynell stretched
+out 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." Then
+he 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 Miss
+Puttenham 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 to
+Alice.
+
+"Go to him--go to him at once!" she said with a sob she could not
+repress.
+
+Another silence. Then Meynell walked to the window and looked at the
+weather.
+
+"It is not raining so fast," he said in his cheerful voice. "Oughtn't you
+to be going home--getting ready and arranging with Hester? It's an awful
+business going abroad."
+
+Alice rose silently. Catharine went into the kitchen to fetch the
+waterproof 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. It
+seems to burn one's heart--the coarse and horrible things that are being
+said--"
+
+He frowned and fidgeted--till the thought within forced its way:
+
+"Christ was hated. Yet directly the least touch of it comes to us, we
+rebel--we cry out against God."
+
+"It is because we are so weak--we are not Christ!" She covered her face
+with 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 in
+Thee_!'" He fell--murmuring--into lines that had evidently been in his
+thoughts, smiling upon her.
+
+Then Catharine returned. Alice was warmly wrapped up, and Catharine took
+her 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 to
+which 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 was
+standing 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--with
+regard to my daughter?"
+
+He turned--pale with amazement.
+
+And so began what one may call--perhaps--the most romantic action of a
+noble life!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+When Catharine returned to the little sitting-room, in which the darkness
+of a rainy October evening was already declaring itself, she came shaken
+by many emotions in which only one thing was clear--that the man before
+her 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 the
+threatened scandal a means of freeing Mary from an undesirable
+attachment. But just as in her married life, her heart had not been able
+to stand against her husband while her mind condemned him, so now. While
+in theory, and toward people with whom she never came in contact, she had
+grown even more bitter and intransigent since Robert's death than she had
+been in her youth, she had all the time been living the daily life of
+service and compassion which--unknown to herself--had been the real
+saving and determining force. Impulses of love, impulses of sacrifice
+toward the miserable, the vile, and the helpless--day by day she had felt
+them, day by day she had obeyed them. And thus all the arteries, so to
+speak, of the spiritual life had remained soft and pliant--that life
+itself in her was still young. It was there in truth that her
+Christianity lay; while she imagined it to lie in the assent to certain
+historical and dogmatic statements. And so strong was this inward and
+vital faith--so strengthened in fact by mere living--that when she was
+faced with this second crisis in her life, brought actually to close
+grips with it, that faith, against all that might have been expected,
+carried her through the difficult place with even greater sureness than
+at first. She suffered indeed. It seemed to her all through that she was
+endangering Mary, and condoning a betrayal of her Lord. And yet she could
+not act upon this belief. She must needs act--with pain often, and yet
+with mysterious moments of certainty and joy, on quite another faith, the
+faith which has expressed itself in the perennial cry of Christianity:
+"Little children, love one another!" And therein lay the difference
+between her and Barron.
+
+It was therefore in this mixed--and yet single--mood that she came back
+to Meynell, and asked him--quietly--the strange question: "What shall I
+do--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. He
+stared at her in bewilderment, at first pale, and then in a sudden heat
+and 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 you
+cannot, for good reasons, involving other persons, prosecute those
+responsible for it in the usual way. And if she comes across any signs of
+it, or its effects, she is to trust your wisdom in dealing with it--and
+not 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 her
+gravely.
+
+"Or--will you say it yourself?"
+
+He started.
+
+"Mrs. Elsmere!"--he spoke with quick emotion--"You are wonderfully good
+to me." He scanned her with an unsteady face--then made an agitated step
+toward her. "It almost makes me think--you permit me--"
+
+"No--no," said Catharine, hurriedly, drawing back. "But if you would like
+to 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 a
+question; it will be her business to know nothing of the matter--in
+itself. But she will be able to show you her confidence, and to feel that
+we have treated her as a woman--not a child."'
+
+Meynell drew a deep breath. He took Catharine's hand and pressed it. She
+felt with a thrill--which was half bitterness--that it was already a
+son'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 to
+speak of it--to intrude myself and my affairs on her notice at all at
+this moment...." He looked at his companion almost sternly. "Is it not
+clear that I ought not? I meant to have brought her a book to-day. I have
+not brought it. I have been even glad--thankful--to think you were going
+away, although--" But again he checked the personal note. "The truth is I
+could not endure that through me--through anything connected with me--she
+might be driven upon facts and sorrows--ugly facts that would distress
+her, and sorrows for which she is too young. It seemed to me indeed I
+might 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 smallest
+degree to presume upon her--and your--kindness to me. Above all"--his
+voice shook--"I could not come forward--I could not speak to her--as at
+another time I might have spoken. I could not run the smallest risk--of
+her name being coupled with mine--when my character was being seriously
+called in question. It would not have been right for her; it would not
+have been seemly for myself. So what was there--but silence? And yet I
+felt--that through this silence--we should somehow trust each other!"
+
+He paused a moment, looking down upon his companion. Catharine was
+sitting by the fire near a small table on which her elbow rested, her
+face propped on her hand. There was something in the ascetic refinement,
+the grave sweetness of her aspect, that played upon him with a tonic and
+consoling force. He remembered the frozen reception she had given him at
+their first meeting; and the melting of her heart toward him seemed a
+wonderful thing. And then came the delicious thought--"Would she so treat
+him, 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 communication
+with him, to show any kindness toward him, till this cloud had wholly
+cleared away, and the sky was clear again. He became almost angry as he
+urged this; so excited, indeed, and incoherent that a charming smile
+stole into Catharine's gray eyes.
+
+"I understand quite what you feel," she said as she rose, "and why you
+feel it. But I am not bound to follow your advice--or to agree with
+you--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 a
+little--"but it seems to me right--I have been _led_--else why was
+it 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 more
+mystical Christian experience. She hurried on:
+
+"When two people--two people like you and Mary--feel such a deep
+interest in each other--surely it is God's sign." Then, suddenly, the
+tears 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 was
+great.
+
+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 her
+hand, and turned aside to gather up some letters on the table.
+
+A sound of footsteps could be heard outside. Catharine moved to the
+window.
+
+"It is Mary," she said quietly. "Will you wait a little while I meet
+her?" And without giving him time to reply, she left the room.
+
+He walked up and down, not without some humorous bewilderment in spite of
+his emotion. The saints, it seemed, are persons of determination! But,
+after a minute, he thought of nothing, realized nothing, save that Mary
+was in the little house again, and that one of those low voices he could
+just hear, as a murmur in the distance, through the thin walls of the
+cottage, was hers.
+
+The door opened softly, and she came in. Though she had taken off her
+hat, she still wore her blue cloak of Irish frieze, which fell round her
+slender figure in long folds. Her face was rosy with rain and wind; the
+same wind and rain which had stamped such a gray fatigue on Alice
+Puttenham's cheeks. Amid the dusk, the fire-light touched her hair and
+her ungloved hand. She was a vision of youth and soft life; and her
+composure, her slight, shy smile, would alone have made her beautiful.
+
+Their hands met as she gently greeted him. But there was that in his look
+which disturbed her gentleness--which deepened her colour. She hurried to
+speak.
+
+"I am so glad that mother made you stay--just that I might tell
+you." Then her breath began to hasten. "Mother says you are--or may
+be--unjustly attacked--that you don't think it right to defend yourself
+publicly--and those who follow you, and admire you, may be hurt and
+troubled. I wanted to say--and mother approves--that whoever is hurt and
+troubled, I can never be--except for you. Besides, I shall know and ask
+nothing. You may be sure of that. And people will not dare to speak to
+me."
+
+She stood proudly erect.
+
+Meynell was silent for a moment. Then, by a sudden movement, he stooped
+and 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, dropped
+them, 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 it
+may be a hard fight. But whatever happens, you are going to Westmoreland
+immediately. That is my great comfort."
+
+"Is it?" She laughed unsteadily.
+
+He too smiled. There was intoxication he could not resist--in her
+presence--and in what it implied.
+
+"It is the best possible thing that could be done. Then--whatever
+happens--I shall not be compromising my friends. For a while--there must
+be no communication between them and me."
+
+"Oh, yes!" she said, involuntarily clasping her hands. "Friends may
+write."
+
+"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 are
+preaching--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 the
+mountains 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 and
+tremulous joy, she began to question him about the meetings and
+engagements ahead. But he would not be drawn into any talk about them. It
+was no doubt quite possible--though not, he thought, probable--that he
+might soon be ostracized from them all. But upon this he would not dwell,
+and though her understanding of the whole position was far too vague
+to warn her from these questions, she soon perceived that he was
+unwilling to answer them as usual. Silence indeed fell between them; but
+it was a silence of emotion. She had thrown off her cloak, and sat
+looking 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 at
+her feet. As they realized each other's nearness indeed, in the quiet of
+the dim room, it was with a magic sense of transformation. Outside the
+autumn storm was still beating--symbol of the moral storm which
+threatened them. Yet within were trust and passionate gratitude and
+tender hope, intertwined, all of them, with the sacred impulse of the
+woman toward the man, and of the man toward the woman. Each moment as it
+passed built up one of those watersheds of life from which henceforward
+the rivers flow broadening to undreamt-of seas.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Catharine returned, Meynell was hat in hand for departure. There was
+no more expression of feeling or reference to grave affairs. They stood a
+few moments chatting about ordinary things. Incidentally Hugh Flaxman's
+loss of the two gold coins was mentioned. Meynell inquired when they were
+first missed.
+
+"That very evening," said Mary. "Rose always puts them away herself. She
+missed the two little cases at once. One was a coin of Velia, with a head
+of Athene--"
+
+"I remember it perfectly," said Meynell. "It dropped on the floor when I
+was talking to Norham--and I picked it up--with another, if I remember
+right--a Hermes!"
+
+Mary replied that the Hermes too was missing--that both were exceedingly
+rare; and that in the spring a buyer for the Louvre had offered Hugh four
+hundred pounds for the two.
+
+"They feel most unhappy and uncomfortable about it. None of the servants
+seems to have gone into that room during the party. Rose put all the
+coins on the table herself. She remembers saying good-bye to Canon France
+and his sister in the drawing-room--and two or three others--and
+immediately afterward she went into the green drawing-room to lock up the
+coins. 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--the
+Bishop!--Canon Dornal!"
+
+They both laughed. Then Meynell's face set sharply. A sudden recollection
+shot through his mind. He beheld the figure of a sallow, dark-haired
+young man slipping--alone--through the doorway of the green drawing-room.
+And this image in the mind touched and fired others, like a spark running
+through dead leaves....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he had gone, Catharine turned to Mary, and Mary, running, wound her
+arms close round her mother, and lay her head on Catharine's breast.
+
+"You angel!--you darling!" she said, and raising her mother's hand she
+kissed it passionately.
+
+Catharine's eyes filled with tears, and her heart with mingled joy and
+revolt. Then, quickly, she asked herself as she stood there in her
+child's embrace whether she should speak of a certain event--certain
+experience--which had, in truth, though Mary knew nothing of it, vitally
+affected 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 breaking
+down of an opposition and a hostility which might in time have poisoned
+all their relations to each other.
+
+But when Mary had gone away to change her damp clothes, the visionary
+experience of which Catharine could not tell came back upon her; and
+again she felt the thrill--the touch of bodiless ecstasy.
+
+It had been in the early morning, when all such things befall. For then
+the mind is not yet recaptured by life and no longer held by sleep. There
+is in it a pure expectancy, open to strange influences: influences from
+memory and the under-soul. It visualizes easily, and dream and fact are
+one.
+
+In this state Catharine woke on a September morning and felt beside her a
+presence that held her breathless. The half-remembered images and
+thoughts 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 dialogue
+began 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 the
+dancing shadows of the autumn leaves were all present to her. She poured
+out the sorrow, the anxiety--about Mary--that pressed so heavy on her
+heart, and the tender voice answered, now consoling, now rebuking.
+
+"And we forbade him, because he followed not us ... Forbid him
+not--_forbid him not_!"--seemed to go echoing through the quiet air.
+
+The words sank deep into her sense--she heard herself sobbing--and
+the 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 of
+the mingled ideas and passions on which her life was founded, piercing
+through the intellectualism of her dogmatic belief. But though she would
+have patiently accepted any scientific explanation, she believed in her
+heart that Robert had spoken to her, bidding her renounce her repugnance
+to Mary's friendship with Meynell--to Mary's love for Meynell.
+
+She came down the morning after with a strange, dull sense of change
+and disaster. But the currents of her mind and will had set firmly in a
+fresh direction. It was almost mechanically--under a strong sense of
+guidance--that she had made her hesitating proposal to Mary to go with
+her to the Upcote meeting. Mary's look of utter astonishment had sent new
+waves of disturbance and compunction through the mother's mind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But if these things could not be told--even to Mary--there were other
+revelations 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 embrace
+of her mother, she went away upstairs, only pausing at the door of the
+sitting-room to ask when they should start for the cottage.
+
+Upstairs Mary sat for long in the dark, thinking.... Through her
+uncurtained windows she watched the obscure dying away of the storm, the
+calming of the trees, and the gradual clearing of the night sky. Between
+the upfurling clouds the stars began to show; tumult passed into a great
+tranquillity; and a breath of frost began to steal through the woods, and
+over the water....
+
+Catharine too passed an hour of reflection--and of yearning over the
+unhappy. Naturally, to Mary, her lips had been sealed on that deepest
+secret of all, which she had divined for a moment in Alice. She had
+clearly perceived what was or had been the weakness of the woman,
+together with the loyal unconsciousness and integrity of the man. And
+having perceived it, not only pity but the strain in Catharine of plain
+simplicity 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 to
+help her. She began however to understand what might be the full meaning
+of Alice's last injunction--and her eyes grew wet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mother and daughter started about eight o'clock for the cottage. They had
+a lantern with them, but they hardly needed it, for through the
+tranquillized air a new moon shone palely, and the frost made way.
+Catharine walked rejoicing apparently in renewed strength and recovered
+powers of exertion. Some mining, crippling influence seemed to have been
+removed from her since her dream. And yet, even at this time, she was not
+without premonitions--physical premonitions--as to the future--faint
+signal-voices that the obscure life of the body can often communicate to
+the spirit.
+
+They found the cottage all in light and movement. Servants were flying
+about; boxes were in the hall; Hester had come over to spend the night at
+the cottage that she and "Aunt Alice" might start by an early train.
+
+Alice came out to meet her visitors in the little hall. Catharine slipped
+into the drawing-room. Alice and Mary held each other enwrapped in one of
+those moments of life that have no outward expression but dimmed eyes
+and fluttering breath.
+
+"Is it all done? Can't I help?" said Mary at last, scarcely knowing what
+she said, as Alice released her.
+
+"No, dear, it's all done--except our books. Come up with me while I pack
+them."
+
+And they vanished upstairs, hand in hand.
+
+Meanwhile Hester in her most reckless mood was alternately flouting and
+caressing Catharine Elsmere. She was not in the least afraid of
+Catharine, and it was that perhaps which had originally drawn Catharine's
+heart to her. Elsmere's widow was accustomed to feel herself avoided by
+young people who discussed a wild literature, and appeared to be without
+awe toward God, or reverence toward man. Yet all the time, through her
+often bewildered reprobation of them, she hungered for their affection,
+and knew that she carried in herself treasures of love to give--though no
+doubt, on terms.
+
+But Hester had always divined these treasures, and was, besides, as a
+rule, far too arrogant and self-centred to restrain herself in anything
+she wished to say or do for fear of hurting or shocking her elders.
+
+At this moment she had declared herself tired out with packing, and
+was lounging in an armchair in the little drawing-room. A Japanese
+dressing-gown of some pale pink stuff sprayed with almond blossom floated
+about her, disclosing a skimpy silk petticoat and a slender foot from
+which she had kicked its shoe. Her pearly arms and neck were almost bare;
+her hair tumbled on her shoulders; her eyes shone with excitement
+provoked by a dozen hidden and conflicting thoughts. In her beauty, her
+ardent and provocative youth, she seemed to be bursting out of the little
+room, 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 and
+talk."
+
+And she put out an impatient hand, and drew the stately Catharine toward
+a chair beside her.
+
+"You ought to be in bed," said Catharine, retaining her hand. The girl's
+ignorance of all that others knew affected her strangely--produced a
+great softness and compunction.
+
+"I shouldn't sleep. I wonder when I shall get a decent amount of sleep
+again!" said Hester, pressing back the hair from her cheeks. Then she
+turned sharply on her visitor:
+
+"Of course you know, Mrs. Elsmere, that I am simply being sent away--in
+disgrace."
+
+"I know"--Catharine smiled, though her tone was grave--"that those who
+love 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 the
+same it's true. They're sending me away because they don't know what
+I'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, not
+without severity. "They are never at rest about you. My dear--they only
+wish your good."
+
+Hester laughed. She threw out a careless hand and laid it on Catharine's
+knee.
+
+"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 do
+like you so. But you can't know anything, can you, about girls--like
+me?"
+
+And looking up from where she lay deep in the armchair, she turned
+half-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--with
+girls."
+
+"Oh--poor girls? Girls in factories--girls that wear fringes, and sham
+pearl beads, and six ostrich feathers in their hats on Sundays? No, I
+don't think I'm like them. If I were they, I shouldn't care about
+feathers or the sham pearls. I should be more likely to try and steal
+some real ones! No, but I mean really girls like me--rich girls, though
+of course I'm not rich--but you understand? Do you know any girls who
+gamble and paint--their faces I mean--and let men lend them money, and
+pay for their dresses?"
+
+Hester sat up defiantly, looking at her companion.
+
+"No, I don't know any of that kind," said Catharine quietly. "I'm
+old-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 suppose
+I 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 Catharine
+sharply.
+
+Hester's look was enigmatic.
+
+"Well, I never did it. But I knew a girl in London--very pretty--and as
+mad as you like. She was an orphan and her relatives didn't care twopence
+about her. She got into debt, and a horrid old man offered to lend her a
+couple of hundred pounds if she'd give him a kiss. She said no, and then
+she told an older woman who was supposed to look after her. And what do
+you suppose she said?"
+
+Catharine was silent.
+
+"'Well, you _are_ a little fool!' That was all she got for her pains. Men
+are villains--_I_ think! But they're exciting!" And Hester clasped her
+hands 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's
+chair, she took the girl in her arms.
+
+"Hester, dear!--if you want a friend--whenever you want a friend--come to
+me! 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 Hester
+lightly 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 kinds
+of 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 in
+her 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 the
+miniature.
+
+"How can I love her when she won't trust me?" she cried again, with
+stormy breath.
+
+Catharine's heart melted within her.
+
+"But you _must_ love her, Hester! Why, she has watched over you all your
+life. 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 a
+veiled future, unable, by no fault of her own, to distinguish her lovers
+from 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 for
+you"--she bent forward like a queen, and lightly kissed Catharine on the
+cheek--"I daresay I'll remember what you've said--you're a great, great
+dear! It was luck for Mary to have got you for a mother. But I'm all
+right--I'm all right!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the Elsmeres were gone, Hester still sat on alone in the
+drawing-room. The lamp had burnt dim, and the little room was cold.
+
+Presently she slipped her hand into the white bodice she wore. A letter
+lay there, and her fingers caressed it. "I don't know whether I love him
+or not--perhaps I do, and perhaps I don't. I don't know whether I believe
+Uncle Richard--or this letter. But--I'm going to find out! I'm not going
+to be stopped from finding out."
+
+And as she lay there, she was conscious of bonds she was half determined
+to escape, half willing to bear; of a fluttering excitement and dread.
+Step by step, and with a childish bravado, she had come within the
+influences of sex; and her fate was upon her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+Meanwhile, amid this sensitive intermingling of the thoughts and feelings
+of women, there arose the sudden tumult and scandal of the new elements
+which had thrust themselves into what was already known to the religious
+world throughout England as "the Meynell case." During November and
+December that case came to include two wholly different things: the
+ecclesiastical suit in the Court of Arches, which, owing to a series of
+delays and to the illness of the Dean of the Court, was not to be heard
+in all probability before February, and the personal charges brought
+against the incumbent of Upcote Minor.
+
+These fresh charges were formally launched by Henry Barron, the chief
+promoter also, as we know, of the ecclesiastical suit, in a letter
+written by him to Bishop Craye, on the very night when Alice Puttenham
+revealed her secret to Catharine Elsmere. But before we trace the effect
+of the letter, let us look for a moment at the general position of the
+Movement when this second phase of Meynell's connection with it began.
+
+At that time the pending suits against the Modernist leaders--for there
+were now five instituted by different bishops, as test cases, in
+different parts of England--were already the subject of the keenest
+expectation and debate not only in church circles, but amid sections of
+the nation which generally trouble themselves very little about clerical
+or religious disputes. New births of time were felt to be involved in the
+legal struggle; passionate hopes and equally passionate fears hung upon
+it. There were old men in quiet country parsonages who, when they read
+the _Modernist_ and followed the accounts of the Movement, were inclined
+to say to themselves with secret joy and humility that other men were
+entering into their labours, and the fields were at last whitening to
+harvest; while others, like Newman of old, had "fierce thoughts toward
+the Liberals," talked and spoke of Meynell and the whole band of
+Modernist clergy as traitors with whom no parley could be kept, and were
+ready to break up the Church at twenty-four hours' notice rather than sit
+down at the same table of the Lord with heretics and Socinians.
+
+Between these two groups of men, each equally confident and clear, though
+by no means equally talkative, there was a middle region that contained
+many anxious minds and some of the wisest heads in England. If, at the
+time of Norham's visit to Maudeley, Bishop Craye of Markborough, and many
+other bishops with him, were still certain that the Movement would be
+promptly and easily put down, so far at least as its organic effect on
+the Church of England was concerned, yet, as November and December wore
+on, anxieties deepened, and confidence began to waver. The passion of the
+Movement was beginning to run through England, as it seemed to many, like
+the flame of an explosion through a dusty mine. What amazed and terrified
+the bishops was the revelation of pent-up energies, rebellions, ideals,
+not only among their own flocks, but in quarters, and among men and
+women, hitherto ruled out of religious affairs by general consent. They
+pondered the crowds which had begun to throng the Modernist churches, the
+extraordinary growth of the Modernist press, and the figures reported day
+by day as to the petition to be presented to Parliament in February.
+There was no orthodox person in authority who was not still determined on
+an unconditional victory; but it was admitted that the skies were
+darkening.
+
+The effect of the Movement on the Dissenters--on that half of religious
+England which stands outside the National Church, where "grace" takes the
+place of authority, and bishops are held to be superfluities incompatible
+with the pure milk of the Word--was in many respects remarkable. The
+majority of the Wesleyan Methodists had thrown themselves strongly on
+to the side of the orthodox party in the Church; but among the
+Congregationalists and Presbyterians there was visible a great ferment of
+opinion and a great cleavage of sympathy; while, among the Primitive
+Methodists, a body founded on the straitest tenets of Bible worship, yet
+interwoven, none the less, with the working class life of England and
+Wales, and bringing day by day the majesty and power of religion to bear
+upon the acts and consciences of plain, poor, struggling men, there was
+visible a strong and definite current of acquiescence in Modernist ideas,
+which was inexplicable, till one came to know that among Meynell's
+friends at Upcote there were two or three Primitive local preachers who
+had 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 persons
+standing on tiptoe before an opening glory. In their isolated and often
+mistaken struggle they had felt themselves for generations stricken with
+chill and barrenness; their blood now began to feel the glow of new
+kinships, the passion of large horizons. So, along the banks of some
+slender and much hindered stream, there come blown from the nearing sea
+prophetic scents and murmurs, and one may dream that the pent water knows
+at last the whence and whither of its life.
+
+But the strangest spectacle of all perhaps was presented by the orthodox
+camp. For, in proportion as the Modernist attack developed, was the
+revival of faith among those hostile to it, or unready for it. For the
+first time in their lives, religion became interesting--thrilling
+even--to thousands of persons for whom it had long lost all real savour.
+Fierce question and answer, the hot cut and thrust of argument, the
+passion 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 a
+new life, and express itself in a new language. These were times when men
+on all sides felt that stretching and straining of faculty which ushers
+in the days of spiritual or poetic creation; times when the most
+confident Modernist of them all knew well that he, no more than any one
+else, could make any guess worth having as to the ultimate future.
+
+Of all this rapid and amazing development the personality and the
+writings of Richard Meynell had in few months become the chief popular
+symbol. There were some who thought that he was likely to take much
+the same place in the Modernist Movement of the twentieth century as
+Newman had taken in the Oxford Movement of the nineteenth; and men were
+beginning to look for the weekly article in the _Modernist_ with the
+same emotion of a passionate hero-worship on the one hand, and of angry
+repulsion on the other, with which the Oxford of the thirties had been
+wont to look for each succeeding "Tract," or for Newman's weekly sermon
+at St. Mary's. To Newman's high subtleties of brain, to Newman's magic of
+style, Richard Meynell could not pretend. But he had two advantages over
+the great leader of the past: he was the disciple of a new learning which
+was inaccessible to Newman; and he was on fire with social compassions
+and enthusiasms to which Newman, the great Newman, was always
+pathetically a stranger. In these two respects Meynell was the
+representative of his own generation; while the influences flowing from
+his personal character and life were such that thousands who had never
+seen him loved and trusted him wholly. Men who had again and again
+watched great causes break down for want of the incommunicable something
+which humanity exacts from its leaders felt with a quiet and confident
+gladness that in Meynell they had got the man they wanted, the
+efficacious, indispensable man.
+
+And now--suddenly--incredible things began to be said. It was actually
+maintained that the leader round whom such feelings had gathered had
+been, since his ordination, the betrayer of a young and innocent
+girl, belonging to a well-known family; that although it had been in his
+power for twenty years to marry the lady he had wronged, he had never
+attempted to do so, but had rather, during all that time, actively
+connived at the fraud by which his illegitimate child had passed as the
+daughter of Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton; while over the whole period he had kept
+up 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 of
+the prosecutors in the ecclesiastical suit, had obtained unexpected and
+startling confirmation of these extraordinary facts from the confession
+of a woman who had been present at the birth of the child and had
+identified the Rector of Upcote as the father. Then, very soon,
+paragraphs of a veiled sort began to appear in some of the less
+responsible newspapers. The circulation of the anonymous letters began
+to be known; and the reader of a Modernist essay at an Oxford meeting
+caused universal consternation by telling an indiscreet friend, who
+presently spread it abroad, that Barron had already written to the Bishop
+of Markborough, placing in his hands a mass of supporting evidence
+relating to "this most lamentable business."
+
+At first Meynell's friends throughout the country regarded these rumours
+as a mere device of the evil one. Similar things they said, and with
+truth, are constantly charged against heretics who cannot be put down.
+Slander is the first weapon of religious hatred. Meynell, they
+triumphantly answered, will put the anonymous letters in the hands of the
+police, and proceed against Henry Barron. And they who have taken up such
+a 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 did
+the anonymous letters reappear from time to time, untracked and
+unpunished, but reports of a meeting held at Upcote itself began to
+spread--a meeting where Meynell had been definitely and publicly
+challenged 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 and
+responsible 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 hot
+political argument with his little granddaughter Barbara.
+
+"All Tories are wicked," said Barbara, who had a Radical father, "except
+grandpapa, and he, mummy says, is weally a Riberal."
+
+With which she had leaped into the arms of her nurse, and was carried off
+gurgling, while the Bishop threatened her from afar.
+
+Then, with a sigh of impatience, as he recognized the signature on the
+envelope, he resigned himself to Barron's letter. When he had done it,
+sitting by the table in his library, he threw it from him with
+indignation, called for his coat, and hurried across his garden to the
+Cathedral for matins. After service, as with a troubled countenance he
+was emerging from the transept door, he saw Dornal in the Close and
+beckoned to him.
+
+"Come into the library for ten minutes. I very much want to speak to
+you."
+
+The Bishop led the way, and as soon as the door was shut he turned
+eagerly on his companion:
+
+"Do you know anything of these abominable stories that are being spread
+about Richard Meynell?"
+
+Dornal looked at him sadly.
+
+"They are all over Markborough--and there is actually a copy of one of
+the anonymous letters--with dashes for the names--in the _Post_ to-day?"
+
+"I never hear these things!" said the Bishop, with an impatience which
+was meant, half for a scandal-mongering world, and half for himself. "But
+Barron has written me a perfectly incredible letter to-day. He seems to
+be the head and front of the whole business. I don't like Barron, and I
+don't like his letters!"
+
+And throwing one slender leg over the other, while the tips of his long
+fingers met in a characteristic gesture, the little Bishop stared into
+the fire before him with an expression of mingled trouble and disgust.
+
+Dornal, clearly, was no less unhappy. Drawing his chair close to the
+Bishop's he described the manner in which the story had reached himself.
+When he came to the curious facts concerning the diffusion and variety of
+the 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 person
+only--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 knowledge
+of his mother's history--comes this crop of extraordinary letters,
+showing, you tell me, an intimate acquaintance with the neighbourhood
+and the parties concerned. And yet Barron--the only person Mrs. Sabin
+saw--knows nothing of them! They are a mystery to him. But, my dear
+Dornal, how _can_ they be?" The Bishop faced round with energy on his
+companion. "He must at least have talked incautiously before some one!"
+
+Dornal agreed, but could put forward no suggestion of his own. He sat
+drooping by the Bishop's fire, his aspect expressing the deep distress he
+did not shape in words. That very distress, however, was what made his
+company so congenial to the much perturbed Bishop, who felt, moreover, a
+warmer 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 relations
+as 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 my
+fatherly help just as freely as ever, if he chose to ask for it. But I
+don't know whether to send for him. I don't think I can send for him. The
+fact is--one feels the whole thing an outrage!"
+
+Dornal looked up.
+
+"That's the word!" he said gratefully. Then he added--hesitating--"I
+ought perhaps to tell you that I have written to Meynell--I wrote when
+the first report of the thing reached me. And I am sure that he can have
+no possible objection to my showing you his reply!" He put his hand into
+his pocket.
+
+"By all means, my dear Dornal!" cried the Bishop with a brightening
+countenance. "We are both his friends, in spite of all that has happened
+and 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 kindness
+and delicacy. But even to you I can only say what I say to other
+questioners of a very different sort. The story to which you refer is
+untrue. But owing to peculiar circumstances it is impossible for me to
+defend myself in the ordinary way, and my lips are sealed with regard to
+it. I stand upon my character as known to my neighbours and the diocese
+for nearly twenty years. If that is not enough, I cannot help it.
+
+"Thank you always for the goodness and gentleness of your letter. I wish
+with all my heart I could give you more satisfaction."
+
+The two men looked at each other, the same conjectures passing through
+both minds.
+
+"I hear the Fox-Wiltons and Miss Puttenham have all gone abroad," said
+the Bishop thoughtfully. "Poor things! I begin to see a glimmer. It seems
+to me that Meynell has been the repository of some story he feels he
+cannot honourably divulge. And then you tell me the letters show the
+handiwork of some one intimately acquainted with the local circumstances,
+who seems to have watched Meynell's daily life. It is of course possible
+that he may have been imprudent with regard to this poor lady. Let us
+assume that he knew her story and advised her. He may not have been
+sufficiently careful. Further, there is that striking and unfortunate
+likeness 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 and
+Meynell in the same room. It is difficult to say in what it consists, but
+it 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 will
+make all the difference to the atmosphere in which it is conducted. One
+can imagine how certain persons are already gloating over it--what use
+they will make of it--how they will magnify and embroider everything. And
+such an odious story! It is the degradation of a great issue!"
+
+The little Bishop frowned. As he sat there in the dignity of his
+great library, so scrupulously refined and correct in every detail of
+dress, yet without a touch of foppery, the gleam of the cross on his
+breast answering the silver of the hair and the frank purity of the
+eyes, it was evident that he felt a passionate impatience--half moral,
+half esthetic--toward these new elements of the Meynell case. It was
+the fastidious impatience of a man for whom personal gossip and scandal
+ranked among the forbidden indulgences of life. "Things, not persons!"
+had been the time-honoured rule for conversation at the Palace
+table--persons, that is, of the present day. In those happy persons who
+had already passed into biography and history, in their peccadilloes no
+less than their virtues, the Bishop's interest was boundless. The
+distinction tended to make him a little super- or infra-human; but it
+enhanced the fragrance and delicacy of his personality.
+
+Dornal was no less free from any stain of mean or scandalous gossip than
+the Bishop, but his knowledge of the human heart was far deeper, his
+sympathy 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 Council
+meeting--which of course will be also one of their campaign meetings--the
+day after to-morrow. Barron declares that he means to challenge Meynell
+publicly to vindicate his character. Can I do anything?"
+
+Dornal did not see anything could be done. The parish was already in open
+rebellion.
+
+"It is a miserable, miserable business!" said the Bishop unhappily. "How
+can 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 has
+neither written to me, nor consulted me, I will wait a little. We must
+watch--we must watch. Meanwhile, my dear fellow!"--he laid his hand
+on Dornal's shoulder--"let us think how to stop the talk! It will spoil
+everything. Those who are fighting with us must understand there are
+weapons we cannot stoop to use!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As Dornal left the Palace, on his way past the Cathedral, he met young
+Fenton, the High Churchman who some months earlier had refused to
+recognize Meynell after the first Modernist meeting in Markborough.
+Fenton was walking slowly and reading the local newspaper--the
+same which contained the anonymous letter. His thin, finely modelled
+face, which in a few years would resemble the Houdon statue of St. Bruno,
+expressed an eager excitement that was not unlike jubilation. Dornal was
+practically certain that he was reading the paragraph that concerned
+Meynell, and certain also that it gave him pleasure. He hurriedly
+passed over to the other side of the street, that Fenton might not accost
+him.
+
+Afterward, he spent the evening, partly in writing urgently in Meynell's
+defence to certain of his own personal friends in the diocese, and partly
+in composing an anti-Modernist address, full of a sincere and earnest
+eloquence, to be delivered the following week at a meeting of the Church
+party in Cambridge.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile Cyril Fenton had also spent the evening in writing. He kept an
+elaborate journal of his own spiritual state; or rather he had begun to
+keep it about six months before this date, at the moment when the
+emergence of the Modernist Movement had detached him from his nascent
+friendship with Meynell, and had thrown him back, terrified, on a more
+resolute opposition than ever to the novelties and presumptions of free
+inquiry. The danger of reading anything, unawares, that might cause him
+even a moment's uneasiness had led to his gradually cutting himself off
+entirely from modern newspapers and modern books, in which, indeed, he
+had never taken any very compelling interest. His table was covered by
+various English and French editions of the Fathers--of St. Cyprian in
+particular, for whom he had a cult. On the bare walls of his study
+were various pictures of saints, a statuette of the Virgin, and another
+of St. Joseph, both of them feebly elegant in the Munich manner. Through
+his own fresh youthfulness, once so winning and wholesome, something
+pinched and cloistered had begun to thrust itself. His natural sweetness
+of temper was rapidly becoming sinful in his own eyes, his natural love
+of 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 up
+his mind to go to bed earlier than usual, lest he should be thereby
+pampering the flesh. He was thoroughly dissatisfied with his own
+spiritual condition during the day, and had just made ample confession
+thereof in the pages of his diary. A few entries from that document will
+show the tone of a mind morbid for lack of exercise:
+
+"D. came to see me this morning. We discussed war a good deal. In
+general, of course, I am opposed to war, but when I think of this ghastly
+plague of heresy which is sweeping away so many souls at the present
+moment, I feel sometimes that the only war into which I could enter
+with spirit would be a civil war.... In a great deal of my talk with D. I
+posed abominably. I talked of shooting and yachting as though I knew all
+about them. I can't be content that people should think me 'out' of
+anything, or a dull fool. It was the same with my talk to S. about church
+music. I talked most arrogantly; and in reality I know hardly anything
+about it.
+
+"As to my vow of simplicity in food, I must keep my attention more on the
+alert. Yet to-day I have not done so badly; some cold ends of herring at
+breakfast, and a morsel of mackerel at lunch are the only things I have
+to reproach myself with; the only lapses from the strict rule of
+simplicity. But the quantity was deplorable--no moderation--not even a
+real attempt at it. Whenever I am disgusted with myself for having eaten
+too much at dinner, I constantly fail to draw the proper inference--that
+I should eat less at tea....
+
+"I feel that this scandal about poor Meynell is probably providential. It
+must and will weaken the Modernist party enormously. To thank God for
+such a thing sounds horrible, but after all, have we any right to be more
+squeamish than Holy Writ? 'Let God arise and let His enemies be
+scattered.' The warnings and menaces of what are called the Imprecatory
+Psalms show us plainly that His enemies must be ours."
+
+He closed his book, and came to shiver over the very inadequate fire
+which was all he allowed himself. Every shilling that he could put aside
+was being saved in order to provide his church with a new set of altar
+furniture. The congregation of the church was indeed fast ebbing
+away, and his heart was full of bitterness on the subject. But how could
+a true priest abate any fraction of either his Church principles, or his
+sound doctrine, to appease persons who were not and could not be judges
+of what was necessary to their own spiritual health?
+
+As he warmed his thin hands, his bodily discomfort increased his
+religious despondency. Then, of a sudden, his eyes fell upon the portrait
+of 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 letter
+all fun and baby-talk, and fantastic drawings, in the course of which
+Tommy grew up, developed moustaches, and became a British Grenadier.
+
+When he had finished it and put it up, he lay back laughing to himself, a
+different being.
+
+But the gleam was only momentary. A recurring sense of chill and physical
+oppression dispersed it. Presently he rose heavily, glanced at his open
+diary, reread the last page with a sigh, and closed it. Then, as it was
+nearly midnight, he retreated upstairs to his bare and icy bedroom, where
+half-an-hour's attempt to meditate completed the numbness of body and
+mind, 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 House
+of the village a few days after the Bishop's conversation with Canon
+Dornal. It was an evening long remembered by those who shared in it.
+The figure of Meynell instinct with a kind of fierce patience; the face
+rugged 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 new
+tones and shades of feeling--on those who believed in him the effect
+of these slight but significant changes in the man they loved was
+electrical.
+
+And five-sixths of those present believed in him, loved him, and were
+hotly indignant at the scandals which had arisen. They were, some of
+them, the élite of the mining population, men whom he had known
+and taught from childhood; there were many officials from the
+surrounding collieries; there was a miners' agent, who was also one of
+the well-known local preachers of the district; there were half a dozen
+women--the schoolmistress, the wife of the manager of the coöperative
+store, and three or four wives of colliers--women to whom other women in
+childbirth, or the girl who had gone astray, or the motherless child,
+might appeal without rebuff, who were in fact the Rector's agents
+in any humanizing effort.
+
+All these persons had come to the meeting eagerly expecting to hear from
+the Rector's own lips the steps he proposed to take for the putting down
+of the slanders circulating in the diocese, and the punishment of their
+authors. In the rear of the Council--who had been themselves elected by
+the whole parish--there were two or three rows of seats occupied by other
+inhabitants of the village, who made an audience. In the front row sat
+the strange spinster, Miss Nairn, a thin, sharp nosed woman of fifty, in
+rusty black clothes, holding her head high; not far from her the dubious
+publican who had been Maurice Barron's companion on a certain walk some
+days before. There too were Hugh and Rose Flaxman. And just as the
+proceedings were about to begin, Henry Barron opened the heavy door, hat
+in hand, came in with a firm step, and took a seat at the back, while a
+thrill of excitement went through the room.
+
+It was an ancient room, near the church, and built like it, of red
+sandstone. It had been once the tiny grammar school of the village.
+Meynell had restored and adapted it, keeping still its old features--the
+low ceiling heavily beamed with oak, and the row of desks inscribed with
+the scholars' names of three centuries. Against the background of its
+white walls he stood thrown out in strong relief by the oil lamp on the
+table in front of him, his eyes travelling over the rows of familiar
+faces.
+
+He spoke first of the new Liturgy of which copies had been placed on the
+seats. He reminded them they were all--or nearly all--comrades with him
+in the great Modernist venture; that they had given him the help of their
+approval and support at every step, and were now rebels with him against
+the authorities of the day. He pointed to his approaching trial, and the
+probability--nay the certainty--of his deprivation. He asked them to be
+steadfast 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. The
+audience looked in suppressed excitement from one to the other.
+
+"I regret," said the Rector, courteously, "that we cannot hear Mr. Barron
+at this moment. He is not a member of the Church Council. When the
+proceedings 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 the
+two dissentients was Dawes, the colliery manager, a sincere and
+consistent evangelical of the Simeon School, who made a short speech in
+support of his vote, dwelling in a voice which shook on the troubles
+coming on the parish.
+
+"We may get another Rector," he said as he sat down. "We shall never get
+another Richard Meynell." A deep murmur of acquiescence ran through the
+room.
+
+Meynell rose again from his seat.
+
+"Our business is over. We now become an open meeting. Mr. Barron, I
+believe, wishes to speak."
+
+The room was, at this point, densely crowded and every face turned toward
+the tall and portly form rising from the back. In the flickering
+lamplight it could be seen that the face usually so ruddy and full was
+blanched by determination and passion.
+
+"My friends and neighbours!" said Barron, "it is with sorrow and grief
+that I rise to say the few words that I intend to say. On the audacity
+and 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 just
+been led--misled--into an act of heresy and rebellion by the man who
+should be your pastor in the Faith, who is responsible to God for your
+souls. _Why_ have you been misled?--_why_ do you follow him?" He flung
+out his hand toward Meynell.
+
+"Because you admire and respect him--because you believe him a good
+man--a man of honest and pure life. And I am here to tell you, or rather
+to remind you, for indeed you all know it--that your Rector lies at this
+moment under a painful and disgraceful charge; that this charge has been
+circulated--in a discreditable way--a way for which I have no defence and
+of which I know nothing--throughout this diocese, and indeed throughout
+England; that your fair fame, as well as his are concerned; and,
+nevertheless, he refuses to take the only steps which can clear his
+character, and repay you for the devotion you have shown him! I call upon
+you, sir!"--the speaker bent forward, pointing impressively to the
+chairman of the meeting and emphasizing every word--"to take those steps
+at 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 done
+do not continue, in the face of the congregation you have deceived and
+led astray, to assume the tone of hypocritical authority in which you
+have just spoken! You have no moral right to any authority among us; you
+never had any such right; and in Christian eyes your infidel teaching has
+led to its natural results. At any rate, I trust that now, at last, even
+these your friends and dupes will see the absolute necessity, before
+many weeks are over, of either _forcing_ you to resign your living, or
+_forcing_ you to take the only means open to honest men of protecting
+their character!"
+
+He resumed his seat. The audience sat petrified a moment. Then Hugh
+Flaxman sprang to his feet, and two or three others, the local preacher
+among them. But Meynell had also risen.
+
+"Please, Mr. Flaxman--my friends--!"
+
+He waved a quiet hand toward those who had risen, and they unwillingly
+gave way. Then the Rector looked round the room for a few silent
+instants. He was very white, but when he spoke it was with complete
+composure.
+
+"I expected something of this kind to happen, and whether it had happened
+or no I should have spoken to you on this matter before we separated. I
+know--you all know--to what Mr. Barron refers--that he is speaking of the
+anonymous letters concerning myself and others which have been circulated
+in this neighbourhood. He calls upon me, I understand, to take legal
+action with regard both to them and to the reports which he has himself
+circulated, by word of mouth, and probably by letter. Now I want you
+plainly to understand"--he bent forward, his hands on the table before
+him, 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 my
+character among you all these years. This only I will say to you, my
+friends and my parishioners: The abominable story told in these
+letters--the story which Mr. Barron believes, or tries to make himself
+believe--is untrue. But I will say no more than that--to you, or any one
+else. And if you are to make legal action on my part a test of whether
+you 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 I
+must go mine. There will be still work for me to do; and God knows our
+hearts--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 you
+should wish to discuss it. But I shall not discuss it with you. I shall
+withdraw. Mr. Dawes--will you take the chair?"
+
+He beckoned to the colliery manager, who automatically obeyed him. The
+room broke into a hubbub, men and women pressing round Meynell as he made
+his way to the door. But he put them aside, gently and cheerfully.
+
+"Decide it for yourselves!" he said with his familiar smile. "It is your
+right."
+
+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 the
+Church 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 of
+Dawes, and at last secured silence by a passionate speech in defence of
+Meynell and in denunciation of the men who in order to ruin him
+ecclesiastically were spreading these vile tales about him "and a poor
+lady that has done many a good turn to the folk of this village, and
+nothing said about it too!"
+
+"Don't you, sir"--he said, addressing Barron with a threatening
+finger--"don't you come here, telling us what to think about the man
+we've known for twenty years in this parish! The people that don't know
+Richard Meynell may believe these things if they please--it'll be the
+worse for them! But we've seen this man comforting and uplifting our old
+people in their last hours--we've seen him teaching our children--and
+giving just a kind funny word now an' again to keep a boy or a girl
+straight--aye, an' he did it too--they knew he had his eye on 'em! We've
+seen him go down these pits, when only a handful would risk their lives
+with him, to help them as was perhaps past hope. We've seen him skin
+himself to the bone that other men might have plenty--we've heard him
+Sunday after Sunday. We _know_ him!" The speaker brought one massive hand
+down on the other with an emphasis that shook the room. "Don't you go
+talking to us! If Richard Meynell won't go to law with you and the likes
+of you, sir, he's got his reasons, and his good ones, I'll be bound. And
+don't you, my friends"--he turned to the room--"don't you be turned back
+from this furrow you've begun to plough. You stick to your man! If you
+don't, you're fools, aye, and ungrateful fools too! You know well enough
+that Albert Beswick isn't a parson's man! You know that I don't hold with
+Mr. Meynell in many of his views. There's his views about 'election,' and
+the like o' that--quite wrong, in my 'umble opinion. But what does that
+matter? You know that I never set foot in Upcote Church till three years
+ago--that bishops and ceremonies are nought to me--that I came to God, as
+many of you did, by the Bible class and the penitent form. But I declare
+to you that Richard Meynell, and the men with him, are _out for a big
+thing!_ They're out for breaking down barriers and letting in light.
+They're out for bringing Christian men together and letting them worship
+freely in the old churches that our fathers built. They're out for giving
+men and women new thoughts about God and Christ, and for letting them put
+them into new words, if they want to. Well, I say again, it's _a big
+thing_! And Satan's out, too, for stopping it! Don't you make any mistake
+about it! This bad business--of these libels that are about--is one of
+the obstacles in our race he'll trip us up on, if he can. Now I put it to
+you--let us clear it out o' the way this very night, as far as we're
+concerned! Let us send the Rector such a vote of confidence from this
+meeting as'll show him fast enough where he stands in Upcote--aye, and
+show others too! And as for these vile letters that are going round--I'd
+give my right hand to know the man who wrote them!--and the story that
+you, sir"--he pointed again to Barron--"say you took from poor Judith
+Sabin when her mind was clouded and she near her end--why, it's base
+minds that harbour base thoughts about their betters! He shall be no
+friend of mine--that I know--that spreads these tales. Friends and
+neighbours, let us keep our tongues from them--and our children's
+tongues! Let us show that we can trust a man that deserves our trust. Let
+us stand by a good man that's stood by us; and let us pray God to show
+the right!"
+
+The greater part of the audience, sincerely moved, rose to their feet and
+cheered. Barron endeavoured to reply, but was scarcely listened to. The
+publican East sat twirling his hat in his hands, sarcastic smiles going
+out and in upon his fat cheeks, his furtive eyes every now and then
+consulting the tall spinster who sat beside him, grimly immovable, her
+spectacled eyes fixed apparently on the lamp above the platform.
+
+Flaxman wished to speak, but was deterred by the reflection that as a
+newcomer in the district he had scarcely a valid right to interfere. He
+and Rose stayed till the vote of confidence had been passed by a large
+majority--though not so large as that which had accepted the new
+Liturgy--after which they drove home rather depressed and ill at ease.
+For in truth the plague of anonymous letters was rather increasing than
+abating. Flaxman had had news that day of the arrival of two more among
+their own country-house acquaintance of the neighbourhood. He sat down,
+in obedience to a letter from Dornal, to write a doleful report of the
+meeting to the Bishop.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meynell received the vote of confidence very calmly, and wrote a short
+note of thanks to Beswick. Then for some weeks, while the discussion of
+his 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. He
+prepared his defence for the Court of Arches; he wrote for the
+_Modernist_; and he gave as much mind as he could possibly spare to the
+unravelling of Philip Meryon's history.
+
+In this matter, however, he made but very slow and disappointing
+progress. He became more and more convinced, and his solicitor with him,
+that there had been a Scotch marriage some eighteen months before this
+date between Meryon and the sister of a farmer in the Lothians, with whom
+he had come in contact during a fishing tenancy. But what appeared in the
+course of investigation was that the woman concerned and all her kindred
+were now just as anxious--aided by the ambiguities of the Scotch marriage
+law--to cover up and conceal the affair as was Meryon himself. She could
+not be got to put forward any claim; her family would say nothing; and
+the few witnesses hitherto available were tending to disappear. No doubt
+Philip was at work corrupting them; and the supposed wife was evidently
+quite willing, if not eager, to abet him.
+
+Every week he heard from Mary, letters which, written within bounds fully
+understood by them both and never transgressed, revealed to him the
+tremulous tenderness and purity of the heart he knew--though he would not
+confess it to himself--he had conquered. These letters became to him the
+stay 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 was
+determined not to know the details of his struggle; and nothing helped
+him more than the absolute trust of her ignorance.
+
+He heard also constantly from Alice Puttenham. She, too, poor soul--but
+how differently!--was protecting herself as best she could from an odious
+knowledge.
+
+"Edith writes to me, full of terrible things that are being said in
+England; but as I can do nothing, and must do nothing according to you, I
+do not read her letters. She sends me a local newspaper sometimes, scored
+with her marks and signs that are like shrieks of horror, and I put it in
+the fire. What I suffer I will keep to myself. Perhaps the worst part of
+every 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 in
+spirits or buoyancy.
+
+"She is very well and wonderfully beautiful; at present she is having
+lessons 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 how
+the quiet family she is with clucks after her in perpetual anxiety, and
+how cavalierly she treats them. I think she is fairly happy; she never
+mentions Meryon's name; but I often have a strange sense that she is
+looking 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 it
+matters 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 of
+what is going on in England--and she says she adores Paris."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One night in December Meynell came in late from a carpentering class of
+village boys. The usual pile of letters and books awaited him, and he
+began upon them reluctantly. As he read them, and put them aside, one
+by one, his face gradually changed and darkened. He recalled a saying of
+Amiel's about the French word "consideration"--what it means to a man to
+have enjoyed unvarying and growing "consideration" from his world; and
+then, suddenly, to be threatened with the loss of it. Life and
+consciousness 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 Central
+Modernist Committee. For some months it had been a settled thing that
+Meynell should preach the sermon in Dunchester Cathedral on the great
+occasion in January when the new Liturgy of the Reform was to be
+inaugurated with all possible solemnity in one of England's most famous
+churches.
+
+His correspondent wrote to suggest that after all the sermon would be
+more fitly entrusted to the Modernist Bishop of Dunchester himself. "He
+has worked hard, and risked much for us. I may say that inquiries have
+been thrown out, and we find he is willing."
+
+No apology--perfunctory regrets--and very little explanation! Meynell
+understood.
+
+He put the letter away, conscious of a keenly smarting mind. It was now
+clear to him that he had made a grave misreckoning; humiliating, perhaps
+irreparable. He had counted, with a certain confident simplicity, on
+the power of his mere word, backed by his character and reputation, to
+put the thing down; and they were not strong enough. Barron's influence
+seemed to him immense and increasing. A proud and sensitive man forced
+himself to envisage the possibility of an eventual overthrow.
+
+He opened a drawer in order to put away the letter. The drawer was very
+full, and in the difficulty of getting it out he pulled it too far and
+its contents fell to the floor. He stooped to pick them up--perceived
+first the anonymous letter that Barron had handed to him, the letter
+addressed to Dawes; and then, beneath it, a long envelope deep in
+dust--labelled "M.B.--Keep for three years." He took up both letter and
+envelope 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 long
+envelope and broke the seal. Inside was a document headed, "A
+Confession." And at the foot of it appeared a signature--"Maurice
+Barron."
+
+Meynell put the two things together--the "confession" and the anonymous
+letter. Very soon he began to compare word with word and stroke with
+stroke, gradually penetrating the disguise of the later handwriting.
+At the end of the process he understood the vague recollection which had
+disturbed him when he first saw the letter.
+
+He stood motionless a little, expressions chasing each other across his
+face. Then he locked up both letters, reached a hand for his pipe, called
+a good night to Anne, who was going upstairs to bed, and with his dogs
+about him fell into a long meditation, while the night wore on.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+It was in the week before Christmas that Professor Vetch--the same
+Professor who had been one of the Bishop's Commission of Inquiry in
+Richard Meynell's case--knocked one afternoon at Canon France's door to
+ask for a cup of tea. He had come down to give a lecture to the Church
+Club which had been recently started in Markborough in opposition to the
+Reformers' Club; but his acceptance of the invitation had been a good
+deal determined by his very keen desire to probe the later extraordinary
+developments of the Meynell affair on the spot.
+
+France was in his low-ceiled study, occupied as usual with drawers full
+of documents of various kinds; most of them mediaeval deeds and charters
+which he was calendaring for the Cathedral Library. His table and the
+floor were littered by them; a stack of the Rolls publications was on his
+right hand; a Dugdale's "Monasticon" lay open at a little distance; and
+curled upon a newspaper beside it lay a gray kitten. The kitten had that
+morning upset an inkstand over three sheets of the Canon's laborious
+handwriting. At the time he had indeed dropped her angrily by the scruff
+of the neck into a wastepaper basket to repent of her sins; but here she
+was 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, who
+lived with him, was aware. Twenty years before--just after his
+appointment to the canonry--he had married a young and--in the opinion of
+his family--flighty wife, who had lived a year and then died. She had
+passed like a spring flower; and after a year or two all that was
+remembered about her was that she had chosen the drawing-room paper,
+which was rather garishly pink, like her own cheeks. In the course of
+time the paper had become so discoloured and patchy that Miss France was
+ashamed of it. For years her brother turned a deaf ear to her remarks on
+the subject. At last he allowed her to repaper the room. But she
+presently discovered that close to the seat he generally occupied in the
+drawing-room of an evening there was a large hole in the new paper made
+by the rubbing and scraping of the Canon's fingers as he sat at tea.
+Through it the original pink reappeared. More than once Miss France
+caught her brother looking contentedly at his work of mischief. But she
+dared not speak of it to him, nor do anything to repair the damage.
+
+As France perceived the identity of the visitor whom his old manservant
+was showing into the study, a slight shade of annoyance passed over his
+face. But he received the Professor civilly, cleared a chair of books in
+order 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 of
+Meynell, and he therefore dallied a little with matters of Biblical
+criticism. France, however, took no interest whatever in them; and even
+an adroit description of a paper recently read by the speaker himself
+at an Oxford meeting failed to kindle a spark. Vetch found himself driven
+upon the real object of his visit.
+
+He desired to know--understanding that the Canon was an old friend of
+Henry 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 in
+the 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 have
+come to the conclusion," he added dryly, "that Barron is not a person of
+delicacy."
+
+The Professor, rather taken aback, argued on Barron's behalf. Would
+it have been seemly or right for a man--a Churchman of Barron's
+prominence--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 eyes
+that shone so vividly above his large hanging cheeks. "Meynell says the
+story is untrue."
+
+"Ah! but let him prove it!" cried the Professor, his young-old face
+flushing. "He has made a wanton attack upon the Church; he cannot
+possibly expect any quarter from us. We are not in the least bound to
+hold 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, let
+Meynell take the usual steps. If he takes them successfully, we shall all
+rejoice. But his character has been made, so to speak, one of the pieces
+in 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 was
+beginning to be tarred with the Modernist brush. No!--impossible. For
+that 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, of
+course, is that there is some truth in the story, but that Meynell is not
+the hero. And he doesn't see his way to clear himself by dishing other
+people."
+
+"I see." The obstinacy in the smooth voice rasped France. "If so, most
+unlucky for him! But then let him resign his living, and go quietly into
+obscurity. He owes it to his own side. For them the whole thing is
+disaster. He _must_ either clear himself or go."
+
+"Oh, give him a little time!" said France sharply, "give him a little
+time." Then, with a change of tone--"The anonymous letters, of course,
+are the really interesting things in the case. Perhaps you have a theory
+about 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 that
+they grow increasingly dramatic and detailed. Evidently some clever
+fellow--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, who
+was for deserting his knee, and with the other he drew toward him the
+folio 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, thinking
+with 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 left
+hand. 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, and
+disgusted with himself.
+
+"Why haven't I given Meynell a helping hand? Why did I talk like that to
+Barron when he first began this business? And why have I let him come
+here as he has done since--without telling him what I really thought
+of him?"
+
+He fell for some minutes into an abyss of thought; thought which seemed
+to range not so much over the circumstances connected with Meynell as
+over 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 bitter
+decision, and laying down his pipe he went back to his papers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Almost at the same moment the Bishop was interviewing Henry Barron in the
+little book-lined room beyond the main library, which he kept for the
+business he most disliked. He never put the distinction into words, but
+when 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, very
+much on his defence, he sat _tęte-ŕ-tęte_ with the Bishop. He had
+recognized from the beginning that nothing of what he had done was really
+welcome or acceptable to Bishop Craye. While he, on his side, felt
+himself a benefactor to the Church in general, and to the Bishop of
+Markborough in particular, instinctively he knew that the Bishop's taste
+ungratefully disapproved of him; and the knowledge contributed an extra
+shade of pomposity to his manner.
+
+He had just given a sketch of the church meeting at Upcote, and of the
+situation in the village up to date. The Bishop sat absently patting his
+thin knees, and evidently very much concerned.
+
+"A most unpleasant--a most painful scene. I confess, Mr. Barron, I think
+it 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 into
+the open. For his own sake--for the parish's--the situation must be
+brought to an end, in some way. The indecency of it at present is
+intolerable."
+
+"You forget. The trial is only a few weeks off. Meynell will certainly be
+deprived."
+
+"No doubt. But then there is the Privy Council Appeal. And even when he
+is deprived, Meynell does not mean to leave the village. He has made all
+his 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 he
+clears himself of this business this diocese at least will have none of
+him!"
+
+"Why, the great majority of the people adore him!" cried the Bishop. "And
+meanwhile I understand the other poor things are already driven away.
+They tell me the Fox-Wiltons' house is to let, and Miss Puttenham gone to
+Paris 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 same
+time that all these persons have been in a conspiracy together to impose
+a falsehood on their neighbours; and that for many years we have been
+admitting Miss Puttenham to our house and our friendship--to the
+companionship of our daughters--in complete ignorance of her character."
+
+"Oh, poor thing! poor thing!" said the Bishop hastily. "The thought
+of her haunts me. She must know what is going on--or a great deal of
+it--though indeed I hope she doesn't--I hope with all my heart she
+doesn't! Well, now, Mr. Barron--you have written me long letters--and I
+trust that you will allow me a little close inquiry into some of these
+matters."
+
+"The closer the better, my lord."
+
+"You have not as yet come to any opinion whatever as to the authorship of
+these letters?"
+
+Barron looked troubled.
+
+"I am entirely at a loss," he said, emphatically. "Once or twice I have
+thought myself on the track. There is that man East, whose license
+Meynell opposed--"
+
+"One of the 'aggrieved parishioners'," said the Bishop, raising his hands
+and eyebrows.
+
+"You regret, my lord, that we should be mixed up with such a person? So
+do I. But with a whole parish in a conspiracy to support the law-breaking
+that was going on, what could we do? However, that is not now the point.
+I have suspected East. I have questioned him. He showed extraordinary
+levity, and was--to myself personally--what I can only call insolent. But
+he swore to me that he had not written the letters; and indeed I am
+convinced that he could not have written them. He is almost an
+illiterate--can barely read and write. I still suspect him. But if he is
+in 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 Broad
+is a very simple fellow--has no enmity against Meynell, quite the
+contrary. He vows that he never knew why his mother went abroad with Lady
+Fox-Wilton, or why she went to America; and though she talked a lot of
+what he calls 'queer stuff' in the few hours he had with her before my
+visit, he couldn't make head or tail of a good deal of it, and didn't
+trouble his head about it. And after my visit, he found her incoherent
+and delirious. Moreover, he declared to me solemnly that he knew nothing
+about the letters; and I certainly have no means of bringing it home to
+him."
+
+The Bishop's blue eyes were sharply fixed upon the speaker. But on the
+whole Barron's manner in these remarks had favourably impressed his
+companion.
+
+"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 your
+own conversation--of course quite unconsciously on your part--has not
+given hints to some person, some unscrupulous third person, an enemy of
+Meynell's, who has been making use of information he may have got from
+you to write these letters? Forgive the inquiry--but you will realize how
+very important it is--for Church interests--that the suit against Meynell
+in the Church Courts should not be in any way mixed up with this wretched
+and discreditable business of the anonymous letters!"
+
+Barron flushed a little.
+
+"I have of course spoken of the matter in my own family," he said
+proudly. "I have already told you, my lord, that I confided the whole
+thing to my son Stephen very early in the day."
+
+The Bishop smiled.
+
+"We may dismiss Stephen I think--the soul of honour and devoted to
+Meynell. Can you remember no one else?"
+
+Barron endeavoured to show no resentment at these inquiries. But it was
+clear that they galled.
+
+"The only other members of my household are my daughter Theresa, and
+occasionally, 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 that
+recently all the letters have been typewritten?"
+
+"All but two--the letter to Dawes, and a letter which I believe was
+received by Mrs. Elsmere. I gave the Dawes letter to Meynell at his
+request."
+
+"Having failed to identify the handwriting?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+Yet, even as he spoke, for the first time, a sudden misgiving, like the
+pinch of an insect, brushed Barron's consciousness. He had not, as a
+matter of fact, examined the Dawes letter very carefully, having been, as
+he now clearly remembered, in a state of considerable mental excitement
+during the whole time it was in his possession and thinking much more of
+the effect of the first crop of letters on the situation, than of the
+details of the Dawes letter itself. But he did remember, now that the
+Bishop pressed him, that when he first looked at the letter he had been
+conscious of a momentary sense of likeness to a handwriting he knew; to
+Maurice's handwriting, in fact. But he had repelled the suggestion as
+absurd in the first instance, and after a momentary start, he angrily
+repelled it now.
+
+The Bishop emerged from a brown study.
+
+"It is a most mysterious thing! Have you been able to verify the
+postmarks?"
+
+"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 little
+reminder. 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 put
+the Church's interest first."
+
+Something in the Bishop suddenly and sharply drew away from the man
+beside him. He held himself with a cold dignity.
+
+"For myself, personally--I tell you frankly--I cannot bring myself to
+believe a word of this story, so far as it concerns Meynell. I believe
+there is a terrible mistake at the bottom of it, and I prefer to trust
+twenty years of noble living rather than the tale of a poor distraught
+creature like Judith Sabin. At the same time, of course, I recognize
+that you have a right to your opinions, as I have to mine. But, my dear
+sir"--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 all
+that tells for him! Don't--you will allow me this friendly word--don't
+land yourself in a great, perhaps a life-long self-reproach!"
+
+There was a note of sternness in the speaker's voice; but the small
+parchment face and the eyes of china-blue shone, as though kindled from
+within by the pure and generous spirit of the man.
+
+"My lord, I have said my say." Barron had also risen, and stood towering
+over 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 see
+you? 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; "no
+doubt because of our already strained relations."
+
+On Barron's lips there dawned something which could hardly be called a
+smile--or triumphant; but the Bishop caught it. In another minute the
+door had closed upon his visitor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Barron walked away through the Close, his mind seething with anger and
+resentment. He felt that he had been treated as an embarrassment rather
+than an ally; and he vowed to himself that the Bishop's whole attitude
+had been grudging and unfriendly.
+
+As he passed on to the broad stone pavement that bordered the south
+transept he became aware of a man coming toward him. Raising his eyes he
+saw that it was Meynell.
+
+There was no way of avoiding the encounter. As the two men passed Barron
+made a mechanical sign of recognition. Meynell lifted his head and looked
+at him full. It was a strange look, intent and piercing, charged with the
+personality of the man behind it.
+
+Barron passed on, quivering. He felt that he hated Meynell. The disguise
+of a public motive dropped away; and he knew that he hated him
+personally.
+
+At the same time the sudden slight misgiving he had been conscious of in
+the 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 expression
+mingled with the vague uneasiness he tried in vain to put from him.
+
+Meynell walked home by Forkéd Pond to Maudeley. He lingered a little in
+the leafless woods round the cottage, now shut up, and he chose the
+longer path that he might actually pass the very window near which Mary
+had stood when she spoke those softly broken words--words from a woman's
+soul--which his memory had by heart. And his pulse leapt at the scarcely
+admitted thought that perhaps--now--in a few weeks he might be walking
+the 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 the
+library, where Rose, though bubbling over with question and conjecture,
+self-denyingly refrained from joining them. The consultation of the two
+men lasted about an hour, and when Flaxman rejoined his wife, he came
+alone.
+
+"Gone?" said Rose, with a disappointed look. "Oh! I did want to shake his
+hand!"
+
+Flaxman's gesture was unsympathetic.
+
+"It is not the time for that yet. This business has gone deep with him. I
+don't exactly know what he will do. But he has made me promise various
+things."
+
+"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 may
+crush Lady St. Morice."
+
+Lady St. Morice was the wife of the Lord Lieutenant, and had at a recent
+dinner party, in Rose's presence, hotly asserted her belief in the
+charges brought against the Rector of Upcote. She possessed a private
+chapel adorned with pre-Raphaelite frescoes, and was the sister of one of
+the chief leaders of the High Orthodox party in convocation.
+
+"She doesn't often speak to the likes of me," said Rose; "which of course
+is a great advantage for the likes of me. But next time I shall speak to
+her--which will be so good for her. My dear Hugh, don't let Meynell be
+too magnanimous--I can't stand it."
+
+Flaxman laughed, but rather absently. It was evident that he was still
+under the strong impression of the conversation he had just passed
+through.
+
+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 the
+Christmas business of a large parish. His mind was full of agitation, and
+when midnight struck, ushering in Christmas Eve, he was still undecided
+as to his precise course.
+
+Among the letters of the day lying scattered beside him on the floor
+there was yet further evidence of the power of Barron's campaign. There
+were warm expressions indeed of sympathy and indignation to be found
+among them, but on the whole Meynell realized that his own side's belief
+in him was showing some signs of distress, while the attack upon him was
+increasing in violence. His silence even to his most intimate friends,
+even to his Bishop; the disappearance from England of the other persons
+named in the scandal; the constant elaborations and embellishments of the
+story as it passed from mouth to mouth--these things were telling against
+him steadily and disastrously.
+
+As he hung over the fire, he anxiously reconsidered his conduct toward
+the Bishop, while Catharine's phrase--"He, too, has his rights!" lingered
+in 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 Bishop
+in possession of the whole story? The Bishop's bare denial would have
+been added to his; nothing more. There could have been no explanation,
+public or private; nothing to persuade those who did not wish to be
+persuaded.
+
+His thought wandered hither and thither. From the dim regions of the past
+there emerged a letter....
+
+"My dear old Meynell, the thing is to be covered up. Ralph will
+acknowledge the child, and all precautions are to be taken. I think
+what 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 way
+out--which will be the best for her too in the end, poor darling. My
+wife's letter a week ago destroyed my last hope. I am going out
+to-night--and I shall not come back. Stand by her, Richard. I think this
+kind of lie on which we are all embarked is wrong (not that you had
+anything to do with it!) But it is society which is wrong and imposes it
+on us. Anyway, the choice is made, and now you must support and protect
+her--and the child--for my sake. For I know you love me, dear boy--little
+as I deserve it. It is part of your general gift of loving, which has
+always seemed to me so strange. However--whatever I was made for, you
+were made to help the unhappy. So I have the less scruple in sending you
+this last word. She will want your help. The child's lot in that
+household 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, I
+hope, will marry. And when the child marries, you may--nay, I think you
+must--tell the husband. I have written this to Ralph. But for all the
+rest of the world, the truth is now wiped out. The child is no longer
+mine--Alice was never my love--and I am going to the last sleep. My
+sister Fanny Meryon knows something; enough to make her miserable; but no
+names or details. Well!--good-bye. In your company alone have I ever
+seemed 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--but
+forgive me!--my very dear Richard! Here comes the boat; and there is a
+splendid sea rising."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There, in a locked drawer, not far from him, lay this letter. Meynell's
+thought plunged back into the past; into its passionate feeling, its
+burning pity, its powerless affection. He recalled his young hero-worship
+for his brilliant kinsman; the hour when he had identified the battered
+form on the shore of the Donegal Lough; the sight of Alice's young
+anguish; 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 from
+which his own soul had learnt so much.
+
+Pure and sacred recollections!--mingled often with the moral or
+intellectual 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 the
+name of Christ--in the name of the Church!
+
+To-morrow! He rose, with a face set like iron, and went back to his table
+to 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 her
+sitting-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 of
+Maurice, troubled her sorely. It was only that morning Mr. Barron had
+become aware that Maurice had lost his employment, and was again adrift
+in the world. Theresa had known it for a week or two, but had not been
+allowed to tell. And she tried not to remember how often of late her
+brother had applied to her for money.
+
+Going back to her accounts with a sigh, she missed a necessary receipt
+and went into the dining-room to look for it. While she was there the
+front door bell rang and was answered, unheard by her. Thus it fell out
+that as she came back into the hall she found herself face to face with
+Richard Meynell.
+
+She stood paralyzed with astonishment. He bowed to her gravely and passed
+on. Something in his look seemed to her to spell calamity. She went back
+to her room, and sat there dumb and trembling, dreading what she might
+see 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 each
+other as the door closed.
+
+Barron spoke first.
+
+"You will, I trust, let me know, Mr. Meynell, without delay to what I owe
+this unexpected visit. I was of course quite ready to meet your desire
+for 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 suddenly
+he raised them.
+
+"Mr. Barron, what I have come to say will be a shock to you. I have
+discovered the author of the anonymous letters which have now for nearly
+three months been defiling this parish and diocese."
+
+Barron's sudden movement showed the effect of the words. But he held
+himself well in hand.
+
+"I congratulate you," he said coldly. "It is what we have all been trying
+to discover."
+
+"But the discovery will be painful to you. For the author of these
+letters, 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 to
+insult my family and myself! It would have been better to write. And you
+may be very sure that if you cannot punish your slanderers we can--and
+will!"
+
+His attitude expressed a quivering fury. Meynell took a packet from his
+breast-pocket and quietly laid it on the table beside him.
+
+"In this envelope you will find a document--a confession of a piece of
+wrongdoing on Maurice's part of which I believe you have never been
+informed. His poor sister concealed it--and paid for it. Do you remember,
+three years ago, the letting loose of some valuable young horses from
+Farmer Grange's stables--the hue and cry after them--and the difficulty
+there was in recapturing them on the Chase?"
+
+Barron stared at the speaker--speechless.
+
+"You remember that a certain young fellow was accused--James Aston--one
+of my Sunday school teachers--who had proposed to Grange's daughter,
+and had been sent about his business by the father? Aston was in fact
+just about to be run in by the police, when a clue came to my hands. I
+followed it up. Then I found out that the ringleader in the whole affair
+had been your son Maurice. If you remember, he was then at home, hanging
+about the village, and he had had a quarrel with Grange--I forget about
+what. He wrote an anonymous post-card accusing Aston. However, I got on
+the track; and finally I made him give me a written confession--to
+protect Aston. Heavy compensation was paid to Grange--by your
+daughter--and the thing was hushed up. I was always doubtful whether I
+ought not to have come to you. But it was not long after the death of
+your wife. I was very sorry for you all--and Maurice pleaded hard. I did
+not even tell Stephen; but I kept the confession. I came upon it a night
+or two ago, in the drawer where I had also placed the letter to Dawes
+which I got from you. Suddenly, the likeness in the handwritings struck
+me; and I made a very careful comparison."
+
+He opened the packet, and took out the two papers, which he offered to
+Barron.
+
+"I think, if you will compare the marked passages, you will see at least
+a striking resemblance."
+
+With a shaking hand Barron refused the papers.
+
+"I have no doubt, sir, you can manufacture any evidence you please!--but
+I 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 same
+composure. "I think you had better listen ... A passage in one of the
+recent letters gave me a hint--an idea. I went straight to East the
+publican, and taxed him with being the accomplice of the writer. I
+blustered a little--he thought I had more evidence than I had--and at
+last I got the whole thing out of him. The first letter was written"--the
+speaker raised his finger, articulating each word with slow precision,
+"by your son Maurice, and posted by East, the day after the cage-accident
+at the Victoria pit; and they have pursued the same division of labour
+ever since. East confesses he was induced to do it by the wish to revenge
+himself on me for the attack on his license; and Maurice occasionally
+gave him a little money. I have all the dates of the letters, and a
+statement of where they were posted. If necessary, East will give
+evidence."
+
+A silence. Barron had resumed his seat, and was automatically lifting a
+small book which lay on a table near him and letting it fall, while
+Meynell was speaking. When Meynell paused, he said thickly--
+
+"A plausible tale no doubt--and a very convenient one for you. But allow
+me to point out, it rests entirely on East's word. Very likely he wrote
+the letters himself, and is attempting to make Maurice the scapegoat."
+
+"Where do you suppose he could have got his information from?" said
+Meynell, looking up. "There is no suggestion that _he_ saw Judith Sabin
+before her death."
+
+Barron's face worked, while Meynell watched him implacably. At last he
+said:
+
+"How should I know? The same question applies to Maurice."
+
+"Not at all. There the case is absolutely clear. Maurice got his
+information from you."
+
+"A gratuitous statement, sir!--which you cannot prove."
+
+"From you"--repeated Meynell. "And from certain spying operations that he
+and East undertook together. Do you deny that you told Maurice all that
+Judith Sabin told you--together with her identification of myself?"
+
+The room seemed to wait for Barron's reply. He made none. He burst out
+instead--
+
+"What possible motive could Maurice have had for such an action? The
+thing 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 need
+to say how. I tried to prevent him from publicly disgracing himself
+and you; and I did prevent him. He saw in this business an easy revenge
+on a sanctimonious parson who had interfered with his pleasures."
+
+Barron had risen and was pacing the room with unsteady steps. Meynell
+still watched him, with the same glitter in the eye. Meynell's whole
+nature indeed, at the moment, had gathered itself into one avenging
+force; he was at once sword and smiter. The man before him seemed to him
+embodied cruelty and hypocrisy; he felt neither pity nor compunction. And
+presently he said abruptly--
+
+"But I am afraid I have much more serious matter to lay before you than
+this 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 to
+refuse it, as he had refused the others. But Meynell insisted.
+
+"Believe me, you had better read it. It is a letter from Mr. Flaxman to
+myself, and it concerns a grave charge against your son. I bring you a
+chance 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 same
+impassive "possessed" state.
+
+Suddenly, Barron put his hand over his face, and a groan he could not
+repress broke from him. He turned his back and stood bending over the
+letter.
+
+At the same instant a shiver ran through Meynell, like the return to life
+of some arrested energy, some paralyzed power. The shock of that sound of
+suffering had found him iron; it left him flesh. The spiritual habit of a
+lifetime 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 at
+least--if you will. I have arranged that with Flaxman. It was my seeing
+him 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 you
+see, certain dealers' shops were watched by a private detective. Maurice
+appeared--sold the Hermes coin--was traced to his lodgings and
+identified. So far the thing has not gone beyond private inquiry; for the
+dealer will do what Flaxman wants him to do. But Maurice still has the
+more famous of the two coins; and if he attempts to sell that, after the
+notices to the police, there may be an exposure any day. You must go up
+to London as soon as you can--"
+
+"I will go to-night," said Barron, in a tone scarcely to be heard. He
+stood with his hands on his sides, staring out upon the wintry garden
+outside, just as a gardener's boy laden with holly and ivy for the
+customary 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 and
+ruddy face for any tragic expression made it the more tragic.
+
+"I propose to write to the Bishop at once. Do you desire a public
+statement?"
+
+"There must be a public statement," said Meynell gravely. "The thing has
+gone 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 the
+open page. "I don't want you to sign that by _force majeure_. Dismiss--if
+you can--any thought of any hold I may have upon you, because of
+Maurice'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 any
+compulsion--to accept my word as an honest man that I am absolutely
+innocent of the charge you have brought against me."
+
+Barron, who was sitting before his writing-table, buried his face in his
+hands 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 of
+emotion--"And I may also count upon your doing henceforth what you can to
+protect that poor lady, Miss Puttenham, and her kinsfolk, from the
+consequences of this long persecution?"
+
+Barron made a sign of assent. Meynell left him to read and sign the
+public apology and retraction, which Flaxman had mainly drawn up; while
+the Rector himself took up a Bradshaw lying on the table, and walked to
+the window to consult it.
+
+"You will catch the 1.40," he said, as Barron rose from the
+writing-table. "Let me advise you to get him out of the country for a
+time."
+
+Barron said nothing. He came heavily toward the window, and the two men
+stood looking at each other, overtaken both of them by a mounting wave of
+consciousness. The events, passions, emotions of the preceding months
+pressed into memory, and beat against the silence. But it was Meynell who
+turned pale.
+
+"What a pity--to spoil the fight!" he said in a low voice. "It would have
+been 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 toward
+the door:
+
+"Remember--Flaxman holds his hand entirely. The situation is with you."
+Then, after a moment's hesitation, he added simply, almost shyly--"God
+help you! Won't you consult your daughter?"
+
+Barron made no answer. The door opened and shut.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV
+
+
+
+
+MEYNELL AND MARY
+
+
+".... but Life ere long
+Came on me in the public ways and bent
+Eyes 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 of
+hoar-frost the sun was shining brightly on the terrace, and on the
+panorama it commands. A pleasant light lay on the charming houses that
+front the skirts of the forest, on the blue-gray windings of the Seine,
+on the groves of leafless poplars interwoven with its course, on the
+plain 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 road
+leading from it to the town were deserted; and it was easy to see from
+the aspect of the famous hotel at the corner of the terrace that,
+although not closed, it despaired of visitors. Only a trio of French
+officers 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 was
+briskly pacing up and down that section of the terrace which abuts on the
+hotel.
+
+The young man was Philip Meryon. His dark tweed suit and fur waistcoat
+disclosed a figure once singularly agile and slender, on which
+self-indulgence was now beginning to tell. Nevertheless, as the _bonne_
+passed him she duly noted and admired his pictorial good looks, opining
+at the same time that he was not French. Why was he there? She decided in
+her own mind that he was there for an assignation, by which she meant, of
+course, a meeting with a married woman; and she smiled the incorrigible
+French smile.
+
+Assignation or no, she would have seen, had she looked closer, that the
+young man in question was in no merely beatific or expectant frame of
+mind. Meryon's look was a look both of excitement--as of one under the
+influence 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 to
+any 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 careless
+letter enclosing the payment of a debt, and written by a young actor, who
+had formed part of one of the bohemian parties at the Abbey, during the
+summer, and had now been playing for a week in the Markborough theatre,
+had given Meryon the clue to the many vague conjectures or perplexities
+which had already crossed his mind with regard to Hester's origin and
+history.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Your sanctified cousin, Richard Meynell" [wrote the young man] "seems
+after all to be made of the common clay. There are strange stories going
+the round about him here; especially in a crop of anonymous letters of
+which the author can't be found. I send you a local newspaper which has
+dared to print one of them with dashes for the names. The landlord of the
+inn told me how to fill them up, and you will see I have done it. The
+beauteous maiden herself has vanished from the scene--as no doubt you
+know. 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 print
+these things, you may perhaps be interested in what I enclose. Alack, my
+dear Philip, for the saints! They seem not so very different from you and
+me."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The eagerness with which Philip had read the newspaper cutting enclosed
+in the letter was only equalled by the eagerness with which afterward he
+fell to meditating upon it; pursuing and ferreting out the truth, through
+a maze of personal recollection and inference.
+
+Richard!--nonsense! He laughed, from a full throat. Not for one moment
+was Philip misled by Judith Sabin's mistake. He was a man of great
+natural shrewdness, blunted no doubt by riotous living; but there was
+enough of it left, aided by his recent forced contacts with his cousin
+Richard all turning on the subject of Hester, to keep him straight. So
+that without any demur at all he rejected the story as it stood.
+
+But then, what was the fact behind it? Impossible that Judith Sabin's
+story should be all delusion! For whom did she mistake Richard?
+
+Suddenly, as he sat brooding and smoking, a vision of Hester flashed upon
+him as she had stood laughing and pouting, beneath the full length
+picture of Neville Flood, which hung in the big hall of the Abbey. He had
+pointed it out to her on their way through the house--where she had
+peremptorily 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 be
+offended! He was the handsome man of his day."
+
+Of course! The truth jumped to the eyes, now that one was put in the way
+of seeing it. And on this decisive recollection there had followed a rush
+of others, no less pertinent: things said by his dead mother about the
+brother whom she had loved and bitterly regretted. So the wronged lady
+whom 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 Upcote
+woods. Hester had pointed her out, finger on lip, as they stood hiding in
+a thicket of fern; a pretty woman still. His mother had never mentioned a
+name; probably she had never known it; but to the love-affair she had
+always attributed some share in her brother's death.
+
+From point to point he tracked it, the poor secret, till he had run it
+down. By degrees everything fitted in; he was confident that he had
+guessed the truth.
+
+Then, abruptly, he turned to look at its bearing on his own designs and
+fortunes.
+
+He supposed himself to be in love with Hester. At any rate he was
+violently conscious of that hawk-like instinct of pursuit which he was
+accustomed to call love. Hester's mad and childish imprudences, which the
+cooler self in Meryon was quite ready to recognize as such, had made the
+hawking a singularly easy task so far. Meynell, of course, had put up
+difficulties; with regard to this Scotch business it had been necessary
+to lie pretty hard, and to bribe some humble folk in order to get round
+him. But Hester, by the double fact that she was at once so far removed
+from the mere _ingénue_, and so incredibly ready to risk herself, out of
+sheer ignorance of life, both challenged and tempted the man whom a
+disastrous fate had brought across her path, to such a point that he had
+long since lost control of himself, and parted with any scruples of
+conscience he might possess.
+
+At the same time he was by no means sure of her. He realized his
+increasing power over her; he also realized the wild, independent streak
+in her. Some day--any day--the capricious, wilful nature might tire,
+might change. The prey might escape, and the hawk go empty home. No
+dallying too long! Let him decide what to risk--and risk it.
+
+Meantime that confounded cousin of his was hard at work, through some
+very capable lawyers, and unless the instructions he--Philip--had
+conveyed to the woman in Scotland, who, thank goodness, was no less
+anxious to be rid of him than he to be rid of her, were very shrewdly
+and exactly carried out, facts might in the end reach Hester which would
+give even her recklessness pause. He knew that so far Meynell had been
+baffled; he knew that he carried about with him evidence that, for the
+present, could be brought to bear on Hester with effect; but things were
+by no means safe.
+
+For his own affairs, they were desperate. As he stood there, he was
+nothing more in fact than the common needy adventurer, possessed,
+however, of greater daring, and the _dčbris_ of much greater pretensions,
+than most such persons. His financial resources were practically at an
+end, and he had come to look upon a clandestine marriage with Hester as
+the best means of replenishing them. The Fox-Wilton family passed for
+rich; and the notion that they must and would be ready to come forward
+with money, when once the thing was irrevocable, counted for much in the
+muddy plans of which his mind was full. His own idea was to go to South
+America--to Buenos Ayres, where money was to be made, and where he had
+some acquaintance. In that way he would shake off his creditors, and the
+Scotch woman together; and Meynell would know better than to interfere.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Suddenly a light figure came fluttering round the corner of the road
+leading 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 her
+presence, in addition to his more sordid preoccupation. Her wild,
+provocative beauty seemed to light up the whole wintry scene; and the few
+passers-by, each and all, stopped to stare at her. Hester laughed aloud
+when she saw Meryon; and with her usual recklessness held up her umbrella
+for signal. It pleased her that two _rapins_ in large black ties and
+steeple hats paid her an insolent attention as they passed her; and she
+stopped to pinch the cheek of a chubby child that had planted itself
+straight in her path.
+
+"Am I late?" she said, as they met. "I only just caught the train. Oh! I
+am 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 something
+like order. The loveliness of the young curving form, of the pretty
+hands, of the golden brown hair, struck full on Meryon's turbid sense.
+
+They turned toward the hotel, and were presently seated in a corner of
+its glazed gallery, with all the wide, prospect of plain and river spread
+beneath them. Hester was in the highest spirits, and as she sat waiting
+for the first _plat_, chattering, and nibbling at her roll, her black
+felt hat with its plume of cock feathers falling back from the brilliance
+of her face, she once more attracted all the attention available; from
+the two savants who, after a morning in the Chateau, were lunching at a
+farther table; from an American family of all ages reduced to silence
+by sheer wonder and contemplation; from the waiters, and, not least, from
+the hotel dog, wagging his tail mutely at her knee.
+
+Philip felt himself an envied person. He was, indeed, vain of his
+companion; but certain tyrannical instincts asserted themselves once or
+twice. When, or if, she became his possession, he would try and moderate
+some of this chatter and noise.
+
+For the present he occupied himself with playing to her lead, glancing
+every now and then mentally, with a secret start, at the information he
+had possessed about her since the morning.
+
+She described to him, with a number of new tricks of gesture caught from
+her French class-mates, how she had that morning outwitted all her
+guardians, who supposed that she had gone to Versailles with one of the
+senior members of the class she was attending at the Conservatoire, a
+young teacher, "_trčs sage_," with whom she had been allowed once or
+twice to go to museums and galleries. To accomplish it had required an
+elaborate series of deceptions, which Hester had carried through,
+apparently, without a qualm. Except that at the end of her story there
+was a passing reference to Aunt Alice--"poor darling!"--"who would have a
+fit if she knew."
+
+Philip, coffee-cup in hand, half smiling, looked at her meantime through
+his partially closed lids. Richard, indeed! She was Neville all through,
+the Neville of the picture, except for the colour of the hair, and the
+soft 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 her
+share over the table, with a peremptory gesture.
+
+Meryon took it with a smile and a shrug, and she, throwing away the
+cigarette she had been defiantly smoking, rose from the table.
+
+"Now then, what shall we do? Oh! no museums! I am being educated to
+death! Let us go for a walk in the forest; and then I must catch my
+train, or the world will go mad."
+
+So they walked briskly into the forest, and were soon sufficiently deep
+among its leaf-strewn paths, to be secure from all observation. Two hours
+remained of wintry sunlight before they must turn back toward the
+station.
+
+Hester walked along swinging a small silk bag in which she carried her
+handkerchief and purse. Suddenly, in a narrow path girt by some tall
+hollies and withered oaks, she let it fall. Both stooped for it, their
+hands 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 stood
+still 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 wonder
+whether you do!"
+
+And flushed and panting, she leant against a tree, looking at him with a
+strange expression, in which melancholy mingled with resentment; passing
+slowly into something else--that soft and shaken look, that yearning of
+one longing and yet fearing to be loved, which had struck dismay into
+Meynell 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 me
+again!"
+
+He refrained. But catching her hand, and leaning against the trunk beside
+her, he poured into her ear protestations and flattery; the ordinary
+language of such a man at such a moment. Hester listened to it with a
+kind of eagerness. Sometimes, with a slight frown, as though ear and mind
+waited, intently, for something that did not come.
+
+"I wonder how many people you have said the same things to before!" she
+said suddenly, looking searchingly into his face. "What have you got to
+tell me about that Scotch girl?"
+
+"Richard's Scotch girl?"--he laughed, throwing his handsome head back
+against the tree--"whom Richard supposes me to have married? Well, I had
+a great flirtation with her, I admit, two years ago, and it is sometimes
+rather difficult in Scotland to know whether you are married or no. You
+know of course that all that's necessary is to declare yourselves man and
+wife before witnesses? However--perhaps you would like to see a letter
+from the lady herself on the subject?"
+
+"You had it ready?" she said, doubtfully.
+
+"Well, considering that Richard has been threatening me for months, not
+only with the loss of you, but with all sorts of pains and penalties
+besides, 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 to
+be my injured wife!"
+
+He placed an envelope in her hands.
+
+Hester opened it with a touch of scornful reluctance. It contained a
+categorical denial and repudiation of the supposed marriage.
+
+"Has Uncle Richard seen it?" she asked coldly, as she gave it back to
+him.
+
+"Certainly he has, by now." He took another envelope from his pocket. "I
+won't bother you with anything more--the thing is really too absurd!--but
+here, if you want it, is a letter from the girl's brother. Brothers are
+generally supposed to keep a sharp lookout on their sisters, aren't they?
+Well, this brother declares that Meynell's inquiries have come to
+nothing, absolutely nothing, in the neighbourhood--except that they have
+made people very angry. He has got no evidence--simply because there is
+none to get! I imagine, indeed, that by now he has dropped the whole
+business. And certainly it is high time he did; or I shall have to be
+taking action on my own account before long!"
+
+He looked down upon her, as she stood beside him, trying to make out her
+expression.
+
+"Hester!" he broke out, "don't let's talk about this any more--it's
+damned nonsense! Let's talk about ourselves. Hester!--darling!--I want
+to make you happy!--I want to carry you away. Hester, will you marry me
+at 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 we
+could 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 Italian
+Riviera--in a little bay all orange and lemon and blue sea. We'd
+honeymoon there; and when we were tired of honeymooning--though how could
+any one tire of honeymooning, with you, you darling!--we'd go to South
+America. I have an opening at Buenos Ayres which promises to make me a
+rich 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 and
+ride and explore--we'd have a glorious life!"
+
+He had caught her hands again, and stood towering over her, intoxicated
+with his own tinsel phrases; almost sincere; a splendid physical
+presence, save for the slight thickening of face and form, the looseness
+of the lips, the absence of all freshness in the eyes.
+
+But Hester, after a first moment of dreamy excitement, drew herself
+decidedly away.
+
+"No, no!--I can't be such a wretch--I can't! Mamma and Aunt Alice would
+break 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 know
+each 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 you
+let me alone--if you don't tease me--I--I'll marry you. But let's do it
+openly. It's amusing to get one's own way, even by lies, up to a certain
+point. They wouldn't let me see you, or get to know you, and I was
+determined 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's
+opposition, exaggerating the legal powers of guardians, declaring
+vehemently that it was now or never. Hester grew very white as they
+wandered on through the forest, but she did not yield. Some last scruple
+of conscience, perhaps--some fluttering fear, possessed her.
+
+So that in the end Philip was pushed to the villainy that even he would
+have 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--you
+don't know what a position you're in. I want to save you from it. I
+would 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 afternoon
+sun, now dropping fast to westward, slipped through the slender oaks, on
+which the red leaves still danced, touched the girl's hair and shone into
+her beautiful eyes. She stood there so young, so unconscious; a victim,
+on the threshold of doom. Philip, who was no more a monster than other
+men who do monstrous things, felt a sharp stab of compunction; and then,
+rushed headlong at the crime he had practically resolved on before they
+met.
+
+He told her in a few agitated words the whole--and the true--story of her
+birth. He described the return of Judith Sabin to Upcote Minor, and the
+narrative she had given to Henry Barron, without however a word of
+Meynell in the case, so far at least as the original events were
+concerned. For he was convinced that he knew better, and that there was
+no object in prolonging an absurd misunderstanding. His version of the
+affair was that Judith in a fit of excitement had revealed Hester's
+parentage to Henry Barron; that Barron out of enmity toward Meynell,
+Hester's guardian, and by way of getting a hold upon him, had not kept
+the matter to himself, but had either written or instigated anonymous
+letters which had spread such excitement in the neighbourhood that Lady
+Fox-Wilton had now let her house, and practically left Upcote for good.
+The story had become the common talk of the Markborough district; and all
+that 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 absence
+and silence; and on the other to keep the facts from Hester herself as
+long as possible.
+
+The girl had listened to him with wide, startled eyes. Occasionally a
+sound broke from her--a gasp--an exclamation--and when he paused, pursued
+by almost a murderer's sense of guilt, he saw her totter. In an instant
+he had his arm round her, and for once there was both real passion and
+real pity in the excited words he poured into her ears.
+
+"Hester, dearest!--don't cry, don't be miserable, my own beautiful
+Hester! I am a beast to have told you, but it is because I am not only
+your lover, but your cousin--your own flesh and blood. Trust yourself
+to 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 damned
+scandal-mongers that what they say is nothing to us--that we don't care a
+fig 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 push
+it; but it did not fail to occur, at least once, to a mind steeped in
+third-rate drama, what a "strong" dramatic scene might be drawn from the
+whole situation.
+
+Hester heard him for a few minutes, in evident stupefaction; then with a
+recovery 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 her
+mind--prepared indeed, through years, by all the perplexities and
+rebellions of her girlhood--betraying itself in her quivering face, and
+lips. Suddenly, she dropped upon a fallen log beside the path, hiding her
+face in her hands, struggling again with the sheer faintness of the
+shock. And Philip, kneeling in the dry leaves beside her, completed his
+work, 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 many
+complaints she had made to him of her sense of isolation within her
+supposed family; of the strange provisions of Sir Ralph's will; of the
+arrangement which had made her Meynell's ward in a special sense.
+
+"Why, of course, that was so natural! You remember I suggested to you
+once that Richard probably judged Neville from the same Puritanical
+standpoint that he judged me? Well, I was a fool to talk like that. I
+remember now perfectly what my mother used to say. They were of different
+generations, but they were tremendous friends; and there was only a few
+years between them. I am certain it was by Neville's wish that Richard
+became your guardian." He laughed, in some embarrassment. "He couldn't
+exactly foresee that another member of the family would want to cut in. I
+love you--I adore you! Let's give all these people the slip. Hester, my
+pretty, pretty darling--look at me! I'll show you what life means--what
+love means!"
+
+And doubly tempted by her abasement, her bewildered pain, he tried again
+to 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 Aunt
+Alsie"--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 believe
+it!"
+
+She sprang to her feet. Then, as she stood confronting his silence, the
+whole episode of that bygone September afternoon--the miniature--Aunt
+Alice's silence and tears--rushed back on memory. She trembled, and
+the 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 without
+speaking, she refusing his aid. And all the time swiftly,
+inexorably, memory and inference were at work, dragging to light the
+deposit--obscure, or troubling, or contradictory--left in her by the
+facts and feelings of her childhood and youth.
+
+She had told him with emphasis at luncheon that he was not to be allowed
+to accompany her home; that she would go back to Paris by herself. But
+when, at the St. Germains station, Meryon jumped into the empty railway
+carriage beside her, she said nothing to prevent him. She sat in the
+darkest corner of the carriage, her arms hanging beside her, her eyes
+fixed on objects of which she saw nothing. Her pride in herself, her
+ideal of herself, which is to every young creature like the protective
+sheath to the flower, was stricken to the core. She thought of Sarah and
+Lulu, whom she had all her life despised and ridiculed. But they had a
+right to their name and place in the world!--and she was their nameless
+inferior, the child taken in out of pity, accepted on sufferance. She
+thought of the gossip now rushing like a mud-laden stream through every
+Upcote or Markborough drawing-room. All the persons whom she had snubbed
+or flouted were concerning themselves maliciously with her and her
+affairs--were pitying "poor Hester Fox-Wilton."
+
+Her heart seemed to dry and harden within her. The strange thought of her
+real mother--her suffering, patient, devoted mother--did not move her. It
+was bound up with all that trampled on and humiliated her.
+
+And, moreover, strange and piteous fact, realized by them both! this
+sudden sense of fall and degradation had in some mysterious way altered
+her whole relation to the man who had brought it upon her. His evil power
+over her had increased. He felt instinctively that he need not in future
+be so much on his guard. His manner toward her became freer. She had
+never yet returned him the kisses which, as on this day, she had
+sometimes allowed him to snatch. But before they reached Paris she had
+kissed him; she had sought his hands with hers; and she had promised to
+meet him again.
+
+While these lamentable influences and events were thus sweeping Hester's
+life toward the abyss, mocking all the sacrifices and the efforts that
+had been made to save her, the publication of Barron's apology had opened
+yet another stage in "the Meynell case."
+
+As drafted by Flaxman, it was certainly comprehensive enough. For
+himself, Meynell would have been content with much less; but in dealing
+with Barron, he was the avenger of wrongs not his own, both public and
+private; and when his own first passion of requital had passed away,
+killed in him by the anguish of his enemy, he still let Flaxman decide
+for him. And Flaxman, the mildest and most placable of men, showed
+himself here inexorable, and would allow no softening of terms. So that
+Barron "unreservedly withdrew" and "publicly apologized" "for those false
+and calumnious charges, which to my great regret, and on erroneous
+information, I have been led to bring against the character and conduct
+of 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 they
+were written by a member of my family on information derived from me.
+I apologize for and repudiate the false and slanderous statements these
+letters contain, and those also included in letters I myself have written
+to various persons. I agree that a copy of this statement shall be sent
+to the Bishop of Markborough, and to each parish clergyman in the diocese
+of Markborough; as also that it shall be published in such newspapers as
+the solicitors of the Rev. Richard Meynell may determine."
+
+The document appeared first on a Saturday, in all the local papers, and
+was greedily read and discussed by the crowds that throng into
+Markborough on market day, who again carried back the news to the
+villages of the diocese. It was also published on the same day in
+the _Modernist_ and in the leading religious papers. Its effect on
+opinion was rapid and profound. The Bishop telegraphed--"Thank God. Come
+and see me." France fidgeted a whole morning among his papers, began two
+or three letters to Meynell, and finally decided that he could write
+nothing adequate that would not also be hypocritical. Dornal wrote a
+little note that Meynell put away among those records that are the
+milestones of life. From all the leading Modernists, during January,
+came a rush of correspondence and congratulations, in all possible notes
+and tones of indignant triumph; and many leaders on the other side wrote
+with generous emotion and relief. Only in the extreme camp of the extreme
+Right there was, of course, silence and chagrin. Compared to the eternal
+interests of the Church, what does one man's character matter?
+
+The old Bishop of Dunchester, a kind of English Döllinger, the learned
+leader of a learned party, and ready in the last years of life to risk
+what would have tasked the nerves and courage of a man in the prime of
+physical and mental power, wrote:
+
+"MY DEAR RICHARD MEYNELL: Against my better judgment, I was persuaded
+that you might have been imprudent. I now know that you have only been
+heroic. Forgive me--forgive us all. Nothing will induce me to preach the
+sermon 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 off
+Meynell to Maudeley, that she might "help him write his letters," and
+watch for a week or two over a man wearied and overtaxed. It was by her
+means also that the reaction in public opinion spread far beyond Meynell
+himself. It is true that even men and women of good will looked at each
+other in bewilderment, after the publication of the apology, and asked
+each other under their breaths--"Then is there no story!--and was Judith
+Sabin's whole narrative a delusion?" But with whatever might be true in
+that narrative no public interest was now bound up; and discussion grew
+first shamefaced, and then dropped. The tendency strengthened indeed to
+regard the whole matter as the invention of a half-crazy and dying woman,
+possessed of some grudge against the Fox-Wilton family. Many surmised
+that some tragic fact lay at the root of the tale, since those concerned
+had not chosen to bring the slanderer to account. But what had once been
+mere matter for malicious or idle curiosity was now handled with
+compunction and good feeling. People began to be very sorry for the
+Fox-Wiltons, very sorry for "poor Miss Puttenham." Cards were left, and
+friendly inquiries were made; and amid the general wave of scepticism and
+regret, the local society showed itself as sentimental, and as futile as
+usual.
+
+Meanwhile poor Theresa had been seen driving to the station with red
+eyes; and her father, it was ascertained, had been absent from home since
+the day before the publication of the apology. It was very commonly
+guessed that the "member of my family" responsible for the letters was
+the unsatisfactory younger son; and many persons, especially in Church
+circles, were secretly sorry for Barron, while everybody possessed of any
+heart at all was sorry for his elder son Stephen.
+
+Stephen indeed was one of Meynell's chief anxieties during these
+intermediate hours, when a strong man took a few days' breathing space
+between the effort that had been, and the effort that was to be. The
+young man would come over, day by day, with the same crushed, patient
+look, now bringing news to Meynell which they talked over where none
+might overhear, and now craving news from Paris in return. As to
+Stephen's own report, Barron, it seemed, had made all arrangements
+to send Maurice to a firm of English merchants trading at Riga. The head
+of the firm was under an old financial obligation to Henry Barron, and
+Stephen had no doubt that his father had made it heavily worth their
+while to give his brother this fresh chance of an honest life. There
+had been, Stephen believed, some terrible scenes between the father and
+son, and Stephen neither felt nor professed to feel any hope for the
+future. Barron intended himself to accompany Maurice to Riga and settle
+him there. Afterward he talked of a journey to the Cape. Meanwhile the
+White House was shut up, and poor Theresa had come to join Stephen in the
+little vicarage whence the course of events in the coming year would
+certainly drive him out.
+
+So much for the news he gave. As to the news he hungered for, Meynell had
+but crumbs to give him. To neither Stephen nor any one else could Alice
+Puttenham's letters be disclosed. Meynell's lips were sealed upon her
+story now as they had ever been; and, however shrewdly he might guess at
+Stephen's guesses, he said nothing, and Stephen asked nothing on the
+subject.
+
+As to Hester, he was told that she was well, though often moody and
+excitable, that she seemed already to have tired of the lessons and
+occupations she had taken up with such prodigious energy at the beginning
+of her stay, and that she had made violent friends with a young teacher
+from the École Normale, a refined, intelligent woman, in every way fit to
+be her companion, with whom on holidays she sometimes made long
+excursions out of Paris.
+
+But to Meynell, poor Alice Puttenham poured out all the bitterness of her
+heart:
+
+"It seems to me that the little hold I had over her, and the small
+affection she had for me when we arrived here, are both now less than
+they were. During the last week especially (the letter was dated the
+fourteenth of January) I have been at my wits' end how to amuse or please
+her. She resents being watched and managed more than ever. One feels
+there is a tumult in her soul to which we have no access. Her teachers
+complain of her temper and her caprice. And yet she dazzles and
+fascinates as much as ever. I suspect she doesn't sleep--she has a worn
+look quite unnatural at her age--but it makes her furious to be asked.
+Sometimes, indeed, she seems to melt toward me; the sombre look passes
+away, and she is melancholy and soft, with tears in her eyes now and
+then, which I dare not notice.
+
+"Oh, my dear friend, I am grateful for all you tell me of the changed
+situation at Markborough. But after all the thing is done--there can be
+no undoing it. The lies mingled with the truth have been put down.
+Perhaps people are ready now to let the truth itself slip back with
+the lies into the darkness. But how can we--Edith and I--and Hester--ever
+live the old life again? The old shelter, the old peace, are gone. We are
+wanderers and pilgrims henceforward!
+
+"As far as I know, Hester is still in complete ignorance of all that has
+happened. I have told her that Edith finds Tours so economical that she
+prefers to stay abroad for a couple of years, and to let the Upcote
+house. And I have said also that when she herself is tired of Paris, I
+am ready to take her to Germany, and then to Italy. She laughed, as
+though 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 that
+she has seen no English newspaper that could have given her a clue. As to
+Philip Meryon, as I have told you before, I often feel a vague
+uneasiness; 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 the
+whole world would change for me. But even what I once possessed these
+last few months seem to have taken from me!"
+
+"The thing is done!--there can be no undoing it." That was the sore
+burden of all Meynell's thoughts, awakening in him, at times, the "bitter
+craving to strike heavy blows" at he knew not what. What, indeed, could
+ever undo the indecency, the cruelty, the ugly revelations of these
+three months? The grossness of the common public, the weakness of
+friends, the solemn follies to which men are driven by hate or bigotry:
+these things might well have roused the angry laughter that lives in all
+quick and honest souls. But the satiric mood, when it appeared, soon
+vanished. He remembered the saying of Meredith concerning the spectacle
+of Bossuet over the dead body of Moličre--"at which the dark angels may,
+but men do not, laugh."
+
+This bitterness might have festered within him, but for the blessedness
+of Mary Elsmere's letters. She had seen the apology; she knew nothing of
+its causes. But she betrayed a joy that was almost too proud to know
+itself as joy; since what doubt could there ever have been but that right
+and nobleness would prevail? Catharine wrote the warmest and kindest of
+letters. 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 her
+trust take any shape he would. And though she knew nothing, she seemed by
+some divine instinct to understand also the pain that overshadowed the
+triumph; to be ready to sit silent with him before the irreparable. Day
+by day, as he read these letters, his heart burned within him; and Rose
+noted the growing restlessness. But he had heavy arrears of parish
+business upon him, of correspondence, of literary work. He struggled on,
+the powers of mind and body flagging, till one night, when he had been
+nearly a week at Maudeley, Rose came to him one evening, and said with a
+smile 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 you
+stay?"
+
+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 he
+quietly 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 the
+following day, Meynell spent half an hour with his Bishop in the
+episcopal library.
+
+It was a strange meeting. When Bishop Craye first caught sight of the
+entering figure, he hurried forward, and as the door closed upon the
+footman, he seized Meynell's hand in both his own.
+
+"I see what you have gone through," he said, with emotion; "and you would
+not 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 the
+world. They fell upon the anonymous letters, a comparatively safe topic,
+and the relation of Barron to them. Naturally Meynell gave the Bishop no
+hint whatever of the graver matter which had finally compelled Barron's
+surrender. He described his comparison of the Dawes letters with "a
+document in the young man's handwriting which I happened to have in my
+possession," 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 the
+Bishop. "I hope you have sometimes given a thought to the men on our side
+compelled 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 say
+a profound and affectionate admiration, which contrasted curiously with
+the public position in which they stood to each other. It was now very
+generally recognized, and especially in Markborough and its diocese, that
+Meynell had borne himself with extraordinary dignity and patience under
+the ordeal through which he had passed. And the Bishop--whose guess had
+so nearly hit the truth, who had been persuaded that in the whole matter
+Meynell was but the victim of some trust, some duty, which honour and
+conscience would not let him betray in order to save himself--the Bishop
+was but the more poignantly of this opinion now that he had the man
+before him. The weeks of suffering, the long storm of detraction, had
+left their mark; and it was not a light one. The high-hearted little
+Bishop felt himself in some way guilty, obscurely and representatively,
+if not directly.
+
+Yet, at the same time, when the personal matter dropped away, and they
+passed, as they soon did, to a perfectly calm discussion of the action in
+the Court of Arches which was to begin within a week, nothing could be
+clearer or more irrevocable than the differences, ecclesiastical and
+intellectual, which divided these two men, who in matters of personal
+feeling were so sensitively responsive the one to the other.
+
+Meynell dwelt on the points of law raised in the pleadings, on the
+bearing of previous cases--the _Essays and Reviews_ case above all--upon
+the suit. The antecedents of the counsel employed on both sides, the
+idiosyncrasies of the judge, the probable length of the trial; their talk
+ranged round these matters, without ever striking deeper. It was assumed
+between them that the expulsion of the Modernist clergy was only a
+question of months--possibly weeks. Once indeed Meynell referred slightly
+to the agitation in the country, to the growing snowball of the petition
+to Parliament, to the now certain introduction of a Bill "To promote an
+amended constitution for the Church of England." The Bishop's eyebrows
+went up, his lip twitched. It was the scorn of a spiritual aristocracy
+threatened by the populace.
+
+But in general they talked with extraordinary frankness and mutual good
+feeling; and they grasped hands more than cordially at the end. They
+might have been two generals, meeting before a battle, under the white
+flag.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Still the same mild January weather; with unseasonable shoots putting
+forth, and forebodings on the part of all garden-lovers, as fresh and
+resentful as though such forebodings, with their fulfilments, were not
+the natural portion of all English gardeners.
+
+In the Westmoreland dales, the month was rainier than elsewhere, but if
+possible, milder. Yellow buds were already foolishly breaking on the
+gorse, and weak primroses, as though afraid to venture, and yet
+venturing, were to be found in the depths of many woods.
+
+Meynell had slept at Whindale. In the morning a trap conveyed him and his
+bag to the farmhouse at the head of the valley; and the winter sun had
+only just scattered the mists from the dale when, stick in hand, he found
+himself on the road to Mrs. Elsmere's little house, Burwood.
+
+With every step his jaded spirits rose. He was a passionate lover of
+mountains, with that modern spirit which finds in them man's best refuge
+from modernness. The damp fragrance of the mossy banks and bare hedges;
+the racing freshness of the stream, and the little eddies of foam blown
+from it by the wind; the small gray sheep in the fields; the crags
+overhead dyed deep in withered heather; the stone farmhouses with their
+touch of cheerful white on door and window; all the exquisite detail of
+grass, and twig and stone; and overhead the slowly passing clouds in the
+wide sweep of the dale--these things to him were spiritual revival, they
+dressed and prepared him for that great hour to which dimly, yet through
+all his pulses, he felt he was going.
+
+The little house sent up a straight column of blue smoke into the quiet
+air. Its upper windows were open; the sun was on its lichened porch, and
+on the silver stem of the birch tree which rose from the mossy grass
+beside it.
+
+He did not need to knock. Mary was in the open doorway, her face all
+light and rose colour; and in the shadows of the passage behind her stood
+Catharine. When with the touch of Mary's hand still warm in his, Meynell
+turned to greet her mother, he was seized, even through the quiet emotion
+which held them all, by an impression of change. Some energy of physical
+life 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 left
+them alone in the little sitting-room.
+
+"You allow it?" said Meynell, hardly knowing what he said, and still
+retaining her hand.
+
+Catharine smiled.
+
+"Mary is her own mistress." Then she added, with a deep, involuntary
+sigh: "Whatever she says to you, she knows she has her mother's
+blessing."
+
+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. Mingled
+sweetness and bitterness filled her mind. She pictured to herself for an
+instant what it would have been if she had been giving Mary to a
+Christian pastor of the stamp of her own father, "sound in the faith," a
+"believer," entering upon what had always seemed to her from her
+childhood the ideal and exalted life of the Christian ministry. As things
+were, 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 the
+National Church; without any of the dignity--that dignity which had been
+her husband's--of voluntary renunciation. And Mary would become his wife
+only to share in his rebellion, his defiance, and his exile.
+
+She crossed her hands tightly upon her breast as though she were
+imprinting these sad facts upon her consciousness, learning to face them,
+to bear them with patience. And yet--in some surprising way--they did not
+hurt her as sharply as they would once have done. Trembling--almost in
+terror--she asked herself whether her own faith was weakening. And amid
+the intensity of aspiration and love with which her mind threw itself on
+the 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 she
+sat now following Meynell and Mary in thought along the valley, and now
+listening vaguely to the murmur of the fire or the stream outside, there
+came upon her a first gentle premonition--as though a whisper, from far
+away--of the solitude of death.
+
+Lines from the _Christian Year_, the book on which her girlhood had been
+nourished, 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 wintry
+warmth. The soft sound of Mary's dress beside him; the eyes she turned
+upon him when she spoke, so frank and sweet, yet for her lover, so full
+of mystery; the lines of her young form, compact of health and grace; the
+sound of her voice, the turn of her head--everything about her filled him
+with a tumult of feeling not altogether blissful, though joy was
+uppermost. For now that the great moment was come, now that he trembled
+on the verge of a happiness he had every reason to think was his, he was
+a prey to many strange qualms and tremors. In the first place he was
+suddenly 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 a
+sense of guilt. These six months of strenuous battle and leadership,
+these new responsibilities, and the fierce call which had been made on
+every gift and power, ending in the dumb, proud struggle, the growing
+humiliation of the preceding weeks, had left him ripened indeed,
+magnified indeed, as a personality; but it was as though down the
+shadowed vista of life he saw his youth, as "Another self," a
+Doppelgänger, disappearing forever.
+
+While she!--before _her_ were all the years of glamour, of happy
+instinctive action, when a man or woman is worth just what they dream,
+when dream and act flow together. Could he give her anything worth her
+having in exchange for this sheer youth of hers? He saw before him a long
+and dusty struggle; the dust of it choking, often, the purest sources of
+feeling. Cares about money; cares about health; the certain enmity of
+many good men; the bitterness that waits on all controversial success or
+failure: 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 he
+had suffered. As the Bishop had perceived, it was written on his aspect.
+But her timidity as yet prevented her from taking the initiative with
+him, as later she would learn to do. She felt for him at this stage
+partly the woman's love, partly the deep and passionate loyalty of the
+disciple. And it was possibly this very loyalty in her from which Meynell
+shrank. He felt toward himself and his role, in the struggle to which he
+was committed, a half despairing, half impatient irony, which saved him
+from anything like a prophetic pose. Some other fellow would do it so
+much better! But meanwhile it had to be done.
+
+So that, charged as was the atmosphere between them, it was some time
+before 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 first
+masked and hesitating. They talked a little--perfunctorily--about the
+dale and its folk, and Mary fell without difficulty now and then into the
+broad Westmoreland speech, which delighted Meynell's ear, and brought the
+laugh back to his eyes. Then, abruptly, he told her that the campaign of
+slander was over, and that the battle, instead of "infinite mess and
+dislocation," was now to be a straight and clean one. He said nothing of
+Barron; but he spoke tenderly of the Bishop, and Mary's eyes swam a
+little.
+
+She on her part dared to speak of Alice and Hester. And very soon it was
+quietly recognized between these two that Alice's story was known to
+Mary; and, for the first time in his life, Meynell spoke with free
+emotion and self-criticism of the task which Neville Flood had laid
+upon him. Had there been in Mary some natural dread of the moment when
+she must first hear the full story of his relation to Alice? If so, it
+was soon dispelled. He could not have told the story more simply; but its
+beauty shone out. Only, she was startled, even terrified, by certain
+glimpses 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 he
+could 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 was
+strangely--morbidly--dependent upon the fate of Hester. If he was able to
+save 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 any
+man's leader, and should feel himself the Jonah of any cause. There was a
+certain mystical passion in it, the strong superstition of a man in whom
+a great natural sensitiveness led often and readily to despondency; as
+though he "asked for a sign."
+
+They passed the noisy little river by the stepping-stones and then
+climbed a shoulder of fell between Long Whindale and the next valley.
+Descending a sunny mountainside, they crossed some water meadows, and
+mounted 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 a
+flat-topped rock commanding all the spectacle of flood and fell. Mary
+guided him there; and then stood silent and flushed, conscious that she
+herself had brought the supreme moment to its birth. The same perception
+rushed upon Meynell. He looked into her eyes, smiling and masterful, all
+his 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 hand
+and caught hers. She found herself trembling, and looking down into his
+upturned face.
+
+"Mary!--Mary _darling_!--is it mine?"
+
+The question was just whispered, and she whispered her reply. They were
+alone in a lovely wilderness of fell and stream. Only a shepherd walked
+with his flock in a field half a mile away, and across the valley a
+ploughman drove his horses.
+
+At the murmur in his ear, Meynell, this time, put up both hands, and drew
+her 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 an
+old 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 the
+colour 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 hair
+from 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, and
+drew her within the shelter of his cloak, looking down upon her with
+infinite tenderness.
+
+"You don't know what you're undertaking," he said, his eyes moist, his
+lips smiling. "I am an old bachelor, and my ways are detestable! Can you
+ever 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 very
+uncomfortable. Can you really stand it--and me?"
+
+"Shall we have a roof over our heads at all?" asked Mary, but so dizzily
+happy that she knew but vaguely what she said.
+
+"I have already bespoken a cottage. They are going to make me Editor of
+the _Modernist_. We shall have bread and butter, dearest, but not much
+more."
+
+"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 a
+money-box. Then when we want something really amusing--a cathedral--or
+a yacht--we'll take it out."
+
+So they laughed together, he all the while holding her close crushed
+against him, and she deafened almost by the warm beating of a man's heart
+beneath her cheek.
+
+And presently silence came, a silence in which one of the rare ecstasies
+of life came upon them and snatched them to the third heaven. From the
+fold of the hill in which they sat, sheltered both by the fell itself,
+and by the encircling hollies, they overlooked a branching dale, half
+veiled, and half revealed by sunny cloud. Above the western fells they
+had just crossed, hung towers and domes of white cumulus, beneath which a
+pearly sunshine slipped through upon the broad fell-side, making of it
+one wide sunlit pleasance, dyed in the red and orange of the withered
+fern, and dotted with black holly and juniper. Round the head of the dale
+the curtain of cloud hung thicker, save where one superb crag tore it
+asunder, falling sheer into the green gentleness of the fields. In the
+silence, all the voices of nature spoke; the rising wind, which flung
+itself against the hill-slopes at their feet; the insistent flow of the
+river, descending from the reservoirs far away; and the sharp chatter of
+the little beck leaping at their side from stone to stone. Passionately,
+in Meynell's heart the "buried life" awoke, which only love can free from
+the 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, then
+there is no key, and no man need preach any more. Only, my Amor has been
+till now a stern God! He has in his hands!--I know it!--all the noblest
+rewards and ecstasies of life; but so far, I have seen him wring them out
+of horror, or pain. The most heavenly things I have ever seen have been
+the things of suffering. I think of a poor fellow dying in the pit and
+trying to give me his last message to his wife; of a mother fading out of
+life, still clasping her babes, with hands twisted almost out of human
+shape by hard work; or a little lad--" his voice dropped--"only last
+week!--who saved his worthless brother's life by giving him warning of
+some escaping trucks, and was crushed himself. 'I couldn't help it,
+sir!'--_apologizing_ to me and the foreman, as we knelt by him!--'I knew
+Jim had the drink in him.' In all these visions, Love was divine--but
+awful! And here!--_here_!--I see his wings outspread upon that
+mountain-side; he comes clothed, not in agony, but in this golden
+peace--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 thought
+of a great man, which seizes upon us dull lesser creatures, and seems to
+give us, for a time at least, new eyes and ears, as though, like
+Melampus, we had caught the hidden language of the world! It rests
+on the notion of the endless creativeness and freedom of life. It is the
+negation of all fate, all predestination. _Nothing_ foreknown, nothing
+predestined! No _necessity_--no _anangké_--darling!--either in the world
+process, or the mind of God, that you and I should sit here to-day, heart
+to heart! It was left for our wills to do, our hearts to conceive, God
+lending us the world, so to speak, to work on! All our past cutting
+into--carving out--this present; all our past alive in the present; as
+all this present shall be alive in the future. There is no 'iron law' for
+life and will, beloved--they create, they are the masters, they are
+forever new. All the same!"--his tone changed--"I believe firmly that
+this 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; her
+hair had escaped its bounds, and must be rigorously put to rights. She
+sat there flushed and bareheaded, her hands working; while Meynell's
+eyes 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 on
+the word, without moving however. "Mary!--next to you I love your
+mother!"
+
+Mary's sweet face darkened a little; she buried it in her hands. Meynell
+drew them tenderly away.
+
+"All that affection can do to soften the differences between us, shall be
+done," he said, with his whole heart. "I believe too that the sense of
+them 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 the
+conflict which had always haunted and scorched it, between love and
+religion; first in the case of her husband, and then in that of her
+daughter. "But oh! how could I--how could I help it?" was the cry of
+Mary's own conscience and personality.
+
+She turned with painful eagerness to Meynell. "How did you think
+her?--how does she strike you?"
+
+"Physically?" He chose his words. "She is so beautiful! But--sometimes--I
+think she looks frail."
+
+The tears sprang to Mary's eyes. She quickly threw herself upon his
+misgiving, and tried to argue it away, both in herself and him. She dwelt
+upon her mother's improvement in sleep and appetite, her cheerfulness,
+her increased power of walking; she was insistent, almost resentful, her
+white brow furrowed with pain, even while her hand lay warm in Meynell's.
+He must needs comfort her; must needs disavow his own impression. After
+all, what value had such an impression beside the judgment of her daily
+and hourly watchfulness?--the favourable opinion too, so she insisted, of
+their local doctor.
+
+As they walked home, he startled her by saying that he should only have
+three 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, and
+that 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 be
+made the opportunity for something like a demonstration; and that he
+shrank from the thought of it.
+
+She perceived, indeed, a certain general flagging of the merely combative
+forces in him, not without dismay. Such moments of recoil are natural to
+such men--half saints, half organizers. The immediate effect of her
+perception of it was to call out something heroic and passionate in
+herself. She was very sweet, and very young; there were eighteen years
+between them; and yet in these very first hours of their engagement, he
+felt her to be not only rest, but inspiration; not only sympathy, but
+strength.
+
+When they neared the little ivy-covered house, on their return home, Mary
+broke from him. Her step on the gravel was heard by Catharine. She came
+quickly to the door and stood awaiting them. Mary ran forward and threw
+herself into the tender arms that drew her into the shadows of the
+passage.
+
+"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 tender
+mockery.
+
+"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 him
+claim 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, he
+and Mary walked incessantly among them, exploring those first hours of
+love, when every tone and touch is charged, for lovers, with the whole
+meaning of the world. And in the evenings he sat between the two women in
+the little cottage room, reading aloud Catharine's favourite poets; or in
+the familiar talk, now gay now grave, of their new intimacy, disclosing
+himself ever more fully, and rooting himself ever more firmly in their
+hearts. His sudden alarm as to Catharine's health passed away, and Mary's
+new terror with it. Scarcely a word was said of the troubles ahead. But
+it 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 seeing
+Oedipus Rex played by Mounet Sully at the Comédie Française. In this
+half-sophisticated girl, the famous performance, traditional now through
+two generations of playgoers, had clearly produced an emotion whereof the
+expression in her letter greatly disquieted Catharine Elsmere. She felt
+too--a little grimly--the humour of its address to herself.
+
+"Tell me how to answer it, please," she said, handing it to Meynell with
+a twitching lip. "It is a language I don't understand! And why did they
+take her to such a play?"
+
+Meynell shared her disquiet. For the Greek conception of a remorseless
+fate, as it is forever shaped and embodied in the tale of Oedipus, had
+led Hester apparently to a good deal of subsequent browsing in the
+literature--the magazine articles at any rate--of French determinism; and
+she rattled through some of her discoveries in this reckless letter:
+
+"You talked to me so nicely, dear Mrs. Elsmere, that last evening at
+Upcote. 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?--and
+yet--you see!
+
+"'_Apollo, friends, Apollo it was, that brought all these my woes, my
+sore, sore woes!--to pass_.'
+
+"Dear Mrs. Elsmere!--you can't think what a good doctrine it is after
+all--how it steadies one! What chance have we against these blundering
+gods?
+
+"Nothing one can do makes any difference. It is, really very consoling if
+you come to think of it; and it's no sort of good being angry with
+Apollo!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Part nonsense, part bravado," said Catharine, raising clear eyes, with
+half 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 run
+over to see them."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meynell and Mary travelled to town together, and Mary was duly deposited
+for a few days with some Kensington cousins.
+
+On the night of their arrival--a Saturday--Meynell, not without some
+hesitation, made an appearance at the Reformers' Club, which had been
+recently organized as a London centre for the Movement, in Albemarle
+Street.
+
+It was no sooner known that he was in the building than a flutter ran
+through the well-filled rooms. That very morning an article in the
+_Modernist_ signed R. M. had sounded a note of war, so free, lofty, and
+determined, 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 to
+defend himself; and the attention of the country would be fixed upon the
+duel between him and the great orthodox counsel, Sir Wilfrid Marsh.
+
+Men gathered quickly round him. Most of the six clergy who, with him, had
+launched the first Modernist Manifesto, were present, in expectation of
+the sermon on the morrow, and the trial of the following week. Chesham
+and Darwen, his co-defendants in the Arches suit, with whom he had been
+in constant correspondence throughout the winter, came to discuss a few
+last points and understandings; Treherne, the dear old scholar in whose
+house they had met to draw up the Manifesto, under the shadow of the
+Cathedral, 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 Modernist
+Sacraments among the slums of a great midland town.
+
+And in the voices that spoke to him, and the eyes that met his, Meynell
+could not but realize a wide and warm sympathy, an eagerness to make
+amends--sometimes a half confessed compunction for a passing doubt.
+
+He stood among them, haggard and worn, but steeped in a content and
+gratitude that had more sources than they knew. And under the kindling of
+their faith and their affection, his own hesitations passed away; his
+will 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 representing
+science, literature, politics, the best of English thought and English
+social endeavour, was but the outward and visible sign of things inward
+and spiritual.
+
+"_Can these dry bones live_?"
+
+As Meynell gave out the text, there were many who remembered the picture
+of Oxford hanging in Newman's study at Edgbaston, and those same words
+written below it.
+
+"_Can these dry bones live_?"--So Newman had asked in despair, of his
+beloved University, and of English religion, in the early years after he
+had deserted Anglicanism for Rome. And now, more than half a century
+afterward, the leader of a later religious movement asked the same
+question on the eve of another contest which would either regenerate or
+destroy the English Church. The impulse given by Newman and the
+Tractarians had spent itself, though not without enormous and permanent
+results within the life of the nation; and now it was the turn of that
+Liberal reaction and recoil which had effaced Newman's work in Oxford,
+yet had been itself wandering for years without a spiritual home. During
+those years it had found its way through innumerable channels of the
+national life as a fertilizing and redeeming force. It had transformed
+education, law, science and history. Yet its own soul had hungered. And
+now, thanks to that inner necessity which governs the spiritual progress
+of men, the great Liberal Movement, enriched with a thousand conquests,
+was sweeping back into the spiritual field; demanding its just share in
+the National Church; and laying its treasures at the feet of a Christ,
+unveiled, illuminated, by its own labour, by the concentrated and
+passionate effort of a century of human intelligence.
+
+Starting from this conception--the full citizen-right within the Church
+of both Liberal and High Churchman--the first part of Meynell's sermon
+became a moving appeal for religious freedom; freedom of development
+and "variation," within organized Christianity itself. Simpler Creeds,
+modernized tests, alternative forms, a "unity of the spirit in the bond
+of peace,"--with these ideas the Modernist preacher built up the vision
+of a Reformed Church, co-extensive with the nation, resting on a
+democratic government, yet tenderly jealous of its ancient ceremonies, so
+long as each man might interpret them "as he was able," and they were no
+longer made a source of tyranny and exclusion.
+
+Then, from the orthodox opponent in whose eyes the Modernist faith was a
+mere beggarly remnant, Meynell turned to the sceptic for whom it was only
+a modified superstition. An eloquent prelude, dealing with the
+preconceptions, the modern philosophy and psychology which lie at the
+root of religious thought to-day--and the rest of the sermon flowed on
+into what all Christian eloquence must ultimately be, the simple
+"preaching of Christ."
+
+Amid the hush of the crowded church Meynell preached the Christ of our
+day--just as Paul of Tarsus preached the Christ of a Hellenized Judaism
+to the earliest converts; as St. Francis, in the Umbrian hills preached
+the Lord of Poverty and Love; as the Methodist preachers among the
+villages of the eighteenth century preached the democratic individualism
+of the New Testament to the English nascent democracy.
+
+In each case the form of the preaching depended on the knowledge and the
+thought-world of the preacher. So with Meynell's Christ.
+
+Not the phantom of a Hellenistic metaphysic; not the Redeemer and Judge
+of a misunderstood Judaism; not the mere ethical prophet of a German
+professorial theology; but the King of a spiritual kingdom, receiving
+allegiance, and asking love, from the free consciences of men; repeating
+forever in the ears of those in whom a Divine influence has prepared the
+way, the melting and constraining message: "This do in remembrance of
+me."
+
+"'Of me--and of all the just, all the righteous, all the innocent, of all
+the ages, in me--pleading through me--symbolized in me! Are you for
+Man--or for the Beast that lurks in man? Are you for Chastity--or
+Lust? 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 longer
+a man made God, a God made man. Those categories of thought, for us,
+are past. But neither is he merely the crucified Galilean, the
+Messianic prophet of the first century. For by a mysterious and unique
+destiny--unique at least in degree--that life and death have become
+Spirit and Idea. The Power behind the veil, the Spirit from whom issues
+the world, has made of them a lyre, enchanted and immortal, through which
+He breathes His music into men. The setting of the melody varies with the
+generations, but the melody remains. And as we listen to it to-day,
+expressed through the harmonies of that thought which is ourselves--blood
+of 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 God
+who was 'in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.'
+
+"Of that God, all life is in some sense, the sacramental expression. But
+in the course of ages some sacraments and symbols of the divine are
+approved and verified beyond others--immeasurably beyond others. This is
+what has happened--and so far as we can see by the special will and
+purpose of God--with the death-unto-life--with the Cross of Christ....
+
+"The symbol of the Cross is concerned with our personal and profoundest
+being. But the symbol of the Kingdom is social, collective--the power of
+every reformer, every servant of men....
+
+"Many thinkers," said the preacher, in his concluding passage, while all
+eyes were fixed on the head sprinkled with gray, and the strong humanity
+of the face--"many men, in all ages and civilizations have dreamed of a
+City of God, a Kingdom of Righteousness, an Ideal State, and a Divine
+Ruler. Jesus alone has made of that dream, history; has forced it upon,
+and stamped it into history. The Messianic dream of Judaism--though
+wrought of nobler tissue--it's not unlike similar dreams in other
+religions; but in this it is unique, that it gave Jesus of Nazareth his
+opportunity, and that from it has sprung the Christian Church. Jesus
+accepted 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 death
+transformed a world. He died indeed, overwhelmed; with the pathetic cry
+of utter defeat upon his lips. And the leading races of mankind have
+knelt ever since to the mighty spirit who dared not only to conceive
+and found the Kingdom of God, but to think of himself as its Spiritual
+King--by sheer divine right of service, of suffering, and of death! Only
+through tribulation and woe--through the _peirasmos_ or sore trial of the
+world--according to Messianic belief, could the Kingdom be realized, and
+Messiah revealed. It was the marvellous conception of Jesus, inspired by
+the ancient poetry and prophecy of his nation, that he might, as the
+Suffering Servant, concentrate in himself the suffering due from his
+race, and from the world, and by his death bring about--violently, "by
+force"--the outpouring of the Spirit, the Resurrection, and the dawn of
+the heavenly Kingdom. He went up to Jerusalem to die; he provoked his
+death; he died. And from the Resurrection visions which followed
+naturally on such a life and death, inspired by such conceptions, and
+breathing them with such power into the souls of other men, arose the
+Christian 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 us
+any more.
+
+"But its spirit is immortal. The vision of a kingdom of Heaven--a polity
+of the soul, within, or superseding the earthly polity--once interfused
+with man's thought and life, has proved to be imperishable, a thing that
+cannot die.
+
+"Only it must be realized afresh from age to age; embodied afresh in the
+conceptions and the language of successive generations.
+
+"And these developing embodiments and epiphanies of the kingdom can only
+be brought into being by the method of Christ--that is to say, by
+'_violence_'.
+
+"Again and again has the kingdom 'suffered violence'--has been brought
+fragmentarily into the world '_by force_'--by the only irresistible
+force--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 the
+whole thought of Christ. When the work of preparation is over, still men
+must brace themselves, as their Master did, to the last stroke of
+'violence'--to a final effort of resolute, and, if need be, revolutionary
+action--to the 'violence' that brings ideas to birth and shapes them into
+deeds.
+
+"It was to 'violence' of this sacred sort that the Christian Church owed
+its beginning; and it is this same 'violence' that must, as the
+generations rise and fall, constantly maintain it among men. To cut away
+the old at need and graft in the new, requires the high courage and the
+resolute hand of faith. Only so can the Christian Life renew itself; only
+so 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 walked
+with his eyes on the ground, smiling to himself.
+
+"A little persecution!" he said, rubbing his hands, as he looked up--"and
+how it would go!"
+
+"Well--the persecution begins this week--in the Court of Arches."
+
+"Persecution--nonsense! You mean 'propaganda.' I understand Meynell's
+defence will proceed on totally new lines. He means to argue each point
+on its merits?"
+
+"Yes. The Voysey judgment gave him his cue. You will remember, Voysey was
+attacked by the Lord Chancellor of the day--old Lord Hatherley--as a
+'private clergyman,' who 'of his own mere will, not founding himself upon
+any critical inquiry, but simply upon his own taste and judgment'
+maintained certain heresies. Now Meynell, I imagine, will give his judges
+enough 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 you
+maintain that a system which insists upon a man's beliefs at forty-four
+being identical with his beliefs at twenty-four is not condemned _ipso
+facto_!"
+
+"Oh I know what you say!--I know what you say!" cried Norham
+good-humouredly. "We shall all be saying it in Parliament presently--Good
+heavens! Well, I shall look into the court to-morrow, if I can possibly
+find an hour, and hear Meynell fire away."
+
+"As Home Secretary, you may get in!"--laughed Flaxman--"on no other
+terms. 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 took
+precedence, and were to be followed by half a dozen others--test
+cases--from different parts of England. But on the Markborough suits
+everything turned. The Modernist defendants everywhere had practically
+resolved on the same line of defence; on the same appeal from the mind of
+the sixteenth century to the mind of the twentieth; from creeds and
+formularies 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 a
+large, clean-shaven face, a domed head and smooth straight hair, still
+jetty black. He wore a look of quiet assurance and was clearly a man
+of all the virtues; possessing a portly wife and a tribe of daughters.
+
+His speech was marked in all its earlier sections by a studied liberality
+and moderation. "I am not going to appeal, sir, for that judgment in the
+promoters' favour which I confidently claim, on any bigoted or
+obscurantist lines. The Church of England is a learned Church; she is
+also a Church of wide liberties."
+
+No slavish submission to the letter of the Articles on the Liturgy was
+now demanded of any man. Subscription had been relaxed; the final
+judgment in the _Essays and Reviews_ case had given a latitude in the
+interpretation of Scripture, of which, as many recent books showed, the
+clergy--"I refer now to men of unquestioned orthodoxy"--had taken
+reasonable advantage; prayer-book revision "within the limits of the
+faith," if constantly retarded by the divisions of the faithful, was
+still probable; both High Churchmen and Broad Churchmen--here an aside
+dropped out, "so far as Broad Churchmen still exist!"--are necessary to
+the Church.
+
+But there are limits. "Critical inquiry, sir, if you will--reasonable
+liberty, within the limits of our formularies and a man's ordination
+vow--by all means!
+
+"But certain things are _vital_! With certain fundamental beliefs let no
+one suppose that either the bishops, or convocation, or these Church
+courts, or Parliament, or what the defendants are pleased to call the
+nation" [one must imagine the fine gesture of a sweeping hand] "can
+meddle." The _animus imponentis_ is not that of the Edwardian or
+Elizabethan legislation, it is not that of the Bishops! it is that of the
+Christian Church itself!--handing down the _deposition fidei_ from the
+earliest to the latest times.
+
+"_The Creeds, sir, are vital_! Put aside Homilies, Articles, the
+judgments and precedents of the Church Courts--all these are, in this
+struggle, beside the mark. _Concentrate on the Creeds_! Let us examine
+what the defendants in these suits have made of the Creeds of
+Christendom."
+
+The evidence was plain. Regarded as historical statement, the defendants
+had 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, that
+formal creeds were mere "landmarks in the Church's life,"
+crystallizations of thought, that were no sooner formed than they became
+subject to the play, both dissolvent and regenerating, of the Christian
+consciousness.
+
+"And so you come to that inconceivable entity, a Church without a
+creed--a mere chaos of private opinion, where each man is a law unto
+himself."
+
+On this theme, Sir Wilfrid--who was a man of singularly strong private
+opinions, of all kinds and on all subjects--spoke for a whole day; from
+the 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, what
+authority--if any--there is in the English Church; or what limits--if
+any--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 Wilfrid
+carefully avoided saying--'We have the Scriptures.'"
+
+"Perhaps," said Dornal despondently.
+
+"And as to the Creeds," the other resumed, after another pause--"Do you
+think that one per cent of the Christians that you and I know believe in
+the Descent into Hell, or the Resurrection of the Body?"
+
+Dornal made no reply.
+
+Cyril Fenton also walked home with a young priest just ordained. Both
+were extremely dissatisfied with the later portions of Sir Wilfrid's
+speech, which had seemed to them tainted in several passages with
+Erastian complacency toward the State. Parliament especially, and a
+possible intervention of Parliament, ought never to have been so much as
+mentioned--even for denunciation--in an ecclesiastical court.
+
+"_Parliament!"_ cried Fenton, coming to a sudden stop beside the water in
+St. James' Park, his eyes afire, "What is Parliament but the lay synod of
+the 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 the
+audience day after day; with the Bishop of S----, lank and long-jawed,
+with reddish hair turning to gray, a deprecating manner in society, but
+in the pulpit a second Warburton for truculence and fire; the Bishop of
+D----, beloved, ugly, short-sighted, the purest and humblest soul alive;
+learned, mystical, poetical, in much sympathy with the Modernists, yet
+deterred by the dread of civil war within the Church, a master of the Old
+Latin Versions, and too apt to address schoolgirls on the charms of
+textual criticism; the Bishop of F----, courtly, peevish and distrusted;
+the Dean of Markborough, with the green shade over his eyes, and fretful
+complaint on his lips of the "infection" generated by every Modernist
+incumbent; and near him, Professor Vetch, with yet another divinity
+professor 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 case
+for the prosecution closed thunderously in a fierce onslaught on the
+ethics of the Modernist position, and on the personal honesty and
+veracity of each and every Modernist holding office in the Anglican
+Church, claiming sentences of immediate deprivation against the
+defendants, of their vicarages and incumbencies, and of all profits and
+benefits derived therefrom "unless within a week from this day they (the
+defendants) should expressly and unreservedly retract the several
+errors in which they have so offended."
+
+The court broke up in a clamour of excitement and discussion, with crowds
+of country parishioners standing outside to greet the three incriminated
+priests as they came out.
+
+The following morning Meynell rose. And for one brilliant week, his
+defence of the Modernist position held the attention of England.
+
+On the fourth or fifth day of his speech, the white-haired Bishop of
+Dunchester, against whom proceedings had just been taken in the
+Archbishop's Court, said to his son:
+
+"Herbert, just before I was born there were two great religious leaders
+in England--Newman and Arnold of Rugby. Arnold died prematurely, at
+the height of bodily and spiritual vigour; Newman lived to the age of
+eighty-nine, and to be a Cardinal of the Roman Church. His Anglican
+influence, continued, modified, distributed by the High Church movement,
+has lasted till now. To-day we have been listening again, as it were, to
+the voice of Arnold, the great leader whom the Liberals lost in '42,
+Arnold was a devoutly orthodox believer, snatched from life in the very
+birth-hour of that New Learning of which we claim to be the children. But
+a church of free men, coextensive with the nation, gathering into one
+fold every English man, woman and child, that was Arnold's dream, just as
+it is Meynell's.... And yet though the voice, the large heart, the
+fearless mind, and the broad sympathies were Arnold's, some of the
+governing ideas were Newman's. As I listened, I seemed"--the old man's
+look glowed suddenly--"to see the two great leaders, the two foes of a
+century 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 be
+addressing his judges, he was in truth speaking quite as consciously to a
+sweet woman's face in a far corner of the crowded hall. Mary went into
+the long wrestle with him, as it were, and lived through every moment of
+it at his side. Then in the evening there were half hours of utter
+silence, when he would sit with her hands in his, just gathering strength
+for the morrow.
+
+Six days of Meynell's speech were over. On the seventh the Court opened
+amid the buzz of excitement and alarm. The chief defendant in the suit
+was not present, and had sent--so counsel whispered to each other--a
+hurried note to the judge to the effect that he should be absent
+through the whole remainder of the trial owing to "urgent private
+business."
+
+In a few more hours it was known that Meynell had left England, and men
+on 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 the
+smallest trace. But she believes she is with Meryon. I go to Paris
+to-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 afternoon
+lay heavy on Long Whindale. A strong and bitter wind from the north blew
+down the valley with occasional spits and snatches of snow, not enough as
+yet 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 a
+shepherd on the path leading over the pass to Marly Head could scarcely
+hold himself upright against them. Tempestuous sounds filled all the
+upper and the lower air. From the high ridges came deep reverberating
+notes, a roaring in the wind; while the trees along the stream sent forth
+a shriller voice, as they whistled and creaked and tossed in the eddying
+gusts. Cold gray clouds were beating from the north, hanging now over the
+cliffs on the western side, now over the bare screes and steep slopes of
+the northern and eastern walls. Gray or inky black, the sharp edges of
+the rocks cut into the gloomy sky; while on the floor of the valley,
+blanched grass and winding stream seemed alike to fly scourged before the
+persecuting wind.
+
+A trap--Westmoreland calls it a car--a kind of box on wheels, was
+approaching the head of the dale from the direction of Whinborough. It
+stopped at the foot of the steep and narrow lane leading to Burwood, and
+a young lady got out.
+
+"You're sure that's Burwood?" she said, pointing to the house partially
+visible 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 had
+brought from Whinborough station. She was quite a young girl he guessed,
+and a handsome one. But there seemed to be something queer about her. She
+looked so tumbled and tired.
+
+Hester Fox-Wilton took out her purse, and paid him with an uncertain
+hand, one or more of the shillings falling on the road, where the driver
+and she groped for them. Then she raised the small bag she had brought
+with her in the car, and turned away.
+
+"Good day to yer, miss," said the man as he mounted the box. She made no
+reply. After he had turned his horse and started on the return journey to
+Whinborough, he looked back once or twice. But the high walls of the lane
+hid the lady from him.
+
+Hester, however, did not go very far up the lane. She sank down very soon
+on 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-like
+place, even on this bitter afternoon. In one of the windows was a glow of
+firelight; white muslin curtains everywhere gave it a dainty, refined
+look; and it stood picturesquely within the shelter of its trees, and of
+the yew hedge which encircled the garden.
+
+Yet Hester shivered as she looked at it. She was very imperfectly clothed
+for such an afternoon, in a serge jacket and skirt supplemented by a
+small fur collarette, which she drew closer round her neck from time to
+time, as though in a vain effort to get warm. But she was not conscious
+of doing so, nor of the cold as cold. All her bodily sensations were
+miserable and uncomfortable. But she was only actively aware of the
+thoughts racing through her mind.
+
+There they were, within a stone's throw of her--Mary and Mrs. Elsmere--in
+the warm, cosy little house, without an idea that she, Hester, the
+wretched, disgraced Hester, was sitting in the lane so close to them. And
+yet they were perhaps thinking of her--they must have often thought about
+her in the last fortnight. Mrs. Elsmere must of course have been sorry.
+Good people were always sorry when such things happened. And Mary?--who
+was eight years older--_older!_ than this girl of eighteen who sat there,
+sickened by life, conscious of a dead wall of catastrophe drawn between
+her and the future.
+
+Should she go to them? Should she open their door and say--"Here I
+am!--Horrible things have happened. No decent person will ever know me or
+speak 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 the
+inward sight the vision of Catharine Elsmere's face--its purity, its
+calm, its motherliness. For a moment it drew, it touched, it gave
+courage. And then the terrible sense of things irreparable, grim matters
+of fact not to be dreamed or thought away, rushed in and swept the
+clinging, 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 perhaps
+they'll cry--they'll pray with me, and I can't stand that! Why did I ever
+come? Where on earth shall I go?"
+
+And she looked round her in petulant despair, angry with herself for
+having done this foolish thing, angry with the loneliness and barrenness
+of 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 and
+stung 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 with
+cold.
+
+"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 and
+left. Which way? The thought of the long dreary road back to Whinborough
+repelled her. She turned toward the head of the valley. Perhaps she might
+find a house which would take her in. The driver had said there was a
+farm which let lodgings in the summer. She had money--some pounds at any
+rate; that was all right. And she was not hungry. She had arrived at a
+junction station five miles from Whinborough by a night train. At six
+o'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 station
+hotel, and she had engaged a room and ordered a fire. There she had
+thrown herself down without undressing on the bed, and had slept heavily
+for four or five hours. Then she had had some breakfast, and had taken
+a midday train to Whinborough, and a trap to Long Whindale.
+
+She had travelled straight from Nice without stopping. She would not let
+herself think now as she hurried along the lonely road what it was she
+had fled from, what it was that had befallen. The slightest glimpse into
+this past made her begin to sob, she put it away from her with all her
+strength. But she had had, of course, to decide where she should go, with
+whom she should take refuge.
+
+Not with Uncle Richard, whom she had deceived and defied. Not with "Aunt
+Alice." No sooner did the vision of that delicate withered face, that
+slender form come before her, than it brought with it terrible fancies.
+Her conduct had probably killed "Aunt Alice." She did not want to think
+about 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--things
+that no one supposed she had heard--that Mrs. Elsmere had given years of
+her life, and sacrificed her health, to "rescue" work. The rescue of
+girls 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 had
+thirsted for. They had brought her all the way from Nice to this northern
+valley--this bleak, forbidding country. She shivered again from head to
+foot, as she made her way painfully against the wind.
+
+Yet now she was flying even from Catharine Elsmere; even from those
+tender eyes that haunted her.
+
+The road turned toward a bridge, and on the other side of the bridge
+degenerated into a rough and stony bridle path, giving access to two gray
+farms beneath the western fell. On the near side of the bridge the
+road became a cart-track leading to the far end of the dale.
+
+Hester paused irresolute on the bridge, and looked back toward Burwood. A
+light appeared in what was no doubt the sitting-room window. A lamp
+perhaps that, in view of the premature darkening of the afternoon by the
+heavy storm-clouds from the north, a servant had just brought in. Hester
+watched it in a kind of panic, foreseeing the moment when the curtains
+would be drawn and the light shut out from her. She thought of the little
+room within, the warm firelight, Mary with her beautiful hair--and Mrs.
+Elsmere. They were perhaps working and reading--as though that were all
+there were to do and think about in the world! No, no! after all they
+couldn't be very peaceful--or very cheerful. Mary was engaged to Uncle
+Richard now; and Uncle Richard must be pretty miserable.
+
+The exhausted girl nearly turned back toward that light. Then a hand came
+quietly and shut it out. The curtains were drawn. Nothing now to be seen
+of the little house but its dim outlines in the oncoming twilight, the
+smoke blown about its roof, and a faint gleam from a side-window, perhaps
+the kitchen.
+
+Suddenly, a thought, a wild, attacking thought, leapt out upon her, and
+held 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 confused
+in one mad flux of misery. Was it _possible_ that they too could be
+Here--Uncle Richard, and "Aunt Alice?" She had said something about Mrs.
+Elsmere in her telegram--she could not recollect what. That had been
+meant to comfort them, and yet to keep them away, to make them leave
+her to her own plans. But supposing, instead, its effect had been to
+bring them here at once, in pursuit of her?
+
+She hurried forward, sobbing dry sobs of terror as though she already
+heard their steps behind her. What was she afraid of? Simply their
+love!--simply their sorrow! She had broken their hearts; and what could
+she say to them?
+
+The recollection of all her cruelty to "Aunt Alice" in Paris--her
+neglect, her scorn, her secret, unjust anger with those who had kept from
+her the facts of her birth--seemed to rise up between her and all ideas
+of hope and help. Oh, of course they would be kind to her!--they would
+forgive her--but--but she couldn't bear it! Impatience with the very
+scene of wailing and forgiveness she foresaw, as of something utterly
+futile and vain, swept through the quivering nerves.
+
+"And it can never be undone!" she said to herself roughly, as though she
+were throwing the words in some one's face. "It can never, _never_ be
+undone! What's the good of talking?"
+
+So the only alternative was to wander a while longer into these clouds
+and storms that were beginning to beat down from the pass through the
+darkness of the valley; to try and think things out; to find some shelter
+for the night; then to go away again--somewhere. She was conscious now of
+a first driving of sleet in her face; but it only lasted for a few
+minutes. Then it ceased; and a strange gleam swept over the valley--a
+livid storm-light from the west, which blanched all the withered grass
+beside her, and seemed to shoot along the course of the stream as she
+toiled up the rocky path beside it.
+
+What a country, what a sky! Her young body was conscious of an angry
+revolt against it, against the northern cold and dreariness; her body,
+which still kept as it were the physical memory of sun, and blue sea, and
+orange trees, of the shadow of olives on a thin grass, of the scent of
+orange blossom on the broken twigs that some one was putting into her
+hand.
+
+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-haired
+man, was seated on a rock, staff in hand, watching his dog collect the
+sheep from the rocky slope on which they were scattered.
+
+At sight of Hester, the old man started and stared. Her fair hair
+escaping in many directions from the control of combs and hairpins, and
+the pale lovely face in the midst of it, shone in the stormy gleam that
+filled 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 of
+a living being brought a kind of comfort.
+
+"It's going to snow--" she said, as she stood beside him, surprised by
+the sound of her own voice amid the roar of the wind.
+
+"Aye--it's onding o' snaw--" said the shepherd, his shrewd blue eyes
+travelling 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, a
+stone's throw away. The gate of it was open, and the dog was gradually
+chasing the sheep within it.
+
+"I doan't like leavin' 'em on t' fells this bitter weather. I'm afraid
+for t' ewes. It's too cauld for 'em. They'll be for droppin' their lambs
+too soon if this wind goes on. It juist taks t' strength out on 'em, doos
+the wind."
+
+"Do you think it's going to snow a great deal?"
+
+The old man looked round at the clouds and the mountains; at the
+powdering of snow that had already whitened the heights.
+
+"It'll be more'n a bit!" he said cautiously. "I dessay we'll have to be
+gettin' 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 ter
+happen ter foak as want the doctor?"
+
+"Did you ever know people lost on these hills?" asked the girl, looking
+into the blackness ahead of them. Her shrill, slight voice rang out in
+sharp 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's
+betther 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 coom
+February. 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 ahead
+into 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 was
+my son, gooin afther th' lambs i' the snaw, as found him. He heard
+summat--a voice like a lile child cryin'--an he scratted aboot, an
+dragged 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 a
+figure 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 came
+back, followed by his dog, to the place where she stood, listlessly
+watching.
+
+"Doan't yo go too far on t' fells, missy. It's coomin' on to snaw, an
+it'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 as
+knaws 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 enoof
+you 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 that
+what the lady did was none of his business, and turned back toward one of
+the farms across the bridge. Who was she? She was a strange sort of body
+to be walking by herself up the head of Long Whindale. He supposed she
+came from Burwood--there was no other house where a lady like that could
+be staying. But it was a bit queer anyhow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hester walked on. She turned a craggy corner beyond which she was
+out of sight of any one on the lower stretches of the road. The struggle
+with the wind, the roar of water in her ears, had produced in her a kind
+of trance-like state. She walked mechanically, half deafened, half
+blinded, measuring her force against the wind, conscious every now and
+then of gusts of snow in her face, of the deepening gloom overhead
+climbing up and up the rocky path. But, as in that fatal moment when she
+had paused in the Burwood lane, her mind was not more than vaguely
+conscious of her immediate surroundings. It had become the prey of
+swarming recollections--captured by sudden agonies, unavailing,
+horror-stricken revolts.
+
+At last, out of breath, and almost swooning, she sank down under the
+shelter of a rock, and became in a moment aware that white mists were
+swirling and hurrying all about her, and that only just behind her, and
+just above her, was the path clear. Without knowing it, she had
+climbed and climbed till she was very near the top of the pass. She
+looked down into a witch's cauldron of mist and vapour, already thickened
+with snow, and up into an impenetrable sky, as it seemed, close upon her
+head, from which the white flakes were beginning to fall, steadily and
+fast.
+
+She was a little frightened, but not much. After all, she had only to
+rest and retrace her steps. The watch at her wrist told her it was not
+much past four; and it was February. It would be daylight till half-past
+five, unless the storm put out the daylight. A little rest--just a little
+rest! But she began to feel ill and faint, and so bitterly, bitterly
+cold. The sense of physical illness, conquering the vague overwhelming
+anguish of heart and mind, began to give her back some clearness of
+brain.
+
+Who was she?--why was she there? She was Hester Fox-Wilton--no! Hester
+Meryon, who had escaped from a man who had called himself, for a few days
+at least, her husband; a man whom in scarcely more than a week she had
+come to loathe and fear; whose nature and character had revealed to her
+infamies of which she had never dreamed; who had claimed to be her
+master, and use her as he pleased, and from whom she had escaped by
+night, 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 his
+mocking ones--and the helpless sense of indignity and wrong--and of her
+own utter and criminal folly.
+
+And through her memory there ran in an ugly dance those things, those
+monstrous things, he had said to her about the Scotch woman. It was not
+at all absolutely sure that she, Hester, was his wife. He had shown her
+those letters at St. Germains, of course, to reassure her; and the
+letters were perfectly genuine letters, written by the people they
+professed to be written by. Still Scotch marriage law was a damned
+business--one never knew. He _hoped_ it was all right; but if she did
+hate him as poisonously as she said, if she did really want to get rid of
+him, he might perhaps be able to assist her.
+
+Had he after all tricked and ruined her? Yet as her consciousness framed
+the question in the conventional phrases familiar to her through
+newspapers and novels, she hardly knew what they meant, this child of
+eighteen, who in three short weeks had been thrust through the fire of an
+experience on which she had never had time to reflect. Flattered vanity,
+and excitement, leading up almost from the first day to instinctive and
+fierce revolt--intervals of acquiescence, of wild determination to be
+happy, drowned in fresh rebellions of soul and sense--through these
+alternations the hours had rushed on, culminating in her furtive and
+sudden escape from the man of whom she was now in mad fear--her blind
+flight for "home."
+
+The _commonness_ of her case, the absence of any romantic or poetic
+element in it--it was that which galled, which degraded her in her own
+eyes. Only three weeks since she had felt that entire and arrogant belief
+in herself, in her power over her own life and Philip's, on which she now
+looked back as merely ludicrous!--inexplicable in a girl of the most
+ordinary intelligence. What power had girls over men?--such men as Philip
+Meryon?
+
+Her vanity was bleeding to death--and her life with it. Since the
+revelation of her birth, she seemed to have been blindly struggling to
+regain her own footing in the world--the kind of footing she was
+determined to have. Power and excitement; _not_ to be pitied, but to be
+followed, wooed, adored; not to be forced on the second and third bests
+of the world, but to have the "chief seat," the daintest morsel, the
+_beau rôle_ always--had not this been her instinctive, unvarying demand
+on life? And now? If she were indeed married, she was tied to a man who
+neither loved her, nor could bring her any position in the world; who was
+penniless, and had only entrapped her that he might thereby get some
+money out of her relations; who, living or dead, would be a disgrace to
+her, standing irrevocably between her and any kind of honour or
+importance in society.
+
+And if he had deceived her, and she were not his wife--she would be free
+indeed; but what would her freedom matter to her? What decent man would
+ever 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 could
+have laughed at her own thoughts; and yet at the same time it was so
+ghastly true! No need now to invent a half-sincere chatter about "Fate."
+She felt herself in miserable truth the mere feeble mouse wherewith the
+great 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 followed
+her, the lip that trembled when she said an unkind or wanton thing; she
+heard again the phrases of Uncle Richard's weekly letters, humorous,
+tender phrases, with here and there an occasional note of austerity, or
+warning.
+
+Oh yes--she had done it--she had ruined herself.
+
+She felt the tears running over her cheeks, mingling with the snow as it
+pelted 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 put
+out her own, groping helplessly--and rose to her feet.
+
+But the darkness was now much advanced, and the great snowstorm of the
+night had begun. She could not see the path below her at all, and only
+some twenty yards of its course above her. In the whirling gloom and in
+the fury of the wind, although she turned to descend the path, her
+courage suddenly failed her. She remembered a stream she had crossed
+on a little footbridge with a rail; could she ever see to recross it
+again?--above the greedy tumult of the water? Peering upward it seemed to
+her that she saw something like walls in front of her--perhaps another
+sheepfold? That would give her shelter for a little, and perhaps the snow
+would stop--perhaps it was only a shower. She struggled on, and up, and
+found indeed some fragments of walls, beside the path, one of the many
+abandoned places among the Westmoreland fells that testify to the closer
+settlement of the dales in earlier centuries.
+
+And just as she clambered within them, the clouds sweeping along the
+fell-side lifted and parted for the last time, and she caught a glimpse
+of a wide, featureless world, the desolate top of the fells, void of
+shelter or landmark, save that straight across it, from gloom to gloom,
+there ran a straight white thing--a ghostly and forsaken track. The Roman
+road, no doubt, of which the shepherd had spoken. And a vision sprang
+into 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 to
+perceive 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 of
+the shelter she had found, taking, as she supposed, the path toward the
+valley. But blinded with snow and mist, she lost it almost at once. She
+stumbled on over broken and rocky ground, wishing to descend, yet keeping
+instinctively upward, and hearing on her right from time to time, as
+though from depths of chaos, the wild voices of the valley, the wind
+tearing the cliffs, the rushing of the stream. Soon all was darkness; she
+knew that she had lost herself; and was alone with rock and storm. Still
+she moved; but nerve and strength ebbed; and at last there came a step
+into infinity--a sharp pain--and the flame of consciousness went out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+The February afternoon in Long Whindale, shortened by the first heavy
+snowstorm of the winter, passed quickly into darkness. Down through all
+the windings of the valley the snow showers swept from the north,
+becoming, as the wind dropped a little toward night, a steady continuous
+fall, which in four or five hours had already formed drifts of some depth
+in exposed places.
+
+Toward six o'clock, the small farmer living across the lane from Burwood
+became anxious about some sheep which had been left in a high "intak" on
+the fell. He was a thriftless, procrastinating fellow, and when the
+storm came on about four o'clock had been taking his tea in a warm
+ingle-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 enough
+from the stone walls of the "intak," and that all was well. But a couple
+of hours later the persistence of the snowfall, together with his wife's
+reproaches, goaded him into action. He went out with his son and
+lanterns, intending to ask the old shepherd at the Bridge Farm to help
+them in their expedition to find and fold the sheep.
+
+Meanwhile, in the little sitting-room at Burwood Catherine Elsmere and
+Mary 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's
+needlework often dropped unheeded from her fingers; and the pages of
+Mary's book remained unturned. The postman who brought letters up the
+dale in the morning, and took letters back to Whinborough at night, had
+just passed by in his little cart, hooded and cloaked against the storm,
+and hoping to reach Whinborough before the drifts in the roads had made
+travelling too difficult. Mary had put into his hands a letter addressed
+to the Rev. Richard Meynell, Hotel Richelieu, Paris. And beside her on
+the table lay a couple of sheets of foreign notepaper, covered closely
+with Meynell's not very legible handwriting.
+
+Catharine also had some open letters on her lap. Presently she turned to
+Mary.
+
+"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't
+think Richard will be misunderstood again."
+
+"No. The Bishop says that mysterious as it all is, nobody blames him for
+being absent. They trust him. But this time, it seems, he _did_ write to
+the Bishop--just a few words."
+
+"Yes, I know. I am glad." But as she spoke, the pale severity of the
+girl's look belied the word she used. During the fortnight of Meynell's
+absence, while he and Alice Puttenham in the south of France had been
+following every possible clue in a vain search for Hester, and the Arches
+trial had been necessarily left entirely to the management of Meynell's
+counsel, and to the resources of his co-defendants, Darwen and Chesham,
+Mary had suffered much. To see his own brilliant vindication of himself
+and his followers, in the face of religious England, snuffed out and
+extinguished in a moment by the call of this private duty had been
+hard!--all the more seeing that the catastrophe had been brought about by
+misconduct so wanton, so flagrant, as Hester's. There had sprung up in
+Mary's mind, indeed, a _saeva indignatio,_ not for herself, but for
+Richard, first and foremost, and next for his cause. Dark as she knew
+Meynell's forebodings and beliefs to be, anxiety for Hester must
+sometimes 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 aside
+the 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 be
+temporarily blinded by the rush of wind and snow through the opening.
+
+"A telegram!" she exclaimed, in wonder. "Please come in and wait. Isn't
+it very bad?"
+
+"I hope I'll be able to get back!" laughed the young man who had brought
+it. "The roads are drifting up fast. It was noa good bicycling. I got 'em
+to 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 into
+the sitting-room.
+
+"Mother!--Richard and Miss Puttenham will be here to-night. They have
+heard of Hester."
+
+In stupefaction they read the telegram, which had had been sent from
+Crewe:
+
+"Received news of Hester on arrival Paris yesterday. She has left M. Says
+she has gone to find your mother. Keep her. We arrive to-night
+Whinborough 7.10."
+
+"It is now seven," said Catharine, looking at her watch. "But
+where--where is she?"
+
+Hurriedly they called their little parlour-maid into the room and
+questioned her with closed doors. No--she knew nothing of any visitor.
+Nobody had called; nobody, so far as she knew, had passed by, except the
+ordinary neighbours. Once in the afternoon, indeed, she had thought she
+heard a carriage pass the bottom of the lane, but on looking out from the
+kitchen she had seen nothing of it.
+
+Out of this slender fact, the only further information that could be
+extracted was a note of time. It was, the girl thought, about four
+o'clock when she heard the carriage pass.
+
+"But it couldn't have passed," Catharine objected, "or you would have
+seen it go up the valley."
+
+The girl assented, for the kitchen window commanded the road up to the
+bridge. Then the carriage, if she had really heard it, must have come to
+the 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; and
+thankful for something to do, Catharine and Mary, with minds full of
+conjecture and distress, set about preparing two rooms for their guests.
+
+"Will they ever get here?" Mary murmured to herself, when at last the two
+rooms lay neat and ready, with a warm fire in each, and she could allow
+herself to open the front door again, an inch or two, and look out into
+the weather. Nothing to be seen but the whirling snow-flakes. The horrid
+fancy seized her that Hester had really been in that carriage and had
+turned back at their very door. So that again Richard, arriving weary and
+heart-stricken, would be disappointed. Mary's bitterness grew.
+
+But all that could be done was to listen to every sound without, in the
+hope of catching something else than the roaring of the wind, and to give
+the rein to speculation and dismay.
+
+Catharine sat waiting, in her chair, the tears welling silently. It
+touched her profoundly that Hester, in her sudden despair, should have
+thought of coming to her; though apparently it was a project she had not
+carried 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 and
+hope in the arms of an all-pitying God. Catharine knew much more of
+Meryon's history and antecedents--from Meynell--than did Mary. She was
+convinced that the marriage, if there had been a marriage, had been a
+bogus one, and that the disgrace was irreparable. But in her stern,
+rich nature, now that the culprit had turned from her sin, there was not
+a thought of condemnation; only a yearning pity, an infinite tenderness.
+
+At last toward nine o'clock there were steps on the garden path. Mary
+flew to the door. In the porch there stood the old shepherd from the
+Bridge Farm. His hat, beard, and shoulders were heavy with snow, and his
+face 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 his
+sheep in. Varra careless of him to ha' left it so long!--aw mine wor safe
+i't' fold by fower o'clock. An' I thowt, miss, as I'd mak bold, afore
+goin' back to t' farm, to coom an' ast yo, if t' yoong leddy got safe
+hoam 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' Bridge
+Farm, an' it wor noan weather for a stranger, miss, yo unnerstan', to be
+oot 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 Catharine
+had already sprung to her feet in terror. There they questioned him.
+Yes--they had been expecting a lady. When had he seen her?--the young
+lady he spoke of? What was she like? In what direction had she gone? He
+answered their questions as clearly as he could, his own honest face
+growing 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 tired
+out! 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 small
+dressing-bag of green leather and on it appeared the initials--"H. F.-W."
+
+They looked at each other speechless. The old man hastened to explain
+that on opening the gate which led to the house from the lane his foot
+had stumbled against something on the path. By the light of his lantern
+he had seen it was a bag of some sort, had picked it up and brought it
+in.
+
+"She _was_ in the carriage!" said Mary, under her breath, "and must have
+just pushed this inside the gate before--"
+
+Before she went to her death? Was that what would have to be added? For
+there was horror in both their minds. The mountains at the head of Long
+Whindale run up to no great height, but there are plenty of crags on them
+with a sheer drop of anything from fifty to a hundred feet. Ten or twenty
+feet would be quite enough to disable an exhausted girl. Five hours since
+she 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 and
+voices--vying with the storm. Mary ran into the hall. Two figures
+appeared in the porch in the light of the lamp as she held it up, with a
+third behind them, carrying luggage. In front stood Meynell, and an
+apparently fainting woman, clinging to and supported by his arm.
+
+"Help me with this lady, please!" said Meynell, peremptorily, not
+recognizing who it was holding the light. "This last little climb has
+been 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 all
+his face relaxed in a sudden, irrepressible joy. "But she would come."
+Then, in a lower voice--"Is Hester here?" Mary shook her head, and
+something in her eyes warned him of fresh calamity. He stooped suddenly
+to look at Alice, and perceived that she was quite unconscious. He and
+Mary, between them, raised her and carried her into the sitting-room.
+Then, while Mary ministered to her, Meynell grasped Catharine's
+hand--with the brusque question--
+
+"What has happened?"
+
+Catharine beckoned to old David, the shepherd, and she, with David and
+Meynell, went across, out of hearing, into the tiny dining-room of the
+cottage. Meanwhile the horses and man who had brought the travellers from
+Whinborough had to be put up for the night, for the man would not venture
+the return journey.
+
+Meynell had soon heard what there was to tell. He himself was gray with
+fatigue 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 farmer
+across the lane, his own master, the young tenant of the Bridge Farm, and
+the cowman from the same farm.
+
+"And the Lord knaws I'd goa wi you myself, sir"--said the fine-featured
+old man, a touch of trouble in his blue eyes--"for I feel soomhow as
+though there were a bit o' my fault in it. But we've had a heavy job on
+t' fells awready, an I should be noa good to you."
+
+He went over to the neighbouring farm, to recruit some young men, and
+presently returned with them, the driver, also, from Whinborough, a
+stalwart 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, looking
+down upon the just reviving Alice.
+
+"She's been a plucky woman," he said, with emotion; "but she's about at
+the end of her tether." And in a few brief sentences he described the
+agitated pursuit of the last fortnight; the rapid journeys, prompted now
+by this clue, now by that; the alternate hopes and despairs; with no real
+information of any kind, till Hester's telegram, sent originally to
+Upcote and reforwarded, had reached Meynell in Paris, just as they had
+returned thither for a fresh consultation with the police at
+headquarters.
+
+As the sound of men's feet in the kitchen broke in upon the hurried
+narrative, 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 real
+clue 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 the
+porch, holding the lamp high for the departure of the rescuers. There
+were five men with lanterns, ropes, and poles, laden, besides, with
+blankets, and everything else that Catharine's practical sense could
+suggest. 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 the
+wind showed some signs of abating.
+
+"They'll find it easier goin', past t' bridge, than it would ha' been an
+hour since," said old David to Mary, pitying the white anxiety of her
+face. She thanked him with a smile, and then while he marched ahead, she
+put 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 the
+lights wavered, and presently, standing at the kitchen window, Catharine
+and Mary could watch them dancing up the dale, now visible, now
+vanishing. It must be at least, and at best, two or three hours before
+the party reappeared; it might be much more. They turned from useless
+speculation to give all their thoughts to Alice Puttenham.
+
+Too exhausted to speak or think, she was passive in their hands. She was
+soon in bed, in a deep sleep, and Mary, having induced her mother to lie
+down in the sitting-room, and having made up fires throughout the
+house, sent the servants to bed, and herself began her watch in Alice
+Puttenham's room.
+
+Dreary and long, the night passed away. Once or twice through the waning
+storm Mary heard the deep bell of the little church, tolling the hours;
+once or twice she went hurriedly downstairs thinking there were steps
+in the garden, only to meet her mother in the hall, on the same bootless
+errand. At last, worn with thinking and praying, she fell fitfully
+asleep, and woke to find moonlight shining through the white blind in
+Alice Puttenham's room. She drew aside the blind and saw with a shock of
+surprise that the storm was over; the valley lay pure white under a
+waning 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 to
+seek.
+
+Suddenly--out of the dark bosom of the valley, lights emerged. Mary
+sprang to her feet. Yes! it was they--it was Richard returning.
+
+One look at the bed, where the delicate pinched face still lay high on
+the pillows, drenched in a sleep which was almost a swoon, and Mary stole
+out of the room.
+
+There was time to complete their preparations and renew the fires. When
+Catharine softly unlatched the front door, everything was ready--warm
+blankets, hot milk, hot water bottles. But now they hardly dared
+speak to each other; dread kept them dumb. Nearer and nearer came the
+sound of feet and lowered voices. Soon they could hear the swing of the
+gate 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 say
+in his haggard look before he spoke.
+
+"We found her a long way up the pass. She has had a bad fall--but she is
+alive. 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 the
+Whinborough lad who had brought them from, the station--"will take one of
+his horses and go for the doctor. We shall get him here in a couple of
+hours."
+
+Silently they brought her in, the stalwart, kindly men, they mounted the
+cottage stairs, and on Mary' bed they laid her down.
+
+O crushed and wounded youth! The face, drawn and fixed in pain, was
+marble-cold and marble-white; the delicate mire-stained hands hung
+helpless. Masses of drenched hair fell about the neck and bosom; and
+there was a wound on the temple which had been bandaged, but was now
+bleeding afresh. Catharine bent over her in an anguish, feeling for pulse
+and heart. Meynell, whispering, pointed out that the right leg was broken
+below the knee. He himself had put it in some rough splints, made out of
+the poles the shepherds were carrying.
+
+Both Catharine and Mary had ambulance training, and, helped by their two
+maids, they did all they could. They cut away the soaked clothes. They
+applied warmth in every possible form; they got down some spoonfuls of
+warm milk and brandy, dreading always to hear the first sounds of
+consciousness 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 doctor
+will be coming directly."
+
+His tone was tender as a woman's. His ghostly face, disfigured by
+exhaustion, showed him absorbed in pity. Mary, standing near, longed to
+kneel down by him, and weep; but there was an austere sense that not even
+she 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, watching
+her, sometimes whispering to her.
+
+At last she said, "I couldn't face you all. I'm dying." She moved her
+right hand restlessly. "Give me something for this pain--I--I can't stand
+it."
+
+"Dear Hester--can you bear it a little longer? We will do all we can. We
+have 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 very
+unhappy?"
+
+"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 of
+naughtiness 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 she
+understood his silence, for she feebly moved her uninjured hand toward
+him; 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 was
+borne in upon him that he _must_ tell her--if she was to die; that in the
+last strait, Alice's arms must be about her. But the doctor must decide.
+
+Presently, she was a little easier. The warm stimulant dulled the
+consciousness which came in gusts.
+
+Once or twice, as she recognized the faces near her, there was a touch of
+life, 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 into
+unconsciousness Meynell reported something of the search. They had found
+her a long distance from the path, at the foot of a steep and rocky
+scree, some twenty or thirty feet high, down which she must have slipped
+headlong. There she had lain for some eight hours in the storm before
+they found her. She neither moved nor spoke when they discovered her, nor
+had 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 at
+first not without hope. She _might_ live; if there were no internal
+injuries of importance. The next few hours would show. He sent his motor
+back to Whinborough Cottage Hospital for a couple of nurses, and
+prepared, himself, to stay the greater part of the day. He had just gone
+downstairs 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 to
+see my mother."
+
+Catharine stooped toward her, in an agitation she found it difficult to
+conceal.
+
+"Dear Hester!--we are sending a telegram as soon as the post-office is
+open to Lady Fox-Wilton."
+
+Hester moved her hand impatiently.
+
+"She's not my mother, and I'm glad. Where is--_my mother_?" She laid a
+strange, deep emphasis on the word, opening her eyes wide and
+threateningly. Catharine understood at once that, in some undiscovered
+way, she knew what they had all been striving to keep from her. It was no
+time 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, who
+gave a reluctant consent, lest more harm should come of refusing the
+interview than of granting it. And as Catharine ran up again to Mary's
+room she had time to reflect, with self-reproach, on the strange
+completeness with which she at any rate had forgotten that frail
+ineffectual woman asleep in Mary's room from the moment of Hester's
+arrival till now.
+
+But Mary had not forgotten her. When Catharine opened the door, it was to
+see a thin, phantom-like figure, standing fully dressed, and leaning on
+Mary's arm. Catharine went up to her with tears, and kissed her, holding
+her hands close.
+
+"Hester asks for you--for her mother--her real mother. She knows."
+
+"_She knows_?" Alice stood paralyzed a moment, gazing at Catharine. Then
+the colour rushed back into her face. "I am coming--I am coming--at
+once," 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--would
+stand by the door--I would call in a moment--if--"
+
+They agreed. She went with tottering steps across the landing. On the
+threshold, Catharine paused; Mary remained a little behind. Alice went in
+and shut the door.
+
+The blinds in Hester's room were up, and the snow-covered fells rising
+steeply above the house filled it with a wintry, reflected light; a
+dreary light, that a large fire could not dispel. On the white bed
+lay Hester, breathing quickly and shallowly; bright colour now in
+each sunken cheek. The doctor himself had cut off a great part of her
+hair--her glorious hair. The rest fell now in damp golden curls about her
+slender neck, beneath the cap-like bandage which hid the forehead and
+temples 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 restrain
+the 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 as
+scarcely to be heard--and then again--"_Mother_!"
+
+Alice sank down beside her with a sob, and without a word they gazed into
+each other's eyes. Slowly Hester's filled with tears. But Alice's were
+dry. In her face there was as much ecstasy as anguish. It was the first
+look that Hester's _soul_ had ever given her. All the past was in it; and
+that 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 that
+made me go with him."
+
+But she did not say it. And while Alice's mind, rushing miserably over
+the past, was trying to piece together some image of what had happened,
+Hester began to talk intermittently about the preceding weeks. Alice
+tried 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 her
+own responsibility.
+
+"I needn't have gone--but I would go. There was a devil in me--that
+wanted to know. Now I know--too much. I'm glad it's over. This life isn't
+worth while--not for me."
+
+So, from these lips of eighteen, came the voice of the world's old
+despairs!
+
+Presently she asked peremptorily for Meynell, and he came to her.
+
+"Uncle Richard, I want to be sure"--she spoke strongly and in her natural
+voice--"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. We
+signed registers and things. Then--when we quarrelled--Philip said--he
+wasn't certain about that woman--in Scotland. You might be right. Tell me
+the truth, please. Am I--his wife?"
+
+And as the words dropped faintly, the anxiety in her beautiful
+death-stricken eyes was strange and startling to see. Through all her
+recklessness, her defiance of authority and custom, could be seen at last
+the strength of inherited, implanted things; the instinct of a race, a
+family, 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. My
+inquiries all broke down. There was no Scotch marriage."
+
+Hester said nothing for a little; but the look of relief was clear. Alice
+on the farther side of the bed dropped her face in her hands. Was it not
+only forty-eight hours since, in Paris, Meynell had told her that he had
+received conclusive evidence of the Scotch marriage, and that Hester was
+merely Philip's victim, not his wife? Passionately her heart thanked him
+for the falsehood. She saw clearly that Hester's mortal wounds were not
+all bodily. She was dying partly of self-contempt, self-judgment.
+Meynell's strong words--his "noble lie"--had lifted, as it were, a
+fraction of the moral weight that was destroying her; had made a space--a
+freedom, in which the spirit could move.
+
+So much Alice saw; blind meanwhile to the tragic irony of this piteous
+stress 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 the
+nurses came at midday, however, the pulse had already begun to fail. They
+could do nothing; and though within call, they left her mainly to those
+who loved her.
+
+In the early afternoon she asked suddenly for the Communion, and Meynell
+administered it. The three women who were watching her received it with
+her. In Catharine's mind, as Meynell's hands brought her the sacred bread
+and wine, all thought of religious difference between herself and him had
+vanished, 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 was
+only 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 more
+strength--"beyond? How strange that--I shall know before you! Uncle
+Richard--I'm--I'm sorry!"
+
+At that the difficult tears blinded him, and he could not reply. But she
+was beyond tears, concentrating all the last effort of the mind on the
+sheer maintenance of life. Presently she added:
+
+"I don't hate--even Philip now. I--I forget him. Mother!" And again she
+clung 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. But
+now 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 poor
+mother!"
+
+So the hours wore on. Science was clever and merciful and eased her pain.
+Love encompassed her, and when the wintry light failed, her faintly
+beating 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 that
+trance of silence in which they had all been standing round the dead. He
+yielded to her; he was ready to see the doctor and to submit to the
+absolute rest enjoined. But already there was something in his aspect
+which 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 her
+love was close upon her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+On the day following Hester's death an inquest was held in the
+dining-room at Burwood. Meynell and old David, the shepherd, stood out
+chief 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 Miss
+Hester 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 am
+told, owing to illness--were her guardians?"
+
+Meynell assented. He stood to the right of the Coroner, leaning heavily
+on the chair before him. The doctor who had been called in to Hester sat
+beside him, and wondered professionally whether the witness would get
+through.
+
+"I understand also," the Coroner resumed, "that Miss Fox-Wilton had left
+the 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, in
+company I believe with Miss Fox-Wilton's aunt, Miss Alice Puttenham. Miss
+Puttenham, 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 precarious
+state, in consequence of grief and shock, and I should greatly fear the
+results 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, of
+Hester's disappearance from the family with whom she was boarding, of the
+anxiety of her relations, and the search that he and Miss Puttenham had
+made.
+
+His conscience was often troubled. Vaguely, his mind was pronouncing
+itself all the while--"It is time now the truth were known. It is better
+it should be known." Hester's death had changed the whole situation. But
+he could himself take no step whatever toward disclosure. And he knew
+that it was doubtful whether he should or could have advised Alice to
+take any.
+
+The inquiry went on, the Coroner avoiding the subject of Hester's French
+escapade as much as possible. After all there need be--there was--no
+question of suicide; only some explanation had to be suggested of the
+dressing-bag left within the garden gate, and of the girl's reckless
+climb into the fells, against old David's advice, on such an afternoon.
+
+Presently, in the midst of David's evidence, describing his meeting with
+Hester by the bridge, the handle of the dining-room door turned. The door
+opened a little way and then shut again. Another minute or two passed,
+and then the door opened again timidly as though some one were hesitating
+outside. The Coroner annoyed, beckoned to a constable standing behind the
+witnesses. But before he could reach it, a lady had slowly pushed it
+open, and entered the room.
+
+It was Alice Puttenham.
+
+The Coroner looked up, and the doctor rose in astonishment. Alice
+advanced 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 beyond
+all touch of beauty--and the childish overhanging lip quivered as she
+tried to speak; but no words came.
+
+"Miss Puttenham, I presume?" said the Coroner. "We were told, madam, that
+you 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 the
+effort, she should give her evidence as soon as possible, and should give
+it sitting."
+
+A murmur of assent ran round the table. Over the weather-beaten
+Westmoreland faces had passed a sudden wave of animation.
+
+Alice took her seat, and the oath. Meynell sitting opposite to her
+covered his face with his hands. He foresaw what she was about to do, and
+his heart went out to her.
+
+Everybody at the table bent forward to listen. The two shorthand writers
+lifted 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 to
+hear anything she might have to say.
+
+Alice fixed her eyes on the old man, as though she would thereby shut out
+all 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 the
+daughter of the late Sir Ralph and Lady Fox-Wilton?"
+
+"She was their adopted daughter. Her father was Mr. Neville Flood, and
+I--am her mother. Mr. Flood, of Sandford Abbey, died nearly twenty years
+ago. He and I were never married. My sister and brother-in-law adopted
+the child. She passed always as theirs, and when Sir Ralph died, he
+appointed--Mr. Meynell--and my sister her guardians. Mr. Meynell
+has 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 uncovered
+his eyes and tried to meet hers, so as to give her encouragement.
+
+She resumed--
+
+"Last August the nurse who attended me--in my confinement--came
+home to Upcote. She made a statement to a gentleman there--a false
+statement--and then she died. I wished then to make the truth public--but
+Mr. Meynell--as Hester's guardian--and for her sake, as well as mine--did
+not wish it. She knew nothing--then; and he was afraid of its effect upon
+her. I followed his advice, and took her abroad, in order to protect her
+from a bad man who was pursuing her. We did all we could--but we were not
+able to protect her. They were married without my knowing--and she went
+away with him. Then he--this man--told her--or perhaps he had done it
+before, I don't know--who she was. I can only guess how he knew; but he
+is Mr. Flood's nephew. My poor child soon found out what kind of man he
+was. She tried to escape from him. And because Mrs. Elsmere had been
+always 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 away
+again--in despair--when she actually got here. But her death was a pure
+accident--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 she
+was dying--she told me she knew--I was her mother. And now--that she is
+dead--"
+
+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 mine
+now--my child--forever--only mine!"
+
+She broke off incoherently, bowing her head upon her hands, her slight
+shoulders 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. Meynell
+whispered to her.
+
+The Coroner spoke, drawing his handkerchief hastily across his eyes.
+
+"The Court is very grateful to you, Miss Puttenham, for this frank and
+brave statement. We tender you our best thanks. There is no need for us
+to detain you longer."
+
+She rose, and Meynell led her from the room. Outside was a nurse to whom
+he 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 a
+fitful and frosty sunshine. The rocks and screes with their steep beds of
+withered heather made dark scrawls and scratches on the white; the smoke
+from the farmhouses rose bluish against the snowy wall of fell; and the
+river, amid the silence of the muffled roads and paths, seemed the only
+audible thing in the valley.
+
+In the tiny churchyard the new-made grave had been filled in with frozen
+earth, and on the sods lay flowers piled there by Rose Flaxman's kind and
+busy hands. She and Hugh had arrived from the south that morning.
+
+Another visitor had come from the south, also to lay flowers on that
+wintry grave. Stephen Barron's dumb pain was bitter to see. The silence
+of spiritual and physical exhaustion in which Meynell had been wrapped
+since the morning of the inquest was first penetrated and broken up by
+the sight of Stephen's anguish. And in the attempt to comfort the
+younger, the elder man laid hold on some returning power for himself.
+
+But he had been hardly hit; and the depth of the wound showed itself
+strangely--in a kind of fear of love itself, a fear of Mary! Meynell's
+attitude toward her during these days was almost one of shrinking. The
+atmosphere between them was electrical; charged with things unspoken, and
+a conflict that must be faced.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The day after Hester's funeral the newspapers were full of the sentence
+delivered on the preceding day, in the Arches Court, on Meynell and his
+co-defendants. A telegram from Darwen the evening before had conveyed
+the news to Meynell himself.
+
+The sentence of deprivation _ab officio et beneficio_ in the Church of
+England, on the ground of heretical opinion and unauthorized services,
+had been expressed by the Dean of Arches in a tone and phraseology of
+considerable vehemence. According to him the proceedings of the
+Modernists were "as contrary to morality as to law," and he marvelled how
+"honest men" could consent to occupy the position of Meynell and his
+friends.
+
+Notice of appeal to the Privy Council was at once given by the Modernist
+counsel, 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 Rose
+and Mary were sitting. Rose, reading his face, disappeared, and he put
+the letter into Mary's hands.
+
+It was addressed to the Bishop of Dunchester. The great gathering in
+Dunchester Cathedral, after several postponements to match the delays in
+the 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 of
+its history; the period of open revolt, of hot and ardent conflict.
+
+The letter which Mary was invited to read was short. It simply asked that
+the writer should be relieved from a task he felt he could not adequately
+carry out. He desired to lay it down, not for his own sake, but for the
+sake of the cause. "I am not the man, and this is not my job. This
+conviction has been borne in upon me during the last few weeks with an
+amazing clearness. I will only say that it seems to represent a
+command--a prohibition--laid upon me, which I cannot ignore. There are of
+course tragic happenings and circumstances connected with it, my dear
+lord, on which I will not dwell. The effect of them at present on my mind
+is that I wish to retire from a public and prominent part in our great
+Movement; at any rate for a time. I shall carry through the Privy Council
+appeal; but except for that intend to refuse all public appearance. When
+the sentence is confirmed, as of course it will be, it will be best for
+me to confine myself to thinking and writing in solitude and behind the
+scenes. 'Those also serve who only stand and wait.' The quotation is
+hackneyed, but it must serve. Through thought and self-proving, I believe
+that in the end I shall help you best. I am not the fighter I thought
+I was; the fighter that I ought to be to keep the position that has been
+so generously given me. Forgive me for a while if I go into the
+wilderness--a rather absurd phrase, however, as you will agree, when
+I tell you that I am soon to marry a woman whom I love with my whole
+heart. But it applies to my connection with the Modernist Movement, and
+to my position as a leader. My old friends and colleagues--many of them
+at least--will, I fear, blame the step I am taking. It will seem to them
+a mere piece of flinching and cowardice. But each man's soul is in his
+own keeping; and he alone can judge his own powers."
+
+The letter then became a quiet discussion of the best man to be chosen in
+the writer's stead, and passed on into a review of the general situation
+created by the sentence of the Court of Arches.
+
+But of these later pages of the letter Mary realized nothing. She sat
+with it in her hands, after she had read the passage which has been
+quoted, 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 rocky
+slope, 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 her
+again with a note of humility, of sad appeal, that struck most poignantly
+on the woman's heart--"but I cannot resist it. What use can I be to any
+human being as guide, or prophet, or counsellor--if I was so little use
+to her? Is there not a kind of hypocrisy--a dismal hypocrisy--in my
+claim to teach--or inspire--great multitudes of people--when this one
+child--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 for
+the public, the impersonal note. She set against the tragic appeal of the
+dead the equally tragic appeal of the living. She had in her mind the
+memory of that London church, with the strained upturned faces, the
+"hungry sheep"--girls among them, perhaps, in peril like Hester, men
+assailed by the same vile impulses that had made a brute of Philip
+Meryon. During the preceding months Mary's whole personality had
+developed with great rapidity, after a somewhat taciturn and slowly
+ripening youth. The need, enforced upon her by love itself, of asserting
+herself even against the mother she adored; the shadow of Meynell's cloud
+upon her, and her suffering under it, during the weeks of slander; and
+now this rending tragedy at her doors--had tempered anew the naturally
+high heart, and firm will. At this critical moment, she saved Meynell
+from a fatal step by the capacity she showed of loving his cause, only
+next to himself. And, indeed, Meynell was made wholesomely doubtful once
+or twice whether it were not in truth his cause she loved in him. For
+the sweet breakdowns of love which were always at her lips she banished
+by a mighty effort, till she should have won or lost. Thus throughout she
+showed herself her mother's daughter--with her father's thoughts.
+
+It was long, however, before she succeeded in making any real impression
+upon him. All she could obtain at first was delay, and that Catharine
+should be informed.
+
+As soon as that had been done, the position became once more curiously
+complex. Here was a woman to whom the whole Modernist Movement was
+anathema, driven finally into argument for the purpose of compelling
+the Modernist leader, the contriver and general of Modernist victory, to
+remain 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 mere
+feeling, however sharp, however legitimate. You had undertaken the
+thing, and it must, at all costs, be carried through. That was the
+dominant habit of her mind; and there were persons connected with her on
+whom the rigidity of it had at times worked harshly.
+
+On this occasion it was no doubt interfered with--(the Spirit of Comedy
+would have found a certain high satisfaction in the dilemma)--by the fact
+that Meynell's persistence in the course he had entered upon must be,
+in her eyes, and _sub specie religionis_, a persistence in heresy and
+unbelief. What decided it ultimately, however, was that she was not only
+an orthodox believer, but a person of great common sense--and Mary's
+mother.
+
+Her natural argument was that after the tragic events which had occurred,
+and the public reports of them which had appeared, Meynell's abrupt
+withdrawal from public life would once more unsettle and confuse the
+public mind. If there had been any change in his opinions--
+
+"Oh! do not imagine"--she turned a suddenly glowing face upon him--"I
+should be trying to dissuade you, if that were your reason. No!--it is
+for personal and private reasons you shrink from the responsibility
+of leadership. And that being so, what must the world say--the ignorant
+world 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 dear
+friend--I am not thinking of you at all. I leave you out of count; I am
+thinking of Alice--and--Mary!"
+
+Catharine unconsciously straightened herself, a touch of something
+resentful--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 has
+happened gone to soften people's hearts? to make them repent doubly of
+their scandal, and their false witness? Every one knows the truth
+now--every one who cares; and every one understands. But now--after the
+effort poor Alice has made--after all that she and you have suffered--you
+insist on turning fresh doubt and suspicion on yourself, your motives,
+your past history. Can't you see how people may gossip about it--how they
+may interpret it? You have no right to do it, my dear Richard!--no right
+whatever. Your 'good report' belongs not only to yourself--but--to Mary!"
+
+Catharine's breath had quickened; her hand shook upon her knee. Meynell
+rose from his seat, paced the room and came back to her.
+
+"I have tried to explain to Mary"--he said, desperately--"that I should
+feel myself a hypocrite and pretender in playing the part of a spiritual
+leader--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, sweet
+timidity--"that you felt you had tried to do for Hester what only
+grace--what only a living Redeemer--could do for her--"
+
+She broke off. But at last, as Meynell, her junior by fifteen years--her
+son almost--looked down into her face--her frail, aging, illumined
+face--there was something in the passion of her faith which challenged
+and roused his own; which for the moment, at any rate, and for the first
+time since the crisis had arisen revived in him the "fighter" he had
+tried to shed.
+
+"The fault was not in the thing preached," he said, with a groan; "or so
+it seems to me--but in the preacher. The preacher--was unequal to the
+message."
+
+Catharine was silent. And after a little more pacing he said in a more
+ordinary 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 ever
+known--what you and I knew?"
+
+His eyes, full of trouble, propitiated her. He took her hand and kissed
+it.
+
+"Bear with me, dear mother! I don't see my way, but Mary--is to me--my
+life. At any rate, I won't do in a hurry what you disapprove."
+
+Thus a little further delay was gained. The struggle lasted indeed
+another couple of days, and the aspect of both Meynell and Mary showed
+deep marks of it by the end. Throughout it Mary made little or no appeal
+to the mere womanly arts. And perhaps it was the repression of them that
+cost her most.
+
+On the third day of discussion, while the letter still lay unposted in
+Meynell's writing-case, he went wandering by himself up the valley. The
+weather was soft again, and breathing spring. The streams ran free; the
+buds were swelling on the sycamores; and except on the topmost crags the
+snow had disappeared from the fells. Harsh and austere the valley was
+still; the winter's grip would be slow to yield; but the turn of the year
+had come.
+
+That morning a rush of correspondence forwarded from Upcote had brought
+matters to a crisis. On the days immediately following the publication of
+the evidence given at the inquest on Hester the outside world had made no
+sign. All England knew now why Richard Meynell had disappeared from the
+Arches Trial, only to become again the prey of an enormous publicity, as
+one 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 few
+days the England interested in Richard Meynell simply held its breath
+and let him be.
+
+But he belonged to the public; and after just the brief respite that
+decency and sympathy imposed, the public fell upon him. The Arches
+verdict had been given; the appeal to the Privy Council had been lodged.
+With every month of the struggle indeed, as the Modernist attack had
+grown more determined, and its support more widespread, so the orthodox
+defence had gathered force and vehemence. Yet through the length and
+breadth of the country the Modernist petition to Parliament was now
+kindling such a fire as no resistance could put out. Debate in the House
+of Commons on the Modernist proposals for Church Reform would begin after
+Easter. Already every member of the House was being bombarded from both
+sides by his constituents. Such a heat of religious feeling, such a
+passion of religious hope and fear, had not been seen in England for
+generations.
+
+And meanwhile Meynell, whose action had first released the great forces
+now at work, who as a leader was now doubly revered, doubly honoured by
+those who clamoured to be led by him, still felt himself utterly
+unable to face the struggle. Heart and brain were the prey of a deadly
+discouragement; the will could make no effort; his confidence in himself
+was lamed and helpless. Not even the growing strength and intensity of
+his 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 he
+walked, some words of Newman possessed him; breathed into his ear through
+all the wind and water voices of the valley:
+
+_Thou_ to wax fierce
+In the cause of the Lord
+To threat and to pierce
+With the heavenly sword!
+Anger and Zeal
+And the Joy of the brave
+Who bade _thee_ to feel--
+
+Dejectedly, he made his way along the fatal path; he found the ruin where
+Hester had sheltered; he gradually identified the route which the rescue
+party had taken along the side of the fell; and the precipitous scree
+where they had found her. The freshly disturbed earth and stones still
+showed plainly where she had fallen, and where he and the shepherds had
+stood, 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 load
+of responsibility crushed him; and he could not resign himself to such a
+fate for such a human being. Before him, on the chill background of the
+tells, 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 disowned
+of God--prophesy to his brethren?....
+
+Thus there descended upon him the darkest hour of his history. It was
+simply a struggle for existence on the part of all those powers of the
+soul that make for action, against the forces that make for death and
+inertia.
+
+It lasted long; and it ended in the slow and difficult triumph, the final
+ascendency of the "Yeas" of Life over the "Nays," which in truth his
+character secured. He won the difficult fight not as a philosopher, but
+as a Christian; impelled, chastened, brought into line again, by purely
+Christian memories and Christian ideas. The thought of Christ healed
+him--gradually gave him courage to bear an agony of self-criticism,
+self-reproach, that was none the less overwhelming because his calmer
+mind, looking on, knew it to be irrational. There was no prayer to
+Christ, no "Christe eleison" on his rips. But there was a solemn kneeling
+by the Cross; a solemn opening of the mind to the cleansing and
+strengthening forces that flow from that life and death which are
+Christendom's central possession; the symbol through which, now
+understood in this way, now in that, the Eternal speaks to the Christian
+soul.
+
+So, amid "the cheerful silence of the fells," a good man, heavily, took
+back his task. From this wreck of affection, this ruin of hope, he must
+go forth to preach love and hope to other men; from the depths of his
+grief 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 personal
+complacency; smarting under the conviction of personal weakness and
+defeat; tormented still, as he would ever be, by all the "might have
+beens" of Hester's story, he was conscious of the "supersensual
+moment," the inrush of Divine strength, which at some time or other
+rewards 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 planting
+snowdrops. He helped her, and then they descended to the main road
+together. Looking at his face, she hardly dared, close as his hand clung
+to hers, to break the silence.
+
+It was dusk, and there was no one in sight. In the shelter of a group of
+trees, 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 should
+have 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 ruling
+her beloved was odious. Yet as they walked on hand in hand, the modern
+in Mary prevailed, and she must needs accept the equal rights of a love
+which is also life's supreme friendship.
+
+A few more days Meynell spent in the quiet of the valley, recovering, as
+best he could, and through a struggle constantly renewed, some normal
+steadiness of mood and nerve; dealing with an immense correspondence;
+and writing the Dunchester sermon; while Stephen Barron, who had already
+resigned his own living, was looking after the Upcote Church and parish.
+Meanwhile Alice Puttenham lay upstairs in one of the little white rooms
+of 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 "this
+shocking business which had disgraced us all." But Catharine at Alice's
+entreaty had merely appealed to the indisputable fact that the tiny house
+was already more than full. There was no danger, and they had a good
+trained nurse.
+
+Once or twice it was, in these days, that again a few passing terrors ran
+through Mary's mind, on the subject of her mother. The fragility which
+had struck Meynell's unaccustomed eye when he first arrived in the valley
+forced itself now at times, though only at times, on her reluctant sense.
+There were nights when, without any definite reason, she could not sleep
+for anxiety. And then again the shadow entirely passed away. Catharine
+laughed at her; and when the moment came for Mary to follow Meynell to
+the Dunchester meeting, it was impossible even for her anxious love to
+persuade itself that there was good reason for her to stay away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before Meynell departed southward there was a long conversation between
+him 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's
+birth and of her tragic death. The beauty of Meynell's relation to the
+mother and child was plainly to be seen through a very reticent
+narrative; and to the tale of those hours in Long Whindale no man of
+heart like the little Bishop could have listened unmoved. At the end, the
+two men clasped hands in silence; and the Bishop looked wistfully at the
+priest that he and the diocese were so soon to lose.
+
+For the rest, as before, they met as equals, curiously congenial to each
+other, in spite of the battle in front. The Bishop's certainty of victory
+was once more emphatically shown by the friendly ease with which he still
+received his rebellious incumbent. Any agreeable outsider of whatever
+creed--Renan or Loisy or Tyrrell--might have been thus welcomed at the
+Palace. It was true that till the appeal was decided Meynell remained
+formally Rector of Upcote Minor. The church and the parish were still in
+his hands; and the Bishop pointedly made no reference to either. But a
+very few weeks now would see Meynell's successor installed, and the
+parish reduced to order.
+
+Such at least was the Bishop's confidence, and in the position in which
+he found himself--with seven Modernist evictions pending in his diocese,
+and many more than seven recalcitrant parishes to deal with, he was not
+the man to make needless friction.
+
+In Meynell's view, indeed, the Bishop's confidence was excessive; and the
+triumph of the orthodox majority in the Church, if indeed it were to
+triumph, was neither so near, nor likely to be so complete, as the Bishop
+believed. He had not yet been able to resume all the threads of
+leadership, but he was clear that there had been no ebbing whatever of
+the Modernist tide. On the contrary, it seemed to him that the function
+at Dunchester might yet ring through England, and startle even such
+an 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 on
+Sunday; and the loyalty of the parish to their Rector, their answer
+to the Arches judgment, was shown in the passion, the loving intelligence
+with which every portion of the beautiful Modernist service was followed
+by an audience of working men and women gathered both from Upcote
+itself and from the villages round, who knew very well--and gloried in
+the fact--that from their midst had started the flame now running through
+the country. Many of them had been trained by Methodism, and were now
+returning to the Church that Wesley had been so loath to leave. "The
+Rector's changed summat," said men to each other, puzzled by that
+aspect--that unconscious aspect--of spiritual dignity that falls like
+a robe of honour, as life goes on, about the Knights of the Spirit. But
+they knew, at least, from their newspapers, how and when that beautiful
+girl who had grown up from a child in their midst had perished; they
+remembered the winter months of calumny and persecution; and their rough,
+kind hearts went out to the man who was so soon, against their will and
+their protest, to be driven out from the church where for twenty years he
+had preached to his people a Christ they could follow, and a God they
+could adore.
+
+The week passed, and the Dunchester meeting was at hand. Meynell was to
+spend the night before the great service with the old Bishop, against
+whom--together with the whole of his Chapter--Privy Council action
+was now pending. Mary was to be the guest of one of the Canons in the
+famous Close.
+
+Meynell arrived to find the beautiful old town in commotion. As a protest
+against the Modernist demonstration, all the students from a famous
+Theological College in a neighbouring diocese under a High Church bishop
+had 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 be
+appointed to a Canonry of St. Paul's. The streets were full of rival
+crowds, jostling each other. Three hundred Modernist clergy were staying
+in or near the town; the old Cathedral city stared at them amazed; and
+from all parts had come, besides, the lay followers of the new Movement
+thronging to a day which represented for them the first fruits of a
+harvest, whereof not they perhaps but their children would see the full
+reaping.
+
+On the evening before the function Meynell went into the Cathedral with
+Mary just as the lengthening March afternoon was beginning to wane. They
+stepped through the western doors set open to the breeze and the sunshine
+into a building all opal and ebony, faintly flooded with rose from the
+sky without; a building of infinite height and majesty, where clustered
+columns of black marble, incredibly light, upheld the richness of the
+bossed roof, where every wall was broidered history, where every step was
+on "the ruined sides of Kings," and the gathered fragments of ancient
+glass, jewels themselves, let through a jewelled light upon the creamy
+stone.
+
+For the first time, since Hester's death, Meynell's sad face broke into
+joy. The glorious church appeared to him as the visible attestation of
+the 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 the
+nave, conscious of a strange tumult in the pulse, as though the great
+building with its immemorial history were half lending itself to, half
+resisting, the emotion that filled them. In the choir a practice was
+going on. Some thirty young clergy were going through the responses and
+canticles of the new service-book, with an elder man, also in clerical
+dress, directing them. At the entrance of the southern choir aisle stood
+the senior verger of the Cathedral in his black gown--open-mouthed and
+motionless, listening to the strange sounds.
+
+Meynell and Mary knelt for a moment of impassioned prayer, and then sat
+down to listen. Through the fast darkening church, chanted by half the
+choir, there stole those words of noblest poetry:
+
+"_A new commandment_--_a new commandment--I give unto you_ ..." To be
+answered by the voices on the other side--"_That ye love--ye love one
+another_!"
+
+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 the
+springing 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 the
+evening light, "and we two--and those men singing there--shall be
+outcasts and wanderers, perhaps for a time, perhaps while we live.
+But to-day--and to-morrow--we are still children in the house of our
+fathers--sons, not slaves!--speaking the free speech of our own day in
+these 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 walked
+silently through the Close, toward the Palace, pursued by the rise and
+fall of the music from within.
+
+The great service was over, with its bold adaptation of the religious
+language of the past, the language which is wrought into the being of
+Christendom, to the needs and the knowledge of the present. And now
+Meynell had risen, and was speaking to that thronged nave, crowded
+by men and women of many types and many distinctions, with that mingling
+of passion and simplicity which underlies success in all the poetic
+arts, and, first and foremost, the art of religious oratory. The
+sermon was to be known in after years by the name of "The Two
+Christianities"--and became one of the chief landmarks, or, rather,
+rallying cries of the Modernist cause. Only some fragments of it can be
+suggested here; one passage, above all, that Mary's brooding memory will
+keep close and warm to her life's end:
+
+"...Why are we here, my friends? For what purpose is this great
+demonstration, this moving rite in, which we have joined this day?
+One-sixth at least of this congregation stands here under a sentence of
+ecclesiastical death. A few weeks perhaps, and this mighty church will
+know its white-haired Bishop no more. Bishop and Chapter will have been
+driven out; and we, the rank and file, whose only desire is to cling to
+the Church in which we were baptized and bred, will find ourselves exiles
+and 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 in
+the National Church, till force drive us out. Why? Because there is
+something infinitely greater at stake than any reproach that can be
+hurled at us on the ground of broken pledges--pledges made too early,
+given in ignorance and good faith, and broken now, solemnly, in the face
+of God and this people--for a greater good. What does our personal
+consistency--which, mind you, is a very different thing from personal
+honesty!--matter? We are as sensitive as any man who attacks us on the
+point of personal honour. But we are constrained of God; we bear in our
+hands the cause of our brethren, the cause of half the nation; and we can
+no other. Ask yourselves what we have to gain by it. Nay! With expulsion
+and exile in sight--with years perhaps of the wilderness before us--we
+stand here for the liberties of Christ's Church!--its liberties of growth
+and life....
+
+"My friends, what is the life either of intellect or spirit but the
+response of man to the communication of God? Age by age, man's
+consciousness cuts deeper into the vast mystery that surrounds us;
+absorbs, transmutes, translates ever more of truth, into conceptions he
+can 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 this
+ever-living and growing advance, so religion--man's ideas of God and his
+own soul.
+
+"Within the last hundred years man's knowledge of the physical world has
+broadened beyond the utmost dreams of our fathers. But of far greater
+importance to man is his knowledge of himself. There, too, the century
+of which we are now the heirs has lifted the veil--for us first among
+living men--from secrets hitherto unknown. HISTORY has come into being.
+
+"What is history? Simply the power--depending upon a thousand laborious
+processes--of constructing a magic lens within the mind which allows us
+to look deep into the past, to see its life and colour and movement
+again, as no generation but our own has yet been able to see it. We hold
+our breath sometimes, as for a brief moment perhaps we catch its very
+gesture, its very habit as it lived, the very tone of its voices. It has
+been a new and marvellous gift of our God to us; and it has transformed
+or is transforming Christianity.
+
+"Like science, this new discipline of the human mind is divine and
+authoritative. It lessens the distance between our human thought and the
+thought of God, because, in the familiar phrase, it enables us to "think,
+in some sort, His thoughts after Him." Like science it marches slowly on
+its way; through many mistakes; through hypothesis and rectification;
+through daring vision and laborious proof; to an ever-broadening
+certainty. History has taken hold of the Christian tradition. History has
+worked upon it with an amazing tenderness, and patience, and reverence.
+And at the end of a hundred years what do we see?--that half of
+Christendom, at least, which we in this church represent?
+
+"We see a Christ stripped of Jewish legend, and Greek speculation, and
+medieval scholasticism; moving simply and divinely among the ways of His
+Jewish world, a man among men. We can watch, dimly indeed by comparison
+with our living scrutiny of living men, but still more clearly than any
+generation of Christendom since the disappearance of the first has been
+able to watch, the rise of His thoughts, the nature of His environment,
+the sequence of His acts, the original significance, the immediate
+interpretation, the subsequent influence of His death. We know much more
+of 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 with
+its working through two thousand years upon the world.
+
+"_There,_ for the Modernist, lies revelation!--in the unfolding of the
+Christian idea, through the successive stages of human thought and
+imagination, it has traversed, down to the burst of revelation in the
+present day. Yet we are only now at the beginning of an immense
+development. The content of the Christian idea of love--love,
+self-renouncing, self-fulfilling--is infinite, inexhaustible, like that
+of beauty, or of truth. Why? At this moment, I am only concerned to give
+you the Christian answer, which is the answer of a reasonable faith.
+Because, like the streams springing forever from 'the pure founts of
+Cephisus,' to nourish the swelling plains below, these governing ideas of
+our life--tested by life, confirmed by life--have their source in the
+very being of God, sharers in His Eternity, His Ever-Fruitfulness....
+
+"But even so, you have not exhausted the wealth of Christianity; For to
+the potency of the Christian idea is added the magic of an incomparable
+embodiment in human life. The story of Jesus bears the idea which it
+enshrines eternally through the world. It is to the idea as the vessel of
+the Grail.
+
+"... Do these conceptions make us love our Master less? Ask your
+own hearts? There must be many in this crowded church that have
+known sorrow--intolerable anguish and disappointment--gnawing
+self-reproach--during the past year, or months, or weeks; many that have
+watched sufferings which no philosophic optimism can explain, and
+catastrophes that leave men dumb. Some among them will have been
+driven back upon their faith--driven to the foot of the Cross. Through
+all intellectual difference, has not the natural language of their
+fathers been also their language? Is there anything in their changed
+opinions 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--that
+does--divide _us_--whose consciences dare not refuse it--from the
+immortal triumph of that death? In our sharpest straits, are we not
+comforted and cleansed and sustained by the same thoughts, the same
+visions that have always sustained and comforted the Christian? No!--the
+sons of tradition and dogma have no monopoly in the exaltation, the
+living passion of the Cross! We, too, watching that steadfastness grow
+steadfast; bowed before that innocent suffering, grow patient; drinking
+in the wonder of that faith, amid utter defeat, learn to submit and go
+forward. 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 still
+our sore hearts before our God."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Quietly and low, in tones that shook here and there, the words had fallen
+upon the spell-bound church.
+
+Mary covered her eyes. But they saw only the more intently the vision of
+Hester maimed and dying; and the face of Meynell bending over her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then from this intimity, this sacredness of feeling, the speaker
+passed gradually and finally into the challenge, the ringing yet
+brotherly challenge, it was in truth his mission to deliver. The note of
+battle--honourable, inevitable battle--pealed through the church, and
+when it ceased the immense congregation rose, possessed by one heat of
+emotion, and choir and multitude broke into the magnificent Modernist
+hymn, "Christus Rex"--written by the Bishop of the See, and already
+familiar throughout England.
+
+The service was over. Out streamed the great congregation. The Close was
+crowded to see them come. Lines of theological students were drawn up
+there, fresh-faced boys in round collars and long black coats, who, as
+the main body of the Modernist clergy approached, began defiantly to
+chant the Creed. Meynell, with the old yet stately Bishop leaning on his
+arm, passed them with a friendly, quiet look. He caught sight for a
+moment of the tall form of Fenton, standing at their rear--the long face
+ascetically white, and sternly fixed.
+
+He left the Bishop at the gates of the Palace, and went back quickly for
+Mary. Suddenly he ran into an advancing figure and found his hand grasped
+by 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 and
+clouded.
+
+"And there was one man there--not a Modernist--who grieved, like a
+Modernist, over the future!"
+
+"Ah, the future!" said Meynell, throwing his head back. "That is not for
+you or me--not for the bishops, nor for that body which we call the
+Church--that is for _England_ to settle."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But another meeting remained.
+
+At the parting with Dornal, Meynell turned a corner and saw in front of
+him, walking alone, a portly gentleman, with a broad and substantial
+back. A start ran through him. After a moment's hesitation, he began to
+quicken 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 quite
+unconscious of the fact that a passing group of clergy opposite were
+staring across the street in amazement at the juxtaposition of the two
+men, 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 to
+inquire after Maurice? I hope your mind is more at ease about him."
+
+"He is doing well--for the moment." Another pause--broken by Barron, who
+said hurriedly in a different voice--"I got from him the whole story of
+the 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 would
+have meant."
+
+"No doubt," said Meynell, struck with pity, as he looked at the sunken
+face of the speaker. "And anyway--bygones are bygones. I hope your
+daughter 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 orthodox
+party had no room in its ranks, at that moment, for Henry Barron; and it
+was not hard to imagine what exclusion and ostracism must mean to
+such a temper. But the generous compunctions in his own mind could find
+no practical expression; and after a few more words they parted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next morning, while every newspaper in the country was eagerly discussing
+the events at Dunchester, Catharine, in the solitude of Long Whindale,
+and with a full two hours yet to wait for the carrier who brought the
+papers from Whinborough, was pondering letters from Rose and Mary written
+from Dunchester on the preceding afternoon. Her prayer-book lay beside
+her. Before the post arrived she had been reading by herself the Psalms
+and Lessons, according to the old-fashioned custom of her youth.
+
+The sweetness of Mary's attempt to bring out everything in the Modernist
+demonstration that might be bearable or even consoling to Catharine, and
+to 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 the
+Palace; and though there were many people waiting to see him, he is
+writing to you now; and so am I. Through it all, he feels so near to
+you--and to my father; so truly your son, your most loving son....
+
+"Dearest--I am troubled to hear from Alice this morning that yesterday
+you were tired and even went to lie down. I know my too Spartan mother
+doesn't do that without ten times as much reason as other people. Oh! do
+take care of yourself, my precious one. To-morrow, I fly back to you with
+all my news. And you will meet me with that love of yours which has
+never failed me, as it never failed my father. It will take Richard and
+me a life time to repay it. But we'll try! ... Dear love to my poor
+Alice. 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 come
+out of it finely, though I must say he looks at times more like a ghost
+than a man. From the Church point of view, dear, you were wise not to
+come, for your feelings must have been sadly mixed, and you might have
+been compelled to take Privy Council proceedings against yourself. I need
+not say that Hugh and I felt an ungodly delight in it--in the crowd and
+the 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 in
+the throng of foolish youths from the Theological College who seemed to
+think they settled everything by singing the Creed at us. (What a pity
+you can't enjoy the latest description of the Athanasian Creed! It is by
+a Quaker. He compares it to 'the guesses of a ten-year old child at the
+contents of his father's library.' Hugh thinks it good--but I don't
+expect 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 Modernists
+will be all camping in tents, it seems, by the wayside. Very touching and
+very exciting. But I am getting too sleepy to think about it. Dear
+Cathie--I run on--but I love you. Please keep well. Good-bye."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Catharine laid the letter down, still smiling against her will over some
+of its chatter, and unconsciously made happy by the affection that
+breathed from its pages no less than from Mary's.
+
+Yet certainly she was very tired. She became sharply conscious of her
+physical 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 very
+dear to Catharine, partly for her own sake, and partly because to be in
+bitter need and helplessness was to be sure of Catharine's tenderness.
+Very possibly they two, when Mary married, might make their home
+together. And Catharine promised herself to bring calm at least and
+loving help to one who had suffered so much.
+
+The window was half open to the first mild day of March; beside it stood
+a 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 through
+the black buds of the ash-trees, and in the distance a sheep-dog could be
+heard barking on the fells. So quiet it was--the spring sunshine--and so
+sweet. Back into Catharine's mind there flowed the memory of her own
+love-story in the valley; her hand trembled again in the hand of her
+lover.
+
+Then with a sudden onset her mortal hour came upon her. She tried to
+move, to call, and could not. There was no time for any pain of parting.
+For one remaining moment of consciousness there ran through the brain
+the images, affections, adorations of her life. Swift, incredibly swift,
+the vision of an opening glory--a heavenly throng!... Then the tired
+eyelids fell, the head lay heavily on the cushion behind it, and in the
+little room the song of the robin and the murmur of the stream flowed
+on--unheard.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Case of Richard Meynell, by Mrs. Humphrey Ward
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CASE OF RICHARD MEYNELL ***
+
+***** This file should be named 9614-8.txt or 9614-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/9/6/1/9614/
+
+Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Mary
+Meehan and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/9614-8.zip b/9614-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5c88af3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/9614-8.zip
diff --git a/9614.txt b/9614.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c1d2a9b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/9614.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,17950 @@
+Project Gutenberg's The Case of Richard Meynell, by Mrs. Humphrey Ward
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Case of Richard Meynell
+
+Author: Mrs. Humphrey Ward
+
+Posting Date: December 8, 2011 [EBook #9614]
+Release Date: January, 2006
+First Posted: October 10, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CASE OF RICHARD MEYNELL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Mary
+Meehan and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                      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 acquainted
+with the conditions of English rural and religious life to remember that
+the dominant factor in it--the factor on which the story of Richard
+Meynell depends--is the existence of the State Church, of the great
+ecclesiastical corporation, the direct heir of the pre-Reformation
+Church, which owns the cathedrals and the parish churches, which
+by right of law speaks for the nation on all national occasions, which
+crowns and marries and buries the Kings of England, and, through her
+bishops in the House of Lords, exercises a constant and important
+influence on the lawmaking of the country? This Church possesses half the
+elementary schools, and is the legal religion of the great public schools
+which shape the ruling upper class. She is surrounded with the prestige
+of centuries, and it is probable that in many directions she was never so
+active or so well served by her members as she is at present.
+
+At the same time, there are great forces of change ahead. Outside the
+Anglican Church stands quite half the nation, gathered in the various
+non-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 every
+village and small town this warfare exists. The non-conformist desires to
+deprive the Church of her worldly and political privileges; the churchman
+talks of the sin of schism, or draws up schemes of reunion which drop
+still-born. Meanwhile, alike in the Church, in non-conformity, and in the
+neutral world which owes formal allegiance to neither, vast movements of
+thought have developed in the last hundred years, years as pregnant with
+the germs of new life as the wonderful hundred years that followed the
+birth 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 the
+strife of tongues, whether the ideas of modernism; rife in all forms of
+Christianity, can be accommodated to the ancient practices and given a
+share in the great material possessions of a State Church; how individual
+lives are affected in the passionate struggle of spiritual faiths and
+practical interests involved in such an attempt; how conscience may be
+enriched by its success or sterilized by its failure; how the fight
+itself, ably waged, may strengthen the spiritual elements, the power of
+living and suffering in men and women--it is with such themes that this
+story attempts to deal. Twenty-two years ago I tried a similar subject in
+"Robert Elsmere." Since then the movement of ideas in religion and
+philosophy has been increasingly rapid and fruitful. I am deeply
+conscious how little I may be able to express it. But those who twenty
+years ago welcomed the earlier book--and how can I ever forget its
+reception in America!--may perhaps be drawn once again to some of the old
+themes 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 scene
+not intended for his eyes"
+
+"He shook hands with the Dean"
+
+"'I wonder whether she's ever had any real joy--a week's--a
+day's--happiness--in her life?'"
+
+"The old shepherd looked after her doubtfully"
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+
+
+
+MEYNELL
+
+
+"Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear
+The longest date do melt like frosty rime,
+That in the morning whitened hill and plain
+And is no more; drop like the tower sublime
+Of yesterday, which royally did wear
+His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain
+Some 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 at
+the summons and dismounted. The Rector approached him from the road, and
+the 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 the
+Rector's hands.
+
+The recipient smiled.
+
+"My word, what a post! I say, Preston, I add to your burdens pretty
+considerably."
+
+"It don't matter, sir, I'm sure," said the postman civilly. "There's not
+a deal of letters delivered in this village."
+
+"No, we don't trouble pen and ink much in Upcote," said the Rector; "and
+it's my belief that half the boys and girls that do learn to read and
+write at school make a point of forgetting it as soon as they can--for
+all practical purposes, anyway."
+
+"Well, there's a deal of newspapers read now, sir, compared to what there
+was."
+
+"Newspapers? Yes, I do see a _Reynolds_ or a _People_ or two about on
+Sunday. Do you think anybody reads much else than the betting and the
+police news, eh, Preston?"
+
+Preston looked a little vacant. His expression seemed to say, "And why
+should they?" The Rector, with his arms full of the post, smiled again
+and 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--he
+makes her go careful."
+
+"Quite right. Has Miss Puttenham been looking after her?"
+
+"She's been most kind, sir, most attentive, she have," said the postman
+warmly, his long hatchet face breaking into animation.
+
+"Lucky for you!" said the Rector, walking away. "When she cuts in, she's
+worth a regiment of doctors. Good-day!"
+
+The speaker passed on through the gate of the Rectory, pausing as he did
+so with a rueful look at the iron gate itself, which was off its hinges
+and sorely in want of a coat of new paint.
+
+"Disgraceful!" he said to himself; "must have a go at it to-morrow. And
+at the garden, too," he added, looking round him. "Never saw such a
+wilderness!"
+
+[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 an
+old clergy house, of which all traces had been ruthlessly effaced. The
+front garden lying before it was a tangle of old and for the most part
+ugly trees; elms from which heavy, decayed branches had recently fallen;
+acacias choked by the ivy which had overgrown them; and a crowded
+thicket of thorns and hazels, mingled with three or four large and
+vigorous though very ancient yews, which seemed to have drunk up for
+themselves all that life from the soil which should have gone to maintain
+the ragged or sickly shrubbery. The trees also had gradually encroached
+upon the house, and darkened all the windows on the porch side. On a
+summer afternoon, the deep shade they made was welcome enough; but on a
+rainy day the Rector's front-garden, with its coarse grass, its few
+straggling rose-bushes, and its pushing throng of half-dead or funereal
+trees, shed a dank and dripping gloom upon the visitor approaching his
+front door. Of this, however, the Rector himself was rarely conscious;
+and to-day, as he with difficulty gathered all the letters and packets
+taken from the postman into one hand, while he opened his front door with
+the other, his face showed that the state of his garden had already
+ceased to trouble him.
+
+He had no sooner turned the handle of the door than a joyous uproar of
+dogs arose within, and before he had well stepped over the threshold a
+leaping trio were upon him--two Irish terriers and a graceful young
+collie, 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-down
+sofa already littered with books and papers, and returned to the
+hall-table for the letter. He tore it open, read it with slightly
+frowning brows and a mouth that worked unconsciously, then thrust it into
+his pocket and returned to his sitting-room.
+
+"All right!" he said to himself. "He's got an odd list of 'aggrieved
+parishioners!'"
+
+The tidings, however, which the letter contained did not seem to distress
+him. On the contrary, his aspect expressed a singular and cheerful
+energy, as he sat a few moments on the sofa, softly whistling to himself
+and staring at the floor. That he was a person extravagantly beloved by
+his dogs was clearly shown meanwhile by the exuberant attentions and
+caresses with which they were now loading him.
+
+He shook them off at last with a friendly kick or two, that he might turn
+to his letters, which he sorted and turned over, much as an epicure
+studies his _menu_ at the Ritz, and with an equally keen sense of
+pleasure to come.
+
+A letter from Jena, and another from Berlin, addressed in small German
+handwriting and signed by names familiar to students throughout the
+world; two or three German reviews, copies of the _Revue Critique_ and
+the _Revue Chretienne_, a book by Solomon Reinach, and three or four
+French letters, one of them shown by the cross preceding the signature to
+be the letter of a bishop; a long letter from Oxford, enclosing the proof
+of an article in a theological review; and, finally, a letter sealed with
+red wax and signed "F. Marcoburg" in a corner of the envelope, which the
+Rector twirled in his hands a moment without opening.
+
+"After tea," he said at last, with the sudden breaking of a smile. And he
+put 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 a
+sun-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 the
+tea before him on a chair cleared with difficulty from some of the
+student's litter that filled the room.
+
+"All the more reason for tea," said Meynell, seizing thirstily on the
+teapot. "And you're quite mistaken, Anne. I had a magnificent bath-bun at
+the station."
+
+"Much good you'll get out of that!" was the scornful reply. "You know
+what 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 and
+crossed 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 at
+last.
+
+"So you did. But he said he must see his missus and hear how his little
+girl had done in her music exam."
+
+Mrs. Wellin delivered this piece of news very fast and with evident
+gusto. It might have been thought she enjoyed inflicting it on her
+master.
+
+The Rector laughed out.
+
+"And this was a man sent me a week ago by the Birmingham Distress
+Committee--nine weeks out of work--family in the workhouse--everything up
+the spout. Goodness gracious, Anne, how did he get the money? Return
+fare, 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 Rector
+helplessly.
+
+"Thought he might," said Anne, briefly.
+
+"How kind of him! Music exam! Lord save us! And three-and-ten thrown into
+the gutter on a week-end ticket--with seven children to keep--and all
+your possessions gone to 'my uncle.' And it isn't as though you'd been
+starving 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'll
+be 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 look
+after 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, and
+she won't nurse him--that's flat."
+
+"No reason why she should shovel him off on other people as wants their
+night'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 the
+windows were still wide open, and the Rector, who had had a long journey
+that day to take a funeral for a friend, lay back in sybaritic ease, now
+sipping his tea and now cutting open letters and parcels. The letter
+signed "F. Marcoburg" in the corner had been placed, still unopened, on
+the mantelpiece now facing him.
+
+The Rector looked at it from time to time; it might have been said by a
+close observer that he never forgot it; but, all the same, he went on
+dipping into books and reviews, or puzzling--with muttered imprecations
+on 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 single
+one of them! And what matter? Who's the worse? Is it any less wonderful
+when 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 the
+comfort of his own fireside. Yet, now that the face was at rest, certain
+cavernous hollows under the eyes, and certain lines on the forehead and
+at the corners of the mouth, as though graven by some long fatigue,
+showed themselves disfiguringly. The personality, however, on which this
+fatigue had stamped itself was clearly one of remarkable vigour, physical
+and mental. A massive head covered with strong black hair, curly at the
+brows; eyes grayish-blue, small, with some shade of expression in them
+which made them arresting, commanding, even; a large nose and irregular
+mouth, the lips flexible and kind, the chin firm--one might have made
+some such catalogue of Meynell's characteristics; adding to them the
+strength of a broad-chested, loose-limbed frame, made rather, one would
+have thought, for country labours than for the vigils of the scholar. But
+the hands were those of a man of letters--bony and long-fingered, but
+refined, touching things with care and gentleness, like one accustomed to
+the small tools of the writer.
+
+At last the Rector threw himself back in his chair, while some of the
+litter on his lap fell to the floor, temporarily dislodging one of the
+terriers, 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 had
+finished it he put it down and thought a while, then stretched out his
+hand for it again and reread the last paragraph:
+
+"You will, I am sure, realize from all I have said, my dear Meynell, that
+the last thing I personally wish to do is to interfere with the parochial
+work of a man for whom I have so warm a respect as I have for you. I have
+given you all the latitude I could, but my duty is now plain. Let me have
+your assurance that you will refrain from such sermons as that to which I
+have drawn your attention, and that you will stop at once the
+extraordinary innovations in the services of which the parishioners
+have complained, and I shall know how to answer Mr. Barron and to compose
+this whole difficult matter. Do not, I entreat you, jeopardize the noble
+work you are doing for the sake of opinions and views which you hold
+to-day, but which you may have abandoned tomorrow. Can you possibly put
+what you call 'the results of criticism'--and, remember, these results
+differ for you, for me, and for a dozen others I could name--in
+comparison with that work for souls God has given you to do, and in which
+He 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 act
+to 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 dear
+Meynell--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 down
+the letter; but even as he spoke the softness in his face passed into
+resolution. He sank once more into reverie.
+
+The stillness, however, was soon broken up. A step was heard outside, and
+the dogs sprang up in excitement. Amid a pandemonium of noise, the Rector
+put 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 clerical
+garb, and carried a couple of books under his arm.
+
+"I came to return these," he said, placing them beside the Rector; "and
+also--can you give me twenty minutes?"
+
+"Forty, if you want them. Sit down."
+
+The newcomer turned out various French and German books from a
+dilapidated armchair, and obeyed. He was a fresh-coloured, handsome
+youth, some fifteen years younger than Meynell, the typical public-school
+boy in appearance. But his expression was scarcely less harassed than the
+Rector'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 he
+had taken from the hall-table on coming in. But he pursued the subject no
+further.
+
+The young man fidgeted a moment.
+
+"All one can say is"--he broke out at last--"that if it had not been my
+father, it would have been some one else--the Archdeacon probably. The
+fight was bound to come."
+
+"Of course it was!" The Rector sprang to his feet, and, with his hands
+under his coat-tails and his back to the fire, faced his visitor. "That's
+what we're all driving at. Don't be miserable about it, dear fellow. I
+bear your father no grudge whatever. He is under orders, as I am. The
+parleying time is done. It has lasted two generations. And now comes
+war--honourable, necessary war!"
+
+The speaker threw back his head with emphasis, even with passion. But
+almost immediately the smile, which was the only positive beauty of the
+face, obliterated the passion.
+
+"And don't look so tragic over it! If your father wins--and as the law
+stands he can scarcely fail to win--I shall be driven out of Upcote. But
+there will always be a corner somewhere for me and my books, and a pulpit
+of 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!-you
+Liberals will have to take your part, and fire your shot some day, of
+course--fathers or no fathers."
+
+"I didn't mean that. I shall fire my shot, of course. But aren't you
+exposing yourself prematurely--unnecessarily?" said the young man, with
+vivacity. "It is not a general's part to do that."
+
+"You're wrong, Stephen. When my father was going out to the campaign
+in which he was killed, my mother said to him, as though she were
+half asking a question, half pleading--I can hear her now, poor
+darling!--'John, it's _right_ for a general to keep out of danger?' and
+he smiled and said, 'Yes, when it isn't right for him to go into it, head
+over ears.' However, that's nonsense. It doesn't apply to me. I'm no
+general. And I'm not going to be killed!"
+
+Young Barron was silent, while the Rector prepared a pipe, and began upon
+it; 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 his
+eyes 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--in
+Elsmere'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 now
+altogether changed. _I_ am not going till I am turned out; and there will
+be others with me. The world wants a heresy trial, and it is going to get
+one 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 father
+has a horribly strong will. And he will think every means legitimate."
+
+"I know. In the Roman Church, what the Curia could not do by argument
+they have done again and again--well, no use to inquire how! One must be
+prepared. All I can say is, I know of no skeletons in the cupboard at
+present. Anybody may have my keys!"
+
+He laughed as he spoke, spreading his hands to the blaze, and looking
+round at his companion. Barron's face in response was a face of
+hero-worship, undisguised. Here plainly were leader and disciple;
+pioneering will and docile faith. But it might have been observed that
+Meynell did nothing to emphasize the personal relation; that, on the
+contrary, he shrank from it, and often tried to put it aside.
+
+After a few more words, indeed, he resolutely closed the personal
+discussion. They fell into talk about certain recent developments of
+philosophy in England and France--talk which showed them as familiar
+comrades in the intellectual field, in spite of their difference of age.
+Barron, a Fellow of King's, had but lately left Cambridge for a small
+College living. Meynell--an old Balliol scholar--bore the marks of Jowett
+and Caird still deep upon him, except, perhaps, for a certain deliberate
+throwing over, here and there, of the typical Oxford tradition--its
+measure and reticence, its scholarly balancing of this against that. A
+tone as of one driven to extremities--a deep yet never personal
+exasperation--the poised quiet of a man turning to look a hostile host in
+the face--again and again these made themselves felt through his chat
+about new influences in the world of thought--Bergson or James, Eucken or
+Tyrell.
+
+And to this under-note, inflections or phrases in the talk of the other
+seemed to respond. It was as though behind the spoken conversation they
+carried on another unheard.
+
+And the unheard presently broke in upon the heard.
+
+"You mentioned Elsmere just now," said Barron, in a moment's pause, and
+with apparent irrelevance. "Did you know that his widow is now staying
+within a mile of this place? Some people called Flaxman have taken
+Maudeley End, and Mrs. Flaxman is a sister of Mrs. Elsmere. Mrs. Elsmere
+and her daughter are going to settle for the summer in the cottage near
+Forked Pond. Mrs. Elsmere seems to have been ill for the first time in
+her life, and has had to give up some of her work."
+
+"Mrs. Elsmere!" said Meynell, raising his eyebrows. "I saw her once
+twenty years ago at the New Brotherhood, and have never forgotten the
+vision of her face. She must be almost an old woman."
+
+"Miss Puttenham says she is quite beautiful still, in a wonderful, severe
+way. I think she never shared Elsmere's opinions?"
+
+"Never."
+
+The two fell silent, both minds occupied with the same story and the same
+secret comparisons. Robert Elsmere, the Rector of Murewell, in Surrey,
+had made a scandal in the Church, when Meynell was still a lad, by
+throwing up his orders under the pressure of New Testament criticism, and
+founding a religious brotherhood among London workingmen for the
+promotion of a simple and commemorative form of Christianity.
+
+Elsmere, a man of delicate physique, had died prematurely, worn out by
+the struggle to find new foothold for himself and others; but something
+in his personality, and in the nature of his effort--some brilliant,
+tender note--had kept his memory alive in many hearts. There were many
+now, however, who thrilled to it, who could never speak of him without
+emotion, who yet felt very little positive agreement with him. What he
+had done or tried to do made a kind of landmark in the past; but in the
+course of time it had begun to seem irrelevant to the present.
+
+"To-day--would he have thrown up?--or would he have held on?" Meynell
+presently said, in a tone of reverie, amid the cloud of smoke that
+enveloped him. Then, in another voice, "What do you hear of the
+daughter? I remember her as a little reddish-haired thing at her mother's
+side."
+
+"Miss Puttenham has taken a great fancy to her. Hester Fox-Wilton told me
+she had seen her there. She liked her."
+
+"H'm!" said the Rector. "Well, if she pleased Hester--critical little
+minx!"
+
+"You may be sure she'll please _me_!" said Barron suddenly, flushing
+deeply.
+
+The Rector looked up, startled.
+
+"I say?"
+
+Barron cleared his throat.
+
+"I'd better tell you at once, Rector. I got Hester's leave yesterday
+to tell you, when an opportunity occurred--you know how fond she is
+of you? Well, I'm in love with her--head over ears in love with her--I
+believe I have been since she was a little girl in the schoolroom. And
+yesterday--she said--she'd marry me some day."
+
+The young voice betrayed a natural tremor. Meanwhile, a strange look--a
+close observer would have called it a look of consternation--had rushed
+into Meynell's face. He stared at Barron, made one or two attempts to
+speak, 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 too
+young! 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, my
+dear boy, that there shall be nothing irrevocable--no engagement! I
+should strongly oppose it."
+
+The eyes of the two men met. Barron was evidently dumb with surprise; but
+the vivacity and urgency of Meynell's expression drove him into speech.
+
+"We thought you would have sympathized," he stammered. "After all, what
+is 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 would
+certainly object. And so should I. And, as you know, I am co-guardian of
+the children with her."
+
+Then, as the lover quivered under these barbs, Meynell suddenly recovered
+himself.
+
+"My dear fellow! No woman ought to marry under twenty-one. And every girl
+ought to have time to look round her. It's not right; it's not just--it
+isn'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 a
+strain of earnest and affectionate entreaty, which presently had a marked
+effect on the younger man. His chivalry was appealed to--his
+consideration for the girl he loved; and his aspect began to show the
+force of the attack. At last he said gravely:
+
+"I'll tell Hester what you say--of course I'll tell her. Naturally we
+can't marry without your consent and her mother's. But if Hester persists
+in wishing we should be engaged?"
+
+"Long engagements are the deuce!" said the Rector hotly. "You would be
+engaged for three years. Madness!--with such a temperament as Hester's.
+My dear Stephen, be advised--for her and yourself. There is no one who
+wishes your good more earnestly than I. But don't let there be any talk
+of an engagement for at least two years to come. Leave her free--even
+if you consider yourself bound. It is folly to suppose that a girl of
+such marked character knows her own mind at seventeen. She has all her
+development 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 forced
+laugh. "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 of
+the situation--holding out distant hopes. The young man's face gradually
+cleared. He was of a docile, open temper, and deeply attached to his
+mentor.
+
+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 are
+you up to now?"
+
+"There's a drunken fellow in the village--dying--and his wife won't look
+after 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 the
+village," 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 the
+Rector, settling himself in his chair and putting an old shawl over his
+knees. "And as you go out, just tell Anne, will you, to keep herself to
+herself for an hour and not to disturb me?"
+
+Stephen Barron moved to the door, and as he opened it he turned back a
+moment to look at the man in the chair, and the room in which he sat. It
+was as though he asked himself by what manner of man he had been
+thus gripped and coerced, in a matter so intimate, and, to himself, so
+vital.
+
+Meynell's eyes were already shut. The dogs had gathered round him, the
+collie's nose laid against his knee, the other two guarding his feet. All
+round, the walls were laden with books, so were the floor and the
+furniture. 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 choir
+decoration that Meynell and a class of village boys were making for the
+church, where the Rector had already carved with his own hand many of the
+available surfaces, whether of stone or wood. The carving, which was
+elaborate and rich, was technically faulty, as an Italian primitive is
+faulty, but _mutatis mutandis_ it had much of the same charm that belongs
+to Italian primitive work: the same joyous sincerity, the same passionate
+love of natural things, leaves and flowers and birds.
+
+For the rest, the furniture of the room was shabby and ugly. The pictures
+on the walls were mostly faded Oxford photographs, or outlines by
+Overbeck and Retsch, which had belonged to Meynell's parents and were
+tenderly cherished by him. There were none of the pretty, artistic
+trifles, the signs of travel and easy culture, which many a small country
+vicarage possesses in abundance. Meynell, in spite of his scholar's
+mastery 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 while
+still at Balliol, and had to bring up his two younger brothers. He had
+done it. They were both in Canada now and prospering. But the signs of
+the struggle were on this shabby house, and on this shabby, frugal,
+powerfully built man. Yet now he might have been more at ease; the
+living, though small, was by no means among the worst in the diocese.
+Ah, well! Anne, the housekeeper and only servant, knew how the money
+went--and didn't go, and she had passed on some of her grievances to
+Barron. They two knew--though Barron would never have dared to show his
+knowledge--what a wrestle it meant to get the Rector to spend what was
+decently necessary on his own food and clothes; and Anne spent hours of
+the night in indignantly guessing at what he spent on the clothes and
+food of other people--mostly, in her opinion, "varmints."
+
+These things flitted vaguely through the young man's sore mind. Then in a
+flash they were absorbed in a perception of a wholly different kind. The
+room seemed to him transfigured; a kind of temple. He thought of the
+intellectual life which had been lived there; the passion for truth which
+had burnt in it; the sermons and books that had been written on those
+crowded tables; the personality and influence that had been gradually
+built up within it, so that to him, as to many others, the dingy study
+was a place of pilgrimage, breathing inspiration; and his heart went out,
+first in discipleship, and then in a pain that was not for himself. For
+over his friend's head he saw the gathering of clouds not now to be
+scattered or dispersed; and who could foretell the course of the storm?
+
+The young man gently closed the door and went his
+way. He need not have left the house so quietly. The
+Rector got no sleep that evening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+The church clock of Upcote Minor was just striking nine o'clock as
+Richard 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 be
+balmy, and Meynell, who was an ardent sun-lover, shivered as he walked
+along, buttoning a much-worn parson's coat against the sharp air. Before
+him 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 hidden
+behind walls and trees. It was evidently a large village, almost a
+country town, with a considerable variety of life. At this hour of the
+evening 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 lights
+here and there, and in the houses of the gentility.
+
+The Rector passed the fine perpendicular church standing back from the
+road, with its churchyard about it; and just beyond it, he turned, his
+pace 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 wind
+shook the lime-blossom, and flung the scent in Meynell's face; while at
+the same time the dim masses of roses in the garden sent out their
+sweetness 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 a
+delicate and plaintive face, moving among the rose-beds she loved, her
+light dress trailing on the grass. The recollection stirred in him
+affection, and an impulse of sympathy, stronger than the mere thought of
+the flowers, and the woman's tending of them, could explain. It passed
+indeed immediately into something else--a touch of new and sharp anxiety.
+
+"And she's been very peaceful of late," he said to himself ruefully, "as
+far 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. It
+would help her. Anyway, we can't have everything rooted up again just
+yet--before the time."
+
+He walked on, and as the farther corner of the house came into view, he
+saw a thinly curtained window with a light inside it, and it seemed to
+him that he distinguished a figure within.
+
+"Reading?--or embroidering? Probably, at her work. She had that
+commission 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 use
+not 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 since
+Ralph's death--to insist on keeping her little house and her
+independence. 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 little
+house, and left it behind him. Before him, the village street, with its
+green and its pond, widened under the scudding sky. Far ahead, about a
+quarter of a mile away, among surrounding trees, certain outlines were
+visible through the July twilight. The accustomed eye knew them for the
+chimneys of the Fox-Wiltons' house, owned now, since the recent death
+of its master, Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton, by his widow, the sister of the lady
+with the cat and the embroidery, and mother of many children, for the
+most part an unattractive brood, peevish and slow-minded like their
+father. Hester was the bright, particular star in that house, as Stephen
+Barron had now found out.
+
+Alack!--alack! The Rector's face resumed for a moment the expression of
+painful or brooding perplexity it had worn during his conversation of the
+afternoon 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 the
+northern end of the village, was evidently doing trade. The Rector did
+not look up as he passed it; but in general he turned an indulgent eye
+upon it. Before entering upon the living, he had himself worked for a
+month as an ordinary miner, in the colliery whose tall chimneys could be
+seen to the east above the village roofs. His body still vividly retained
+the physical memory of those days--of the aching muscles, and the
+gargantuan thirsts.
+
+At last the rows of new-built cottages attached to the colliery came
+in 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 white
+house--stately and separate--dominating the village, the church, the
+collieries, and the Fox-Wiltons' plantations.
+
+The Rector threw a glance at it. It was from that house had come the
+letter he had found on his hall-table that afternoon; a letter in a
+handwriting large and impressive like the dim house on the hill. The
+handwriting of a man accustomed to command, whether his own ancestral
+estate, or the collieries which had been carved out of its fringe, or the
+village spreading humbly at his feet, or the church into which he walked
+on Sunday with heavy tread, and upright carriage, conscious of his
+threefold 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 to
+hate him--not at all--rather to respect and sympathize with him. I
+provoke the fight--and I may be thankful to have lit on a strong
+antagonist. What's Stephen afraid of? What can they do? Let 'em try!"
+
+A smile--contemptuous and good-humoured--crossed the Rector's face. Any
+angry bigot determined to rid his parish of a heretical parson might no
+doubt be tempted to use other than legal and theological weapons, if he
+could get them. A heretic with unpaid bills and some hidden vice is
+scarcely in a position to make much of his heresy. But the Rector's smile
+showed him humorously conscious of an almost excessive innocence of
+private life. The thought of how little an enemy could find to lay hold
+on in his history or present existence seemed almost to bring with it a
+kind of shamefacedness--as for experience irrevocably foregone, warm,
+tumultuous, human experience, among the sinners and sufferers of the
+world. For there are odd, mingled moments in the lives of most scholars
+and saints--like Renan in his queer envy of Theophile Gautier--when such
+men inevitably ask themselves whether they have not missed something
+irreplaceable, the student, by his learning--the saint even, by his
+goodness.
+
+Here now was "Miners' Row." As the Rector approached the cottage of which
+he was in search the clouds lightened in the east, and a pale moonshine,
+suffusing the dusk, showed in the far distance beyond the village, the
+hills of Fitton Chase, rounded, heathy hills, crowned by giant firs.
+Meynell looked at them with longing, and a sudden realization of his own
+weariness. A day or two, perhaps a week or two, among the fells, with
+their winds and scents about him, and their streams in his ears--he must
+allow himself that, before the fight began.
+
+No. 8. A dim light showed in the upper window. The Rector knocked at the
+door. A woman opened--a young and sweet-looking nurse in her bonnet and
+long cloak.
+
+"You look pretty done!" exclaimed the Rector. "Has he been giving
+trouble?"
+
+"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 whether
+she 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 believe
+she'd go near him."
+
+The Rector stepped in and asked a few questions as to arrangements for
+the night. The patient, it seemed, was asleep, in consequence of a
+morphia injection, and likely to remain so for an hour or two. He was
+dying of an internal injury inflicted by a fall of rock in the mine
+some ten days before. Surgery had done what it could, but signs of
+blood-poisoning had appeared, and the man's days were numbered.
+
+The doctor had left written instructions, which the nurse handed over to
+Meynell. If certain symptoms appeared, the doctor was to be summoned. But
+in all probability the man's fine constitution, injured though it had
+been by drink, would enable him to hold out another day or two. And the
+hideous pain of the first week had now ceased; mortification had almost
+certainly set in, and all that could be done was to wait the slow and
+sure failure of the heart.
+
+The nurse took leave. Meynell was hanging up his hat in the little
+passageway, when the door of the front parlour opened, after being
+unlocked.
+
+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 than
+thirty-five, and youth and comeliness had been long since battered
+from her face, partly by misery of mind, partly by direct ill usage of
+which 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 what
+the doctor was thinkin' of him."
+
+"The doctor thinks he may live through to-night and to-morrow night--not
+much more. He is your husband, Mrs. Bateson, and whatever you have
+against him, you'll be very sorry afterward if you don't give him help
+and 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 the
+shadow, as though to lead her.
+
+But she stepped backward.
+
+"I know what I'm about," she said, breathing quick. "He made a fule o' me
+wi' that wanton Lizzie Short, and he near killt me the last morning afore
+he went. And I'd been a good wife to him for fifteen year, and never
+a word between us till that huzzy came along. And she's got a child by
+him, 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, he
+said. And I sat and prayed God to punish him. An' He did. The roof came
+down 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 yourself
+come to die. He has sinned toward you--but remember!--he's a young man
+still--in the prime of life. He has suffered horribly--and he has only a
+few hours or days to live. He has asked for you already to-day, he is
+sure to ask for you to-night. Forgive him!--ask God to help him to die in
+peace!"
+
+While he spoke she stood motionless, impassive. Meynell's voice had
+beautiful inflections, and he spoke with strong feeling. Few persons whom
+he so addressed could have remained unmoved. But Mrs. Bateson only
+retreated farther into the dreary little parlour, with its wool mats and
+antimacassars, and a tray of untasted tea on the table. She passed her
+tongue 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 for
+ourselves. If there's anything you want I can get for you, you knock
+twice on the floor--I shall hear you. But I'm not comin' up."
+
+Meynell turned away discouraged, and went upstairs. In the room above lay
+the dying man--breathing quickly and shallowly under the influence of the
+drug 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, and
+he seemed even in his sleep to be fighting for air. In the twelve hours
+that had elapsed since Meynell had last seen him he had travelled with
+terrible rapidity toward the end. He looked years older than in the
+morning; it was as though some sinister hand had been at work on the
+face, expanding here, contracting there, substituting chaos and
+nothingness for the living man.
+
+The Rector sat down beside him. The room was small and bare--a little
+strip of carpet on the boards, a few chairs, and a little table with food
+and nourishment beside the bed. On the mantelpiece was a large printed
+card containing the football fixtures of the winter before. Bateson had
+once been a fine player. Of late years, however, his interest had been
+confined to betting heavily on the various local and county matches, and
+it was to his ill-luck as a gambler no less than to the influence of the
+flimsy little woman who had led him astray that his moral break-up might
+be traced.
+
+A common tale!--yet more tragic than usual. For the bedroom contained
+other testimonies to the habits of a ruined man. There was a hanging
+bookcase on the wall, and the Rector sitting by the bed could just make
+out the titles of the books in the dim light.
+
+Mill, Huxley, a reprint of Tom Paine, various books by Blatchford, the
+sixpenny editions of "Literature and Dogma," and Renan's "Life of
+Christ," some popular science volumes of Browning and Ruskin, and a group
+of well-thumbed books on the birds of Mercia--the little collection,
+hardly earned, and, to judge from its appearance, diligently read, showed
+that its owner had been a man of intelligence. The Rector looked from it
+to the figure in the bed with a pang at his heart.
+
+All was still in the little cottage. Through the open window the Rector
+could see fold after fold of the Chase stretching north and west above
+the village. The moorland ridges shone clear under the moon, now bare, or
+scantily plumed by gaunt trees, and now clothed in a dense blackness of
+wood. Meynell, who knew every yard of the great heath and loved it well,
+felt himself lifted there in spirit as he looked. The "bunchberries" must
+just be ripening on the high ground--nestling scarlet and white amid
+their glossy leaves. And among them and beside them, the taller, slender
+bilberries, golden green; the exquisite grasses of the heath, pale pink,
+and silver, and purple, swaying in the winds, clothing acre after acre
+with a beauty beyond the looms of men; the purple heather and the ling
+flushing toward its bloom: and the free-limbed scattered birch trees,
+strongly scrawled against the sky. The scurry of the clouds over the
+purple sweeps of moor, the beat of the wind, and then suddenly, pools of
+fragrant air sun-steeped--he drew in the thought of it all, as he might
+have drunk the moorland breeze itself, with a thrill of pleasure, which
+passed 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 the
+sleeper, and leaning forward tried to meditate and pray. But to-night he
+found it hard. He realized anew his physical and mental fatigue, and a
+certain confused clamour of thought, strangely persistent behind the more
+external experience alike of body and mind; like the murmur of a distant
+sea heard from far inland, as the bond and background of all lesser
+sounds.
+
+The phrases of the letter he had found on the hall-table recurred to him
+whether he would or no. They were mainly legal and technical, intimating
+that an application had been made to the Bishop of Markborough to issue a
+Commission of Inquiry into certain charges made by parishioners of Upcote
+Minor against the Rector of the parish. The writer of the letter was one
+of the applicants, and gave notice of his intention to prosecute the
+charges named, with the utmost vigour through all the stages prescribed
+by ecclesiastical law.
+
+But it was, rather, some earlier letters from the same hand--letters more
+familiar, intimate, and discursive--that ultimately held the Rector's
+thoughts as he kept his watch. For in those letters were contained almost
+all the objections that a sensitive mind and heart had had to grapple
+with before determining on the course to which the Rector of Upcote was
+now committed. They were the voice of the "adversary," the "accuser."
+Crude or conventional, as the form of the argument might be, it yet
+represented the "powers and principalities" to be reckoned with. If the
+Rector's conscience could not sustain him against it, he was henceforth a
+dishonest and unhappy man; and when his lawyers had failed to protect him
+against its practical result--as they must no doubt fail--he would be a
+dispossessed priest:
+
+"What discipline in life or what comfort in death can such a faith as
+yours bring to any human soul? Do, I beg of you, ask yourself this
+question. If the great miracles of the Creed are not true, what have you
+to give the wretched and the sinful? Ought you not in common human
+charity to make way for one who can offer the consolations, utter the
+warnings, or hold out the heavenly hopes from which you are debarred?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Rector fixed his gaze upon the sick man. It was as though the
+question of the letter were put to him through those parched lips. And as
+he 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 and
+milk, 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 fast
+enough."
+
+The Rector hesitated, but only for a moment. He took the stick and
+rapped.
+
+Almost immediately the sound of a turning key was heard through the small
+thinly built cottage. The door below opened and footsteps came up the
+stairs. But before they reached the landing the sound ceased. The two men
+listened 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 the
+Rector'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's
+eyes. "Aye!"
+
+Meynell made him drink a little more brandy, and then he went out to the
+person 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--he
+says you can see for yourself that he can't wrong you any more. Come--and
+be merciful!"
+
+The woman paused. The Rector could see the shiver of her thin shoulders
+under her print dress. Then she turned and quietly descended the cottage
+stairway. Half way down she looked up.
+
+"Tell him I should do him nowt but harm. I"--her voice trembled for the
+first time--"I doan't bear him malice; I hope he'll not suffer. But I'm
+not comin'."
+
+"Wait a moment, Mrs. Bateson! I was to tell you that in spite of all, he
+loved 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 him
+I'd have got Lizzie Short to come an' nurse 'im, if I could. It's her
+place. 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--she
+said 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 the
+sick-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 a
+queer thing. She wasn't used to be a tough 'un. I could most make her do
+what I wanted. Well, never mind, Rector, never mind. Sit tha down--mebbe
+you'd be wanting to say a prayer. You're welcome. I reckon it'll do me no
+harm."
+
+His lips parted in a smile--a smile of satire. But his brows frowned, and
+his 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 will
+say them."
+
+"But I doan't believe in 'em," said the sick man, smiling again, "an' you
+doan't believe in 'em, noather, if folk say true! Don't tha be vexed--I'm
+not saying it to cheek tha. But Mr. Barron, ee says ee'll make tha give
+up. Ee's been goin' roun' the village, talkin' to folk. I doan't care
+about that--an' I've never been one o' your men--not pious enough, be a
+long 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 in
+life.
+
+The Rector started. The inward challenge had taken voice.
+
+"Certainly I will tell you, if it will help you--if you're strong
+enough."
+
+Bateson waved his hand contemptuously.
+
+"I feel as strong as onything. That sup o' brandy has put some grit in
+me. Give me some more. Thank tha ... Does tha believe in God, Rector?"
+
+His whimsical, half-teasing, yet, at bottom, anxious look touched Meynell
+strangely.
+
+"With all my life--and with all my strength!"
+
+Meynell's gaze was fixed intently on his questioner. The night-light in
+the basin on the farther side of the room threw the strong features into
+shadowy relief, illumining the yearning kindliness of the eyes.
+
+"What made tha believe in Him?"
+
+"My own life--my own struggles--and sins--and sufferings," said
+Meynell, stooping toward the sick man, and speaking each word with an
+intensity behind which lay much that could never be known to his
+questioner. "A good man, Bateson, put it once in this way, 'There is
+something 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 is
+always a voice within--it may be weak or it may be strong--that asks of
+him to be--instead--pure and sober and kind. And perhaps he denies the
+Voice, refuses it--talks it down--again and again. Then the joy in his
+life dies out bit by bit, and the world turns to dust and ashes. Every
+time that he says No to the Voice he is less happy--he has less power of
+being 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 suppose
+he obeys, like a child stumbling. Then every time he stretches and bends
+his 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 him
+to love--to love men and women, not with lust, but with pure love; and as
+he obeys, as he loves--he _knows_--he knows that it is God asking, and
+that God has come to him and abides with him. So when death overtakes him
+he 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 nothing
+speak to you, nothing try to stop you?"
+
+The bright half-mocking eyes below Meynell's wandered a little--wavered
+in expression.
+
+"It was the hot blood in me--aye, an' in her too. Yo cawn't help them
+things."
+
+"Can't you? When your wife suffered, didn't that touch you? Wouldn't you
+undo 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 you
+gave 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 your
+heart--ask Him to give you love--love to Him, who has been pleading with
+you all your life--love to your wife, and your fellow men--love--and
+repentance--and faith."
+
+Meynell's voice shook. He was in an anguish at what seemed to him the
+weakness, 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 an
+infidel. But he hasn't read the books you an' I have read, I'll uphold
+yer!"
+
+The dying man raised his hand to the bookshelves beside him with a proud
+gesture.
+
+The Rector slowly raised himself. An expression as of some passion
+within, trying at once to check and to utter itself, became visible on
+his face in the half light.
+
+"It's not books that settle it, Jim. I'll try and put it to you--just as
+I see it myself--just in the way it comes to me."
+
+He paused a moment, frowning under the effort of simplification. The
+hidden need of the dying man seemed to be mysteriously conveyed to
+him--the pang of lonely anguish that death brings with it; the craving
+for comfort beneath the apparent scorn of faith; the human cry expressed
+in this strange catechism.
+
+"Stop me if I tire you," he said at last. "I don't know if I can make it
+plain--but to me, Bateson, there are two worlds that every man is
+concerned with. There is this world of everyday life--work and business,
+sleeping and talking, eating and drinking--that you and I have been
+living 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, and
+follow that voice I spoke of just now. Jesus Christ called that other
+world 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 that
+Love--see it under different shapes. To us--to you and to me--it speaks
+under the name and form of Jesus Christ. And so I come to say--so all
+Christians come to say--_'I believe--in Jesus Christ our Lord_'. For it
+is His life and His death that still to-day--as they have done for
+hundreds of years--draw men and women into the Kingdom--the Kingdom of
+Love--and so to God. He draws us to love--and so to God. And in God alone
+is the soul of man satisfied; _satisfied--and at rest_."
+
+The last words were but just breathed--yet they carried with them the
+whole 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 grave
+on 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 one
+thing that matters to you now--it's to feel God with you--to be giving
+your soul to God."
+
+The two men gazed at each other.
+
+"What are tha nursin' me for, Rector?" said Bateson, abruptly--"I'm nowt
+to you."
+
+"For the love of Christ," said Meynell, steadily, taking his hand--"and
+of 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 great
+chimneys of the colliery were becoming plain; the tints and substance of
+the hills were changing. Dim forms of cattle moved in the newly shorn
+grass; 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 the
+cry--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 home
+there first--as married folk. Tell her I'm goin'--goin' fast."
+
+He fell back, panting. Meynell gave him food and medicine. Then he went
+quickly downstairs, and knocked at the parlour door. After an interval of
+evident hesitation on the part of the occupant of the room, it was
+reluctantly 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 a
+peremptory hand on her arm.
+
+"I command you--in God's name. Come!"
+
+A struggle shook her. She yielded suddenly--and began to cry. Meynell
+patted her on the shoulder as he might have patted a child, said kind,
+soothing things, gave her her husband's message, and finally drew her
+from the room.
+
+She went upstairs, Meynell following, anxious about the physical result
+of 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 his
+side, 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 motionless
+and voiceless; a spectacle little less piteous, little less deathlike,
+than the man on the pillows. He still smiled at her, in a kind of
+triumph; also silent, but his lips trembled. Then, groping, she put out
+her hand--her disfigured, toil-worn hand--and took his, raising it to her
+lips. The touch of his flesh seemed to loosen in her the fountains of the
+great deep. She slid to her knees and kissed him--enfolding him with her
+arms, the two murmuring together.
+
+Meynell went out into the dawn. His mystical sense had beheld the Lord in
+that small upper room; had seen as it were the sacred hands breaking to
+those two poor creatures the sacrament of love. His own mind was for the
+time being tranquillized. It was as though he said to himself, "I know
+that trouble will come back--I know that doubts and fears will pursue me
+again; but this hour--this blessing--is from God!"...
+
+The sun was high in a dewy world, already busy with its first labours of
+field and mine, when Meynell left the cottage. The church clock was on
+the stroke of eight.
+
+He passed down the village street, and reached again the little gabled
+house which he had passed the night before. As he approached, there was a
+movement in the garden. A lady, who was walking among the roses, holding
+up 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 seen
+you 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 her
+among the roses Meynell perceived another lady--a girl, with bright
+reddish hair.
+
+"Mary!" said Miss Puttenham.
+
+The girl approached. Meynell had an impression of mingled charm and
+reticence as she gave him her hand. The eyes were sweet and shy. But the
+unconscious dignity of bearing showed that the shyness was the shyness of
+strong character, rather than of mere youth and innocence.
+
+"This is my new friend, Mary Elsmere. You've heard they're at Forked
+Pond?" Alice Puttenham said, smiling, as she slipped her arm round the
+girl. "I captured her for the night, while Mrs. Elsmere went to town. I
+want you to know each other."
+
+"Elsmere's daughter!" thought Meynell, with a thrill, as he followed the
+two 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 young
+face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+"I am in love with the house--I adore the Chase--I like heretics--and I
+don't think I'm ever going home again!"
+
+Mrs. Flaxman as she spoke handed a cup of tea to a tall gentleman, Louis
+Manvers by name, the possessor of a long, tanned countenance; of thin
+iron-gray hair, descending toward the shoulders; of a drooping moustache,
+and eyes that mostly studied the carpet or the knees of their owner. A
+shy, laconic person at first sight, with the manner of one to whom
+conversation, of the drawing-room kind, was little more than a series of
+doubtful experiments, that seldom or never came off.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman, on the other hand, was a pretty woman of forty, still young
+and slender, in spite of two boys at Eton, one of them seventeen, and in
+the Eleven; and her talk was as rash and rapid as that of her companion
+was the reverse. Which perhaps might be one of the reasons why they were
+excellent friends, and always happy in each other's society.
+
+Mr. Manvers overlooked a certain challenge that Mrs. Flaxman had thrown
+out, took the tea provided, and merely inquired how long the rebuilding
+of the Flaxmans' own house would take. For it appeared that they were
+only tenants of Maudeley House--furnished--for a year.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman replied that only the British workman knew. But she looked
+upon herself as homeless for two years, and found the prospect as
+pleasant as her husband found it annoying.
+
+"As if life was long enough to spend it in one county, and one house
+and park! I have shaken all my duties from me like old rags. No more
+school-treats, no more bean-feasts, no more hospital committees, for two
+whole years! Think of it! Hugh, poor wretch, is still Chairman of the
+County 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, next
+year. 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 can
+see a lion kill from the front windows, and zebras stub up your kitchen
+garden. That's Hugh's show. Then of course there'll be Japan--and by that
+time there'll be airships to the North Pole, and we can take it on our
+way home!"
+
+"Souvent femme varie!" Mr. Manvers raised a pair of surprisingly shrewd
+eyes from the carpet. "I remember the years when I used to try and dig
+you and Hugh out of Bagley, and drive you abroad--without the smallest
+success."
+
+"Those were the years when one was moral and well-behaved! But everybody
+who is worth anything goes a little mad at forty. I was forty last
+week"--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," said
+Manvers dryly. "Why should you be so much younger than anybody else in
+the 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 as
+much as you like. They will not prevent me from telling you that you are
+one 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 her
+teaspoon 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 most
+tempting 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--I
+should 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 Church
+of England--services, doctrines and all--off his own bat, so to
+speak--without a 'with your leave or by your leave'; his parishioners
+backing him up; his Bishop in a frightful taking and not the least
+knowing 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--and
+yet--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 each
+other.
+
+"Very sorry--but it leaves me quite cold. Heresy in the Church of England
+comes to nothing. Our heretics are never violent enough. They forget the
+excellent text about the Kingdom of Heaven! Now the heretics in the
+Church of Rome are violent. That is what makes them so far more
+interesting."
+
+"This man seems to be drastic enough!"
+
+"Oh, no!" said the other, gently but firmly incredulous. "Believe me--he
+will resign, or apologize--they always do."
+
+"Believe _me_!--you don't--excuse me!--know anything about it. In
+the first place, Mr. Meynell has got his parishioners--all except a
+handful--behind him--"
+
+"So had Voysey," interjected Manvers, softly.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman took no notice.
+
+"--And he has hundreds of other supporters--thousands perhaps--and some
+of them parsons--in this diocese, and outside it. And they are all
+convinced that they must fight--fight to the death--and _not_ give in.
+That, you see, is what makes the difference! My brother-in-law"--the
+voice speaking changed and softened--"died twenty years ago. I remember
+how sad it was. He seemed to be walking alone in a world that hardly
+troubled 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 the
+strain 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 world
+behind him?" Mrs. Flaxman persisted, as the man beside her slowly shook
+his 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, and
+there were scores of people from other villages and towns--a kind of
+demonstration. Then, as to the service--neither of us could find our way
+about. 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 the
+chancel steps that they were not fit to be read in a Christian church; we
+altered this prayer and that prayer; we listened to an extempore prayer
+for the widows and orphans of some poor fellows who have been killed in a
+mine ten miles from here, which made me cry like baby; and, most amazing
+of all, when it came to the Creeds--"
+
+Manvers suddenly threw back his head, his face for the first time
+sharpening 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 the
+congregation--and with just a word of preface--'Here follows the Creed,
+commonly called the Apostles' Creed,'--or 'Here follows the Nicene
+Creed.' And we all stood and listened--and nobody said a word. It was the
+strangest moment! You know--I'm not a serious person--but I just held my
+breath."
+
+"As though you heard behind the veil the awful Voices--'_Let us depart
+hence_?'" said Manvers, after a pause. His expression had gradually
+changed. Those who knew him best might have seen in it a slight and
+passing trace of conflicts long since silenced and resolutely forgotten.
+
+"If you mean by that that the church was irreverent--or disrespectful--or
+hostile--well, you are quite wrong!" cried Mrs. Flaxman impetuously. "It
+was like a moment of new birth--I can't describe it--as though a Spirit
+entered in. And when the Rector finished--there was a kind of breath
+through the church--like the rustling of new leaves--and I thought of
+the wind blowing where it listed.... And then the Rector preached on the
+Creeds--how they grew up and why. Fascinating!--why aren't the clergy
+always telling us such things? And he brought it all round to impressing
+upon us that some day _we_ might be worthy of another Christian creed--by
+being faithful--that it would flower again out of our lives and souls--as
+the old had done.... I wonder what it all meant!" she said abruptly, her
+light voice dropping.
+
+Manvers smiled. His emotion had quite passed away.
+
+"Ah! but I forgot"--she resumed hurriedly--"we left out several of the
+Commandments--and we chanted the Beatitudes--and then I found there was a
+little service paper in the seat, and everybody in the church but Hugh
+and 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 to
+him the remark of the Bishop of Cork on the Dean of Cork--'Excellent
+sermon!--eloquent, clever, argumentative!--and not enough gospel in it to
+save a tom-tit!"'
+
+Mrs. Flaxman looked at him oddly.
+
+"Well, but--the extraordinary thing was that Hugh made me stay for the
+second 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 course
+Ritualistic is the wrong word. Should I have said 'sacramental'? I only
+meant that it was full of symbolism. There were lights--and flowers, and
+music, but there was nothing priestly--or superstitious"--she frowned in
+her effort to explain. "It was all poetic--and mystical--and yet
+practical. There were a good many things changed in the Service,--but
+I hardly noticed--I was so absorbed in watching the people. Almost every
+one stayed for the second service. It was quite short--so was the first
+service. And a great many communicated. But the spirit of it was the
+wonderful thing. It had all that--that magic--that mystery--that one gets
+out of Catholicism, even simple Catholicism, in a village church--say at
+Benediction; 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 people
+that were saying them; things that you did believe, or could believe,
+instead of things that you only pretended to believe, or couldn't
+possibly believe! I haven't got over it yet, and as for Hugh, I have
+never seen him so moved since--since Robert died."
+
+Manvers was aware of Mrs. Flaxman's affection for her brother-in-law's
+memory; and it seemed to him natural and womanly that she should be
+touched--artist and wordling though she was--by this fresh effort in
+a similar direction. For himself, he was touched in another way: with
+pity, or a kindly scorn. He did not believe in patching up the Christian
+tradition. 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! And
+if 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 and
+looking through the open window beside her. "What do you think we've
+done? We have evoked him! _Parlez du diable_, etc. How stupid of us! But
+there's his carriage trotting up the drive--I know the horses. And that's
+his deaf daughter--poor, downtrodden thing!--sitting beside him. Now
+then--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 the
+colour in her fair skin. Manvers looked longingly at the door leading to
+the 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 is
+on 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 of
+magnificent, superior way. He never loses his temper--whereas the others
+would often like to flay him alive. Now then"--Mrs. Flaxman laid a finger
+on her mouth--"'Papa, potatoes, prunes, and prism'!"
+
+Steps were heard in the hall, and the butler announced "Mr. and Miss
+Barron."
+
+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 the
+newcomers with her sweetest smiles, set the deaf daughter down on the
+hearing 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 a
+portly man of fifty-five, with a penetrating look, and a composed manner;
+well dressed, yet with no undue display. Louis Manvers, struggling with
+an habitual plague of shyness, and all but silenced by the discovery that
+his neighbour was even deafer than himself, watched the "six-foot-two
+Inquisitor" with curiosity, but could find nothing lurid nor torturous in
+his aspect. There was indeed something about him which displeased a
+rationalist scholar and ascetic. But his information and ability, his
+apparent adequacy to any company, were immediately evident. It seemed to
+Manvers that he had very quickly disarmed Mrs. Flaxman's vague prejudice
+against him. At any rate she was soon picking his brains diligently on
+the subject of the neighbourhood and the neighbours, and apparently
+enjoying the result, to judge from her smiles and her questions.
+
+Mr. Barron indeed had everything that could be expected of him to say on
+the subject of the district and its population. He descanted on the
+beauty of the three or four famous parks, which in the eighteenth century
+had been carved out of the wild heath lands; he showed an intimate
+knowledge of the persons who owned the parks, and of their families,
+"though I myself am only a newcomer here, being by rights a Devonshire
+man"; he talked of the local superstitions with indulgence, and a proper
+sense of the picturesque; and of the colliers who believed the
+superstitions he spoke in a tone of general good humour, tempered by
+regret that "agitators" should so often lead them into folly. The
+architecture of the district came in, of course, for proper notice. There
+were 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 is
+Sandford Abbey from here?"
+
+Her visitor paused a moment before replying.
+
+"Sandford Abbey is about five miles from you--across the park. The two
+estates 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 old
+friend of Hugh's family."
+
+Mr. Barron was silent.
+
+"Is he such a scamp?" said Mrs. Flaxman, raising her fine eyes, with a
+laugh 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 gathers
+some strange company at the Abbey. He is there now for the fishing."
+
+Manvers inquired who this gentleman might be; and Mrs. Flaxman gave him a
+lightly touched account. A young man of wealth and family, it seemed, but
+spoilt from his earliest days, and left fatherless at nineteen, with only
+an adoring but quite ineffectual mother to take account of. Some
+notorious love affairs at home and abroad; a wild practical joke or two,
+played on prominent people, and largely advertised in the newspapers; an
+audacious novel, and a censored play--he had achieved all these things by
+the age of thirty, and was now almost penniless, and still unmarried.
+
+"Hugh says that the Abbey is falling into ruin--and that the young man
+has about a hundred a year left out of his fortune. On this he keeps
+apparently an army of servants and a couple of hunters! The strange
+thing is--Hugh discovered it when he went to call on the Rector the other
+day--that this preposterous young man is a first cousin of Mr. Meynell's.
+His mother, Lady Meryon, and the Rector's mother were sisters. The
+Rector, 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 the
+charms, both of villainy and mystery, let the subject drop.
+
+Mr. Barron returned, as though with relief, to architecture, talked
+agreeably 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 whole
+disappointing--inferior to those of other districts within reach.
+Here, indeed, he showed himself an expert; and a far too minute
+discourse on the relative merits of the church architecture of two or
+three of the midland counties flowed on and on through Mrs. Flaxman's
+tea-making, while the deaf daughter became entirely speechless; and
+Manvers--disillusioned--gradually assumed an aspect of profound
+melancholy, which merely meant that his wits were wool gathering.
+
+"Well, I thought Upcote Minor church a very pretty church," said
+Rose Flaxman at last, with a touch of revolt. "The old screen is
+beautiful--and who on earth has done all that carving of the
+pulpit--and the reredos?"
+
+Mr. Barron's expression changed. He bent toward his hostess, striking one
+hand 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 recovered
+their animation.
+
+"You were present then," said Mr. Barron with passionate energy, "at a
+scandalous 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. The
+slight pomposity of look and manner had disappeared.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman hesitated. Then she said gravely: "It was certainly very
+astonishing. 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 is
+impossible for him to be honest!"
+
+Mrs. Flaxman slowly poured out another cup of tea for Mr. Manvers, who
+was standing before her in a drooping attitude, like some long crumpled
+fly, apparently deaf and blind to what was going on, his hair falling
+forward 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 to
+me--everybody in the church appeared to us to be enjoying what the Rector
+was 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 all
+the worse. When I came here three years ago he had not yet done any of
+these things--publicly; these perfectly monstrous things. Up to last
+Sunday, indeed, he kept within certain bounds as to the services; though
+frequent complaints of his teaching had been made to the Bishop, and
+proceedings even had been begun--it might have been difficult to touch
+him. But last Sunday!--" He stopped with a little sad gesture of the hand
+as though the recollection were too painful to pursue. "I saw, however,
+within six months of my coming here--he and I were great friends at
+first--what his teaching was, and whither it was tending. He has taught
+the people systematic infidelity for years. Now we have the results!"
+
+"He also seems to have looked after their bodies," said Mrs. Flaxman, in
+a skirmishing tone that simply meant she was not to be brought to close
+quarters. "I am told that it was he brought the water-supply here; and
+that he has forced the owners to rebuild some of the worst cottages."
+
+Mr. Barron looked attentively at his hostess. It was as though he were
+for 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, he
+was not asked to take vows about the water-supply! But he did promise and
+vow at his ordination to hold the Faith--to 'banish and drive away
+strange doctrines'!"
+
+"What are 'strange doctrines' nowadays?" said a mild, falsetto voice in
+the distance.
+
+Barron turned to the speaker--the long-haired dishevelled person whose
+name he had not caught distinctly as Mrs. Flaxman introduced him. His
+manner unconsciously assumed a note of patronage.
+
+"No need to define them, I think--for a Christian. The Church has her
+Creeds."
+
+"Of course. But while this gentleman shelves them--no doubt a
+revolutionary proceeding--are there not excesses on the other side? May
+there not be too much--as well as too little?"
+
+And with an astonishing command of ecclesiastical detail Manvers gave an
+account--gently ironic here and there--of some neo-Catholic functions of
+which he had lately been a witness.
+
+Barron fidgeted.
+
+"Deplorable, I admit--quite deplorable! I would put that kind of thing
+down, just as firmly as the other."
+
+Manvers smiled.
+
+"But who are '_you_'? if I may ask it philosophically and without
+offence? The man here does not agree with you--the people I have been
+describing would scout you. Where's your authority? What _is_ the
+authority in the English Church?"
+
+"Well, of course we have our answer to that question," said Barron, after
+a moment.
+
+Manvers gave a pleasant little laugh. "Have you?"
+
+Barron hesitated again, then evidently found the controversial temptation
+too strong. He plunged headlong into a great gulf of cloudy argument,
+with the big word "authority" for theme. But he could find no foothold
+in the maze. Manvers drove him delicately from point to point,
+involving him in his own contradictions, rolling him in his own
+ambiguities, till--suddenly--vague recollections began to stir in the
+victim's mind. _Manvers_? Was that the name? It began to recall to
+him certain articles in the reviews, the Church papers. Was there not a
+well-known writer--a Dublin man--a man who had once been a clergyman, and
+had resigned his orders?
+
+He drew himself together with dignity, and retreated in as good order as
+he could. Turning to Mrs. Flaxman, who was endeavouring to make a few
+commonplaces audible to Miss Barron, while throwing occasional sly
+glances toward the field of battle, he somewhat curtly asked for his
+carriage.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman's hand was on the bell, when the drawing-room door opened to
+admit a gentleman.
+
+"Mr. Meynell!" said the butler.
+
+And at the same moment a young girl slipped in through the open French
+window, and with a smiling nod to Mrs. Flaxman and Mr. Manvers went up to
+the tea-table and began to replenish the teapot and relight the kettle.
+
+Mr. Barron made an involuntary movement of annoyance as the Rector
+entered. But a few minutes of waiting before the appearance of his
+carriage was inevitable. He stood motionless therefore in his place, a
+handsome, 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 friendly
+nod. 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 an
+evident look of pleasure.
+
+"I have just read your Bishop Butler article in the _Quarterly_," said
+Meynell eagerly. "Splendid! Have you seen it?" He turned to his hostess,
+with one of the rapid movements that expressed the constant energy of the
+man.
+
+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 bit
+from it?" The speaker turned to Manvers again. "There is a clerical
+conference 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, to
+his hostess: "Will you mind if I drink a good deal? I have just been down
+a 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 thought
+he 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 all
+away, married. Nobody to nurse him as usual. I say!"--he bent forward,
+looking into his hostess's face with his small, vivacious eyes--"how
+long 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, and
+it will do a lot of good," said the Rector earnestly. "The people here
+are awfully good to each other--but they don't know anything--poor
+souls--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 sat
+the squire of the parish, silent and impassive. Common report made Henry
+Barron a wealthy man. He could, no doubt, have provided half a dozen
+nurses for Upcote Minor if he had so chosen. Yet here was she, the
+newcomer of a few weeks, appealed to instead! It seemed to her that the
+Rector 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 difficulty
+in controlling, endeavoured nevertheless to strike the same easy note as
+the rest. He gave his reasons for thinking that a parish nurse was not
+really required in Upcote, the women in the village being in his opinion
+quite 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 all
+very well for Meynell to show this levity, this callous indifference to
+the situation. But he, Barron, could not forget it. That very week, the
+first steps had been taken which were to drive this heretical and
+audacious priest from the office and benefice he had no right to hold,
+and had so criminally misused. If he submitted and went quietly, well and
+good. But of course he would do nothing of the kind. There was a
+lamentable amount of disloyalty and infidelity in the diocese, and he
+would be supported. An ugly struggle was inevitable--a struggle for the
+honour of Christ and his Church. It would go down to the roots of things
+and was not to be settled or smoothed over by a false and superficial
+courtesy. The days of friendship, of ordinary social intercourse, were
+over. Barron did not intend to receive the Rector again within his own
+doors, intimate as they had been at one time; and it was awkward and
+undesirable that they should be meeting in other people's drawing-rooms.
+
+All these feelings were running through his mind while aloud he was
+laboriously giving Mrs. Flaxman his reasons for thinking a parish nurse
+unnecessary in Upcote Minor. When he came to the end of them, Meynell
+looked at him with amused exasperation.
+
+"Well, all I know is that in the last case of typhoid we had here--a poor
+lad on Reynolds's farm--his mother got him up every day while she made
+his 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 else
+they do with them--unless I stay and see them put on. Ah, well, never
+mind. 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 new
+German 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. Yet
+the eyes for all their intensity looked out from a face furrowed and
+pale--overshadowed by physical and mental strain. The girl sitting at the
+tea-table could scarcely take her eyes from it. It appealed at once to
+her heart and her intelligence. And yet there were other feelings in her
+which resisted the appeal. Once or twice she looked wistfully at Barron.
+She would gladly have found in him a more attractive champion of a
+majestic cause.
+
+"What can my coachman be about?" said Barron impatiently. "Might I
+trouble 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. "At
+once!"
+
+But the minutes passed on, and while trying to keep up a desultory
+conversation with his hostess, and with the young lady at the tea-table,
+to whom he was not introduced, Mr. Barron was all the while angrily
+conscious of the conversation going on between the Rector and Manvers.
+There seemed to be something personally offensive and humiliating to
+himself in the knowledge displayed by these two men--men who had deserted
+or were now betraying the Church--of the literature of Anglican
+apologetics, and of the thought of the great Anglican bishop. Why this
+parade of useless learning and hypocritical enthusiasm? What was Bishop
+Butler to them? He could hardy sit patiently through it, and it was with
+most evident relief that he rose to his feet when his carriage was
+announced.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"How pretty Mrs. Flaxman is!" said his daughter as they drove away. "Yet
+I'm sure she's forty, papa."
+
+Her face still reflected the innocent pleasure that Rose Flaxman's
+kindness had given her. It was not often that the world troubled itself
+much about her. Her father, however, took no notice. He sat absent and
+pondering, and soon he stretched out a peremptory hand and lowered the
+window which his daughter had raised against an east wind to protect a
+delicate ear and throat which had been the torment of her life. It was
+done with no conscious unkindness; far from it. He was merely absorbed in
+the planning of his campaign. The next all-important point was the
+selection of the Commission of Inquiry. No effort must be spared by the
+Church party to obtain the right men.
+
+Meanwhile, in the drawing-room which he had left, there was silence for a
+moment 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 the
+tea-table.
+
+"Oh, I had had quite enough of Mr. Barron. Mr. Meynell, have I ever
+introduced you to my niece?"
+
+"Oh, but we know each other!" said Meynell, eagerly. "We met first at
+Miss Puttenham's, a week ago--and since then--Miss Elsmere has been
+visiting a woman I know."
+
+"Indeed?"
+
+"A woman who lost her husband some days since--a terrible case. We are
+all so grateful to Miss Elsmere."
+
+He looked toward her with a smile and a sigh; then as he saw the shy
+discomfort in the girl's face, he changed the subject at once.
+
+The conversation became general. Some feeling that she could not explain
+to herself led Mrs. Flaxman into a closer observation of her niece Mary
+than usual. There was much affection between the aunt and the niece, but
+on Mrs. Flaxman's side, at least, not much understanding. She thought of
+Mary as an interesting creature, with some striking gifts--amongst them
+her mother's gift for goodness. But it seemed to the aunt that she was
+far too grave and reserved for her age; that she had been too strenuously
+brought up, and in a too narrow world. Rose Flaxman had often impatiently
+tried to enliven the girl's existence, to give her nice clothes, to take
+her to balls and to the opera. But Mary's adoration for her mother stood
+in 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 was
+talking--softly, and with a delicate and rather old-fashioned choice of
+words, but certainly with no lack of animation. And it was quite evident
+to an inquisitive aunt with a notorious gift for match making that the
+tired heretic with the patches of coal dust on his coat found her very
+attractive.
+
+But as the clock struck six Meynell sprang up.
+
+"I must go. Miss Elsmere"--he looked toward her--"has kindly promised to
+take me on to see your sister at the Cottage--and after to-day I may not
+have another opportunity." He hesitated, considering his hostess--then
+burst out: "You were at church last Sunday--I know--I saw you. I want to
+tell you--that you have a church quite as near to you as the parish
+church, where everything is quite orthodox--the church at Haddon End. I
+wish I could have warned you. I--I did ask Miss Elsmere to warn her
+mother."
+
+Rose looked at the carpet.
+
+"You needn't pity us," she said, demurely. "Hugh wants to talk to you
+dreadfully. But--I am afraid I am a Gallio."
+
+"Of course--you don't need to be told--it was all a deliberate defiance
+of the law--in order to raise vital questions. We have never done
+anything half so bad before. We determined on it at a public meeting last
+week, 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 laymen
+in the Church want a real franchise--a citizenship they can exercise--and
+a law of their own making!"
+
+There was silence a moment. Mary Elsmere took up her hat, and kissed her
+aunt; Meynell made his farewells, and followed the girl's lead into the
+garden.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman and Manvers watched them open the gate of the park and
+disappear behind a rising ground. Then the two spectators turned to each
+other by a common impulse, smiling at the same thought. Mrs. Flaxman's
+smile, however, was almost immediately drowned in a real concern. She
+clasped 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 hill
+and in a northwest direction across one of the most beautiful parks in
+England. It lay on the fringe of the Chase and contained, within its
+slopes and glades, now tracts of primitive woodland whence the charcoal
+burners 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, a
+seemly Georgian pile, with a columnar front, had the good fortune to
+belong to a man not rich enough to live in or rebuild it, but
+sufficiently attached to it to spend upon its decent maintenance the
+money he got by letting it. So the delicately faded beauty of the house
+had survived unspoilt; while there had never been any money to spend upon
+the park, where the woods and fences looked after themselves year by
+year, and colliers from the neighbouring villages poached freely.
+
+The two people walking through the ferny paths leading to the cottage of
+Forked Pond were not, however, paying much attention to the landscape
+round them. Meynell showed himself at first preoccupied and silent. A
+load of anxiety depressed his vitality; and on this particular day long
+hours of literary work and correspondence, beginning almost with the dawn
+and 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 to
+create a soothing and liberating atmosphere in which it was possible to
+speak with frankness, though without effort or excitement.
+
+The Rector indeed had so far very little precise knowledge of what his
+companion's feeling might be toward his own critical plight. He would
+have liked to get at it; for there was something in this winning,
+reserved girl that made him desire her good opinion. And yet he shrank
+from any discussion with her.
+
+He knew of course that the outlines of what had happened must be known to
+her. During the ten days since their first meeting both the local and
+London newspapers had given much space to the affairs of Upcote Minor. An
+important public meeting in which certain decisions had been taken with
+only three dissentients had led up to the startling proceedings in the
+village church which Mrs. Flaxman had described to Louis Manvers. The
+Bishop had written another letter, this time of a more hurried and
+peremptory kind. An account of the service had appeared in the _Times_,
+and columns had been devoted to it in various Mercian newspapers. After
+years of silence, during which his heart had burned within him; after a
+shorter period of growing propaganda and expanding utterance, Meynell
+realized fully that he had now let loose the floodgates. All round him
+was rising that wide response from human minds and hearts--whether in
+sympathy or in hostility--which tests and sifts the man who aspires to be
+a leader of men--in religion or economics. Every trade union leader
+lifted on the wave of a great strike, representing the urgent physical
+need of his fellows, knows what the concentration of human passion can
+be--in matters concerned with the daily bread and the homes of men.
+Religion can gather and bring to bear forces as strong. Meynell knew it
+well; and he was like a man stepping down into a rushing stream from
+which there is no escape. It must be crossed--that is all the wayfarer
+knows; but as he feels the water on his body he realizes that the moment
+is perhaps for life or death.
+
+Such crises in life bring with them, in the case of the nobler
+personalities, a great sensitiveness; and Meynell seemed to be living in
+a world where not only his own inner feelings and motives but those of
+others were magnified and writ large. As he walked beside Mary Elsmere
+his mind played round what he knew of her history and position; and it
+troubled him to think that, both for her and her mother, contact with him
+at this particular moment might be the reviving of old sorrows.
+
+As they paused on the top of a rising ground looking westward he looked
+at her with sudden and kindly decision.
+
+"Miss Elsmere, are you sure your mother would like to see me? It was very
+good of you to request that I should accompany you to-night--but--are you
+sure?"
+
+Mary coloured deeply and hesitated a moment.
+
+"Don't you think I'd better turn back?" he asked her, gently. "Your path
+is clear before you." He pointed to it winding through the fern. "And you
+know, I hope, that anything I could do for you and your mother during
+your stay here I should be only too enchanted to do. The one thing I
+shrink from doing is to interfere in any way with her rest here. And I am
+afraid just now I might be a disturbing element."
+
+"No, no! please come!" said Mary, earnestly. Then as she turned her head
+away, she added: "Of course--there is nothing new--to her--"
+
+"Except that my fight is waged from inside the Church--and your father's
+from 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 so
+terrible to her."
+
+"Any break with the old things? But doesn't it ever present itself to
+her--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 the
+trouble he divined in her. A great natural dignity in the girl--delicacy
+of feeling in the man--prevented it.
+
+None the less her betrayal of emotion had altered their relation; or
+rather had carried it farther. For he had already seen her in contact
+with tragic and touching things. A day or two after that early morning
+when he had told the outlines of the Batesons' story to the two ladies
+who had entertained him at breakfast he had found her in Bateson's
+cottage 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 friendly
+timid ways had stirred, as it were, the dark air of the house with a
+breath of tenderness. She would sit beside the widow, sewing at a black
+dress, or helping her to choose the text to be printed on the funeral
+card; or she would come with her hands full of wild flowers, and coax
+Mrs. Bateson to go in the dusk to the churchyard with them. She had
+shown, indeed, wonderful inventiveness in filling the first week of loss
+and anguish with such small incident as might satisfy feeling, and yet
+take 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 mind
+of her companion. It was a remarkable face; the lower lip a little
+prominent, and the chin firmly rounded. But the smile, though rare, was
+youth and sweetness itself, and the dark eyes beneath the full mass of
+richly coloured hair were finely conscious and attentive--disinterested
+also; so that they won the spectator instead of embarrassing him. She was
+very lightly and slenderly made, yet so as to convey an impression of
+strength and physical health. Meynell said to himself that there was
+something cloistered in her look, like one brought up in a grave
+atmosphere--an atmosphere of "recollection." At the same time nothing
+could 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 both
+their minds. Insensibly the barrier between them and it broke away.
+Neither, indeed, forgot the interposing shadow of Catharine Elsmere. But
+the 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 reveal
+them to each other. The growing delight of their conversation was
+presently beyond Meynell's resisting. And in Mary, the freedom of it, no
+less than the sense of personal conflict and tragic possibilities that
+lay behind it, awakened the subtlest and deepest feelings. Poignant,
+concrete images rushed through her mind--a dying face to which her own
+had been lifted, as a tiny child; the hall of the New Brotherhood, where
+she sat sometimes beside her veiled mother; the sad nobility of that
+mother's life; a score of trifling, heartpiercing things, that, to think
+of, 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 thought
+and doubt, of faith and denial, in a living and daring world. And yet
+again, times of passionate remorse, in which all movement of revolt had
+died 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-thwarted
+force. And under the pressure of her quick, searching sympathy his talk
+became insensibly more personal, more autobiographical. He was but little
+given to confession, but she compelled it. It was as though through his
+story she sought to understand her father's--to unveil many things yet
+dark to her.
+
+Thus gradually, through ways direct and indirect, the intellectual story
+of the man revealed itself to the pure and sensitive mind of the girl.
+She divined his home and upbringing--his father an Evangelical soldier of
+the old school, a home imbued with the Puritan and Biblical ideas. She
+understood something of the struggle provoked--after his ordination, in a
+somewhat late maturity--by the uprising of the typical modern problems,
+historical, critical, scientific. She pieced together much that only came
+out incidentally as to the counsellors within the Church to whom he had
+gone in his first urgent distress--the Bishop whom he reverenced--his
+old 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 small
+French books by a French priest and the sudden uprush of new life
+in the Roman Church had brought to the remote English clergyman at once
+the crystallization of doubt and the passion of a freed faith.
+"Modernism"--the attempt of the modern spirit, acting religiously, to
+refashion Christianity, not outside, but _inside_, the warm limits of the
+ancient churches--was born; and Richard Meynell became one of the first
+converts in England.
+
+"Ah, if your father had but lived!" he said at last, turning upon her
+with emotion. "He died his noble death twenty years ago--think of the
+difference between then and now! Then the Broad Church movement was
+at an end. All that seemed so hopeful, so full of new life in the
+seventies, had apparently died down. Stanley, John Richard Green, Hugh
+Pearson were dead, Jowett was an old man of seventy; Liberalism within
+the Church hardly seemed to breathe; the judgment in the Voysey case--as
+much a defiance of modern knowledge as any Papal encyclical--though
+people had nearly forgotten it, had yet in truth brought the whole
+movement to a stand. All _within_ the gates seemed lost. Your father went
+out into the wilderness, and there, amid everything that was poor and
+mean 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 of
+it depends now only on the faithfulness of those within it."
+
+Mary was moved and silenced. The man's power, his transparent purity of
+heart, affected her, as they had already affected thousands. She was
+drawn to him also, unconsciously, by that something in personality which
+determines the relations of men and women. Yet there were deep instincts
+in her that protested. Girl as she was, she felt herself for the moment
+more alive than he to the dead weight of the World, fighting the tug of
+those who would fain move it from its ancient bases.
+
+He seemed to guess at her thought; for he passed on to describe the
+events by which, amid his own dumb or hidden struggle, he had become
+aware of the same forces working all round him; among the more
+intelligent and quick-witted miners, hungry for history and science,
+reading voraciously a Socialist and anti-Christian literature, yet all
+the while cherishing deep at heart certain primitive superstitions, and
+falling periodically into hot abysses of Revivalism, under the influence
+of Welsh preachers; or among the young men of the small middle class, in
+whom a better education was beginning to awaken a number of new
+intellectual and religious wants; among women, too, sensitive,
+intelligent women--
+
+"Ah! but," said Mary, quickly interrupting him, "don't imagine there are
+many 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 very
+little part in this particular movement. I never know whether she is
+really with us. She stands outside the old things, but I can never make
+myself happy by the hope that I have been able to win her to the new!"
+
+Mary looked puzzled--interrogative. But she checked her question, and
+drew him back instead to his narrative--to the small incidents and signs
+which had gradually revealed to him, among even his brother clergy, years
+before that date, the working of ideas and thoughts like his own. And
+now--
+
+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 other
+counties. It made me think of what a French Catholic Modernist said to me
+two years ago--'Pius X may write encyclicals as he pleases--I could show
+him whole dioceses in France that are practically Modernist, where the
+Seminaries are Modernist, and two thirds of the clergy. The Bishop knows
+it quite well, and is helpless. Over the border perhaps you get an
+Ultramontane diocese, and an Ultramontane bishop. But the process goes
+on. Life and time are for _us_!'" He paused and laughed. "Ah, of course I
+don't pretend things are so here--yet. Our reforms in England--in Church
+and State--broaden slowly down. In France, reform, when it moves at all,
+tends to be catastrophic. But in the Markborough diocese alone we have
+won over perhaps a fifth of the clergy, and the dioceses all round are
+moving. As to the rapidity of the movement in the last few months it has
+been nothing short of amazing!"
+
+"And what is the end to be? Not only--oh! Not only--_to destroy_!" said
+Mary. The soft intensity of the voice, the beauty of the look, touched
+him strangely.
+
+He smiled, and there was a silence for a minute, as they wandered
+downward through a purple stretch of heather to a little stream,
+sun-smitten, that lay across their path. Once or twice she looked at him
+timidly, 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 yet
+intenser fellowship. We want to say to our fellowmen: 'Cease from groping
+among ruins!--from making life and faith depend upon whether Christ was
+born at Bethlehem or at Nazareth, whether He rose or did not rise,
+whether Luke or some one else wrote the Third Gospel, whether the Fourth
+Gospel 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 purify
+the gold. Take the cup of cold water to the thirsty, heal the sick, tend
+the dying, and feel it thrill within you--the ineffable, the immortal
+life! Let the false miracle go!--the true has grown out of it, up from
+it, as the flower from the sheath.' Ah! but then"--he drew himself up
+unconsciously; his tone hardened--"we turn to the sons of tradition, and
+we say: 'We too must have our rights in what the past has built up, the
+past has bequeathed--as well as you! Not for you alone, the institutions,
+the buildings, the arts, the traditions, that the Christ-life has so far
+fashioned for itself. They who made them are Our fathers no less than
+yours--give us our share in them!--we claim it! Give us our share in the
+cathedrals and churches of our country--our share in the beauty and
+majesty of our ancestral Christianity.' The men who led the rebellion
+against Rome in the sixteenth century claimed the _plant_ of English
+Catholicism. 'We are our fathers' sons, and these things are _ours!_'
+they said, as they looked at Salisbury and Winchester. We say the
+same--with a difference. 'Give us the rights and the citizenship that
+belong to us! But do not imagine that we want to attack yours. In God's
+name, follow your own forms of faith--but allow us ours also--within
+the common shelter of the common Church. We are children of the same
+God--followers of the same Master. Who made you judges and dividers over
+us? You shall not drive us into the desert any more. A new movement of
+revolt has come--an hour of upheaval--and the men, with it!'"
+
+Both stood motionless, gazing over the wide stretch of country--wood
+beyond wood, distance beyond distance, that lay between them and the
+Welsh border. Suddenly, as a shaft of light from the descending sun
+fled ghostlike across the plain, touching trees and fields and farms in
+its path, two noble towers emerged among the shadows--characters, as it
+were, that gave a meaning to the scroll of nature. They were the towers
+of Markborough Cathedral. Meynell pointed to them as he turned to his
+companion, his face still quivering under the strain of feeling.
+
+"Take the omen! It is for _them_, in a sense--a spiritual sense--we are
+fighting. They belong not to any body of men that may chance to-day to
+call itself the English Church. They belong to _England_--in her aspect
+of faith--and to the English people!"
+
+There was a silence. His look came back to her face, and the prophetic
+glow died from his own. "I should be very, very sorry"--he said
+anxiously--"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--of
+others." Her voice trembled.
+
+The words seemed to suggest everything that in her own personal history
+had stamped her with this sweet, shrinking look. Meynell was deeply
+touched. But he did not answer her, or pursue the conversation any
+farther. He gathered a great bunch of harebells for her, from the
+sun-warmed dells in the heather; and was soon making her laugh by his
+stories of colliery life and speech, _a propos_ of the colliery villages
+fringing the plain at their feet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The stream, as they neared it, proved to be the boundary between the
+heath land and the pastures of the lower ground. It ran fresh and
+brimming between its rushy banks, shadowed here and there by a few light
+ashes and alders, but in general open to the sky, of which it was the
+mirror. It shone now golden and blue under the deepening light of the
+afternoon; and two or three hundred yards away Mary Elsmere distinguished
+two 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. There
+should be a capital rise to-night. If that man has the sense to put on a
+sedge-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, on
+the other side of the stream. "What a wonderful old place!"
+
+For the house that revealed itself stood with an impressive dignity among
+its stern and blackish woods. The long, plain front suggested a monastic
+origin; 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 have
+grown into the landscape, and to be so deeply rooted in it that one could
+not imagine it away.
+
+Meynell glanced at it.
+
+"That is Sandford Abbey. It belongs, I regret to say, to a neer-do-weel
+cousin of mine who has spent all his time since he came into it in
+neglecting his duties to it. Provided the owner of it is safely away, I
+should 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 own
+sentiments!"
+
+Mary followed the house with her eyes as they walked along the bank of
+the stream toward the two figures on the opposite bank.
+
+A sudden exclamation from her companion caught her ear--and a light
+musical laugh. Startled by something familiar in it, Mary looked across
+the stream. She saw on the farther bank a few yards ahead a young man
+fishing, and a young girl in white sitting beside him.
+
+"Hester!--Miss Fox-Wilton!"--the tone showed her surprise; "and who is
+that with her?"
+
+Meynell, without replying, walked rapidly along the stream to a point
+immediately opposite the pair.
+
+"Good afternoon, Philip. I did not know you were here. Hester, I am going
+round by Forked 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't
+think what a rise there is. I have caught two myself. Sir Philip has been
+teaching me."
+
+"She frames magnificently!" said the young man. "How d'ye do, Meynell? A
+long time since we've met."
+
+"A long time," said Meynell briefly. "Hester, will you meet Miss Elsmere
+and 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 yards
+farther 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 good
+luck I wouldn't go with mother to dine at the White House! Don't you hate
+dinner parties? I told Mr. Barron that spiders were so much more refined
+than humans--they did at least eat their flies by themselves! He was
+quite angry--and I am afraid Stephen was too!"
+
+She laughed again, and so did the man beside her. He was a dark, slim
+fellow, finely made, dressed in blue serge, and a felt hat, which
+seemed at the moment to be slipping over the back of his handsome head.
+From a little distance he produced an impression of Apollo-like strength
+and good looks. As the spectator came closer, this impression was a good
+deal modified by certain loose and common lines in the face. But from
+Mary Elsmere's position only Sir Philip Meryon's good points were
+visible, and he appeared to her a dazzling creature.
+
+And in point of looks his companion was more than his match. They made
+indeed 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. In
+pushing along the overgrown stream, the coils of her hair had been
+disarranged 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 and
+smile shone out triumphantly. Exceptionally tall, with clear-cut aquiline
+features, with the movements and the grace of a wood nymph, the girl
+carried her beautiful brows and her full throat with a provocative and
+self-conscious arrogance. One might have guessed that fear was unknown
+to her; perhaps tenderness also. She looked much older than seventeen,
+until she moved or spoke; then the spectator soon realized that in spite
+of her height and her precocious beauty she was a child, capable still of
+a 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 across
+the stream. Meynell's peremptory voice reached her now and then, and she
+could not help hearing a sharp final demand that the truant should
+transfer 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 will
+allow me to join you. Miss Elsmere, I am very sorry, but I am afraid I
+must 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 I
+please!"
+
+Meanwhile Sir Philip Meryon had laid aside his rod and was apparently
+enjoying the encounter between his companion and the Rector.
+
+"Perhaps you have forgotten--this is _my_ side of the river, Meynell!" he
+shouted across it.
+
+"I am quite aware of it," said the Rector, as he shook hands with the
+embarrassed Mary. She was just moving away with a shy good-bye to the
+angry young goddess on the farther bank, when the goddess said:
+
+"Don't go, Mary! Here, Sir Philip--take the fly-book!" She flung it
+toward him. "Goodnight."
+
+And turning her back upon him without any further ceremony, she walked
+quickly along the stream toward the little bridge which Meynell had
+pointed out.
+
+"Congratulations!" said Meryon, with a mocking wave of the hand to the
+Rector, who made no reply. He ran to catch up Mary, and the two joined
+the girl in white at the bridge. The owner of Sandford Abbey stood
+meanwhile with his hand on his hip watching the receding figures. There
+was a smile on his handsome mouth, but it was an angry one; and his
+muttered remark as he turned away belied the unconcern he had affected.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"That comes, you see, of not letting me be engaged to Stephen!" said
+Hester 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 well
+that your mother does not approve of Sir Philip Meryon, and does not wish
+you to be in his company."
+
+"Precisely. But as I am not to be allowed to marry Stephen, I must of
+course 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'm
+bound."
+
+"At present all you're asked"--said Meynell dryly--"is not to disobey
+your mother. But don't you think it's rather rude to Miss Elsmere to be
+discussing private affairs she doesn't understand?"
+
+"Why shouldn't she understand them? Mary, my guardian here and my mother
+say that I mustn't be engaged to Stephen Barron--that I'm too young--or
+some nonsense of that kind. And Stephen--oh, well, Stephen's too good for
+this world! If he really loved me, he'd do something desperate, wouldn't
+he?--instead of giving in. I don't much mind, myself--I don't really care
+so much about marrying Stephen--only if I'm not to marry him, and
+somebody else wants to please me, why shouldn't I let him?"
+
+She turned her beautiful wild eyes upon Mary Elsmere. And as she
+did so Mary was suddenly seized with a strong sense of likeness in the
+speaker--her gesture--her attitude--to something already familiar. She
+could not identify the something, but her gaze fastened itself on the
+face before her.
+
+Meynell meanwhile answered Hester's tirade.
+
+"I'm quite ready to talk this over with you, Hester, on our way home. But
+don't you see that you are making Miss Elsmere uncomfortable?"
+
+"Oh, no, I'm not," said Hester coolly. "You've been talking to her of
+all 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 out
+more--you'd be so pretty! Let me do it for you. And you shouldn't wear
+that hat--no, you really shouldn't. It's a brute! I could trim you
+another 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, and
+it was evident that her temper was passing away.
+
+"I don't agree with you at all about my hat," said Mary with spirit. "I
+trimmed 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 what
+you like. I wonder what you _have_ been talking to her about? I shall
+make 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 explained
+again that Mr. Meynell and she were on the way to the Forked Pond
+cottage, 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 no
+good your saying she will. I saw her in the village yesterday. I'm not
+her sort. Let me go home by myself."
+
+Mary half laughed, half coaxed her into coming with them. But she went
+very unwillingly; fell completely silent, and seemed to be in a dream all
+the way to the cottage. Meynell took no notice of her; though once or
+twice she stole a furtive look toward him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The tiny house in which Catharine Elsmere and her daughter had settled
+themselves for the summer stood on a narrow isthmus of land belonging to
+the Maudeley estate, between the Sandford trout-stream and a large rushy
+pond of two or three acres. It was a very lonely and a very beautiful
+place, though the neighbourhood generally pronounced it damp and
+rheumatic. The cottage, sheltered under a grove of firs, looked straight
+out on the water, and over a bed of water-lilies. All round was a summer
+murmur of woods, the call of waterfowl, and the hum of bees; for, at the
+edges of the water, flowers and grasses pushed thickly out into the
+sunlight from the shadow of the woods.
+
+By the waterside, with a book on her knee, sat a lady who rose as they
+came in sight.
+
+Meynell approached her, hat in hand, his strong irregular face, which had
+always in it a touch of _naivete_, of the child, expressing both timidity
+and pleasure. The memory of her husband was enshrined deep in the minds
+of all religious liberals; and it was known to many that while the
+husband and wife had differed widely in opinion, and the wife had
+suffered profoundly from the husband's action, yet the love between them
+had 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, very
+lightly touched with gray and arranged with the utmost simplicity, framed
+a face in which the passage of years had emphasized and sharpened all
+the main features, replacing also the delicate smoothness of youth by a
+subtle network of small lines and shadows, which had turned the original
+whiteness of the skin into a brownish ivory, full of charm. The eyes
+looked steadily out from their deep hollows; the mouth, austere and
+finely cut, the characteristic hands, and the unconscious dignity of
+movement--these personal traits made of Elsmere's wife, even in late
+middle age, a striking and impressive figure.
+
+Yet Meynell realized at once, as she just touched his offered hand, that
+the sympathy and the homage he would so gladly have brought her would be
+unwelcome; and that it was a trial to her to see him.
+
+He sat down beside her, while Mary and Hester--who, on her introduction
+to 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--on
+anything and everything that was not Upcote Minor, its parish, or its
+church. Mrs. Elsmere's gentle courtesy never failed; yet behind it he was
+conscious of a steely withdrawal of her real self from any contact with
+his. 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 the
+wild flowers and birds of the Chase; he did his best; but never once
+was 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 of
+such a personality once formed were probably irrevocable. Would she
+discourage any acquaintance with her daughter? It startled him to feel
+how much the unspoken question hurt.
+
+Meanwhile the eyes of his hostess pursued the two girls, and she
+presently called to them, greeting their reappearance with an evident
+change and relaxation of manner. She made Hester sit near her, and it was
+not long before the child, throwing off her momentary awe, was chattering
+fast and freely, yet, as Mary perceived, with a tact, conscious or
+unconscious, that kept the chatter within bounds.
+
+Mrs. Elsmere watched the girl's beauty with evident delight, and when
+Meynell rose to go, and Hester with him, she timidly drew the radiant
+creature 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 some
+constraint:
+
+"You walked with him from Maudeley?"
+
+"Mr. Meynell? Yes, I found him there at tea. He was very anxious to pay
+his 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. Then
+she slipped her hand into her mother's.
+
+"You didn't mind, dearest? Aunt Rose likes him very much, and--and I
+wanted him to know you!" She smiled into her mother's eyes. "But we
+needn'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, rather
+stiffly. "But there is no need we should see him, is there?"
+
+"No," said Mary; her cheek dropped against her mother's knee, her eyes on
+the water. "No--not that I know of." After a moment she added with
+apparent 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 out
+of 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 service
+last Sunday. Your father would never--never--have done such a thing!"
+
+The repressed passion with which the last words were spoken startled
+Mary. She made no reply, but her face, now once more turned toward the
+sunlit pond, had visibly saddened. Inwardly she found herself asking--"If
+father had lived?--if father were here now?"
+
+Her reverie was broken by her mother's voice--softened--breathing
+a 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's
+words, were in her mind--little traits too and incidents of his
+parochial life that she had come across in the village. A man might
+preach 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 them
+Richard Meynell held, was not to be done by any mere pretender, any
+spiritual charlatan. How well his voice pleased her!--his tenderness to
+children--his impatience--his laugh.
+
+The thoughts, too, he had expressed to her on their walk ran kindling
+through her mind. There were in her many half-recognized thirsts and
+desires of the spirit that seemed to have become suddenly strong and
+urgent under the spur of his companionship.
+
+She sat dreaming; then her mother called her to the evening meal, and she
+went in. They passed the evening together, in the free and tender
+intimacy which was their habitual relation. But in the mind of each there
+were 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--by
+Hester's guardian. Disobedience to her mother's wishes; disloyalty toward
+those who loved her, including himself; deceit, open and unabashed, if
+the paradox may be allowed--all these had to be brought home to her. He
+talked, now tenderly, now severely, dreading to hurt her, yet hoping to
+make his blows smart enough to be remembered. She was not to make friends
+with Sir Philip Meryon. She was not to see him or walk with him. He was
+not a fit person for her to know; and she must trust her elders in the
+matter.
+
+"You are not going to make us all anxious and miserable, dear Hester!" he
+said 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 to
+trust 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 be
+far better if you took yourself in hand."
+
+"Why did you stop my being engaged to Stephen?" she cried, raising her
+head 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, and
+if 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. "I
+don't care about him now. But I should have cared about him if I had been
+engaged 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 to
+North Leigh, Lady Fox-Wilton's house. As she perceived it Hester suddenly
+took to flight, and her light form was soon lost to view in the summer
+dusk.
+
+The Rector did not attempt to pursue her. He turned back toward the
+Rectory, perturbed and self-questioning. But it was not possible, after
+all, to set a tragic value on the love affair of a young lady who, within
+a week of its breaking off, had already consoled herself with another
+swain. Anything less indicative of a broken heart than Hester's behaviour
+during that week the Rector could not imagine. Personally he believed
+that she spoke the simple truth when she said she no longer cared for
+Stephen. 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 take
+him half the night. But they must lie there a bit longer. At Miss
+Puttenham's gate he paused, hesitated a moment, then went straight into
+the twilight garden, where he imagined that he should find its mistress.
+
+He found her, in a far corner, among close-growing trees and with her
+usual occupations, her books and her embroidery, beside her. But she was
+neither reading nor sewing. She sprang up to greet him, and for an hour
+of summer twilight they held a rapid, low-voiced conversation.
+
+When he pressed her hand at parting they looked at each other, still
+overshadowed by the doubt and perplexity which had marked the opening of
+their 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, and
+as for the escapade to-day--"
+
+The woman before him shook her head.
+
+"She means to marry at the earliest possible moment--simply to escape
+from Edith--and that house. We sha'n't delay it long. And who knows what
+may happen if we thwart her too much?"
+
+"We _must_ delay it a year or two, if we possibly can--for her sake--and
+for yours," said Meynell firmly. "Good night, my dear friend. Try and
+sleep--put the anxiety away. When the moment comes--and of course I admit
+it must come--you will reap the harvest of the love you have sown. She
+does love you!--I am certain of that."
+
+He heard a low sound--was it a sobbing breath?--as Alice Puttenham
+disappeared in the darkness which had overtaken the garden.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Breakfast at the White House, Upcote Minor, was an affair of somewhat
+minute regulation.
+
+About a fortnight after Mr. Barron's call on the new tenants of Maudeley
+Hall, his deaf daughter Theresa entered the dining-room as usual on the
+stroke of half-past eight. She glanced round her to see that all was in
+order, the breakfast table ready, and the chairs placed for prayers. Then
+she went up to a side-table on which was placed a large Bible and
+prayer-book and a pile of hymn-books. She looked at the lessons and
+psalms for the day and placed markers in the proper places. Then she
+chose a hymn, and laid six open hymn-books one upon another. After which
+she stood for a moment looking at the first verse of the psalm for the
+day: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my
+help." The verse was one of her favourites, and she smiled vaguely, like
+one who recognizes in the distance a familiar musical phrase.
+
+Theresa Barron was nearly thirty. She had a long face with rather high
+cheek-bones, and timid gray eyes. Her complexion was sallow, her figure
+awkward. Her only beauty indeed lay in a certain shy and fleeting charm
+of expression, which very few people noticed. She passed generally for a
+dull and plain woman, ill-dressed, with a stoop that was almost a
+deformity, and a deafness that made her socially useless. But the young
+servants whom she trained, and the few poor people on her father's estate
+to 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 more
+unpopular than he was, indoors and out. The wounds made by his brusque or
+haughty manner to his inferiors were to a certain extent healed by the
+gentleness and the good heart of his daughter. And a kind of glory was
+reflected on him by her unreasoning devotion to him. She suffered under
+his hardness or his self-will, but she adored him all the time; nor was
+her ingenuity ever at a loss for excuses for him. He always treated her
+carelessly, sometimes contemptuously; but he would not have known how to
+get through life without her, and she was aware of it.
+
+On this August morning, having rung the bell for the butler, she placed
+the Bible and prayer-book beside her father's chair, and opening the door
+between the library and the dining-room, she called, "Papa!"
+
+Through the farther door into the hall there appeared a long procession
+of servants, headed by the butler, majestically carrying the tea-urn.
+Something in this daily procession, and its urn-bearer, had once
+sent Stephen Barron, the eldest son--then an Eton boy just home from
+school--into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, which had cost him his
+father's good graces for a week. But the procession had been in no way
+affected, and at this later date Stephen on his visits home took it as
+gravely as anybody else.
+
+The tea-urn, pleasantly hissing, was deposited on the white cloth; the
+servants settled themselves on their chairs, while Theresa distributed
+the open hymn-books amongst them; and when they were all seated, the
+master 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, and
+he read it with an emphasis which the footman opposite to him secretly
+though 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 servants
+remained stolidly silent, the Scotch cook in particular looking straight
+before her with dark-spectacled eyes and a sulky expression. She was
+making up her mind that either she must be excused from prayers in
+future, or Mr. Barron must be content with less cooking for breakfast.
+
+After the hymn, the prayer lasted about ten minutes. Stephen, a fervently
+religious mind, had often fidgeted under the minute and detailed
+petitions of it, which seemed to lay down the Almighty's precise course
+of action toward mankind in general for the ensuing day. But Theresa, who
+was no less spiritual, under other forms, took it all simply and
+devoutly, and would have been uncomfortable if any item in the long
+catalogue had been omitted. When the Amen came, the footman, who never
+knew what to do with his legs during the time of kneeling, sprang up with
+particular alacrity.
+
+As soon as the father and daughter were seated at breakfast--close
+together, for the benefit of Theresa's deafness--Mr. Barron opened the
+post-bag and took out the letters. They arrived half an hour before
+breakfast, but were not accessible to any one till the master of the
+house 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. Her
+father nodded, adding after a minute, as he began upon his egg:
+
+"However, I must have some conversation with Stephen before long. He
+knows that I have not felt able to stay my hand to meet his wishes; and
+perhaps 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 has
+fallen more and more under Meynell's influence of late, and I more than
+suspect that when the time comes he will take sides openly with him. It
+will be a bitter blow to me, but that he doesn't consider. I don't expect
+consideration from him, either as to that--or other things. Has he been
+hanging 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 about
+Stephen, so I waited. But the Rector and Lady Fox-Wilton have quite
+forbidden 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 father
+violently, staring at her.
+
+Theresa nodded.
+
+"A girl of the most headstrong and frivolous character!--a trouble to
+everybody about her. Lady Fox-Wilton has often complained to me that she
+is perfectly unmanageable with her temper and her vanity! The worst
+conceivable wife for a clergyman! Really, Stephen--"
+
+The master of the house pushed his plate away from him in speechless
+disgust.
+
+"And both Lady Fox-Wilton and the Rector have always taken such trouble
+about her--much more than about the other children!" murmured Theresa,
+helplessly.
+
+"What sort of a bringing up do you think Meynell can give anybody?" said
+her father, turning upon her.
+
+Theresa only looked at him silently, with her large mild eyes. She knew
+it was of no use to argue. Besides, on the subject of the Rector she very
+much agreed with her father. Her deafness and her isolation had entirely
+protected her from Meynell's personal influence.
+
+"A man with no religious principles--making a god of his own
+intellect--steeped in pride and unbelief--what can he do to train a girl
+like Hester? What can he do to train himself?" thundered Barron, bringing
+his 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 thrown
+over the Christian faith, may fall into sin at any moment. His unbelief
+is the result of sin. He can neither help himself--nor other people--and
+you need never be surprised to find that his supposed goodness is a mere
+sham 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 his
+letters, and presently Theresa saw his brow darken afresh over one of
+them.
+
+"Anything wrong, father?"
+
+"There's always something wrong on this estate. Crawley [Crawley was the
+head keeper] has caught those boys of John Broad again trespassing and
+stealing wood in the west plantation! Perfectly abominable! It's the
+second or third time. I shall give Broad notice at once, and we must put
+somebody 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 boys
+have no mother--and John works very hard."
+
+"Let him find another cottage all the same," said Barron briefly. "I
+shall go round, if I do get back from Markborough, and have a talk with
+him this evening."
+
+There was silence for a little. Theresa was evidently sad. "Perhaps Lady
+Fox-Wilton would find him something," she said anxiously at last. "His
+mother was her maid long ago. First she was their schoolroom maid--then
+she went back to them, when her husband died and John married, and was a
+kind of maid housekeeper. Nobody knew why Lady Fox-Wilton kept her so
+long. They tell you in the village she had a shocking temper, and wasn't
+at all a good servant. Afterward I believe she went to America and I
+think she died. But she was with them a long while. I daresay they'd do
+something for John."
+
+Barron made no reply. He had not been listening, and was already deep in
+other correspondence.
+
+One letter still remained unopened. Theresa knew very well that it was
+from her brother Maurice, in London. And presently she pushed it toward
+Barron.
+
+"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 he
+read it.
+
+"Not a bad report. He seems to like the work, and says they treat him
+kindly. He would like to come down for the Sunday--but he wants some
+money."
+
+"He oughtn't to!" cried Theresa, flushing. "You gave him plenty."
+
+"He makes out an account," said her father, glancing at the letter; "I
+shall send him a small cheque. I must say, Theresa, you are always rather
+inclined 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 when
+breakfast was over and her father had left the room, Theresa remained
+sitting idly by the table, her eyes fixed on the envelope of Maurice's
+letter, which had fallen to the floor. Maurice's behaviour was
+simply disgraceful! He had lost employment after employment by lazy
+self-indulgence, trusting always to his father's boundless affection for
+him, and abusing it time after time. Theresa was vaguely certain that he
+was besmirched by all sorts of dreadful things--drinking, and betting--if
+not worse. Her woman's instinct told her much more than his father had
+ever discovered about him. Though at the same time she had the good sense
+to remind herself that her own small knowledge of the world might lead
+her to exaggerate Maurice's misdoings. And for herself and Stephen, no
+less than for her father, Maurice was still the darling and Benjamin of
+the family, commended to them by a precious mother whose death had left
+the whole moral structure of their common life insecure.
+
+She was still absorbed in uneasy thoughts about her brother, when the
+library 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 the
+heading--"Extraordinary meeting at Markborough. Proceedings against the
+Rector of Upcote. Other clergy and congregations rally to his support."
+
+She read the account with stupefaction. It described a meeting summoned
+by the "Reformers' Club" of Markborough to consider the announcement that
+a Commission of Inquiry had been issued by the Bishop of Markborough in
+the case of the Rector of Upcote Minor, and that legal proceedings
+against him for heretical teaching and unauthorized services would be
+immediately begun by certain promoters, as soon as the Bishop's formal
+consent had been given.
+
+The meeting, it seemed, had been so crowded and tumultuous that
+adjournment had been necessary from the rooms of the Reformers' Club to
+the Town Hall. And there, in spite of a strong orthodox opposition, a
+resolution in support of the Rector of Upcote had been passed, amid
+scenes of astonishing enthusiasm. Three or four well-known local clergy
+had made the most outspoken speeches, declaring that there must be room
+made within the church for the liberal wing, as well as for the Ritualist
+wing; that both had a right to the shelter of the common and ancestral
+fold; and that the time had come when the two forms of Christianity now
+prevailing in Christendom should be given full and equal rights within
+the Church of the nation.
+
+Meynell himself had spoken, urging on the meeting the profound
+responsibility resting on the Reformers--the need for gentleness no less
+than for courage; bidding them remember the sacredness of the ground they
+were treading, the tenacity and depth of the roots they might be thought
+to be disturbing.
+
+"Yet at the same time we must _fight!_--and we must fight with all our
+strength. For over whole classes of this nation, Christianity is either
+dying or dead; and it is only we--and the ideas we represent--that can
+save it."
+
+The speech had been received with deep emotion rather than applause; and
+the meeting had there and then proceeded to the formation of a
+"Reformers' League" to extend throughout the diocese. "It is already
+rumoured," said the _Post_, "that at least sixteen or eighteen beneficed
+clergy, with their congregations, have either joined, or are about to
+join, the Reformers. The next move now lies with the Bishop, and with the
+orthodox majority of the diocese. If we are not mistaken, Mr. Meynell and
+his companions in heresy will very soon find out that the Church has
+still power enough to put down such scandalous rebellions against her
+power and authority as that of the Rector of Upcote, and to purge her
+borders of disloyal and revolutionary priests." Theresa looked up. Her
+face had grown pale. "How _terrible_, father! Did you know they were to
+hold the meeting?"
+
+"I heard something about a debate at this precious club. What does that
+matter? Let them blaspheme in private as they please, it hurts nobody but
+themselves. But a public meeting at the Bishop's very door--and eighteen
+of 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. "If
+there are dry bones on our side, this will put life into them. Those
+fellows have given themselves into our hands!"
+
+He paused in his walk, falling into a profound reverie in which he lost
+all sense of his daughter's presence. She dared not rouse him; and indeed
+the magnitude of the scandal and distress left her speechless. She could
+only think of the Bishop--their frail, saintly Bishop whom every one
+loved. 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 a
+letter from his pocket.
+
+"That is for Maurice. Put in anything you like, but don't miss the
+morning post."
+
+"Do you see the Bishop this morning, father?"
+
+"No--this afternoon. But there will be plenty to do this morning." He
+named two or three heads of the church party in Markborough on whom he
+must call. He must also see his solicitor, and find out whether the
+counsel whom the promoters of the writ against Meynell desired to secure
+had been already retained.
+
+He kissed his daughter absently and departed, settling all his home
+business before he left the house in his usual peremptory manner, leaving
+behind him indeed in the minds of his butler and head gardener, who had
+business with him, a number of small but smarting wraths, which would
+ultimately have to be smoothed away by Theresa.
+
+But when Theresa explored the open envelope he had given her for her
+brother, she found in it a cheque for L50, and a letter which seemed to
+Maurice's sister--unselfish and tender as she was--deplorably lacking in
+the scolding it ought to have contained. If only her father had ever
+shown the same affection for Stephen!
+
+Meanwhile as Barron journeyed to Markborough, under the shadow of the
+great Cathedral, quite another voice than his was in possession of the
+episcopal ear. Precisely at eleven o'clock Richard Meynell appeared on
+the doorstep of the Palace, and was at once admitted to the Bishop's
+study.
+
+As he entered the large book-lined room his name was announced in a tone
+which did not catch the Bishop's attention, and Meynell, as he
+hesitatingly advanced, became the spectator of a scene not intended for
+his eyes. On the Bishop's knee sat a little girl of seven or eight. She
+was crying bitterly, and the Bishop had his arms round her and was
+comforting her.
+
+[Illustration: "Meynell, as he hesitatingly advanced, became the
+spectator of a scene not intended for his eyes"]
+
+"There _was_ bogies, grandfather!--there _was!_--and Nannie said I told
+lies--and I didn't tell lies."
+
+"Darling, there aren't bogies anywhere--but I'm sure you didn't tell
+lies. What did you think they were like?"
+
+"Grandfather, they was all black--and they jumped--and wiggled--and
+spitted--o-o-oh!"
+
+And the child went off in another wail, at which moment the Bishop
+perceived 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 his
+little granddaughter that the "bogie" had really been "cook's black cat,"
+generally condemned to the kitchen and blackbeetles, but occasionally let
+loose to roam the upper floors in search of nobler game. The child dried
+her eyes, and listened, gravely weighing his remarks. Her face gradually
+cleared, and when at the end he said slyly, "And even if there were
+bogies, little girls shouldn't throw hairbrushes at their Nannies!" she
+nodded a judicial head, adding plaintively:
+
+"But then Nannies mustn't talk _all_ the time, grandfather! Little girls
+must 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 distance
+caught 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 it
+nicely."
+
+Barbara threw her arm round his neck and hugged him passionately. Then he
+set her down, and she ran happily away, through a door at the farther end
+of the room.
+
+Meynell advanced, and the Bishop came to meet him. Over both faces, as
+they approached each other, there dropped a sudden shadow--a tremor as of
+men who knew themselves on the brink of a tragical collision--decisive
+of many things. And yet they smiled, the presence of the child still
+enwrapping them.
+
+"Excuse these domesticities," said the Bishop, "but there was such woe
+and 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, and
+sat down himself.
+
+Francis Craye, Bishop of Markborough, was physically a person of great
+charm. He was small--not more than five foot seven; but so slenderly and
+perfectly made, so graceful and erect in bearing, that his height, or
+lack of it, never detracted in the smallest degree from his dignity, or
+from the reverence inspired by the innocence and unworldliness of his
+character. A broad brow, overshadowing and overweighting the face,
+combined, with extreme delicacy of feature, a touch of emaciation, and a
+pure rose in the alabaster of the cheeks, to produce the aspect of a most
+human ghost--a ghost which had just tasted the black blood, and recovered
+for an hour all the vivacity of life. The mouth, thin-lipped and mobile
+to excess, was as apt for laughter as for tenderness; the blue eyes were
+frankness and eagerness itself. And when the glance of the spectator
+pursued the Bishop downward, it was to find that his legs, in the
+episcopal gaiters, were no less ethereal than his face; while his silky
+white hair added the last touch of refinement to a personality of spirit
+and fire.
+
+Meynell was the first to speak.
+
+"My lord! let me begin this conversation by once more thanking you--from
+my heart--for all the personal kindness that you have shown me in the
+last 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 all
+that--after the letters I have written you this week--after the meeting
+of yesterday--you should have sent me that telegram last night, saying
+that you wished to see me to-day. That was like you--that touched me
+indeed!" He spoke with visible emotion.
+
+The Bishop looked up.
+
+"There can be no question, Meynell, of any personal enmity between
+yourself and me," he said gravely. "I shall act in the matter entirely as
+the responsibilities of my office dictate--that you know. But I have owed
+you much in the past--much help--much affection. This diocese owes you
+much. I felt I must make one last appeal to you--terrible as the
+situation has grown. You could not have foreseen that meeting of
+yesterday!" 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 many
+years."
+
+There was no answer for a moment. The Bishop sat with clasped hands, his
+legs stretched out before him, his white head bent. At last, without
+moving, he said:
+
+"There are grave times coming on this diocese, Meynell--there are grave
+times coming on the Church!"
+
+"Does any living church escape them?" said Meynell, watching him--with a
+heavy 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 melee, Strife and Confusion and
+Fate--"red with the blood of men." What can you--and those who were at
+that meeting yesterday--hope to gain by these proceedings? If you could
+succeed, you would break up the Church, the strongest weapon that exists
+in this country against sin and selfishness--and who would be the
+better?"
+
+"Believe me--we sha'n't break it up."
+
+"Certainly you will! Do you imagine that men who are the spiritual sons
+and heirs of Pusey and Liddon are going to sit down quietly in the same
+church with you and the eighteen who started this League yesterday? They
+would sooner die."
+
+Meynell bore the onslaught quietly.
+
+"It depends upon our strength," he said slowly, "and the strength we
+develop, as the fight goes on."
+
+"Not at all!--a monstrous delusion!" The Bishop raised an indignant
+brow. "If you overwhelmed us--if you got the State on your side, as in
+France at the Revolution--you would still have done nothing toward your
+end--nothing whatever! We refuse--we shall always refuse--to be unequally
+yoked with those who deny the fundamental truths of the Faith!"
+
+"My lord, you are so yoked at the present moment," said Meynell
+firmly--the colour had flashed back into his cheeks--"it is the
+foundation of our case that half the educated men and women we gather
+into our churches to-day are--in our belief--Modernists already. Question
+them!--they are with us--not with you. That is to say, they have tacitly
+shaken off the old forms--the Creeds and formularies that bind the
+visible, the legal, church. They do not even think much about them.
+Forgive me if I speak plainly! They are not grieving about the old. Their
+soul--those of them, I mean that have the gift of religion--is
+travailing--dumbly travailing--with the new. Slowly, irresistibly, they
+are evolving for themselves new forms, new creeds, whether they know it
+or not. You--the traditional party--you, the bishops and the orthodox
+majority--can help them, or hinder them. If you deny them organized
+expression and outlet, you prolong the dull friction between them and the
+current Christianity. You waste where you might gather--you quench where
+you might kindle. But there they are--in the same church with you--and
+you 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 his
+own master let each man stand or fall. But you ask us--_us_, the
+appointed guardians of the Faith--the _ecclesia docens_--the historic
+episcopate--to deny and betray the Faith! You ask us to assent formally
+to the effacing of all difference between Faith and Unfaith--you bid us
+tell the world publicly that belief matters nothing--that a man may deny
+all the Divine Facts of Redemption, and still be as good a Christian as
+any one else. History alone might tell you--and I am speaking for the
+moment as a student to a student--that the thing is inconceivable!"
+
+"Unless--_solvitur vivendo_!" said Meynell in a low voice. "What great
+change in the religious life of men has not seemed inconceivable--till it
+happened? Think of the great change that brought this English Church into
+being! Within a couple of generations men had to learn to be baptized,
+and married, and buried, with rites unknown to their fathers--to stand
+alone and cut off from the great whole of Christendom--to which they
+had once belonged--to see the Mass, the cult of Our Lady and the Saints,
+disappear from their lives. What change that any Modernist proposes could
+equal that? But England lived through it!--England emerged!--she
+recovered her equilibrium. Looking back upon it all now, we see--you and
+I agree there--that it was worth while--that the energizing, revealing
+power behind the world was in the confusion and the dislocation; and that
+England gained more than she lost when she made for herself an English
+and a national Church in these islands, out of the shattered debris of
+the Roman System."
+
+He bent forward, and looked intently into the Bishop's face. "What if
+another hour of travail be upon us? And is any birth possible without
+pain?"
+
+"Don't let us argue the Reformation!" said the Bishop, with a new
+sharpness of note. "We should be here all night. But let me at least
+point out to you that the Church kept her Creeds!--the Succession!--the
+four great Councils!--the unbroken unity of essential dogma. But you"--he
+turned with renewed passion on his companion--"what have you done with
+the Creeds? Every word in them steeped in the heart's blood of
+generations!--and you put them aside as a kind of theological
+bric-a-brac that concerns us no more. Meynell!--you have no conception of
+the forces that this movement of yours, if you persist in it, will
+unchain against you! You are like children playing with the lightning!"
+
+Denunciation and warning sat with a curious majesty on the little Bishop
+as he launched these words. It was with a visible effort that Meynell
+braced 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 that
+makes the novelty of the situation. Till now there has never been
+equality enough for war. The heretic has been an excrescence to be cut
+away. Now you will have to make some terms with him! For the ideas behind
+him have invaded your inmost life. They are all about you and around
+you--and when you go out to fight him, you will discover that you are
+half on his side!"
+
+"If that means," said the Bishop impatiently, "that the Church is
+accessible to new ideas--that she is now, as she has always been, a
+learned Church--the Church of Westcott and Lightfoot, of a host of
+younger scholars who are as well acquainted with the ideas and
+contentions of Modernism--as you call it--as any Modernist in Europe--and
+are still the faithful servants and guardians of Christian dogma--why,
+then, you say what is true! We perfectly understand your positions--and
+we reject them."
+
+Through Meynell's expression there passed a gleam--slight and gentle--of
+something like triumph.
+
+"Forgive me!--but I think you have given me my point. Let me recall to
+you the French sayings--'Comprendre, c'est pardonner--Comprendre, c'est
+aimer.' 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--it
+is for that very reason that we regard the field as half won, before the
+battle is even joined."
+
+The Bishop gazed upon him with a thin, dropping lip--an expression of
+suffering in the clear blue eyes.
+
+"That Christians"--he said under his breath--"should divide the forces of
+Christ--with the sin and misery of this world devouring and defiling our
+brethren day by day!"
+
+"What if it be not 'dividing'--but doubling--the forces of Christ!" said
+Meynell, with pale resolution. "All that we ask is the Church should
+recognize existing facts--that organization should shape itself to
+reality. In our eyes, Christendom is divided to-day--or is rapidly
+dividing itself--into two wholly new camps. The division between Catholic
+and Protestant is no longer the supreme division; for the force that is
+rising affects both Protestant and Catholic equally. Each of the new
+divisions has a philosophy and a criticism of its own; each of them has
+an immense hold on human life, though Modernism is only now slowly
+realizing and putting out its power. Two camps!--two systems of
+thought!--both of them _Christian_ thought. Yet one of them, one only,
+_is in possession_ of the churches, the forms, the institutions; the
+other is everywhere knocking at the gates. 'Give us our portion!'--we
+say--'in Christ's name.' But _only our portion!_ We do not dream of
+dispossessing the old--it is the last thing, even, that we desire. But
+for the sake of souls now wandering and desolate, we ask to live side by
+side with the old--in brotherly peace, in equal right--sharing what the
+past has bequeathed! Yes, even the loaves and fishes!--they ought to be
+justly divided out like the rest. But, above all, the powers, the
+opportunities, the trials, the labours of the Christian Church!"
+
+"In other words, so far as the English Church is concerned, you propose
+to reduce us within our own borders to a peddling confusion of sects,
+held together by the mere physical link of our buildings and our
+endowments!" said the Bishop, as he straightened himself in his chair.
+
+He spoke with a stern and contemptuous force which transformed the small
+body and sensitive face. In the old room, the library of the Palace, with
+its rows of calf-bound folios, and its vaulted fifteenth century roof, he
+sat as the embodiment of ancient, inherited things, his gentleness lost
+in that collective, that corporate, pride which has been at once the
+noblest 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?--is
+all well with the Church? How often have I found you here--forgive
+me!--grieving for the loss of souls--the decline of faith--the empty
+churches--the dwindling communicants--the spread of secularist
+literature--the hostility of the workmen! And yet what devotion, what
+zeal, there is in this diocese, beginning with our Bishop. Have we not
+often asked ourselves what such facts could possibly mean--why God seemed
+to have forsaken us?"
+
+"They mean luxury and selfishness--the loss of discipline at home and
+abroad," said the Bishop, with bitter emphasis. "It is hard indeed to
+turn the denial of Christ into an argument against His Gospel!"
+
+Meynell was silent. His heart was burning within him with a passionate
+sense at once of the vast need and hungry unrest so sharply dismissed by
+the Bishop, and of the efficacy of that "new teaching" for which he
+stood. But he ceased to try and convey it by argument. After a few
+moments he began in his ordinary voice to report various developments of
+the Movement in the diocese of which he believed the Bishop to be still
+ignorant.
+
+"We wish to conceal nothing from you," he said at last with emotion; "and
+consistently with the trial of strength that must come, we desire to
+lighten the burden on our Bishop as much as we possibly can. This will be
+a solemn testing of great issues--we on our side are determined to do
+nothing 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 promises
+of your ordination."
+
+"I was a boy then"--said Meynell slowly--"I am a man now. I took those
+vows sincerely, in absolute good faith; and all the changes in me have
+come about, as it seems to me, by the inbreathing of a spirit not my
+own--partly from new knowledge--partly in trying to help my people to
+live--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 certain
+rules and conditions. Now that I break them, must I not resign the
+position dependent on them? Clearly, if it were a question of any
+ordinary society. But the Christian Church is not an ordinary society! It
+is the sum of Christian life!"
+
+The Bishop raised a hand of protest, but without speaking. Meynell
+resumed:
+
+"And that Life makes the Church--moulds it afresh, from age to age. There
+are times--we hold--when the Church very nearly expresses the Life; there
+are others when there are great discordances between the Life, and its
+expression in the Church. We believe that there are such discordances now
+because--once more--of a New Learning. And we believe that to withdraw
+from the struggle to make the Church more fully represent the Life would
+be 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 the
+present--we speak out! We are inconsistent indeed with a past pledge; but
+are we any more inconsistent than the High Churchman who repudiates the
+'blasphemous fables' of the Mass when he signs the Articles, and then
+encourages adoration of the Reserved Sacrament in his church?"
+
+The Bishop made no immediate reply. He was at that moment involved in a
+struggle with an incumbent in Markborough itself who under the very
+shadow of the Cathedral had been celebrating the Assumption of the
+Blessed Virgin in flat disobedience to his diocesan. His mind wandered
+for a minute or two to this case. Then, rousing himself, he said
+abruptly, with a keen look at Meynell:
+
+"I know of course that, in your case, there can be no question of
+clinging to the money of the Church."
+
+Meynell flushed.
+
+"I had not meant to speak of it--but your lordship knows that all I
+receive from my living is given back to church purposes. I support myself
+by what I write. There are others of us who risk much more than I--who
+risk indeed their all!"
+
+"You have done a noble work for your people, Meynell." The Bishop's voice
+was 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 the
+dissenters. Mr. Barron, as you know, is the chief complainant, and there
+are 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 of
+repeating the service of last Sunday?"
+
+"Not at present. But the League will go to work at once on a revised
+service-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--breaches
+of 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 my
+request?"
+
+"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 at
+once to the Court of Arches preferring charges of heretical teaching and
+unauthorized services against yourself and two other clergy. I shall be
+represented by so-and-so." He named the lawyers.
+
+They stood, exchanging a few technical informations of this kind for a
+few 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 God
+that 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 moved
+to the window and stood looking out. Across the green of the quadrangle
+rose the noble mass of the Cathedral. His lips moved in prayer; but all
+the time it was as though he saw beside the visible structure--its
+ordered beauty, its proud and cherished antiquity--a ruined phantom of
+the great church, roofless and fissured, its sacred places open to the
+winds and rains, its pavements broken and desolate.
+
+The imagination grew upon him, and it was only with a great effort that
+he escaped from it.
+
+"My bogies are as foolish as Barbara's," he said to himself with a smile
+as he went back to the daily toil of his letters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Meynell left the Palace shaken and exhausted. He carried in his mind the
+image of his Bishop, and he walked in bitterness of soul. The quick,
+optimistic imagination which had alone made the action of these last
+weeks possible had for the moment deserted him, and he was paying the
+penalty of his temperament.
+
+He turned into the Cathedral, and knelt there some time, conscious less
+of articulate prayer than of the vague influences of the place; the warm
+gray of its shadows, the relief of its mere space and silence, the beauty
+of the creeping sunlight--gules, or, and purple--on the spreading
+pavements. And vaguely--while the Bishop's grief still, as it were,
+smarted within his own heart--there arose the sense that he was the mere
+instrument of a cause; that personal shrinking and compunction were not
+allowed him; that he was the guardian of nascent rights and claims far
+beyond anything affecting his own life. Some such conviction is essential
+to the religious leader--to the enthusiast indeed of any kind; and it was
+not withheld from Richard Meynell.
+
+When he rose and went out, he saw coming toward him a man he knew
+well--Fenton, the Vicar of a church on the outskirts of Markborough,
+famous for its "high" doctrine and services; a young boyish fellow, curly
+haired, in whom the "gayety" that Catholicism, Anglican or Roman,
+prescribes to her most devout children was as conspicuous as an ascetic
+and labourious life. Meynell loved and admired him. At a small clerical
+meeting the two men had once held an argument that had been long
+remembered--Fenton maintaining hotly the doctrine of an intermediate
+and purgatorical state after death, basing it entirely on a vision of
+Saint Perpetua recorded in the Acta of that Saint. Impossible, said the
+fair-haired, frank-eyed priest--who had been one of the best wicket-keeps
+of his day at Winchester--that so solemn a vision, granted to a martyr,
+at the moment almost of death, could be misleading. Purgatory therefore
+must be accepted and believed, even though it might not be expedient to
+proclaim it publicly from an Anglican pulpit. "Since the evening when I
+first read the Acta of SS. Perpetua and Felicitas," said the speaker,
+with an awed sincerity, "I have never doubted for myself, nor have I
+dared to hide from my penitents what is my own opinion."
+
+In reply, Meynell, instead of any general argument, had gently taken the
+very proof offered him--_i.e.,_ the vision--dissecting it, the time in
+which it arose, and the mind in which it occurred, with a historical
+knowledge and a quick and tender penetration which had presently absorbed
+the little company of listeners, till Fenton said abruptly, with a frown
+of perplexity:
+
+"In that way, one might explain anything--the Transfiguration for
+instance--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 been
+associated not long afterward in a heroic attempt to stop some dangerous
+rioting arising out of a strike in one of the larger collieries.
+
+Meynell watched the young figure of Fenton approaching through the bands
+of light and shadow in the great nave. As it came nearer, some instinct
+made him stand still, as though he became the mere spectator of what was
+about to happen. Fenton lifted his head; his eyes met Meynell's, and,
+without the smallest recognition, his gaze fixed on the pavement, he
+passed on toward the east end of the Cathedral.
+
+Meynell straightened himself for a minute's "recollection," and went his
+way. On the pavement outside the western portal he ran into another
+acquaintance--a Canon of the Cathedral--hurrying home to lunch from a
+morning's work in the Cathedral library. Canon France looked up, saw who
+it was, and Meynell, every nerve strained to its keenest, perceived the
+instant change of expression. But there was no ignoring him, though the
+Canon 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. But
+France--a man of sixty-five, with a large Buddha-like face, and a pair of
+remarkably shrewd and humorous black eyes--looked him quickly over from
+top to toe, and hurried on, throwing a "good-bye" over his shoulder. When
+he and Meynell had last met it had been to talk for a friendly hour over
+Monseigneur Duchesne's last book and its bearing on Ultramontane
+pretensions; 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 any
+secret of my opinions."
+
+All the same, as he walked on, he forced himself to acknowledge to the
+full the radical change in the situation. Acts of war suspend the normal
+order; and no combatant has any right to complain.
+
+Then a moment's weariness seized him of the whole train of thought to
+which his days and nights were now committed, and he turned with
+eagerness to look at the streets of Markborough, full of a market-day
+crowd, and of "the great mundane movement." Farmers and labourers were
+walking up and down; oxen and sheep in the temporary pens of the
+market-place were waiting for purchasers; there was a Socialist lecturer
+in one corner, and a Suffragist lady on a wagon in another. The late
+August sun shone upon the ruddy faces and broad backs of men to whom
+certainly it did not seem to be of great importance whether the
+Athanasian Creed were omitted from the devotions of Christian people or
+no. There was a great deal of chaffering going on; a little courting, and
+some cheating. Meynell recognized some of his parishioners, spoke to a
+farmer 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 the
+pits and come to "hire" himself at Markborough.
+
+It was plain to him, however, after a little, that although he might wish
+to forget himself among the crowd, the crowd was on the contrary rather
+sharply aware of the Rector of Upcote. He perceived as he moved slowly up
+the street that he was in fact a marked man. Looks followed him; and the
+men he knew greeted him with a difference.
+
+A little beyond the market-place he turned down a narrow street leading
+to the mother church of the town--an older foundation even than the
+Cathedral. Knocking at the door in the wall, he was admitted to an old
+rectory house, adjacent to the church, and in its low-ceiled dining-room
+he found six of the already famous "eighteen" assembled, among them the
+two other clergy who with himself had been singled out for the first
+testing prosecution. A joint letter was being drawn up for the press.
+
+Meynell was greeted with rejoicing--a quiet rejoicing, as of men occupied
+with grave matters, that precluded any ebullience of talk. With Meynell's
+appearance, the meeting became more formal, and it was proposed to put
+the 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 in
+days when double-firsts were everything, and in a class-list not much
+more modern than Mr. Gladstone's. He was a gentle, scholarly person,
+silent and timid in ordinary life, and his adhesion to the "eighteen" had
+been an astonishment to friends and foes. But he was not to be inveigled
+into 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 jurgia
+finis!_--let there be an age-limit in all things! Put Meynell in. It is
+he that has brought us all into this business."
+
+So, for some hours or more, Meynell and the six grappled with the letter
+that was to convey the challenge of the revolted congregations to the
+general public through the _Times_. It was not an easy matter, and some
+small jealousies and frictions lifted their heads that had been wholly
+lost 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 to
+lead 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 the
+recent flowing back of intellectual forces into the Church which for
+nearly half a century had abandoned her; Petitot, Swiss by origin, small,
+black-eyed, irrepressible, with a great popularity among the hosiery
+operatives of whom his parish was mainly composed; Derrick, the
+Socialist, of humble origin and starved education, yet possessed
+Of a natural sway over men, given him by a pair of marvellous blue
+eyes, a character of transparent simplicity, a tragic honesty and the
+bitter-sweet gift of the orator; Chesham, a man who had left the army for
+the Church, had been grappling for ten years with a large parish of
+secularist artisans, and was now preaching Modernism with a Franciscan
+fervour and success; and Rollin, who owned a slashing literary style, was
+a passionate Liberal in all fields, had done excellent work in the
+clearing and cleaning of slums, with much loud and unnecessary talk by
+the way, and wrote occasionally for the _Daily Watchman_. Chesham and
+Darwen were Meynell's co-defendants in the suit brought by the Bishop.
+
+Rollin alone seemed out of place in this gathering of men, drawing tense
+breath under a new and almost unbearable responsibility. He was so in
+love with the sensational, notoriety side of the business, so eager to
+pull wires, and square editors, so frankly exultant in the "big row"
+coming on, that Meynell, with the Bishop's face still in his mind, could
+presently hardly endure him. He felt as Renan toward Gavroche. Was it
+worth while to go through so much that Rollin might cut a figure, and
+talk at large about "modern thought?"
+
+However Darwen and Waller, Derrick also, were just as determined as
+Meynell to keep down the frothy self-advertising element in the campaign
+to the minimum that human nature seems unable to do without. So that
+Rollin found himself gradually brought into line, being not a bad fellow,
+but only a common one; and he abandoned with much inward chagrin the
+project of a flaming "interview" for the _Daily Watchman_ on the
+following day.
+
+And indeed, as this handful of men settled down to the consideration of
+the agenda for a large conference to be held in Markborough the following
+week, there might have been discerned in six of them, at least, a temper
+that glorified both them and their enterprise; a temper of seriousness,
+courage, unalterable conviction, with such delicacy of feeling as befits
+men whose own brethren and familiar companions have become their foes.
+They were all pastors in the true sense, and every man of them knew that
+in a few months he would probably have lost his benefice and his
+prospects. Only Treherne was married, and only he and Rollin had private
+means.
+
+Meynell was clearly their leader. Where the hopefulness of the others was
+intermittent his was constant; his knowledge of the English situation
+generally, as well as of the lie of forces in the Markborough district,
+was greater than theirs; and his ability as a writer made him their
+natural 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 had
+so heightened in them the sense of mission, so cheered them with the
+vision of a wide response from the mind of England, that all lesser
+thoughts were sunk, and they parted in quietness and courage.
+
+Meynell left the outskirts of Markborough by the Maudeley road, meaning
+to walk to Upcote by Forked Pond and Maudeley Park.
+
+It was now nearly a fortnight since he had seen Mary Elsmere, and for the
+first time, almost, in these days of storm and stress could the mind make
+room for some sore brooding on the fact. He had dined at Maudeley, making
+time with infinite difficulty; Mrs. Elsmere and her daughter were not
+there. He had asked Mrs. Flaxman to tea at the Rectory, and had suggested
+that she should bring her sister and her niece. Mr. and Mrs. Flaxman
+appeared--without companions. Once or twice he had caught sight of Mary
+Elsmere's figure in the distance of Miss Puttenham's garden. Yet he had
+not ventured to intrude upon the two friends. It had seemed to him by
+then it must be her will to avoid him, and he respected it.
+
+As to other misgivings and anxieties, they were many. As Meynell entered
+the Maudeley lane, with the woods of Sandford Abbey on his left, and the
+little trout-stream flashing and looping through the water meadows on his
+right, his mind was often occupied by a conversation between himself and
+Stephen Barron which had taken place the night before. Meynell could not
+but think of it remorsefully.
+
+"And I can explain nothing--to make it easier for the poor old
+fellow--nothing! He thinks if we had allowed the engagement, it would
+all have come right--he would have got a hold upon her, and been able to
+shape 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 indeed
+she has settled her destiny for herself by then, without any reference
+to us. And Stephen shall know--what there is to know!"
+
+As to Hester herself, she seemed to have been keeping the Fox-Wilton
+household in perpetual fear. She went about in her mocking, mysterious
+way, denying that she knew anything about Sir Philip Meryon, or had any
+dealings with him. Yet it was shrewdly suspected that letters had passed
+between them, and Hester's proceedings were so quick-silverish and
+incalculable that it was impossible to keep a constant watch upon her. In
+the wilderness of Maudeley Park, which lay directly between the two
+houses, they might quite well have met--they probably had met. Meynell
+noticed and rebuked in himself a kind of settled pessimism as to Hester's
+conduct and future. "Do what you will," it seemed to say--"do all you
+can--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 private
+trust much older than it, and no less sacred. In the midst of the turmoil
+of these weeks he had been corresponding on Lady Fox-Wilton's behalf with
+a lady in Paris to whom a girl of Hester's age and kind might be safely
+committed for the perfecting of her French and music. It had been
+necessary to warn the lady that in the case of such a pensionnaire as
+Hester the male sex might give trouble; and Hester had not yet signified
+her gracious consent to go.
+
+But she would go--she must go--and either he or Alice Puttenham would
+take her over and install her. Good heavens, if one had only Edith
+Fox-Wilton to depend on in these troubles!
+
+As for Philip Meryon, he was, of course, now and always, a man of vicious
+habits and no scruples. He seemed to be staying at Sandford with the
+usual crew of flashy, disreputable people, and to allow Hester to run any
+risks with regard to him would be simply criminal. Yet with so
+inefficient a watch-dog as Lady Fox-Wilton, who could guarantee anything?
+Alice, of course, thought of nothing else than Hester, night and day. But
+it was part of the pathos of the situation that she had so little
+influence on the child's thoughts and deeds.
+
+Poor, lonely woman! In Alice's sudden friendship for Mary Elsmere, her
+junior by some twelve years, the Rector, with an infinite pity, read the
+confession of a need that had become at last intolerable. For these
+seventeen years he had never known her make an intimate friend, and to
+see her now with this charming, responsive girl was to realize what the
+long hunger for affection must have been. Yet even now, how impossible to
+satisfy it, as other women could satisfy it! What ghosts and shadows
+about the path of friendship!
+
+"A dim and perilous way," his mind went sounding back along the
+intricacies of Alice Puttenham's story. The old problems arose in
+connection with it--problems now of ethics, now of expediency. And
+interfused with them a sense of dull amazement and yet of intolerable
+repetition--in this difficulty which had risen with regard to Hester. The
+owner of Sandford--_and Hester!_ When he had first seen them together, it
+had seemed a thing so sinister that his mind had refused to take it
+seriously. A sharp word to her, a word of warning to her natural
+guardians--and surely all was mended. Philip never stayed more than three
+weeks in the old house; he would very soon be gone, and Hester's fancy
+would turn to something else.
+
+But that the passing shock should become anything more! There rose before
+Meynell's imagination a vision of the two by the river, not in the actual
+brightness of the August afternoon, but bathed, as it were, in angry
+storm-light; behind them, darkness, covering "old, unhappy, far-off
+things." From that tragical gloom it seemed as though their young figures
+had but just emerged, unnaturally clear; and yet the trailing clouds were
+already threatening the wild beauty of the girl.
+
+He blamed himself for lack of foresight. It should have been utterly
+impossible for those two to meet! Meryon generally appeared at Sandford
+three times a year, for various sporting purposes. Hester might easily
+have been sent away during these descents. But the fact was she had grown
+up so rapidly--yesterday a mischievous child, to-day a woman in her first
+bloom--that they had all been taken by surprise. Besides, who could have
+imagined any communication whatever between the Fox-Wilton household and
+the riotous party at Sandford Abbey?
+
+As to the girl herself, Meynell was always conscious of being engaged in
+some long struggle to save and protect his ward against her will. There
+were circumstances connected with Hester that should have stirred in the
+few 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 watch
+over her upbringing; he had brought her to her first communion, and tried
+hard, and quite in vain, to instil into her the wholesome mysticisms of
+the Christian faith; and the more efforts he made, the more sharply was
+he aware of the hard, egotistical core of the girl's nature, of Hester's
+fatal difference from other girls.
+
+And yet, as he thought of her with sadness and perplexity, there came
+across him the memory of Mrs. Elsmere's sudden movement toward Hester;
+how she had drawn the child to her and kissed her--she, so unearthly
+and so spiritual, whose very aspect showed her the bondswoman of Christ.
+
+The remembrance rebuked him, and he fell into fresh plans about the
+child. She must be sent away at once!--and if there were really any sign
+of entanglement he must himself go to Sandford and beard Philip in his
+den. There was knowledge in his possession that might be used to frighten
+the fellow. He thought of his cousin with loathing and contempt.
+
+But--to do him justice--Meryon knew nothing of those facts that gave such
+an intolerable significance to any contact whatever between his
+besmirched 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 had
+been for years the terror of three lives--was she alive still? Ralph
+Fox-Wilton had originally made it well worth her while to go to the
+States. That was in the days when he was prepared to pay anything. Then
+for years she had received an allowance, which, however, Meynell believed
+had stopped sometime before Sir Ralph's death. Meynell remembered that
+the stopping of it had caused some friction between Ralph and his wife.
+Lady Fox-Wilton had wished it continued. But Ralph had obstinately
+refused to pay any more. Nothing had been heard of her, apparently, for a
+long while. But she had still a son and grand-children living in Upcote
+village.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meynell opened the gate leading into the Forked Pond enclosure. The pond
+had been made by the damming of part of the trout stream at the point
+where it entered the Maudeley estate, and the diversion of the rest to a
+new channel. The narrow strip of land between the pond and the new
+channel made a little waterlocked kingdom of its own for the cottage,
+which had been originally a fishing hut, built in an Izaak Walton-ish
+mood by one of the owners of Maudeley. But the public footpath through
+the park ran along the farther side of the pond, and the doings of the
+inhabitants of the cottage, thick though the leafage was, could sometimes
+be observed from it.
+
+Involuntarily Meynell's footsteps lingered as the little thatched
+house became visible, its windows set wide to the sounds and scents of
+the September day. There was conveyed to him a sense of its warm
+loneliness in the summer nights, of the stars glimmering upon it through
+the trees, of the owls crying round it. And within--in one of those upper
+rooms--those soft deep eyes, at rest in sleep?--or looking out, perhaps,
+into the breathing glooms of the wood?--the sweet face propped on the
+slender hand.
+
+He felt certain that the inner life of such a personality as Mary Elsmere
+was rich and passionate. Sometimes, in these lonely hours, did she think
+of the man who had told her so much of himself on that, to him, memorable
+walk? Meynell looked back upon the intimate and autobiographical talk
+into which he had been led, with some wonder and a hot cheek. He had
+confessed himself partly to Elsmere's daughter, on a hint of sympathy, as
+to one entitled to such a confidence, so to speak, by inheritance, should
+she desire it; but still more--he owned it--to a delightful woman. It was
+the first time in Meynell's strenuous life, filled to the brim with
+intellectual and speculative effort on the one hand, and with the care
+of his parish on the other, that he had been conscious of any such
+feeling as now possessed him. In his first manhood it had been impossible
+for him to marry, because he had his brothers to educate. And when they
+were safely out in the world the Rector, absorbed in the curing of sick
+bodies and the saving of sick souls, could not dream of spending the
+money thus set free on a household for himself.
+
+He had had his temptations of the flesh, his gusts of inclination, like
+other 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 of
+sight. The sun was sinking in a golden haze, the first prophecy of
+autumnal mists. Broad lights lay here and there upon the water, to be
+lost again in depths of shadow, wherein woods of dream gave back
+the woods that stooped to them from the shore. Everything was so still he
+could hear the fish rising, the run of a squirrel along a branch, the
+passage of a coot through the water.
+
+The very profoundity of nature's peace suddenly showed him to himself. A
+man engaged in a struggle beyond his power!--committed to one of those
+tasks that rend and fever the human spirit even while they ennoble it! He
+had talked boldly to Stephen and the Bishop of "war"--"inevitable" and
+"necessary war." At the same time there was no one who would suffer from
+war more than he. The mere daily practice of Christianity, as a man's
+life-work, is a daily training in sensitiveness, involves a daily
+refining of the nerves. When a man so trained, so refined, takes up the
+public tasks of leadership and organization, in this noisy, hard-hitting
+world, his nature is set at enmity with itself. Meynell did not yet know
+whether the mystic in him would allow the fighter in him to play his
+part.
+
+If the memory of Fenton's cold, unrecognizing eyes and rigid mouth, as
+they passed each other in the silence of the Cathedral, had power to
+cause so deep a stab of pain, how was he to brace himself in the future
+to what must come?--the alienation of friend after friend, the
+condemnation 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 by
+the mind of faith! "_Thou, Thou art being and breath_!--Thine is this
+truth, which, like a living hand, bridles and commands me. Grind my life
+as corn in Thy mill!--but forsake me not! Nay, Thou wilt not, Thou canst
+not forsake me!"
+
+No hope for a man attempting such an enterprise as Meynell's but in this
+simplicity, this passion of self-surrender. Without it no adventure in
+the spiritual fight has ever touched and fired the heart of man. Meynell
+was sternly and simply aware of it.
+
+But how is this temper, this passion, kindled?
+
+The answer flashed. Everywhere the divine ultimate Power mediates itself
+through the earthly elements and forces, speaks through small, childish
+things, incarnates itself in lover, wife, or friend--flashing its mystic
+fire through the web of human relations. It seemed to Meynell, as he
+stood in the evening stillness by the pond, hidden from sight by the
+light brushwood round him, that, absorbed as he had been from his youth
+in the symbolism and passion of the religious life, as other men are
+absorbed in art or science, he had never really understood one of these
+great words by which he imagined himself to live--Love, or Endurance, or
+Sacrifice, or Joy--because he had never known the most sacred, the most
+intimate, things of human life out of which they grow.
+
+And there uprose in him a sudden yearning--a sudden flame of desire--for
+the revealing love of wife and child. As it thrilled through him, he
+seemed to be looking down into the eyes--so frank, so human--of Mary
+Elsmere.
+
+Then while he watched, lost in feeling, yet instinctively listening for
+any movement in the wood, there was a flicker of white among the trees
+opposite. A girl, book in hand, came down to the water's edge, and paused
+there a little, watching the glow of sunset on the water. Meynell
+retreated farther into the wood; but he was still able to see her.
+Presently she sat down, propping herself against a tree, and began to
+read.
+
+Her presence, the grace of her bending neck, informed the silence of the
+woods with life and charm. Meynell watched her a few moments in a trance
+of pleasure. But memory broke in upon the trance and scattered all his
+pleasure. What reasonable hope of winning the daughter of that quiet,
+indomitable woman, who, at their first meeting, had shown him with such
+icy 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's
+life the same tragic conflict, in new form, which had already rent and
+seared it, was madness. He read his dismissal in her quiet avoidance of
+him 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 same
+kind, on such a mother. Meynell bowed his head, and went slowly away. It
+was as though he left youth and all delightfulness behind him, in the
+deepening dusk of the woods.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+While Meynell was passing through the woods of Forked Pond a very
+different scene, vitally connected with the Rector and his fortunes, was
+passing a mile away, in a workman's cottage at Upcote Minor.
+
+Barron had spent an agitated day. After his interview with the Bishop, in
+which he was rather angrily conscious that his devotion and his zeal were
+not rewarded with as much gratitude or as complete a confidence on the
+Bishop's part as he might have claimed, he called on Canon France.
+
+To him he talked long and emphatically on the situation, on the excessive
+caution of the Bishop, who had entirely refused to inhibit any one of the
+eighteen, at present, lest there should be popular commotions; on the
+measures that he and his friends were taking, and on the strong feeling
+that he believed to be rising against the Modernists. It was evident that
+he was discontented with the Bishop, and believed himself the only
+saviour of the situation.
+
+Canon France watched him, sunk deep in his armchair, the plump fingers of
+one hand playing with certain charter rolls of the fourteenth century,
+with their seals attached, which lay in a tray beside him. He had just
+brought them over from the Cathedral Library, and was longing to be at
+work 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 his
+impatience. He prophesied a speedy end to a ridiculous movement; wondered
+what on earth would happen to some of the men, who had nothing but their
+livings, and finally said, with a humorous eye, and no malicious
+intention:
+
+"The Romanists have always an easy way of settling these things. They
+find 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. "Of
+course 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 is
+becoming a great puzzle to mankind."
+
+"Apparent goodness," said Barron hotly.
+
+The Canon smiled again. He wished--and this time more intensely--that
+Barron would go, and let him get to his charters.
+
+And in a few minutes Barron did take his departure. As he walked to the
+inn to find his carriage he pondered the problem of the virtuous
+unbeliever. A certain Bampton lecture by a well-known and learned Bishop
+recurred to him, which most frankly and drastically connected "Unbelief"
+with "Sin." Yet somehow the view was not borne out, as in the interests
+of a sound theology it should have been, by experience.
+
+After all, he reached Upcote in good time before dinner, and remembering
+that he had to inflict a well-deserved lecture on the children who had
+been caught injuring trees and stealing wood in his plantations, he
+dismissed the carriage and made his way, before going home, to the
+cottage, which stood just outside the village, on the way from Maudeley
+to the Rectory and the church.
+
+He knocked peremptorily. But no one came. He knocked again, chafing at
+the 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 going
+away, in the belief that the cottage was empty, when there was a rattling
+sound at the front door. It opened, and an old woman stood in the
+doorway.
+
+"You've made a pretty noise," she said grimly, "but there's no one in but
+me."
+
+"I am Mr. Barron," said her visitor, sharply. "And I want to see John
+Broad. My keepers have been complaining to me about his children's
+behaviour 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. He
+did not allow his tenants to take in lodgers.
+
+And the more he examined her the stranger did her aspect seem. She was
+evidently a woman of seventy or upward, and it struck him that she looked
+haggard and ill. Her grayish-white hair hung untidily about a thin, bony
+face; the eyes, hollow and wavering, infected the spectator with their
+own distress; yet the distress was so angry that it rather repelled than
+appealed. Her dress was quite out of keeping with the labourer's cottage
+in which she stood. It was a shabby blue silk, fashionably cut, and set
+off 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 mother
+alive." But as he spoke some vague recollection of Theresa's talk in the
+morning 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've
+been away this eighteen year, come October."
+
+Barron, as she spoke, was struck with her accent, and recalled her
+mention of "the cars."
+
+"Why, you've been in the States," he said.
+
+"That's it--eighteen year." Then suddenly, pressing her hand to her
+forehead, she said angrily: "I don't know what you mean. What do you come
+bothering me for? I don't know who you are--and I don't know nothing
+about 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, and
+her jewellery, above all her sudden appearance on the scene as the mother
+of a man whom he had always supposed to be alone in the world, with three
+motherless, neglected children, puzzled him.
+
+So as one accustomed to keep a sharp eye on the morals and affairs of his
+cottage tenants, he began to question her about herself. She had thrown
+herself confusedly on a chair, and sat with her head thrown back, and her
+eyes half closed--as though in pain. The replies he got from her were
+short and grudging, but he made out from them that she had married a
+second 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 no
+idea as to his own identity was not surprising, for she had left Upcote
+for the States years before his succession to the White House estate.
+But her memory in all directions was confused, and her strange talk made
+him suspect drugs. She had also, it seemed, the usual grievances of the
+unsound mind, and believed herself to be injured and assailed by persons
+to 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 just
+returned to a scene once familiar and trying, with a clouded brain, to
+recover 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 wild
+astonishment.
+
+"That's her!--that's my Miss Alice!"
+
+Barron, following her gesture, perceived through the half-open door two
+figures standing in the road on the farther side of a bit of village
+green. Meynell, who had just emerged from Maudeley Park upon the
+highroad, had met Alice Puttenham on her way to pay an evening visit to
+the Elsmeres, and had stopped to ask a question about some village
+affairs. Miss Puttenham's face was turned toward John Broad's cottage;
+the Rector had his back to it. They were absorbed in what they were
+talking 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 that
+the level light now flooding the village street shone full upon him. Mrs.
+Sabin tottered back from the door, with another stifled cry, and sank
+into her chair. Her eyes seemed to be starting out of her head. "But--but
+they 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 know
+I'm not. But they give me my money for fifteen year--and then they
+stopped giving it--three year ago. I suppose they thought I'd never be
+back 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 and
+fifty pounds--and that was to be the last, they said. So when Mr. Sabin
+died, I said I'd come over and see for myself. But I'm ill--you see--and
+John's a fool--and I must find some one as 'ull tell me what to do. If
+you're a gentleman living here"--she peered into his face--"perhaps
+you'll tell me? Lady Fox-Wilton's left comfortable, I know. Why shouldn't
+she do what's handsome? Perhaps you'll give me a word of advice, sir? But
+you mustn't tell!--not a word to anybody. Perhaps they'll be for putting
+me 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 had
+grown white.
+
+"If you want my advice you must try and tell me plainly what all this
+means," he said, sternly.
+
+She looked at him--with a mad expression flickering between doubt and
+desire.
+
+"Then you must shut the door, sir," she said at last. Yet as he moved to
+do 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 half
+perplexed, half resentful. Then she turned peremptorily to Barron.
+
+"Shut the door!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Half an hour later Barron emerged into the road, from the cottage. He
+walked like a man bewildered. All that was evil in him rejoiced; all that
+was good sorrowed. He felt that God had arisen, and scattered his
+enemies; he also felt a genuine horror and awe in the presence of
+human frailty.
+
+All night long he lay awake, pondering how to deal with the story which
+had been told him; how to clear up its confusions and implications; to
+find some firm foothold in the mad medley of the woman's talk--some
+reasonable scheme of time and place. Much of what she had told him had
+been frankly incoherent; and to press her had only made confusion worse.
+He was tolerably certain that she was suffering from some obscure brain
+trouble. The effort of talking to him had clearly exhausted her; but he
+had not been able to refrain from making her talk. At the end of the half
+hour he had advised her--in some alarm at her ghastly look--to see a
+doctor. 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 John
+Broad's mother, Mrs. Richard Sabin, who had arrived from America only
+forty-eight hours before, had died suddenly in the night. The bursting
+of an unsuspected aneurism in the brain was, according to the doctor
+called in, the cause of death.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+
+
+
+HESTER
+
+
+"Light as the flying seed-balls is their play
+The 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 Sarah
+Fox-Wilton discontentedly.
+
+"Spend twenty guineas on it, my dear, as Lady Edith did on hers, and
+it'll be all right," said a mocking voice.
+
+Sarah frowned. She went on pinning and adjusting a serge skirt in the
+making, which hung on the dummy before her. "Oh, we all know what _you_
+would like to spend on your dress, Hester!" she said angrily, but
+indistinctly, as her mouth was full of pins.
+
+"Because really nice frocks are not to be had any other way," said Hester
+coolly. "You pay for them--and you get them. But as for supposing you can
+copy Lady Edith's frocks for nothing, why, of course you can't, and you
+don'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't
+eat any more toffy!"--and she flung out a mischievous hand and captured a
+box that was lying on the table, before a girl, who was sitting near it
+with 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, till
+Hester suddenly let it go.
+
+"Take it then--and good luck to you! I wouldn't spoil my teeth and my
+complexion as you do--not for tons of sweets. Hullo!"--the speaker sprang
+up--"the rain's over, and it's quite a decent evening. I shall go out for
+a 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 you
+are not to go out alone."
+
+Hester flushed. "Do you think I can't escape you all--if I want to? Of
+course I can. What geese you are! None of you will ever prevent me from
+doing what I want to do. It really would save such a lot of time and
+trouble if you would get that into your heads."
+
+"Where do you mean to go?" said Sarah stolidly, without taking any notice
+of her remark. "Because if you'll go to the village, I can get some
+binding I want."
+
+"I have no intention whatever of going out for your convenience, thank
+you!" said Hester, laughing angrily. "I am going into the garden, and you
+can come or not as you please." She opened the French window as she spoke
+and stepped out.
+
+"Has mamma heard from that Paris woman yet?" asked Lulu, looking after
+Hester, who was now standing on the lawn playing with a terrier-puppy she
+had lately brought home as a gift from a neighbouring farmer--much to
+Lady Fox-Wilton's annoyance. Hester had an absurd way of making friends
+with 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. She
+was a heavily made girl of twenty, with sleepy eyes and a dull
+complexion. She took little exercise, was inordinately fond of sweet
+things, helped her mother a little in the housekeeping, and was
+intimately acquainted with all the gossip of the village. So was Sarah;
+but her tongue was sharper than Lulu's, and her brain quicker. She was
+therefore the unpopular sister; while for Lulu her acquaintances felt
+rather a contemptuous indulgence. Sarah had had various love affairs,
+which had come to nothing, and was regarded as "disappointed" in the
+village. Lulu was not interested in young men, and had never yet been
+observed to take any trouble to capture one. So long as she was allowed
+sufficient sixpenny novels to read, and enough sweet things to eat, she
+was good-humoured enough, and could do kind things on occasion for her
+friends. Sarah was rarely known to do kind things; but as her woman
+friends were much more afraid of her than of Lulu, she was in general
+treated with much more consideration.
+
+Still it could not be said that Lady Fox-Wilton was to be regarded as
+blessed in either of her two elder daughters. And her sons were quite
+frankly a trouble to her. The eldest, Sarah's junior by a year and a
+half, had just left Oxford suddenly and ignominiously, without a degree,
+and was for the most part loafing at home. The youngest, a boy of
+fifteen, was supposed to be delicate, and had been removed from school by
+his mother on that account. He too was at home, and a tutor who lodged in
+the village was understood to be preparing him for the Civil Service. He
+was a pettish and spiteful lad, and between him and Hester existed
+perpetual 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 earliest
+childhood. They all felt instinctively that she despised them and the
+slow, lethargic temperament which was in most of them an inheritance from
+a father cast in one of the typical moulds of British Philistinism. There
+was some insurmountable difference between her and them. In the first
+place, her beauty set her apart from the rest; and, beside her, Sarah's
+sharp profile, and round apple-red cheeks, or Lulu's clumsiness, made,
+as both girls were secretly aware, an even worse impression than they
+need have made. And in the next, there were in her strains of romantic,
+egotistic ability to which nothing in them corresponded. She could
+play, she could draw--brilliantly, spontaneously--up to a certain
+point, when neither Sarah nor Lulu could stumble through a "piece," or
+produce anything capable of giving the smallest satisfaction to their
+drawing-master. She could chatter, on occasion, so that a room full of
+people instinctively listened. And she had read voraciously, especially
+poetry, where they were content with picture-papers and the mildest of
+novels. Hester brought nothing to perfection; but there could be no
+question that in every aspect of life she was constantly making, in
+comparison with her family, a dashing or dazzling effect all the more
+striking because of the unattractive _milieu_ out of which it sprang.
+
+The presence of Lady Fox-Wilton, in particular, was needed to show these
+contrasts at their sharpest.
+
+As Hester still raced about the lawn, with the dog, that lady came round
+the corner of the house, with a shawl over her head, and beckoned to the
+girl 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, and
+arrived laughing and breathless beside the newcomer. Edith Fox-Wilton was
+a 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 blue
+eyes were still appealing, especially when she smiled. But she did not
+smile often, and she had the expression of one perpetually protesting
+against all the agencies--this-worldly or other-worldly--which had the
+control of her existence. Her weak fretfulness depressed all the
+vitalities near her; only Hester resisted.
+
+At the moment, however, her look was not so much fretful as excited. Her
+thin cheeks were much redder than usual; she constantly looked round as
+though expecting or dreading some interruption; and in a hand which shook
+she held a just opened letter.
+
+"What is the matter, mamma?" asked Hester, a sharp challenging note in
+her gay voice. "You look as though something had happened."
+
+"Nothing has happened," said Lady Fox-Wilton hastily. "And I wish you
+wouldn't romp with the puppy in that way, Hester. He's always doing some
+damage to the flowers. I'm going out, and I wished to give you a message
+from the Rector."
+
+"Is that from Uncle Richard?" said Hester, glancing carelessly at the
+letter.
+
+Lady Fox-Wilton crushed it in her hand.
+
+"I told you it was. Why do you ask unnecessary questions? The Rector has
+heard 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 possible
+recommendations. You will enjoy it very much. They can get you the best
+lessons in Paris, they say. They know everybody."
+
+"H'm--" said Hester, reflectively. Then she looked at the speaker. "Do
+you 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 do
+what 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't
+want to."
+
+"You can behave like a naughty, troublesome girl, without any proper
+feeling, of course!--if you choose," said Lady Fox-Wilton warmly. "But I
+trust you will do nothing of the kind. We are your guardians till you are
+twenty-one; and you ought to be guided by us."
+
+"Well, of course I can't be engaged to Stephen, if you say I
+mayn't--because there's Stephen to back you up. But if Queen Victoria
+could be a queen at eighteen, I don't see why _I_ shouldn't be fit at
+eighteen to manage my own wretched affairs! Anyway--I--am--not--going to
+Paris--unless I want to go. So I don't advise you to promise that lady
+just 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-Wilton
+helplessly. "I try to keep you--the Rector tries to keep you--out of
+mischief that any girl ought to be ashamed--of--and--"
+
+"What mischief?" demanded Hester peremptorily. "Don't run into
+generalities, mamma."
+
+"You know very well what mischief I mean!"
+
+"I know that you think I shall be running away some day with Sir Philip
+Meryon!" said the girl, laughing, but with a fierce gleam in her eyes. "I
+have no intention at present of doing anything of the kind. But if
+anything could make me do it, it would be the foolish way in which you
+and the others behave. I don't believe the Rector ever told you to set
+Sarah and Lulu on to dog me wherever I go!"
+
+"He told me you were not to be allowed to meet that man. You won't
+promise me not to meet him--and what can we do? You know what the Rector
+feels. You know that he spent an hour yesterday arguing and pleading with
+you, when he had been up most of the night preparing papers for this
+commission. What's the matter with you, Hester? Are you quite in your
+right senses?"
+
+The girl had clasped her hands behind her back, and stood with one foot
+forward, "on tiptoe for a flight," her young figure and radiant look
+expressing the hot will which possessed her. At the mention of Meynell's
+name 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. He
+does not care twopence about me, and it's mere humbug and hypocrisy all
+his pretending to care."
+
+"And your Aunt Alice--who's always worshipped you? Why, she's just
+miserable about you!"
+
+"She says exactly what you and Uncle Richard tell her to say--she always
+has! Well, I don't know about Paris, mamma--I'll think about it. If you
+and Sarah will just let me be, I'll take Roddy for a stroll, and then
+after tea I'll tell you what I'll do." And, turning, she beckoned to a
+fine collie lazily sunning himself on the drawing-room steps, and he
+sprang 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. "I
+haven't the smallest intention of meeting him. Come, Roddy!"
+
+The eyes of the two met--in those of the older woman, impatience, a kind
+of cold exasperation; in Hester's, defiance. It was a strange look to
+pass 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 Alice
+something if you were going that way."
+
+"Mamma!"
+
+Sarah suddenly emerged from the schoolroom window and ran excitedly
+across the lawn toward her mother. "Have you heard this extraordinary
+story 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 have
+seen that her bright colour precipitately left her.
+
+"Why, what harm was it?" cried Sarah, wondering. "He told me, because it
+seems Mrs. Sabin used to be a servant of ours long ago. Do you remember
+her, 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 off
+some 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 thought
+she was dead. He hadn't heard of her for four years. But she turned
+up on Tuesday--the queerest old woman! She sat there boasting and
+chattering--in a silk dress with gold bracelets!--they thought she was
+going to make all their fortunes. But she must just have been off her
+head, for she died last night in her sleep, and there were only a few
+shillings on her--not enough to bury her. There's to be an inquest this
+evening, they say."
+
+"Don't spend all your time chattering in the village, Sarah," said Lady
+Fox-Wilton severely, as, still with her back toward the girls, she moved
+away in the direction of the drive. "You'll never get your dress done if
+you 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 the
+family. So that she at once resented the remark.
+
+"If she's worrying about anything, she's worrying about you," said Sarah
+tartly, as she went back to the house. "We all know that."
+
+Hester, with her dog beside her, went strolling leisurely through the
+village street, past Miss Puttenham's cottage on the one hand and the
+Rectory gates on the other, making for a footpath that led from the back
+of the village, through fields and woods, on to the Chase.
+
+As she passed beneath the limes that overhung Miss Puttenham's railings
+she perceived some distant figures in the garden. Uncle Richard, with
+mamma and Aunt Alice on either side of him. They were walking up and down
+in close conversation; or, rather, Uncle Richard seemed to be talking
+earnestly, addressing now one lady, now the other.
+
+What a confabulation! No doubt all about her own crimes and
+misdemeanours. 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 into
+the footpath and began to mount toward the borders of the Chase. It was a
+brilliant September afternoon, and the new grass in the shorn hayfields
+was vividly green. In front rose the purple hills of the Chase, while
+to the left, on the far borders of the village, the wheels and chimneys
+of two collieries stood black against a blaze of sun. But the sharp
+emphasis of light and colour, which in general would have set her own
+spirits racing, was for a while lost on Hester. As soon as she was out
+of sight of the village, or any passers-by, her aspect changed. Once or
+twice she caught her breath in what was very like a sob; and there were
+moments when she could only save herself from the disgrace of tears by a
+wild burst of racing with Roddy. It was evident that her brush with Lady
+Fox-Wilton had not left her as callous as she seemed.
+
+Presently the path forsook the open fields and entered a plantation of
+dark and closely woven trees where the track was almost lost in the
+magnificence of the bracken. Beyond this, a short climb of broken slopes,
+and Hester was out on the bare heath, with the moorland wind blowing
+about her.
+
+She sat down on a bank beneath a birch tree, twisted and tortured out of
+shape by the northwesterly gales that swept the heath in winter. All
+round her a pink and purple wilderness, with oases of vivid green and
+swaying grass. Nothing in sight but a keeper's hut, and some grouse butts
+far away; an ugly red building on the horizon, in the very middle of the
+heath, the Markborough isolation hospital; and round the edge of the vast
+undulating plateau in all directions the faint smoke of the colliery
+chimneys. But the colour of the heath was the marvel. The world seemed
+stained in crimson, and in every shade and combination of it. Close at
+hand the reds and pinks were diapered with green and gold as the
+bilberries and the grasses ran in and out of the heather; but on every
+side the crimson spread and billowed to the horizon, covering the hollows
+and hills of the Chase, absorbing all lesser tones into itself. After the
+rain of the morning, the contours of the heath, the distances of the
+plain, were unnaturally clear; and as the sunshine, the high air, the
+freshly moving wind, played upon Hester, her irritation passed away in a
+sensuous delight.
+
+"Why should I let them worry me? I won't! I am here! I am alive! I am
+only eighteen! I am going to manage my life for myself--and get out of
+this 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-heather
+intergrown with bunchberries. And while a whole vague series of thoughts
+and memories passed through her mind she was still vividly conscious of
+the pink bells, the small bright leaves. Sensation in her was
+exceptionally keen, whether for pleasure or pain. She knew it and had
+often coolly asked herself whether it meant that she would wear out--life
+and brain--quicker than other people--burn faster to the socket. So much
+the better if it did.
+
+What was it she really wanted?--what did she mean to do? Proudly, she
+refused 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 did
+not melt her. She knew very well that she had nothing to blame her
+guardian for; that year after year from her childhood up she had repelled
+and resisted him, that her whole relation to him had been one of
+stubbornness and caprice. Well, there were reasons for it; she was not
+going to repent or change.
+
+Of late his conduct with regard to Stephen's proposal had stirred in her
+a kind of rage. It was not that she imagined herself in love with
+Stephen; but she had chosen to be engaged to him; and that any one should
+affect to control her in such a matter, should definitely and decidedly
+cross her will, was intolerable to her wild pride. If Stephen had
+rebelled with her, she might have fallen fiercely in love with him--for a
+month. But he had submitted--though it was tolerably plain what it had
+cost him; and all her careless liking for him, the fruit of years of very
+poorly requited devotion on his part, seemed to have disappeared in a
+night.
+
+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. She
+recalled her interview with Meynell, in which the Rector had roused in
+her a new and deeper antagonism than any she had yet felt toward his
+efforts to control her. It was as though he did not altogether believe in
+his own arguments; as though there were something behind which she could
+not get at. But if there were something behind, she had a right to know
+it. She had a right to know the meaning of her father's extraordinary
+letter to Meynell--the letter attached to his will--in which she had been
+singled out by name as needing the special tutelage of the Rector. So far
+as the Rector's guardianship of the other children was concerned, it was
+almost a nominal thing. Another guardian had been named in the will, Lady
+Fox-Wilton's elder brother, and practically everything that concerned the
+other children was settled by him, in concert with the mother. The Rector
+never interfered, was never indeed consulted, except on purely formal
+matters of business. But for her--for her only--Uncle Richard--as she
+always called her guardian--was to be the master--the tyrant!--close at
+hand. For so Sir Ralph had laid it down, in his testamentary letter--"I
+commend Hester to your special care. And in any difficulties that may
+arise in connection with her, I beg for our old friendship's sake that
+you 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 years
+before, the story of it had got about; and the injustice, as she held, of
+her position under it had sunk deep into the girl's passionate sense, and
+made her infinitely more difficult to manage than she had been before. Of
+course everybody said it was because of her temper; because of the
+constant friction between her and her father; people believed the hateful
+things he used sometimes to say about her.
+
+Nor was it only the guardianship--there was the money too! Provision made
+for all of them by name--and nothing for her! She had made Sarah show her
+a copy of the will--she knew! Nothing indeed for any of them--the girls
+at least--till Lady Fox-Wilton's death, or till they married; but nothing
+for _her_, under any circumstances.
+
+"Well, why should there be?" Sarah had said. "You know you'll have Aunt
+Alice'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 up
+to scorn by your own father!
+
+A flood of bitterness surged in the girl's heart. And then they expected
+her 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 might
+not be engaged to Stephen--for two years at any rate; and yet if she
+amused herself with any one else she was to be packed off to Paris, to
+some house of detention or other, under lock and key.
+
+Her cheeks flamed. When had she first come across Philip Meryon? Only the
+day before that evening when Uncle Richard had found her fishing with
+him. She knew very well that he was badly spoken of; trust Upcote for
+gossip and scandal! Well, so was she!--they were outcasts together.
+Anyway, he was more amusing to walk and talk with than her sisters, or
+the dreadful young men they sometimes gathered about them. Why shouldn't
+she walk and talk with him? As if she couldn't protect herself! As if she
+didn'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-tattle
+of 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 French
+books, which she had read eagerly--at night or in the woods--wherever
+she could be alone and unobserved. Why shouldn't she read them? There was
+one among them--"Julie de Trecoeur," by Octave Feuillet, that still
+seemed running, like a great emotion, through her veins. The tragic
+leap of Julie, as she sets her horse to the cliff and thunders to her
+death, was always in Hester's mind. It was so that she herself would like
+to die, spurning submission and patience, and all the humdrum virtues.
+
+She raised herself, and the dog beside her sprang up and barked. The sun
+was just dropping below a bank of fiery cloud, and a dazzling and garish
+light lay on the red undulations of the heath. As she stood up she
+suddenly perceived the figure of a man about a hundred yards off emerging
+from a gully--a sportsman with his gun over his shoulder. He had
+apparently just parted from the group with whom he had been shooting, who
+were disappearing in another direction.
+
+Philip Meryon! Now she remembered! He and two other men had taken the
+shooting on this side of the Chase. Honestly she had forgotten it;
+honestly her impression was that he had gone to Scotland. But of course
+none of her family would ever believe it. They would insist she had
+simply come out to meet him.
+
+What was she to do? She was in a white serge dress, and with Roddy
+beside her, on that bare heath, she was an object easily recognized.
+Indeed, as she hesitated, she heard a call in the distance, and saw that
+Meryon was waving to her and quickening his pace. Instantly, with a
+leaping pulse, she turned and fled, Roddy beside her, barking his
+loudest. She ran along the rough track of the heath, as though some vague
+wild terror had been breathed into her by the local Pan. She ran fleet
+and light as air--famous as a runner from her childhood. But the man
+behind 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 path
+ran 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-set
+trees, whence the light had already departed, and lain close among the
+fern. 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 through
+the fern. "Now what do you deserve--for running away?"
+
+"A _gentleman_ would not have tried to catch me!" she said haughtily, as
+she 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 the
+vision before him--this angry wood-nymph, half-vanishing like another
+Daphne into the deep fern amid which she stood. But at the same time he
+was puzzled--and checked--by her expression. There was no mere
+provocation in it, no defiance that covers a yielding mind; but, rather,
+an energy of will, a concentrated force, that held at bay a man whose
+will was the mere register of his impulses.
+
+"You forget," said Hester coolly, "that I have Roddy with me." And as she
+spoke the dog couching at her side poked up his slender nose through the
+fern and growled. He did not like Sir Philip.
+
+Meryon looked upon her smiling--his hands on his sides. "Do you mean to
+say that when you ran you did not mean me to follow?"
+
+"On the contrary, if I ran, it was evidently because I wished to get
+away."
+
+"Then you were very ungrateful and unkind; for I have at this moment in
+my pocket a book you asked me to get for you. That's what I get for
+trying 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 I
+managed to borrow it, and there it is." He pointed triumphantly to a
+yellow-paper-bound volume sticking out of his coat pocket. "Of course you
+know George Sand is a sort of old Johnnie now; nobody reads her. But
+that's your affair. Will you have it?" He offered it.
+
+The excitement, the wild flush in the girl's face, had subsided. She
+looked at the book, and at the man holding it out.
+
+"What is it?" She stooped to read the title--"Mauprat." "What's it
+about?"
+
+"Some nonsense about a cad tamed by a sentimental young woman." He
+shrugged his shoulders, "I tried to read it, and couldn't. But they say
+it's one of her best. If you want it, there it is."
+
+She took it reluctantly, and moved on along the downward path, he
+following, and the dog beside them.
+
+"Have you read the other book?" he asked her.
+
+"'Julie de Trecoeur?' Yes."
+
+"What did you think of it?"
+
+"It was magnificent!" she said shortly, with a quickened breath. "I shall
+get some more by that man."
+
+"Well, you'd better be careful!" He laughed. "I've got some others, but I
+didn't want to recommend them to you. Lady Fox-Wilton wouldn't exactly
+approve."
+
+"I don't tell mamma what I read." The girl's young voice sounded sharply
+beside him in the warm autumnal dusk. "But if you lent me anything you
+oughtn'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 I
+ought to have lent you 'Julie de Trecoeur' if it comes to that."
+
+"Why not?" Hester turned her great, astonished eyes upon him. "One might
+as 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 in
+Scotland?"
+
+"Because I had to go to London instead. Beastly nuisance! But there was
+some 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 a
+trace in her manner of timidity or tremor. In spite of her flight from
+him he could not flatter himself that he had made any impression on her
+nerves. Whereas her beauty and her provocative way were beginning to tell
+deeply on his own.
+
+"Well, I daresay!" His laugh was as frank as her question. "I'm generally
+in 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 had
+had to write another, that would have been work; and I should probably
+have loathed it."
+
+"That I don't believe," she said, shaking her head. "One can always do
+what succeeds. It's like pouring petrol into the motor."
+
+"So you think I'm only idle because I'm a failure?" he asked her, his
+tone 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 why
+you allow yourself these _franchises_!"
+
+"Because I am interested in you--rather. Why won't the neighbourhood call
+on you--why do you have disreputable people to stay with you? It is all
+so foolish!" she said, with childish and yet passionate emphasis. "You
+needn't do it!"
+
+Meryon had turned rather white.
+
+"When you grow a little older," he said severely, "you will know better
+than to believe all the gossip you hear. I choose the friends that suit
+me--and the life too. My friends are mostly artists and actors--they are
+quite content to be excluded from Upcote society--so am I. I don't gather
+you 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 amiable
+cousin--allows himself to make all kinds of impertinent statements about
+me. Well, you'll understand some day that there's no such bad judge of
+men as a clergyman. When he's not ignorant he's prejudiced--and when he's
+not 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 he
+should be cousins!"
+
+"Well, we do happen to be cousins. And I've no doubt that you would
+like me to resemble him. Unfortunately I can't accommodate you. If I
+am to take a relation for a model, I prefer a very different sort of
+person--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, Hester
+carelessly turned her head to look at a squirrel that had run across the
+glade 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 a
+Frenchman--that's a superb thing. He was the best fencer in England--and
+one of the best shots. He had a beautiful voice--he could write--he could
+do anything he pleased. Of course he got into scrapes--such men do--and
+if Richard ever talked to you about him, of course he'd crab him. All the
+same, if one must be like one's relations--which is, of course, quite
+unnecessary--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 a
+certain Ralph Flood, my grandfather, an old hunting squire, a regular bad
+lot! Oh! I can tell you the family history doesn't give me much chance!
+He came from Lincolnshire originally, having made the county there too
+hot to hold him, and bought the Abbey, which he meant to restore and
+never did. He worried his wife into her grave, and she left him three
+children: Neville, who succeeded his father; and two daughters--Meynell's
+mother, who was a good deal older than Neville and married Colonel
+Meynell, as he was then; and my mother, who was much the youngest, and
+died three years ago. She was Neville's favourite sister, and as he knew
+Richard didn't want the Abbey, he left it to me. A precious white
+elephant--not worth a fiver to anybody. I was only thirteen when Neville
+was drowned--"
+
+"Drowned?"
+
+Meryon explained that Neville Flood had lost his life in a storm on an
+Irish lough; a queer business, which no one had ever quite got to the
+bottom of. Many people had talked of suicide. There was no doubt he was
+in very low spirits just before it happened. He was unhappily married,
+mainly through his own fault. His wife could certainly have got a divorce
+from him if she had applied for it. But very soon after she separated
+from Flood she became a Catholic, and nothing would induce her to divorce
+him. And against her there was never a breath. It was said of course that
+he was in love with some one else, and broken-hearted that his wife
+refused to lend herself to a divorce. But nobody knew anything.
+
+"And, by Jove, I wonder why I'm telling you all these shady tales. You
+oughtn'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 see
+that picture."
+
+"What--of my Uncle Neville?"
+
+Meryon eyed her curiously, as they strolled on through the arched green
+of the woodland. Every now and then there were openings through which
+poured a fiery sun, illuminating Hester's face and form.
+
+"Do you know"--he said at last--"there is an uncommonly queer likeness
+between 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 Uncle
+Richard--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 Neville
+was a deal handsomer than old Richard. However, nobody can account for
+likenesses. If you come to think of it, we are all descended from a small
+number of people. But it has often struck me--" He looked at her again
+attentively. "The setting of the ear--and the upper lip--and the shape
+of the brow--I shall bring you a photograph of the picture."
+
+"What does it matter!" said Hester impatiently. "Besides, I am going away
+directly--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'm
+such an idle dog. I'm nothing of the sort. I've nearly finished a whole
+new play. Only--well, I couldn't talk to you about it--it's not a play
+for _jeunes filles_. But after all I might read you a few scenes. That
+wouldn't do any harm. You're so deuced clever!--your opinion would be
+worth having. I can tell you the managers are all after it! I'm getting
+letters by every post asking for parts. What do you say? Can you meet
+me somewhere? I'll choose some of the best bits. Just name your time!"
+
+Her face had kindled, answering to the vivacity--the peremptoriness--in
+his. 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, wild
+thing!"
+
+"Take care!" Hester sprang away from him as he put out an incautious
+hand. "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 new
+stimulus through jaded nerves. Had he met her in London on equal terms
+with other men he knew instinctively that he would have had but small
+chance with her. It was the circumstances of this quiet country place,
+where young men of Hester's class were the rarest of apparitions, and
+where Philip, flying from his creditors and playing the part of a needy
+Don Juan amid the picturesque dilapidations of the Abbey, was gravelled
+day after day for lack of occupation--it was these surroundings that had
+made the flirtation possible. Well, she was a handsome daredevil little
+minx. It amused him to make love to her, and in spite of his parsonical
+cousin, he should continue to do so. And that the proceeding annoyed
+Richard Meynell made it not less, but more, enticing. Parsons, cousins or
+no, 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 took
+no notice of any one till, just as she was nearing the Cowroast, she saw
+groups 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 an
+evident 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 for
+once she had been out by herself without a keeper. He took no notice of
+her tone, and walked on beside her, his eyes on the ground. Presently she
+wondered whether he had heard her reply at all, he was so evidently
+thinking of something else. In her turn she began to ask questions.
+
+"What's happening in the village? Why are those people coming out of the
+Cowroast?"
+
+"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 her
+head?"
+
+"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, Uncle
+Richard--good night! You go too slow for me."
+
+She walked away with a defiant air, intended to show him that he was in
+her black books. He stood a moment looking after her, compunction and sad
+affection in his kind eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Meanwhile, for Catharine Elsmere and Mary these days of early autumn were
+passing in a profound external quiet which bore but small relation to the
+mental 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. She
+set no limit to her own calls, or to her readiness to be called upon. The
+Flaxman dinner and tennis parties were soon an institution in the
+neighbourhood; and the distinguished persons who gathered at Maudeley for
+the Flaxman week-ends shed a reflected lustre on Upcote itself. But Rose
+Flaxman stoutly protected her widowed sister. Mrs. Elsmere was delicate
+and in need of rest; she was not to be expected to take part in any
+social 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 brought
+steadily closer to her by the mere passage of life. Rose was an artist
+and an optimist. In her youth she had been an eager and exquisite
+musician; in her middle life she was a loving and a happy woman, though
+she too had known a tragic moment in her first youth. Catharine, her
+elder by some years, still maintained, beneath an exquisite refinement,
+the strong north-country characteristics of the Westmoreland family to
+which the sisters belonged. Her father had been an Evangelical scholar
+and 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 married
+life beside a nature so plastic and sensitive as Elsmere's, and of her
+passionate love for her husband, it was the early influences on her
+character 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 a
+slender connection that no one misunderstood with the New Brotherhood,
+the slow effect of his withdrawal from her life made itself inevitably
+felt. She stiffened and narrowed intellectually; while for all sinners
+and sufferers, within the lines of sympathy she gradually traced out
+for herself, she would have willingly given her body to be burned, so
+strong was the Franciscan thirst in her for the self-effacement and
+self-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 extent
+balanced the claims of what many might have thought a devastating and
+depersonalizing charity. Catharine was a tender though an austere mother;
+she became and deserved to become the idol of her daughter. But as Mary
+grew up she was drawn inevitably into her mother's activities; and
+Catharine, in the blindness of her ascetic faith, might have injured the
+whole spring of the girl's youth by the tremendous strain thus put upon
+it by affection on the one hand and pity on the other.
+
+Mercifully, perhaps, for them both, Catharine's nerve and strength
+suddenly gave way; and with them that abnormal exaltation and clearness
+of spiritual vision which had carried her through many sorrowing years.
+She entered upon a barren and darkened path; the Christian joy deserted
+her, and there were hours and days when little more than the Christian
+terrors remained. It was her perception of this which roused such a
+tender and desperate pity in Mary. Her mother's state fell short indeed
+of religious melancholy; but for a time it came within sight of it.
+Catharine dreaded to be found herself a castaway; and the memory of
+Robert's denials of the faith--magnified by her mental state, like trees
+in mist--had now become an ever-haunting misery which tortured her
+unspeakably. Her mind was possessed by the parables of judgment--the
+dividing of the sheep from the goats, the shutting of the door of
+salvation on those who had refused the heavenly offers, and by all those
+sayings of the early Church that make "faith" the only passport to
+eternal safety.
+
+Her saner mind struggled in vain against what was partly a physical
+penalty for defied physical law. And Mary also, her devoted companion,
+whose life depended hour by hour on the aspects and changes of her
+mother, must needs be drawn within the shadow of Catharine's dumb and
+phantom-ridden pain. The pain itself was dumb, because it concerned the
+deepest feelings of a sternly reserved woman. But mingled with the pain
+were other matters--resentments, antagonisms--the expression of which
+often half consciously relieved it. She rose in rebellion against those
+sceptical and deadly forces of the modern world which had swept her
+beloved from the narrow way. She fled them for herself; she feared them
+for Mary, in whom she had very early divined the working of Robert's
+aptitudes and powers.
+
+And now--by ill-fortune--a tired and suffering woman had no sooner found
+refuge and rest in the solitude of Forked Pond than, thanks partly to the
+Flaxmans' new friendship for Upcote's revolutionary parson, and partly to
+all the public signs, not to be escaped, of the commotion brewing in the
+diocese, and in England generally, the same agitations, the same troubles
+which had destroyed her happiness and peace of mind in the past, came
+clattering 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 of
+the Bishop; the characters and motives of his opponents; the chances of
+the struggle--and the points on which it turned; even in the little
+solitary house between the waters Catharine could not escape them. The
+Bishop, too, was an old friend; before his promotion he had been the
+incumbent of a London parish in which Catharine had worked. She was no
+sooner settled at Forked Pond than he came to see her; and what more
+natural than he should speak of the anxieties weighing upon him to one so
+able to feel for them?
+
+Then!--the first involuntary signs of Mary's interest in, Mary's sympathy
+with, the offender! In Catharine's mind a thousand latent terrors sprang
+at once to life. For a time--some weeks--she had succeeded in checking
+all developments. Invitations were refused; meetings were avoided. But
+gradually the situation changed. Points of contact began inevitably to
+multiply between Mary and the disturber of Christ's peace in Upcote.
+Mary's growing friendship for Alice Puttenham, her chance encounters with
+Meynell there, or in the village, or in the Flaxmans' drawing-room, were
+all distasteful and unwelcome to Catharine Elsmere. At least her Robert
+had sacrificed himself--had done the honest and honourable thing. But
+this man--wounding the Church from within--using the opportunities of the
+Church for the destruction of the Church--who would make excuses for such
+a combatant?
+
+And the more keenly she became aware of the widening gulf between her
+thoughts and Mary's--of Mary's involuntary, instinctive sympathy with the
+enemy--the greater was her alarm.
+
+For the first time in all her strenuous, self-devoted life she would
+sometimes make much of her physical weakness in these summer days, so as
+to keep Mary with her, to prevent her from becoming more closely
+acquainted with Meynell and Meynell's ideas. And in fact this new anxiety
+interfered with her recovery; she had only to let herself be ill, and ill
+most genuinely she was.
+
+Mary understood it all, and submitted. Her mother's fears were indeed
+amply justified! Mary's secret mind was becoming absorbed, from a
+distance, in Meynell's campaign; Meynell's personality, through all
+hindrance and difficulty--nay, perhaps, because of them--was gradually
+seizing upon and mastering her own; and processes of thought that, so
+long as she and her mother were, so to speak, alone in the world
+together, were still immature and potential, grew apace. The woods and
+glades of Maudeley, the village street, the field paths, began to be for
+her places of magic, whence at any moment might spring flowers of joy
+known to her alone. To see him pass at a distance, to come across him in
+a miner's cottage, or in Miss Puttenham's drawing-room--these rare
+occasions were to her the events of the summer weeks. Nevertheless, when
+September arrived, she had long since forbidden herself to hope for
+anything more.
+
+Meanwhile, Rose Flaxman was the only person who ever ventured to feel and
+show the irritation of the natural woman toward her sister's
+idiosyncrasies.
+
+"Do for heaven's sake stop her reading these books!" she said impatiently
+one evening to Mary, when she had taken leave of Catharine, and her niece
+was strolling back with her toward Maudeley.
+
+"What books?"
+
+"Why, lives of bishops and deans and that kind of thing! I never come but
+I find a pile of them beside her. It should be made absolutely illegal to
+write the life of a clergyman! My dear, your mother would be well in a
+week 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 the
+postman just now while I was with her, and I looked at the book she had
+been reading with her mark in it. I should like to have thrown it into
+the pond! Some tiresome canon or other writing to a friend about Eternal
+Punishment. What does he know about it? I should like to ask! I declare I
+hope he may know something more about it some day! There was your mother
+as white as her ruffles, with dark lines under her eyes. I tell you
+clerical intimidation should be made a punishable offence. It's just as
+bad as any other!"
+
+Mary let her run on. She moved silently along the grassy path, her pretty
+head bent, her hands clasped behind her. And presently her aunt resumed:
+"And the strange thing is, my dear, saving your presence--that your
+beloved mother is quite lax in some directions, while she is so strict in
+others. I never can make her pay the smallest attention to the things I
+tell her about Philip Meryon, for instance, that Hugh tells me. 'Poor
+fellow!' she always calls him, as though his abominable ways were like
+the measles--something you couldn't help. And as for that wild minx
+Hester!--she has positively taken a fancy to her. It reminds me of what
+an old priest said to me once in Rome--'Sins, madame!--the only sins that
+matter are those of the intellect!' There!--send me off--before I say any
+more _inconvenances_!"
+
+Mary waved farewell to her vivacious aunt, and walked slowly back to the
+cottage. She was conscious of inner smart and pain; conscious also for
+the first time of a critical mind toward the mother whose will had been
+the 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 last
+aloud--with an impetuous energy; and then, with a swift return upon
+herself--"Mother, _darling_!--mother, who has no one in the world--but
+me!"
+
+As the words escaped her, she came in sight of the cottage, and saw that
+her mother was sitting in her usual place beside the water. Catharine's
+hands were resting on a newspaper they had evidently just put down, and
+she was gazing absently across the lights and shadows, the limpid blues
+and 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 her
+mother's knee was the _Church Guardian_, in which a lively correspondence
+on the subject of Meynell and the Modernist Movement generally was at the
+moment proceeding.
+
+"Yes, I have been reading," said Catharine slowly--"and I have been very
+sad."
+
+"Then I wish you wouldn't read!" cried Mary, kissing her hand. "I should
+like to burn all the newspapers!"
+
+"What good would that do?" said Catharine, trying to smile. "I have been
+reading Bishop Craye's letter to the _Guardian_. Poor Bishop!--what a
+cruel, 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 her
+daughter's.
+
+There was silence for a little, broken by Catharine, speaking with the
+same quiet vehemence:
+
+"I cannot understand how you, Mary, or any one else can defend what this
+man--Mr. Meynell--is doing. If he cannot agree with the Church, let him
+leave 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 and
+opportunities--with everything they want. They are not asked to give
+anything up--nobody thinks of interfering with them--they have all the
+old dear things, the faiths and the practices they love--and that help
+_them_. They are only asked to tolerate other people who want different
+things. Mr. Meynell stands--I suppose--for the people--who are starved,
+whose souls wither, or die, for lack of the only food that could nourish
+them."
+
+"'I am the bread of life,'" said Catharine with an energy that shook her
+slight frame. "The Church has no other food to give. Let those who refuse
+it go outside. There are other bodies, and other means."
+
+"But, mother, this is the _National_ Church!" pleaded Mary, after a
+moment. "The Modernists too say--don't they?--that Christ--or what
+Christ stands for--is the bread of life. Only they understand the
+words--differently from you. And if"--she came closer to her mother, and
+putting her hands on Catharine's knees, she looked up into the elder
+woman's face--"if there were only a few here and there, they could of
+course do nothing; they could only suffer, and be silent. But there are
+so many of them--so many! What is the 'Church' but the living souls that
+make it up? And now thousands of these living souls want to change things
+in the Church. Their consciences are hurt--they can't believe what they
+once believed. What is the justice of driving them out--or leaving them
+starved--forever? They were born in the Church; baptized in the Church!
+They love the old ways, the old buildings, the old traditions. 'Comfort
+our consciences!' they say; 'we will never tyrannize over yours. Give us
+the teaching and the expression we want; you will always have what you
+want! Make room for us--beside you. If your own faith is strong it will
+only be the stronger because you let ours speak and live--because you
+give us our bare rights, as free spirits, in this Church that belongs to
+the whole English people.' Dear mother, you are so just always--so
+loving--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 answered
+slowly.
+
+Mary turned away, shading her eyes with her hand.
+
+"Yes," she said, with shrinking; "at least I know it is what he would
+say."
+
+"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's
+neck.
+
+"I will never hurt you, my beloved! you know I won't."
+
+The two gazed into each other's eyes, questions and answers, unspoken yet
+understood, passing between them. Then Catharine disengaged herself,
+rose, and went away.
+
+During the night that followed Mary slept little. She was engaged in
+trying to loosen and tear away those tendrils of the heart that had begun
+to climb and spread more than she knew. Toward the early dawn it seemed
+to her she heard slight sounds in her mother's room. But immediately
+afterward she fell asleep.
+
+The next day, Mary could not tell what had happened; but it was as
+though, in some inexplicable way, doors had been opened and weights
+lifted; as though fresh winds had been set blowing through the House of
+Life. Her mother seemed shaken and frail; Mary hovered about her with
+ministering tenderness. There were words begun and left unfinished,
+movements and looks that strangely thrilled and bewildered the younger
+woman. She had no key to them; but they seemed to speak of change--of
+something in her mother that had been beaten down, and was still faintly,
+pitifully striving. But she dared say nothing. They read, and wrote
+letters, and strolled as usual; till in the evening, while Mary was
+sitting 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 the
+Reformers' 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 tears
+sprang to her eyes. "I want to go nowhere--to do nothing--that gives you
+pain!"
+
+"I know that," said Catharine quietly. "But I--I should like to
+understand him."
+
+And with a light touch of her hand on Mary's red-gold hair, she went back
+into the house. Mary wandered away by herself into the depths of the
+woods, weeping, she scarcely knew why. But some sure instinct, lost in
+wonder as she was, bade her ask her mother no questions; to let time
+show.
+
+The day of the League meeting came. It happened also to be the date on
+which the Commission of Inquiry into the alleged heresies and
+irregularities of the Rector of Upcote was holding its final meeting at
+Markborough.
+
+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 great
+monastery formerly connected with it had disappeared, except for the
+Library and a vaulted room below it which now made a passageway from the
+Deanery to the north transept.
+
+The Library offered a worthy setting for high themes. The walls were, of
+course, wreathed in the pale golds and dignified browns of old books. A
+light gallery ran round three sides of the room, while a large
+perpendicular window at the farther end contained the armorial bearings
+of various benefactors of the see. Beneath the window was a bookcase
+containing several chained books--a Vulgate, a Saint Augustine, the
+_Summa_ of St. Thomas; precious possessions, and famous in the annals of
+early printing. And wherever there was a space of wall left free,
+pictures or engravings of former bishops and dignitaries connected with
+the Cathedral enforced the message and meaning of the room.
+
+A seemly, even beautiful place--pleasantly scented with old leather, and
+filled on this September afternoon with the sunshine which, on the Chase,
+was at the same moment kindling the heather into a blood-red
+magnificence. Here the light slipped in gently, subdued to the quiet note
+and standard of the old Library.
+
+The Dean was in the Chair. He was a man of seventy who had only just
+become an old man, submitting with difficulty, even with resentment, to
+the weight of his years. He wore a green shade over his eyes, beneath
+which his long sharp nose and pointed chin--in the practical absence of
+the eyes--showed with peculiar emphasis. He was of heavy build, and
+suffered from chronic hoarseness. In his youth he had been a Broad
+churchman and a Liberal, and had then passed, through stages mysterious
+to his oldest friends, into an actively dogmatic and ecclesiastical
+phase. 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 high
+orthodoxy in the Chapter, and an advocate of disestablishment as the only
+means of restoring "Catholic liberty" to the Church.
+
+The Dean's enemies, of whom he had not a few, brought various charges
+against him. It was said that he was a worldling with an undue leaning to
+notabilities. And indeed in every gathering, social or ecclesiastical,
+the track of the Dean's conversation sufficiently indicated the relative
+importance of the persons present. Others declared that during his long
+tenure of a country living he had left the duties of it mainly to a
+curate, and had found it more interesting to live in London, conferring
+with Cabinet Ministers on educational reform; while the women-folk of the
+Chapter pitied his wife, whose subdued or tremulous aspect certainly
+suggested that the Dean's critical and sarcastic temper sharpened itself
+at home for conflicts abroad.
+
+On the Dean's right hand sat Canon Dornal, a man barely forty, who owed
+his canonry to the herculean work he had done for fourteen years in a
+South London parish, work that he would never have relinquished for the
+comparative ease of the Markborough precincts but for a sudden failure in
+health which had pulled him up in mid-career, and obliged him to think of
+his wife and children. He had insisted, however, on combining with his
+canonry a small living in the town, where he could still slave as he
+pleased; and his sermons in the Cathedral were generally held to be, next
+to the personality of the Bishop, all that was noblest in Markborough
+Christianity. His fine head, still instinct with the energy of youth, was
+covered with strong black hair; dark brows shadowed Cornish blue eyes,
+simple, tranquil, almost _naif_, until of a sudden there rushed into them
+the 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. He
+was a man in whom conscience was a gadfly, remorseless and tormenting. He
+was himself overstrained and his influence sometimes produced in others a
+tension on which they looked back with resentment. But he was a saint;
+open, pure, and loving as a child; yet often tempest-driven with new
+ideas, since he possessed at once the imagination that frees a man from
+tradition, and the piety which clings to it.
+
+Beside him sat a University professor, the young holder of an important
+chair, who had the face, the smile, the curly hair of a boy of twenty, or
+appeared to have them, till you came to notice the subtleties of the
+mouth and the crow's-feet which had gathered round the eyes. And the
+paradox of his aspect only repeated the paradox within. His "History and
+the Gospels," recently published, would have earned him excommunication
+under 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 who
+admired and applauded him did not read his books. It was rumoured indeed
+that there were many things in them which were unsound; but the rumour
+only gave additional zest to the speeches in which at Church Congresses
+and elsewhere he flattered clerical prejudice, and encouraged clerical
+ignorance. To him there was no more "amusing" study--using "amusing" in
+the French sense as meaning something that keeps a man intellectually
+happy and awake--than the study of the Gospels. They presented an endless
+series of riddles, and riddles were what he liked. But the scientific
+treatment of these riddles had, according to him, nothing to do with the
+discipline of the Church; and to the discipline of the Church this young
+man, with the old eyes and mouth, was rigorously attached. He was a
+bachelor and a man of means--facts which taken together with his literary
+reputation and his agreeable aspect made him welcome among women; of
+which he was well aware.
+
+The Archdeacon, Doctor Froswick, and the Rural Dean, Mr. Brathay, who
+completed the Commission of Inquiry, were both men of middle age; the
+Archdeacon, fresh-coloured and fussy, a trivial, kindly person of no
+great account; the Rural Dean, broad-shouldered and square-faced, a
+silent, trustworthy man, much beloved in a small circle.
+
+A pile of books, MSS., and letters lay to the Chairman's right hand. On
+the blotting-pad before him was the voluminous written report of the
+commission 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 he
+arrived, and conversation had become general.
+
+"You have seen the leader in the _Oracle_ this morning?" asked the
+Archdeacon, nervously biting his quill. "Perfectly monstrous, I think! I
+shall withdraw my subscription."
+
+"With the _Oracle_," said the Professor, "it will be a mere question of
+success or failure. At present they are inclined to back the rebellion."
+
+"And not much wonder!" put in the Dean's hoarse voice. "The news this
+morning is uncommonly bad. Four more men joined the League here--a whole
+series of League meetings in Yorkshire!--half the important newspapers
+gone over or neutral--and a perfectly scandalous speech from the Bishop
+of Dunchester!"
+
+"I thought we should hear of Dunchester before long," said the Professor,
+with a sarcastic lip. "Anything that annoys his brethren has his constant
+support. But if the Church allows a Socinian to be put over her, she must
+take the consequences!"
+
+"What can the Church do?" said the Dean, shrugging his shoulders. "If we
+had accepted Disestablishment years ago, Dunchester would never have been
+a 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 be
+thrown against Disestablishment. There comes the dividing line between it
+and the past. I say again, we have missed our chance. If the High
+Churchmen had known their own minds--if they had joined hands boldly with
+the Liberation society, and struck off the State fetters--we should at
+least have been left in quiet possession of what remained to us. We
+should 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 endowments
+and our churches?" said Canon Dornal.
+
+The Dean flushed.
+
+"We have been called a nation of shopkeepers," he said vehemently, "but
+nobody has ever called us a nation of thieves."
+
+The Canon was silent. Then his eye caught the bulky MS. report lying
+before the Dean, and he made a restless movement as though the sight of
+it displeased him.
+
+"The demonstrations the papers report this morning are not all on one
+side," said the Rural Dean slowly but cheerfully, as though from a rather
+unsatisfactory 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 outrage
+people's dearest feelings for nothing. The scandal and misery of it! Of
+course we shall put it down--but the Church won't recover for a
+generation. And all that this handful of agitators may advertise
+themselves and their opinions!"
+
+Canon Dornal frowned and fidgeted.
+
+"We must remember," he said, "that--unfortunately--they have the greater
+part of European theology behind them."
+
+"European theology!" cried the Archdeacon. "I suppose you mean German
+theology?"
+
+"The same thing--almost," said the Canon, smiling a little sadly.
+
+"And what on earth does German theology matter to us?" retorted the
+Archdeacon. "Haven't we got theologians of our own? What have the Germans
+ever 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 have
+to give it up. I don't read German," said the Archdeacon, hastily, "but
+that's what I understand from the Church papers."
+
+Silence a moment. The Professor looked at the ceiling, a smile twitching
+the corners of his mouth. The green shade concealed the Dean's
+expression. He also knew no German, but it did not seem necessary to say
+so. Canon Dornal looked uncomfortable.
+
+"Do you see who it was that protected Darwen from the roughs outside his
+church?" he said presently.
+
+Brathay looked up.
+
+"A party of Wesleyans?--class-leaders? Yes, I saw. Oh! Darwen has always
+been on excellent terms with the Dissenters!"
+
+"Meynell too," said the Professor. "That of course is their game. Meynell
+has always gone for the inclusion of the Dissenters."
+
+"Well, it was Arnold's game!" said the Canon, his look kindling. "Don't
+let's forget that. Meynell's dream is not unlike his--to include
+everybody that would be included."
+
+"Except the Unitarians," said the Professor with emphasis--"the deniers
+of the Incarnation. Arnold drew the line there. So must we."
+
+He spoke with a crisp and smiling decision--as of one in authority. All
+kinds of assumptions lay behind his manner. Dornal looked at him with a
+rather troubled and hostile eye. This whole matter of the coming trial
+was to him deeply painful. He would have given anything to avoid it; but
+he did not see how it could be avoided. The extraordinary spread of the
+Movement indeed had made it impossible.
+
+At this moment one of the vergers of the Cathedral entered the room to
+say that Mr. Meynell was waiting below. The Dean directed that he should
+be shown up, and the whole commission dropped their conversational air
+and sat expectant.
+
+Meynell came in, rather hastily, brushing his hair back from his
+forehead. He shook hands with the Dean and the Archdeacon, and bowed
+to the other members of the commission. As he sat down, the Archdeacon,
+who was very sensitive to such things, and was himself a model of
+spick-and-span-ness, noticed that the Rector's coat was frayed, and one
+of the buttons loose. Anne indeed was not a very competent valet of her
+master; and nothing but a certain esthetic element in Meynell preserved
+him from a degree of personal untidiness which might perhaps have been
+excused in a man alternating, hour by hour, between his study-table and
+the humblest practical tasks among his people.
+
+[Illustration: "He shook hands with the Dean"]
+
+The other members of the commission observed him attentively. Perhaps all
+in their different ways and degrees were conscious of change in him: the
+change wrought insensibly in a man by some high pressure of emotion and
+responsibility--the change that makes a man a leader of his fellows,
+consecrates and sets him apart. Canon Dornal watched him with a secret
+sympathy and pity. The Archdeacon said to himself with repugnance that
+Meynell now had the look of a fanatic.
+
+The Dean took a volume from the pile beside him, and opened it at a
+marked page.
+
+"Before concluding our report to the Bishop, Mr. Meynell, we wished to
+have your explanation of an important passage in one of your recent
+sermons; and you have been kind enough to meet us with a view to giving
+us 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 marked
+sentences 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 of
+fact the continuous life of the spirit of Christ in mankind began with
+the death of Jesus of Nazareth. The Resurrection beliefs, so far as we
+can see, were the natural means by which that Life was secured."
+
+"Are we right in supposing, Mr. Meynell," said the Dean, slowly, "that in
+those sentences you meant to convey that the Resurrection narratives of
+the New Testament were not to be taken as historical fact, but merely as
+mythical--or legendary?"
+
+"The passage means, I think, what it says, Mr. Dean."
+
+"It is not, strictly speaking, logically incompatible," said the
+Professor, bending forward with a suave suggestiveness, "with acceptance
+of the statement in the Creed?"
+
+Meynell threw him a slightly perplexed look, and did not reply
+immediately. The Dean sharply interposed.
+
+"Do you in fact accept the statements of the Creed? In that case we might
+report to the Bishop that you felt you had been misinterpreted--and would
+withdraw the sermon complained of, in order to allay the scandal it has
+produced?"
+
+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 the
+speaker'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, must
+be 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 the
+statements in these volumes on this particular subject, much relief would
+be 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 teemed
+with heresy!
+
+But Meynell was for the moment only aware of his questioner. He leaned
+across the table as though addressing him alone.
+
+"To us too--the Resurrection is vital--the transposition of it, I
+mean--from the natural, or physical to the spiritual order."
+
+Dornal did not of course attempt to argue. But as Meynell met the
+sensitive melancholy of his look the Rector remembered that during the
+preceding year Dornal had lost a little son, a delicate, gifted child, to
+whom he had been peculiarly attached. And Meynell's quick imagination
+realized in a moment the haunted imagination of the other--the dear ghost
+that lived there--and the hopes that grouped themselves about it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A long wrestle followed between Meynell and the Professor. But Meynell
+could not be induced to soften or recant anything. He would often say
+indeed with an eager frown, when confronted with some statement of his
+own, "That was badly put! It should be so-and-so." And then would follow
+some vivid correction or expansion, which sometimes left the matter worse
+than before. The hopes of the Archdeacon, for one set of reasons, and of
+Dornal, for another, that some bridge of retreat might be provided by the
+interview, died away. The Dean had never hoped anything, and Mr. Brathay
+sat open-mouthed and aghast, while Meynell's voice and personality drove
+home 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 the
+whole critical onslaught--especially the German onslaught--was a beaten
+and discredited thing? It seemed to him terribly alive!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The library door opened again, and Meynell disappeared--ceremoniously
+escorted to the threshold by the Professor. When that gentleman was
+seated again, the Dean addressed the meeting.
+
+"A most unsatisfactory interview! There is nothing for it, I fear, but to
+send in our report unaltered to the Bishop. I must therefore ask you to
+append your signatures."
+
+All signed, and the meeting broke up.
+
+"Do you know at all when the case is likely to come on?" said Dornal to
+the Dean.
+
+"Hardly before November. The Letters of Request are ready. Then after the
+Arches will come the appeal to the Privy Council. The whole thing may
+take some time."
+
+"You see the wild talk in some of the papers this morning," said the
+Professor, interposing, "about a national appeal to Parliament to 'bring
+the Articles of the Church of England into accordance with modern
+knowledge.' If there is any truth in it, there may be an Armageddon
+before us."
+
+Dornal looked at him with distaste. The speaker's light tone, the note of
+relish in it, as of one delighting in the drama of life, revolted him.
+
+On coming out of the Cathedral Library, Dornal walked across to the
+Cathedral and entered. He found his way to a little chapel of St. Oswald
+on the north side, where he was often wont to sit or kneel for ten
+minutes' quiet in a busy day. As he passed the north transept he saw
+a figure sitting motionless in the shadow, and realized that it was
+Meynell.
+
+The silence of the great Cathedral closed round him. He was conscious of
+nothing but his own personality, and, as it seemed, of Meynell's. They
+two seemed to be alone together in a world outside the living world.
+Dornal could not define it, save that it was a world of reconciled
+enmities and contradictions. The sense of it alternated with a
+disagreeable recollection of the table in the Library and the men sitting
+round it, especially the cherubic face of the Professor; the thought also
+of the long, signed document which reported the "heresy" of Meynell.
+
+He had been quite right to sign it. His soul went out in a passionate
+adhesion to the beliefs on which his own life was built. Yet still the
+strange reconciling sense flowed in and round him, like the washing of a
+pure stream. He was certain that the Eternal Word had been made flesh in
+Jesus of Nazareth, had died and risen, and been exalted; that the Church
+was now the mysterious channel of His risen life. He must, in mere
+obedience and loyalty, do battle for that certainty--guard it as the
+most precious thing in life for those that should come after.
+Nevertheless he was conscious that there was in him none of the righteous
+anger, none of the moral condemnation, that his father or grandfather
+might have felt in the same case. As far as _feeling_ went, nothing
+divided him from Meynell. They two across the commission table--as
+accuser and accused--had recognized, each in the other, the man of faith.
+The same forces played on both, mysteriously linking them, as the same
+sea links the headland which throws back its waves with the harbour which
+receives 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 and
+excitement of the preceding weeks, and these moments of rest in the
+Cathedral were sometimes all that enabled him to go through his day. He
+endeavoured often at such times to keep his mind merely vacant and
+passive, avoiding especially the active religious thoughts which were
+more than brain and heart could continuously bear. "One cannot always
+think of it--one must not!" he would say to himself impatiently. And then
+he would offer himself eagerly to the mere sensuous impressions of the
+Cathedral--its beauty, its cool prismatic spaces, its silences.
+
+He did so to-day, though always conscious beyond the beauty, and the
+healing quiet, of the mysterious presence on which he "propped his
+soul."...
+
+Conscious, too, of a dear human presence, closely interwoven now with his
+sense of things ineffable.
+
+Latterly, as we have seen, he had not been without some scanty
+opportunities 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 the
+village, Mrs. Flaxman was beginning to give him generous help; the parish
+nurse was started. And sometimes when she came to consult, her niece was
+with her, and Meynell, while talking to the aunt either of his people or
+of the progress of the heresy campaign, was always keenly aware of the
+girlish figure beside her--of the quick, shy smile--the voice and its
+tones.
+
+She was with him in spirit--that he knew--passionately knew. But the
+barriers between them were surely insurmountable. Her sympathy with him
+was like some warm, stifled thing--some chafing bird "beating up against
+the wind."
+
+For a time, indeed, he had tried to put love from him, in the name of his
+high enterprise and its claims upon him. But as he sat tranced in the
+silence of the Cathedral that attempt finally gave way. His longing was
+hopeless, but it enriched his life. For it was fused with all that held
+him to his task; all that was divinest and sincerest in himself.
+
+One of the great bells of the Cathedral struck the quarter. His moment of
+communion and of rest broke up. He rose abruptly and left the Cathedral
+for the crowded streets outside, thinking hard as he walked of quite
+other things.
+
+The death of Mrs. Sabin in her son's cottage had been to Meynell like a
+stone flung into some deep shadowed pool--the ripples from it had been
+spreading 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 of
+the Rector within a few hours of its occurrence. His mother had returned
+home, he said, unexpectedly, after many years of wanderings in the
+States; he had not had very much conversation with her, as she had seemed
+ill and tired and "terrible queer" when she arrived. He and his boys had
+given up their room to her for the night, and she had been very late in
+coming 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 and
+unable to talk to him. She would not allow him to call any doctor, and
+had locked herself in her room. In the morning he had forced the door and
+had found her dead. He did not know that she had seen anybody but himself
+and his boys since her arrival.
+
+But she had seen some one else. As the Rector walked along the street he
+had in his pocket a cutting from the Markborough _Post_, containing the
+report of the inquest, from which it appeared--the Rector of course was
+well aware of it--that Mr. Henry Barron of the White House, going to the
+cottage to complain of the conduct of the children in the plantation, had
+found her there, and had talked to her for some time. "I thought her
+excited--and overtired--no doubt by the journey," he had said to the
+Coroner. "I tried to persuade her to let me send in a woman to look after
+her, but she refused."
+
+In Barron's evidence at the inquest, to which Meynell had given close
+attention, there had been no hint whatever as to the nature of his
+conversation with Mrs. Sabin. Nor had there been any need to inquire. The
+medical evidence was quite clear as to the cause of death--advanced brain
+disease, fatally aggravated by the journey.
+
+Immediately after his interview with John Broad the Rector had
+communicated the news of Mrs. Sabin's unexpected arrival and sudden death
+to two other persons in the village. He still thought with infinite
+concern of the effect it had produced on one of them. Since his hurried
+note telling her of Barron's evidence before the Coroner, and of his own
+impressions of it, he had not seen her. But he must not leave her too
+much to herself. A patient and tender pity, as of one on whom the burden
+of a struggling and suffering soul has long been thrown, dictated all his
+thoughts of her. He had himself perceived nothing which need alarm her in
+Barron's appearance at the inquest. Barron's manner to himself had been
+singularly abrupt and cold when they happened to run across each other,
+outside the room in which the inquest was held; but all that was
+sufficiently explained by the position of the heresy suit.
+
+Still anxiously pondering, Meynell passed the last houses in the
+Cathedral Close. The last of all belonged to Canon France, and Meynell
+had no sooner left it behind him than a full and portly figure emerged
+from its front door.
+
+Barron--for it was he--stood a moment looking after the retreating
+Rector. A hunter's eagerness gave sharpening, a grim sharpening, to the
+heavy face; yet there was perplexity mixed with the eagerness. His
+conversation with France had not been very helpful. The Canon's worldly
+wisdom and shrewd contempt for enthusiasts had found their natural food
+in the story which Barron had brought him. His comments had been witty
+and pungent enough. But when it had come to the practical use of the
+story, France had been of little assistance. His advice inclined too much
+to the Melbourne formula--"Can't you let it alone?" He had pointed out
+the risks, difficulties, and uncertainties of the matter with quite
+unnecessary iteration. Of course there were risks and difficulties; but
+was a man of the type of Richard Meynell to be allowed to play the
+hypocrite, as the rapidly emerging leader of a religious movement--a
+movement directed against the unity and apostolicity of the English
+Church--when there were those looking on who were aware of the grave
+suspicions resting on his private life and past history?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+On the same afternoon which saw the last meeting of the Commission of
+Inquiry at Markborough, the windows of Miss Puttenham's cottage in Upcote
+Minor were open to the garden, and the sun stealing into the half
+darkened drawing-room touched all the many signs it contained of a
+woman's refinement and woman's tastes. The room was a little austere. Not
+many books, but those clearly the friends and not the passing
+acquaintance of its mistress; not many pictures, and those rather slight
+suggestions on the dim blue walls than finished performances; a few
+"notes" in colour, or black and white, chosen from one or other of those
+moderns who can in a sensitive line or two convey the beauty or the
+harshness of nature. Over the mantelpiece there was a pencil drawing by
+Domenichino, of the Madonna and Child; a certain ecstatic languor in the
+Madonna, and, in all the lines of form and drapery, an exquisite flow and
+roundness.
+
+The little maidservant brought in the afternoon letters and with them a
+folded newspaper--the Markborough _Post_. A close observer might have
+detected that it had been already opened, and hurriedly refolded in the
+old folds. There was much interest felt in Upcote Minor in the inquest
+held on John Broad's mother; and the kitchen had taken toll before the
+paper reached the drawing-room.
+
+As though the maid's movement downstairs had been immediately perceived
+by a listening ear overhead, there was a quick sound of footsteps. Miss
+Puttenham ran downstairs, took the letters and the newspaper from the
+hands of the girl, and closed the door behind her.
+
+She opened the paper with eagerness, and read the account it gave of the
+Coroner's inquiry held at the Cowroast a week before. The newspaper
+dropped to the ground. She stood a moment, leaning against the
+mantelpiece, every feature in her face expressing the concentration of
+thought which held her; then she dropped into a chair, and raising her
+two hands to her eyes, she pressed the shut lids close, lifting her face
+as though to some unseen misery, while a little sound--infinitely
+piteous--escaped her.
+
+She saw a bedroom in a foreign inn--a vague form in the bed--a woman
+moving about in nurse's dress, the same woman who had just died in John
+Broad's cottage--and her sister Edith sitting by the fire. The door
+leading to the passage is ajar, and she is watching.... Or is it the
+figure 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, movement
+and life, like a rush of mountain air, come into the ugly shaded room. He
+is tall, with a long face, refined and yet violent, instinct with the
+character 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 a
+sound of bitter sobbing, of low words--
+
+Alice Puttenham's hands dropped from her face--and lay outstretched upon
+her 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 beauty
+at thirty-seven than she had been at twenty. And yet from childhood her
+face had been a winning one--with its childish upper lip and its thin
+oval, its delicate brunette colour, and the lovely clearness of its brown
+eyes. In youth its timid sweetness had been constantly touched with
+laughter. Now it shrank from you and appealed to you in one. But the
+departure of youth had but emphasized a certain distinction, a certain
+quality. Laughter was gone, but grace and character remained, imprinted
+also on the fragile body, the beautiful arms and hands. The only marring
+of the general impression came from an effect of restlessness and
+constraint. To live with Alice Puttenham was to conceive her as a
+creature subtly ill at ease, doing her best with a life which was, in
+some hidden way, injured at the core.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She thought herself quite alone this quiet afternoon, and likely to
+remain so. Hester, who had been lunching with her, had gone shopping into
+Markborough with the schoolroom maid, and was afterward to meet Sarah and
+Lulu at a garden party in the Cathedral Close. Lady Fox-Wilton had just
+left her sister's house after a long, querulous, excited visit, the
+latest 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 the
+event had reopened all the old wounds in Edith's mind, revived all the
+old grievances and terrors. Strange that a woman should be capable of one
+supreme act of help and devotion, and should then spend her whole after
+life in resenting it!
+
+"It was you and your story--that shocking thing we had to do for
+you--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'll
+be the good of all we've suffered!"
+
+That was Edith's attitude--the attitude of a small, vindictive soul. It
+never varied year by year; it showed itself both in trifles and on great
+occasions; it hindered all sisterly affection; and it was the explanation
+of her conduct toward Hester--it had indeed made Hester what she was.
+
+Again the same low sound of helpless pain broke from Alice Puttenham's
+lips. The sense of her unloved, solitary state, of all that she had borne
+and must still bear, roused in her anew a flame of memory. Torch-like it
+ran through the past, till she was shaken with anguish and revolt. She
+had 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 the
+present, that she had once had a man at her feet who had been the desired
+and adored of his day; that she had breathed her heart out in the passion
+of youth on his breast; that although he had wronged her, he had suffered
+because of her, had broken his heart for her, and had probably died
+because circumstances denied him the power to save and restore her, and
+he was not of the kind that bears patiently either thwarting from without
+or reproach from within.
+
+For his selfish passion, his weakness and his suffering, and her own
+woman's power to make him suffer; for his death, no less selfish indeed
+than his passion, for it had taken from her the community of the same
+air, and the same earth with him, the sense that somewhere in the world
+his warm life beat with hers, though they might be separated in bodily
+presence forever--for each and all of these things she had loved him. And
+there were still times when, in spite of the years that had passed away,
+and of other and perhaps profounder feelings that had supervened, she
+felt within her again the wild call of her early love, responding to it
+like an unhappy child, in vain appeal against her solitude, her sister's
+unkindness, and the pressure of irrevocable and unforgotten facts.
+
+Suddenly, she turned toward a tall and narrow chest of drawers that stood
+at her left hand. She chose a key from her watch-chain, a small gold key
+that in their childhood had been generally mistaken by her nieces and
+nephews 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. Her
+hand slipped in; she threw a hasty look round her, at the window, the
+garden. Not a sound of anything but the evening wind, which had just
+risen, and was making a smart rustling among the shrubs just outside. Her
+hand, a white, furtive thing, withdrew itself, and in it lay a packet,
+wrapped in some faded, green velvet. Hurriedly--with yet more pauses to
+listen and to look--the wrapping was undone; the case within fell open.
+
+It contained a miniature portrait of a man--French work, by an excellent
+pupil of Meissonier. The detail of it was marvellous; so, in Alice
+Puttenham's view, was the likeness. She remembered when and how it had
+been commissioned--the artist, and his bare studio in a street on the
+island, near Notre Dame; the chestnuts in the Luxembourg garden as
+they walked home; the dust of the falling blossoms, and the children
+playing in the alleys. And through it all, what passionate, guilty
+happiness--what dull sense of things irreparable!--what deliberate
+shutting 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, Rene-like charm. "Rene" had been
+her laughing name for him--her handsome, melancholy, eloquent _poseur!_
+Like many of his family, he was proud of his French culture, his French
+accent, and his knowledge of French books. The tradition that came
+originally from a French marriage had been kept up from father to son.
+They were not a learned or an industrious race, but their tongue soon
+caught the accent of the boulevards--of the Paris they loved and
+frequented. Her hand lifted the miniature the better to catch the
+slanting light.
+
+As she did so she was freshly struck with a resemblance she had long
+ceased to be conscious of. Familiarity with a living face, as so often
+happens, had destroyed for her its likeness--likeness in difference--to a
+face 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 in
+blue enamel--
+
+"_A ma mie!_"
+
+But before she could see it she must with her cold, quick fingers remove
+the fragment of stained paper that lay upon it like a veil. The half of a
+page of Moliere--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--but
+clingingly, as though it represented her only wealth, amid so much
+poverty. Then her hand, holding it, dropped to her knee again; the other
+hand came to close over it; and her eyes shut. Tears came slowly through
+the lashes.
+
+Amazing!--that that woman should have come back--and died--within a few
+hundred yards, and she, Alice, know nothing! In spite of all Richard's
+persuasions she tortured herself anew with the thought of the interview
+between Judith and Mr. Barron. What could they have talked about--so
+long? Judith was always an excitable, hot-tempered creature. Her silence
+had been heavily and efficiently bought for fifteen years. Then steps
+had been taken--insisted upon--by Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton. His wife and his
+sister-in-law had opposed him in vain. And Ralph had after all triumphed
+in Judith's apparent acquiescence.
+
+Supposing she had now come home, perhaps on a sudden impulse, with a view
+to further blackmail, would not her wisest move be to risk some
+indiscretion, some partial disclosure, so that her renewed silence
+afterward might have the higher price? An hour's _tete-a-tete_ with
+that shrewd, hard-souled man, Henry Barron! Alice Puttenham guessed that
+her own long-established dislike of him as acquaintance and neighbour was
+probably returned with interest; that he classed her now as one of
+"Meynell's lot," and would be only too glad to find himself possessed of
+any secret information that might, through her, annoy and harass Richard
+Meynell, her friend and counsellor.
+
+Was it conceivable that nothing should have been said in that lengthy
+interview as to the causes for Judith's coming home?--or of the reasons
+for her original departure? What else could have accounted for so
+prolonged a conversation between two persons, so different in social
+grade, and absolute strangers to each other?
+
+Richard had told her, indeed, and she saw from the _Post_, that at the
+inquest Barron had apparently accounted for the conversation. "She gave
+me a curious history of her life in the States. I was interested by her
+strange personality--and touched by her physical condition."
+
+Richard was convinced that there was no reasonable cause for alarm. But
+Richard 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, not
+from the springs of the past, but from the deepest sources of the
+present.
+
+_Richard!_
+
+That little villa on the Cap Martin--the steep pathway to it--and Richard
+mounting it, with that pale look, those tattered, sea-stained leaves in
+his hand--and the tragedy that had to be told, in his eyes, and on his
+lips. Could any other human being have upheld her as he did through that
+first year--through the years after? Was it not to him that she owed
+everything that had been recovered from the wreck; the independence and
+freedom of her daily life; protection from her hard brother-in-law, and
+from her sister's reproaches; occupation--hope--the gradual healing of
+intolerable wounds--the gradual awakening of a spiritual being?
+
+Thus--after passion--she had known friendship; its tenderness, its
+disinterested affection and care.
+
+_Tenderness?_ Her hand dashed away some more impetuous tears, then locked
+itself in the other, the tension of the muscles answering to the inward
+effort for self-control. Thank God, she had never asked him for more; had
+often seemed indeed to ask him for much less; had made herself
+irresponsive, difficult, remote. At least she had never lost her dignity
+in his eyes--(ah! in whose eyes but his had she ever possessed it?)--she
+had never forfeited--never risked even--her sacred place in his life, as
+the soul he had helped through dark places, true servant as he was of the
+Master of Pity.
+
+The alarms of the week died away, as this emotion gained upon her. She
+bethought her of certain central and critical years, when, after long
+dependence on him as comrade and friend, suddenly, she knew not how, her
+own pulse had quickened, and the sharpest struggle of her life had come
+upon her. It was the crisis of the mature woman, as compared with that of
+the innocent and ignorant girl; and in the silent mastering of it she
+seemed to have parted with her youth.
+
+But she had never parted with self-control and self-respect. She had
+never persuaded herself that the false was true. She had kept her
+counsel, and her sanity, and the wage of it had not been denied her. She
+had emerged more worthy of his friendship, more capable of rewarding it.
+
+Yes, but with a clear and sad perception of the necessities laid upon
+her--of the sacrifices involved.
+
+He believed her--she knew it--indifferent to the great cause of religious
+change and reform which he had at heart. In these matters, indeed, she
+had quietly, unwaveringly held aloof. There are efforts and endurances
+that can only be maintained--up to a point. Beyond that point resistance
+breaks. The life that is fighting emotion must not run too many risks of
+emotion. At the root of half the religious movements of the world lies
+the appeal of the preacher and the prophet--to women. Because women are
+the creatures and channels of feeling; and feeling is to religion as air
+to life.
+
+But _she_--must starve feeling--not feed and cherish it. Richard's voice
+was too powerful with her already. To hear it dealing with the most
+intimate and touching things of the soul would have tested the resistance
+of her will too sorely. Courage and honour alike told her that she would
+be defeated and undone did she attempt to meet and follow him--openly--in
+the paths of religion. _Entbehren sollst du_--_sollst entbehren!_
+
+So, long before this date, she had chosen her line of action. She took no
+part in the movement, and she rarely set foot in the village church,
+which was close to her gates. Meynell sadly believed her unshakeable--one
+of the natural agnostics or pessimists of the world who cannot be
+comforted through religion.
+
+And meanwhile secretly, ardently, she tracked all the footsteps of his
+thoughts, reading what he read, thinking as far as possible what he
+thought, and revealing nothing.
+
+Except that, lately, she had been indiscreet sometimes in talk with Mary
+Elsmere. Mary had divined her--had expressed her astonishment that her
+friend should declare herself and her sympathies so little; and Alice had
+set up some sort of halting explanation.
+
+But in this nascent friendship it was not Mary alone who had made
+discoveries....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Alice Puttenham sat very still, in the quiet shadowy room, her eyes
+closed, her hands crossed over the miniature, the Markborough paper lying
+on the floor beside her. As the first activity of memory, stirred and
+goaded by an untoward event, lost its poignancy; as she tried in
+obedience 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 never
+absent from Alice Puttenham's consciousness. One face, one problem, more
+or less acutely realized, haunted her life continuously. But this
+afternoon they had, for the moment, receded into the background. Hester
+had been, surely, more reasonable, more affectionate lately. Philip
+Meryon had now left Sandford; a statement to that effect had appeared in
+the _Post_; and Hester had even shown some kindness to poor Stephen. She
+had at last declared her willingness to go to Paris, and the arrangements
+were all made. The crisis in her of angry revolt, provoked apparently by
+the refusal of her guardian to allow her engagement to Stephen, seemed to
+be over.
+
+So that for once Alice Puttenham was free to think and feel for her own
+life and what concerned it. From the events connected with Judith Sabin's
+death--through the long history of Meynell's goodness to her--the mind
+of this lonely woman travelled on, to be filled and arrested by the
+great new fact of the present. She had made a new friend. And at the
+same moment she had found in her--at last--the rival with whom her
+own knowledge of life had threatened her these many years. A rival so
+sweet--so unwitting! Alice had read her. She had scarcely yet read
+herself.
+
+Alice opened her eyes--to the quiet room, and the windy sky
+outside. She was very pale, but there were no tears. "It is not
+renouncing"--she whispered to herself--"for I never possessed. It
+is accepting--loving--giving--all one has to give."
+
+And vaguely there ran through her mind immortal words--"_good
+measure--pressed down, and running over_."
+
+A smile trembled on her lip. She closed her eyes again, lost in one of
+those spiritual passions accessible only to those who know the play and
+heat of the spiritual war. The wind was blowing briskly outside, and from
+the wood-shed in the back garden came a sound of sawing. Miss Puttenham
+did not hear a footstep approaching on the grass outside.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hester paused at the window--smiling. There was wildness--triumph--in her
+look, as though for her this quiet afternoon had seen some undisclosed
+adventure. Her cheek was hotly flushed, her loosened hair made a glory in
+the evening sun. Youth, selfishly pitiless--youth, the supplanter and
+destroyer--stood embodied in the beautiful creature looking down upon
+Alice Puttenham, on the still intensity of the plaintive face, the closed
+eyes, the hands holding the miniature.
+
+Mischievously the girl came closer. She took the stillness before her for
+sleep.
+
+"Auntie! Aunt Alsie!"
+
+With a start, Alice Puttenham sprang up. The miniature dropped from
+her hands to the floor, opening as it fell. Hester looked at it
+astonished--and her hand stooped for it before Miss Puttenham had
+perceived her loss.
+
+"Were you asleep, Aunt Alsie?" she asked, wondering. "I got tired of
+that stupid party--and I--well, I just slipped away"--the clear high
+voice had grown conscious--"and I looked in here, because I left a book
+behind 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 returned
+it. In the act she caught the inscription and her face kindled.
+
+Impetuously throwing herself down beside Miss Puttenham, the girl looked
+up 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, "though
+you 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 your
+things by heart--and now you've been keeping something from me!" The
+girl's tone had changed to one of curious resentment. "You know how you
+scold _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 her
+knee, prevented it.
+
+"Why is it different?" she said, audaciously. "You always say
+you--you--want to be everything to me--and then you hide things from
+me--and I--"
+
+She raised herself, sitting upright on the floor, her hands round her
+knees, 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_ care
+about are the people who _live_--and feel--and do things! There's verse
+in one of your books"--she pointed to a little bookshelf of poets on a
+table 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 loathe
+all the humdrum _bourgeois_ talk--'don't do this--don't do that!' Aunt
+Alsie, there's a German line, too, you know it--' _Was uns alle baendigt,
+das Gemeine'_--don't you hate it too--_das Gemeine?_" the word came
+with vehemence through the white teeth. "And how can we escape it--we
+women--except through freedom--through asserting ourselves--through love,
+of course? It all comes to love!--love that mamma says one ought not to
+talk about. I wouldn't talk about it, if it only meant what it means to
+Sarah and Lulu--I'd scorn to!"
+
+She stopped--and looked with her blazing and wonderful eyes at her
+companion--her lips parted. Then she suddenly stooped and kissed the cold
+hand trying to withdraw itself from hers.
+
+"Who was he, dear?"--she laid the hand caressingly against her
+cheek--"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 any
+one--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 overtired
+this morning."
+
+And she went feebly toward the door.
+
+Hester looked after her, panting and wounded. Aunt Alsie repel--refuse
+her!--Aunt Alsie!--who had always been her special possession and
+chattel. 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, at
+least, never failed. Hester's clothes were Miss Puttenham's special care;
+it was for Hester that she stitched and embroidered. Hester was to
+inherit her jewels and her money. In all Hester's scrapes it was Aunt
+Alice who stood by her, who had often carried her off bodily out of reach
+of 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, had
+never been specially grateful, or much more amenable to counsels from
+Aunt Alice than from anybody else. The slender, graceful woman, so
+gentle, plaintive and reserved, so easily tyrannized over, had never
+seemed to mean much to her. Yet now, as she stood looking at the door
+through which Miss Puttenham had disappeared, the girl was conscious of a
+profound 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 the
+window and down the steps into the garden.
+
+"If she had told me"--she said to herself, with the childish fury that
+mingled 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 face
+pressed 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 much
+less food than usual, with--all the while--the pressure of a vague
+corrosive terror on nerve and brain. The shock of that miniature in
+Hester's hands had just turned the scale; endurance had given way.
+
+The quick footsteps receded. Yet she could do nothing to arrest them. Her
+mind floated in darkness.
+
+Presently out of the darkness emerged a sound, a touch--a warm hand on
+hers.
+
+"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 not
+hear. 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 to
+lavish on a sufferer. Gradually Alice mastered herself, but more than a
+broken 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 been
+weighing 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. The
+servant whispered, and she returned at once.
+
+"Mr. Meynell is here," she said, hesitating. "You will let me send him
+away?"
+
+Alice Puttenham opened her eyes.
+
+"I can't see him. But please--give him some tea. He'll have walked--from
+Markborough."
+
+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's
+nothing"--she raised herself in the chair--"only bad nights! I'll go to
+bed--that'll be best. Go down--give him tea. And Mrs. Flaxman's going
+with you?"
+
+"No. Mother said she wished to go," said Mary, slowly. "She and I were to
+meet 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 the
+meeting. I--I want you to be there. Good night."
+
+And she gently pushed the girl from her, putting up her pale lips to be
+kissed, and asking that the little parlour-maid should be sent to help
+her undress.
+
+Mary went unwillingly. She gave Miss Puttenham's message to the maid, and
+when the girl had gone up to her mistress she lingered a moment at the
+foot of the stairs, her hands lightly clasped on her breast, as though to
+quiet the stir within.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meynell, expecting to see the lady of the house, could not restrain the
+start of surprise and joy with which he turned toward the incomer. He
+took her hand in his--pressing it involuntarily. But it slipped away, and
+Mary explained with her soft composure why she was there alone--that Miss
+Puttenham was suffering from a succession of bad nights and was keeping
+her room--that she sent word the Rector must please rest a little before
+going home, and allow Mary to give him tea.
+
+Meynell sank obediently into a chair by the open window, and Mary
+ministered to him. The lines of his strong worn face relaxed. His look
+returned to her again and again, wistfully, involuntarily; yet not so as
+to cause her embarrassment.
+
+She was dressed in some thin gray stuff that singularly became her; and
+with the gray dress she wore a collar or ruffle of soft white that gave
+it a slight ascetic touch. But the tumbling red-gold of the hair, the
+frank dignity of expression, belonged to no mere cloistered maid.
+
+Meynell heard the news of Miss Puttenham's collapse with a sigh--checked
+at 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 the
+cottage during the preceding week.
+
+Mary reported that she had been in and out as usual, and seemed
+reconciled to the prospect of Paris.
+
+"Are you--is Miss Puttenham sure that she hasn't still been meeting that
+man?"
+
+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 I
+could--but at this time--what use am I?"
+
+The Rector threw himself back wearily in his chair, his hands behind his
+head. Mary was conscious of some deep throb of feeling that must not come
+to words. Even since she had known it the face had grown older--the
+lines deeper--the eyes finer. She stooped forward a little.
+
+"It is hard that you should have this anxiety too. Oh! but I _hope_ there
+is no need!"
+
+He raised himself again with energy.
+
+"There is always need with Hester. Oh! don't suppose I have forgotten
+her! I have written to that fellow, my cousin. I went, indeed, to see him
+the day before yesterday, but the servants at Sandford declared he had
+gone to town, and they were packing up to follow. Lady Fox-Wilton and
+Miss 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 is
+quite kind to me--she tells me when she thinks my frock is hideous--or
+my 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 the
+sofa-cushion."
+
+Meynell shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"She has no bump of respect--never had!" and he began to give a half
+humorous account of the troubles and storms of Hester's bringing up. "I
+often ask myself whether we haven't all--whether I, in particular,
+haven't been a first-class bungler and blundered all through with regard
+to Hester. Did we choose the wrong governesses? They seemed most
+estimable people. Did we thwart her unnecessarily? I can't remember a
+time 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. "But
+he was kind to her--according to his lights; and--he said some very sound
+and 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 upon
+me--just now."
+
+"Just now?"
+
+"Here am I preaching to others," he said slowly, "leading what people
+call a religious movement, and this homely elementary task seems to be
+all going wrong. I don't seem to be able to protect this child confided
+to me."
+
+"Oh, but you will protect her!" cried Mary, "you will! She mayn't seem to
+give way--when you talk to her; but she has said things to me--to my
+mother 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--how
+you've cared for her," said Mary, stammering a little.
+
+"I have done nothing but my plainest, simplest duty. I have made
+innumerable mistakes; and if I fail with her, it's quite clear that I'm
+not fit to teach or lead anybody."
+
+The words were spoken with an impatient emphasis to which Mary did not
+venture a reply. But she could not restrain an expression in her gray
+eyes which was a balm to the harassed combatant beside her.
+
+They said no more of Hester. And presently Mary's hunger for news of
+the Reform Movement could not be hid. It was clear she had been reading
+everything she could on the subject, and feeding upon it in a loneliness,
+and under a constraint, which touched Meynell profoundly. The conflict
+in her between a spiritual heredity--the heredity of her father's
+message--and her tender love for her mother had never been so plain to
+him. Yet he could not feel that he was abetting any disloyalty in
+allowing the conversation. She was mature. Her mind had its own rights!
+
+Mary indeed, unknown to him, was thrilling under a strange and secret
+sense 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, her
+sympathy, 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 the
+campaign; its astonishing developments; the kindling on all sides of the
+dry bones of English religion.
+
+The new--or re-written--Liturgy of the Reform was, it seemed, almost
+completed. From all parts: from the Universities, from cathedral
+cloisters, from quiet country parishes, from the clash of life in the
+great towns, men had emerged as though by magic to bring to the making of
+it their learning and their piety, the stored passion of their hearts.
+And the mere common impulse, the mere release of thoughts and aspirations
+so long repressed, had brought about an extraordinary harmony, a
+victorious selflessness, among the members of the commission charged with
+the task. The work had gone with rapidity, yet with sureness, as in those
+early years of Christianity, which saw so rich and marvellous an upgrowth
+from the old soil of humanity. With surprising ease and spontaneity the
+old had passed over into the new; just as in the first hundred years
+after Christ's death the psalms and hymns and spiritual songs of the
+later Judaism had become, with but slight change, the psalms and hymns of
+Christianity; and a new sacred literature had flowered on the stock of
+the old.
+
+"To-night--here!--we submit the new marriage service and the new burial
+service to the Church Council. And the same thing will be happening, at
+the same moment, in all the churches of the Reform--scattered through
+England."
+
+"How many churches now?" she asked, with a quickened breath.
+
+"Eighteen in July--this week, over a hundred. But before our cases come
+on for trial there will be many more. Every day new congregations come in
+from new dioceses. The beacon fire goes leaping on, from point to point!"
+
+But the emotion which the phrase betrayed was instantly replaced by the
+business tone of the organizer as he went on to describe some of the
+practical developments of the preceding weeks: the founding of a
+newspaper; the collection of propagandist funds; the enrolment of
+teachers 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 hoped
+to see the spread of such a force in the dusty modern world! You remember
+the fairy story of the prince whose heart was bound with iron bands--and
+how one by one, the bands give way? I have seen it like that--in life
+after life."
+
+"And the fighting?"
+
+She had propped her face on her hands, and her eyes, with their eager
+sympathy, their changing lights, rained influence on the man beside her;
+an influence insensibly mingling with and colouring the passion for ideas
+which 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 to
+feel 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 shut
+out, 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 it
+natural you should miscalculate the forces against you? Oh! they are so
+strong! 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 you
+are right. Now let me tell you what the other side are doing. That
+chastens one! There is a conference of Bishops next week; there was one
+a week ago. These are of course thundering resolutions in Convocation.
+The English Church Union has an Albert Hall meeting; it will be
+magnificent. A 'League of the Trinity' has started against us, and will
+soon be campaigning all over England. The orthodox newspapers are all in
+full cry. Meanwhile the Bishops are only waiting for the decision of my
+case--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 Privy
+Council. A hundred cases--that will take time! Meanwhile--from us--a
+monster petition--first to the Bishops for the assembling of a full
+Council of the English Church, then to Parliament for radical changes in
+the 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 the
+conflict before him.
+
+"That," he said quietly, "is nothing to us. We are but soldiers under
+command."
+
+He rose; and, suddenly, she realized with a fluttering heart how empty
+that 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 Council
+consists 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. They
+are my spiritual brothers, or sons--picked men--the leaders of their
+fellows--far better Christians than I. I wish you could see them--and
+hear 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 an
+instant, and then said with gentle emphasis:
+
+"I don' think there will be anything to wound her. At any rate, there
+will 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 be
+going 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 the
+Lakes, in Long Whindale. We came here because mother was ill--and Aunt
+Rose begged us. But--"
+
+"Do you know"--he interrupted her impetuously--"that for six months I've
+had a hunger for just one fortnight up there among the fells?"
+
+"You love them?" Her face bloomed with pleasure. "You know the dear
+mountains?"
+
+He smiled.
+
+"It doesn't do to think of them, does it? You should see the letters on
+my table! But I may have to take a few days' rest, some time. Should I
+find you in Long Whindale--if I dropped down on you--over Goat Scar?"
+
+"Yes--from December till March!" Then she suddenly checked the happiness
+of 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 up
+round them in which every tone and movement had suddenly become
+magnified--significant.
+
+Meynell recovered himself. He held out his hand in farewell, but he had
+scarcely turned away from her, when she made a startled movement toward
+the open window.
+
+"What is that?"
+
+There was a sound of shouting and running in the street outside. A
+crowd seemed to be approaching. Meynell ran out into the garden to
+listen. By this time the noise had grown considerably, and he thought
+he distinguished his own name among the cries.
+
+"Something has happened at the colliery!" he said to Mary, who had
+followed him.
+
+And he hurried toward the gate, bareheaded, just as a gray-haired lady in
+black entered the garden.
+
+"Mother," cried Mary, in amazement.
+
+Catharine Elsmere paused--one moment; she looked from her daughter to
+Meynell. Then she hurried to the Rector.
+
+"You are wanted!" she said, struggling to get her breath. "A terrible
+thing has happened. They think four lives have been lost--some accident
+to the cage--and people blame the man in charge. They've got him shut up
+in the colliery office--and declare they'll kill him. The crowd looks
+dangerous--and there are very few police. I heard you were here--some
+one, the postman, saw you come in--you must stop it. The people will
+listen to you."
+
+Her fine, pale face, framed in her widow's veil, did not so much ask as
+command. He replied by a gesture--then by two or three rapid inquiries.
+Mary--bewildered--saw them for an instant as allies and equals, each
+recognizing the other. Then Meynell ran to the gate, and was at once
+swallowed up in the moving groups which had gathered there, and seemed to
+carry him back with them toward the colliery.
+
+Catharine Elsmere turned to follow--Mary at her side. Mary looked at her
+in 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 they
+hurried on; "their faces were like wild beasts. They have telephoned to
+Cradock for police. If Mr. Meynell can keep them in check for half an
+hour, there may be hope."
+
+They ran on, swept along by the fringe of the crowd till they reached the
+top of a gentle descent at the farther end of the village. At the bottom
+of this hill lay the colliery, with its two huge chimneys, its shed and
+engine houses, its winding machinery, and its heaps of refuse. Within the
+enclosure, from the height where they stood, could be seen a thin line of
+police surrounding a small shed--the pay-office. On the steps of it stood
+the manager, and the Rector, to be recognized by his long coat and his
+bare head, had just joined him. Opposite to the police, and separated
+from the shed by about ten yards and a wooden paling, was a threatening
+and vociferating mob, which stretched densely across the road and up the
+hill on either side; a mob largely composed of women--dishevelled,
+furious women--their white faces gleaming amid the coal-blackened forms
+of the miners.
+
+"They'll have 'im out," said a woman in front of Mary Elsmere. "Oh, my
+God!--they'll have 'im out! It was he caused the death of the boy--yo
+mind 'im--young Jimmy Ragg--a month sen; though the crowner's jury did
+let '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 the
+cage 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 yan
+goes down, as the other cooms up. An' there's catches as yo mun knock
+away to let 'un go down--an' this banksman--ee's a devil!--he niver so
+much as walked across to the other shaft to see--an' theer was the
+catches fast--an' instead o' goin' down, theer was the cage stuck, an'
+the rope uncoilin' itsel', and fallin' off the drum--an' foulin' the
+other rope--An' then all of a suddent, just as them poor fellows wor
+nearin' top--the drum began to work t'other way--run backards, you
+unnerstan?--an' the engineman lost 'is head an' niver thowt to put on
+t'breaks--an'--oh! Lord save us!--whether they was drownt at t'bottom
+i' the sump, or killt afore they got theer--theer's no one knows
+yet--They're getten of 'em up now."
+
+And as she spoke, a great shout which became a groan ran through the
+crowd. Men climbed up the railings at the side of the road that they
+might see better. Women stood on tiptoe. A confused clamour came from
+below, 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 the
+crowd made way. Up the hill they came, a great wail preceding and
+surrounding them; behind them the murmurs of an ungovernable indignation.
+
+As the procession neared them Mary saw a gray-haired woman throw up her
+arm, 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's
+juries?--Let's settle it oursel's!"
+
+Deep murmurs answered her.
+
+"And it's this same Jenkins," said another fierce voice, "as had a sight
+to 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't
+murder 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' if
+them 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 their
+heads, and the women wailing. In front came a piteous group--a young
+half-fainting wife, supported by an older woman, with children clinging
+to her skirts. Catharine went forward, and lifted a baby or two that was
+being dragged along the ground. Mary took up another child, and they both
+joined the procession.
+
+As they did so, there was a shout from below.
+
+Mary, white as her dress, asked an elderly miner beside her, who had
+shown no excitement whatever, to tell her what had happened. He clambered
+up on the bank to look and came back to her.
+
+"They've beaten 'un back, miss," he said in her ear. "They've got the
+surface men to help, and Muster Meynell he's doing his best; if there's
+anybody can hold 'em, he can; but there's terrible few on 'em. It is time
+as the Cradock men came up. They'll be trying fire before long, an' the
+women 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 memory
+of Meynell on the steps--speaking, gesticulating--and the surging crowd
+in front of him.
+
+There was that to do, however, which deadened fear. In the main street
+the procession was met by hurrying doctors and nurses. For those broken
+bodies indeed--young men in their prime--nothing could be done, save to
+straighten 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 no
+office and no sight, however terrible. But she would not permit them to
+Mary, and they were presently separated.
+
+Mary had a trio of sobbing children on her knee, in the living-room of
+one of the cottages, when there was a sudden tramp outside. Everybody in
+Miners' Row, including those who were laying out the dead, ran to the
+windows.
+
+"The police from Cradock!"--fifty of them.
+
+The news passed from mouth to mouth, and even those who had been maddest
+half an hour before felt the relief of it.
+
+Meanwhile detachments of shouting men and women ran clattering at
+intervals through the village streets. Sometimes stragglers from them
+would drop into the cottages alongside--and from their panting talk, what
+had happened below became roughly clear. The police had arrived only just
+in time. The small band defending the office was worn out, the Rector had
+been struck, palings torn down; in another half-hour the rioters would
+have set the place on fire and dragged out the man of whom they were in
+search.
+
+The narrator's story was broken by a howl--
+
+"Here he comes!" And once again, as though by a rush of muddy water, the
+street filled up, and a strong body of police came through it, escorting
+the banksman who had been the cause of the accident. A hatless, hunted
+creature, with white face and loosened limbs, he was hurried along by the
+police, amid a grim silence that had suddenly succeeded to the noise.
+
+Behind came a group of men, officials of the colliery, and to the right
+of them walked the Rector, bareheaded as before, a bandage on the left
+temple. His eyes ran along the cottages, and he presently perceived Mary
+Elsmere standing at an open door, with a child that had cried itself to
+sleep in her arms.
+
+Stepping out of the ranks, he approached her. The people made way for
+him, a few here and there with sullen faces, but in the main with a
+friendly and remorseful eagerness.
+
+"It's all over," he said in Mary's ear. "But it was touch and go. An
+unpopular man--suspected of telling union secrets to the masters last
+year. He was concerned in another accident to a boy--a month ago; they
+all think he was in fault, though the jury exonerated him. And now--a
+piece of abominable carelessness!--manslaughter at least. Oh! he'll catch
+it hot! But we weren't going to have him murdered on our hands. If he
+hadn't got safe into the office, the women alone would have thrown him
+down the shaft. By the way, are you learned in 'first aid'?"
+
+He pointed, smiling, to his temple, and she saw that the wound beneath
+the rough bandage was bleeding afresh.
+
+"It makes me feel a bit faint," he said with annoyance; "and there is so
+much to do!"
+
+"May I see to it?" said her mother's voice behind her. And Catharine, who
+had just descended from an upper room, went quickly to a nurse's wallet
+which had been left on a table in the kitchen, and took thence an
+antiseptic 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 ray
+of strange sweetness stole through the tragedy of the day.
+
+In a very few minutes Meynell rose. They were in the cottage of one of
+the victims. The dead lay overhead, and the cries of wife and mother
+could be heard through the thin flooring.
+
+"Don't go up again!" he said peremptorily to Catharine. "It is too much
+for you."
+
+She looked at him gently.
+
+"They asked me to come back again. It is not too much for me. Please let
+me."
+
+He gave way. Then, as he was following her upstairs, he turned to say to
+Mary:
+
+"Gather some of the people, if you can, outside. I want to give a notice
+when I come down."
+
+He mounted the ladder-stairs leading to the upper room. Violent sounds of
+wailing broke out overhead, and the murmur of his voice could be heard
+between.
+
+Mary quietly sent a few messengers into the street. Then she gathered
+up the sleeping child again in her arms, and sat waiting. In spirit she
+was in the room overhead. The thought of those two--her mother and
+Meynell--beside a bed of death together, pierced her heart.
+
+After what seemed to her an age, she heard her mother's step, and the
+Rector following. Catharine stood again beside her daughter, brushing
+away 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 has
+been 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 hurried
+out to speak to them.
+
+Meanwhile evening had fallen, a late September evening, shot with gold
+and purple. Behind the village the yellow stubbles stretched up to the
+edge of the Chase and drifts of bluish smoke from the colliery chimneys
+hung in the still air.
+
+Meynell, standing on the raised footpath above the crowd, gave notice
+that a special service of mourning would be held in the church that
+evening. The meeting of the Church Council would of course be postponed.
+
+During his few words Mary made her way to the farther edge of the
+gathering, looking over it toward the speaker. Behind him ran the row of
+cottages, and in the doorway opposite she saw her mother, with her arm
+tenderly folded round a sobbing girl, the sister of one of the dead. The
+sudden tranquillity, the sudden pause from tumult and anguish seemed to
+draw a "wind-warm space" round Mary, and she had time, for a moment, to
+think of herself and the strangeness of this tragic day.
+
+How amazing that her mother should be here at all. This meeting of the
+Reformers' League to which she had insisted on coming--as a spectator of
+course, and with the general public--what did it mean? Mary did not yet
+know, long as she had pondered it.
+
+How beautiful was the lined face!--so pale in the golden dusk, in its
+heavy frame of black. Mary could not take her eyes from it. It betrayed
+an 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 swiftest
+and purest; through all the tragedy and the horror some burden seemed to
+have dropped from Catharine's soul. She met her daughter's eyes, and
+smiled.
+
+When Meynell had finished, the crowd silently drifted away, and he
+came back to the Elsmeres. They noticed the village fly coming toward
+them--saw it stop in the roadway.
+
+"I sent for it," Meynell explained rapidly. "You mustn't let your mother
+do any more. Look at her! Please, will you both go to the Rectory? My
+cook will give you tea; I have let her know. Then the fly will take you
+home."
+
+They protested in vain--must indeed submit. Catharine flushed a little at
+being so commanded; but there was no help for it.
+
+"I _would_ like to come and show you my den!" said Meynell, as he put
+them 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 she
+was, she was accustomed to have her way.
+
+They drove into the dark shrubbery that lay between the Rectory and the
+road. At the door of the little house stood Anne in a white cap and clean
+apron. But the white cap sat rather wildly on its owner's head; nor would
+she take any interest in her visitors till she had got from them a fuller
+account of the tumult at the pit than had yet reached her, and assurances
+that Meynell's wound was but slight. But when these were given she
+pounced 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-table
+spread.
+
+She bustled away to bring the tea.
+
+Then exhaustion seized on Catharine. She submitted to be put on the sofa
+after it had been cleared of its pile of books; and Mary sat by her a
+while, holding her hands. Death and the agony of broken hearts
+overshadowed them.
+
+But then the dogs came in, discreet at first, and presently--at scent of
+currant cake--effusively friendly. Mary fed them all, and Catharine
+watched the colour coming back to her face, and the dumb sweetness in the
+gray eyes.
+
+Presently, while her mother still rested, Mary took courage to wander
+round the room, looking at the books, the photographs on the walls, the
+rack of pipes, the carpenter's bench, and the panels of half-finished
+carving. Timidly, yet eagerly, she breathed in the message it seemed
+to bring her from its owner--of strenuous and frugal life. Was that
+half-faded miniature of a soldier his father--and that sweet gray-haired
+woman his mother? Her heart thrilled to each discovery.
+
+Then Anne invaded them, for conversation, and while Catharine, unable to
+hide her fatigue, lay speechless, Anne chattered about her master. Her
+indignation was boundless that any hand could be lifted against him in
+his own parish. "Why he strips himself bare for them, he does!"
+
+And--with Mary unconsciously leading her--out came story after story, in
+the racy Mercian vernacular, illustrating a good man's life, and all
+
+His little nameless unremembered acts
+Of kindness and of love.
+
+As they drove slowly home through the sad village street they perceived
+Henry Barron calling at some of the stricken houses. The squire was
+always punctilious, and his condolences might be counted on. Beside him
+walked a young man with a jaunty step, a bored sallow face, and a long
+moustache which he constantly caressed. Mary supposed him to be the
+squire's second son, "Mr. Maurice," whom nobody liked.
+
+Then the church, looming through the dusk; lights shining through its
+fine perpendicular windows, and the sound of familiar hymns surging out
+into 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 thirsty
+spoke 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 the
+tragic tumult, the human action of the day; let well alone!
+
+And for the first time, as she sat in the darkness, holding her mother's
+hand, 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 that
+afternoon through the extremes of hate and sorrow unpacked their hearts
+in singing and prayer. The hymns rose and fell through the dim red
+sandstone church--symbol of the endless plaint of human life, forever
+clamouring in the ears of Time; and Meynell's address, as he stood on the
+chancel steps, almost among the people, the disfiguring strips of
+plaster on the temple and brow sharply evident between the curly black
+hair and the dark hollows of the eyes, sank deep into grief-stricken
+souls. It was the plain utterance of a man, with the prophetic gift,
+speaking to human beings to whom, through years of checkered life, he had
+given all that a man can give of service and of soul. He stood there as
+the living expression of their conscience, their better mind, conceived
+as the mysterious voice of a Divine power in man; and in the name of that
+Power, and its direct message to the human soul embodied in the tale we
+call Christianity, he bade them repent their bloodthirst, and hope in God
+for their dead. He spoke amid weeping; and from that night forward one
+might have thought his power unshakeable, at least among his own people.
+
+But there were persons in the church who remained untouched by it. In the
+left aisle Hester sat a little apart from her sisters, her hard, curious
+look ranging from the preacher through the crowded benches. She surveyed
+it all as a spectacle, half thrilled, half critical. And at the western
+end of the aisle the squire and his son stood during the greater part of
+the service, showing plainly by their motionless lips and folded arms
+that 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 was
+posted in Markborough, and duly delivered the following morning to an
+address in Upcote Minor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+"What on earth can Henry Barron desire a private interview with me
+about?" said Hugh Flaxman looking up from his letters, as he and
+his wife sat together after breakfast in Mrs. Flaxman's sitting-room.
+
+"I suppose he wants subscriptions for his heresy hunt? The Church party
+seem to be appealing for funds in most of the newspapers."
+
+"I should have thought he knew I am not prepared to support him," said
+Flaxman quietly.
+
+"Where are you, old man?" His wife laid a caressing hand on his
+shoulder--"I don't really quite know."
+
+Flaxman smiled at her.
+
+"You and I are not theologians, are we, darling?" He kissed the hand. "I
+don't find myself prepared to swear to Meynell's precise 'words' any more
+than I was to Robert's. But I am ready to fight to prevent his being
+driven 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 place
+in 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 asked
+to meet him. I really do not think you ought to have asked Meynell."
+
+"There we must agree to differ," said Rose firmly. "Social relations in
+this country must be maintained--in spite of politics--in spite of
+religion--in spite of everything."
+
+"That's all very well--but if you mix people too violently, you make them
+uncomfortable."
+
+"My dear Hugh!--how many drawing-rooms are there?" His wife waved a vague
+hand toward the folding doors on her right, implying the suite of
+Georgian rooms that stretched away beyond them; "one for every _nuance_
+if it comes to that. If they positively won't mix I shall have to
+segregate them. But they will mix." Then she fell into a reverie for a
+moment, adding at the end of it--"I must keep one drawing-room for the
+Rector 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 member
+in a Cabinet headed by a Prime Minister in rapidly failing health; to
+whose place, either by death or retirement it was generally expected that
+Edward Norham would succeed.
+
+"Well, darling, I shall watch your manoeuvres with interest," said
+Flaxman, rising and gathering up his letters--"and, _longo intervallo_, I
+shall 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--and
+Alice Puttenham. How that sister of hers bullies her--horrid little
+woman! _And_ Mr. Barron!"--Flaxman made an exclamation--"and the deaf
+daughter--and the nice elder son--and the unpresentable younger one--in
+fact 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 big
+party. And as for the weekenders, you chose them yourself." She ran
+through the list, while Flaxman vainly protested that he had never in
+their joint existence been allowed to do anything of the kind. "But
+to-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 be
+followed 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 to
+date. Yes--from her observation of the two--she was certain there was a
+good 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 the
+accident--and the Church Council that was put off?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"Catharine made up her mind suddenly to go to that Church Council--after
+not 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--the
+first time she has done it. She arrived in the village just as the
+dreadful thing had happened in the pit. Then of course she and the Rector
+took command. Nobody who knew Catharine would have expected anything
+else. And now she and Mary and the Rector are busy looking after the poor
+survivors. '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 that
+Council for?"
+
+"Perhaps to lift up her voice?"
+
+"No. Catharine isn't that sort. She would have suffered dreadfully--and
+sat still."
+
+And with a thoughtful shake of the head, as though to indicate that the
+veins of meditation opened up by the case were rich and various, Rose
+went slowly away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then Hugh was left to his _Times_, and to speculations on the reasons why
+Henry Barron--a man whom he had never liked and often thwarted--should
+have asked for this interview in a letter marked "private." Flaxman made
+an agreeable figure, as he sat pondering by the fire, while the _Times_
+gradually slipped from his hands to the floor. And he was precisely what
+he looked--an excellent fellow, richly endowed with the world's good
+things, material and moral. He was of spare build, with grizzled hair;
+long-limbed, clean-shaven and gray-eyed. In general society he appeared
+as a person of polished manners, with a gently ironic turn of mind. His
+friends were more numerous and more devoted than is generally the case in
+middle age; and his family were rarely happy out of his company. Certain
+indeed of his early comrades in life were inclined to accuse him of a too
+facile contentment with things as they are, and a rather Philistine
+estimate of the value of machinery. He was absorbed in "business" which
+he did admirably. Not so much of the financial sort, although he was a
+trusted member of important boards. But for all that unpaid multiplicity
+of affairs--magisterial, municipal, social or charitable--which make the
+country gentleman's sphere Hugh Flaxman's appetite was insatiable. He was
+a born chairman of a county council, and a heaven-sent treasurer of a
+hospital.
+
+And no doubt this natural bent, terribly indulged of late years, led
+occasionally to "holding forth"; at least those who took no interest in
+the things which interested Flaxman said so. And his wife, who was much
+more concerned for his social effect than for her own, was often
+nervously on the watch lest it should be true. That her handsome, popular
+Hugh should ever, even for a quarter of an hour, sit heavy on the soul
+even of a youth of eighteen was not to be borne; she pounced on each
+incipient harangue with mingled tact and decision.
+
+But though Flaxman was a man of the world, he was by no means a
+worldling. Tenderly, unflinchingly, with a modest and cheerful devotion,
+he had made himself the stay of his brother-in-law Elsmere's harassed and
+broken life. His supreme and tyrannical common sense had never allowed
+him any delusions as to the ultimate permanence of heroic ventures like
+the New Brotherhood; and as to his private opinions on religious matters
+it is probable that not even his wife knew them. But outside the strong
+affections of his personal life there was at least one enduring passion
+in Flaxman which dignified his character. For liberty of experiment, and
+liberty of conscience, in himself or others, he would gladly have gone to
+the stake. Himself the loyal upholder of an established order, which he
+helped to run decently, he was yet in curious sympathy with many obscure
+revolutionists in many fields. To brutalize a man's conscience seemed to
+him worse than to murder his body. Hence a constant sympathy with
+minorities of all sorts; which no doubt interfered often with his
+practical efficiency. But perhaps it accounted for the number of his
+friends.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"We shall, I presume, be undisturbed?"
+
+The speaker was Henry Barron; and he and Flaxman stood for a moment
+surveying each other after their first greeting.
+
+"Certainly. I have given orders. For an hour if you wish, I am at your
+disposal."
+
+"Oh, we shall not want so long."
+
+Barron seated himself in the chair pointed out to him. His portly
+presence, in some faultlessly new and formal clothes, filled it
+substantially; 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 papers
+from his breast pocket--"but--after much thought--I came to the
+conclusion that there was no one in this neighbourhood I could consult
+upon 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 his
+host.
+
+Flaxman read it. His face changed and worked as he did so. He read it
+twice, turned it over to see if it contained any signature, and returned
+it 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 aggrieved
+parishioners in the Meynell case?"
+
+"He is. But he is by no means personally hostile to Meynell--quite the
+contrary. He brought it to me in much distress, thinking it well that we
+should take counsel upon it, in case other documents of the same kind
+should be going about."
+
+"And you, I imagine, pointed out to him the utter absurdity of the
+charge, 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 turned
+sharply on the speaker.
+
+"You mean to say you believe there is a word of truth in that
+preposterous story?"
+
+"I have good reason, unfortunately, to know that it cannot at once be put
+aside."
+
+Both paused--regarding each other. Then Flaxman said, in a raised accent
+of wonder:
+
+"You think it possible--_conceivable_--that a man of Mr. Meynell's
+character--and transparently blameless life--should have not only been
+guilty of an intrigue of this kind twenty years ago--but should have
+done nothing since to repair it--should actually have settled down to
+live in the same village side by side with the lady whom the letter
+declares to be the mother of his child--without making any attempt to
+marry her--though perfectly free to do so? Why, my dear sir, was there
+ever a more ridiculous, a more incredible tale!"
+
+Flaxman sprang to his feet, and with his hands in his pockets, turned
+upon his visitor, impatient contempt in every feature.
+
+"Wait a moment before you judge," said Barron dryly. "Do you remember a
+case of sudden death in this village a few weeks ago?--a woman who
+returned from America to her son John Broad, a labourer living in one of
+my 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 some
+curious medical evidence?"
+
+Barron nodded assent.
+
+"By the merest chance, I happened to see that woman the night after she
+arrived. I went to the cottage to remonstrate on the behaviour of John
+Broad's boys in my plantation. She was alone in the house, and she came
+to the door. By the merest chance also, while we stood there, Meynell and
+Miss Puttenham passed in the road outside. The woman--Mrs. Sabin--was
+terribly 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. I
+admit that she was scarcely responsible, that she died within a few hours
+of our conversation, of brain disease. But I still do not see--I wish to
+heaven I did!--any way out of what she told me--when one comes to combine
+it with--well, with other things. But whether I should finally have
+decided to make any use of the information I am not sure. But
+unfortunately"--he pointed to the letter still in Flaxman's hand--"that
+shows me that other persons--persons unknown to me--are in possession of
+some, at any rate, of the facts--and therefore that it is now vain to
+hope 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 or
+less. However--we will return presently to the letter. Mrs. Sabin's
+communication to you was of a nature to confirm the statements contained
+in it?"
+
+"Mrs. Sabin declared to me that having herself--independently--become
+aware of certain facts, while she was a servant in Lady Fox-Wilton's
+employment, that lady--no doubt in order to ensure her silence--took
+her abroad with herself and her young sister, Miss Alice, to a place in
+France she had some difficulty in pronouncing--it sounded to me like
+Grenoble; that there Miss Puttenham became the mother of a child, which
+passed thenceforward as the child of Sir Ralph and Lady Fox-Wilton, and
+received the name of Hester. She herself nursed Miss Puttenham, and no
+doctor was admitted. When the child was two months old, she accompanied
+the sisters to a place on the Riviera, where they took a villa. Here
+Sir Ralph Wilton, who was terribly broken and distressed by the whole
+thing, joined them, and he made an arrangement with her by which she
+agreed to go to the States and hold her tongue. She wrote to her people
+in Upcote--she had been a widow for some years--that she had accepted a
+nurse's situation in the States, and Sir Ralph saw her off from Genoa for
+New York. She seems to have married again in the States; and in the
+course of years to have developed some grievance against the Fox-Wiltons
+which ultimately determined her to come home. But all this part of her
+story was so excited and incoherent that I could make nothing of it. Nor
+does it matter very much to the subject--the real subject--we are
+discussing."
+
+Flaxman, who was standing in front of the speaker, intently listening,
+made no immediate reply. His eyes--half absently--considered the man
+before him. In Barron's aspect and tone there was not only the pompous
+self-importance of the man possessed of exclusive and sensational
+information; there were also indications of triumphant trains of
+reasoning 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 the
+ladies at Grenoble--we will say it was Grenoble--received a visitor. Miss
+Puttenham was still in her room. A gentleman arrived, and was admitted to
+see her. Mrs. Sabin was bundled out of the room by Lady Fox-Wilton. But
+it was a small wooden house, and Mrs. Sabin heard a good deal. Miss
+Puttenham was crying and talking excitedly. Mrs. Sabin was certain from
+what, 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 was
+necessary." 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 Lady
+Fox-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--such
+at least was her own story--from the door of her son's cottage, while I
+was with her, she saw Miss Puttenham--and Meynell--standing in the road
+outside."
+
+Flaxman took a turn along the room, and paused.
+
+"You admit that she was ill at the time she spoke to you--and in a
+distracted, incoherent state?"
+
+"Certainly I admit it." Barron drew himself erect, with a slight frown,
+as though tacitly protesting against certain suggestions in Flaxman's
+manner and voice. "But now let us look at another line of evidence. You
+as a newcomer are probably quite unaware of the gossip there has always
+been in this neighbourhood, ever since Sir Ralph Wilton's death, on the
+subject of Sir Ralph's will. That will in a special paragraph committed
+Hester Fox-Wilton to Richard Meynell's guardianship in remarkable terms;
+no provision whatever was made for the girl under Sir Ralph's will, and
+it is notorious that he treated her quite differently from his other
+children. From the moment also of the French journey, Sir Ralph's
+character and temper appeared to change. I have inquired of a good many
+persons as to this; of course with absolute discretion. He was a man of
+narrow Evangelical opinions"--at the word "narrow" Flaxman threw a
+sudden glance at the speaker--"and of strict veracity. My belief is that
+his later life was darkened by the falsehood to which he and his wife
+committed themselves. Finally, let me ask you to look at the young lady
+herself; at the extraordinary difference between her and her supposed
+family; at her extraordinary likeness--to the Rector."
+
+Flaxman raised his eyebrows at the last words, his aspect expressing
+disbelief and disgust even more strongly than before. Barron glanced at
+him, and then, after a moment, resumed in another manner, loftily
+explanatory:
+
+"I need not say that personally I find myself mixed up in such a business
+with the utmost reluctance."
+
+"Naturally," put in Flaxman dryly. "The risks attaching to it are simply
+gigantic."
+
+"I am aware of it. But as I have already pointed out to you, by some
+strange 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 my
+exclusive possession, and how many people are already aware of it and may
+be aware of it we cannot tell. I thought it well to come to you in the
+first instance, because I know that--you have taken some part lately--in
+Meynell'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 quite
+right. Both my wife and I greatly like and respect the Rector." He laid
+stress on the words.
+
+"It was for that very reason--let me repeat--that I came to you. You have
+influence 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 venture
+to suggest is that you should inform him of the stories that are now
+current. It is surely just that he should be informed. And then--we
+have to consider the bearings of this report on the unhappy situation in
+the diocese. How can we prevent its being made use of? It would be
+impossible. You know what the feeling is--you know what people are. In
+Meynell's own interest, and in that of the poor lady whose name is
+involved with his in this scandal, would it not be desirable in every
+way that he should now quietly withdraw from this parish and from
+the public contest in which he is engaged? Any excuse would be
+sufficient--health--overwork--anything. The scandal would then die out of
+itself. There is not one of us--those on Meynell's side, or those against
+him--who would not in such a case do his utmost to stamp it out. But--if
+he persists--both in living here, and in exciting public opinion as he is
+now doing--the story will certainly come out! Nothing can possibly stop
+it."
+
+Barron leant back and folded his arms. Flaxman's eyes sparkled. He felt
+an insane desire to run the substantial gentleman sitting opposite to the
+door and dismiss him with violence. But he restrained himself.
+
+"I am greatly obliged to you for your belief in the power of my good
+offices," he said, with a very frosty smile, "but I am afraid I must ask
+to be excused. Of course if the matter became serious, legal action would
+be taken very promptly."
+
+"How can legal action be taken?" interrupted Barron roughly. "Whatever
+may 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 in
+this village for many years is to be dragged to light--for what? In
+order--excuse my plain speaking--to blackmail Richard Meynell, and to
+force him to desist from the public campaign in which he is now engaged?
+These are hardly measures likely, I think, to commend themselves to some
+of 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 course
+guided by my own judgment and conscience. And I altogether protest
+against the word you have just employed. I came to you, Mr. Flaxman, I
+can honestly say, in the interests of peace!--in the interests of Meynell
+himself."
+
+"But you admit that there is really no evidence worthy of the name
+connecting Meynell with the story at all!" said Flaxman, turning upon
+him. "The crazy impression of a woman dying of brain disease--some gossip
+about 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 a
+rancorous obstinacy at last unveiled. "I believe that the woman's
+identification was a just one--though I admit that the proof is
+difficult. But then perhaps I approach the matter in one way, and you in
+another. A man, Mr. Flaxman, in my belief, does not throw over the faith
+of Christ for nothing! No! Such things are long prepared. Conscience, my
+dear sir, conscience breaks down first. The man becomes a hypocrite in
+his 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 kind
+of monstrosity. He thought of Meynell, of the eager refinement, the clean
+idealism, 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 perceive
+more plainly than he had yet done some of the intricacies of the
+situation.
+
+"I have nothing to do," he said, in a tone that he endeavoured to make
+reasonably calm, "nor has anybody, with generalization of that kind, in a
+case like this. The point is--could Meynell, being what he is, what we
+all know him to be, have not only betrayed a young girl, but have then
+failed to do her the elementary justice of marrying her? And the reply is
+that the thing is incredible!"
+
+"You forget that Meynell was extremely poor, and had his brothers to
+educate--"
+
+Flaxman shrugged his shoulders in laughing contempt.
+
+"Meynell desert the mother of his child--because of poverty--because of
+his brothers' education!--_Meynell_! You have known him some years--I
+only for a few months. But go into the cottages here--talk to the
+people--ask them, not what he believes, but what he _is_--what he has
+been to them. Get one of them, if you can, to credit this absurdity!"
+
+"The Rector's intimate friendship with Miss Puttenham has long been an
+astonishment--sometimes a scandal--to the village!" exclaimed Barron,
+doggedly.
+
+Flaxman stared at him in a blank amazement, then flushed. He took a turn
+up 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 the
+mere conversation were an insult to Meynell, in which he was forced to
+participate.
+
+He took a seat deliberately, and put on his magisterial manner, which,
+however, was much more delicately and unassumingly authoritative than
+that of other men.
+
+"I think we had better clear up our ideas. You bring me a story--a
+painful story--concerning a lady with whom we are both acquainted, which
+may 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 would
+certainly follow the diffusion of it. You invite me to connect with it
+the name of a man for whom I have the deepest respect and admiration; who
+bears an absolutely stainless record; and you threaten to make use of the
+charge in connection with the heresy trials now coming on. Now let me
+give you my advice--for what it may be worth. I should say--as you have
+asked my opinion--have nothing whatever to do with the matter! If anybody
+else brings you anonymous letters, tell them something of the law of
+libel--and something too of the guilt of slander! After all, with a
+little 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 is
+your influence, and not mine, which is important in this matter. You are
+a permanent resident, and I a mere bird of passage. And"--Flaxman's
+countenance kindled--"let me just remind you of this: if you want to
+strengthen Meynell's cause--if you want to win him thousands of new
+adherents--you have only to launch against him a calumny which is sure
+to break down--and will inevitably recoil upon you!"
+
+The two men had risen. Barron's face, handsome in feature, save for some
+thickened lines and the florid tint of the cheeks, had somehow emptied
+itself of expression while Flaxman was speaking.
+
+"Your advice is no doubt excellent," he said quietly, as he buttoned his
+coat, "but it is hardly practical. If there is one anonymous letter,
+there are probably others. If there are letters--there is sure to be
+talk--and talk cannot be stopped. And in time everything gets into the
+newspapers."
+
+Flaxman hesitated a moment. Something warned him not to push matters to
+extremities--to make no breach with Barron--to keep him in play.
+
+"I admit, of course, if this goes beyond a certain point it may be
+necessary to go to Meynell--it may be necessary for Meynell to go to his
+Bishop. But at present, if you _desire_ to suppress the thing, you have
+only to keep your own counsel--and wait. Dawes is a good fellow, and
+will, I am sure, say nothing. I could, if need be, speak to him myself. I
+was 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 to
+suppress it--always supposing that it could be suppressed--my convictions
+being what they are?"
+
+Then--suddenly--it was borne in on Flaxman that in the whole interview
+there had been no genuine desire whatever on Barron's part for advice and
+consultation. He had come determined on a certain course, and the object
+of the visit had been, in truth, merely to convey to one of Meynell's
+supporters a hint of the coming attack, and some intimation of its
+strength. 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," said
+Flaxman, with cold politeness. His manner changed instantly. Peremptorily
+dismissing the subject, he became, on the spot, the mere suave and
+courteous host of an interesting house; he pointed out the pictures and
+the view, and led the way to the hall.
+
+As he took leave, Barron stiffly intimated that he should not himself be
+able to attend Mrs. Flaxman's party that evening; but his daughter and
+sons hoped to have the pleasure of obeying her invitation.
+
+"Delighted to see them," said Flaxman, standing in the doorway, with his
+hands 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 before
+the year's out. My wife was determined to bring him and Meynell together.
+He seems to have the traditional interest in theology without which no
+English premier is complete."
+
+Pursued by this parting shot, Barron retired, and Flaxman went back
+thoughtfully to his wife's sitting-room. Should he tell her? Certainly.
+Her ready wits and quick brain were indispensable in the battle that
+might 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 been
+made to him.
+
+As he approached his wife's door he heard voices. Catharine! He
+remembered that she was to lunch and spend the day with Rose. Now what to
+do! Devoted as he was to his sister-in-law, he was scarcely inclined to
+trust her with the incident of the morning.
+
+But as soon as he opened the door, Rose ran upon him, drew him in and
+closed it. Catharine was sitting on the sofa--with a pale, kindled
+look--a letter in her hand.
+
+"Catharine has had an abominable letter, Hugh!--the most scandalous
+thing!"
+
+Flaxman took it from Catharine's hand, looked it through, and turned it
+over. The same script, a little differently disguised, and practically
+the same letter, as that which had been shown him in the library! But it
+began with a reference to the part which Mrs. Elsmere and her daughter
+had played in the terrible accident of the preceding week, which showed
+that the rogue responsible for it was at least a rogue possessed of some
+local 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 the
+perversity of men.
+
+Flaxman dropped on the sofa beside her.
+
+"You feel with me, that it is a mere clumsy attempt to injure Meynell, in
+the interests of the campaign against him?" he asked her, eagerly.
+
+"I don't know about that," said Catharine slowly--a shining sadness in
+her look. "But I do know that it could only injure those who are trying
+to fight his errors--if it could be supposed that they had stooped to
+such weapons!"
+
+"You dear woman!" cried Flaxman, impulsively, and he raised her hand to
+his lips. Catharine and Rose looked their astonishment. Whereupon he gave
+them the history of the hour he had just passed through.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+But although what one may call the natural freemasonry of the children of
+light had come in to protect Catharine from any touch of that greedy
+credulity which had fastened on Barron; though she and Rose and Hugh
+Flaxman were at one in their contemptuous repudiation of Barron's reading
+of the story, the story itself, so far as it concerned Alice Puttenham
+and Hester, found in all their minds but little resistance.
+
+"It may--it may be true," said Catharine gently. "If so--what she has
+gone through! Poor, poor thing!"
+
+And as she spoke--her thin fingers clasped on her black dress, the
+nun-like veil falling about her shoulders, her aspect had the frank
+simplicity of those who for their Lord's sake have faced the ugly things
+of life.
+
+"What a shame--what an outrage--that any of us here should know a word
+about it!" cried Rose, her small foot beating on the floor, the hot
+colour 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 stopped
+before his wife.
+
+"You must realize, darling, that we may be all walking on the edge of a
+volcano to-night."
+
+"If only Henry Barron were!--and I might be behind to give the last
+little _chiquenade_!" cried Rose.
+
+Flaxman devoutly echoed the wish.
+
+"But the point is--are there any more of these letters out? If so, we may
+hear of others to-night. Then--what to do? Do I make straight for
+Meynell?"
+
+They pondered it.
+
+"Impossible to leave Meynell in ignorance," said Flaxman--"if the thing
+spreads Meynell of course would be perfectly justified--in his ward's
+interests--in denying the whole matter absolutely, true or no. But can
+he?--with Barron in reserve--using the Sabin woman's tale for his own
+purposes?"
+
+Catharine's face, a little sternly set, showed the obscure conflict
+behind.
+
+"He cannot say what is false," she said stiffly. "But he can refuse to
+answer."
+
+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 the
+world--almost."
+
+Catharine made no reply, but her quiet face showed she did not agree with
+him.
+
+"That child Hester!" Rose emerged suddenly from a mental voyage
+of recollection and conjecture. "Now one understands why Lady
+Fox-Wilton--stupid woman!--has never seemed to care a rap for her. It
+must indeed be annoying to have to mother a child so much handsomer than
+your own."
+
+"I think I am very sorry for Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton," said Catharine, after
+a moment.
+
+Rose assented.
+
+"Yes!--just an ordinary dull, pig-headed country gentleman confronted
+with a situation that only occurs in plays to which you don't demean
+yourself by going!--and obliged to tell and act a string of lies, when
+lies happen to be just one of the vices you're not inclined to! And then
+afterward you find yourself let in for living years and years with a bad
+conscience--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 saw
+Miss Fox-Wilton--with Philip Meryon--in Hewlett's spinney this morning. I
+came back from Markborough by a path I had never discovered before--and
+there, sure enough, they were. They heard me on the path, I think, and
+vanished most effectively. The wood is very thick. But I am sure it was
+they--though they were some distance from me."
+
+Rose exclaimed.
+
+"Naughty, _naughty_ child: She has been absolutely forbidden to see
+him, the whole Fox-Wilton family have made themselves into gaolers and
+spies--and she just outwits them all! Poor Alice Puttenham hovers about
+her--trying to distract and amuse her--and has no more influence than a
+fly. 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 to
+him from all over England to come and speak--or consult--or organize--(I
+don'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 till
+this girl is safely off the scene! He means to take her to Paris himself
+on Monday. I only hope he has found a proper sort of Gorgon to leave her
+with!"
+
+Flaxman could not but reflect that the whole relation of Meynell to his
+ward might well give openings to such a scoundrel like the writer of the
+anonymous letters, who was certainly acquainted with local affairs. But
+he did not express this feeling aloud. Meanwhile Catharine, who showed an
+interest in Hester which surprised both him and Rose, began to question
+him on the subject of Philip Meryon. Meryon's mother, it seemed, had been
+an intimate friend of one of Flaxman's sisters, Lady Helen Varley, and
+Flaxman was well acquainted with the young man's most unsatisfactory
+record. He drew a picture of the gradual degeneracy of the handsome lad
+who 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 unluckily
+he has put himself beyond the pale now, one way and another. It is too
+disastrous about this pretty child! What on earth does she see in him?"
+
+"Simply a means of escaping from her home," said Rose--"the situation
+working out! But who knows whether he hasn't got a wife already? Nobody
+should trust this young man farther than they can see him."
+
+"It musn't--it can't be allowed!" said Catharine, with energy. And, as
+she spoke, she seemed to feel again the soft bloom of Hester's young
+cheek against her own, just as when she had drawn the girl to her, in
+that instinctive caress. The deep maternity in Catharine had never yet
+found scope enough in the love of one child.
+
+Then, with a still keener sense of the various difficulties rising along
+Meynell's path, Flaxman and Rose returned to the anxious discussion of
+Barron's move and how to meet it. Catharine listened, saying little; and
+it was presently settled that Flaxman should himself call on Dawes, the
+colliery 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 further
+developments.
+
+"Tell me"--said Rose presently, when Flaxman had left the sisters
+alone--"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 from
+Mary that there _was_ a scandal--of some sort--in circulation, if the
+thing 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 whom
+she had ever been afraid. But at last she took the plunge.
+
+"Catharine!--don't be angry with me--but I think Mary is interested in
+Richard Meynell."
+
+"Why should I be angry?" said Catharine. She had coloured a little, but
+she was perfectly composed. With her gray hair, and her plain widow's
+dress, she threw her sister's charming mondanity into bright relief. But
+beauty--loftily understood--lay with Catharine.
+
+"It _is_ ill luck--his opinions!" cried Rose, laying her hand upon her
+sister's.
+
+"Opinions are not 'luck,'" said Catharine, with a rather cold smile.
+
+"You mean we are responsible for them? Perhaps we are, if we are
+responsible for anything--which I sometimes doubt. But you like
+him--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 please
+don'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 anything
+that would be a grief to you."
+
+Catharine was silent a moment. Then she said in a tone that went to the
+listener's heart:
+
+"Whatever happened--will be God's will."
+
+She sat motionless, her eyes drooped, her features a little drawn and
+pale; her thoughts--Rose knew it--in the past.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Flaxman came back from his interview with Dawes, reporting that nothing
+could have been in better taste or feeling than Dawes's view of the
+matter. As far as the Rector was concerned--and he had told Mr. Barron
+so--the story was ridiculous, the mere blunder of a crazy woman; and, for
+the rest, what had they to do in Upcote with ferreting into other
+people's private affairs? He had locked up the letter in case it might
+some time be necessary to hand it to the police, and didn't intend
+himself to say a word to anybody. If the thing went any further, why of
+course the Rector must be informed. Otherwise silence was best. He had
+given a piece of his mind to Mr. Barron and "didn't want to be mixed up
+in any such business." "As far as I'm concerned, Mr. Flaxman, I'm
+fighting 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 got
+into the hands of a certain Miss Nairn in the village there might be
+trouble."
+
+"Miss Nairn?--Miss Nairn?" The sisters looked at each other. "Oh, I
+know--the lady in black we saw in church the day the revolution began--a
+strange little shrivelled spinster-thing who lives in that house by the
+post-office. She quarrelled mortally with the Rector last year, because
+she ill-treated a little servant girl of hers, and the Rector
+remonstrated."
+
+"Well, she's one of the 'aggrieved.'"
+
+"They seem to be an odd crew! There's the old sea-captain that lives in
+that queer house with the single yew tree and the boarded-up window on
+the edge of the Heath. He's one of them. He used to come to church about
+once a quarter and wrote the Rector interminable letters on the meaning
+of Ezekiel. Then there's the publican--East--who nearly lost his license
+last year--he always put it down to the Rector and vowed he'd be even
+with him. I must say, the church in Upcote seems rather put to it for
+defenders!"
+
+"In Upcote," corrected Flaxman. "That's because of Meynell's personal
+hold. Plenty of 'em--quite immaculate--elsewhere. However, Dawes is a
+perfectly decent, honest man, and grieved to the heart by the Rector's
+performances."
+
+Catharine had waited silently to hear this remark, and then went away to
+write a letter.
+
+"Poor darling! Will she go and call on Dawes--for sympathy?" said
+Flaxman, mischievously to his wife as the door closed.
+
+"Sympathy?" Rose's face grew soft. "It's much as it was with Robert. It
+ought to be so simple--and it is so mixed! Nature of course _ought_ to
+have endowed all unbelievers with the proper horns and tail. And there
+they go--stealing your heart away!--and your daughter's."
+
+The Flaxmans and Catharine--who spent the day with her sister, before the
+evening party--were more and more conscious of oppression as the hours
+went on; as though some moral thunder hung in the air.
+
+Flaxman asked himself again and again--"Ought I to go to Meynell at
+once?" and could not satisfy himself with any answer; while he, his
+wife, and his sister-in-law, being persons of delicacy, were all
+ashamed of finding themselves the possessors, against their will, of
+facts--supposing they were facts--to which they had no right. Meynell's
+ignorance--Alice Puttenham's ignorance--of their knowledge, tormented
+their consciences. And it added to their discomfort that they shared
+their knowledge with such a person as Henry Barron. However, there was no
+help for it.
+
+A mild autumn day drew to its close, with a lingering gold in the west
+and a rising moon. The charming old house, with its faded furniture, and
+its out-at-elbows charm, was lit up softly, with lamps that made a dim
+but friendly shining in its wide spaces. It had never belonged to rich
+people, but always to people of taste. It boasted no Gainsboroughs or
+Romneys; but there were lesser men of the date, possessed of pretty
+talents of their own, painters and pastellists, who had tried their hands
+on the family, of whom they had probably been the personal friends. The
+originals of the portraits on the walls were known neither to history nor
+scandal; but their good, modest faces, their brave red or blue coats,
+their white gowns, and drooping feathers looked winningly out from the
+soft shadows of the rooms. At Maudeley, Rose wore her simplest dresses,
+and was astonished at the lightness of the household expenses. The house
+indeed had never known display, or any other luxury than space; and to
+live in it was to accept its tradition.
+
+The week-enders arrived at tea-time; Mr. Norham with a secretary and a
+valet, much preoccupied, and chewing the fag-end of certain Cabinet
+deliberations in the morning; Flaxman's charming sister, Lady Helen
+Varley, and her husband; his elder brother, Lord Wanless, unmarried, an
+expert on armour, slightly eccentric, but still, in the eyes of all
+intriguing mothers, and to his own annoyance, more than desirable as a
+husband owing to the Wanless collieries and a few other trifles of the
+same kind; the Bishop of Markborough; Canon France and his sister; a
+young poet whose very delicate muse had lodged itself oddly in the frame
+of an athlete; a high official in the Local Government Board, Mr.
+Spearman, whom Rose regarded with distrust as likely to lead Hugh into
+too much talk about workhouses; Lady Helen's two girls just out, as
+dainty and well-dressed, as gayly and innocently sure of themselves
+and their place in life as the "classes" at their best know how to
+produce; and two or three youths, bound for Oxford by the end of
+the week, samples, these last, of a somewhat new type in that old
+University--combining the dash, family, and insolence of the old "tuft"
+or Bullingdon man, with an amazing aptitude for the classics, rare indeed
+among the "tufts" of old. Two out of the three had captured almost every
+distinction that Oxford offers; and all three had been either gated for
+lengthy periods or "sent down," or otherwise trounced by an angry
+college, puzzled by the queer connection between Irelands and Hertfords
+on the one hand and tipsy frolics on the other.
+
+Meynell appeared for dinner--somewhat late. It was only with great
+difficulty that the Flaxmans had prevailed on him to come, for the
+purpose of meeting Mr. Norham. But the party within the church which,
+foreseeing a Modernist defeat in the church courts, was appealing to
+Parliament to take action, was strengthening every week; Meynell's
+Saturday articles in the _Modernist_, the paper founded by the Reformers'
+League, were already providing these parliamentarians with a policy and
+inspiration; and if the Movement were to go on swelling during the
+winter, the government might have to take very serious cognizance of it
+during the spring. Mr. Norham therefore had expressed a wish for some
+conversation with the Modernist leader, who happened to be Rector of
+Upcote; and Meynell, who had by now cut himself adrift from all social
+engagements, had with difficulty saved an evening.
+
+As far as Norham was concerned Meynell would have greatly preferred to
+take the Home Secretary for a Sunday walk on the Chase; but he had begun
+to 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 let
+himself think too much?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So that Rose, as she surveyed her dinner table, could feel that she was
+maintaining the wide social traditions of England, by the mingling of as
+many contraries as possible. But the oil and vinegar were after all
+cunningly mixed, and the dinner went well. The Bishop was separated from
+Meynell by the length of the table, and Norham was carefully protected
+from Mr. Spearman, in his eyes a prince of bores, who was always
+bothering the Home Office.
+
+The Bishop, who was seated beside Rose at one end of the table, noticed
+the black patch on Meynell's temple, and inquired its origin. Rose gave
+him a graphic account both of the accident and the riot. The Bishop
+raised his eyebrows.
+
+"How does he contrive to live the two lives?" he said in a tone slightly
+acid. "If he continues to lead this Movement, he will have to give up
+fighting mobs and running up and down mines."
+
+"What is going to happen to the Movement?" Rose asked him, with her most
+sympathetic smile. Socially and in her own house she was divinely all
+things to all men. But the Bishop was rather suspicious of her.
+
+"What can happen to it but defeat? The only other alternative is the
+break-up of the Church. And for that, thank God, they are not strong
+enough."
+
+"And no compromise is possible?"
+
+"None. In three months Meynell and all his friends will have ceased to
+belong to the English Church. It is very lamentable. I am particularly
+sorry 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 National
+Church? Hasn't she the right and the power?"
+
+But her instincts as hostess stifled her pugnacity. And the little Bishop
+looked so worn and fragile that she had no heart for anything but
+cossetting him. At the same time she noticed--as she had done before on
+other occasions--the curious absence of any ferocity, any smell of
+brimstone, in the air! How different from Robert's day! Then the
+presumption underlying all controversy was of an offended authority
+ranged against an apologetic rebellion. A tone of moral condemnation on
+the one side, a touch of casuistry on the other, confused the issues. And
+now--behind and around the combatants--the clash of equal hosts!--over
+ground strewn with dead assumptions. The conflict might be no less
+strenuous; nay! from a series of isolated struggles it had developed into
+a world-wide battle; but the bitterness between man and man was less.
+
+Yes!--for the nobler spirits--the leaders and generals of each army. But
+what of the rank and file? And at the thought of Barron she laughed at
+herself for supposing that religious rancour and religious slander had
+died out of the world!
+
+"Can we have some talk somewhere?" said Norham languidly, in Meynell's
+ear, as the gentlemen left the dining-room.
+
+"I think Mrs. Flaxman will have arranged something," said Meynell, with a
+smile--detecting the weariness of the political Atlas.
+
+And indeed Rose had all her dispositions made. They found her in the
+drawing-room, amid a bevy of bright gowns and comely faces, illumined by
+the cheerful light of a big wood fire--a circle of shimmering stuffs and
+gems, the blaze sparkling on the pointed slippers, the white necks and
+glossy 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 her
+two _gros bonnets_.
+
+"The green drawing-room!" she murmured in Meynell's ear, and tripped on
+before them, while the incoming crowd of gentlemen, mingling with the
+ladies, served to mask the movement.
+
+Not, however, before the Bishop had perceived the withdrawal of the
+politician 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 that
+delicate face beyond the sentiments proper to the situation?--the public
+situation? As to the personal emotion involved, that, the Canon knew, was
+for the time almost exhausted. The Bishop had suffered much during the
+preceding months--in his affections, his fatherly feeling toward his
+clergy, in his sense of the affront offered to Christ's seamless vesture
+of the Church. But now, France thought, pain had been largely deadened by
+the mere dramatic interest of the prospect ahead, by the anodyne of an
+immense correspondence, and of a vast increase in the business of the
+day, 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 was
+evidently a favourite with them, and with all nice women. Finally he sank
+into an armchair beside Lady Helen Varley, exchanging Mrs. Flaxman's
+cossetting for hers. His small figure was almost lost in the armchair.
+The firelight danced on his slender stockinged legs, on his episcopal
+shoe buckles, on the cross which adorned his episcopal breast, and then
+on the gleaming snow of his hair, above his blue eyes with their slight
+unearthliness, so large and flower-like in his small white face. He
+seemed very much at ease--throwing off all burdens.
+
+No!--the Slander which had begun to fly through the diocese, like an
+arrow by night, had not yet touched the Bishop.
+
+Nor Meynell himself?
+
+Yet France was certain that Barron had not been idle, that he had not
+let it drop. "I advised him to let it drop"--he said uneasily to
+himself--"that was all I could do."
+
+Then he looked round him, at the faces of the women present. He scarcely
+knew any of them. Was she among them--the lady of Barron's tale? He
+thought 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 subject
+of speculation. And Barron could not have confided it to any one in the
+diocese, so discreet--so absolutely discreet--as he.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I gather this Movement of yours is rapidly becoming formidable?" said
+Norham to his companion.
+
+He spoke with the affectation of interest that all politicians in office
+must learn. But there was no heart in it, and Meynell wondered why the
+great man had desired to speak with him at all.
+
+He replied that the growth of the Movement was certainly a startling
+fact.
+
+"It is now clear that we must ultimately go to Parliament. The immediate
+result in the Church courts is of course not in doubt. But our hope lies
+in such demonstrations in the country as may induce Parliament"--he
+paused, laying a quiet emphasis on each word--"to reconsider--and
+resettle--the conditions of membership and office in the English Church."
+
+"Good heavens!" cried Norham, throwing up his hand--"What a prospect! If
+that business once gets into the House of Commons, it'll have everything
+else 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 an
+ecclesiastical debate. You'd think it was in the condition of Sydney
+Smith with a cold--not sure whether there were nine Articles and
+Thirty-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 marked
+prematurely by hard work and hard fighting. His black hair had receded on
+the temples, and was obviously thinning on the crown of the head; he wore
+spectacles, and his shoulders had taken the stoop of office work. But the
+eyes behind the spectacles lost nothing that they desired to see; and the
+general impression was one of bull-dog strength, which could be
+impertinent and aggressive, and could also masque itself in a good humour
+and charm by no means insincere. In his political career, he was on the
+eve 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 to
+glean in many fields, and keep his eye on many chances that his
+colleagues perforce neglected. The Modernist Movement was one of these
+chances. For years he had foreseen great changes ahead in the relations
+of 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 had
+been teasing. As he did so there was a little crash at his elbow and
+something 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 had
+rolled out of it--a gold coin of Velia, with a head of Athene--one of
+the great prizes of the collector.
+
+Norham took it with eagerness. He was a Cambridge man, and a fine
+scholar, 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 the
+table. "But he loves them too. Mrs. Flaxman always has them put out on
+great occasions. It seems to me they ought to have a watcher! They
+are quite priceless, I believe. Such things are soon lost."
+
+"Oh!--they are safe enough here," said Norham, returning the coin to its
+place, with another loving look at it. Then, with an effort, he pulled
+himself together,  and with great rapidity began to question his
+companion as to the details and progress of the Movement. All the facts
+up to date, the number of Reformers enrolled since the foundation of the
+League, the League's finances, the astonishing growth of its petition to
+Parliament, the progress of the Movement in the Universities, among the
+ardent and intellectual youth of the day, its spread from week to week
+among the clergy: these things came out steadily and clearly in Meynell's
+replies.
+
+"The League was started in July--it is now October. We have fifty
+thousand enrolled members, all communicants in Modernist churches.
+Meetings and demonstrations are being arranged at this moment all over
+England; and in January or February there will be a formal inauguration
+of the new Liturgy in Dunchester Cathedral."
+
+"Heavens!" said Norham, dropping all signs of languor. "Dunchester will
+venture it?"
+
+Meynell made a sign of assent.
+
+"It is of course possible that the episcopal proceedings against the
+Bishop, which, as you see, have just begun, may have been brought to a
+close, 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 as
+his Bishop! Upon my word, the government has been badly informed or I
+have not kept up. I had no idea--simply no idea--that things had gone so
+far. Markborough of course gives us very different accounts--he and the
+Bishops 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 few
+months, temporarily at least. It will rest with Parliament whether we
+remain so!"
+
+"The Non-Jurors of the twentieth century!" murmured Norham, with a
+half-sceptical intonation.
+
+"Ah, but this _is_ the twentieth century!"--said Meynell smiling. "And in
+our belief the _denouement_ 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 long
+as there are any of us left in our livings, each will come to the help of
+the other."
+
+"But you yourself?"
+
+"I have already made arrangements for a big barn in the village"--said
+Meynell, smiling--"a great tithe-barn of the fifteenth century, a
+magnificent old place, with a forest of wooden arches, and a vault like a
+church. The village will worship there for a while. We shall make it
+beautiful!"
+
+Norham was silent for a moment. He was stupefied by the energy, the
+passion of religious hope in the face beside him. Then the critical
+temper 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 I
+have always thought the ideas of Liberal Christianity a rather beggarly
+set-out--excuse the phrase!"
+
+"There is nothing to excuse!--the phrase fits. 'A reduced
+Christianity'--as opposed to a 'full Christianity'--that is the
+description lately given, I think, by a divinity professor. I don't
+quarrel 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--was
+unwilling in these surroundings to play the prophet, to plunge into the
+central stream of argument. But Norham, the outsider and dilettante, was
+conscious of a kindled mind.
+
+"That is the question to which it always seems to me there is no
+answer," he said easily, leaning back in his chair. "You think you
+can take what you like of a great historical religion and leave the
+rest--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 old
+fundamental notions that still stands, unchallenged? What are we in the
+eyes of modern psychology--but a world of automata--dancing to stimuli
+from outside? What has become of conscience--of the moral law--of Kant's
+imperative--in the minds of writers like these?"
+
+He pointed to two recent novels lying on the table, both of them
+brilliant 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 National
+Church--of the nation, that is, in its spiritual aspect. The question for
+which we are campaigning is as to the terms of membership in that
+society. But terms and conditions there must always be. The 'wild living
+intellect of man' must accept conditions in the Church, as _we_ conceive
+it, 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 the
+church suffers and souls are lost--wantonly, without reason. But there is
+no church--no religion--without some venture, some leap of faith! If you
+can't make any leap at all--any venture--then you remain outside--and you
+think yourself, perhaps, entitled to run amuck--as these men do!" He
+pointed to the books. "But _we_ make the venture!--_we_ accept the great
+hypothesis--of faith."
+
+The sound of voices came dimly to them from the farther rooms. Norham
+pointed toward them.
+
+"What difference then between you--and your Bishop?"
+
+"Simply that in his case--as _we_ say--the hypothesis of faith is
+weighted with a vast mass of stubborn matter that it was never meant to
+carry--bad history, bad criticism, an out-grown philosophy. To make
+it carry it--in our belief--you have to fly in the face of that gradual
+education of the world--education of the mind, education of the
+conscience--which is the chief mark of God in the world. But the
+hypothesis 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 true
+ones. But what the saint means by it, I suppose, in the first instance,
+is that there is in man something mysterious, superhuman--a Life in
+life--which can be indefinitely strengthened, enlightened, purified, till
+it 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 he
+relapses into the animal. Believe it, we say! Live by it!--make the
+venture. _Verificatur vivendo_!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Again the conversation paused. From the distance once more came the merry
+clamour of the farther drawing-room. A din of young folk, chaffing and
+teasing each other--a girl's defiant voice above it--outbursts of
+laughter. Norham, who had in him a touch of dramatic imagination, enjoyed
+the contrast between the gay crowd in the distance and this quiet room
+where he sat face to face with a visionary--surely altogether remote from
+the marrying, money-making, sensuous world. Yet after all the League was
+a big, practical, organized fact.
+
+"What you have expressed--very finely, if I may say so--is of course the
+mystical creed," he replied at last, with suave politeness. "But why call
+it Christianity?"
+
+As he spoke, he was conscious of a certain pride in himself. He felt
+complacently that he understood Meynell and appreciated him; and that
+hardly 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 mankind
+must have tales and symbols."
+
+"And the life of Christ is your symbol?"
+
+"More!--it is our Sacrament--the supreme Sacrament--to which all other
+symbols 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 the
+meeting-place of God and man, as to the Catholic--Roman or Anglican."
+
+"Strange that there should be so many of you!" said Norham, after a
+moment, with an incredulous smile.
+
+"Yes--that has been the discovery of the last six months. But we might
+all 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 became
+presently aware that the parish priest, the visionary, possessed a
+surprising amount of practical and statesman-like ability.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile--a room or two away--in the great bare drawing-room, with
+its faded tapestries, and its warm mixture of lamplight and firelight,
+the evening guests had been arriving. Rose stood at the door of the
+drawing-room, receiving, her husband beside her, Catharine a little way
+behind.
+
+"Oh!" cried Rose suddenly, under her breath, only heard by Hugh--a little
+sound of perturbation.
+
+Outside, in the hall, hardly lit at intervals by oil-lamps, a group could
+be seen advancing; in front Alice Puttenham and Mary, and behind, the
+Fox-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 came
+dreamily forward; and Rose saw her marked out, by the lovely oval of the
+face, its whiteness, its melancholy, from all the moving shapes around
+her. She wore a dress of black gauze over white; a little scarf of old
+lace lay on her shoulders; her still abundant hair was rolled back from
+her high brow and sad eyes. She looked very small and childish--as frail
+as thistledown.
+
+And behind her, Hester's stormy beauty! Rose gave a little gulp. Then she
+found herself pressing a cold hand, and was conscious of sudden relief.
+Miss Puttenham's shy composure was unchanged. She could not have looked
+so--she could not surely have confronted such a gathering of neighbours
+and strangers, if--
+
+No, no! The Slander--Rose, in her turn, saw it under an image, as though
+a dark night-bird hovered over Upcote--had not yet descended on this
+gentle head. With eager kindness, Hugh came forward--and Catharine. They
+found her a place by the fire, where presently the glow seemed to make
+its way to her pale cheeks, and she sat silent and amused, watching the
+triumph of Hester.
+
+For Hester was no sooner in the room than, resenting perhaps the
+decidedly cool reception that Mrs. Flaxman had given her, she at once set
+to work to extinguish all the other young women there. And she had very
+soon succeeded. The Oxford youths, Lord Wanless, the sons of two or three
+neighbouring squires, they were all presently gathered about her, as
+thick as bees on honeycomb, recognizing in her instantly one of those
+beings endowed from their cradle with a double portion of sex-magic, who
+leave such a wild track behind them in the world.
+
+By her chair stood poor Stephen Barron, absorbed in her every look and
+tone. 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, a
+magnificent fellow, radiating health and gayety, who was trying to wear
+her down in one of the word-games of the day. They fought hard and
+breathlessly, everybody listening partly for the amusement of the game,
+partly for the pleasure of watching the good looks of the young creatures
+playing 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. I
+never found anybody near so good as you at it before, except a man I met
+once at Newmarket--Philip Meryon--do you know him? Never saw a fellow so
+good at games. But an awfully queer fish!"
+
+It seemed to the morbid sensitiveness of Rose that there was an
+instantaneous and a thrilling silence. Hester tossed her head; her
+colour, 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 he
+beat you!"
+
+The young man gave a half-laugh, and looked at his friends. Then he
+changed the subject. But Hester got up impatiently from her seat, and
+would not play any more. Rose caught the sudden intentness with which
+Alice 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?" she
+thought rebelliously, as she watched the disagreeable face of Maurice
+Barron, who had been standing in the circle not far from Hester. He had a
+look of bad company which displeased her; and she resented what seemed to
+her an inclination to stare at the pretty women--especially at Hester,
+and Miss Puttenham. Heavens!--if that odious father had betrayed anything
+to such a son! Surely, surely it was inconceivable!
+
+The party was beginning to thin when Meynell, impatient to be quit of his
+Cabinet Minister that he might find Mary Elsmere before it was too late,
+hurried from the green drawing-room, in the wake of Mr. Norham, and
+stumbled against a young man, who in the very imperfect illumination had
+not perceived the second figure behind the Home Secretary.
+
+"Hullo!" said Meynell brusquely, stepping back. "How do you do? Is
+Stephen here?"
+
+Maurice Barron answered in the affirmative--and added, as though from the
+need 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 contempt
+even, that was rare with him. He and Norham passed through the next
+drawing-room, and met various acquaintances at the farther door. Maurice
+Barron stood watching them. The persons invading the room had come
+intending to see the coins. But meeting the Home Secretary they turned
+back with him, and Meynell followed them, eager to disengage himself from
+them. At the door some impulse made him turn and look back. He saw
+Maurice Barron disappearing into the green drawing-room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The night was soft and warm. Catharine and Mary had come prepared to walk
+home, Catharine eagerly resuming, now that her health allowed it, the
+Spartan habits of their normal life. Flaxman was drawn by the beauty of
+the moonlight and the park to offer to escort them to the lower lodge.
+Hester declared that she too would walk, and carelessly accepted
+Stephen's escort. Meynell stepped out from the house with them, and in
+the natural sequence of things he found himself with Mary.
+
+Flaxman and Catharine, who led the way, hardly spoke to each other. They
+walked, 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 fresh
+talk about it. Just behind them they could hear Hester laughing and
+sparring with Stephen; and when Catharine looked back she could see
+Meynell and Mary far away, in the distance of the avenue they were
+following.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The great lime-trees on either side threw long shadows on grass covered
+with the fresh fallen leaf, which gleamed, a pale orange, through the
+dusk. The sky was dappled with white cloud, and the lime-boughs overhead
+broke it into patterns of delight. The sharp scent of the fallen leaves
+was in the air; and the night for all its mildness prophesied winter.
+Meynell seemed to himself to be moving on enchanted ground, beneath
+enchanted trees. The tension of his long talk with Norham, the cares of
+his leadership--the voices of a natural ambition, dropped away. Mary in a
+blue cloak, a white scarf wound about her head, summed up for him the
+pure beauty of nature and the night. For the first time he did not
+attempt to check the thrill in his veins; he began to hope. It was
+impossible to ignore the change in Mrs. Elsmere's attitude toward him. He
+had no idea what had caused it; but he felt it. And he realized also that
+through unseen and inexplicable gradations Mary had come mysteriously
+near to him. He dared not have spoken a word of love to her; but such
+feeling as theirs, however restrained, penetrates speech and gesture, and
+irresistibly makes all things new.
+
+They spoke of the most trivial matters, and hardly noticed what they
+said. He all the time was thinking: "Beyond this tumult there will be
+rest some day--then I may speak. We could live hardly and simply--neither
+of us wants luxury. But _now_ it would be unjust--it would bring too
+great a burden on her--and her poor mother. I must wait! But we shall see
+each other--we shall understand each other!"
+
+Meanwhile she, on her side, would perhaps have given the world to share
+the 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 first
+column.
+
+"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 legacy
+with his father. Since the outbreak of the Reform Movement there had been
+frequent disputes between the father and son, if aggressive attack on the
+one side and silent endurance on the other make a dispute. Barron scorned
+his eldest son, as a faddist and a dreamer; while Stephen could never
+remember the time when his father had not seemed to him the living
+embodiment of prejudice, obstinacy, and caprice. He had always reckoned
+it indeed the crowning proof of Meynell's unworldly optimism that, at the
+moment of his father's accession to the White House estate, there should
+have been a passing friendship between him and the Rector. Yet whenever
+thoughts of this kind presented themselves explicitly to Stephen he tried
+to suppress them. His life, often, was a constant struggle between a
+genuine and irrepressible dislike of his father and a sore sense that no
+Christian priest could permit himself such a feeling.
+
+He made no reply to his father's interjection. But Barron knew very well
+that his son's self-control was no indication of lack of will; quite the
+contrary; and the father was conscious of a growing exasperation as he
+watched the patient compression of the young mouth. He wanted somehow to
+convict and crush Stephen; and he believed that he held the means thereto
+in his hand. He had not been sure before Stephen arrived whether he
+should 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 unforgivable
+offence. What a gentle, malleable fellow he had seemed in his school and
+college days!--how amenable to the father's spiritual tyranny! It was
+Barron's constant excuse to himself for his own rancorous feeling--that
+Meynell had robbed him of his son.
+
+"You probably think it strange"--he resumed harshly--"that I should
+rejoice in what of course is your misfortune--that your people reject
+you; but there are higher interests than those of personal affection
+concerned in this business. We who are defending her must think first of
+the Church!"
+
+"Naturally," said Stephen.
+
+His father looked at him in silence for a moment, at the mild pliant
+figure, the downcast eyes.
+
+"There is, however, one thing for which I have cause--we all have
+cause--to be grateful to Meynell," he said, with emphasis.
+
+Stephen looked up.
+
+"I understand he refused to sanction your engagement to Hester
+Fox-Wilton."
+
+The young man flushed.
+
+"It would be better, I think, father, if we are to talk over these
+matters quietly--which I understood is the reason you asked me to come
+here to-day--that you should avoid a tone toward myself and my affairs
+which can only make frank conversation difficult or impossible between
+us."
+
+"I have no desire to be offensive," said Barron, checking himself with
+difficulty, "and I have only your good in view, though you may not
+believe it. My reason for approving Meynell in the matter is that he was
+aware--and you were not aware"--he fell into the slow phrasing he always
+affected on important occasions--"of facts bearing vitally on your
+proposal; and that in the light of them he acted as any honest man was
+bound to act."
+
+"What do you mean!" cried Stephen, springing to his feet.
+
+"I mean"--the answer was increasingly deliberate--"that Hester
+Fox-Wilton--it is very painful to have to go into these things, but it is
+necessary, I regret to say--is not a Fox-Wilton at all--and has no right
+whatever 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_ Lady
+Fox-Wilton."
+
+Barron had now assumed the habitual attitude--thumbs in his pockets, legs
+slightly apart--that Stephen had associated from his childhood with the
+long bullying, secular and religious, that Barron's family owed to
+Barron'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 you
+look at me in that fashion! Believe me--it is not my fault, but my
+misfortune, that I happen to be acquainted with this very disagreeable
+secret. And I have one thing to say--you must give me your promise that
+you 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 Judith
+Sabin, omitting only those portions of it which connected the story with
+Meynell. It was evident, presently, that Stephen--to the dawning triumph
+of his father--listened with an increasingly troubled mind. And indeed,
+at the first whisper of the story, there had flashed through the young
+man's memory the vision of Meynell arguing and expostulating on that
+July afternoon, when he, Stephen, had spoken so confidingly, so
+unsuspectingly of his love for Hester. He recalled his own amazement, his
+sense of shock and strangeness. What Meynell said on that occasion
+seemed to have so little relation to what Meynell habitually was.
+Meynell, for whom love, in its spiritual aspect, was the salt and
+significance of life, the foundation of all wisdom--Meynell on that
+occasion had seemed to make comparatively nothing of love!--to deny its
+simplest rights--to put it despotically out of count. Stephen, as he had
+long recognized, had been overborne and silenced by Meynell's personality
+rather than by Meynell's arguments--by the disabling force mainly of his
+own devotion to the man who bade him wait and renounce. But in his heart
+he had never quite forgiven, or understood; and for all the subsequent
+trouble about Hester, all his own jealousy and pain, he had not been able
+to prevent himself from blaming Meynell. And now--now!--if this story
+were true--he began to understand. Poor child--poor mother! With the
+marriage of the child, must come--he felt the logic of it--the confession
+of the mother. A woman like Alice Puttenham, a man like Meynell, were not
+likely to give Hester to her lover without telling that lover what he had
+a right to know. Small blame to them if they were not prepared to bring
+about that crisis prematurely, while Hester was still so young! It must
+be 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 his
+father was telling with that heavy tragic touch which the son
+instinctively hated as insincere and theatrical.
+
+"Now then, perhaps,"--Barron wound up--"you will realize why it is I feel
+Meynell has acted considerately, and as any true friend of yours was
+bound to act. He knew--and you were ignorant. Such a marriage could not
+have been for your happiness, and he rightly interposed."
+
+"What difference does it make to Hester herself," cried Stephen
+hotly--"supposing the thing is true? I admit--it may be true," and as he
+spoke a host of small confirmations came thronging into his unwilling
+mind. "But in any case--"
+
+He walked up to his father again.
+
+"What have you done about it, father?" he said, sharply. "I suppose you
+went to Meynell at once."
+
+Barron smiled, with a lift of the eyebrows. He knocked off the end of his
+cigarette, 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 same
+emphasis, "not at all easy."
+
+"What do you mean, father? There seems to be something more behind. If
+there is, considering my feeling for Hester, it seems to me that having
+told me so much you are bound to tell me _all_ you know. Remember--this
+story concerns the girl I love!"
+
+Passion and pain spoke in the young man's voice. His father looked at him
+with 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 the
+view of Judith Sabin was--what the facts seem to point to. But--in any
+case, whether I believe Judith Sabin or no, I should not have said a word
+to you on the subject but for the circumstance that--unfortunately--there
+are other people in the case."
+
+Whereupon--watching his son carefully--Barron repeated the story that he
+had 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 could
+scarcely bring himself to listen at all, after he had once gathered the
+real gist of what his father was saying.
+
+Yet, by this time, the story was much better worth listening to than it
+had been when Barron had first presented it to Flaxman. By dint of much
+brooding, and under the influence of an angry obstinacy which must have
+its prey, Barron had made it a good deal more plausible than it had been
+to begin with, and would no doubt make it more plausible still. He had
+brought in by now a variety of small local observations bearing on the
+relations between the three figures in the drama--Hester, Alice
+Puttenham, Meynell--which Stephen must and did often recognize as true
+and telling. It was true that there was much friction and difference
+between Hester and the Fox-Wilton family; that Alice Puttenham's
+position and personality had always teased the curiosity of the
+neighbourhood; that the terms of Sir Ralph's will were perplexing; and
+that Meynell was Hester's guardian in a special sense, a fact for which
+there was no obvious explanation. It was true also that there emerged at
+times a singular likeness in Hester's beauty--a likeness of expression
+and gesture--to the blunt and powerful aspect of the Rector....
+
+And yet! Did his father believe, for a moment, the preposterous things he
+was saying? The young man sharpened his wits as far as possible for
+Hester's and his friend's sake, and came presently to the conclusion that
+it was one of those violent, intermittent half-beliefs which, in the
+service of hatred and party spirit, can be just as effective and
+dangerous as any other. And when the circumstantial argument passed
+presently into the psychological--even the theological--this became the
+more evident.
+
+For in order to explain to himself and others how Meynell could possibly
+have behaved in a fashion so villainous, Barron had invented by now a
+whole psychological sequence. He was prepared to show in detail how the
+thing 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 practical
+consequences of the intrigue. He certainly could not have kept his living
+had the facts been known. On the one hand his poverty--his brothers to
+educate,--his benefice to be saved. On the other, the natural desire of
+the Fox-Wiltons and of Alice Puttenham to conceal everything that had
+occurred. The sophistries of love would come in--repentance--the desire
+to make a fresh start--to protect the woman he had sacrificed.
+
+And all that might have availed him against sin and temptation--a
+steadfast Christian faith--was already deserting him; must have been
+already undermined. What was there to wonder at?--what was there
+incredible in the story? The human heart was corrupt and desperately
+wicked; and nothing stood between any man, however apparently holy, and
+moral catastrophe but the grace of God.
+
+Stephen bore the long, incredible harangue, as best he could, for
+Meynell's sake. He sat with his face turned away from his father, his
+hand closing and unclosing on his knee, his nerves quivering under the
+exasperation of his father's monstrous premises, and still more monstrous
+deductions. At the end he faced round abruptly.
+
+"I do not wish to offend you, father, but I had better say at once that I
+do not accept, for a single instant, your arguments or your conclusion. I
+am positive that the facts, whatever they may be, are _not_ what you
+suppose 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, I
+must."
+
+Barron's look flashed.
+
+"You gave me your promise"--he said imperiously--"before I told you this
+story--that you would not communicate it without my permission. I
+withhold 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 shall
+choose my own time."
+
+And as he raised his cold eyes upon his son it pleased his spirit of
+intrigue, and of domination through intrigue, that he had already
+received a letter from Flaxman giving precisely opposite advice, and did
+not intend to tell Stephen anything about it. Stephen's impulsive
+candour, however, appealed to him much more than Flaxman's reticence. It
+would indeed be physically and morally impossible for him--anonymous
+letters or no--to lock the scandal much longer within his own breast. It
+had become a living and burning thing, like some wild creature straining
+at a leash.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A little while later Stephen found himself alone. He believed himself to
+have got an undertaking from his father that Meynell should be
+communicated with promptly--perhaps that very evening. But the terms
+of the promise were not very clear; and the young man's mind was full of
+a seething wrath and unhappiness. If the story were true, so far as
+Hester and her unacknowledged mother were concerned--and, as we have
+seen, there was that in his long and intimate knowledge of Hester's
+situation which, as he listened, had suddenly fused and flashed in a most
+unwilling conviction--then, what dire, what pitiful need, on their part,
+of protection and of help! If indeed any friendly consideration for
+him, Stephen, had entered into Meynell's conduct, the young man angrily
+resented the fact.
+
+He paced up and down the library for a time, divided thus between a
+fierce contempt for Meynell's slanderers and a passionate pity for
+Hester.
+
+His father had gone to Markborough. Theresa was, he believed, in the
+garden 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 suddenly
+remembered--Maurice!
+
+He blamed himself for not having remembered earlier that Maurice was at
+home--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 to
+the second-floor bedroom which had always been his brother's.
+
+"Maurice!" He knocked. No answer. But there was a hurried movement
+inside, and something that sounded like the opening of a drawer.
+
+He called again, and tried the door. It was locked. But after further
+shuffling inside, as though some one were handling papers, it was thrown
+open.
+
+"Well, Maurice, I hope I haven't disturbed you in anything very
+important. I thought I must come and have a look at you. Are you all
+right?"
+
+"Come in, old fellow," said Maurice with affected warmth--"I was only
+writing a few letters. No room for anybody downstairs but the pater and
+Theresa, so I have to retreat up here."
+
+"And lock yourself in?" said Stephen, laughing. "Any secrets going?" And
+as he took a seat on the edge of the bed, while Maurice returned to his
+chair, he could not prevent himself from looking with a certain keen
+scrutiny both at the room and his younger brother.
+
+He and Maurice had never been friends. There was a gap of nearly ten
+years between them, and certain radical and profound differences of
+temperament. And these differences nature had expressed, with an entire
+absence of subtlety, in their physique--in the slender fairness and
+wholesomeness 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 note
+of the half-consumed brandy and soda on the table, of the saucer of
+cigarette ends beside it, and the general untidiness and stuffiness of
+the room.
+
+"Not bad," said Maurice, resuming his cigarette.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"An agency--one of these new phonographs--Yankee of course. I manage the
+office. A lot of cads--but I make 'em sit up."
+
+And he launched into boasting of his success in the business--the orders
+he had secured, the economies he had brought about in the office. Stephen
+found himself wondering meanwhile what kind of a business it could be
+that entrusted its affairs to Maurice. But he betrayed no scepticism, and
+the two talked in more or less brotherly fashion for a few minutes, till
+Stephen, with a look at his watch, declared that he must find his horse
+and go.
+
+"I thought you were only coming for the week-end," he said as he moved
+toward the door.
+
+"I got seedy--and took a week off. Besides, I found pater in such a
+stew."
+
+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 know
+is, 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 you
+ever have against him?"
+
+He looked sharply at his brother. The disagreeable idea crossed his mind
+that his father, whose weakness for Maurice he well knew, might have told
+the 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 some
+disagreeable reminiscences of a school holiday when Maurice had been
+discovered drunk in one of the public-houses of the village by the
+Rector, who had firmly dug him out and walked him home. But this and
+other recollections, not dissimilar, soon passed away, under the steady
+assault of thoughts far more compelling....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He took the bridle-path through Maudeley, and was presently aware, in a
+clearing of the wood, of the figure of Meynell in front of him.
+
+The Rector was walking in haste, without his dogs. He was therefore out
+on business, which indeed was implied by the energy of his whole
+movement.
+
+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 of
+gold and orange leaf overhead, of red-brown leaf below, with passages
+here and there where the sun struck through the beech trees, of purest
+lemon-yellow, or intensest green, breathed and murmured round them. A
+light wind sang in the tree-tops, and every now and then the plain broke
+in--purple through the gold; with its dim colliery chimneys, its wreaths
+of smoke, and its paler patches which stood for farms and villages.
+
+Meynell walked by the horse in silence for a while, till, suddenly wiping
+a 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 of
+remorse.
+
+Stephen stared at him in silence.
+
+"Flaxman walked home with me last night--came into the Rectory, and told
+me that--yesterday--he saw Meryon and Hester together--in Hewlett's
+wood--as you know, a lonely place where nobody goes. It was a great blow
+to 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 this
+morning to see her--found the whole household in confusion! Nobody knew
+where Hester was. She had gone out immediately after breakfast, with
+the maid who is supposed to be always with her. Then suddenly--about an
+hour later--one of the boys appeared, having seen this woman at the
+station--and no Hester. The woman, taken by surprise--young Fox-Wilton
+just had a few words with her as the train was moving off--confessed she
+was going into Markborough to meet Hester and come back with her. She
+didn't know where Miss Hester was. She had left her in the village, and
+was to meet her at a shop in Markborough. After that, things began to
+come out. The butler told tales. The maid is clearly an unprincipled
+hussy, and has probably been in Meryon's pay all the time--"
+
+"Where is Hester?--where are you going to?" cried Stephen in impatient
+misery, 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 that
+scoundrel in his own house!"
+
+"It appears she has once or twice declared that, in spite of us all, she
+would go and see his house and his pictures. In my belief, she has done
+it 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, his
+lips 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 he
+could not help the reproach.
+
+"I tried to act for the best," said Meynell, after a moment, his eyes on
+the ground.
+
+Stephen watched his friend uncertainly. Again and again he was on the
+point of crying out--
+
+"Tell me the truth about Hester!"--on the point also of warning and
+informing the man beside him. But he had promised his father. He held his
+tongue with difficulty.
+
+When they reached the spot where Stephen's path diverged from that which
+led 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 ride
+home. 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--a
+melancholy, dilapidated pile; and they struck into a long and neglected
+evergreen avenue leading up to it. At the end of the avenue there was an
+enclosure and a lodge, with some iron gates. A man saw them, and came out
+to 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 along
+the road, letting his horse pasture on its grassy fringe. The lodge
+keeper--sulky and puzzled--watched him a few moments and then went back
+into the house.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Rector paused to reconnoitre as he came in sight of the house. It was
+a strange, desolate, yet most romantic spot. Although, seen from the road
+and the stream, it seemed to stand on an eminence, it was really at the
+bottom of a hill which encircled it on three sides, and what with its own
+dilapidation, its broken fences and gates, the trees which crowded about
+it, and the large green-grown pond in front of it, it produced a dank and
+sinister impression. The centre of the building, which had evidently been
+rebuilt about 1700, to judge from its rose-red brick, its French
+classical lunettes, its pedimented doors and windows, and its fine
+_perron_, was clearly the inhabited portion of the building. The two
+wings of much earlier date, remains of the old Abbey, were falling into
+ruin. In front of one a garage had evidently been recently made, and a
+motor was standing at its door. To the left of the approaching spectator
+was a small deserted church, of the same date as the central portion of
+the Abbey, with twin busts of William and Mary still inhabiting a niche
+above the classical entrance, and marking the triumph of the Protestant
+Succession over the crumbling buildings of the earlier faith. The windows
+of the church were boarded up and a few tottering tombstones surrounded
+it.
+
+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 slimy
+pond 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 man
+in 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 trouble
+you to take my card."
+
+The youth's expression changed. He stood silent and sheepish, while
+Meynell considered a moment, on the steps.
+
+Suddenly a sound of voices from a distance became audible through the
+grudgingly 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 led
+through a curtain-wall to the garden. Meanwhile the house door was
+hastily banged behind him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Uncle Richard!"
+
+Behind the house Meynell came upon the persons he sought. In an overgrown
+formal garden, full of sun, he perceived an old stone bench, under an
+overhanging yew. Upon it sat Hester, bareheaded, the golden masses of her
+hair shining against the blackness of the tree. Roddy mounted guard
+beside her, his nose upon her lap; and on a garden chair in front of her
+lounged Philip Meryon, smoking and chatting. At sight of Meynell they
+both sprang to their feet. Roddy first growled, and then, as soon as he
+recognized 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 the
+rugged figure in the short clerical coat and wide-awake, and of the
+searching look with which he regarded them. Hester nervously began to
+put 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 later
+on. The lies you have instructed your servants to tell are a sufficient
+indication that you are ashamed of your behaviour. This young lady is
+under age. Her mother and I, who are her lawful guardians, forbid her
+acquaintance 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 to
+call upon you to-morrow."
+
+"This time you may really find me fled," laughed Philip, insolently. But
+he had turned white.
+
+Meynell made no reply. He went to Hester, and lifting the girl's silk
+cape, which had fallen off, he put it round her shoulders. He felt them
+trembling. But she looked at him fiercely, put him aside, and ran to
+Meryon.
+
+"Good-bye, Philip, good-bye!--it won't be for long!" And she held out
+her two hands--pleadingly. Meryon took them, and they stared at each
+other--while the Rector was conscious of a flash of dismay.
+
+What if there was now more in the business than mere mischief and
+wantonness? Hester was surprisingly lovely, with this touching, tremulous
+look, so new, and, to the Rector, so intolerable!
+
+"I must ask you to come at once," he said, walking up to her, and the
+girl, with compressed lips, dropped Meryon's hands and obeyed.
+
+Meryon walked beside them to the garden door, very pale, and breathing
+quick.
+
+"You can't separate us"--he said to Meynell--"though of course you'll
+try. 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 desired
+Meryon not to follow them. Philip hesitated, and yielded. He stood in the
+doorway, his hands in his pockets, watching them, a splendid figure, with
+his melodramatic good looks and vivid colour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Hester and Meynell walked down the avenue, side by side. Behind them, the
+lunette window under the roof opened again, and a woman's face, framed in
+black, touzled hair, looked out, grinned and disappeared.
+
+Hester carried her head high, a scornful defiance breathing from the
+flushed cheeks and tightened lips. Meynell made no attempt at
+conversation, till just as they were nearing the lodge he said--"We shall
+find Stephen a little farther on. He was riding, and thought you might
+like his horse to give you a lift home."
+
+"Oh, a _plot_!"--cried Hester, raising her chin still higher--"and
+Stephen in it too! Well, really I shouldn't have thought it was worth
+anybody'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 her
+companion. There was absurdity in her pose, and yet, as Meynell
+uncomfortably recognized, a new touch of something passionate and real.
+
+The Rector made no reply, for they were at the turn of the road and
+behind 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 send
+for 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 features
+emerged with unusual emphasis.
+
+"I think you had better accept," said Meynell gently. As he looked at
+her, he wondered whether she might not faint on their hands with anger
+and excitement. But she controlled herself, and as Stephen brought the
+brown mare alongside, and held out his hand, she put her foot in it, and
+he swung her to the saddle.
+
+"I don't want both of you," she said, passionately. "One warder is
+enough!"
+
+"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 horse
+in motion. Stephen's way lay with them for a hundred yards. He tried to
+make a little indifferent conversation, but neither Meynell nor Hester
+replied. Where the lane they had been following joined the Markborough
+road, he paused to take his leave of them, and as he did so he saw his
+two companions brought together, as it were, into one picture by the
+overcircling shade of the autumnal trees which hung over the road; and he
+suddenly perceived as he had never yet done the strange likeness between
+them. Perplexity, love--despairing and jealous love--a passionate
+championship of the beauty that was being outraged and insulted by the
+common talk and speculation of indifferent and unfriendly mouths; an
+earnest desire to know the truth, and the whole truth, that he might the
+better prove his love, and protect his friend; and a dismal certainty
+through it all that Hester had been finally snatched from him--these
+conflicting feelings very nearly overpowered him. It was all he could do
+to take a calm farewell of them. Hester's eyes under their fierce brows
+followed 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 unconscious
+grace to the quiet movements of the horse, which Meynell was leading.
+Overhead the October day was beginning to darken, and the yellow leaves
+shaken by occasional gusts were drifting mistily down on Hester's hair
+and dress, and on the glossy flanks of the mare.
+
+At last Meynell looked up. There was intense feeling in his face--a deep
+and troubled tenderness.
+
+"Hester!--is there no way in which I can convince you that if you go on
+as you have been doing--deceiving your best friends--and letting this man
+persuade 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 be
+able 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 will
+not believe me--who am his kinsman and have no interest whatever in
+blackening his character--when I tell you that he is a bad man, corrupted
+by low living and self-indulgence, with whom no girl should trust
+herself. The action you have taken to-day, your deliberate defiance of us
+all, make it necessary that I should speak in even plainer terms to you
+than I have done yet; that I should warn you as strongly as I can that by
+allowing this man to make love to you--perhaps to propose a runaway match
+to you--how do I know what villainy he may have been equal to?--you are
+running 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 man
+dieth to himself! It is the affair of all those who love you--of your
+family--of your poor Aunt Alice, who cannot sleep for grieving--"
+
+Hester raised her free hand, and angrily pushed back the masses of fair
+hair that were falling about her face.
+
+"What is the good of talking about 'love,' Uncle Richard?" She spoke with
+a passionate impatience--"You know very well that _nobody_ at home loves
+me. Why should we all be hypocrites? I have got, I tell you, to look
+after _myself_, to plan my life for myself! My mother can't help it if
+she doesn't love me. I don't complain; but I do think it a shame you
+should say she does, when you know--know--_know_--she doesn't! My sisters
+and brothers just dislike me--that's all there is in that! All my life
+I've known it--I've felt it. Why, when I was a baby they never played
+with me--they never made a pet of me--they wouldn't have me in their
+games. My father positively disliked me. Whenever the nurse brought me
+downstairs--he used to call to her to take me up again. Oh, how tired I
+got of the nursery!--I hated it--I hated nurse--I hated all the old
+toys--for I never had any new ones. Do you remember"--she turned on
+him--"that day when I set fire to all the clean clothes--that were airing
+before the fire?"
+
+"Perfectly!" said the Rector, with an involuntary smile that relaxed the
+pale gravity of his face.
+
+"I did it because I hadn't been downstairs for three nights. I might
+have been dead for all anybody cared. Then I was determined they should
+care--and I got hold of the matches. I thought the clothes would burn
+first--and then my starched frock would catch fire--and then--everybody
+would be sorry for me at last. But unfortunately I got frightened, and
+ran up the passage screaming--silly little fool! That might have made an
+end of it--once for all--"
+
+Meynell interrupted--
+
+"And after it," he said, looking her in the eyes--"when the fuss was
+over--I remember seeing you in Aunt Alsie's arms. Have you forgotten how
+she cried over you, and defended you--and begged you off? You were ill
+with terror and excitement; she took you off to the cottage, and nursed
+you till you were well again, and it had all blown over; as she did again
+and again afterward. Have you forgotten _that_--when you say that no one
+loved you?"
+
+He turned upon her with that bright penetrating look, with its touch of
+accusing sarcasm, which had so often given him the mastery over erring
+souls. For Meynell had the pastoral gift almost in perfection; the
+courage, the ethical self-confidence and the instinctive tenderness
+which belong to it. The certitudes of his mind were all ethical; and in
+this region he might have said with Newman that "a thousand difficulties
+cannot make one doubt."
+
+Hester had often yielded, to this power of his in the past, and it was
+evident that she trembled under it now. To hide it she turned upon him
+with fresh anger.
+
+"No, I haven't forgotten it!--and I'm _not_ an ungrateful fiend--though
+of 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 that
+she 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 trust
+me--then she treats me like a child--and shakes me off as if I were just
+a stranger. If she holds me at arm's-length, I am not going to tell her
+all _my_ affairs!"
+
+The rounded bosom under the little black mantle rose and fell
+tumultuously, and angry tears shone in the brown eyes. Meynell had raised
+his 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 was
+some one she had been in love with--I am certain it was--a handsome, dark
+man. And I _begged_ her to tell me--and she just got up and went away. So
+then 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--"some
+griefs we have no right to meddle with. But we can heal them--or make
+them worse. You"--his kind eyes scourged her again--"have been making
+everything worse for Aunt Alsie for a long time past."
+
+Hester shrugged her shoulders passionately, as though to repel the
+charge, but she said nothing. They moved on in silence for a little. In
+Meynell's mind there reigned a medley of feelings--tragic recollections,
+moral questionings, which time had never silenced, perplexity as to the
+present and the future, and with it all, the liveliest and sorest pity
+for the young, childish, violent creature beside him. It was not for
+those who, with whatever motives, had contributed to bring her to that
+state 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 of
+beauty at bay. The sight determined him toward frankness.
+
+"Hester!--I have told you that if you go on flirting with Philip Meryon
+you run the risk of disgrace and misery, because he has no conscience and
+no scruples, and you are ignorant and inexperienced, and have no idea of
+the fire you are playing with. But I think I had better go farther. I am
+going to say what you force me to say to you--young as you are. My strong
+belief is that Philip Meryon is either married already, or so entangled
+that he has no right to ask any decent woman to marry him. I have
+suspected 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 her
+most obstinate voice.
+
+"Very well. Then I must set at once about proving it. The reasons
+which make me believe it are not for your ears." Then his tone
+changed--"Hester!--my child!--you can't be in love with that fellow--that
+false, common fellow!--you can't!"
+
+Hester tightened her lips and would not answer. A rush of distress came
+over 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 would
+comfort you for all the past, and show you what joy really means. Be
+patient, dear Hester--be patient! If you wanted to punish us for not
+making you happy enough, well, you have done it! But don't plunge us all
+into despair--and take a little thought for your old guardian, who seems
+to have the world on his shoulders, and yet can't sleep at nights, for
+worrying about his ward, who won't believe a word he says, and sets all
+his 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 that
+he was but imperfectly able to gauge the conflict of forces in her mind.
+He resumed his pleading with her--tenderly--urgently. And at last she
+gave way, at least apparently. She allowed him to lay a friendly hand on
+hers 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 young
+women! But if you'll say 'I want to be friends, Uncle Richard, and I
+won't deceive you any more,' why, then, you'll make an old fellow
+happy! Will you?"
+
+Slowly she let her cold fingers slip into his warm, protecting palm
+as he smiled upon her. She yielded to the dignity and charm of
+Meynell's character as she had done a thousand times before; but in the
+proud, unhappy look she bent upon him there were new and disquieting
+things--prophecies of the coming womanhood, not to be unravelled. Meynell
+pressed her hand, and put it back upon the reins with a sigh he could not
+restrain.
+
+He began to talk with a forced cheerfulness of their coming journey--of
+the French _milieu_ to which she was going. Hester answered in
+monosyllables, every now and then--he thought--choking back a sob. And
+again and again the discouraging thought struck through him--"Has this
+fellow touched her heart?"--so strong was the impression of an emerging
+soul and a developing personality.
+
+Suddenly through the dispersing trees a light figure came hurriedly
+toward 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 his
+finger on his lips, and she controlled herself. Hester greeted her
+without any sign of emotion; and the three went homeward along the misty
+ways of the park. The sun had been swallowed up by rising fog; all colour
+had been sucked out of the leaves and the heather, even from the golden
+glades of fern. Only Hester's hair, and her white dress as she passed
+along, uplifted, made of her a kind of luminous wraith, and beside her,
+like the supports of an altar-piece, moved the two pensive figures of
+Meynell and Alice.
+
+From a covert of thorn in the park, a youth who had retreated into its
+shelter on their approach watched them with malicious eyes. Another man
+was with him--a sheepish, red-faced person, who peered curiously at the
+little 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, but
+with hours of occupation and correspondence still before him. He had left
+Hester with Alice Puttenham, in a state which Meynell interpreted as at
+once alarming and hopeful; alarming because it suggested that there might
+be an element of passion in what had seemed to be a mere escapade
+dictated by vanity and temper; and hopeful because of the emotion the
+girl had once or twice betrayed, for the first time in the experience
+of any one connected with her. When they entered Alice Puttenham's
+drawing-room, for instance--for Hester had stipulated she was not to be
+taken home--Alice had thrown her arms round her, and Hester had broken
+suddenly into crying, a thing unheard of. Meynell of course had hastily
+disappeared.
+
+Since then the parish had taken its toll. Visits to two or three sick
+people had been paid. The Rector had looked in at the schools, where a
+children's evening was going on, and had told the story of Aladdin with
+riotous success; he had taken off his coat to help in putting up
+decorations for an entertainment in the little Wesleyan meeting-house of
+corrugated iron; the parish nurse had waylaid him with reports, and he
+had dashed into the back parlour of a small embarrassed tradesman, in
+mortal fear of collapse and bankruptcy, with the offer of a loan, sternly
+conditional upon facing the facts, and getting in an auditor. Lady
+Fox-Wilton of course had been seen, and the clamour of her most
+unattractive offspring allayed as much as possible. And now, emerging
+from this tangle of personal claims and small interests, in the silence
+and freedom of the night hours, Meynell was free to give himself once
+more to the intellectual and spiritual passion of the Reform Movement.
+His table was piled with unopened letters; on his desk lay a half-written
+article, and two or three foreign books, the latest products of the
+Modernist Movement abroad. His crowded be-littered room smiled upon him,
+as he shut its door upon the outer world. For within it, he lived more
+truly, more vividly, than anywhere else; and all the more since its
+threadbare carpet had been trodden by Mary Elsmere.
+
+Yet as he settled himself by the fire with his pipe and his letters for
+half an hour's ease before going to his desk, his thoughts were still
+full of Hester. The incurable optimism, the ready faith where his
+affections 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, he
+should be dealt with this time with a proper disregard of either his own
+or his servants' lying. Hester was now to spend some months with a
+charming and cultivated French family. Plenty of occupation, plenty of
+amusement, plenty of appeal to her intelligence. Then, perhaps, travel
+for a couple of years, with Aunt Alice--as much separation as possible,
+anyway, from the Northleigh family and house. Alice was not rich, but she
+could 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 to
+the fore, the crisis must be faced, and the child must know! and it would
+be a cold-blooded lover that would weigh her story against her face.
+
+Comfort himself as he would, however, dream as he would, Meynell's
+conscience was always sore for Hester. Had they done right?--or hideously
+wrong? Had not all their devices been a mere trifling with nature--a mere
+attempt to "bind the courses of Orion," with the inevitable result in
+Hester's unhappy childhood and perverse youth?
+
+The Rector as he pulled at his pipe could still feel the fluttering of
+her slender hand in his. The recollection stirred in him again all the
+intolerable pity, the tragic horror of the past. Poor, poor little girl.
+But she should be happy yet, "with rings on her fingers," and everything
+proper!
+
+Then from this fatherly and tender preoccupation he passed into a more
+intimate and poignant dreaming. Mary!--in the moonlight, under the
+autumn trees, was the vision that held him; varied sometimes by the dream
+of her in that very room, sitting ghostly in the chair beside him, her
+lovely eyes wandering over its confusion of books and papers. He thought
+of her exquisite neatness of dress and delicacy of movement, and smiled
+happily to himself. "How she must have wanted to tidy up!" And he dared
+to think of a day when she would come and take possession of him
+altogether--books, body and soul, and gently order his life....
+
+"Why, you rascals!"--he said, jealously, to the dogs--"she fed you--I
+know she did--she patted and pampered you, eh, didn't she? She likes
+dogs--you may thank your lucky stars she does!"
+
+But they only raised their eager heads, and turned their loving eyes upon
+him, prepared to let loose pandemonium as soon as he showed signs of
+moving.
+
+"Well, you don't expect me to take you out for a walk at ten o'clock at
+night, do you?--idiots!" he hurled at them reprovingly; and after another
+moment of bright-eyed interrogation, disappointment descended, and down
+went their noses on their paws again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His trust in the tender steadfastness of Mary's character made itself
+powerfully felt in these solitary moments. She knew that while these
+strenuous days were on he could allow himself no personal aims. But the
+growing knowledge that he was approved by a soul so pure and so devout
+had both strung up all his powers and calmed the fevers of battle. He
+loved his cause the more because it was ever more clear to him that
+she passionately loved it too. And sensitive and depressed as he often
+was--the penalty of the optimist--her faith in him had doubled his faith
+in himself.
+
+There was a singular pleasure also in the link his love for her had
+forged between himself and Elsmere--the dead leader of an earlier
+generation. "Latitudinarianism is coming in upon us like a flood!"--cried
+the _Church Times_, wringing its hands. In other words, thought Meynell,
+"a New Learning is at last penetrating the minds and consciences of
+men--in the Church, no less than out of it." And Elsmere had been one of
+its martyrs. Meynell thought with emotion of the emaciated form he had
+last seen in the thronged hall of the New Brotherhood. "_Our_ venture is
+possible--because _you_ suffered," he would say to himself, addressing
+not 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 her
+in the flesh, had been to him, through the reports of many friends, a
+kind of legendary presence--the embodiment of the Old Faith. Meynell only
+knew that as far as he was concerned something had happened--something
+which he could not define. She was no longer his enemy; and he blessed
+her humbly in his heart. He thought also, with a curious thankfulness, of
+her strong and immovable convictions. Each thinking mind, as it were,
+carries within it its own Pageant of the Universe, and lights the show
+with its own passion. Not to quench the existing light in any human
+breast--but to kindle and quicken where no light is: to bring forever new
+lamp-bearers into the Lampadephoria of life, and marshal them there in
+their places, on equal terms with the old, neither excluded, nor
+excluding: this, surely this was the ideal of Modernism.
+
+Elsmere's widow might never admit his own claim to equal rights within
+the Christian society. What matter! It seemed to him that in some
+mysterious way she had now recognized the spiritual necessity laid upon
+him to fight for that claim; had admitted him, so to speak, to the rights
+of a belligerent. And that had made all the difference.
+
+He did not know how it had happened. But he was strangely certain that it
+had happened.
+
+But soon the short interval of rest and dream he had allowed himself was
+over. 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 the
+emotion, the stirring of all the dead-bones it has brought about. There
+has been of course a secession; but the church at Patten End amply
+provides for the seceders, and among our own people one seems to realize
+at last something of what the simplicity and sincerity of the first
+Christian feeling must have been! No 'allowances' to make for scandalous
+mistranslations and misquotations--no foolish legends, or unedifying
+tales of barbarous people--no cursing psalms--no old Semitic nonsense
+about God resting on the seventh day, delivered in the solemn sing-song
+which makes it not only nonsense but hypocrisy....
+
+"I have held both a marriage and a funeral this week under the new
+service-book. I think that all persons accustomed to think of what they
+are saying felt the strangest delight and relief in the disappearance of
+the old marriage service. It was like the dropping of a weight to which
+our shoulders had become so accustomed that we hardly realized it till it
+was gone. Instead of pompous and futile absurdity--as in the existing
+exhortation, and homily--beautiful and fitting quotation from the unused
+treasures of the Bible. Instead of the brutal speech, the crudely
+physical outlook of an earlier day, the just reticence and nobler
+perceptions of our own, combined with perfectly plain and tender
+statement as to the founding of the home and the family. Instead of
+besmirching bits of primitive and ugly legend like the solemn
+introduction of Adam's rib into the prayers, a few new prayers of great
+beauty--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 in
+any age of the Christian Church?). Instead of the old 'obey,' for the
+woman, which has had such a definitely debasing effect, as I believe, on
+the position of women, especially in the working classes--a formula, only
+slightly altered, but the same for the man and the woman....
+
+"In short, a seemly, and beautiful, and moving thing, instead of a
+ceremony which in spite of its few fine, even majestic, elements, had
+become 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 its
+arguments which are dead, and confined to its cries of poetry and faith
+which are immortal, made a new and thrilling impression. I confess I
+thought I should have broken my heart over the omission of 'I know that
+my Redeemer liveth'--and yet now that it is gone, there is a sense of
+moral exhilaration in having let it go! One knew all the time that
+whoever wrote the poem of Job neither said what he was made to say in the
+famous passage, nor meant what he was supposed to mean. One was perfectly
+aware, from one's Oxford days, as the choir chanted the great words, that
+they were a flagrant mistranslation of a corrupt and probably
+interpolated passage. And yet the glory of Handel's music, the glamour
+of association overcame one. But now that it is cut ruthlessly away
+from those moments in life when man can least afford any make-believe
+with himself or his fellows--now that music alone declaims and fathers
+it--there is the strangest relief! One feels, as I have said, the joy
+that comes from something difficult and righteous _done_--in spite of
+everything!
+
+"I could go on for hours telling you these very simple and obvious things
+which must be so familiar to you. To me the amazement of this Movement is
+that it has taken so long to come. We have groaned under the oppression
+of what we have now thrown off, so long and so hopelessly; the Revision
+that the High Churchmen made such a bother about a few years ago came to
+so little; that now, to see this thing spreading like a great spring-tide
+over the face of England is marvellous indeed! And when one knows what it
+means--no mere liturgical change, no mere lopping off here and changing
+there, but a transformation of the root ideas of Christianity; a
+transference of its whole proof and evidence from the outward to the
+inward field, and therewith the uprush of a certainty and joy unknown to
+our modern life; one can but bow one's head, as those that hear
+mysterious voices on the wind.
+
+"For so into the temple of man's spirit, age by age, comes the renewing
+Master of man's life--and makes His tabernacle with man. 'Lift up your
+heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, And the King
+of Glory shall come in.'"
+
+Meynell bowed his head upon his hands. The pulse of hope and passion in
+the letter was almost overpowering. It came, he knew, from an elderly
+man, broken by many troubles, and tormented by arthritis, yet a true
+saint, 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 to
+make both clergy and laity sign the Modernist decrees has had a
+prodigious effect all over France--precisely in the opposite sense to
+that 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 single
+intellectual of any eminence--and it is a misfortune for _us_, the
+liberals. We have nothing to fight--we seem to be beating the air.'
+
+"Scherer could not have said this to-day. There are Catholics
+everywhere--in the University, the Ecole Normale, the front ranks of
+literature. But with few exceptions _they are all Modernist_; they have
+thrown overboard the whole _fatras_ of legend and tradition. Christianity
+has become to them a symbolical and spiritual religion; not only
+personally important and efficacious, but of enormous significance from
+the national point of view. But as you know, _we_ do not at present
+aspire to outward or ceremonial changes. We are quite content to leaven
+the meal from within; to uphold the absolute right and necessity of the
+two languages in Christianity--the popular and the scientific, the
+mythological and the mystical. If the Pope could have his way,
+Catholicism would soon be at an end--except as a peasant-cult--in the
+Latin countries. But, thank God, he will not have his way. One hears of a
+Modernist freemasonry among the Italian clergy--of a secret press--an
+enthusiasm, like that of the Carboneria in the forties. So the spirit of
+the Most High blows among the dead clods of the world--and, in a moment
+the harvest is there!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meynell let the paper drop. He began to write, and he wrote without
+stopping with great ease and inspiration for nearly two hours. Then as
+midnight struck, he put down his pen, and gazed into the dying fire. He
+felt as Wordsworth's skater felt on Esthwaite, when, at a sudden pause,
+the mountains and cliffs seemed to whirl past him in a vast headlong
+procession. So it was in Meynell's mind with thoughts and ideas.
+Gradually they calmed and slackened, till at last they passed into an
+abstraction and ecstasy of prayer.
+
+When he rose, the night had grown very cold. He hurriedly put his papers
+in order, before going to bed, and as he did so, he perceived two
+unopened letters which had been overlooked.
+
+One was from Hugh Flaxman, communicating the news of the loss of two
+valuable gold coins from the collection exhibited at the party. "We are
+all in tribulation. I wonder whether you can remember seeing them when
+you were talking there with Norham? One was a gold stater of Velia with a
+head of Athene."...
+
+The other letter was addressed in Henry Barron's handwriting. Meynell
+looked at it in some surprise as he opened it, for there had been no
+communication between him and the White House for a long time.
+
+"I should be glad if you could make it convenient to see me to-morrow
+morning. I wish to speak with you on a personal matter of some
+importance--of which I do not think you should remain in ignorance. Will
+it 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 so
+pertickler. 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 the
+house. But he won't be long, sir."
+
+And Anne, very stiff and on her dignity, relieved one of the two
+armchairs of its habitual burden of books, gave it a dusting with her
+apron, and offered it to the visitor. It was evident that she regarded
+his presence with entire disfavour, but was prepared to treat him with
+prudence for the master's sake. Her devotion to Meynell had made her
+shrewd; she perfectly understood who were his enemies, and who his
+friends.
+
+Barron, with a sharp sense of annoyance that he should be kept waiting,
+merely because a drunken miner happened to be beating his wife, coldly
+accepted her civilities, and took up a copy of the _Times_ which was
+lying on the table. But when Anne had retired, he dropped the newspaper,
+and began with a rather ugly curiosity to examine the room. He walked
+round the walls, looking at the books, raising his eyebrows at the rows
+of paper-bound German volumes, and peering closely into the titles of the
+English ones. Then his attention was caught by a wall-map, in which a
+number of small flags attached to pins were sticking. It was an outline
+map of England, apparently sketched by Meynell himself, as the notes and
+letterings were in his handwriting. It was labelled "Branches of the
+Reform League." All over England the little flags bristled, thicker here,
+and thinner there, but making a goodly show on the whole. Barron's face
+lengthened 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 the
+sheets. Beside it was a copy of Thomas a Kempis, and Father Tyrrell's
+posthumous book, in which a great soul, like a breaking wave, had foamed
+itself away; a volume of Sanday, another of Harnack, into the open cover
+of which the Rector had apparently just pinned an extract from a Church
+paper. Barron involuntarily stooped to read it. It ran:
+
+"This is no time for giving up the Athanasian Creed. The moment when the
+sewage of continental unbelief is pouring into England is not the moment
+for banishing to a museum a screen that was erected to guard the
+sanctuary."
+
+Beneath it, in Meynell's writing:
+
+"A gem, not to be lost! The muddle of the metaphor, the corruption of the
+style, everything is symbolic. In a preceding paragraph the writer makes
+an attack on Harnack, who is described as 'notorious for opposing' the
+doctrines of the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection. That history has a
+right to its say on so-called historical events never seems to have
+occurred to this gentleman; still less that there is a mystical and
+sacred 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 probably
+infinitely greater than Harnack's in dealing historically with the Birth
+Stories. The fact is the whole onus is now on the orthodox side. It is
+not 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 deal
+drastically with a clergyman who could write such things.
+
+A step outside. The sleeping dogs on the doorstep sprang up and noisily
+greeted their master. Meynell shut them out, to their great disgust, and
+came hurriedly toward the study.
+
+Barron, as he saw him in the doorway, drew back with an exclamation. The
+Rector's dress and hair were dishevelled and awry, and his face--pale,
+drawn, and damp with perspiration--showed that he had just come through a
+personal struggle.
+
+"Sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Barron. But that fellow,
+Pinches--you remember?--the new blacksmith--has been drinking for nearly
+a week, and went quite mad this morning. We just prevented him from
+killing his wife, but it was a tough business. I'll go and wash and
+change my coat, if you will allow me."
+
+So he went away, and Barron had a few more minutes in which to meditate
+on the room and its owner. When at last Meynell came back, and settled
+himself in the chair opposite to his visitor, with a quiet "Now I am
+quite at your service," Barron found himself overtaken with a curious and
+unwelcome hesitation. The signs--a slightly strained look, a quickened
+breathing--that Meynell still bore upon him of a physical wrestle,
+combined perhaps with a moral victory, suddenly seemed, even in Barron's
+own eyes, to dwarf what he had to say--to make a poor mean thing out of
+his story. And Meynell's shining eyes, divided between close attention to
+the man before him and some recent and disturbing recollections in which
+Barron had no share, reinforced the impression.
+
+But he recaptured himself quickly. After all, it was at once a charitable
+and a high-judicial part that he had come to play. He gathered his
+dignity 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 friendly
+relations. Meynell made a slight inclination.
+
+"Then I hope you will tell it me as quickly as may be. Does it concern
+yourself, or me? Maurice, I hope, is doing well?"
+
+Barron winced. It seemed to him an offence on the Rector's part that
+Meynell's tone should subtly though quite innocently remind him of days
+when he had been thankful to accept a strong man's help in dealing with
+the escapades of a vicious lad.
+
+"He is doing excellently, thank you--except that his health is not all I
+could wish. My business to-day," he continued, slowly--"concerns a woman,
+formerly of this village, whom I happened by a strange accident to see
+just 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 a
+suddenly heightened colour he struck straight--violently--for the heart
+of the thing.
+
+"She told me a lamentable story--and she was led to tell it me by
+seeing--and identifying--yourself--as you were standing with a lady in
+the 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 you
+wish to consult me about something that Judith Sabin communicated to
+you?"
+
+"I do. But the story she told me turns very closely on her identification
+of yourself; and therefore it does matter," said Barron, with emphasis.
+
+A puzzled look passed again over Meynell's face. But he said nothing. His
+attitude, coldly expectant, demanded the story.
+
+Barron told it--once more. He repeated Judith Sabin's narrative in the
+straightened, rearranged form he had now given to it, postponing,
+however, any further mention of Meynell's relation to it till a last
+dramatic moment.
+
+He did not find his task so easy on this occasion. There was something in
+the personality of the man sitting opposite to him which seemed to make a
+narrative that had passed muster elsewhere sound here a mere vulgar
+impertinence, the wanton intrusion of a common man on things sacredly and
+justly 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 speaker
+arrived at the incident of the Grenoble visitor.
+
+"I naturally find this a very disagreeable task," he said, pausing a
+moment. He got, however, no help from Meynell, who was dumb; and he
+presently resumed--"Judith Sabin saw the gentleman who came distinctly.
+She felt perfectly certain in her own mind as to his relation to Miss
+Puttenham and the child; and she was certain also, when she saw you and
+Miss Puttenham standing in the road, while I was with her that--"
+
+Meynell looked up, slightly frowning, awaiting the conclusion of the
+sentence--
+
+--"that she saw--the same man again!"
+
+Barron's naturally ruddy colour had faded a little; his eyes blinked. He
+drew his coat forward over his knee, and put it back again nervously.
+
+Meynell's face was at first blank, or bewildered. Then a light of
+understanding shot through it. He fell back in his chair with an odd
+smile.
+
+"So _that_--is what you have in your mind?"
+
+Barron coughed a little. He was angrily conscious of an anxiety and
+misgiving he had not expected. He made all the greater effort to recover
+what seemed to him the proper tone.
+
+"It is all most sad--most lamentable. But I had, you perceive, the
+positive statement of a woman who should have known the facts first-hand,
+if any one did. Owing to her physical state, it was impossible to
+cross-examine her, and her sudden death made it impossible to refer her
+to you. I had to consider what I should do--"
+
+"Why should you have done anything--" said Meynell dryly, raising his
+eyes--"but forget as quickly as possible a story you had no means of
+verifying, 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 _prima
+facie_ absurdity, I desire to say nothing offensive to you, but there
+have been many curious circumstances connected with your relation to
+the Fox-Wilton family which have given rise before now to gossip in this
+neighbourhood. I could not but perceive that the story told me threw
+light upon them. The remarkable language of Sir Ralph's will, the
+position of Miss Hester in the Fox-Wilton family, your relation to
+her--and to--to Miss Puttenham."
+
+Meynell's composure became a matter of some difficulty, but he maintained
+it.
+
+"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," said
+Barron, with all the dignity he could bring to bear. "For the unfortunate
+thing is--the thing which obliged me whether I would or no--and you will
+see from the dates that I have hesitated a long time--to bring Judith
+Sabin's statement to your notice--is that she seems to have talked to
+some one else in the neighbourhood before she died, besides myself. Her
+son declares that she saw no one. I have questioned him; of course
+without revealing my object. But she must have done so. And whoever it
+was has begun to write anonymous letters--repeating the story--in full
+detail--_with_ the identification--that I have just given you."
+
+"Anonymous letters?" repeated Meynell, raising himself sharply. "To
+whom?"
+
+"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 to
+you, 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 a
+copy."
+
+"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 presently
+to an abrupt pause in front of his visitor.
+
+"This story then is now all over the village--will soon be all over the
+diocese. Now--what was your object in yourself bringing it to me?"
+
+"I thought it right to inform you--to give you warning--perhaps also to
+suggest to you that a retreat from your present position--"
+
+"I see--you thought it a means of bringing pressure to bear upon me?--you
+propose, in short, that I should throw up the sponge, and resign my
+living?"
+
+"Unless, of course, you can vindicate yourself publicly."
+
+Barron to his annoyance could not keep his hand which held a glove from
+shaking a little. The wrestle between their personalities was rapidly
+growing 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!" Meynell
+repeated, with emphasis.
+
+"In that case--I suggest--it might be better to meet the wishes of your
+Bishop, and so avoid further publicity."
+
+"By resigning my living?"
+
+"Precisely. The scandal would then drop of itself. For Miss Puttenham's
+sake alone you must, I think, desire to stop its development."
+
+Meynell flushed hotly. He took another turn up the room--while Barron sat
+silent, looking straight before him.
+
+"I shall not take action"--Meynell resumed--"and I shall not dream of
+retreating from my position here. Judith Sabin's story is untrue. She did
+not see me at Grenoble and I am not the father of Hester Fox-Wilton. As
+to 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 thought
+and will seemed to pass through his face. As Barron rose, he began to
+speak.
+
+"I have no doubt you think yourself justified in taking the line
+you clearly do take in this matter. I can hardly imagine that you
+really believe the story you say you got from Judith Sabin--which you
+took to Flaxman--and have, I suppose, discussed with Dawes. I am
+convinced--forgive me if I speak plainly--that you cannot and do not
+believe anything so preposterous--or at any rate you would not believe it
+in 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 the
+thing has been done again and again. If you cannot defeat a man in fair
+fight, the next best thing is to blacken his character. We see that
+everywhere--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 a
+time. All I can say is, I would rather be the man to suffer from it than
+the man to gain from it!"
+
+Barron took up his hat. "I cannot be surprised that you receive me in
+this manner," he said, with all the steadiness he could muster. "But as
+you cannot deal with this very serious report in the ordinary way, either
+by 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. You
+cannot distrust either the Bishop's discretion, or his good will. If he
+were satisfied, we no doubt should be the same."
+
+Meynell shook his head.
+
+"Not if I know anything of the _odium theologicum!_ Besides, the Miss
+Nairns of this world pay small attention to bishops. By the way--I forgot
+to ask--you can tell me nothing on the subject of the writer of the
+anonymous 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-pocket
+the letter to Dawes, which he had again borrowed from its owner that
+morning. Meynell put it into a drawer of his writing-table without
+looking at it.
+
+The two men moved toward the door.
+
+"As to any appeal to you on behalf of a delicate and helpless
+lady--" said Meynell, betraying emotion for the first time--"that I
+suppose is useless. But when one remembers her deeds of kindness in this
+village, her quiet and irreproachable life amongst us all these years,
+one would have thought that any one bearing the Christian name would have
+come to me as the Rector of this village on one errand only--to consult
+how best to protect her from the spread of a cruel and preposterous
+story! You--I gather--propose to make use of it in the interests of your
+own Church party."
+
+Barron straightened himself, resenting at once what seemed to him the
+intrusion of the pastoral note.
+
+"I am heartily sorry for her"--he said coldly. "Naturally it is the women
+who suffer in these things. But of course you are right--though you put
+the matter from your own point of view--in assuming that I regard this as
+no ordinary scandal. I am not at liberty to treat it as such. The honour
+concerned--is the honour of the Church. To show the intimate connection
+of creed and life may be a painful--it is also an imperative duty!"
+
+He threw back his head with a passion which, as Meynell clearly
+recognized, was not without its touch of dignity.
+
+Meynell stepped back.
+
+"We have talked enough, I think. You will of course take the course that
+seems to you best, and I shall take mine. I bid you good day."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From the study window Meynell watched the disappearing figure of his
+adversary. The day was wet, and the funereal garden outside was dank with
+rain. The half-dead trees had shed such leaves as they had been able to
+put forth, and behind them was a ragged sky of scudding cloud.
+
+In Meynell's soul there was a dull sense of catastrophe. In Barron's
+presence he had borne himself as a wronged man should; but he knew very
+well 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 visualizing
+power showed him the groups in the various bar parlours, discussing the
+Scandal, dividing it up into succulent morsels, serving it up with every
+variety of personal comment, idle or malicious; amplyfying, exaggerating,
+completing. He saw the neat and plausible spinster from whose cruel hands
+he had rescued a little dumb, wild-eyed child, reduced by ill-treatment
+to skin and bone--he saw her gloating over the anonymous letter, putting
+two and two maliciously together, whispering here, denouncing there. He
+seemed to be actually present in the most disreputable public-house of
+the village, a house he had all but succeeded in closing at the preceding
+licensing 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 the
+village, the members of his Parish Council, who would suffer, and stand
+firm. The postponed meeting of the Council, for the acceptance of the new
+Liturgy, was to be held the day after his return from Paris. To them he
+would speak--so far as he could; yes, to them he would speak! Then his
+thought spread to the diocese. Charges of this kind spread with
+extraordinary rapidity. Whoever was writing the anonymous letters had
+probably not confined himself to two or three. Meynell prepared himself
+for 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 he
+read. He had expected something of a vulgarer and rougher type. The
+handwriting was clearly disguised, and there was a certain amount of
+intermittent bad spelling, which might very easily be a disguise also.
+But whoever wrote it was acquainted with the Fox-Wilton family, with
+their 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 elder
+Fox-Wilton girls--it had become a source of gossip in the village. The
+writer of it could not be far away. Was it a man or a woman? Meynell
+examined the handwriting carefully. He had a vague impression that he had
+seen something like it before, but could not remember where or in what
+connection.
+
+He put it back in his drawer, and as he did so his eyes fell upon his
+half-written article for the _Modernist _and on the piles of
+correspondence beside it. A sense of bitter helplessness overcame him, a
+pang not for himself so much as for his cause. He realized the inevitable
+effect of the story in the diocese, weighted, as it would be, with all
+the colourable and suspicious circumstances that could undoubtedly be
+adduced in support of it; its effect also beyond the diocese, through
+the Movement of which he was the life and guiding spirit; through
+England--where his name was rapidly becoming a battle-cry.
+
+And what could he do to meet it? Almost nothing! The story indeed as a
+whole could be sharply and categorically denied, because it involved a
+fundamental 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 formal
+vow of secrecy to any one. He was free to confide in whom he would. But
+all that was tender, pitiful, chivalrous in his soul stood up and
+promised for him, as he stood looking out into the October rain, that for
+no personal--yes!--and for no public advantage--would he trifle with what
+he had regarded for eighteen years as a trust, laid upon him by the dying
+words of a man he had loved, and enforced more and more sharply with time
+by the constant appeal of a woman's life--its dumb pain, the paradox of
+its frail strength, its shrinking courage. That life had depended upon
+him during the worst crisis of its fate as its spiritual guide. He had
+toward Alice Puttenham the feeling of the "director," as the saints have
+understood it; and toward her story something of the responsibility of a
+priest toward a confession. To reveal it in his own interest was simply
+impossible. If the Movement rejected him--it must reject him.
+
+"Not so will I fight for thee, my God!--not so!" he said to himself in
+great anguish of mind.
+
+It was true indeed that at some future time Alice Puttenham's poor secret
+must be told--to a specified person, with her consent, and by the express
+direction of that honest, blundering man, her brother-in-law, whose life,
+sorely against his will, had been burdened with it. But the
+indiscriminate admission of the truth, after the lapse of years, would,
+he believed, simply bring back the old despair, and paralyze what had
+always been a frail vitality. And as to Hester, the sudden divulgence of
+it might easily upset the unstable balance in her of mind and nerve and
+drive 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 had
+already happened? Supposing it had, he might not be able to prevent her
+from doing what would place the part played toward her by himself in its
+true light. She would probably insist upon his taking legal action, and
+allowing her to make her statement in court.
+
+The thought of this was so odious to him that he promptly put it from
+him. He should assume that she knew nothing; though as a practical man he
+was well aware that she could not long remain ignorant; certainly not if
+she continued to live in Upcote. Then, it was a question probably of days
+or hours. Her presence in the cottage, when once the village was in full
+possession of the slander, would be a perpetual provocation. One way or
+another the truth must penetrate to her.
+
+An idea occurred to him. Paris! So far he had insisted on going himself
+with Hester to Paris because of his haunting feeling of responsibility
+toward the girl, and his resolve to see with his own eyes the household
+in which he was placing her. But suppose he made excuses? The burden of
+work upon him was excuse enough for any man. Suppose he sent Alice in his
+stead, and so contrived as to keep her in or near Paris for a while? Then
+Edith Fox-Wilton would of course have the forwarding of her sister's
+correspondence, and might, it seemed to him, take the responsibility of
+intercepting whatever might inform or alarm her.
+
+Not much prospect of doing so indefinitely!--that he plainly saw. But to
+gain time was an immense thing; to prevent her from taking at once
+Quixotic steps. He knew that in health she had never been the same since
+the episode of Judith's return and death. She seemed suddenly to have
+faded and drooped, as though poisoned by some constant terror.
+
+He stood lost in thought a little longer by his writing-table. Then his
+hand felt slowly for a parcel in brown paper that lay there.
+
+He drew it toward him and undid the wrappings. Inside it was a little
+volume of recent poems of which he had spoken to Mary Elsmere on their
+moonlit walk through the park. He had promised to lend her his copy, and
+he meant to have left it at the cottage that afternoon. Now he
+lingeringly removed the brown paper, and walking to the bookcase, he
+replaced the volume.
+
+He sat down to write to Alice Puttenham, and to scribble a note to Lady
+Fox-Wilton asking her to see him as soon as possible. Then Anne forced
+some luncheon on him, and he had barely finished it when a step outside
+made itself heard. He looked up and saw Hugh Flaxman.
+
+"Come in!" said the Rector, opening the front door himself. "You are very
+welcome."
+
+Flaxman grasped--and pressed--the proffered hand, looking at Meynell the
+while with hesitating interrogation. He guessed from the Rector's face
+that 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 had
+pushed a chair toward his guest. "He told me he had shown one of these
+precious 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 may
+thereby--perhaps--be enabled to be of some little use to you. Barron
+knows what I think of him, and of the business."
+
+"Oh! for him it is a weapon--like any other. Though to do him justice
+he might not have used it, but for the other mysterious person in the
+case--the writer of these letters. You know--" he straightened himself
+vehemently--"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 in
+arguing with myself as to whether I should come to you at all. Finally I
+decided you might blame me if I did not. You may not be aware of the
+letter 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--"except
+for a few references to the part Mrs. Elsmere had played in helping the
+families of those poor fellows who were killed in the cage-accident."
+
+"And Miss Elsmere?" said Meynell in a tone that wavered in spite of
+himself. He sat with his head bent and his eyes on the floor.
+
+"Knows, of course, nothing whatever about it," said Flaxman hastily. "Now
+will 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 what
+you wish?"
+
+Meynell assented.
+
+"In the village, I shall deal with it at the Reform meeting on Thursday
+night." Then he rose. "Are you going to Forked Pond?"
+
+"I was on my way there."
+
+"I will go with you. If Mrs. Elsmere is free, I should like to have some
+conversation with her."
+
+They started together through a dripping world on which the skies had but
+just ceased to rain. On his way through the park Meynell took off his hat
+and walked bareheaded through the mist, evidently feeling it a physical
+relief to let the chill, moist air beat freely on brow and temples.
+Flaxman could not help watching him occasionally--the forehead with its
+deep vertical furrow, the rugged face, stamped and lined everywhere by
+travail of mind and body, and the nobility of the large grizzled head. In
+the voluminous cloak--of an antiquity against which Anne protested in
+vain--which was his favourite garb on wet days, he might have been a
+friar of the early time, bound on a preaching tour. The spiritual,
+evangelic note in the personality became--so Flaxman thought--ever more
+conspicuous. And yet he walked to-day in very evident trouble, without,
+however, allowing to this trouble any spoken expression whatever.
+
+As they neared the Forked Pond enclosure, Meynell suddenly paused.
+
+"I had forgotten--I must go first to Sandford--where indeed I am
+expected."
+
+"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 going
+to threaten."
+
+"With anything to go upon?"
+
+"Yes. I hope at last to be able to get some grip on him; though no doubt
+my chances are not improved since yesterday," said Meynell, with a grim
+shadow of a smile, "supposing that anybody from Upcote has been
+gossipping at Sandford. It does not exactly add to one's moral influence
+to 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 the
+high road, Flaxman accompanying his friend so far. There they parted, and
+Hugh returned slowly to the cottage by the water, Meynell promising to
+join 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 Forked Pond Catharine and Mary Elsmere were
+sitting at work. Mary was embroidering a curtain in a flowing Venetian
+pattern--with a handful of withered leaves lying beside her to which she
+occasionally matched her silks. Catharine was knitting. Outside the rain
+was howling through the trees; the windows streamed with it. But within,
+the bright wood-fire threw a pleasant glow over the simple room, and the
+figures of the two ladies. Mary's trim jacket and skirt of prune-coloured
+serge, with its white blouse fitting daintily to throat and wrist, seemed
+by its neatness to emphasize the rebellious masses and the fare colour of
+her hair. She knew that her hair was beautiful, and it gave her a
+pleasure she could not help, though she belonged to that type of
+Englishwoman, not yet nearly so uncommon as modern newspapers and books
+would have us believe, who think as little as they can of personal
+adornment and their own appearance, in the interests of some hidden ideal
+that "haunts them like a passion; of which even the most innocent vanity
+seems to make them unworthy."
+
+In these feelings and instincts she was, of course, her mother's
+daughter. Catharine Elsmere's black dress of some plain woollen stuff
+could 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 the
+spiritual beauty which had always been hers was hers still. One might
+guess that she, too, knew it; that in her efforts to save persons in sin
+or suffering she must have known what it was worth to her; what the gift
+of lovely line and presence is worth to any human being. But if she had
+been made to feel this--passingly, involuntarily--she had certainly
+shrunk from feeling it.
+
+Mary put her embroidery away, made up the fire, and sat down on a stool
+at her mother's feet.
+
+"Darling, how many socks have you knitted since we came here? Enough to
+stock a shop?"
+
+"On the contrary. I have been very idle," laughed Catharine, putting her
+knitting 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 your
+feet in London a day earlier," said Mary, laying her head on Catharine's
+knee. "You needn't grumble. Next week you'll have your fells and your
+becks--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 and
+speaking with energy; "but, oh dear, I wish I could do something for
+her!"
+
+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--a
+day's--happiness--in her life?"
+
+[Illustration: "'I wonder whether she's ever had any real joy--a
+week's--a day's--happiness--in her life?'"]
+
+She said it musingly but intensely. Catharine did not know how to answer
+her. All the day long, and a good deal of the night, she had been
+debating with herself what to do--toward Mary. Mary was no longer a
+child. 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 places
+of London life. The betrayal--which could not be hidden from her--of a
+young servant girl in their employ, the year before, and the fierce
+tenderness with which Mary had thrown herself into the saving of the girl
+and her child, had brought about--Catharine knew it--a great deepening
+and overshadowing of her youth. Catharine had in some ways regretted it
+bitterly; for she belonged to that older generation which believed--and
+were amply justified in believing--that it is well for the young to be
+ignorant, so long as they can be ignorant, of the ugly and tragic things
+of sex. It was not that her Mary seemed to her in the smallest degree
+besmirched by the experience she had passed through; that any bloom had
+been shaken from the flower. Far from it. It was rather that some touch
+of careless joy was gone forever from her child's life; and how that
+may hurt a mother, only those know who have wept in secret hours over the
+first ebbing of youth in a young face.
+
+So that she received Mary's outburst in silence. For she said to herself
+that she could have no right to reveal Alice Puttenham's secret, even to
+Mary. That cruel tongues should at that moment be making free with it
+burnt like a constant smart in Catharine's mind. Was the poor thing
+herself aware of it?--could it be kept from her? If not, Mary must
+know--would know--sooner or later. "But for me to tell her without
+permission"--thought Catharine firmly--"would not be right--or just.
+Besides, I know nothing--directly."
+
+As to the other and profounder difficulty involved, Catharine wavered
+perpetually between two different poles of feeling. The incidents of the
+preceding weeks had made it plain that her resistance to Meynell's
+influence with Mary had strangely and suddenly broken down. Owing to an
+experience of which she had not yet spoken to Mary, her inner will had
+given way. She saw with painful clearness what was coming; she was blind
+to 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 she
+submitted. Her submission had cost her tears often, at night, when
+there was no one to see. And yet it had brought her also a strange
+happiness--like all such yieldings of soul.
+
+But if she had yielded, if there was in her a reluctant practical
+certainty that Mary would some day be Meynell's wife, then her
+conscience, which was that of a woman who had passionately loved her
+husband, began to ask: "Ought she not to be standing by him in this
+trouble? If we keep it all from her, and he suffers and perhaps breaks
+down, when she might have sustained him, will she not reproach us? Should
+I not have bitterly reproached any one who had kept me from helping
+Robert in such a case?"
+
+A state of mind, it will be seen, into which there entered not a trace of
+ordinary calculations. It did not occur to her that Mary might be injured
+in the world's eyes by publicly linking herself with a man under a cloud.
+Catharine, whose temptation to "scruple" in the religious sense was
+constant and tormenting, who recoiled in horror from what to others were
+the merest venial offences, in this connection asked one thing only.
+Where Barron had argued that an unbeliever must necessarily have a carnal
+mind, Catharine had simply assured herself at once by an unfailing
+instinct that the mind was noble and the temper pure. In those matters
+she was not to be deceived; she knew.
+
+That being so, and if her own passionate objections to the marriage were
+to be put aside, then she could only judge for Mary as she would judge
+for herself. _Not_ to love--_not_ to comfort--could there be--for
+Love--any greater wound, any greater privation? She shrank, in a kind of
+terror, from inflicting it on Mary--Mary, unconscious and unknowing.
+
+... The soft chatter of the fire, the plashing of the rain, filled the
+room with the atmosphere of reverie. Catharine's thoughts passed from her
+obligations toward Mary to grapple anxiously with those she might be
+under toward Meynell himself. The mere possession of the anonymous
+letter--and Flaxman had not given her leave to destroy it--weighed upon
+her conscience. It seemed to her she ought not to possess it; and she had
+been only half convinced by Flaxman's arguments for delay. She was
+rapidly coming to the belief that it should have been handed instantly to
+the Rector.
+
+A step outside.
+
+"Uncle Hugh!" said Mary, springing up. "I'll go and see if there are any
+scones for tea!" And she vanished into the kitchen, while Catharine
+admitted her brother-in-law.
+
+"Meynell is to join me here in an hour or so," he said, as he followed
+her into the little sitting-room. Catharine closed the door, and looked
+at 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 to
+you, 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 were
+wrong to delay."
+
+"He told me nothing--and I asked nothing. But, of course, what the
+situation 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. At
+any ordinary time that would be enough. But now--with all the hot feeling
+there is on the other subject--and the natural desire to discredit
+him--" Flaxman shrugged his shoulders despondently. "Rose's maid--you
+know the dear old thing she is--came to her last night, in utter distress
+about the talk in the village. There was a journalist here, a reporter
+from one of the papers that have been opposing Meynell most actively--"
+
+"They are quite right to oppose him," interrupted Catharine quickly. Her
+face 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 a
+woman--walking fast toward the cottage along the narrow grass causeway
+that ran between the two ponds. On either side of the woman the autumn
+trees swayed and bent under the rising storm, and every now and then a
+mist of scudding leaves almost effaced her. She seemed to be breathlessly
+struggling with the wind as she sped onward, and in her whole aspect
+there was an indescribable forlornness and terror.
+
+Catharine peered into the rain....
+
+"Hugh!"--She turned swiftly to her brother-in-law--"There is some one
+coming to see me. Will you go?"--she pointed to the garden door on the
+farther side of the drawing-room--"and will you take Mary? Go round to
+the back. You know the old summer-house at the end of the wood-walk. We
+have often sheltered there from rain. Or there's the keeper's cottage a
+little 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 he
+too saw the advancing form. In an instant he had disappeared by the
+garden door. Catharine went into the hall, opened the door of the kitchen
+and beckoned to Mary, who was standing there with their little maid.
+"Don't come back just yet, darling!" she said in her ear--"Get your
+things on, and go with Uncle Hugh. I want to be alone."
+
+Mary stepped back bewildered, and Catharine shut her in. Then she went
+back 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 the
+cloak off."
+
+And as she drew off the soaked waterproof, Catharine felt the trembling
+of 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 on
+Catharine. Every feature in the delicate oval face was pinched and drawn.
+The struggle with wild weather had drained the lips and the cheeks of
+colour, and her brown hair under her serge cap fell limply about her
+small ears and neck. She was an image not so much of grief as of some
+unendurable 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 it
+so strange of me to come to you in this way. But I am in trouble--such
+great trouble--and I don't know what to do. Then I thought I'd come to
+you. You--you always seem to me so kind--you won't despise--or repulse
+me--I know you won't!"
+
+Her voice sank to a whisper. Catharine took the two icy hands in her warm
+grasp.
+
+"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's
+friend--when I'd no right. I'm not what you think. I--I have a
+secret--or--I had. And now it's discovered--and I don't know what I shall
+do--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 spoke
+in 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 cold
+hands, she pressed it to her lips.
+
+But Alice suddenly raised herself.
+
+"You knew!"--she said--"You knew!" And her eyes, full of fear, stared
+into Catharine's. Then as Catharine did not speak immediately she went on
+with growing agitation, "You've heard--what everybody's saying? Oh! I
+don'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 a
+nightmare. For I felt certain she'd come home because she was angry with
+us--and that she'd said something--before she died. Then nothing
+happened--and I've tried to think--lately--it was all right. But last
+night--"
+
+She paused for self-control. Catharine was alarmed by her state--by its
+anguish, its excitement. It required an effort of her whole being before
+the 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 nursed
+me sometimes--when I've been ill. She loves me--she's good to me. And she
+came to tell me what people were saying in the village--how there were
+letters going round, about me--and Hester--how everybody knew--and they
+were talking in the public-houses. She thought I ought to know--she
+cried--and wanted me to deny it. And of course I denied it--I was fierce
+to 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 said
+people were saying--that the Rector--that Mr. Meynell--was Hester's
+father--and Judith Sabin had told Mr. Barron so before her death. And
+they 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 were
+many people who were angry--who didn't believe a word--but this woman who
+told me was astonished that so many _did_ believe.... So then I thought
+all 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 I
+should bring disgrace on them in the end--and her life had been a burden
+to 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 say
+nothing--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 she
+pressed the damp hair back from her face, and began to pace the
+room--unconsciously--still talking.
+
+"I asked her what was to happen about Richard--about the Rector. I said
+he 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 sin
+had spoilt her life--and Ralph's. They had done all they could--and now
+the publicity--if I insisted--would disgrace them all--and ruin the
+girls' chances of marrying, and I don't know what besides. But if I held
+my tongue--we could go away for a time--it would be forgotten, and nobody
+out of Upcote need ever hear of it. People would never believe such a
+thing of Richard Meynell. Of course he would deny it--and of course his
+word 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 were
+her whole strength to pour it--slowly, deliberately--into the words that
+followed:
+
+"But I--will run no risk of ruining Richard Meynell! As for me--what does
+it matter what happens to me! And darling Hester!--we could keep it from
+her--we would! She and I could live abroad. And I don't see how it could
+disgrace Edith and the girls--people would only say she and Ralph had
+been very good to me. But Richard Meynell!--with these trials coming
+on--and all the excitement about him--there'll be ever so many who would
+be wild to believe it! They won't care how absurd it is--they'll want
+to _crush_ him! And he--he'll _never_ say a word for himself--to
+explain--never! Because he couldn't without telling all my story. And
+that--do you suppose Richard Meynell would ever do _that_?--to any poor
+human 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 her
+in doubt--trouble--amazement. And then, her pure sense divined
+something--dimly--of what the full history of this soul had been; and her
+heart melted. She put out her hands and drew the speaker down again into
+the seat beside her.
+
+"I think you'll have to let him decide that for you. He's a strong
+man--and a wise man. He'll judge what's right. And I ought to warn you
+that 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 Catharine
+reluctantly.
+
+Alice shrank and trembled. "It's terrible!"--her voice was scarcely to be
+heard. "Who is it hates me so?--or Richard?"
+
+There was silence a moment. And in the pause the stress and tumult of
+nature without, the beating of the wind, and the plashing of the rain,
+seemed to be rushing headlong through the little room. But neither
+Catharine nor Alice was aware of it, except in so far as it played
+obscurely on Alice's tortured nerves, fevering and goading them the more.
+Catharine's gaze was bent on her companion; her mind was full of projects
+of help, which were also prayers; moments in that ceaseless dialogue with
+a Greater than itself, which makes the life of the Christian. And it was
+as though, by some secret influence, her prayers worked on Alice; for
+presently she turned in order that she might look straight into the face
+beside 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 you
+don't know about Neville--no one does now. People seem all to have
+forgotten him. But he came into his property here--the Abbey--the old
+Abbey--just when I was growing up. I saw him here first--but only once or
+twice. Then we met in Scotland. I was staying at a house near his
+shooting. And we fell in love. Oh, I knew he was married!--I can never
+say that I didn't know, even at the beginning. But his wife was so cruel
+to him--he was very, very unhappy. She couldn't understand him--or make
+allowances for him--she despised him, and wouldn't live with him. He was
+miserable--and so was I. My father and mother were dead! I had to live
+with Ralph and Edith; and they always made me feel that I was in their
+way. 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 do
+everything. I was staying with some old cousins in Rossshire, who used to
+ask me now and then. There were no young people in the house. My cousins
+were quite kind to me, but I spent a great deal of time alone--and
+Neville 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 me
+books--and read to me. He was sorry for me--and at last--he loved me! And
+we never looked ahead. Then--in one week--everything happened together. I
+had to go home. He talked of going to Sandford, and implored me still to
+meet him. And I thought how Ralph and Edith would watch us, and spy upon
+us, and I implored him never to go to Sandford when I was at Upcote. We
+must meet at other places. And he agreed. Then the day came for me to go
+south. I travelled by myself--and he rode twenty miles to a junction
+station and joined me. Then we travelled all day together."
+
+Her voice failed her. She pressed her thin hands together under the onset
+of memory, and that old conquered anguish which in spite of all the life
+that had been lived since still smouldered amid the roots of being.
+
+"I may tell you?" she said at last, with a piteous look. Catharine bent
+over her.
+
+"Anything that will help you. Only remember I don't ask or expect you to
+say 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 thought
+we could never meet again--it seemed as though we were both--with every
+station we passed--coming nearer to something like death--something worse
+than death. Then--before we got to Euston--I couldn't bear it--I--I gave
+way. We sent a telegram from Euston to Edith that I was going to stay
+with 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 I
+went home. In a few weeks Edith guessed--and so did Judith Sabin, who was
+Edith's maid. Edith made me tell her everything. She and Ralph were
+nearly beside themselves. They were very strict in those days; Ralph was
+a great Evangelical, and used to speak at the May meetings. All his party
+looked up to him so--and consulted him. It was a fearful blow to him. But
+Edith thought of what to do--and she made him agree. We went abroad, she
+and I--with Judith. It was given out that Edith was delicate, and must
+have a year away. We stopped about in little mountain places--and Hester
+was born at Grenoble. And then for the last and only time, they let
+Neville 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 an
+accident--but it wasn't. He had hoped and hoped to get his wife to
+divorce him--and make amends. And when Mrs. Flood's--his wife's--final
+letter came--she was a Catholic and nothing would induce her--he just
+took his boat out in a storm, and never came back--"
+
+The story lost itself in a long sobbing sigh that came from the depths of
+life. When she spoke again it was with more strength:
+
+"But he had written the night before to Richard--Richard Meynell. You
+know he was the Rector's uncle, though he was only seven years older? I
+had 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 Richard
+was still at college, and Neville was in the Guards. They used to talk of
+religion and philosophy. Neville was a great reader always--and they
+became great friends. So on his last night he wrote to Richard, telling
+him everything, and asking him to be kind to me--and Hester. And
+Richard--who had just been appointed to the living here--came out to
+the Riviera, and brought me the letter--and the little book that was in
+his pocket--when they found him. So you see ..."
+
+She spoke with fluttering colour and voice, as though to find words at
+all were a matter of infinite difficulty:
+
+"You see that was how Richard came to take an interest in us--in Hester
+and me--how he came to be the friend too of Ralph and Edith. Poor
+Ralph!--Ralph was often hard to me, but he meant kindly--he would never
+have 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 have
+had any peace--any comfort in life again--but for Richard. He found
+somebody to live with me abroad for those first years, and then, when I
+came back to Upcote, he made Ralph and Edith consent to my living in that
+little house by myself--with my chaperon. He would have preferred--indeed
+he urged it--that I should go on living abroad. But there was
+Hester!--and I knew by that time that none of them had the least bit of
+love for her!--she was a burden to them all. I couldn't leave her to
+them--I _couldn't!_... Oh! they were terrible, those years!" And again
+she caught Catharine's hands and held them tight. "You see, I was so
+young--not much over twenty--and nobody suspected anything. Nobody in the
+world 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 preached
+to me--but by his life. I couldn't have lived at all--but for him. And
+now you see--you see--how I am paying him back!"
+
+And again, as the rush of emotion came upon her, she threw herself into a
+wild pleading, as though the gray-haired woman beside her were thwarting
+and opposing her.
+
+"How can I let my story--my wretched story--ruin his life--and all his
+work? I can't--I can't! I came to you because you won't look at it as
+Edith does. You'll think of what's right--right to others. Last night I
+thought one must die of--misery. I suppose people would call it shame. It
+seemed to me I heard what they were all saying in the village--how they
+were gloating over it--after all these years. It seemed to strip one of
+all self-respect--all decency. And to-day I don't care about that! I care
+only that Richard shouldn't suffer because of what he did for me--and
+because of me. Oh! do help me, do advise me! Your look--your manner--have
+often made me want to come and tell you"--her voice was broken now with
+stifled sobs--"like a child--a child. Dear Mrs. Elsmere!--what ought I to
+do?"
+
+And she raised imploring eyes to the face beside her, so finely worn with
+living 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 would
+tell you that. She is your first--your sacredest duty."
+
+Alice Puttenham shivered as though something in Catharine's tender voice
+reproached her.
+
+"Oh, I know--my poor Hester! My life has set hers all wrong. Wouldn't
+it have been better to face it all from the beginning--to tell the
+truth--wouldn't it?" She asked it piteously.
+
+"It might have been. But the other way was chosen; and now to undo
+it--publicly--affects not you only, but Hester. It mayn't be possible--it
+mayn't be right."
+
+"I must!--I must!" said Alice impetuously, and rising to her feet she
+began to pace the room again with wild steps, her hands behind her, her
+slender form drawn tensely to its height.
+
+At that moment Catharine became aware of some one standing in the porch
+just 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 murmured
+conversation passed between the two persons in the little hall. Then
+Catharine came in again, followed by Meynell, who closed the door, and
+stood looking sadly at the pale woman confronting him.
+
+"So they haven't spared even you?" he said at last, in a voice bitterly
+subdued. "But don't be too unhappy. It wants courage and wisdom on our
+part. But it will all pass away."
+
+He quietly pushed a chair toward Alice, and then took off his dripping
+cloak, carried it into the passage outside, and returned.
+
+"Don't go, Mrs. Elsmere," he said, as he perceived Catharine's
+uncertainty. "Stay and help us, if you will."
+
+Catharine submitted. She took her accustomed seat by the fire; Alice, or
+the ghost of Alice, sat opposite to her, in Mary's chair, surrounded by
+Mary's embroidery things; and Meynell was between them.
+
+He looked from one to the other, and there was something in his aspect
+which restrained Alice's agitation, and answered at once to some high
+expectation in Catharine.
+
+"I know, Mrs. Elsmere, that you have received one of the anonymous
+letters that are being circulated in this neighbourhood, and I presume
+also--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 must
+be 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 helped
+her 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 state
+of life and mind. She imagines herself to be in love with my cousin
+Philip Meryon, a worthless man, without an ounce of conscience where
+women are concerned, who, in my strong belief, is already married
+under 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. I
+have convinced him at last--this morning--that I mean to bring this home
+to him. But that does not dispose of the thing--finally. Hester is in
+danger--in danger from herself. She is at war with her family--with the
+world. She believes nobody loves her--that she is and always has been a
+pariah at home--and with her temperament she is in a mood for desperate
+things. Tell her now that she is illegitimate--let your sister Edith go
+talking to her about 'disgrace'--and there is no saying what will happen.
+She will say--and think--that she has no responsibilities, and may do
+what she pleases. There is no saying what she might do. We might have a
+tragedy that none of us could prevent."
+
+Alice lifted her head.
+
+"I could go away with her," she said, imploringly. "I could watch over
+her 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 to
+return to give evidence."
+
+"Yes--for a short time. But that could be managed. She should never see
+the English papers--I could promise that."
+
+"And what is to prevent Philip Meryon telling her? At present he is
+entirely ignorant of her parentage. I have convinced myself of that this
+morning. 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 off
+to-night. We must, of course, always take the risk of his knowing, and of
+his 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 do
+not 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 tell
+her?"
+
+Alice did not reply. She sat wringing her delicate hands in a silent
+desperation; while Catharine opposite was lost in the bewilderment of the
+situation--the insistence of the woman, the refusal of the man.
+
+"My advice is this"--continued Meynell, still addressing Alice--"that you
+should take her to Paris tomorrow in my stead, and should stay near her
+for some months. Lady Fox-Wilton--whom I have just seen--she overtook me
+driving on the Markborough road half an hour ago, and we had some
+conversation--talks of taking a house at Tours for a year--an excellent
+thing--for them all. We don't want her on the spot any longer--we don't
+want any of them!" said the Rector, dismissing the Fox-Wilton family with
+an emphatic gesture which probably represented what he had gone through
+in the interview with Edith. ... "In that way the thing will soon die
+down. There will be nobody here--nobody within reach--for the scoundrel
+who is writing these letters to attack--except, of course, myself--and
+I 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 believed
+them. 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 is
+very important--very true. But for me personally"--she looked round the
+room with wandering eyes; then found a sudden passionate gesture,
+pressing back the hair from her brow with both hands--"for me
+personally--to tell the truth--to face the truth--would be
+relief--infinite relief! It would kill the fear in which I have lived all
+these years--kill it forever. It would be better for all of us if we had
+told the truth--from the beginning. And as for Hester--she must know--you
+say yourself she must know before long--when she is of age--when she
+marries--"
+
+Meynell's face took an unconscious hardness.
+
+"Forgive me!--the matter must be left to me. The only person who could
+reasonably take legal action would be myself--and I shall not take it. I
+beg you, be advised by me." He bent forward again. "My dear friend!"--and
+now he spoke with emotion--"in your generous consideration for me you do
+not know what you are proposing--what an action in the courts would mean,
+especially at this moment. Think of the party spirit that would be
+brought into it--the venom--the prejudice--the base insinuations.
+No!--believe me--that is out of the question--for your sake--and
+Hester's."
+
+"And your work--your influence?"
+
+"If they suffer--they must suffer. But do not imagine that I shall not
+defend myself--and you--you above all--from calumny and lies. Of course I
+shall--in my own way."
+
+There was silence--a dismal silence. At the end of it Meynell stretched
+out 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." Then
+he 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 Miss
+Puttenham 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 to
+Alice.
+
+"Go to him--go to him at once!" she said with a sob she could not
+repress.
+
+Another silence. Then Meynell walked to the window and looked at the
+weather.
+
+"It is not raining so fast," he said in his cheerful voice. "Oughtn't you
+to be going home--getting ready and arranging with Hester? It's an awful
+business going abroad."
+
+Alice rose silently. Catharine went into the kitchen to fetch the
+waterproof 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. It
+seems to burn one's heart--the coarse and horrible things that are being
+said--"
+
+He frowned and fidgeted--till the thought within forced its way:
+
+"Christ was hated. Yet directly the least touch of it comes to us, we
+rebel--we cry out against God."
+
+"It is because we are so weak--we are not Christ!" She covered her face
+with 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 in
+Thee_!'" He fell--murmuring--into lines that had evidently been in his
+thoughts, smiling upon her.
+
+Then Catharine returned. Alice was warmly wrapped up, and Catharine took
+her 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 to
+which 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 was
+standing 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--with
+regard to my daughter?"
+
+He turned--pale with amazement.
+
+And so began what one may call--perhaps--the most romantic action of a
+noble life!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+When Catharine returned to the little sitting-room, in which the darkness
+of a rainy October evening was already declaring itself, she came shaken
+by many emotions in which only one thing was clear--that the man before
+her 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 the
+threatened scandal a means of freeing Mary from an undesirable
+attachment. But just as in her married life, her heart had not been able
+to stand against her husband while her mind condemned him, so now. While
+in theory, and toward people with whom she never came in contact, she had
+grown even more bitter and intransigent since Robert's death than she had
+been in her youth, she had all the time been living the daily life of
+service and compassion which--unknown to herself--had been the real
+saving and determining force. Impulses of love, impulses of sacrifice
+toward the miserable, the vile, and the helpless--day by day she had felt
+them, day by day she had obeyed them. And thus all the arteries, so to
+speak, of the spiritual life had remained soft and pliant--that life
+itself in her was still young. It was there in truth that her
+Christianity lay; while she imagined it to lie in the assent to certain
+historical and dogmatic statements. And so strong was this inward and
+vital faith--so strengthened in fact by mere living--that when she was
+faced with this second crisis in her life, brought actually to close
+grips with it, that faith, against all that might have been expected,
+carried her through the difficult place with even greater sureness than
+at first. She suffered indeed. It seemed to her all through that she was
+endangering Mary, and condoning a betrayal of her Lord. And yet she could
+not act upon this belief. She must needs act--with pain often, and yet
+with mysterious moments of certainty and joy, on quite another faith, the
+faith which has expressed itself in the perennial cry of Christianity:
+"Little children, love one another!" And therein lay the difference
+between her and Barron.
+
+It was therefore in this mixed--and yet single--mood that she came back
+to Meynell, and asked him--quietly--the strange question: "What shall I
+do--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. He
+stared at her in bewilderment, at first pale, and then in a sudden heat
+and 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 you
+cannot, for good reasons, involving other persons, prosecute those
+responsible for it in the usual way. And if she comes across any signs of
+it, or its effects, she is to trust your wisdom in dealing with it--and
+not 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 her
+gravely.
+
+"Or--will you say it yourself?"
+
+He started.
+
+"Mrs. Elsmere!"--he spoke with quick emotion--"You are wonderfully good
+to me." He scanned her with an unsteady face--then made an agitated step
+toward her. "It almost makes me think--you permit me--"
+
+"No--no," said Catharine, hurriedly, drawing back. "But if you would like
+to 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 a
+question; it will be her business to know nothing of the matter--in
+itself. But she will be able to show you her confidence, and to feel that
+we have treated her as a woman--not a child."'
+
+Meynell drew a deep breath. He took Catharine's hand and pressed it. She
+felt with a thrill--which was half bitterness--that it was already a
+son'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 to
+speak of it--to intrude myself and my affairs on her notice at all at
+this moment...." He looked at his companion almost sternly. "Is it not
+clear that I ought not? I meant to have brought her a book to-day. I have
+not brought it. I have been even glad--thankful--to think you were going
+away, although--" But again he checked the personal note. "The truth is I
+could not endure that through me--through anything connected with me--she
+might be driven upon facts and sorrows--ugly facts that would distress
+her, and sorrows for which she is too young. It seemed to me indeed I
+might 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 smallest
+degree to presume upon her--and your--kindness to me. Above all"--his
+voice shook--"I could not come forward--I could not speak to her--as at
+another time I might have spoken. I could not run the smallest risk--of
+her name being coupled with mine--when my character was being seriously
+called in question. It would not have been right for her; it would not
+have been seemly for myself. So what was there--but silence? And yet I
+felt--that through this silence--we should somehow trust each other!"
+
+He paused a moment, looking down upon his companion. Catharine was
+sitting by the fire near a small table on which her elbow rested, her
+face propped on her hand. There was something in the ascetic refinement,
+the grave sweetness of her aspect, that played upon him with a tonic and
+consoling force. He remembered the frozen reception she had given him at
+their first meeting; and the melting of her heart toward him seemed a
+wonderful thing. And then came the delicious thought--"Would she so treat
+him, 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 communication
+with him, to show any kindness toward him, till this cloud had wholly
+cleared away, and the sky was clear again. He became almost angry as he
+urged this; so excited, indeed, and incoherent that a charming smile
+stole into Catharine's gray eyes.
+
+"I understand quite what you feel," she said as she rose, "and why you
+feel it. But I am not bound to follow your advice--or to agree with
+you--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 a
+little--"but it seems to me right--I have been _led_--else why was
+it 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 more
+mystical Christian experience. She hurried on:
+
+"When two people--two people like you and Mary--feel such a deep
+interest in each other--surely it is God's sign." Then, suddenly, the
+tears 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 was
+great.
+
+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 her
+hand, and turned aside to gather up some letters on the table.
+
+A sound of footsteps could be heard outside. Catharine moved to the
+window.
+
+"It is Mary," she said quietly. "Will you wait a little while I meet
+her?" And without giving him time to reply, she left the room.
+
+He walked up and down, not without some humorous bewilderment in spite of
+his emotion. The saints, it seemed, are persons of determination! But,
+after a minute, he thought of nothing, realized nothing, save that Mary
+was in the little house again, and that one of those low voices he could
+just hear, as a murmur in the distance, through the thin walls of the
+cottage, was hers.
+
+The door opened softly, and she came in. Though she had taken off her
+hat, she still wore her blue cloak of Irish frieze, which fell round her
+slender figure in long folds. Her face was rosy with rain and wind; the
+same wind and rain which had stamped such a gray fatigue on Alice
+Puttenham's cheeks. Amid the dusk, the fire-light touched her hair and
+her ungloved hand. She was a vision of youth and soft life; and her
+composure, her slight, shy smile, would alone have made her beautiful.
+
+Their hands met as she gently greeted him. But there was that in his look
+which disturbed her gentleness--which deepened her colour. She hurried to
+speak.
+
+"I am so glad that mother made you stay--just that I might tell
+you." Then her breath began to hasten. "Mother says you are--or may
+be--unjustly attacked--that you don't think it right to defend yourself
+publicly--and those who follow you, and admire you, may be hurt and
+troubled. I wanted to say--and mother approves--that whoever is hurt and
+troubled, I can never be--except for you. Besides, I shall know and ask
+nothing. You may be sure of that. And people will not dare to speak to
+me."
+
+She stood proudly erect.
+
+Meynell was silent for a moment. Then, by a sudden movement, he stooped
+and 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, dropped
+them, 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 it
+may be a hard fight. But whatever happens, you are going to Westmoreland
+immediately. That is my great comfort."
+
+"Is it?" She laughed unsteadily.
+
+He too smiled. There was intoxication he could not resist--in her
+presence--and in what it implied.
+
+"It is the best possible thing that could be done. Then--whatever
+happens--I shall not be compromising my friends. For a while--there must
+be no communication between them and me."
+
+"Oh, yes!" she said, involuntarily clasping her hands. "Friends may
+write."
+
+"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 are
+preaching--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 the
+mountains 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 and
+tremulous joy, she began to question him about the meetings and
+engagements ahead. But he would not be drawn into any talk about them. It
+was no doubt quite possible--though not, he thought, probable--that he
+might soon be ostracized from them all. But upon this he would not dwell,
+and though her understanding of the whole position was far too vague
+to warn her from these questions, she soon perceived that he was
+unwilling to answer them as usual. Silence indeed fell between them; but
+it was a silence of emotion. She had thrown off her cloak, and sat
+looking 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 at
+her feet. As they realized each other's nearness indeed, in the quiet of
+the dim room, it was with a magic sense of transformation. Outside the
+autumn storm was still beating--symbol of the moral storm which
+threatened them. Yet within were trust and passionate gratitude and
+tender hope, intertwined, all of them, with the sacred impulse of the
+woman toward the man, and of the man toward the woman. Each moment as it
+passed built up one of those watersheds of life from which henceforward
+the rivers flow broadening to undreamt-of seas.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Catharine returned, Meynell was hat in hand for departure. There was
+no more expression of feeling or reference to grave affairs. They stood a
+few moments chatting about ordinary things. Incidentally Hugh Flaxman's
+loss of the two gold coins was mentioned. Meynell inquired when they were
+first missed.
+
+"That very evening," said Mary. "Rose always puts them away herself. She
+missed the two little cases at once. One was a coin of Velia, with a head
+of Athene--"
+
+"I remember it perfectly," said Meynell. "It dropped on the floor when I
+was talking to Norham--and I picked it up--with another, if I remember
+right--a Hermes!"
+
+Mary replied that the Hermes too was missing--that both were exceedingly
+rare; and that in the spring a buyer for the Louvre had offered Hugh four
+hundred pounds for the two.
+
+"They feel most unhappy and uncomfortable about it. None of the servants
+seems to have gone into that room during the party. Rose put all the
+coins on the table herself. She remembers saying good-bye to Canon France
+and his sister in the drawing-room--and two or three others--and
+immediately afterward she went into the green drawing-room to lock up the
+coins. 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--the
+Bishop!--Canon Dornal!"
+
+They both laughed. Then Meynell's face set sharply. A sudden recollection
+shot through his mind. He beheld the figure of a sallow, dark-haired
+young man slipping--alone--through the doorway of the green drawing-room.
+And this image in the mind touched and fired others, like a spark running
+through dead leaves....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he had gone, Catharine turned to Mary, and Mary, running, wound her
+arms close round her mother, and lay her head on Catharine's breast.
+
+"You angel!--you darling!" she said, and raising her mother's hand she
+kissed it passionately.
+
+Catharine's eyes filled with tears, and her heart with mingled joy and
+revolt. Then, quickly, she asked herself as she stood there in her
+child's embrace whether she should speak of a certain event--certain
+experience--which had, in truth, though Mary knew nothing of it, vitally
+affected 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 breaking
+down of an opposition and a hostility which might in time have poisoned
+all their relations to each other.
+
+But when Mary had gone away to change her damp clothes, the visionary
+experience of which Catharine could not tell came back upon her; and
+again she felt the thrill--the touch of bodiless ecstasy.
+
+It had been in the early morning, when all such things befall. For then
+the mind is not yet recaptured by life and no longer held by sleep. There
+is in it a pure expectancy, open to strange influences: influences from
+memory and the under-soul. It visualizes easily, and dream and fact are
+one.
+
+In this state Catharine woke on a September morning and felt beside her a
+presence that held her breathless. The half-remembered images and
+thoughts 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 dialogue
+began 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 the
+dancing shadows of the autumn leaves were all present to her. She poured
+out the sorrow, the anxiety--about Mary--that pressed so heavy on her
+heart, and the tender voice answered, now consoling, now rebuking.
+
+"And we forbade him, because he followed not us ... Forbid him
+not--_forbid him not_!"--seemed to go echoing through the quiet air.
+
+The words sank deep into her sense--she heard herself sobbing--and
+the 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 of
+the mingled ideas and passions on which her life was founded, piercing
+through the intellectualism of her dogmatic belief. But though she would
+have patiently accepted any scientific explanation, she believed in her
+heart that Robert had spoken to her, bidding her renounce her repugnance
+to Mary's friendship with Meynell--to Mary's love for Meynell.
+
+She came down the morning after with a strange, dull sense of change
+and disaster. But the currents of her mind and will had set firmly in a
+fresh direction. It was almost mechanically--under a strong sense of
+guidance--that she had made her hesitating proposal to Mary to go with
+her to the Upcote meeting. Mary's look of utter astonishment had sent new
+waves of disturbance and compunction through the mother's mind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But if these things could not be told--even to Mary--there were other
+revelations 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 embrace
+of her mother, she went away upstairs, only pausing at the door of the
+sitting-room to ask when they should start for the cottage.
+
+Upstairs Mary sat for long in the dark, thinking.... Through her
+uncurtained windows she watched the obscure dying away of the storm, the
+calming of the trees, and the gradual clearing of the night sky. Between
+the upfurling clouds the stars began to show; tumult passed into a great
+tranquillity; and a breath of frost began to steal through the woods, and
+over the water....
+
+Catharine too passed an hour of reflection--and of yearning over the
+unhappy. Naturally, to Mary, her lips had been sealed on that deepest
+secret of all, which she had divined for a moment in Alice. She had
+clearly perceived what was or had been the weakness of the woman,
+together with the loyal unconsciousness and integrity of the man. And
+having perceived it, not only pity but the strain in Catharine of plain
+simplicity 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 to
+help her. She began however to understand what might be the full meaning
+of Alice's last injunction--and her eyes grew wet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mother and daughter started about eight o'clock for the cottage. They had
+a lantern with them, but they hardly needed it, for through the
+tranquillized air a new moon shone palely, and the frost made way.
+Catharine walked rejoicing apparently in renewed strength and recovered
+powers of exertion. Some mining, crippling influence seemed to have been
+removed from her since her dream. And yet, even at this time, she was not
+without premonitions--physical premonitions--as to the future--faint
+signal-voices that the obscure life of the body can often communicate to
+the spirit.
+
+They found the cottage all in light and movement. Servants were flying
+about; boxes were in the hall; Hester had come over to spend the night at
+the cottage that she and "Aunt Alice" might start by an early train.
+
+Alice came out to meet her visitors in the little hall. Catharine slipped
+into the drawing-room. Alice and Mary held each other enwrapped in one of
+those moments of life that have no outward expression but dimmed eyes
+and fluttering breath.
+
+"Is it all done? Can't I help?" said Mary at last, scarcely knowing what
+she said, as Alice released her.
+
+"No, dear, it's all done--except our books. Come up with me while I pack
+them."
+
+And they vanished upstairs, hand in hand.
+
+Meanwhile Hester in her most reckless mood was alternately flouting and
+caressing Catharine Elsmere. She was not in the least afraid of
+Catharine, and it was that perhaps which had originally drawn Catharine's
+heart to her. Elsmere's widow was accustomed to feel herself avoided by
+young people who discussed a wild literature, and appeared to be without
+awe toward God, or reverence toward man. Yet all the time, through her
+often bewildered reprobation of them, she hungered for their affection,
+and knew that she carried in herself treasures of love to give--though no
+doubt, on terms.
+
+But Hester had always divined these treasures, and was, besides, as a
+rule, far too arrogant and self-centred to restrain herself in anything
+she wished to say or do for fear of hurting or shocking her elders.
+
+At this moment she had declared herself tired out with packing, and
+was lounging in an armchair in the little drawing-room. A Japanese
+dressing-gown of some pale pink stuff sprayed with almond blossom floated
+about her, disclosing a skimpy silk petticoat and a slender foot from
+which she had kicked its shoe. Her pearly arms and neck were almost bare;
+her hair tumbled on her shoulders; her eyes shone with excitement
+provoked by a dozen hidden and conflicting thoughts. In her beauty, her
+ardent and provocative youth, she seemed to be bursting out of the little
+room, 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 and
+talk."
+
+And she put out an impatient hand, and drew the stately Catharine toward
+a chair beside her.
+
+"You ought to be in bed," said Catharine, retaining her hand. The girl's
+ignorance of all that others knew affected her strangely--produced a
+great softness and compunction.
+
+"I shouldn't sleep. I wonder when I shall get a decent amount of sleep
+again!" said Hester, pressing back the hair from her cheeks. Then she
+turned sharply on her visitor:
+
+"Of course you know, Mrs. Elsmere, that I am simply being sent away--in
+disgrace."
+
+"I know"--Catharine smiled, though her tone was grave--"that those who
+love 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 the
+same it's true. They're sending me away because they don't know what
+I'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, not
+without severity. "They are never at rest about you. My dear--they only
+wish your good."
+
+Hester laughed. She threw out a careless hand and laid it on Catharine's
+knee.
+
+"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 do
+like you so. But you can't know anything, can you, about girls--like
+me?"
+
+And looking up from where she lay deep in the armchair, she turned
+half-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--with
+girls."
+
+"Oh--poor girls? Girls in factories--girls that wear fringes, and sham
+pearl beads, and six ostrich feathers in their hats on Sundays? No, I
+don't think I'm like them. If I were they, I shouldn't care about
+feathers or the sham pearls. I should be more likely to try and steal
+some real ones! No, but I mean really girls like me--rich girls, though
+of course I'm not rich--but you understand? Do you know any girls who
+gamble and paint--their faces I mean--and let men lend them money, and
+pay for their dresses?"
+
+Hester sat up defiantly, looking at her companion.
+
+"No, I don't know any of that kind," said Catharine quietly. "I'm
+old-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 suppose
+I 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 Catharine
+sharply.
+
+Hester's look was enigmatic.
+
+"Well, I never did it. But I knew a girl in London--very pretty--and as
+mad as you like. She was an orphan and her relatives didn't care twopence
+about her. She got into debt, and a horrid old man offered to lend her a
+couple of hundred pounds if she'd give him a kiss. She said no, and then
+she told an older woman who was supposed to look after her. And what do
+you suppose she said?"
+
+Catharine was silent.
+
+"'Well, you _are_ a little fool!' That was all she got for her pains. Men
+are villains--_I_ think! But they're exciting!" And Hester clasped her
+hands 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's
+chair, she took the girl in her arms.
+
+"Hester, dear!--if you want a friend--whenever you want a friend--come to
+me! 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 Hester
+lightly 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 kinds
+of 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 in
+her 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 the
+miniature.
+
+"How can I love her when she won't trust me?" she cried again, with
+stormy breath.
+
+Catharine's heart melted within her.
+
+"But you _must_ love her, Hester! Why, she has watched over you all your
+life. 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 a
+veiled future, unable, by no fault of her own, to distinguish her lovers
+from 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 for
+you"--she bent forward like a queen, and lightly kissed Catharine on the
+cheek--"I daresay I'll remember what you've said--you're a great, great
+dear! It was luck for Mary to have got you for a mother. But I'm all
+right--I'm all right!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the Elsmeres were gone, Hester still sat on alone in the
+drawing-room. The lamp had burnt dim, and the little room was cold.
+
+Presently she slipped her hand into the white bodice she wore. A letter
+lay there, and her fingers caressed it. "I don't know whether I love him
+or not--perhaps I do, and perhaps I don't. I don't know whether I believe
+Uncle Richard--or this letter. But--I'm going to find out! I'm not going
+to be stopped from finding out."
+
+And as she lay there, she was conscious of bonds she was half determined
+to escape, half willing to bear; of a fluttering excitement and dread.
+Step by step, and with a childish bravado, she had come within the
+influences of sex; and her fate was upon her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+Meanwhile, amid this sensitive intermingling of the thoughts and feelings
+of women, there arose the sudden tumult and scandal of the new elements
+which had thrust themselves into what was already known to the religious
+world throughout England as "the Meynell case." During November and
+December that case came to include two wholly different things: the
+ecclesiastical suit in the Court of Arches, which, owing to a series of
+delays and to the illness of the Dean of the Court, was not to be heard
+in all probability before February, and the personal charges brought
+against the incumbent of Upcote Minor.
+
+These fresh charges were formally launched by Henry Barron, the chief
+promoter also, as we know, of the ecclesiastical suit, in a letter
+written by him to Bishop Craye, on the very night when Alice Puttenham
+revealed her secret to Catharine Elsmere. But before we trace the effect
+of the letter, let us look for a moment at the general position of the
+Movement when this second phase of Meynell's connection with it began.
+
+At that time the pending suits against the Modernist leaders--for there
+were now five instituted by different bishops, as test cases, in
+different parts of England--were already the subject of the keenest
+expectation and debate not only in church circles, but amid sections of
+the nation which generally trouble themselves very little about clerical
+or religious disputes. New births of time were felt to be involved in the
+legal struggle; passionate hopes and equally passionate fears hung upon
+it. There were old men in quiet country parsonages who, when they read
+the _Modernist_ and followed the accounts of the Movement, were inclined
+to say to themselves with secret joy and humility that other men were
+entering into their labours, and the fields were at last whitening to
+harvest; while others, like Newman of old, had "fierce thoughts toward
+the Liberals," talked and spoke of Meynell and the whole band of
+Modernist clergy as traitors with whom no parley could be kept, and were
+ready to break up the Church at twenty-four hours' notice rather than sit
+down at the same table of the Lord with heretics and Socinians.
+
+Between these two groups of men, each equally confident and clear, though
+by no means equally talkative, there was a middle region that contained
+many anxious minds and some of the wisest heads in England. If, at the
+time of Norham's visit to Maudeley, Bishop Craye of Markborough, and many
+other bishops with him, were still certain that the Movement would be
+promptly and easily put down, so far at least as its organic effect on
+the Church of England was concerned, yet, as November and December wore
+on, anxieties deepened, and confidence began to waver. The passion of the
+Movement was beginning to run through England, as it seemed to many, like
+the flame of an explosion through a dusty mine. What amazed and terrified
+the bishops was the revelation of pent-up energies, rebellions, ideals,
+not only among their own flocks, but in quarters, and among men and
+women, hitherto ruled out of religious affairs by general consent. They
+pondered the crowds which had begun to throng the Modernist churches, the
+extraordinary growth of the Modernist press, and the figures reported day
+by day as to the petition to be presented to Parliament in February.
+There was no orthodox person in authority who was not still determined on
+an unconditional victory; but it was admitted that the skies were
+darkening.
+
+The effect of the Movement on the Dissenters--on that half of religious
+England which stands outside the National Church, where "grace" takes the
+place of authority, and bishops are held to be superfluities incompatible
+with the pure milk of the Word--was in many respects remarkable. The
+majority of the Wesleyan Methodists had thrown themselves strongly on
+to the side of the orthodox party in the Church; but among the
+Congregationalists and Presbyterians there was visible a great ferment of
+opinion and a great cleavage of sympathy; while, among the Primitive
+Methodists, a body founded on the straitest tenets of Bible worship, yet
+interwoven, none the less, with the working class life of England and
+Wales, and bringing day by day the majesty and power of religion to bear
+upon the acts and consciences of plain, poor, struggling men, there was
+visible a strong and definite current of acquiescence in Modernist ideas,
+which was inexplicable, till one came to know that among Meynell's
+friends at Upcote there were two or three Primitive local preachers who
+had 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 persons
+standing on tiptoe before an opening glory. In their isolated and often
+mistaken struggle they had felt themselves for generations stricken with
+chill and barrenness; their blood now began to feel the glow of new
+kinships, the passion of large horizons. So, along the banks of some
+slender and much hindered stream, there come blown from the nearing sea
+prophetic scents and murmurs, and one may dream that the pent water knows
+at last the whence and whither of its life.
+
+But the strangest spectacle of all perhaps was presented by the orthodox
+camp. For, in proportion as the Modernist attack developed, was the
+revival of faith among those hostile to it, or unready for it. For the
+first time in their lives, religion became interesting--thrilling
+even--to thousands of persons for whom it had long lost all real savour.
+Fierce question and answer, the hot cut and thrust of argument, the
+passion 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 a
+new life, and express itself in a new language. These were times when men
+on all sides felt that stretching and straining of faculty which ushers
+in the days of spiritual or poetic creation; times when the most
+confident Modernist of them all knew well that he, no more than any one
+else, could make any guess worth having as to the ultimate future.
+
+Of all this rapid and amazing development the personality and the
+writings of Richard Meynell had in few months become the chief popular
+symbol. There were some who thought that he was likely to take much
+the same place in the Modernist Movement of the twentieth century as
+Newman had taken in the Oxford Movement of the nineteenth; and men were
+beginning to look for the weekly article in the _Modernist_ with the
+same emotion of a passionate hero-worship on the one hand, and of angry
+repulsion on the other, with which the Oxford of the thirties had been
+wont to look for each succeeding "Tract," or for Newman's weekly sermon
+at St. Mary's. To Newman's high subtleties of brain, to Newman's magic of
+style, Richard Meynell could not pretend. But he had two advantages over
+the great leader of the past: he was the disciple of a new learning which
+was inaccessible to Newman; and he was on fire with social compassions
+and enthusiasms to which Newman, the great Newman, was always
+pathetically a stranger. In these two respects Meynell was the
+representative of his own generation; while the influences flowing from
+his personal character and life were such that thousands who had never
+seen him loved and trusted him wholly. Men who had again and again
+watched great causes break down for want of the incommunicable something
+which humanity exacts from its leaders felt with a quiet and confident
+gladness that in Meynell they had got the man they wanted, the
+efficacious, indispensable man.
+
+And now--suddenly--incredible things began to be said. It was actually
+maintained that the leader round whom such feelings had gathered had
+been, since his ordination, the betrayer of a young and innocent
+girl, belonging to a well-known family; that although it had been in his
+power for twenty years to marry the lady he had wronged, he had never
+attempted to do so, but had rather, during all that time, actively
+connived at the fraud by which his illegitimate child had passed as the
+daughter of Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton; while over the whole period he had kept
+up 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 of
+the prosecutors in the ecclesiastical suit, had obtained unexpected and
+startling confirmation of these extraordinary facts from the confession
+of a woman who had been present at the birth of the child and had
+identified the Rector of Upcote as the father. Then, very soon,
+paragraphs of a veiled sort began to appear in some of the less
+responsible newspapers. The circulation of the anonymous letters began
+to be known; and the reader of a Modernist essay at an Oxford meeting
+caused universal consternation by telling an indiscreet friend, who
+presently spread it abroad, that Barron had already written to the Bishop
+of Markborough, placing in his hands a mass of supporting evidence
+relating to "this most lamentable business."
+
+At first Meynell's friends throughout the country regarded these rumours
+as a mere device of the evil one. Similar things they said, and with
+truth, are constantly charged against heretics who cannot be put down.
+Slander is the first weapon of religious hatred. Meynell, they
+triumphantly answered, will put the anonymous letters in the hands of the
+police, and proceed against Henry Barron. And they who have taken up such
+a 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 did
+the anonymous letters reappear from time to time, untracked and
+unpunished, but reports of a meeting held at Upcote itself began to
+spread--a meeting where Meynell had been definitely and publicly
+challenged 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 and
+responsible 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 hot
+political argument with his little granddaughter Barbara.
+
+"All Tories are wicked," said Barbara, who had a Radical father, "except
+grandpapa, and he, mummy says, is weally a Riberal."
+
+With which she had leaped into the arms of her nurse, and was carried off
+gurgling, while the Bishop threatened her from afar.
+
+Then, with a sigh of impatience, as he recognized the signature on the
+envelope, he resigned himself to Barron's letter. When he had done it,
+sitting by the table in his library, he threw it from him with
+indignation, called for his coat, and hurried across his garden to the
+Cathedral for matins. After service, as with a troubled countenance he
+was emerging from the transept door, he saw Dornal in the Close and
+beckoned to him.
+
+"Come into the library for ten minutes. I very much want to speak to
+you."
+
+The Bishop led the way, and as soon as the door was shut he turned
+eagerly on his companion:
+
+"Do you know anything of these abominable stories that are being spread
+about Richard Meynell?"
+
+Dornal looked at him sadly.
+
+"They are all over Markborough--and there is actually a copy of one of
+the anonymous letters--with dashes for the names--in the _Post_ to-day?"
+
+"I never hear these things!" said the Bishop, with an impatience which
+was meant, half for a scandal-mongering world, and half for himself. "But
+Barron has written me a perfectly incredible letter to-day. He seems to
+be the head and front of the whole business. I don't like Barron, and I
+don't like his letters!"
+
+And throwing one slender leg over the other, while the tips of his long
+fingers met in a characteristic gesture, the little Bishop stared into
+the fire before him with an expression of mingled trouble and disgust.
+
+Dornal, clearly, was no less unhappy. Drawing his chair close to the
+Bishop's he described the manner in which the story had reached himself.
+When he came to the curious facts concerning the diffusion and variety of
+the 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 person
+only--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 knowledge
+of his mother's history--comes this crop of extraordinary letters,
+showing, you tell me, an intimate acquaintance with the neighbourhood
+and the parties concerned. And yet Barron--the only person Mrs. Sabin
+saw--knows nothing of them! They are a mystery to him. But, my dear
+Dornal, how _can_ they be?" The Bishop faced round with energy on his
+companion. "He must at least have talked incautiously before some one!"
+
+Dornal agreed, but could put forward no suggestion of his own. He sat
+drooping by the Bishop's fire, his aspect expressing the deep distress he
+did not shape in words. That very distress, however, was what made his
+company so congenial to the much perturbed Bishop, who felt, moreover, a
+warmer 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 relations
+as 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 my
+fatherly help just as freely as ever, if he chose to ask for it. But I
+don't know whether to send for him. I don't think I can send for him. The
+fact is--one feels the whole thing an outrage!"
+
+Dornal looked up.
+
+"That's the word!" he said gratefully. Then he added--hesitating--"I
+ought perhaps to tell you that I have written to Meynell--I wrote when
+the first report of the thing reached me. And I am sure that he can have
+no possible objection to my showing you his reply!" He put his hand into
+his pocket.
+
+"By all means, my dear Dornal!" cried the Bishop with a brightening
+countenance. "We are both his friends, in spite of all that has happened
+and 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 kindness
+and delicacy. But even to you I can only say what I say to other
+questioners of a very different sort. The story to which you refer is
+untrue. But owing to peculiar circumstances it is impossible for me to
+defend myself in the ordinary way, and my lips are sealed with regard to
+it. I stand upon my character as known to my neighbours and the diocese
+for nearly twenty years. If that is not enough, I cannot help it.
+
+"Thank you always for the goodness and gentleness of your letter. I wish
+with all my heart I could give you more satisfaction."
+
+The two men looked at each other, the same conjectures passing through
+both minds.
+
+"I hear the Fox-Wiltons and Miss Puttenham have all gone abroad," said
+the Bishop thoughtfully. "Poor things! I begin to see a glimmer. It seems
+to me that Meynell has been the repository of some story he feels he
+cannot honourably divulge. And then you tell me the letters show the
+handiwork of some one intimately acquainted with the local circumstances,
+who seems to have watched Meynell's daily life. It is of course possible
+that he may have been imprudent with regard to this poor lady. Let us
+assume that he knew her story and advised her. He may not have been
+sufficiently careful. Further, there is that striking and unfortunate
+likeness 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 and
+Meynell in the same room. It is difficult to say in what it consists, but
+it 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 will
+make all the difference to the atmosphere in which it is conducted. One
+can imagine how certain persons are already gloating over it--what use
+they will make of it--how they will magnify and embroider everything. And
+such an odious story! It is the degradation of a great issue!"
+
+The little Bishop frowned. As he sat there in the dignity of his
+great library, so scrupulously refined and correct in every detail of
+dress, yet without a touch of foppery, the gleam of the cross on his
+breast answering the silver of the hair and the frank purity of the
+eyes, it was evident that he felt a passionate impatience--half moral,
+half esthetic--toward these new elements of the Meynell case. It was
+the fastidious impatience of a man for whom personal gossip and scandal
+ranked among the forbidden indulgences of life. "Things, not persons!"
+had been the time-honoured rule for conversation at the Palace
+table--persons, that is, of the present day. In those happy persons who
+had already passed into biography and history, in their peccadilloes no
+less than their virtues, the Bishop's interest was boundless. The
+distinction tended to make him a little super- or infra-human; but it
+enhanced the fragrance and delicacy of his personality.
+
+Dornal was no less free from any stain of mean or scandalous gossip than
+the Bishop, but his knowledge of the human heart was far deeper, his
+sympathy 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 Council
+meeting--which of course will be also one of their campaign meetings--the
+day after to-morrow. Barron declares that he means to challenge Meynell
+publicly to vindicate his character. Can I do anything?"
+
+Dornal did not see anything could be done. The parish was already in open
+rebellion.
+
+"It is a miserable, miserable business!" said the Bishop unhappily. "How
+can 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 has
+neither written to me, nor consulted me, I will wait a little. We must
+watch--we must watch. Meanwhile, my dear fellow!"--he laid his hand
+on Dornal's shoulder--"let us think how to stop the talk! It will spoil
+everything. Those who are fighting with us must understand there are
+weapons we cannot stoop to use!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As Dornal left the Palace, on his way past the Cathedral, he met young
+Fenton, the High Churchman who some months earlier had refused to
+recognize Meynell after the first Modernist meeting in Markborough.
+Fenton was walking slowly and reading the local newspaper--the
+same which contained the anonymous letter. His thin, finely modelled
+face, which in a few years would resemble the Houdon statue of St. Bruno,
+expressed an eager excitement that was not unlike jubilation. Dornal was
+practically certain that he was reading the paragraph that concerned
+Meynell, and certain also that it gave him pleasure. He hurriedly
+passed over to the other side of the street, that Fenton might not accost
+him.
+
+Afterward, he spent the evening, partly in writing urgently in Meynell's
+defence to certain of his own personal friends in the diocese, and partly
+in composing an anti-Modernist address, full of a sincere and earnest
+eloquence, to be delivered the following week at a meeting of the Church
+party in Cambridge.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile Cyril Fenton had also spent the evening in writing. He kept an
+elaborate journal of his own spiritual state; or rather he had begun to
+keep it about six months before this date, at the moment when the
+emergence of the Modernist Movement had detached him from his nascent
+friendship with Meynell, and had thrown him back, terrified, on a more
+resolute opposition than ever to the novelties and presumptions of free
+inquiry. The danger of reading anything, unawares, that might cause him
+even a moment's uneasiness had led to his gradually cutting himself off
+entirely from modern newspapers and modern books, in which, indeed, he
+had never taken any very compelling interest. His table was covered by
+various English and French editions of the Fathers--of St. Cyprian in
+particular, for whom he had a cult. On the bare walls of his study
+were various pictures of saints, a statuette of the Virgin, and another
+of St. Joseph, both of them feebly elegant in the Munich manner. Through
+his own fresh youthfulness, once so winning and wholesome, something
+pinched and cloistered had begun to thrust itself. His natural sweetness
+of temper was rapidly becoming sinful in his own eyes, his natural love
+of 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 up
+his mind to go to bed earlier than usual, lest he should be thereby
+pampering the flesh. He was thoroughly dissatisfied with his own
+spiritual condition during the day, and had just made ample confession
+thereof in the pages of his diary. A few entries from that document will
+show the tone of a mind morbid for lack of exercise:
+
+"D. came to see me this morning. We discussed war a good deal. In
+general, of course, I am opposed to war, but when I think of this ghastly
+plague of heresy which is sweeping away so many souls at the present
+moment, I feel sometimes that the only war into which I could enter
+with spirit would be a civil war.... In a great deal of my talk with D. I
+posed abominably. I talked of shooting and yachting as though I knew all
+about them. I can't be content that people should think me 'out' of
+anything, or a dull fool. It was the same with my talk to S. about church
+music. I talked most arrogantly; and in reality I know hardly anything
+about it.
+
+"As to my vow of simplicity in food, I must keep my attention more on the
+alert. Yet to-day I have not done so badly; some cold ends of herring at
+breakfast, and a morsel of mackerel at lunch are the only things I have
+to reproach myself with; the only lapses from the strict rule of
+simplicity. But the quantity was deplorable--no moderation--not even a
+real attempt at it. Whenever I am disgusted with myself for having eaten
+too much at dinner, I constantly fail to draw the proper inference--that
+I should eat less at tea....
+
+"I feel that this scandal about poor Meynell is probably providential. It
+must and will weaken the Modernist party enormously. To thank God for
+such a thing sounds horrible, but after all, have we any right to be more
+squeamish than Holy Writ? 'Let God arise and let His enemies be
+scattered.' The warnings and menaces of what are called the Imprecatory
+Psalms show us plainly that His enemies must be ours."
+
+He closed his book, and came to shiver over the very inadequate fire
+which was all he allowed himself. Every shilling that he could put aside
+was being saved in order to provide his church with a new set of altar
+furniture. The congregation of the church was indeed fast ebbing
+away, and his heart was full of bitterness on the subject. But how could
+a true priest abate any fraction of either his Church principles, or his
+sound doctrine, to appease persons who were not and could not be judges
+of what was necessary to their own spiritual health?
+
+As he warmed his thin hands, his bodily discomfort increased his
+religious despondency. Then, of a sudden, his eyes fell upon the portrait
+of 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 letter
+all fun and baby-talk, and fantastic drawings, in the course of which
+Tommy grew up, developed moustaches, and became a British Grenadier.
+
+When he had finished it and put it up, he lay back laughing to himself, a
+different being.
+
+But the gleam was only momentary. A recurring sense of chill and physical
+oppression dispersed it. Presently he rose heavily, glanced at his open
+diary, reread the last page with a sigh, and closed it. Then, as it was
+nearly midnight, he retreated upstairs to his bare and icy bedroom, where
+half-an-hour's attempt to meditate completed the numbness of body and
+mind, 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 House
+of the village a few days after the Bishop's conversation with Canon
+Dornal. It was an evening long remembered by those who shared in it.
+The figure of Meynell instinct with a kind of fierce patience; the face
+rugged 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 new
+tones and shades of feeling--on those who believed in him the effect
+of these slight but significant changes in the man they loved was
+electrical.
+
+And five-sixths of those present believed in him, loved him, and were
+hotly indignant at the scandals which had arisen. They were, some of
+them, the elite of the mining population, men whom he had known
+and taught from childhood; there were many officials from the
+surrounding collieries; there was a miners' agent, who was also one of
+the well-known local preachers of the district; there were half a dozen
+women--the schoolmistress, the wife of the manager of the cooperative
+store, and three or four wives of colliers--women to whom other women in
+childbirth, or the girl who had gone astray, or the motherless child,
+might appeal without rebuff, who were in fact the Rector's agents
+in any humanizing effort.
+
+All these persons had come to the meeting eagerly expecting to hear from
+the Rector's own lips the steps he proposed to take for the putting down
+of the slanders circulating in the diocese, and the punishment of their
+authors. In the rear of the Council--who had been themselves elected by
+the whole parish--there were two or three rows of seats occupied by other
+inhabitants of the village, who made an audience. In the front row sat
+the strange spinster, Miss Nairn, a thin, sharp nosed woman of fifty, in
+rusty black clothes, holding her head high; not far from her the dubious
+publican who had been Maurice Barron's companion on a certain walk some
+days before. There too were Hugh and Rose Flaxman. And just as the
+proceedings were about to begin, Henry Barron opened the heavy door, hat
+in hand, came in with a firm step, and took a seat at the back, while a
+thrill of excitement went through the room.
+
+It was an ancient room, near the church, and built like it, of red
+sandstone. It had been once the tiny grammar school of the village.
+Meynell had restored and adapted it, keeping still its old features--the
+low ceiling heavily beamed with oak, and the row of desks inscribed with
+the scholars' names of three centuries. Against the background of its
+white walls he stood thrown out in strong relief by the oil lamp on the
+table in front of him, his eyes travelling over the rows of familiar
+faces.
+
+He spoke first of the new Liturgy of which copies had been placed on the
+seats. He reminded them they were all--or nearly all--comrades with him
+in the great Modernist venture; that they had given him the help of their
+approval and support at every step, and were now rebels with him against
+the authorities of the day. He pointed to his approaching trial, and the
+probability--nay the certainty--of his deprivation. He asked them to be
+steadfast 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. The
+audience looked in suppressed excitement from one to the other.
+
+"I regret," said the Rector, courteously, "that we cannot hear Mr. Barron
+at this moment. He is not a member of the Church Council. When the
+proceedings 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 the
+two dissentients was Dawes, the colliery manager, a sincere and
+consistent evangelical of the Simeon School, who made a short speech in
+support of his vote, dwelling in a voice which shook on the troubles
+coming on the parish.
+
+"We may get another Rector," he said as he sat down. "We shall never get
+another Richard Meynell." A deep murmur of acquiescence ran through the
+room.
+
+Meynell rose again from his seat.
+
+"Our business is over. We now become an open meeting. Mr. Barron, I
+believe, wishes to speak."
+
+The room was, at this point, densely crowded and every face turned toward
+the tall and portly form rising from the back. In the flickering
+lamplight it could be seen that the face usually so ruddy and full was
+blanched by determination and passion.
+
+"My friends and neighbours!" said Barron, "it is with sorrow and grief
+that I rise to say the few words that I intend to say. On the audacity
+and 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 just
+been led--misled--into an act of heresy and rebellion by the man who
+should be your pastor in the Faith, who is responsible to God for your
+souls. _Why_ have you been misled?--_why_ do you follow him?" He flung
+out his hand toward Meynell.
+
+"Because you admire and respect him--because you believe him a good
+man--a man of honest and pure life. And I am here to tell you, or rather
+to remind you, for indeed you all know it--that your Rector lies at this
+moment under a painful and disgraceful charge; that this charge has been
+circulated--in a discreditable way--a way for which I have no defence and
+of which I know nothing--throughout this diocese, and indeed throughout
+England; that your fair fame, as well as his are concerned; and,
+nevertheless, he refuses to take the only steps which can clear his
+character, and repay you for the devotion you have shown him! I call upon
+you, sir!"--the speaker bent forward, pointing impressively to the
+chairman of the meeting and emphasizing every word--"to take those steps
+at 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 done
+do not continue, in the face of the congregation you have deceived and
+led astray, to assume the tone of hypocritical authority in which you
+have just spoken! You have no moral right to any authority among us; you
+never had any such right; and in Christian eyes your infidel teaching has
+led to its natural results. At any rate, I trust that now, at last, even
+these your friends and dupes will see the absolute necessity, before
+many weeks are over, of either _forcing_ you to resign your living, or
+_forcing_ you to take the only means open to honest men of protecting
+their character!"
+
+He resumed his seat. The audience sat petrified a moment. Then Hugh
+Flaxman sprang to his feet, and two or three others, the local preacher
+among them. But Meynell had also risen.
+
+"Please, Mr. Flaxman--my friends--!"
+
+He waved a quiet hand toward those who had risen, and they unwillingly
+gave way. Then the Rector looked round the room for a few silent
+instants. He was very white, but when he spoke it was with complete
+composure.
+
+"I expected something of this kind to happen, and whether it had happened
+or no I should have spoken to you on this matter before we separated. I
+know--you all know--to what Mr. Barron refers--that he is speaking of the
+anonymous letters concerning myself and others which have been circulated
+in this neighbourhood. He calls upon me, I understand, to take legal
+action with regard both to them and to the reports which he has himself
+circulated, by word of mouth, and probably by letter. Now I want you
+plainly to understand"--he bent forward, his hands on the table before
+him, 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 my
+character among you all these years. This only I will say to you, my
+friends and my parishioners: The abominable story told in these
+letters--the story which Mr. Barron believes, or tries to make himself
+believe--is untrue. But I will say no more than that--to you, or any one
+else. And if you are to make legal action on my part a test of whether
+you 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 I
+must go mine. There will be still work for me to do; and God knows our
+hearts--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 you
+should wish to discuss it. But I shall not discuss it with you. I shall
+withdraw. Mr. Dawes--will you take the chair?"
+
+He beckoned to the colliery manager, who automatically obeyed him. The
+room broke into a hubbub, men and women pressing round Meynell as he made
+his way to the door. But he put them aside, gently and cheerfully.
+
+"Decide it for yourselves!" he said with his familiar smile. "It is your
+right."
+
+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 the
+Church 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 of
+Dawes, and at last secured silence by a passionate speech in defence of
+Meynell and in denunciation of the men who in order to ruin him
+ecclesiastically were spreading these vile tales about him "and a poor
+lady that has done many a good turn to the folk of this village, and
+nothing said about it too!"
+
+"Don't you, sir"--he said, addressing Barron with a threatening
+finger--"don't you come here, telling us what to think about the man
+we've known for twenty years in this parish! The people that don't know
+Richard Meynell may believe these things if they please--it'll be the
+worse for them! But we've seen this man comforting and uplifting our old
+people in their last hours--we've seen him teaching our children--and
+giving just a kind funny word now an' again to keep a boy or a girl
+straight--aye, an' he did it too--they knew he had his eye on 'em! We've
+seen him go down these pits, when only a handful would risk their lives
+with him, to help them as was perhaps past hope. We've seen him skin
+himself to the bone that other men might have plenty--we've heard him
+Sunday after Sunday. We _know_ him!" The speaker brought one massive hand
+down on the other with an emphasis that shook the room. "Don't you go
+talking to us! If Richard Meynell won't go to law with you and the likes
+of you, sir, he's got his reasons, and his good ones, I'll be bound. And
+don't you, my friends"--he turned to the room--"don't you be turned back
+from this furrow you've begun to plough. You stick to your man! If you
+don't, you're fools, aye, and ungrateful fools too! You know well enough
+that Albert Beswick isn't a parson's man! You know that I don't hold with
+Mr. Meynell in many of his views. There's his views about 'election,' and
+the like o' that--quite wrong, in my 'umble opinion. But what does that
+matter? You know that I never set foot in Upcote Church till three years
+ago--that bishops and ceremonies are nought to me--that I came to God, as
+many of you did, by the Bible class and the penitent form. But I declare
+to you that Richard Meynell, and the men with him, are _out for a big
+thing!_ They're out for breaking down barriers and letting in light.
+They're out for bringing Christian men together and letting them worship
+freely in the old churches that our fathers built. They're out for giving
+men and women new thoughts about God and Christ, and for letting them put
+them into new words, if they want to. Well, I say again, it's _a big
+thing_! And Satan's out, too, for stopping it! Don't you make any mistake
+about it! This bad business--of these libels that are about--is one of
+the obstacles in our race he'll trip us up on, if he can. Now I put it to
+you--let us clear it out o' the way this very night, as far as we're
+concerned! Let us send the Rector such a vote of confidence from this
+meeting as'll show him fast enough where he stands in Upcote--aye, and
+show others too! And as for these vile letters that are going round--I'd
+give my right hand to know the man who wrote them!--and the story that
+you, sir"--he pointed again to Barron--"say you took from poor Judith
+Sabin when her mind was clouded and she near her end--why, it's base
+minds that harbour base thoughts about their betters! He shall be no
+friend of mine--that I know--that spreads these tales. Friends and
+neighbours, let us keep our tongues from them--and our children's
+tongues! Let us show that we can trust a man that deserves our trust. Let
+us stand by a good man that's stood by us; and let us pray God to show
+the right!"
+
+The greater part of the audience, sincerely moved, rose to their feet and
+cheered. Barron endeavoured to reply, but was scarcely listened to. The
+publican East sat twirling his hat in his hands, sarcastic smiles going
+out and in upon his fat cheeks, his furtive eyes every now and then
+consulting the tall spinster who sat beside him, grimly immovable, her
+spectacled eyes fixed apparently on the lamp above the platform.
+
+Flaxman wished to speak, but was deterred by the reflection that as a
+newcomer in the district he had scarcely a valid right to interfere. He
+and Rose stayed till the vote of confidence had been passed by a large
+majority--though not so large as that which had accepted the new
+Liturgy--after which they drove home rather depressed and ill at ease.
+For in truth the plague of anonymous letters was rather increasing than
+abating. Flaxman had had news that day of the arrival of two more among
+their own country-house acquaintance of the neighbourhood. He sat down,
+in obedience to a letter from Dornal, to write a doleful report of the
+meeting to the Bishop.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meynell received the vote of confidence very calmly, and wrote a short
+note of thanks to Beswick. Then for some weeks, while the discussion of
+his 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. He
+prepared his defence for the Court of Arches; he wrote for the
+_Modernist_; and he gave as much mind as he could possibly spare to the
+unravelling of Philip Meryon's history.
+
+In this matter, however, he made but very slow and disappointing
+progress. He became more and more convinced, and his solicitor with him,
+that there had been a Scotch marriage some eighteen months before this
+date between Meryon and the sister of a farmer in the Lothians, with whom
+he had come in contact during a fishing tenancy. But what appeared in the
+course of investigation was that the woman concerned and all her kindred
+were now just as anxious--aided by the ambiguities of the Scotch marriage
+law--to cover up and conceal the affair as was Meryon himself. She could
+not be got to put forward any claim; her family would say nothing; and
+the few witnesses hitherto available were tending to disappear. No doubt
+Philip was at work corrupting them; and the supposed wife was evidently
+quite willing, if not eager, to abet him.
+
+Every week he heard from Mary, letters which, written within bounds fully
+understood by them both and never transgressed, revealed to him the
+tremulous tenderness and purity of the heart he knew--though he would not
+confess it to himself--he had conquered. These letters became to him the
+stay 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 was
+determined not to know the details of his struggle; and nothing helped
+him more than the absolute trust of her ignorance.
+
+He heard also constantly from Alice Puttenham. She, too, poor soul--but
+how differently!--was protecting herself as best she could from an odious
+knowledge.
+
+"Edith writes to me, full of terrible things that are being said in
+England; but as I can do nothing, and must do nothing according to you, I
+do not read her letters. She sends me a local newspaper sometimes, scored
+with her marks and signs that are like shrieks of horror, and I put it in
+the fire. What I suffer I will keep to myself. Perhaps the worst part of
+every 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 in
+spirits or buoyancy.
+
+"She is very well and wonderfully beautiful; at present she is having
+lessons 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 how
+the quiet family she is with clucks after her in perpetual anxiety, and
+how cavalierly she treats them. I think she is fairly happy; she never
+mentions Meryon's name; but I often have a strange sense that she is
+looking 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 it
+matters 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 of
+what is going on in England--and she says she adores Paris."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One night in December Meynell came in late from a carpentering class of
+village boys. The usual pile of letters and books awaited him, and he
+began upon them reluctantly. As he read them, and put them aside, one
+by one, his face gradually changed and darkened. He recalled a saying of
+Amiel's about the French word "consideration"--what it means to a man to
+have enjoyed unvarying and growing "consideration" from his world; and
+then, suddenly, to be threatened with the loss of it. Life and
+consciousness 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 Central
+Modernist Committee. For some months it had been a settled thing that
+Meynell should preach the sermon in Dunchester Cathedral on the great
+occasion in January when the new Liturgy of the Reform was to be
+inaugurated with all possible solemnity in one of England's most famous
+churches.
+
+His correspondent wrote to suggest that after all the sermon would be
+more fitly entrusted to the Modernist Bishop of Dunchester himself. "He
+has worked hard, and risked much for us. I may say that inquiries have
+been thrown out, and we find he is willing."
+
+No apology--perfunctory regrets--and very little explanation! Meynell
+understood.
+
+He put the letter away, conscious of a keenly smarting mind. It was now
+clear to him that he had made a grave misreckoning; humiliating, perhaps
+irreparable. He had counted, with a certain confident simplicity, on
+the power of his mere word, backed by his character and reputation, to
+put the thing down; and they were not strong enough. Barron's influence
+seemed to him immense and increasing. A proud and sensitive man forced
+himself to envisage the possibility of an eventual overthrow.
+
+He opened a drawer in order to put away the letter. The drawer was very
+full, and in the difficulty of getting it out he pulled it too far and
+its contents fell to the floor. He stooped to pick them up--perceived
+first the anonymous letter that Barron had handed to him, the letter
+addressed to Dawes; and then, beneath it, a long envelope deep in
+dust--labelled "M.B.--Keep for three years." He took up both letter and
+envelope 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 long
+envelope and broke the seal. Inside was a document headed, "A
+Confession." And at the foot of it appeared a signature--"Maurice
+Barron."
+
+Meynell put the two things together--the "confession" and the anonymous
+letter. Very soon he began to compare word with word and stroke with
+stroke, gradually penetrating the disguise of the later handwriting.
+At the end of the process he understood the vague recollection which had
+disturbed him when he first saw the letter.
+
+He stood motionless a little, expressions chasing each other across his
+face. Then he locked up both letters, reached a hand for his pipe, called
+a good night to Anne, who was going upstairs to bed, and with his dogs
+about him fell into a long meditation, while the night wore on.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+It was in the week before Christmas that Professor Vetch--the same
+Professor who had been one of the Bishop's Commission of Inquiry in
+Richard Meynell's case--knocked one afternoon at Canon France's door to
+ask for a cup of tea. He had come down to give a lecture to the Church
+Club which had been recently started in Markborough in opposition to the
+Reformers' Club; but his acceptance of the invitation had been a good
+deal determined by his very keen desire to probe the later extraordinary
+developments of the Meynell affair on the spot.
+
+France was in his low-ceiled study, occupied as usual with drawers full
+of documents of various kinds; most of them mediaeval deeds and charters
+which he was calendaring for the Cathedral Library. His table and the
+floor were littered by them; a stack of the Rolls publications was on his
+right hand; a Dugdale's "Monasticon" lay open at a little distance; and
+curled upon a newspaper beside it lay a gray kitten. The kitten had that
+morning upset an inkstand over three sheets of the Canon's laborious
+handwriting. At the time he had indeed dropped her angrily by the scruff
+of the neck into a wastepaper basket to repent of her sins; but here she
+was 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, who
+lived with him, was aware. Twenty years before--just after his
+appointment to the canonry--he had married a young and--in the opinion of
+his family--flighty wife, who had lived a year and then died. She had
+passed like a spring flower; and after a year or two all that was
+remembered about her was that she had chosen the drawing-room paper,
+which was rather garishly pink, like her own cheeks. In the course of
+time the paper had become so discoloured and patchy that Miss France was
+ashamed of it. For years her brother turned a deaf ear to her remarks on
+the subject. At last he allowed her to repaper the room. But she
+presently discovered that close to the seat he generally occupied in the
+drawing-room of an evening there was a large hole in the new paper made
+by the rubbing and scraping of the Canon's fingers as he sat at tea.
+Through it the original pink reappeared. More than once Miss France
+caught her brother looking contentedly at his work of mischief. But she
+dared not speak of it to him, nor do anything to repair the damage.
+
+As France perceived the identity of the visitor whom his old manservant
+was showing into the study, a slight shade of annoyance passed over his
+face. But he received the Professor civilly, cleared a chair of books in
+order 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 of
+Meynell, and he therefore dallied a little with matters of Biblical
+criticism. France, however, took no interest whatever in them; and even
+an adroit description of a paper recently read by the speaker himself
+at an Oxford meeting failed to kindle a spark. Vetch found himself driven
+upon the real object of his visit.
+
+He desired to know--understanding that the Canon was an old friend of
+Henry 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 in
+the 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 have
+come to the conclusion," he added dryly, "that Barron is not a person of
+delicacy."
+
+The Professor, rather taken aback, argued on Barron's behalf. Would
+it have been seemly or right for a man--a Churchman of Barron's
+prominence--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 eyes
+that shone so vividly above his large hanging cheeks. "Meynell says the
+story is untrue."
+
+"Ah! but let him prove it!" cried the Professor, his young-old face
+flushing. "He has made a wanton attack upon the Church; he cannot
+possibly expect any quarter from us. We are not in the least bound to
+hold 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, let
+Meynell take the usual steps. If he takes them successfully, we shall all
+rejoice. But his character has been made, so to speak, one of the pieces
+in 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 was
+beginning to be tarred with the Modernist brush. No!--impossible. For
+that 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, of
+course, is that there is some truth in the story, but that Meynell is not
+the hero. And he doesn't see his way to clear himself by dishing other
+people."
+
+"I see." The obstinacy in the smooth voice rasped France. "If so, most
+unlucky for him! But then let him resign his living, and go quietly into
+obscurity. He owes it to his own side. For them the whole thing is
+disaster. He _must_ either clear himself or go."
+
+"Oh, give him a little time!" said France sharply, "give him a little
+time." Then, with a change of tone--"The anonymous letters, of course,
+are the really interesting things in the case. Perhaps you have a theory
+about 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 that
+they grow increasingly dramatic and detailed. Evidently some clever
+fellow--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, who
+was for deserting his knee, and with the other he drew toward him the
+folio 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, thinking
+with 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 left
+hand. 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, and
+disgusted with himself.
+
+"Why haven't I given Meynell a helping hand? Why did I talk like that to
+Barron when he first began this business? And why have I let him come
+here as he has done since--without telling him what I really thought
+of him?"
+
+He fell for some minutes into an abyss of thought; thought which seemed
+to range not so much over the circumstances connected with Meynell as
+over 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 bitter
+decision, and laying down his pipe he went back to his papers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Almost at the same moment the Bishop was interviewing Henry Barron in the
+little book-lined room beyond the main library, which he kept for the
+business he most disliked. He never put the distinction into words, but
+when 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, very
+much on his defence, he sat _tete-a-tete_ with the Bishop. He had
+recognized from the beginning that nothing of what he had done was really
+welcome or acceptable to Bishop Craye. While he, on his side, felt
+himself a benefactor to the Church in general, and to the Bishop of
+Markborough in particular, instinctively he knew that the Bishop's taste
+ungratefully disapproved of him; and the knowledge contributed an extra
+shade of pomposity to his manner.
+
+He had just given a sketch of the church meeting at Upcote, and of the
+situation in the village up to date. The Bishop sat absently patting his
+thin knees, and evidently very much concerned.
+
+"A most unpleasant--a most painful scene. I confess, Mr. Barron, I think
+it 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 into
+the open. For his own sake--for the parish's--the situation must be
+brought to an end, in some way. The indecency of it at present is
+intolerable."
+
+"You forget. The trial is only a few weeks off. Meynell will certainly be
+deprived."
+
+"No doubt. But then there is the Privy Council Appeal. And even when he
+is deprived, Meynell does not mean to leave the village. He has made all
+his 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 he
+clears himself of this business this diocese at least will have none of
+him!"
+
+"Why, the great majority of the people adore him!" cried the Bishop. "And
+meanwhile I understand the other poor things are already driven away.
+They tell me the Fox-Wiltons' house is to let, and Miss Puttenham gone to
+Paris 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 same
+time that all these persons have been in a conspiracy together to impose
+a falsehood on their neighbours; and that for many years we have been
+admitting Miss Puttenham to our house and our friendship--to the
+companionship of our daughters--in complete ignorance of her character."
+
+"Oh, poor thing! poor thing!" said the Bishop hastily. "The thought
+of her haunts me. She must know what is going on--or a great deal of
+it--though indeed I hope she doesn't--I hope with all my heart she
+doesn't! Well, now, Mr. Barron--you have written me long letters--and I
+trust that you will allow me a little close inquiry into some of these
+matters."
+
+"The closer the better, my lord."
+
+"You have not as yet come to any opinion whatever as to the authorship of
+these letters?"
+
+Barron looked troubled.
+
+"I am entirely at a loss," he said, emphatically. "Once or twice I have
+thought myself on the track. There is that man East, whose license
+Meynell opposed--"
+
+"One of the 'aggrieved parishioners'," said the Bishop, raising his hands
+and eyebrows.
+
+"You regret, my lord, that we should be mixed up with such a person? So
+do I. But with a whole parish in a conspiracy to support the law-breaking
+that was going on, what could we do? However, that is not now the point.
+I have suspected East. I have questioned him. He showed extraordinary
+levity, and was--to myself personally--what I can only call insolent. But
+he swore to me that he had not written the letters; and indeed I am
+convinced that he could not have written them. He is almost an
+illiterate--can barely read and write. I still suspect him. But if he is
+in 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 Broad
+is a very simple fellow--has no enmity against Meynell, quite the
+contrary. He vows that he never knew why his mother went abroad with Lady
+Fox-Wilton, or why she went to America; and though she talked a lot of
+what he calls 'queer stuff' in the few hours he had with her before my
+visit, he couldn't make head or tail of a good deal of it, and didn't
+trouble his head about it. And after my visit, he found her incoherent
+and delirious. Moreover, he declared to me solemnly that he knew nothing
+about the letters; and I certainly have no means of bringing it home to
+him."
+
+The Bishop's blue eyes were sharply fixed upon the speaker. But on the
+whole Barron's manner in these remarks had favourably impressed his
+companion.
+
+"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 your
+own conversation--of course quite unconsciously on your part--has not
+given hints to some person, some unscrupulous third person, an enemy of
+Meynell's, who has been making use of information he may have got from
+you to write these letters? Forgive the inquiry--but you will realize how
+very important it is--for Church interests--that the suit against Meynell
+in the Church Courts should not be in any way mixed up with this wretched
+and discreditable business of the anonymous letters!"
+
+Barron flushed a little.
+
+"I have of course spoken of the matter in my own family," he said
+proudly. "I have already told you, my lord, that I confided the whole
+thing to my son Stephen very early in the day."
+
+The Bishop smiled.
+
+"We may dismiss Stephen I think--the soul of honour and devoted to
+Meynell. Can you remember no one else?"
+
+Barron endeavoured to show no resentment at these inquiries. But it was
+clear that they galled.
+
+"The only other members of my household are my daughter Theresa, and
+occasionally, 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 that
+recently all the letters have been typewritten?"
+
+"All but two--the letter to Dawes, and a letter which I believe was
+received by Mrs. Elsmere. I gave the Dawes letter to Meynell at his
+request."
+
+"Having failed to identify the handwriting?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+Yet, even as he spoke, for the first time, a sudden misgiving, like the
+pinch of an insect, brushed Barron's consciousness. He had not, as a
+matter of fact, examined the Dawes letter very carefully, having been, as
+he now clearly remembered, in a state of considerable mental excitement
+during the whole time it was in his possession and thinking much more of
+the effect of the first crop of letters on the situation, than of the
+details of the Dawes letter itself. But he did remember, now that the
+Bishop pressed him, that when he first looked at the letter he had been
+conscious of a momentary sense of likeness to a handwriting he knew; to
+Maurice's handwriting, in fact. But he had repelled the suggestion as
+absurd in the first instance, and after a momentary start, he angrily
+repelled it now.
+
+The Bishop emerged from a brown study.
+
+"It is a most mysterious thing! Have you been able to verify the
+postmarks?"
+
+"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 little
+reminder. 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 put
+the Church's interest first."
+
+Something in the Bishop suddenly and sharply drew away from the man
+beside him. He held himself with a cold dignity.
+
+"For myself, personally--I tell you frankly--I cannot bring myself to
+believe a word of this story, so far as it concerns Meynell. I believe
+there is a terrible mistake at the bottom of it, and I prefer to trust
+twenty years of noble living rather than the tale of a poor distraught
+creature like Judith Sabin. At the same time, of course, I recognize
+that you have a right to your opinions, as I have to mine. But, my dear
+sir"--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 all
+that tells for him! Don't--you will allow me this friendly word--don't
+land yourself in a great, perhaps a life-long self-reproach!"
+
+There was a note of sternness in the speaker's voice; but the small
+parchment face and the eyes of china-blue shone, as though kindled from
+within by the pure and generous spirit of the man.
+
+"My lord, I have said my say." Barron had also risen, and stood towering
+over 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 see
+you? 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; "no
+doubt because of our already strained relations."
+
+On Barron's lips there dawned something which could hardly be called a
+smile--or triumphant; but the Bishop caught it. In another minute the
+door had closed upon his visitor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Barron walked away through the Close, his mind seething with anger and
+resentment. He felt that he had been treated as an embarrassment rather
+than an ally; and he vowed to himself that the Bishop's whole attitude
+had been grudging and unfriendly.
+
+As he passed on to the broad stone pavement that bordered the south
+transept he became aware of a man coming toward him. Raising his eyes he
+saw that it was Meynell.
+
+There was no way of avoiding the encounter. As the two men passed Barron
+made a mechanical sign of recognition. Meynell lifted his head and looked
+at him full. It was a strange look, intent and piercing, charged with the
+personality of the man behind it.
+
+Barron passed on, quivering. He felt that he hated Meynell. The disguise
+of a public motive dropped away; and he knew that he hated him
+personally.
+
+At the same time the sudden slight misgiving he had been conscious of in
+the 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 expression
+mingled with the vague uneasiness he tried in vain to put from him.
+
+Meynell walked home by Forked Pond to Maudeley. He lingered a little in
+the leafless woods round the cottage, now shut up, and he chose the
+longer path that he might actually pass the very window near which Mary
+had stood when she spoke those softly broken words--words from a woman's
+soul--which his memory had by heart. And his pulse leapt at the scarcely
+admitted thought that perhaps--now--in a few weeks he might be walking
+the 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 the
+library, where Rose, though bubbling over with question and conjecture,
+self-denyingly refrained from joining them. The consultation of the two
+men lasted about an hour, and when Flaxman rejoined his wife, he came
+alone.
+
+"Gone?" said Rose, with a disappointed look. "Oh! I did want to shake his
+hand!"
+
+Flaxman's gesture was unsympathetic.
+
+"It is not the time for that yet. This business has gone deep with him. I
+don't exactly know what he will do. But he has made me promise various
+things."
+
+"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 may
+crush Lady St. Morice."
+
+Lady St. Morice was the wife of the Lord Lieutenant, and had at a recent
+dinner party, in Rose's presence, hotly asserted her belief in the
+charges brought against the Rector of Upcote. She possessed a private
+chapel adorned with pre-Raphaelite frescoes, and was the sister of one of
+the chief leaders of the High Orthodox party in convocation.
+
+"She doesn't often speak to the likes of me," said Rose; "which of course
+is a great advantage for the likes of me. But next time I shall speak to
+her--which will be so good for her. My dear Hugh, don't let Meynell be
+too magnanimous--I can't stand it."
+
+Flaxman laughed, but rather absently. It was evident that he was still
+under the strong impression of the conversation he had just passed
+through.
+
+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 the
+Christmas business of a large parish. His mind was full of agitation, and
+when midnight struck, ushering in Christmas Eve, he was still undecided
+as to his precise course.
+
+Among the letters of the day lying scattered beside him on the floor
+there was yet further evidence of the power of Barron's campaign. There
+were warm expressions indeed of sympathy and indignation to be found
+among them, but on the whole Meynell realized that his own side's belief
+in him was showing some signs of distress, while the attack upon him was
+increasing in violence. His silence even to his most intimate friends,
+even to his Bishop; the disappearance from England of the other persons
+named in the scandal; the constant elaborations and embellishments of the
+story as it passed from mouth to mouth--these things were telling against
+him steadily and disastrously.
+
+As he hung over the fire, he anxiously reconsidered his conduct toward
+the Bishop, while Catharine's phrase--"He, too, has his rights!" lingered
+in 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 Bishop
+in possession of the whole story? The Bishop's bare denial would have
+been added to his; nothing more. There could have been no explanation,
+public or private; nothing to persuade those who did not wish to be
+persuaded.
+
+His thought wandered hither and thither. From the dim regions of the past
+there emerged a letter....
+
+"My dear old Meynell, the thing is to be covered up. Ralph will
+acknowledge the child, and all precautions are to be taken. I think
+what 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 way
+out--which will be the best for her too in the end, poor darling. My
+wife's letter a week ago destroyed my last hope. I am going out
+to-night--and I shall not come back. Stand by her, Richard. I think this
+kind of lie on which we are all embarked is wrong (not that you had
+anything to do with it!) But it is society which is wrong and imposes it
+on us. Anyway, the choice is made, and now you must support and protect
+her--and the child--for my sake. For I know you love me, dear boy--little
+as I deserve it. It is part of your general gift of loving, which has
+always seemed to me so strange. However--whatever I was made for, you
+were made to help the unhappy. So I have the less scruple in sending you
+this last word. She will want your help. The child's lot in that
+household 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, I
+hope, will marry. And when the child marries, you may--nay, I think you
+must--tell the husband. I have written this to Ralph. But for all the
+rest of the world, the truth is now wiped out. The child is no longer
+mine--Alice was never my love--and I am going to the last sleep. My
+sister Fanny Meryon knows something; enough to make her miserable; but no
+names or details. Well!--good-bye. In your company alone have I ever
+seemed 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--but
+forgive me!--my very dear Richard! Here comes the boat; and there is a
+splendid sea rising."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There, in a locked drawer, not far from him, lay this letter. Meynell's
+thought plunged back into the past; into its passionate feeling, its
+burning pity, its powerless affection. He recalled his young hero-worship
+for his brilliant kinsman; the hour when he had identified the battered
+form on the shore of the Donegal Lough; the sight of Alice's young
+anguish; 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 from
+which his own soul had learnt so much.
+
+Pure and sacred recollections!--mingled often with the moral or
+intellectual 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 the
+name of Christ--in the name of the Church!
+
+To-morrow! He rose, with a face set like iron, and went back to his table
+to 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 her
+sitting-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 of
+Maurice, troubled her sorely. It was only that morning Mr. Barron had
+become aware that Maurice had lost his employment, and was again adrift
+in the world. Theresa had known it for a week or two, but had not been
+allowed to tell. And she tried not to remember how often of late her
+brother had applied to her for money.
+
+Going back to her accounts with a sigh, she missed a necessary receipt
+and went into the dining-room to look for it. While she was there the
+front door bell rang and was answered, unheard by her. Thus it fell out
+that as she came back into the hall she found herself face to face with
+Richard Meynell.
+
+She stood paralyzed with astonishment. He bowed to her gravely and passed
+on. Something in his look seemed to her to spell calamity. She went back
+to her room, and sat there dumb and trembling, dreading what she might
+see 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 each
+other as the door closed.
+
+Barron spoke first.
+
+"You will, I trust, let me know, Mr. Meynell, without delay to what I owe
+this unexpected visit. I was of course quite ready to meet your desire
+for 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 suddenly
+he raised them.
+
+"Mr. Barron, what I have come to say will be a shock to you. I have
+discovered the author of the anonymous letters which have now for nearly
+three months been defiling this parish and diocese."
+
+Barron's sudden movement showed the effect of the words. But he held
+himself well in hand.
+
+"I congratulate you," he said coldly. "It is what we have all been trying
+to discover."
+
+"But the discovery will be painful to you. For the author of these
+letters, 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 to
+insult my family and myself! It would have been better to write. And you
+may be very sure that if you cannot punish your slanderers we can--and
+will!"
+
+His attitude expressed a quivering fury. Meynell took a packet from his
+breast-pocket and quietly laid it on the table beside him.
+
+"In this envelope you will find a document--a confession of a piece of
+wrongdoing on Maurice's part of which I believe you have never been
+informed. His poor sister concealed it--and paid for it. Do you remember,
+three years ago, the letting loose of some valuable young horses from
+Farmer Grange's stables--the hue and cry after them--and the difficulty
+there was in recapturing them on the Chase?"
+
+Barron stared at the speaker--speechless.
+
+"You remember that a certain young fellow was accused--James Aston--one
+of my Sunday school teachers--who had proposed to Grange's daughter,
+and had been sent about his business by the father? Aston was in fact
+just about to be run in by the police, when a clue came to my hands. I
+followed it up. Then I found out that the ringleader in the whole affair
+had been your son Maurice. If you remember, he was then at home, hanging
+about the village, and he had had a quarrel with Grange--I forget about
+what. He wrote an anonymous post-card accusing Aston. However, I got on
+the track; and finally I made him give me a written confession--to
+protect Aston. Heavy compensation was paid to Grange--by your
+daughter--and the thing was hushed up. I was always doubtful whether I
+ought not to have come to you. But it was not long after the death of
+your wife. I was very sorry for you all--and Maurice pleaded hard. I did
+not even tell Stephen; but I kept the confession. I came upon it a night
+or two ago, in the drawer where I had also placed the letter to Dawes
+which I got from you. Suddenly, the likeness in the handwritings struck
+me; and I made a very careful comparison."
+
+He opened the packet, and took out the two papers, which he offered to
+Barron.
+
+"I think, if you will compare the marked passages, you will see at least
+a striking resemblance."
+
+With a shaking hand Barron refused the papers.
+
+"I have no doubt, sir, you can manufacture any evidence you please!--but
+I 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 same
+composure. "I think you had better listen ... A passage in one of the
+recent letters gave me a hint--an idea. I went straight to East the
+publican, and taxed him with being the accomplice of the writer. I
+blustered a little--he thought I had more evidence than I had--and at
+last I got the whole thing out of him. The first letter was written"--the
+speaker raised his finger, articulating each word with slow precision,
+"by your son Maurice, and posted by East, the day after the cage-accident
+at the Victoria pit; and they have pursued the same division of labour
+ever since. East confesses he was induced to do it by the wish to revenge
+himself on me for the attack on his license; and Maurice occasionally
+gave him a little money. I have all the dates of the letters, and a
+statement of where they were posted. If necessary, East will give
+evidence."
+
+A silence. Barron had resumed his seat, and was automatically lifting a
+small book which lay on a table near him and letting it fall, while
+Meynell was speaking. When Meynell paused, he said thickly--
+
+"A plausible tale no doubt--and a very convenient one for you. But allow
+me to point out, it rests entirely on East's word. Very likely he wrote
+the letters himself, and is attempting to make Maurice the scapegoat."
+
+"Where do you suppose he could have got his information from?" said
+Meynell, looking up. "There is no suggestion that _he_ saw Judith Sabin
+before her death."
+
+Barron's face worked, while Meynell watched him implacably. At last he
+said:
+
+"How should I know? The same question applies to Maurice."
+
+"Not at all. There the case is absolutely clear. Maurice got his
+information from you."
+
+"A gratuitous statement, sir!--which you cannot prove."
+
+"From you"--repeated Meynell. "And from certain spying operations that he
+and East undertook together. Do you deny that you told Maurice all that
+Judith Sabin told you--together with her identification of myself?"
+
+The room seemed to wait for Barron's reply. He made none. He burst out
+instead--
+
+"What possible motive could Maurice have had for such an action? The
+thing 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 need
+to say how. I tried to prevent him from publicly disgracing himself
+and you; and I did prevent him. He saw in this business an easy revenge
+on a sanctimonious parson who had interfered with his pleasures."
+
+Barron had risen and was pacing the room with unsteady steps. Meynell
+still watched him, with the same glitter in the eye. Meynell's whole
+nature indeed, at the moment, had gathered itself into one avenging
+force; he was at once sword and smiter. The man before him seemed to him
+embodied cruelty and hypocrisy; he felt neither pity nor compunction. And
+presently he said abruptly--
+
+"But I am afraid I have much more serious matter to lay before you than
+this 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 to
+refuse it, as he had refused the others. But Meynell insisted.
+
+"Believe me, you had better read it. It is a letter from Mr. Flaxman to
+myself, and it concerns a grave charge against your son. I bring you a
+chance 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 same
+impassive "possessed" state.
+
+Suddenly, Barron put his hand over his face, and a groan he could not
+repress broke from him. He turned his back and stood bending over the
+letter.
+
+At the same instant a shiver ran through Meynell, like the return to life
+of some arrested energy, some paralyzed power. The shock of that sound of
+suffering had found him iron; it left him flesh. The spiritual habit of a
+lifetime 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 at
+least--if you will. I have arranged that with Flaxman. It was my seeing
+him 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 you
+see, certain dealers' shops were watched by a private detective. Maurice
+appeared--sold the Hermes coin--was traced to his lodgings and
+identified. So far the thing has not gone beyond private inquiry; for the
+dealer will do what Flaxman wants him to do. But Maurice still has the
+more famous of the two coins; and if he attempts to sell that, after the
+notices to the police, there may be an exposure any day. You must go up
+to London as soon as you can--"
+
+"I will go to-night," said Barron, in a tone scarcely to be heard. He
+stood with his hands on his sides, staring out upon the wintry garden
+outside, just as a gardener's boy laden with holly and ivy for the
+customary 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 and
+ruddy face for any tragic expression made it the more tragic.
+
+"I propose to write to the Bishop at once. Do you desire a public
+statement?"
+
+"There must be a public statement," said Meynell gravely. "The thing has
+gone 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 the
+open page. "I don't want you to sign that by _force majeure_. Dismiss--if
+you can--any thought of any hold I may have upon you, because of
+Maurice'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 any
+compulsion--to accept my word as an honest man that I am absolutely
+innocent of the charge you have brought against me."
+
+Barron, who was sitting before his writing-table, buried his face in his
+hands 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 of
+emotion--"And I may also count upon your doing henceforth what you can to
+protect that poor lady, Miss Puttenham, and her kinsfolk, from the
+consequences of this long persecution?"
+
+Barron made a sign of assent. Meynell left him to read and sign the
+public apology and retraction, which Flaxman had mainly drawn up; while
+the Rector himself took up a Bradshaw lying on the table, and walked to
+the window to consult it.
+
+"You will catch the 1.40," he said, as Barron rose from the
+writing-table. "Let me advise you to get him out of the country for a
+time."
+
+Barron said nothing. He came heavily toward the window, and the two men
+stood looking at each other, overtaken both of them by a mounting wave of
+consciousness. The events, passions, emotions of the preceding months
+pressed into memory, and beat against the silence. But it was Meynell who
+turned pale.
+
+"What a pity--to spoil the fight!" he said in a low voice. "It would have
+been 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 toward
+the door:
+
+"Remember--Flaxman holds his hand entirely. The situation is with you."
+Then, after a moment's hesitation, he added simply, almost shyly--"God
+help you! Won't you consult your daughter?"
+
+Barron made no answer. The door opened and shut.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV
+
+
+
+
+MEYNELL AND MARY
+
+
+".... but Life ere long
+Came on me in the public ways and bent
+Eyes 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 of
+hoar-frost the sun was shining brightly on the terrace, and on the
+panorama it commands. A pleasant light lay on the charming houses that
+front the skirts of the forest, on the blue-gray windings of the Seine,
+on the groves of leafless poplars interwoven with its course, on the
+plain with its thickly sown villages, on the height of Mont Valerien,
+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 road
+leading from it to the town were deserted; and it was easy to see from
+the aspect of the famous hotel at the corner of the terrace that,
+although not closed, it despaired of visitors. Only a trio of French
+officers 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 was
+briskly pacing up and down that section of the terrace which abuts on the
+hotel.
+
+The young man was Philip Meryon. His dark tweed suit and fur waistcoat
+disclosed a figure once singularly agile and slender, on which
+self-indulgence was now beginning to tell. Nevertheless, as the _bonne_
+passed him she duly noted and admired his pictorial good looks, opining
+at the same time that he was not French. Why was he there? She decided in
+her own mind that he was there for an assignation, by which she meant, of
+course, a meeting with a married woman; and she smiled the incorrigible
+French smile.
+
+Assignation or no, she would have seen, had she looked closer, that the
+young man in question was in no merely beatific or expectant frame of
+mind. Meryon's look was a look both of excitement--as of one under the
+influence 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 to
+any 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 careless
+letter enclosing the payment of a debt, and written by a young actor, who
+had formed part of one of the bohemian parties at the Abbey, during the
+summer, and had now been playing for a week in the Markborough theatre,
+had given Meryon the clue to the many vague conjectures or perplexities
+which had already crossed his mind with regard to Hester's origin and
+history.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Your sanctified cousin, Richard Meynell" [wrote the young man] "seems
+after all to be made of the common clay. There are strange stories going
+the round about him here; especially in a crop of anonymous letters of
+which the author can't be found. I send you a local newspaper which has
+dared to print one of them with dashes for the names. The landlord of the
+inn told me how to fill them up, and you will see I have done it. The
+beauteous maiden herself has vanished from the scene--as no doubt you
+know. 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 print
+these things, you may perhaps be interested in what I enclose. Alack, my
+dear Philip, for the saints! They seem not so very different from you and
+me."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The eagerness with which Philip had read the newspaper cutting enclosed
+in the letter was only equalled by the eagerness with which afterward he
+fell to meditating upon it; pursuing and ferreting out the truth, through
+a maze of personal recollection and inference.
+
+Richard!--nonsense! He laughed, from a full throat. Not for one moment
+was Philip misled by Judith Sabin's mistake. He was a man of great
+natural shrewdness, blunted no doubt by riotous living; but there was
+enough of it left, aided by his recent forced contacts with his cousin
+Richard all turning on the subject of Hester, to keep him straight. So
+that without any demur at all he rejected the story as it stood.
+
+But then, what was the fact behind it? Impossible that Judith Sabin's
+story should be all delusion! For whom did she mistake Richard?
+
+Suddenly, as he sat brooding and smoking, a vision of Hester flashed upon
+him as she had stood laughing and pouting, beneath the full length
+picture of Neville Flood, which hung in the big hall of the Abbey. He had
+pointed it out to her on their way through the house--where she had
+peremptorily 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 be
+offended! He was the handsome man of his day."
+
+Of course! The truth jumped to the eyes, now that one was put in the way
+of seeing it. And on this decisive recollection there had followed a rush
+of others, no less pertinent: things said by his dead mother about the
+brother whom she had loved and bitterly regretted. So the wronged lady
+whom 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 Upcote
+woods. Hester had pointed her out, finger on lip, as they stood hiding in
+a thicket of fern; a pretty woman still. His mother had never mentioned a
+name; probably she had never known it; but to the love-affair she had
+always attributed some share in her brother's death.
+
+From point to point he tracked it, the poor secret, till he had run it
+down. By degrees everything fitted in; he was confident that he had
+guessed the truth.
+
+Then, abruptly, he turned to look at its bearing on his own designs and
+fortunes.
+
+He supposed himself to be in love with Hester. At any rate he was
+violently conscious of that hawk-like instinct of pursuit which he was
+accustomed to call love. Hester's mad and childish imprudences, which the
+cooler self in Meryon was quite ready to recognize as such, had made the
+hawking a singularly easy task so far. Meynell, of course, had put up
+difficulties; with regard to this Scotch business it had been necessary
+to lie pretty hard, and to bribe some humble folk in order to get round
+him. But Hester, by the double fact that she was at once so far removed
+from the mere _ingenue_, and so incredibly ready to risk herself, out of
+sheer ignorance of life, both challenged and tempted the man whom a
+disastrous fate had brought across her path, to such a point that he had
+long since lost control of himself, and parted with any scruples of
+conscience he might possess.
+
+At the same time he was by no means sure of her. He realized his
+increasing power over her; he also realized the wild, independent streak
+in her. Some day--any day--the capricious, wilful nature might tire,
+might change. The prey might escape, and the hawk go empty home. No
+dallying too long! Let him decide what to risk--and risk it.
+
+Meantime that confounded cousin of his was hard at work, through some
+very capable lawyers, and unless the instructions he--Philip--had
+conveyed to the woman in Scotland, who, thank goodness, was no less
+anxious to be rid of him than he to be rid of her, were very shrewdly
+and exactly carried out, facts might in the end reach Hester which would
+give even her recklessness pause. He knew that so far Meynell had been
+baffled; he knew that he carried about with him evidence that, for the
+present, could be brought to bear on Hester with effect; but things were
+by no means safe.
+
+For his own affairs, they were desperate. As he stood there, he was
+nothing more in fact than the common needy adventurer, possessed,
+however, of greater daring, and the _debris_ of much greater pretensions,
+than most such persons. His financial resources were practically at an
+end, and he had come to look upon a clandestine marriage with Hester as
+the best means of replenishing them. The Fox-Wilton family passed for
+rich; and the notion that they must and would be ready to come forward
+with money, when once the thing was irrevocable, counted for much in the
+muddy plans of which his mind was full. His own idea was to go to South
+America--to Buenos Ayres, where money was to be made, and where he had
+some acquaintance. In that way he would shake off his creditors, and the
+Scotch woman together; and Meynell would know better than to interfere.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Suddenly a light figure came fluttering round the corner of the road
+leading to the chateau and the town. Philip turned and went to meet her.
+And as he approached her he was shaken afresh by the excitement of her
+presence, in addition to his more sordid preoccupation. Her wild,
+provocative beauty seemed to light up the whole wintry scene; and the few
+passers-by, each and all, stopped to stare at her. Hester laughed aloud
+when she saw Meryon; and with her usual recklessness held up her umbrella
+for signal. It pleased her that two _rapins_ in large black ties and
+steeple hats paid her an insolent attention as they passed her; and she
+stopped to pinch the cheek of a chubby child that had planted itself
+straight in her path.
+
+"Am I late?" she said, as they met. "I only just caught the train. Oh! I
+am so hungry! Don't let's talk--let's _dejeuner_."
+
+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 something
+like order. The loveliness of the young curving form, of the pretty
+hands, of the golden brown hair, struck full on Meryon's turbid sense.
+
+They turned toward the hotel, and were presently seated in a corner of
+its glazed gallery, with all the wide, prospect of plain and river spread
+beneath them. Hester was in the highest spirits, and as she sat waiting
+for the first _plat_, chattering, and nibbling at her roll, her black
+felt hat with its plume of cock feathers falling back from the brilliance
+of her face, she once more attracted all the attention available; from
+the two savants who, after a morning in the Chateau, were lunching at a
+farther table; from an American family of all ages reduced to silence
+by sheer wonder and contemplation; from the waiters, and, not least, from
+the hotel dog, wagging his tail mutely at her knee.
+
+Philip felt himself an envied person. He was, indeed, vain of his
+companion; but certain tyrannical instincts asserted themselves once or
+twice. When, or if, she became his possession, he would try and moderate
+some of this chatter and noise.
+
+For the present he occupied himself with playing to her lead, glancing
+every now and then mentally, with a secret start, at the information he
+had possessed about her since the morning.
+
+She described to him, with a number of new tricks of gesture caught from
+her French class-mates, how she had that morning outwitted all her
+guardians, who supposed that she had gone to Versailles with one of the
+senior members of the class she was attending at the Conservatoire, a
+young teacher, "_tres sage_," with whom she had been allowed once or
+twice to go to museums and galleries. To accomplish it had required an
+elaborate series of deceptions, which Hester had carried through,
+apparently, without a qualm. Except that at the end of her story there
+was a passing reference to Aunt Alice--"poor darling!"--"who would have a
+fit if she knew."
+
+Philip, coffee-cup in hand, half smiling, looked at her meantime through
+his partially closed lids. Richard, indeed! She was Neville all through,
+the Neville of the picture, except for the colour of the hair, and the
+soft 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 her
+share over the table, with a peremptory gesture.
+
+Meryon took it with a smile and a shrug, and she, throwing away the
+cigarette she had been defiantly smoking, rose from the table.
+
+"Now then, what shall we do? Oh! no museums! I am being educated to
+death! Let us go for a walk in the forest; and then I must catch my
+train, or the world will go mad."
+
+So they walked briskly into the forest, and were soon sufficiently deep
+among its leaf-strewn paths, to be secure from all observation. Two hours
+remained of wintry sunlight before they must turn back toward the
+station.
+
+Hester walked along swinging a small silk bag in which she carried her
+handkerchief and purse. Suddenly, in a narrow path girt by some tall
+hollies and withered oaks, she let it fall. Both stooped for it, their
+hands 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 stood
+still 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 wonder
+whether you do!"
+
+And flushed and panting, she leant against a tree, looking at him with a
+strange expression, in which melancholy mingled with resentment; passing
+slowly into something else--that soft and shaken look, that yearning of
+one longing and yet fearing to be loved, which had struck dismay into
+Meynell 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 me
+again!"
+
+He refrained. But catching her hand, and leaning against the trunk beside
+her, he poured into her ear protestations and flattery; the ordinary
+language of such a man at such a moment. Hester listened to it with a
+kind of eagerness. Sometimes, with a slight frown, as though ear and mind
+waited, intently, for something that did not come.
+
+"I wonder how many people you have said the same things to before!" she
+said suddenly, looking searchingly into his face. "What have you got to
+tell me about that Scotch girl?"
+
+"Richard's Scotch girl?"--he laughed, throwing his handsome head back
+against the tree--"whom Richard supposes me to have married? Well, I had
+a great flirtation with her, I admit, two years ago, and it is sometimes
+rather difficult in Scotland to know whether you are married or no. You
+know of course that all that's necessary is to declare yourselves man and
+wife before witnesses? However--perhaps you would like to see a letter
+from the lady herself on the subject?"
+
+"You had it ready?" she said, doubtfully.
+
+"Well, considering that Richard has been threatening me for months, not
+only with the loss of you, but with all sorts of pains and penalties
+besides, 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 to
+be my injured wife!"
+
+He placed an envelope in her hands.
+
+Hester opened it with a touch of scornful reluctance. It contained a
+categorical denial and repudiation of the supposed marriage.
+
+"Has Uncle Richard seen it?" she asked coldly, as she gave it back to
+him.
+
+"Certainly he has, by now." He took another envelope from his pocket. "I
+won't bother you with anything more--the thing is really too absurd!--but
+here, if you want it, is a letter from the girl's brother. Brothers are
+generally supposed to keep a sharp lookout on their sisters, aren't they?
+Well, this brother declares that Meynell's inquiries have come to
+nothing, absolutely nothing, in the neighbourhood--except that they have
+made people very angry. He has got no evidence--simply because there is
+none to get! I imagine, indeed, that by now he has dropped the whole
+business. And certainly it is high time he did; or I shall have to be
+taking action on my own account before long!"
+
+He looked down upon her, as she stood beside him, trying to make out her
+expression.
+
+"Hester!" he broke out, "don't let's talk about this any more--it's
+damned nonsense! Let's talk about ourselves. Hester!--darling!--I want
+to make you happy!--I want to carry you away. Hester, will you marry me
+at 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 we
+could 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 Italian
+Riviera--in a little bay all orange and lemon and blue sea. We'd
+honeymoon there; and when we were tired of honeymooning--though how could
+any one tire of honeymooning, with you, you darling!--we'd go to South
+America. I have an opening at Buenos Ayres which promises to make me a
+rich 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 and
+ride and explore--we'd have a glorious life!"
+
+He had caught her hands again, and stood towering over her, intoxicated
+with his own tinsel phrases; almost sincere; a splendid physical
+presence, save for the slight thickening of face and form, the looseness
+of the lips, the absence of all freshness in the eyes.
+
+But Hester, after a first moment of dreamy excitement, drew herself
+decidedly away.
+
+"No, no!--I can't be such a wretch--I can't! Mamma and Aunt Alice would
+break 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 know
+each 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 you
+let me alone--if you don't tease me--I--I'll marry you. But let's do it
+openly. It's amusing to get one's own way, even by lies, up to a certain
+point. They wouldn't let me see you, or get to know you, and I was
+determined 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's
+opposition, exaggerating the legal powers of guardians, declaring
+vehemently that it was now or never. Hester grew very white as they
+wandered on through the forest, but she did not yield. Some last scruple
+of conscience, perhaps--some fluttering fear, possessed her.
+
+So that in the end Philip was pushed to the villainy that even he would
+have 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--you
+don't know what a position you're in. I want to save you from it. I
+would 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 afternoon
+sun, now dropping fast to westward, slipped through the slender oaks, on
+which the red leaves still danced, touched the girl's hair and shone into
+her beautiful eyes. She stood there so young, so unconscious; a victim,
+on the threshold of doom. Philip, who was no more a monster than other
+men who do monstrous things, felt a sharp stab of compunction; and then,
+rushed headlong at the crime he had practically resolved on before they
+met.
+
+He told her in a few agitated words the whole--and the true--story of her
+birth. He described the return of Judith Sabin to Upcote Minor, and the
+narrative she had given to Henry Barron, without however a word of
+Meynell in the case, so far at least as the original events were
+concerned. For he was convinced that he knew better, and that there was
+no object in prolonging an absurd misunderstanding. His version of the
+affair was that Judith in a fit of excitement had revealed Hester's
+parentage to Henry Barron; that Barron out of enmity toward Meynell,
+Hester's guardian, and by way of getting a hold upon him, had not kept
+the matter to himself, but had either written or instigated anonymous
+letters which had spread such excitement in the neighbourhood that Lady
+Fox-Wilton had now let her house, and practically left Upcote for good.
+The story had become the common talk of the Markborough district; and all
+that 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 absence
+and silence; and on the other to keep the facts from Hester herself as
+long as possible.
+
+The girl had listened to him with wide, startled eyes. Occasionally a
+sound broke from her--a gasp--an exclamation--and when he paused, pursued
+by almost a murderer's sense of guilt, he saw her totter. In an instant
+he had his arm round her, and for once there was both real passion and
+real pity in the excited words he poured into her ears.
+
+"Hester, dearest!--don't cry, don't be miserable, my own beautiful
+Hester! I am a beast to have told you, but it is because I am not only
+your lover, but your cousin--your own flesh and blood. Trust yourself
+to 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 damned
+scandal-mongers that what they say is nothing to us--that we don't care a
+fig 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 push
+it; but it did not fail to occur, at least once, to a mind steeped in
+third-rate drama, what a "strong" dramatic scene might be drawn from the
+whole situation.
+
+Hester heard him for a few minutes, in evident stupefaction; then with a
+recovery 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 her
+mind--prepared indeed, through years, by all the perplexities and
+rebellions of her girlhood--betraying itself in her quivering face, and
+lips. Suddenly, she dropped upon a fallen log beside the path, hiding her
+face in her hands, struggling again with the sheer faintness of the
+shock. And Philip, kneeling in the dry leaves beside her, completed his
+work, 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 many
+complaints she had made to him of her sense of isolation within her
+supposed family; of the strange provisions of Sir Ralph's will; of the
+arrangement which had made her Meynell's ward in a special sense.
+
+"Why, of course, that was so natural! You remember I suggested to you
+once that Richard probably judged Neville from the same Puritanical
+standpoint that he judged me? Well, I was a fool to talk like that. I
+remember now perfectly what my mother used to say. They were of different
+generations, but they were tremendous friends; and there was only a few
+years between them. I am certain it was by Neville's wish that Richard
+became your guardian." He laughed, in some embarrassment. "He couldn't
+exactly foresee that another member of the family would want to cut in. I
+love you--I adore you! Let's give all these people the slip. Hester, my
+pretty, pretty darling--look at me! I'll show you what life means--what
+love means!"
+
+And doubly tempted by her abasement, her bewildered pain, he tried again
+to 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 Aunt
+Alsie"--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 believe
+it!"
+
+She sprang to her feet. Then, as she stood confronting his silence, the
+whole episode of that bygone September afternoon--the miniature--Aunt
+Alice's silence and tears--rushed back on memory. She trembled, and
+the 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 without
+speaking, she refusing his aid. And all the time swiftly,
+inexorably, memory and inference were at work, dragging to light the
+deposit--obscure, or troubling, or contradictory--left in her by the
+facts and feelings of her childhood and youth.
+
+She had told him with emphasis at luncheon that he was not to be allowed
+to accompany her home; that she would go back to Paris by herself. But
+when, at the St. Germains station, Meryon jumped into the empty railway
+carriage beside her, she said nothing to prevent him. She sat in the
+darkest corner of the carriage, her arms hanging beside her, her eyes
+fixed on objects of which she saw nothing. Her pride in herself, her
+ideal of herself, which is to every young creature like the protective
+sheath to the flower, was stricken to the core. She thought of Sarah and
+Lulu, whom she had all her life despised and ridiculed. But they had a
+right to their name and place in the world!--and she was their nameless
+inferior, the child taken in out of pity, accepted on sufferance. She
+thought of the gossip now rushing like a mud-laden stream through every
+Upcote or Markborough drawing-room. All the persons whom she had snubbed
+or flouted were concerning themselves maliciously with her and her
+affairs--were pitying "poor Hester Fox-Wilton."
+
+Her heart seemed to dry and harden within her. The strange thought of her
+real mother--her suffering, patient, devoted mother--did not move her. It
+was bound up with all that trampled on and humiliated her.
+
+And, moreover, strange and piteous fact, realized by them both! this
+sudden sense of fall and degradation had in some mysterious way altered
+her whole relation to the man who had brought it upon her. His evil power
+over her had increased. He felt instinctively that he need not in future
+be so much on his guard. His manner toward her became freer. She had
+never yet returned him the kisses which, as on this day, she had
+sometimes allowed him to snatch. But before they reached Paris she had
+kissed him; she had sought his hands with hers; and she had promised to
+meet him again.
+
+While these lamentable influences and events were thus sweeping Hester's
+life toward the abyss, mocking all the sacrifices and the efforts that
+had been made to save her, the publication of Barron's apology had opened
+yet another stage in "the Meynell case."
+
+As drafted by Flaxman, it was certainly comprehensive enough. For
+himself, Meynell would have been content with much less; but in dealing
+with Barron, he was the avenger of wrongs not his own, both public and
+private; and when his own first passion of requital had passed away,
+killed in him by the anguish of his enemy, he still let Flaxman decide
+for him. And Flaxman, the mildest and most placable of men, showed
+himself here inexorable, and would allow no softening of terms. So that
+Barron "unreservedly withdrew" and "publicly apologized" "for those false
+and calumnious charges, which to my great regret, and on erroneous
+information, I have been led to bring against the character and conduct
+of 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 they
+were written by a member of my family on information derived from me.
+I apologize for and repudiate the false and slanderous statements these
+letters contain, and those also included in letters I myself have written
+to various persons. I agree that a copy of this statement shall be sent
+to the Bishop of Markborough, and to each parish clergyman in the diocese
+of Markborough; as also that it shall be published in such newspapers as
+the solicitors of the Rev. Richard Meynell may determine."
+
+The document appeared first on a Saturday, in all the local papers, and
+was greedily read and discussed by the crowds that throng into
+Markborough on market day, who again carried back the news to the
+villages of the diocese. It was also published on the same day in
+the _Modernist_ and in the leading religious papers. Its effect on
+opinion was rapid and profound. The Bishop telegraphed--"Thank God. Come
+and see me." France fidgeted a whole morning among his papers, began two
+or three letters to Meynell, and finally decided that he could write
+nothing adequate that would not also be hypocritical. Dornal wrote a
+little note that Meynell put away among those records that are the
+milestones of life. From all the leading Modernists, during January,
+came a rush of correspondence and congratulations, in all possible notes
+and tones of indignant triumph; and many leaders on the other side wrote
+with generous emotion and relief. Only in the extreme camp of the extreme
+Right there was, of course, silence and chagrin. Compared to the eternal
+interests of the Church, what does one man's character matter?
+
+The old Bishop of Dunchester, a kind of English Doellinger, the learned
+leader of a learned party, and ready in the last years of life to risk
+what would have tasked the nerves and courage of a man in the prime of
+physical and mental power, wrote:
+
+"MY DEAR RICHARD MEYNELL: Against my better judgment, I was persuaded
+that you might have been imprudent. I now know that you have only been
+heroic. Forgive me--forgive us all. Nothing will induce me to preach the
+sermon 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 off
+Meynell to Maudeley, that she might "help him write his letters," and
+watch for a week or two over a man wearied and overtaxed. It was by her
+means also that the reaction in public opinion spread far beyond Meynell
+himself. It is true that even men and women of good will looked at each
+other in bewilderment, after the publication of the apology, and asked
+each other under their breaths--"Then is there no story!--and was Judith
+Sabin's whole narrative a delusion?" But with whatever might be true in
+that narrative no public interest was now bound up; and discussion grew
+first shamefaced, and then dropped. The tendency strengthened indeed to
+regard the whole matter as the invention of a half-crazy and dying woman,
+possessed of some grudge against the Fox-Wilton family. Many surmised
+that some tragic fact lay at the root of the tale, since those concerned
+had not chosen to bring the slanderer to account. But what had once been
+mere matter for malicious or idle curiosity was now handled with
+compunction and good feeling. People began to be very sorry for the
+Fox-Wiltons, very sorry for "poor Miss Puttenham." Cards were left, and
+friendly inquiries were made; and amid the general wave of scepticism and
+regret, the local society showed itself as sentimental, and as futile as
+usual.
+
+Meanwhile poor Theresa had been seen driving to the station with red
+eyes; and her father, it was ascertained, had been absent from home since
+the day before the publication of the apology. It was very commonly
+guessed that the "member of my family" responsible for the letters was
+the unsatisfactory younger son; and many persons, especially in Church
+circles, were secretly sorry for Barron, while everybody possessed of any
+heart at all was sorry for his elder son Stephen.
+
+Stephen indeed was one of Meynell's chief anxieties during these
+intermediate hours, when a strong man took a few days' breathing space
+between the effort that had been, and the effort that was to be. The
+young man would come over, day by day, with the same crushed, patient
+look, now bringing news to Meynell which they talked over where none
+might overhear, and now craving news from Paris in return. As to
+Stephen's own report, Barron, it seemed, had made all arrangements
+to send Maurice to a firm of English merchants trading at Riga. The head
+of the firm was under an old financial obligation to Henry Barron, and
+Stephen had no doubt that his father had made it heavily worth their
+while to give his brother this fresh chance of an honest life. There
+had been, Stephen believed, some terrible scenes between the father and
+son, and Stephen neither felt nor professed to feel any hope for the
+future. Barron intended himself to accompany Maurice to Riga and settle
+him there. Afterward he talked of a journey to the Cape. Meanwhile the
+White House was shut up, and poor Theresa had come to join Stephen in the
+little vicarage whence the course of events in the coming year would
+certainly drive him out.
+
+So much for the news he gave. As to the news he hungered for, Meynell had
+but crumbs to give him. To neither Stephen nor any one else could Alice
+Puttenham's letters be disclosed. Meynell's lips were sealed upon her
+story now as they had ever been; and, however shrewdly he might guess at
+Stephen's guesses, he said nothing, and Stephen asked nothing on the
+subject.
+
+As to Hester, he was told that she was well, though often moody and
+excitable, that she seemed already to have tired of the lessons and
+occupations she had taken up with such prodigious energy at the beginning
+of her stay, and that she had made violent friends with a young teacher
+from the Ecole Normale, a refined, intelligent woman, in every way fit to
+be her companion, with whom on holidays she sometimes made long
+excursions out of Paris.
+
+But to Meynell, poor Alice Puttenham poured out all the bitterness of her
+heart:
+
+"It seems to me that the little hold I had over her, and the small
+affection she had for me when we arrived here, are both now less than
+they were. During the last week especially (the letter was dated the
+fourteenth of January) I have been at my wits' end how to amuse or please
+her. She resents being watched and managed more than ever. One feels
+there is a tumult in her soul to which we have no access. Her teachers
+complain of her temper and her caprice. And yet she dazzles and
+fascinates as much as ever. I suspect she doesn't sleep--she has a worn
+look quite unnatural at her age--but it makes her furious to be asked.
+Sometimes, indeed, she seems to melt toward me; the sombre look passes
+away, and she is melancholy and soft, with tears in her eyes now and
+then, which I dare not notice.
+
+"Oh, my dear friend, I am grateful for all you tell me of the changed
+situation at Markborough. But after all the thing is done--there can be
+no undoing it. The lies mingled with the truth have been put down.
+Perhaps people are ready now to let the truth itself slip back with
+the lies into the darkness. But how can we--Edith and I--and Hester--ever
+live the old life again? The old shelter, the old peace, are gone. We are
+wanderers and pilgrims henceforward!
+
+"As far as I know, Hester is still in complete ignorance of all that has
+happened. I have told her that Edith finds Tours so economical that she
+prefers to stay abroad for a couple of years, and to let the Upcote
+house. And I have said also that when she herself is tired of Paris, I
+am ready to take her to Germany, and then to Italy. She laughed, as
+though 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 that
+she has seen no English newspaper that could have given her a clue. As to
+Philip Meryon, as I have told you before, I often feel a vague
+uneasiness; 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 the
+whole world would change for me. But even what I once possessed these
+last few months seem to have taken from me!"
+
+"The thing is done!--there can be no undoing it." That was the sore
+burden of all Meynell's thoughts, awakening in him, at times, the "bitter
+craving to strike heavy blows" at he knew not what. What, indeed, could
+ever undo the indecency, the cruelty, the ugly revelations of these
+three months? The grossness of the common public, the weakness of
+friends, the solemn follies to which men are driven by hate or bigotry:
+these things might well have roused the angry laughter that lives in all
+quick and honest souls. But the satiric mood, when it appeared, soon
+vanished. He remembered the saying of Meredith concerning the spectacle
+of Bossuet over the dead body of Moliere--"at which the dark angels may,
+but men do not, laugh."
+
+This bitterness might have festered within him, but for the blessedness
+of Mary Elsmere's letters. She had seen the apology; she knew nothing of
+its causes. But she betrayed a joy that was almost too proud to know
+itself as joy; since what doubt could there ever have been but that right
+and nobleness would prevail? Catharine wrote the warmest and kindest of
+letters. 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 her
+trust take any shape he would. And though she knew nothing, she seemed by
+some divine instinct to understand also the pain that overshadowed the
+triumph; to be ready to sit silent with him before the irreparable. Day
+by day, as he read these letters, his heart burned within him; and Rose
+noted the growing restlessness. But he had heavy arrears of parish
+business upon him, of correspondence, of literary work. He struggled on,
+the powers of mind and body flagging, till one night, when he had been
+nearly a week at Maudeley, Rose came to him one evening, and said with a
+smile 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 you
+stay?"
+
+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 he
+quietly 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 the
+following day, Meynell spent half an hour with his Bishop in the
+episcopal library.
+
+It was a strange meeting. When Bishop Craye first caught sight of the
+entering figure, he hurried forward, and as the door closed upon the
+footman, he seized Meynell's hand in both his own.
+
+"I see what you have gone through," he said, with emotion; "and you would
+not 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 the
+world. They fell upon the anonymous letters, a comparatively safe topic,
+and the relation of Barron to them. Naturally Meynell gave the Bishop no
+hint whatever of the graver matter which had finally compelled Barron's
+surrender. He described his comparison of the Dawes letters with "a
+document in the young man's handwriting which I happened to have in my
+possession," 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 the
+Bishop. "I hope you have sometimes given a thought to the men on our side
+compelled 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 say
+a profound and affectionate admiration, which contrasted curiously with
+the public position in which they stood to each other. It was now very
+generally recognized, and especially in Markborough and its diocese, that
+Meynell had borne himself with extraordinary dignity and patience under
+the ordeal through which he had passed. And the Bishop--whose guess had
+so nearly hit the truth, who had been persuaded that in the whole matter
+Meynell was but the victim of some trust, some duty, which honour and
+conscience would not let him betray in order to save himself--the Bishop
+was but the more poignantly of this opinion now that he had the man
+before him. The weeks of suffering, the long storm of detraction, had
+left their mark; and it was not a light one. The high-hearted little
+Bishop felt himself in some way guilty, obscurely and representatively,
+if not directly.
+
+Yet, at the same time, when the personal matter dropped away, and they
+passed, as they soon did, to a perfectly calm discussion of the action in
+the Court of Arches which was to begin within a week, nothing could be
+clearer or more irrevocable than the differences, ecclesiastical and
+intellectual, which divided these two men, who in matters of personal
+feeling were so sensitively responsive the one to the other.
+
+Meynell dwelt on the points of law raised in the pleadings, on the
+bearing of previous cases--the _Essays and Reviews_ case above all--upon
+the suit. The antecedents of the counsel employed on both sides, the
+idiosyncrasies of the judge, the probable length of the trial; their talk
+ranged round these matters, without ever striking deeper. It was assumed
+between them that the expulsion of the Modernist clergy was only a
+question of months--possibly weeks. Once indeed Meynell referred slightly
+to the agitation in the country, to the growing snowball of the petition
+to Parliament, to the now certain introduction of a Bill "To promote an
+amended constitution for the Church of England." The Bishop's eyebrows
+went up, his lip twitched. It was the scorn of a spiritual aristocracy
+threatened by the populace.
+
+But in general they talked with extraordinary frankness and mutual good
+feeling; and they grasped hands more than cordially at the end. They
+might have been two generals, meeting before a battle, under the white
+flag.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Still the same mild January weather; with unseasonable shoots putting
+forth, and forebodings on the part of all garden-lovers, as fresh and
+resentful as though such forebodings, with their fulfilments, were not
+the natural portion of all English gardeners.
+
+In the Westmoreland dales, the month was rainier than elsewhere, but if
+possible, milder. Yellow buds were already foolishly breaking on the
+gorse, and weak primroses, as though afraid to venture, and yet
+venturing, were to be found in the depths of many woods.
+
+Meynell had slept at Whindale. In the morning a trap conveyed him and his
+bag to the farmhouse at the head of the valley; and the winter sun had
+only just scattered the mists from the dale when, stick in hand, he found
+himself on the road to Mrs. Elsmere's little house, Burwood.
+
+With every step his jaded spirits rose. He was a passionate lover of
+mountains, with that modern spirit which finds in them man's best refuge
+from modernness. The damp fragrance of the mossy banks and bare hedges;
+the racing freshness of the stream, and the little eddies of foam blown
+from it by the wind; the small gray sheep in the fields; the crags
+overhead dyed deep in withered heather; the stone farmhouses with their
+touch of cheerful white on door and window; all the exquisite detail of
+grass, and twig and stone; and overhead the slowly passing clouds in the
+wide sweep of the dale--these things to him were spiritual revival, they
+dressed and prepared him for that great hour to which dimly, yet through
+all his pulses, he felt he was going.
+
+The little house sent up a straight column of blue smoke into the quiet
+air. Its upper windows were open; the sun was on its lichened porch, and
+on the silver stem of the birch tree which rose from the mossy grass
+beside it.
+
+He did not need to knock. Mary was in the open doorway, her face all
+light and rose colour; and in the shadows of the passage behind her stood
+Catharine. When with the touch of Mary's hand still warm in his, Meynell
+turned to greet her mother, he was seized, even through the quiet emotion
+which held them all, by an impression of change. Some energy of physical
+life 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 left
+them alone in the little sitting-room.
+
+"You allow it?" said Meynell, hardly knowing what he said, and still
+retaining her hand.
+
+Catharine smiled.
+
+"Mary is her own mistress." Then she added, with a deep, involuntary
+sigh: "Whatever she says to you, she knows she has her mother's
+blessing."
+
+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. Mingled
+sweetness and bitterness filled her mind. She pictured to herself for an
+instant what it would have been if she had been giving Mary to a
+Christian pastor of the stamp of her own father, "sound in the faith," a
+"believer," entering upon what had always seemed to her from her
+childhood the ideal and exalted life of the Christian ministry. As things
+were, 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 the
+National Church; without any of the dignity--that dignity which had been
+her husband's--of voluntary renunciation. And Mary would become his wife
+only to share in his rebellion, his defiance, and his exile.
+
+She crossed her hands tightly upon her breast as though she were
+imprinting these sad facts upon her consciousness, learning to face them,
+to bear them with patience. And yet--in some surprising way--they did not
+hurt her as sharply as they would once have done. Trembling--almost in
+terror--she asked herself whether her own faith was weakening. And amid
+the intensity of aspiration and love with which her mind threw itself on
+the 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 she
+sat now following Meynell and Mary in thought along the valley, and now
+listening vaguely to the murmur of the fire or the stream outside, there
+came upon her a first gentle premonition--as though a whisper, from far
+away--of the solitude of death.
+
+Lines from the _Christian Year_, the book on which her girlhood had been
+nourished, 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 wintry
+warmth. The soft sound of Mary's dress beside him; the eyes she turned
+upon him when she spoke, so frank and sweet, yet for her lover, so full
+of mystery; the lines of her young form, compact of health and grace; the
+sound of her voice, the turn of her head--everything about her filled him
+with a tumult of feeling not altogether blissful, though joy was
+uppermost. For now that the great moment was come, now that he trembled
+on the verge of a happiness he had every reason to think was his, he was
+a prey to many strange qualms and tremors. In the first place he was
+suddenly 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 a
+sense of guilt. These six months of strenuous battle and leadership,
+these new responsibilities, and the fierce call which had been made on
+every gift and power, ending in the dumb, proud struggle, the growing
+humiliation of the preceding weeks, had left him ripened indeed,
+magnified indeed, as a personality; but it was as though down the
+shadowed vista of life he saw his youth, as "Another self," a
+Doppelgaenger, disappearing forever.
+
+While she!--before _her_ were all the years of glamour, of happy
+instinctive action, when a man or woman is worth just what they dream,
+when dream and act flow together. Could he give her anything worth her
+having in exchange for this sheer youth of hers? He saw before him a long
+and dusty struggle; the dust of it choking, often, the purest sources of
+feeling. Cares about money; cares about health; the certain enmity of
+many good men; the bitterness that waits on all controversial success or
+failure: 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 he
+had suffered. As the Bishop had perceived, it was written on his aspect.
+But her timidity as yet prevented her from taking the initiative with
+him, as later she would learn to do. She felt for him at this stage
+partly the woman's love, partly the deep and passionate loyalty of the
+disciple. And it was possibly this very loyalty in her from which Meynell
+shrank. He felt toward himself and his role, in the struggle to which he
+was committed, a half despairing, half impatient irony, which saved him
+from anything like a prophetic pose. Some other fellow would do it so
+much better! But meanwhile it had to be done.
+
+So that, charged as was the atmosphere between them, it was some time
+before 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 first
+masked and hesitating. They talked a little--perfunctorily--about the
+dale and its folk, and Mary fell without difficulty now and then into the
+broad Westmoreland speech, which delighted Meynell's ear, and brought the
+laugh back to his eyes. Then, abruptly, he told her that the campaign of
+slander was over, and that the battle, instead of "infinite mess and
+dislocation," was now to be a straight and clean one. He said nothing of
+Barron; but he spoke tenderly of the Bishop, and Mary's eyes swam a
+little.
+
+She on her part dared to speak of Alice and Hester. And very soon it was
+quietly recognized between these two that Alice's story was known to
+Mary; and, for the first time in his life, Meynell spoke with free
+emotion and self-criticism of the task which Neville Flood had laid
+upon him. Had there been in Mary some natural dread of the moment when
+she must first hear the full story of his relation to Alice? If so, it
+was soon dispelled. He could not have told the story more simply; but its
+beauty shone out. Only, she was startled, even terrified, by certain
+glimpses 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 he
+could 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 was
+strangely--morbidly--dependent upon the fate of Hester. If he was able to
+save 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 any
+man's leader, and should feel himself the Jonah of any cause. There was a
+certain mystical passion in it, the strong superstition of a man in whom
+a great natural sensitiveness led often and readily to despondency; as
+though he "asked for a sign."
+
+They passed the noisy little river by the stepping-stones and then
+climbed a shoulder of fell between Long Whindale and the next valley.
+Descending a sunny mountainside, they crossed some water meadows, and
+mounted 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 a
+flat-topped rock commanding all the spectacle of flood and fell. Mary
+guided him there; and then stood silent and flushed, conscious that she
+herself had brought the supreme moment to its birth. The same perception
+rushed upon Meynell. He looked into her eyes, smiling and masterful, all
+his 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 hand
+and caught hers. She found herself trembling, and looking down into his
+upturned face.
+
+"Mary!--Mary _darling_!--is it mine?"
+
+The question was just whispered, and she whispered her reply. They were
+alone in a lovely wilderness of fell and stream. Only a shepherd walked
+with his flock in a field half a mile away, and across the valley a
+ploughman drove his horses.
+
+At the murmur in his ear, Meynell, this time, put up both hands, and drew
+her 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 an
+old 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 the
+colour 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 hair
+from 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, and
+drew her within the shelter of his cloak, looking down upon her with
+infinite tenderness.
+
+"You don't know what you're undertaking," he said, his eyes moist, his
+lips smiling. "I am an old bachelor, and my ways are detestable! Can you
+ever 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 very
+uncomfortable. Can you really stand it--and me?"
+
+"Shall we have a roof over our heads at all?" asked Mary, but so dizzily
+happy that she knew but vaguely what she said.
+
+"I have already bespoken a cottage. They are going to make me Editor of
+the _Modernist_. We shall have bread and butter, dearest, but not much
+more."
+
+"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 a
+money-box. Then when we want something really amusing--a cathedral--or
+a yacht--we'll take it out."
+
+So they laughed together, he all the while holding her close crushed
+against him, and she deafened almost by the warm beating of a man's heart
+beneath her cheek.
+
+And presently silence came, a silence in which one of the rare ecstasies
+of life came upon them and snatched them to the third heaven. From the
+fold of the hill in which they sat, sheltered both by the fell itself,
+and by the encircling hollies, they overlooked a branching dale, half
+veiled, and half revealed by sunny cloud. Above the western fells they
+had just crossed, hung towers and domes of white cumulus, beneath which a
+pearly sunshine slipped through upon the broad fell-side, making of it
+one wide sunlit pleasance, dyed in the red and orange of the withered
+fern, and dotted with black holly and juniper. Round the head of the dale
+the curtain of cloud hung thicker, save where one superb crag tore it
+asunder, falling sheer into the green gentleness of the fields. In the
+silence, all the voices of nature spoke; the rising wind, which flung
+itself against the hill-slopes at their feet; the insistent flow of the
+river, descending from the reservoirs far away; and the sharp chatter of
+the little beck leaping at their side from stone to stone. Passionately,
+in Meynell's heart the "buried life" awoke, which only love can free from
+the 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, then
+there is no key, and no man need preach any more. Only, my Amor has been
+till now a stern God! He has in his hands!--I know it!--all the noblest
+rewards and ecstasies of life; but so far, I have seen him wring them out
+of horror, or pain. The most heavenly things I have ever seen have been
+the things of suffering. I think of a poor fellow dying in the pit and
+trying to give me his last message to his wife; of a mother fading out of
+life, still clasping her babes, with hands twisted almost out of human
+shape by hard work; or a little lad--" his voice dropped--"only last
+week!--who saved his worthless brother's life by giving him warning of
+some escaping trucks, and was crushed himself. 'I couldn't help it,
+sir!'--_apologizing_ to me and the foreman, as we knelt by him!--'I knew
+Jim had the drink in him.' In all these visions, Love was divine--but
+awful! And here!--_here_!--I see his wings outspread upon that
+mountain-side; he comes clothed, not in agony, but in this golden
+peace--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 thought
+of a great man, which seizes upon us dull lesser creatures, and seems to
+give us, for a time at least, new eyes and ears, as though, like
+Melampus, we had caught the hidden language of the world! It rests
+on the notion of the endless creativeness and freedom of life. It is the
+negation of all fate, all predestination. _Nothing_ foreknown, nothing
+predestined! No _necessity_--no _anangke_--darling!--either in the world
+process, or the mind of God, that you and I should sit here to-day, heart
+to heart! It was left for our wills to do, our hearts to conceive, God
+lending us the world, so to speak, to work on! All our past cutting
+into--carving out--this present; all our past alive in the present; as
+all this present shall be alive in the future. There is no 'iron law' for
+life and will, beloved--they create, they are the masters, they are
+forever new. All the same!"--his tone changed--"I believe firmly that
+this 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; her
+hair had escaped its bounds, and must be rigorously put to rights. She
+sat there flushed and bareheaded, her hands working; while Meynell's
+eyes 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 on
+the word, without moving however. "Mary!--next to you I love your
+mother!"
+
+Mary's sweet face darkened a little; she buried it in her hands. Meynell
+drew them tenderly away.
+
+"All that affection can do to soften the differences between us, shall be
+done," he said, with his whole heart. "I believe too that the sense of
+them 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 the
+conflict which had always haunted and scorched it, between love and
+religion; first in the case of her husband, and then in that of her
+daughter. "But oh! how could I--how could I help it?" was the cry of
+Mary's own conscience and personality.
+
+She turned with painful eagerness to Meynell. "How did you think
+her?--how does she strike you?"
+
+"Physically?" He chose his words. "She is so beautiful! But--sometimes--I
+think she looks frail."
+
+The tears sprang to Mary's eyes. She quickly threw herself upon his
+misgiving, and tried to argue it away, both in herself and him. She dwelt
+upon her mother's improvement in sleep and appetite, her cheerfulness,
+her increased power of walking; she was insistent, almost resentful, her
+white brow furrowed with pain, even while her hand lay warm in Meynell's.
+He must needs comfort her; must needs disavow his own impression. After
+all, what value had such an impression beside the judgment of her daily
+and hourly watchfulness?--the favourable opinion too, so she insisted, of
+their local doctor.
+
+As they walked home, he startled her by saying that he should only have
+three 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, and
+that 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 be
+made the opportunity for something like a demonstration; and that he
+shrank from the thought of it.
+
+She perceived, indeed, a certain general flagging of the merely combative
+forces in him, not without dismay. Such moments of recoil are natural to
+such men--half saints, half organizers. The immediate effect of her
+perception of it was to call out something heroic and passionate in
+herself. She was very sweet, and very young; there were eighteen years
+between them; and yet in these very first hours of their engagement, he
+felt her to be not only rest, but inspiration; not only sympathy, but
+strength.
+
+When they neared the little ivy-covered house, on their return home, Mary
+broke from him. Her step on the gravel was heard by Catharine. She came
+quickly to the door and stood awaiting them. Mary ran forward and threw
+herself into the tender arms that drew her into the shadows of the
+passage.
+
+"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 tender
+mockery.
+
+"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 him
+claim 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, he
+and Mary walked incessantly among them, exploring those first hours of
+love, when every tone and touch is charged, for lovers, with the whole
+meaning of the world. And in the evenings he sat between the two women in
+the little cottage room, reading aloud Catharine's favourite poets; or in
+the familiar talk, now gay now grave, of their new intimacy, disclosing
+himself ever more fully, and rooting himself ever more firmly in their
+hearts. His sudden alarm as to Catharine's health passed away, and Mary's
+new terror with it. Scarcely a word was said of the troubles ahead. But
+it 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 seeing
+Oedipus Rex played by Mounet Sully at the Comedie Francaise. In this
+half-sophisticated girl, the famous performance, traditional now through
+two generations of playgoers, had clearly produced an emotion whereof the
+expression in her letter greatly disquieted Catharine Elsmere. She felt
+too--a little grimly--the humour of its address to herself.
+
+"Tell me how to answer it, please," she said, handing it to Meynell with
+a twitching lip. "It is a language I don't understand! And why did they
+take her to such a play?"
+
+Meynell shared her disquiet. For the Greek conception of a remorseless
+fate, as it is forever shaped and embodied in the tale of Oedipus, had
+led Hester apparently to a good deal of subsequent browsing in the
+literature--the magazine articles at any rate--of French determinism; and
+she rattled through some of her discoveries in this reckless letter:
+
+"You talked to me so nicely, dear Mrs. Elsmere, that last evening at
+Upcote. 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?--and
+yet--you see!
+
+"'_Apollo, friends, Apollo it was, that brought all these my woes, my
+sore, sore woes!--to pass_.'
+
+"Dear Mrs. Elsmere!--you can't think what a good doctrine it is after
+all--how it steadies one! What chance have we against these blundering
+gods?
+
+"Nothing one can do makes any difference. It is, really very consoling if
+you come to think of it; and it's no sort of good being angry with
+Apollo!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Part nonsense, part bravado," said Catharine, raising clear eyes, with
+half 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 run
+over to see them."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meynell and Mary travelled to town together, and Mary was duly deposited
+for a few days with some Kensington cousins.
+
+On the night of their arrival--a Saturday--Meynell, not without some
+hesitation, made an appearance at the Reformers' Club, which had been
+recently organized as a London centre for the Movement, in Albemarle
+Street.
+
+It was no sooner known that he was in the building than a flutter ran
+through the well-filled rooms. That very morning an article in the
+_Modernist_ signed R. M. had sounded a note of war, so free, lofty, and
+determined, 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 to
+defend himself; and the attention of the country would be fixed upon the
+duel between him and the great orthodox counsel, Sir Wilfrid Marsh.
+
+Men gathered quickly round him. Most of the six clergy who, with him, had
+launched the first Modernist Manifesto, were present, in expectation of
+the sermon on the morrow, and the trial of the following week. Chesham
+and Darwen, his co-defendants in the Arches suit, with whom he had been
+in constant correspondence throughout the winter, came to discuss a few
+last points and understandings; Treherne, the dear old scholar in whose
+house they had met to draw up the Manifesto, under the shadow of the
+Cathedral, 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 Modernist
+Sacraments among the slums of a great midland town.
+
+And in the voices that spoke to him, and the eyes that met his, Meynell
+could not but realize a wide and warm sympathy, an eagerness to make
+amends--sometimes a half confessed compunction for a passing doubt.
+
+He stood among them, haggard and worn, but steeped in a content and
+gratitude that had more sources than they knew. And under the kindling of
+their faith and their affection, his own hesitations passed away; his
+will 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 representing
+science, literature, politics, the best of English thought and English
+social endeavour, was but the outward and visible sign of things inward
+and spiritual.
+
+"_Can these dry bones live_?"
+
+As Meynell gave out the text, there were many who remembered the picture
+of Oxford hanging in Newman's study at Edgbaston, and those same words
+written below it.
+
+"_Can these dry bones live_?"--So Newman had asked in despair, of his
+beloved University, and of English religion, in the early years after he
+had deserted Anglicanism for Rome. And now, more than half a century
+afterward, the leader of a later religious movement asked the same
+question on the eve of another contest which would either regenerate or
+destroy the English Church. The impulse given by Newman and the
+Tractarians had spent itself, though not without enormous and permanent
+results within the life of the nation; and now it was the turn of that
+Liberal reaction and recoil which had effaced Newman's work in Oxford,
+yet had been itself wandering for years without a spiritual home. During
+those years it had found its way through innumerable channels of the
+national life as a fertilizing and redeeming force. It had transformed
+education, law, science and history. Yet its own soul had hungered. And
+now, thanks to that inner necessity which governs the spiritual progress
+of men, the great Liberal Movement, enriched with a thousand conquests,
+was sweeping back into the spiritual field; demanding its just share in
+the National Church; and laying its treasures at the feet of a Christ,
+unveiled, illuminated, by its own labour, by the concentrated and
+passionate effort of a century of human intelligence.
+
+Starting from this conception--the full citizen-right within the Church
+of both Liberal and High Churchman--the first part of Meynell's sermon
+became a moving appeal for religious freedom; freedom of development
+and "variation," within organized Christianity itself. Simpler Creeds,
+modernized tests, alternative forms, a "unity of the spirit in the bond
+of peace,"--with these ideas the Modernist preacher built up the vision
+of a Reformed Church, co-extensive with the nation, resting on a
+democratic government, yet tenderly jealous of its ancient ceremonies, so
+long as each man might interpret them "as he was able," and they were no
+longer made a source of tyranny and exclusion.
+
+Then, from the orthodox opponent in whose eyes the Modernist faith was a
+mere beggarly remnant, Meynell turned to the sceptic for whom it was only
+a modified superstition. An eloquent prelude, dealing with the
+preconceptions, the modern philosophy and psychology which lie at the
+root of religious thought to-day--and the rest of the sermon flowed on
+into what all Christian eloquence must ultimately be, the simple
+"preaching of Christ."
+
+Amid the hush of the crowded church Meynell preached the Christ of our
+day--just as Paul of Tarsus preached the Christ of a Hellenized Judaism
+to the earliest converts; as St. Francis, in the Umbrian hills preached
+the Lord of Poverty and Love; as the Methodist preachers among the
+villages of the eighteenth century preached the democratic individualism
+of the New Testament to the English nascent democracy.
+
+In each case the form of the preaching depended on the knowledge and the
+thought-world of the preacher. So with Meynell's Christ.
+
+Not the phantom of a Hellenistic metaphysic; not the Redeemer and Judge
+of a misunderstood Judaism; not the mere ethical prophet of a German
+professorial theology; but the King of a spiritual kingdom, receiving
+allegiance, and asking love, from the free consciences of men; repeating
+forever in the ears of those in whom a Divine influence has prepared the
+way, the melting and constraining message: "This do in remembrance of
+me."
+
+"'Of me--and of all the just, all the righteous, all the innocent, of all
+the ages, in me--pleading through me--symbolized in me! Are you for
+Man--or for the Beast that lurks in man? Are you for Chastity--or
+Lust? 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 longer
+a man made God, a God made man. Those categories of thought, for us,
+are past. But neither is he merely the crucified Galilean, the
+Messianic prophet of the first century. For by a mysterious and unique
+destiny--unique at least in degree--that life and death have become
+Spirit and Idea. The Power behind the veil, the Spirit from whom issues
+the world, has made of them a lyre, enchanted and immortal, through which
+He breathes His music into men. The setting of the melody varies with the
+generations, but the melody remains. And as we listen to it to-day,
+expressed through the harmonies of that thought which is ourselves--blood
+of 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 God
+who was 'in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.'
+
+"Of that God, all life is in some sense, the sacramental expression. But
+in the course of ages some sacraments and symbols of the divine are
+approved and verified beyond others--immeasurably beyond others. This is
+what has happened--and so far as we can see by the special will and
+purpose of God--with the death-unto-life--with the Cross of Christ....
+
+"The symbol of the Cross is concerned with our personal and profoundest
+being. But the symbol of the Kingdom is social, collective--the power of
+every reformer, every servant of men....
+
+"Many thinkers," said the preacher, in his concluding passage, while all
+eyes were fixed on the head sprinkled with gray, and the strong humanity
+of the face--"many men, in all ages and civilizations have dreamed of a
+City of God, a Kingdom of Righteousness, an Ideal State, and a Divine
+Ruler. Jesus alone has made of that dream, history; has forced it upon,
+and stamped it into history. The Messianic dream of Judaism--though
+wrought of nobler tissue--it's not unlike similar dreams in other
+religions; but in this it is unique, that it gave Jesus of Nazareth his
+opportunity, and that from it has sprung the Christian Church. Jesus
+accepted 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 death
+transformed a world. He died indeed, overwhelmed; with the pathetic cry
+of utter defeat upon his lips. And the leading races of mankind have
+knelt ever since to the mighty spirit who dared not only to conceive
+and found the Kingdom of God, but to think of himself as its Spiritual
+King--by sheer divine right of service, of suffering, and of death! Only
+through tribulation and woe--through the _peirasmos_ or sore trial of the
+world--according to Messianic belief, could the Kingdom be realized, and
+Messiah revealed. It was the marvellous conception of Jesus, inspired by
+the ancient poetry and prophecy of his nation, that he might, as the
+Suffering Servant, concentrate in himself the suffering due from his
+race, and from the world, and by his death bring about--violently, "by
+force"--the outpouring of the Spirit, the Resurrection, and the dawn of
+the heavenly Kingdom. He went up to Jerusalem to die; he provoked his
+death; he died. And from the Resurrection visions which followed
+naturally on such a life and death, inspired by such conceptions, and
+breathing them with such power into the souls of other men, arose the
+Christian 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 us
+any more.
+
+"But its spirit is immortal. The vision of a kingdom of Heaven--a polity
+of the soul, within, or superseding the earthly polity--once interfused
+with man's thought and life, has proved to be imperishable, a thing that
+cannot die.
+
+"Only it must be realized afresh from age to age; embodied afresh in the
+conceptions and the language of successive generations.
+
+"And these developing embodiments and epiphanies of the kingdom can only
+be brought into being by the method of Christ--that is to say, by
+'_violence_'.
+
+"Again and again has the kingdom 'suffered violence'--has been brought
+fragmentarily into the world '_by force_'--by the only irresistible
+force--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 the
+whole thought of Christ. When the work of preparation is over, still men
+must brace themselves, as their Master did, to the last stroke of
+'violence'--to a final effort of resolute, and, if need be, revolutionary
+action--to the 'violence' that brings ideas to birth and shapes them into
+deeds.
+
+"It was to 'violence' of this sacred sort that the Christian Church owed
+its beginning; and it is this same 'violence' that must, as the
+generations rise and fall, constantly maintain it among men. To cut away
+the old at need and graft in the new, requires the high courage and the
+resolute hand of faith. Only so can the Christian Life renew itself; only
+so 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 walked
+with his eyes on the ground, smiling to himself.
+
+"A little persecution!" he said, rubbing his hands, as he looked up--"and
+how it would go!"
+
+"Well--the persecution begins this week--in the Court of Arches."
+
+"Persecution--nonsense! You mean 'propaganda.' I understand Meynell's
+defence will proceed on totally new lines. He means to argue each point
+on its merits?"
+
+"Yes. The Voysey judgment gave him his cue. You will remember, Voysey was
+attacked by the Lord Chancellor of the day--old Lord Hatherley--as a
+'private clergyman,' who 'of his own mere will, not founding himself upon
+any critical inquiry, but simply upon his own taste and judgment'
+maintained certain heresies. Now Meynell, I imagine, will give his judges
+enough 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 you
+maintain that a system which insists upon a man's beliefs at forty-four
+being identical with his beliefs at twenty-four is not condemned _ipso
+facto_!"
+
+"Oh I know what you say!--I know what you say!" cried Norham
+good-humouredly. "We shall all be saying it in Parliament presently--Good
+heavens! Well, I shall look into the court to-morrow, if I can possibly
+find an hour, and hear Meynell fire away."
+
+"As Home Secretary, you may get in!"--laughed Flaxman--"on no other
+terms. 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 took
+precedence, and were to be followed by half a dozen others--test
+cases--from different parts of England. But on the Markborough suits
+everything turned. The Modernist defendants everywhere had practically
+resolved on the same line of defence; on the same appeal from the mind of
+the sixteenth century to the mind of the twentieth; from creeds and
+formularies 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 a
+large, clean-shaven face, a domed head and smooth straight hair, still
+jetty black. He wore a look of quiet assurance and was clearly a man
+of all the virtues; possessing a portly wife and a tribe of daughters.
+
+His speech was marked in all its earlier sections by a studied liberality
+and moderation. "I am not going to appeal, sir, for that judgment in the
+promoters' favour which I confidently claim, on any bigoted or
+obscurantist lines. The Church of England is a learned Church; she is
+also a Church of wide liberties."
+
+No slavish submission to the letter of the Articles on the Liturgy was
+now demanded of any man. Subscription had been relaxed; the final
+judgment in the _Essays and Reviews_ case had given a latitude in the
+interpretation of Scripture, of which, as many recent books showed, the
+clergy--"I refer now to men of unquestioned orthodoxy"--had taken
+reasonable advantage; prayer-book revision "within the limits of the
+faith," if constantly retarded by the divisions of the faithful, was
+still probable; both High Churchmen and Broad Churchmen--here an aside
+dropped out, "so far as Broad Churchmen still exist!"--are necessary to
+the Church.
+
+But there are limits. "Critical inquiry, sir, if you will--reasonable
+liberty, within the limits of our formularies and a man's ordination
+vow--by all means!
+
+"But certain things are _vital_! With certain fundamental beliefs let no
+one suppose that either the bishops, or convocation, or these Church
+courts, or Parliament, or what the defendants are pleased to call the
+nation" [one must imagine the fine gesture of a sweeping hand] "can
+meddle." The _animus imponentis_ is not that of the Edwardian or
+Elizabethan legislation, it is not that of the Bishops! it is that of the
+Christian Church itself!--handing down the _deposition fidei_ from the
+earliest to the latest times.
+
+"_The Creeds, sir, are vital_! Put aside Homilies, Articles, the
+judgments and precedents of the Church Courts--all these are, in this
+struggle, beside the mark. _Concentrate on the Creeds_! Let us examine
+what the defendants in these suits have made of the Creeds of
+Christendom."
+
+The evidence was plain. Regarded as historical statement, the defendants
+had 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, that
+formal creeds were mere "landmarks in the Church's life,"
+crystallizations of thought, that were no sooner formed than they became
+subject to the play, both dissolvent and regenerating, of the Christian
+consciousness.
+
+"And so you come to that inconceivable entity, a Church without a
+creed--a mere chaos of private opinion, where each man is a law unto
+himself."
+
+On this theme, Sir Wilfrid--who was a man of singularly strong private
+opinions, of all kinds and on all subjects--spoke for a whole day; from
+the 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, what
+authority--if any--there is in the English Church; or what limits--if
+any--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 Wilfrid
+carefully avoided saying--'We have the Scriptures.'"
+
+"Perhaps," said Dornal despondently.
+
+"And as to the Creeds," the other resumed, after another pause--"Do you
+think that one per cent of the Christians that you and I know believe in
+the Descent into Hell, or the Resurrection of the Body?"
+
+Dornal made no reply.
+
+Cyril Fenton also walked home with a young priest just ordained. Both
+were extremely dissatisfied with the later portions of Sir Wilfrid's
+speech, which had seemed to them tainted in several passages with
+Erastian complacency toward the State. Parliament especially, and a
+possible intervention of Parliament, ought never to have been so much as
+mentioned--even for denunciation--in an ecclesiastical court.
+
+"_Parliament!"_ cried Fenton, coming to a sudden stop beside the water in
+St. James' Park, his eyes afire, "What is Parliament but the lay synod of
+the 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 the
+audience day after day; with the Bishop of S----, lank and long-jawed,
+with reddish hair turning to gray, a deprecating manner in society, but
+in the pulpit a second Warburton for truculence and fire; the Bishop of
+D----, beloved, ugly, short-sighted, the purest and humblest soul alive;
+learned, mystical, poetical, in much sympathy with the Modernists, yet
+deterred by the dread of civil war within the Church, a master of the Old
+Latin Versions, and too apt to address schoolgirls on the charms of
+textual criticism; the Bishop of F----, courtly, peevish and distrusted;
+the Dean of Markborough, with the green shade over his eyes, and fretful
+complaint on his lips of the "infection" generated by every Modernist
+incumbent; and near him, Professor Vetch, with yet another divinity
+professor 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 case
+for the prosecution closed thunderously in a fierce onslaught on the
+ethics of the Modernist position, and on the personal honesty and
+veracity of each and every Modernist holding office in the Anglican
+Church, claiming sentences of immediate deprivation against the
+defendants, of their vicarages and incumbencies, and of all profits and
+benefits derived therefrom "unless within a week from this day they (the
+defendants) should expressly and unreservedly retract the several
+errors in which they have so offended."
+
+The court broke up in a clamour of excitement and discussion, with crowds
+of country parishioners standing outside to greet the three incriminated
+priests as they came out.
+
+The following morning Meynell rose. And for one brilliant week, his
+defence of the Modernist position held the attention of England.
+
+On the fourth or fifth day of his speech, the white-haired Bishop of
+Dunchester, against whom proceedings had just been taken in the
+Archbishop's Court, said to his son:
+
+"Herbert, just before I was born there were two great religious leaders
+in England--Newman and Arnold of Rugby. Arnold died prematurely, at
+the height of bodily and spiritual vigour; Newman lived to the age of
+eighty-nine, and to be a Cardinal of the Roman Church. His Anglican
+influence, continued, modified, distributed by the High Church movement,
+has lasted till now. To-day we have been listening again, as it were, to
+the voice of Arnold, the great leader whom the Liberals lost in '42,
+Arnold was a devoutly orthodox believer, snatched from life in the very
+birth-hour of that New Learning of which we claim to be the children. But
+a church of free men, coextensive with the nation, gathering into one
+fold every English man, woman and child, that was Arnold's dream, just as
+it is Meynell's.... And yet though the voice, the large heart, the
+fearless mind, and the broad sympathies were Arnold's, some of the
+governing ideas were Newman's. As I listened, I seemed"--the old man's
+look glowed suddenly--"to see the two great leaders, the two foes of a
+century 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 be
+addressing his judges, he was in truth speaking quite as consciously to a
+sweet woman's face in a far corner of the crowded hall. Mary went into
+the long wrestle with him, as it were, and lived through every moment of
+it at his side. Then in the evening there were half hours of utter
+silence, when he would sit with her hands in his, just gathering strength
+for the morrow.
+
+Six days of Meynell's speech were over. On the seventh the Court opened
+amid the buzz of excitement and alarm. The chief defendant in the suit
+was not present, and had sent--so counsel whispered to each other--a
+hurried note to the judge to the effect that he should be absent
+through the whole remainder of the trial owing to "urgent private
+business."
+
+In a few more hours it was known that Meynell had left England, and men
+on 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 the
+smallest trace. But she believes she is with Meryon. I go to Paris
+to-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 afternoon
+lay heavy on Long Whindale. A strong and bitter wind from the north blew
+down the valley with occasional spits and snatches of snow, not enough as
+yet 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 a
+shepherd on the path leading over the pass to Marly Head could scarcely
+hold himself upright against them. Tempestuous sounds filled all the
+upper and the lower air. From the high ridges came deep reverberating
+notes, a roaring in the wind; while the trees along the stream sent forth
+a shriller voice, as they whistled and creaked and tossed in the eddying
+gusts. Cold gray clouds were beating from the north, hanging now over the
+cliffs on the western side, now over the bare screes and steep slopes of
+the northern and eastern walls. Gray or inky black, the sharp edges of
+the rocks cut into the gloomy sky; while on the floor of the valley,
+blanched grass and winding stream seemed alike to fly scourged before the
+persecuting wind.
+
+A trap--Westmoreland calls it a car--a kind of box on wheels, was
+approaching the head of the dale from the direction of Whinborough. It
+stopped at the foot of the steep and narrow lane leading to Burwood, and
+a young lady got out.
+
+"You're sure that's Burwood?" she said, pointing to the house partially
+visible 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 had
+brought from Whinborough station. She was quite a young girl he guessed,
+and a handsome one. But there seemed to be something queer about her. She
+looked so tumbled and tired.
+
+Hester Fox-Wilton took out her purse, and paid him with an uncertain
+hand, one or more of the shillings falling on the road, where the driver
+and she groped for them. Then she raised the small bag she had brought
+with her in the car, and turned away.
+
+"Good day to yer, miss," said the man as he mounted the box. She made no
+reply. After he had turned his horse and started on the return journey to
+Whinborough, he looked back once or twice. But the high walls of the lane
+hid the lady from him.
+
+Hester, however, did not go very far up the lane. She sank down very soon
+on 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-like
+place, even on this bitter afternoon. In one of the windows was a glow of
+firelight; white muslin curtains everywhere gave it a dainty, refined
+look; and it stood picturesquely within the shelter of its trees, and of
+the yew hedge which encircled the garden.
+
+Yet Hester shivered as she looked at it. She was very imperfectly clothed
+for such an afternoon, in a serge jacket and skirt supplemented by a
+small fur collarette, which she drew closer round her neck from time to
+time, as though in a vain effort to get warm. But she was not conscious
+of doing so, nor of the cold as cold. All her bodily sensations were
+miserable and uncomfortable. But she was only actively aware of the
+thoughts racing through her mind.
+
+There they were, within a stone's throw of her--Mary and Mrs. Elsmere--in
+the warm, cosy little house, without an idea that she, Hester, the
+wretched, disgraced Hester, was sitting in the lane so close to them. And
+yet they were perhaps thinking of her--they must have often thought about
+her in the last fortnight. Mrs. Elsmere must of course have been sorry.
+Good people were always sorry when such things happened. And Mary?--who
+was eight years older--_older!_ than this girl of eighteen who sat there,
+sickened by life, conscious of a dead wall of catastrophe drawn between
+her and the future.
+
+Should she go to them? Should she open their door and say--"Here I
+am!--Horrible things have happened. No decent person will ever know me or
+speak 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 the
+inward sight the vision of Catharine Elsmere's face--its purity, its
+calm, its motherliness. For a moment it drew, it touched, it gave
+courage. And then the terrible sense of things irreparable, grim matters
+of fact not to be dreamed or thought away, rushed in and swept the
+clinging, 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 perhaps
+they'll cry--they'll pray with me, and I can't stand that! Why did I ever
+come? Where on earth shall I go?"
+
+And she looked round her in petulant despair, angry with herself for
+having done this foolish thing, angry with the loneliness and barrenness
+of 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 and
+stung 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 with
+cold.
+
+"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 and
+left. Which way? The thought of the long dreary road back to Whinborough
+repelled her. She turned toward the head of the valley. Perhaps she might
+find a house which would take her in. The driver had said there was a
+farm which let lodgings in the summer. She had money--some pounds at any
+rate; that was all right. And she was not hungry. She had arrived at a
+junction station five miles from Whinborough by a night train. At six
+o'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 station
+hotel, and she had engaged a room and ordered a fire. There she had
+thrown herself down without undressing on the bed, and had slept heavily
+for four or five hours. Then she had had some breakfast, and had taken
+a midday train to Whinborough, and a trap to Long Whindale.
+
+She had travelled straight from Nice without stopping. She would not let
+herself think now as she hurried along the lonely road what it was she
+had fled from, what it was that had befallen. The slightest glimpse into
+this past made her begin to sob, she put it away from her with all her
+strength. But she had had, of course, to decide where she should go, with
+whom she should take refuge.
+
+Not with Uncle Richard, whom she had deceived and defied. Not with "Aunt
+Alice." No sooner did the vision of that delicate withered face, that
+slender form come before her, than it brought with it terrible fancies.
+Her conduct had probably killed "Aunt Alice." She did not want to think
+about 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--things
+that no one supposed she had heard--that Mrs. Elsmere had given years of
+her life, and sacrificed her health, to "rescue" work. The rescue of
+girls 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 had
+thirsted for. They had brought her all the way from Nice to this northern
+valley--this bleak, forbidding country. She shivered again from head to
+foot, as she made her way painfully against the wind.
+
+Yet now she was flying even from Catharine Elsmere; even from those
+tender eyes that haunted her.
+
+The road turned toward a bridge, and on the other side of the bridge
+degenerated into a rough and stony bridle path, giving access to two gray
+farms beneath the western fell. On the near side of the bridge the
+road became a cart-track leading to the far end of the dale.
+
+Hester paused irresolute on the bridge, and looked back toward Burwood. A
+light appeared in what was no doubt the sitting-room window. A lamp
+perhaps that, in view of the premature darkening of the afternoon by the
+heavy storm-clouds from the north, a servant had just brought in. Hester
+watched it in a kind of panic, foreseeing the moment when the curtains
+would be drawn and the light shut out from her. She thought of the little
+room within, the warm firelight, Mary with her beautiful hair--and Mrs.
+Elsmere. They were perhaps working and reading--as though that were all
+there were to do and think about in the world! No, no! after all they
+couldn't be very peaceful--or very cheerful. Mary was engaged to Uncle
+Richard now; and Uncle Richard must be pretty miserable.
+
+The exhausted girl nearly turned back toward that light. Then a hand came
+quietly and shut it out. The curtains were drawn. Nothing now to be seen
+of the little house but its dim outlines in the oncoming twilight, the
+smoke blown about its roof, and a faint gleam from a side-window, perhaps
+the kitchen.
+
+Suddenly, a thought, a wild, attacking thought, leapt out upon her, and
+held 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 confused
+in one mad flux of misery. Was it _possible_ that they too could be
+Here--Uncle Richard, and "Aunt Alice?" She had said something about Mrs.
+Elsmere in her telegram--she could not recollect what. That had been
+meant to comfort them, and yet to keep them away, to make them leave
+her to her own plans. But supposing, instead, its effect had been to
+bring them here at once, in pursuit of her?
+
+She hurried forward, sobbing dry sobs of terror as though she already
+heard their steps behind her. What was she afraid of? Simply their
+love!--simply their sorrow! She had broken their hearts; and what could
+she say to them?
+
+The recollection of all her cruelty to "Aunt Alice" in Paris--her
+neglect, her scorn, her secret, unjust anger with those who had kept from
+her the facts of her birth--seemed to rise up between her and all ideas
+of hope and help. Oh, of course they would be kind to her!--they would
+forgive her--but--but she couldn't bear it! Impatience with the very
+scene of wailing and forgiveness she foresaw, as of something utterly
+futile and vain, swept through the quivering nerves.
+
+"And it can never be undone!" she said to herself roughly, as though she
+were throwing the words in some one's face. "It can never, _never_ be
+undone! What's the good of talking?"
+
+So the only alternative was to wander a while longer into these clouds
+and storms that were beginning to beat down from the pass through the
+darkness of the valley; to try and think things out; to find some shelter
+for the night; then to go away again--somewhere. She was conscious now of
+a first driving of sleet in her face; but it only lasted for a few
+minutes. Then it ceased; and a strange gleam swept over the valley--a
+livid storm-light from the west, which blanched all the withered grass
+beside her, and seemed to shoot along the course of the stream as she
+toiled up the rocky path beside it.
+
+What a country, what a sky! Her young body was conscious of an angry
+revolt against it, against the northern cold and dreariness; her body,
+which still kept as it were the physical memory of sun, and blue sea, and
+orange trees, of the shadow of olives on a thin grass, of the scent of
+orange blossom on the broken twigs that some one was putting into her
+hand.
+
+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-haired
+man, was seated on a rock, staff in hand, watching his dog collect the
+sheep from the rocky slope on which they were scattered.
+
+At sight of Hester, the old man started and stared. Her fair hair
+escaping in many directions from the control of combs and hairpins, and
+the pale lovely face in the midst of it, shone in the stormy gleam that
+filled 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 of
+a living being brought a kind of comfort.
+
+"It's going to snow--" she said, as she stood beside him, surprised by
+the sound of her own voice amid the roar of the wind.
+
+"Aye--it's onding o' snaw--" said the shepherd, his shrewd blue eyes
+travelling 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, a
+stone's throw away. The gate of it was open, and the dog was gradually
+chasing the sheep within it.
+
+"I doan't like leavin' 'em on t' fells this bitter weather. I'm afraid
+for t' ewes. It's too cauld for 'em. They'll be for droppin' their lambs
+too soon if this wind goes on. It juist taks t' strength out on 'em, doos
+the wind."
+
+"Do you think it's going to snow a great deal?"
+
+The old man looked round at the clouds and the mountains; at the
+powdering of snow that had already whitened the heights.
+
+"It'll be more'n a bit!" he said cautiously. "I dessay we'll have to be
+gettin' 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 ter
+happen ter foak as want the doctor?"
+
+"Did you ever know people lost on these hills?" asked the girl, looking
+into the blackness ahead of them. Her shrill, slight voice rang out in
+sharp 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's
+betther 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 coom
+February. 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 ahead
+into 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 was
+my son, gooin afther th' lambs i' the snaw, as found him. He heard
+summat--a voice like a lile child cryin'--an he scratted aboot, an
+dragged 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 a
+figure 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 came
+back, followed by his dog, to the place where she stood, listlessly
+watching.
+
+"Doan't yo go too far on t' fells, missy. It's coomin' on to snaw, an
+it'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 as
+knaws 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 enoof
+you 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 that
+what the lady did was none of his business, and turned back toward one of
+the farms across the bridge. Who was she? She was a strange sort of body
+to be walking by herself up the head of Long Whindale. He supposed she
+came from Burwood--there was no other house where a lady like that could
+be staying. But it was a bit queer anyhow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hester walked on. She turned a craggy corner beyond which she was
+out of sight of any one on the lower stretches of the road. The struggle
+with the wind, the roar of water in her ears, had produced in her a kind
+of trance-like state. She walked mechanically, half deafened, half
+blinded, measuring her force against the wind, conscious every now and
+then of gusts of snow in her face, of the deepening gloom overhead
+climbing up and up the rocky path. But, as in that fatal moment when she
+had paused in the Burwood lane, her mind was not more than vaguely
+conscious of her immediate surroundings. It had become the prey of
+swarming recollections--captured by sudden agonies, unavailing,
+horror-stricken revolts.
+
+At last, out of breath, and almost swooning, she sank down under the
+shelter of a rock, and became in a moment aware that white mists were
+swirling and hurrying all about her, and that only just behind her, and
+just above her, was the path clear. Without knowing it, she had
+climbed and climbed till she was very near the top of the pass. She
+looked down into a witch's cauldron of mist and vapour, already thickened
+with snow, and up into an impenetrable sky, as it seemed, close upon her
+head, from which the white flakes were beginning to fall, steadily and
+fast.
+
+She was a little frightened, but not much. After all, she had only to
+rest and retrace her steps. The watch at her wrist told her it was not
+much past four; and it was February. It would be daylight till half-past
+five, unless the storm put out the daylight. A little rest--just a little
+rest! But she began to feel ill and faint, and so bitterly, bitterly
+cold. The sense of physical illness, conquering the vague overwhelming
+anguish of heart and mind, began to give her back some clearness of
+brain.
+
+Who was she?--why was she there? She was Hester Fox-Wilton--no! Hester
+Meryon, who had escaped from a man who had called himself, for a few days
+at least, her husband; a man whom in scarcely more than a week she had
+come to loathe and fear; whose nature and character had revealed to her
+infamies of which she had never dreamed; who had claimed to be her
+master, and use her as he pleased, and from whom she had escaped by
+night, 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 his
+mocking ones--and the helpless sense of indignity and wrong--and of her
+own utter and criminal folly.
+
+And through her memory there ran in an ugly dance those things, those
+monstrous things, he had said to her about the Scotch woman. It was not
+at all absolutely sure that she, Hester, was his wife. He had shown her
+those letters at St. Germains, of course, to reassure her; and the
+letters were perfectly genuine letters, written by the people they
+professed to be written by. Still Scotch marriage law was a damned
+business--one never knew. He _hoped_ it was all right; but if she did
+hate him as poisonously as she said, if she did really want to get rid of
+him, he might perhaps be able to assist her.
+
+Had he after all tricked and ruined her? Yet as her consciousness framed
+the question in the conventional phrases familiar to her through
+newspapers and novels, she hardly knew what they meant, this child of
+eighteen, who in three short weeks had been thrust through the fire of an
+experience on which she had never had time to reflect. Flattered vanity,
+and excitement, leading up almost from the first day to instinctive and
+fierce revolt--intervals of acquiescence, of wild determination to be
+happy, drowned in fresh rebellions of soul and sense--through these
+alternations the hours had rushed on, culminating in her furtive and
+sudden escape from the man of whom she was now in mad fear--her blind
+flight for "home."
+
+The _commonness_ of her case, the absence of any romantic or poetic
+element in it--it was that which galled, which degraded her in her own
+eyes. Only three weeks since she had felt that entire and arrogant belief
+in herself, in her power over her own life and Philip's, on which she now
+looked back as merely ludicrous!--inexplicable in a girl of the most
+ordinary intelligence. What power had girls over men?--such men as Philip
+Meryon?
+
+Her vanity was bleeding to death--and her life with it. Since the
+revelation of her birth, she seemed to have been blindly struggling to
+regain her own footing in the world--the kind of footing she was
+determined to have. Power and excitement; _not_ to be pitied, but to be
+followed, wooed, adored; not to be forced on the second and third bests
+of the world, but to have the "chief seat," the daintest morsel, the
+_beau role_ always--had not this been her instinctive, unvarying demand
+on life? And now? If she were indeed married, she was tied to a man who
+neither loved her, nor could bring her any position in the world; who was
+penniless, and had only entrapped her that he might thereby get some
+money out of her relations; who, living or dead, would be a disgrace to
+her, standing irrevocably between her and any kind of honour or
+importance in society.
+
+And if he had deceived her, and she were not his wife--she would be free
+indeed; but what would her freedom matter to her? What decent man would
+ever 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 could
+have laughed at her own thoughts; and yet at the same time it was so
+ghastly true! No need now to invent a half-sincere chatter about "Fate."
+She felt herself in miserable truth the mere feeble mouse wherewith the
+great 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 followed
+her, the lip that trembled when she said an unkind or wanton thing; she
+heard again the phrases of Uncle Richard's weekly letters, humorous,
+tender phrases, with here and there an occasional note of austerity, or
+warning.
+
+Oh yes--she had done it--she had ruined herself.
+
+She felt the tears running over her cheeks, mingling with the snow as it
+pelted 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 put
+out her own, groping helplessly--and rose to her feet.
+
+But the darkness was now much advanced, and the great snowstorm of the
+night had begun. She could not see the path below her at all, and only
+some twenty yards of its course above her. In the whirling gloom and in
+the fury of the wind, although she turned to descend the path, her
+courage suddenly failed her. She remembered a stream she had crossed
+on a little footbridge with a rail; could she ever see to recross it
+again?--above the greedy tumult of the water? Peering upward it seemed to
+her that she saw something like walls in front of her--perhaps another
+sheepfold? That would give her shelter for a little, and perhaps the snow
+would stop--perhaps it was only a shower. She struggled on, and up, and
+found indeed some fragments of walls, beside the path, one of the many
+abandoned places among the Westmoreland fells that testify to the closer
+settlement of the dales in earlier centuries.
+
+And just as she clambered within them, the clouds sweeping along the
+fell-side lifted and parted for the last time, and she caught a glimpse
+of a wide, featureless world, the desolate top of the fells, void of
+shelter or landmark, save that straight across it, from gloom to gloom,
+there ran a straight white thing--a ghostly and forsaken track. The Roman
+road, no doubt, of which the shepherd had spoken. And a vision sprang
+into 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 to
+perceive 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 of
+the shelter she had found, taking, as she supposed, the path toward the
+valley. But blinded with snow and mist, she lost it almost at once. She
+stumbled on over broken and rocky ground, wishing to descend, yet keeping
+instinctively upward, and hearing on her right from time to time, as
+though from depths of chaos, the wild voices of the valley, the wind
+tearing the cliffs, the rushing of the stream. Soon all was darkness; she
+knew that she had lost herself; and was alone with rock and storm. Still
+she moved; but nerve and strength ebbed; and at last there came a step
+into infinity--a sharp pain--and the flame of consciousness went out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+The February afternoon in Long Whindale, shortened by the first heavy
+snowstorm of the winter, passed quickly into darkness. Down through all
+the windings of the valley the snow showers swept from the north,
+becoming, as the wind dropped a little toward night, a steady continuous
+fall, which in four or five hours had already formed drifts of some depth
+in exposed places.
+
+Toward six o'clock, the small farmer living across the lane from Burwood
+became anxious about some sheep which had been left in a high "intak" on
+the fell. He was a thriftless, procrastinating fellow, and when the
+storm came on about four o'clock had been taking his tea in a warm
+ingle-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 enough
+from the stone walls of the "intak," and that all was well. But a couple
+of hours later the persistence of the snowfall, together with his wife's
+reproaches, goaded him into action. He went out with his son and
+lanterns, intending to ask the old shepherd at the Bridge Farm to help
+them in their expedition to find and fold the sheep.
+
+Meanwhile, in the little sitting-room at Burwood Catherine Elsmere and
+Mary 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's
+needlework often dropped unheeded from her fingers; and the pages of
+Mary's book remained unturned. The postman who brought letters up the
+dale in the morning, and took letters back to Whinborough at night, had
+just passed by in his little cart, hooded and cloaked against the storm,
+and hoping to reach Whinborough before the drifts in the roads had made
+travelling too difficult. Mary had put into his hands a letter addressed
+to the Rev. Richard Meynell, Hotel Richelieu, Paris. And beside her on
+the table lay a couple of sheets of foreign notepaper, covered closely
+with Meynell's not very legible handwriting.
+
+Catharine also had some open letters on her lap. Presently she turned to
+Mary.
+
+"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't
+think Richard will be misunderstood again."
+
+"No. The Bishop says that mysterious as it all is, nobody blames him for
+being absent. They trust him. But this time, it seems, he _did_ write to
+the Bishop--just a few words."
+
+"Yes, I know. I am glad." But as she spoke, the pale severity of the
+girl's look belied the word she used. During the fortnight of Meynell's
+absence, while he and Alice Puttenham in the south of France had been
+following every possible clue in a vain search for Hester, and the Arches
+trial had been necessarily left entirely to the management of Meynell's
+counsel, and to the resources of his co-defendants, Darwen and Chesham,
+Mary had suffered much. To see his own brilliant vindication of himself
+and his followers, in the face of religious England, snuffed out and
+extinguished in a moment by the call of this private duty had been
+hard!--all the more seeing that the catastrophe had been brought about by
+misconduct so wanton, so flagrant, as Hester's. There had sprung up in
+Mary's mind, indeed, a _saeva indignatio,_ not for herself, but for
+Richard, first and foremost, and next for his cause. Dark as she knew
+Meynell's forebodings and beliefs to be, anxiety for Hester must
+sometimes 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 aside
+the 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 be
+temporarily blinded by the rush of wind and snow through the opening.
+
+"A telegram!" she exclaimed, in wonder. "Please come in and wait. Isn't
+it very bad?"
+
+"I hope I'll be able to get back!" laughed the young man who had brought
+it. "The roads are drifting up fast. It was noa good bicycling. I got 'em
+to 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 into
+the sitting-room.
+
+"Mother!--Richard and Miss Puttenham will be here to-night. They have
+heard of Hester."
+
+In stupefaction they read the telegram, which had had been sent from
+Crewe:
+
+"Received news of Hester on arrival Paris yesterday. She has left M. Says
+she has gone to find your mother. Keep her. We arrive to-night
+Whinborough 7.10."
+
+"It is now seven," said Catharine, looking at her watch. "But
+where--where is she?"
+
+Hurriedly they called their little parlour-maid into the room and
+questioned her with closed doors. No--she knew nothing of any visitor.
+Nobody had called; nobody, so far as she knew, had passed by, except the
+ordinary neighbours. Once in the afternoon, indeed, she had thought she
+heard a carriage pass the bottom of the lane, but on looking out from the
+kitchen she had seen nothing of it.
+
+Out of this slender fact, the only further information that could be
+extracted was a note of time. It was, the girl thought, about four
+o'clock when she heard the carriage pass.
+
+"But it couldn't have passed," Catharine objected, "or you would have
+seen it go up the valley."
+
+The girl assented, for the kitchen window commanded the road up to the
+bridge. Then the carriage, if she had really heard it, must have come to
+the 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; and
+thankful for something to do, Catharine and Mary, with minds full of
+conjecture and distress, set about preparing two rooms for their guests.
+
+"Will they ever get here?" Mary murmured to herself, when at last the two
+rooms lay neat and ready, with a warm fire in each, and she could allow
+herself to open the front door again, an inch or two, and look out into
+the weather. Nothing to be seen but the whirling snow-flakes. The horrid
+fancy seized her that Hester had really been in that carriage and had
+turned back at their very door. So that again Richard, arriving weary and
+heart-stricken, would be disappointed. Mary's bitterness grew.
+
+But all that could be done was to listen to every sound without, in the
+hope of catching something else than the roaring of the wind, and to give
+the rein to speculation and dismay.
+
+Catharine sat waiting, in her chair, the tears welling silently. It
+touched her profoundly that Hester, in her sudden despair, should have
+thought of coming to her; though apparently it was a project she had not
+carried 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 and
+hope in the arms of an all-pitying God. Catharine knew much more of
+Meryon's history and antecedents--from Meynell--than did Mary. She was
+convinced that the marriage, if there had been a marriage, had been a
+bogus one, and that the disgrace was irreparable. But in her stern,
+rich nature, now that the culprit had turned from her sin, there was not
+a thought of condemnation; only a yearning pity, an infinite tenderness.
+
+At last toward nine o'clock there were steps on the garden path. Mary
+flew to the door. In the porch there stood the old shepherd from the
+Bridge Farm. His hat, beard, and shoulders were heavy with snow, and his
+face 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 his
+sheep in. Varra careless of him to ha' left it so long!--aw mine wor safe
+i't' fold by fower o'clock. An' I thowt, miss, as I'd mak bold, afore
+goin' back to t' farm, to coom an' ast yo, if t' yoong leddy got safe
+hoam 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' Bridge
+Farm, an' it wor noan weather for a stranger, miss, yo unnerstan', to be
+oot 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 Catharine
+had already sprung to her feet in terror. There they questioned him.
+Yes--they had been expecting a lady. When had he seen her?--the young
+lady he spoke of? What was she like? In what direction had she gone? He
+answered their questions as clearly as he could, his own honest face
+growing 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 tired
+out! 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 small
+dressing-bag of green leather and on it appeared the initials--"H. F.-W."
+
+They looked at each other speechless. The old man hastened to explain
+that on opening the gate which led to the house from the lane his foot
+had stumbled against something on the path. By the light of his lantern
+he had seen it was a bag of some sort, had picked it up and brought it
+in.
+
+"She _was_ in the carriage!" said Mary, under her breath, "and must have
+just pushed this inside the gate before--"
+
+Before she went to her death? Was that what would have to be added? For
+there was horror in both their minds. The mountains at the head of Long
+Whindale run up to no great height, but there are plenty of crags on them
+with a sheer drop of anything from fifty to a hundred feet. Ten or twenty
+feet would be quite enough to disable an exhausted girl. Five hours since
+she 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 and
+voices--vying with the storm. Mary ran into the hall. Two figures
+appeared in the porch in the light of the lamp as she held it up, with a
+third behind them, carrying luggage. In front stood Meynell, and an
+apparently fainting woman, clinging to and supported by his arm.
+
+"Help me with this lady, please!" said Meynell, peremptorily, not
+recognizing who it was holding the light. "This last little climb has
+been 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 all
+his face relaxed in a sudden, irrepressible joy. "But she would come."
+Then, in a lower voice--"Is Hester here?" Mary shook her head, and
+something in her eyes warned him of fresh calamity. He stooped suddenly
+to look at Alice, and perceived that she was quite unconscious. He and
+Mary, between them, raised her and carried her into the sitting-room.
+Then, while Mary ministered to her, Meynell grasped Catharine's
+hand--with the brusque question--
+
+"What has happened?"
+
+Catharine beckoned to old David, the shepherd, and she, with David and
+Meynell, went across, out of hearing, into the tiny dining-room of the
+cottage. Meanwhile the horses and man who had brought the travellers from
+Whinborough had to be put up for the night, for the man would not venture
+the return journey.
+
+Meynell had soon heard what there was to tell. He himself was gray with
+fatigue 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 farmer
+across the lane, his own master, the young tenant of the Bridge Farm, and
+the cowman from the same farm.
+
+"And the Lord knaws I'd goa wi you myself, sir"--said the fine-featured
+old man, a touch of trouble in his blue eyes--"for I feel soomhow as
+though there were a bit o' my fault in it. But we've had a heavy job on
+t' fells awready, an I should be noa good to you."
+
+He went over to the neighbouring farm, to recruit some young men, and
+presently returned with them, the driver, also, from Whinborough, a
+stalwart 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, looking
+down upon the just reviving Alice.
+
+"She's been a plucky woman," he said, with emotion; "but she's about at
+the end of her tether." And in a few brief sentences he described the
+agitated pursuit of the last fortnight; the rapid journeys, prompted now
+by this clue, now by that; the alternate hopes and despairs; with no real
+information of any kind, till Hester's telegram, sent originally to
+Upcote and reforwarded, had reached Meynell in Paris, just as they had
+returned thither for a fresh consultation with the police at
+headquarters.
+
+As the sound of men's feet in the kitchen broke in upon the hurried
+narrative, 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 real
+clue 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 the
+porch, holding the lamp high for the departure of the rescuers. There
+were five men with lanterns, ropes, and poles, laden, besides, with
+blankets, and everything else that Catharine's practical sense could
+suggest. 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 the
+wind showed some signs of abating.
+
+"They'll find it easier goin', past t' bridge, than it would ha' been an
+hour since," said old David to Mary, pitying the white anxiety of her
+face. She thanked him with a smile, and then while he marched ahead, she
+put 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 the
+lights wavered, and presently, standing at the kitchen window, Catharine
+and Mary could watch them dancing up the dale, now visible, now
+vanishing. It must be at least, and at best, two or three hours before
+the party reappeared; it might be much more. They turned from useless
+speculation to give all their thoughts to Alice Puttenham.
+
+Too exhausted to speak or think, she was passive in their hands. She was
+soon in bed, in a deep sleep, and Mary, having induced her mother to lie
+down in the sitting-room, and having made up fires throughout the
+house, sent the servants to bed, and herself began her watch in Alice
+Puttenham's room.
+
+Dreary and long, the night passed away. Once or twice through the waning
+storm Mary heard the deep bell of the little church, tolling the hours;
+once or twice she went hurriedly downstairs thinking there were steps
+in the garden, only to meet her mother in the hall, on the same bootless
+errand. At last, worn with thinking and praying, she fell fitfully
+asleep, and woke to find moonlight shining through the white blind in
+Alice Puttenham's room. She drew aside the blind and saw with a shock of
+surprise that the storm was over; the valley lay pure white under a
+waning 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 to
+seek.
+
+Suddenly--out of the dark bosom of the valley, lights emerged. Mary
+sprang to her feet. Yes! it was they--it was Richard returning.
+
+One look at the bed, where the delicate pinched face still lay high on
+the pillows, drenched in a sleep which was almost a swoon, and Mary stole
+out of the room.
+
+There was time to complete their preparations and renew the fires. When
+Catharine softly unlatched the front door, everything was ready--warm
+blankets, hot milk, hot water bottles. But now they hardly dared
+speak to each other; dread kept them dumb. Nearer and nearer came the
+sound of feet and lowered voices. Soon they could hear the swing of the
+gate 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 say
+in his haggard look before he spoke.
+
+"We found her a long way up the pass. She has had a bad fall--but she is
+alive. 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 the
+Whinborough lad who had brought them from, the station--"will take one of
+his horses and go for the doctor. We shall get him here in a couple of
+hours."
+
+Silently they brought her in, the stalwart, kindly men, they mounted the
+cottage stairs, and on Mary' bed they laid her down.
+
+O crushed and wounded youth! The face, drawn and fixed in pain, was
+marble-cold and marble-white; the delicate mire-stained hands hung
+helpless. Masses of drenched hair fell about the neck and bosom; and
+there was a wound on the temple which had been bandaged, but was now
+bleeding afresh. Catharine bent over her in an anguish, feeling for pulse
+and heart. Meynell, whispering, pointed out that the right leg was broken
+below the knee. He himself had put it in some rough splints, made out of
+the poles the shepherds were carrying.
+
+Both Catharine and Mary had ambulance training, and, helped by their two
+maids, they did all they could. They cut away the soaked clothes. They
+applied warmth in every possible form; they got down some spoonfuls of
+warm milk and brandy, dreading always to hear the first sounds of
+consciousness 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 doctor
+will be coming directly."
+
+His tone was tender as a woman's. His ghostly face, disfigured by
+exhaustion, showed him absorbed in pity. Mary, standing near, longed to
+kneel down by him, and weep; but there was an austere sense that not even
+she 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, watching
+her, sometimes whispering to her.
+
+At last she said, "I couldn't face you all. I'm dying." She moved her
+right hand restlessly. "Give me something for this pain--I--I can't stand
+it."
+
+"Dear Hester--can you bear it a little longer? We will do all we can. We
+have 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 very
+unhappy?"
+
+"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 of
+naughtiness 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 she
+understood his silence, for she feebly moved her uninjured hand toward
+him; 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 was
+borne in upon him that he _must_ tell her--if she was to die; that in the
+last strait, Alice's arms must be about her. But the doctor must decide.
+
+Presently, she was a little easier. The warm stimulant dulled the
+consciousness which came in gusts.
+
+Once or twice, as she recognized the faces near her, there was a touch of
+life, 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 into
+unconsciousness Meynell reported something of the search. They had found
+her a long distance from the path, at the foot of a steep and rocky
+scree, some twenty or thirty feet high, down which she must have slipped
+headlong. There she had lain for some eight hours in the storm before
+they found her. She neither moved nor spoke when they discovered her, nor
+had 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 at
+first not without hope. She _might_ live; if there were no internal
+injuries of importance. The next few hours would show. He sent his motor
+back to Whinborough Cottage Hospital for a couple of nurses, and
+prepared, himself, to stay the greater part of the day. He had just gone
+downstairs 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 to
+see my mother."
+
+Catharine stooped toward her, in an agitation she found it difficult to
+conceal.
+
+"Dear Hester!--we are sending a telegram as soon as the post-office is
+open to Lady Fox-Wilton."
+
+Hester moved her hand impatiently.
+
+"She's not my mother, and I'm glad. Where is--_my mother_?" She laid a
+strange, deep emphasis on the word, opening her eyes wide and
+threateningly. Catharine understood at once that, in some undiscovered
+way, she knew what they had all been striving to keep from her. It was no
+time 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, who
+gave a reluctant consent, lest more harm should come of refusing the
+interview than of granting it. And as Catharine ran up again to Mary's
+room she had time to reflect, with self-reproach, on the strange
+completeness with which she at any rate had forgotten that frail
+ineffectual woman asleep in Mary's room from the moment of Hester's
+arrival till now.
+
+But Mary had not forgotten her. When Catharine opened the door, it was to
+see a thin, phantom-like figure, standing fully dressed, and leaning on
+Mary's arm. Catharine went up to her with tears, and kissed her, holding
+her hands close.
+
+"Hester asks for you--for her mother--her real mother. She knows."
+
+"_She knows_?" Alice stood paralyzed a moment, gazing at Catharine. Then
+the colour rushed back into her face. "I am coming--I am coming--at
+once," 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--would
+stand by the door--I would call in a moment--if--"
+
+They agreed. She went with tottering steps across the landing. On the
+threshold, Catharine paused; Mary remained a little behind. Alice went in
+and shut the door.
+
+The blinds in Hester's room were up, and the snow-covered fells rising
+steeply above the house filled it with a wintry, reflected light; a
+dreary light, that a large fire could not dispel. On the white bed
+lay Hester, breathing quickly and shallowly; bright colour now in
+each sunken cheek. The doctor himself had cut off a great part of her
+hair--her glorious hair. The rest fell now in damp golden curls about her
+slender neck, beneath the cap-like bandage which hid the forehead and
+temples 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 restrain
+the 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 as
+scarcely to be heard--and then again--"_Mother_!"
+
+Alice sank down beside her with a sob, and without a word they gazed into
+each other's eyes. Slowly Hester's filled with tears. But Alice's were
+dry. In her face there was as much ecstasy as anguish. It was the first
+look that Hester's _soul_ had ever given her. All the past was in it; and
+that 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 that
+made me go with him."
+
+But she did not say it. And while Alice's mind, rushing miserably over
+the past, was trying to piece together some image of what had happened,
+Hester began to talk intermittently about the preceding weeks. Alice
+tried 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 her
+own responsibility.
+
+"I needn't have gone--but I would go. There was a devil in me--that
+wanted to know. Now I know--too much. I'm glad it's over. This life isn't
+worth while--not for me."
+
+So, from these lips of eighteen, came the voice of the world's old
+despairs!
+
+Presently she asked peremptorily for Meynell, and he came to her.
+
+"Uncle Richard, I want to be sure"--she spoke strongly and in her natural
+voice--"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. We
+signed registers and things. Then--when we quarrelled--Philip said--he
+wasn't certain about that woman--in Scotland. You might be right. Tell me
+the truth, please. Am I--his wife?"
+
+And as the words dropped faintly, the anxiety in her beautiful
+death-stricken eyes was strange and startling to see. Through all her
+recklessness, her defiance of authority and custom, could be seen at last
+the strength of inherited, implanted things; the instinct of a race, a
+family, 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. My
+inquiries all broke down. There was no Scotch marriage."
+
+Hester said nothing for a little; but the look of relief was clear. Alice
+on the farther side of the bed dropped her face in her hands. Was it not
+only forty-eight hours since, in Paris, Meynell had told her that he had
+received conclusive evidence of the Scotch marriage, and that Hester was
+merely Philip's victim, not his wife? Passionately her heart thanked him
+for the falsehood. She saw clearly that Hester's mortal wounds were not
+all bodily. She was dying partly of self-contempt, self-judgment.
+Meynell's strong words--his "noble lie"--had lifted, as it were, a
+fraction of the moral weight that was destroying her; had made a space--a
+freedom, in which the spirit could move.
+
+So much Alice saw; blind meanwhile to the tragic irony of this piteous
+stress 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 the
+nurses came at midday, however, the pulse had already begun to fail. They
+could do nothing; and though within call, they left her mainly to those
+who loved her.
+
+In the early afternoon she asked suddenly for the Communion, and Meynell
+administered it. The three women who were watching her received it with
+her. In Catharine's mind, as Meynell's hands brought her the sacred bread
+and wine, all thought of religious difference between herself and him had
+vanished, 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 was
+only 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 more
+strength--"beyond? How strange that--I shall know before you! Uncle
+Richard--I'm--I'm sorry!"
+
+At that the difficult tears blinded him, and he could not reply. But she
+was beyond tears, concentrating all the last effort of the mind on the
+sheer maintenance of life. Presently she added:
+
+"I don't hate--even Philip now. I--I forget him. Mother!" And again she
+clung 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. But
+now 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 poor
+mother!"
+
+So the hours wore on. Science was clever and merciful and eased her pain.
+Love encompassed her, and when the wintry light failed, her faintly
+beating 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 that
+trance of silence in which they had all been standing round the dead. He
+yielded to her; he was ready to see the doctor and to submit to the
+absolute rest enjoined. But already there was something in his aspect
+which 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 her
+love was close upon her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+On the day following Hester's death an inquest was held in the
+dining-room at Burwood. Meynell and old David, the shepherd, stood out
+chief 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 Miss
+Hester 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 am
+told, owing to illness--were her guardians?"
+
+Meynell assented. He stood to the right of the Coroner, leaning heavily
+on the chair before him. The doctor who had been called in to Hester sat
+beside him, and wondered professionally whether the witness would get
+through.
+
+"I understand also," the Coroner resumed, "that Miss Fox-Wilton had left
+the 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, in
+company I believe with Miss Fox-Wilton's aunt, Miss Alice Puttenham. Miss
+Puttenham, 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 precarious
+state, in consequence of grief and shock, and I should greatly fear the
+results 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, of
+Hester's disappearance from the family with whom she was boarding, of the
+anxiety of her relations, and the search that he and Miss Puttenham had
+made.
+
+His conscience was often troubled. Vaguely, his mind was pronouncing
+itself all the while--"It is time now the truth were known. It is better
+it should be known." Hester's death had changed the whole situation. But
+he could himself take no step whatever toward disclosure. And he knew
+that it was doubtful whether he should or could have advised Alice to
+take any.
+
+The inquiry went on, the Coroner avoiding the subject of Hester's French
+escapade as much as possible. After all there need be--there was--no
+question of suicide; only some explanation had to be suggested of the
+dressing-bag left within the garden gate, and of the girl's reckless
+climb into the fells, against old David's advice, on such an afternoon.
+
+Presently, in the midst of David's evidence, describing his meeting with
+Hester by the bridge, the handle of the dining-room door turned. The door
+opened a little way and then shut again. Another minute or two passed,
+and then the door opened again timidly as though some one were hesitating
+outside. The Coroner annoyed, beckoned to a constable standing behind the
+witnesses. But before he could reach it, a lady had slowly pushed it
+open, and entered the room.
+
+It was Alice Puttenham.
+
+The Coroner looked up, and the doctor rose in astonishment. Alice
+advanced 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 beyond
+all touch of beauty--and the childish overhanging lip quivered as she
+tried to speak; but no words came.
+
+"Miss Puttenham, I presume?" said the Coroner. "We were told, madam, that
+you 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 the
+effort, she should give her evidence as soon as possible, and should give
+it sitting."
+
+A murmur of assent ran round the table. Over the weather-beaten
+Westmoreland faces had passed a sudden wave of animation.
+
+Alice took her seat, and the oath. Meynell sitting opposite to her
+covered his face with his hands. He foresaw what she was about to do, and
+his heart went out to her.
+
+Everybody at the table bent forward to listen. The two shorthand writers
+lifted 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 to
+hear anything she might have to say.
+
+Alice fixed her eyes on the old man, as though she would thereby shut out
+all 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 the
+daughter of the late Sir Ralph and Lady Fox-Wilton?"
+
+"She was their adopted daughter. Her father was Mr. Neville Flood, and
+I--am her mother. Mr. Flood, of Sandford Abbey, died nearly twenty years
+ago. He and I were never married. My sister and brother-in-law adopted
+the child. She passed always as theirs, and when Sir Ralph died, he
+appointed--Mr. Meynell--and my sister her guardians. Mr. Meynell
+has 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 uncovered
+his eyes and tried to meet hers, so as to give her encouragement.
+
+She resumed--
+
+"Last August the nurse who attended me--in my confinement--came
+home to Upcote. She made a statement to a gentleman there--a false
+statement--and then she died. I wished then to make the truth public--but
+Mr. Meynell--as Hester's guardian--and for her sake, as well as mine--did
+not wish it. She knew nothing--then; and he was afraid of its effect upon
+her. I followed his advice, and took her abroad, in order to protect her
+from a bad man who was pursuing her. We did all we could--but we were not
+able to protect her. They were married without my knowing--and she went
+away with him. Then he--this man--told her--or perhaps he had done it
+before, I don't know--who she was. I can only guess how he knew; but he
+is Mr. Flood's nephew. My poor child soon found out what kind of man he
+was. She tried to escape from him. And because Mrs. Elsmere had been
+always 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 away
+again--in despair--when she actually got here. But her death was a pure
+accident--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 she
+was dying--she told me she knew--I was her mother. And now--that she is
+dead--"
+
+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 mine
+now--my child--forever--only mine!"
+
+She broke off incoherently, bowing her head upon her hands, her slight
+shoulders 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. Meynell
+whispered to her.
+
+The Coroner spoke, drawing his handkerchief hastily across his eyes.
+
+"The Court is very grateful to you, Miss Puttenham, for this frank and
+brave statement. We tender you our best thanks. There is no need for us
+to detain you longer."
+
+She rose, and Meynell led her from the room. Outside was a nurse to whom
+he 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 a
+fitful and frosty sunshine. The rocks and screes with their steep beds of
+withered heather made dark scrawls and scratches on the white; the smoke
+from the farmhouses rose bluish against the snowy wall of fell; and the
+river, amid the silence of the muffled roads and paths, seemed the only
+audible thing in the valley.
+
+In the tiny churchyard the new-made grave had been filled in with frozen
+earth, and on the sods lay flowers piled there by Rose Flaxman's kind and
+busy hands. She and Hugh had arrived from the south that morning.
+
+Another visitor had come from the south, also to lay flowers on that
+wintry grave. Stephen Barron's dumb pain was bitter to see. The silence
+of spiritual and physical exhaustion in which Meynell had been wrapped
+since the morning of the inquest was first penetrated and broken up by
+the sight of Stephen's anguish. And in the attempt to comfort the
+younger, the elder man laid hold on some returning power for himself.
+
+But he had been hardly hit; and the depth of the wound showed itself
+strangely--in a kind of fear of love itself, a fear of Mary! Meynell's
+attitude toward her during these days was almost one of shrinking. The
+atmosphere between them was electrical; charged with things unspoken, and
+a conflict that must be faced.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The day after Hester's funeral the newspapers were full of the sentence
+delivered on the preceding day, in the Arches Court, on Meynell and his
+co-defendants. A telegram from Darwen the evening before had conveyed
+the news to Meynell himself.
+
+The sentence of deprivation _ab officio et beneficio_ in the Church of
+England, on the ground of heretical opinion and unauthorized services,
+had been expressed by the Dean of Arches in a tone and phraseology of
+considerable vehemence. According to him the proceedings of the
+Modernists were "as contrary to morality as to law," and he marvelled how
+"honest men" could consent to occupy the position of Meynell and his
+friends.
+
+Notice of appeal to the Privy Council was at once given by the Modernist
+counsel, 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 Rose
+and Mary were sitting. Rose, reading his face, disappeared, and he put
+the letter into Mary's hands.
+
+It was addressed to the Bishop of Dunchester. The great gathering in
+Dunchester Cathedral, after several postponements to match the delays in
+the 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 of
+its history; the period of open revolt, of hot and ardent conflict.
+
+The letter which Mary was invited to read was short. It simply asked that
+the writer should be relieved from a task he felt he could not adequately
+carry out. He desired to lay it down, not for his own sake, but for the
+sake of the cause. "I am not the man, and this is not my job. This
+conviction has been borne in upon me during the last few weeks with an
+amazing clearness. I will only say that it seems to represent a
+command--a prohibition--laid upon me, which I cannot ignore. There are of
+course tragic happenings and circumstances connected with it, my dear
+lord, on which I will not dwell. The effect of them at present on my mind
+is that I wish to retire from a public and prominent part in our great
+Movement; at any rate for a time. I shall carry through the Privy Council
+appeal; but except for that intend to refuse all public appearance. When
+the sentence is confirmed, as of course it will be, it will be best for
+me to confine myself to thinking and writing in solitude and behind the
+scenes. 'Those also serve who only stand and wait.' The quotation is
+hackneyed, but it must serve. Through thought and self-proving, I believe
+that in the end I shall help you best. I am not the fighter I thought
+I was; the fighter that I ought to be to keep the position that has been
+so generously given me. Forgive me for a while if I go into the
+wilderness--a rather absurd phrase, however, as you will agree, when
+I tell you that I am soon to marry a woman whom I love with my whole
+heart. But it applies to my connection with the Modernist Movement, and
+to my position as a leader. My old friends and colleagues--many of them
+at least--will, I fear, blame the step I am taking. It will seem to them
+a mere piece of flinching and cowardice. But each man's soul is in his
+own keeping; and he alone can judge his own powers."
+
+The letter then became a quiet discussion of the best man to be chosen in
+the writer's stead, and passed on into a review of the general situation
+created by the sentence of the Court of Arches.
+
+But of these later pages of the letter Mary realized nothing. She sat
+with it in her hands, after she had read the passage which has been
+quoted, 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 rocky
+slope, 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 her
+again with a note of humility, of sad appeal, that struck most poignantly
+on the woman's heart--"but I cannot resist it. What use can I be to any
+human being as guide, or prophet, or counsellor--if I was so little use
+to her? Is there not a kind of hypocrisy--a dismal hypocrisy--in my
+claim to teach--or inspire--great multitudes of people--when this one
+child--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 for
+the public, the impersonal note. She set against the tragic appeal of the
+dead the equally tragic appeal of the living. She had in her mind the
+memory of that London church, with the strained upturned faces, the
+"hungry sheep"--girls among them, perhaps, in peril like Hester, men
+assailed by the same vile impulses that had made a brute of Philip
+Meryon. During the preceding months Mary's whole personality had
+developed with great rapidity, after a somewhat taciturn and slowly
+ripening youth. The need, enforced upon her by love itself, of asserting
+herself even against the mother she adored; the shadow of Meynell's cloud
+upon her, and her suffering under it, during the weeks of slander; and
+now this rending tragedy at her doors--had tempered anew the naturally
+high heart, and firm will. At this critical moment, she saved Meynell
+from a fatal step by the capacity she showed of loving his cause, only
+next to himself. And, indeed, Meynell was made wholesomely doubtful once
+or twice whether it were not in truth his cause she loved in him. For
+the sweet breakdowns of love which were always at her lips she banished
+by a mighty effort, till she should have won or lost. Thus throughout she
+showed herself her mother's daughter--with her father's thoughts.
+
+It was long, however, before she succeeded in making any real impression
+upon him. All she could obtain at first was delay, and that Catharine
+should be informed.
+
+As soon as that had been done, the position became once more curiously
+complex. Here was a woman to whom the whole Modernist Movement was
+anathema, driven finally into argument for the purpose of compelling
+the Modernist leader, the contriver and general of Modernist victory, to
+remain 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 mere
+feeling, however sharp, however legitimate. You had undertaken the
+thing, and it must, at all costs, be carried through. That was the
+dominant habit of her mind; and there were persons connected with her on
+whom the rigidity of it had at times worked harshly.
+
+On this occasion it was no doubt interfered with--(the Spirit of Comedy
+would have found a certain high satisfaction in the dilemma)--by the fact
+that Meynell's persistence in the course he had entered upon must be,
+in her eyes, and _sub specie religionis_, a persistence in heresy and
+unbelief. What decided it ultimately, however, was that she was not only
+an orthodox believer, but a person of great common sense--and Mary's
+mother.
+
+Her natural argument was that after the tragic events which had occurred,
+and the public reports of them which had appeared, Meynell's abrupt
+withdrawal from public life would once more unsettle and confuse the
+public mind. If there had been any change in his opinions--
+
+"Oh! do not imagine"--she turned a suddenly glowing face upon him--"I
+should be trying to dissuade you, if that were your reason. No!--it is
+for personal and private reasons you shrink from the responsibility
+of leadership. And that being so, what must the world say--the ignorant
+world 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 dear
+friend--I am not thinking of you at all. I leave you out of count; I am
+thinking of Alice--and--Mary!"
+
+Catharine unconsciously straightened herself, a touch of something
+resentful--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 has
+happened gone to soften people's hearts? to make them repent doubly of
+their scandal, and their false witness? Every one knows the truth
+now--every one who cares; and every one understands. But now--after the
+effort poor Alice has made--after all that she and you have suffered--you
+insist on turning fresh doubt and suspicion on yourself, your motives,
+your past history. Can't you see how people may gossip about it--how they
+may interpret it? You have no right to do it, my dear Richard!--no right
+whatever. Your 'good report' belongs not only to yourself--but--to Mary!"
+
+Catharine's breath had quickened; her hand shook upon her knee. Meynell
+rose from his seat, paced the room and came back to her.
+
+"I have tried to explain to Mary"--he said, desperately--"that I should
+feel myself a hypocrite and pretender in playing the part of a spiritual
+leader--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, sweet
+timidity--"that you felt you had tried to do for Hester what only
+grace--what only a living Redeemer--could do for her--"
+
+She broke off. But at last, as Meynell, her junior by fifteen years--her
+son almost--looked down into her face--her frail, aging, illumined
+face--there was something in the passion of her faith which challenged
+and roused his own; which for the moment, at any rate, and for the first
+time since the crisis had arisen revived in him the "fighter" he had
+tried to shed.
+
+"The fault was not in the thing preached," he said, with a groan; "or so
+it seems to me--but in the preacher. The preacher--was unequal to the
+message."
+
+Catharine was silent. And after a little more pacing he said in a more
+ordinary 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 ever
+known--what you and I knew?"
+
+His eyes, full of trouble, propitiated her. He took her hand and kissed
+it.
+
+"Bear with me, dear mother! I don't see my way, but Mary--is to me--my
+life. At any rate, I won't do in a hurry what you disapprove."
+
+Thus a little further delay was gained. The struggle lasted indeed
+another couple of days, and the aspect of both Meynell and Mary showed
+deep marks of it by the end. Throughout it Mary made little or no appeal
+to the mere womanly arts. And perhaps it was the repression of them that
+cost her most.
+
+On the third day of discussion, while the letter still lay unposted in
+Meynell's writing-case, he went wandering by himself up the valley. The
+weather was soft again, and breathing spring. The streams ran free; the
+buds were swelling on the sycamores; and except on the topmost crags the
+snow had disappeared from the fells. Harsh and austere the valley was
+still; the winter's grip would be slow to yield; but the turn of the year
+had come.
+
+That morning a rush of correspondence forwarded from Upcote had brought
+matters to a crisis. On the days immediately following the publication of
+the evidence given at the inquest on Hester the outside world had made no
+sign. All England knew now why Richard Meynell had disappeared from the
+Arches Trial, only to become again the prey of an enormous publicity, as
+one 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 few
+days the England interested in Richard Meynell simply held its breath
+and let him be.
+
+But he belonged to the public; and after just the brief respite that
+decency and sympathy imposed, the public fell upon him. The Arches
+verdict had been given; the appeal to the Privy Council had been lodged.
+With every month of the struggle indeed, as the Modernist attack had
+grown more determined, and its support more widespread, so the orthodox
+defence had gathered force and vehemence. Yet through the length and
+breadth of the country the Modernist petition to Parliament was now
+kindling such a fire as no resistance could put out. Debate in the House
+of Commons on the Modernist proposals for Church Reform would begin after
+Easter. Already every member of the House was being bombarded from both
+sides by his constituents. Such a heat of religious feeling, such a
+passion of religious hope and fear, had not been seen in England for
+generations.
+
+And meanwhile Meynell, whose action had first released the great forces
+now at work, who as a leader was now doubly revered, doubly honoured by
+those who clamoured to be led by him, still felt himself utterly
+unable to face the struggle. Heart and brain were the prey of a deadly
+discouragement; the will could make no effort; his confidence in himself
+was lamed and helpless. Not even the growing strength and intensity of
+his 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 he
+walked, some words of Newman possessed him; breathed into his ear through
+all the wind and water voices of the valley:
+
+_Thou_ to wax fierce
+In the cause of the Lord
+To threat and to pierce
+With the heavenly sword!
+Anger and Zeal
+And the Joy of the brave
+Who bade _thee_ to feel--
+
+Dejectedly, he made his way along the fatal path; he found the ruin where
+Hester had sheltered; he gradually identified the route which the rescue
+party had taken along the side of the fell; and the precipitous scree
+where they had found her. The freshly disturbed earth and stones still
+showed plainly where she had fallen, and where he and the shepherds had
+stood, 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 load
+of responsibility crushed him; and he could not resign himself to such a
+fate for such a human being. Before him, on the chill background of the
+tells, 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 disowned
+of God--prophesy to his brethren?....
+
+Thus there descended upon him the darkest hour of his history. It was
+simply a struggle for existence on the part of all those powers of the
+soul that make for action, against the forces that make for death and
+inertia.
+
+It lasted long; and it ended in the slow and difficult triumph, the final
+ascendency of the "Yeas" of Life over the "Nays," which in truth his
+character secured. He won the difficult fight not as a philosopher, but
+as a Christian; impelled, chastened, brought into line again, by purely
+Christian memories and Christian ideas. The thought of Christ healed
+him--gradually gave him courage to bear an agony of self-criticism,
+self-reproach, that was none the less overwhelming because his calmer
+mind, looking on, knew it to be irrational. There was no prayer to
+Christ, no "Christe eleison" on his rips. But there was a solemn kneeling
+by the Cross; a solemn opening of the mind to the cleansing and
+strengthening forces that flow from that life and death which are
+Christendom's central possession; the symbol through which, now
+understood in this way, now in that, the Eternal speaks to the Christian
+soul.
+
+So, amid "the cheerful silence of the fells," a good man, heavily, took
+back his task. From this wreck of affection, this ruin of hope, he must
+go forth to preach love and hope to other men; from the depths of his
+grief 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 personal
+complacency; smarting under the conviction of personal weakness and
+defeat; tormented still, as he would ever be, by all the "might have
+beens" of Hester's story, he was conscious of the "supersensual
+moment," the inrush of Divine strength, which at some time or other
+rewards 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 planting
+snowdrops. He helped her, and then they descended to the main road
+together. Looking at his face, she hardly dared, close as his hand clung
+to hers, to break the silence.
+
+It was dusk, and there was no one in sight. In the shelter of a group of
+trees, 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 should
+have 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 ruling
+her beloved was odious. Yet as they walked on hand in hand, the modern
+in Mary prevailed, and she must needs accept the equal rights of a love
+which is also life's supreme friendship.
+
+A few more days Meynell spent in the quiet of the valley, recovering, as
+best he could, and through a struggle constantly renewed, some normal
+steadiness of mood and nerve; dealing with an immense correspondence;
+and writing the Dunchester sermon; while Stephen Barron, who had already
+resigned his own living, was looking after the Upcote Church and parish.
+Meanwhile Alice Puttenham lay upstairs in one of the little white rooms
+of 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 "this
+shocking business which had disgraced us all." But Catharine at Alice's
+entreaty had merely appealed to the indisputable fact that the tiny house
+was already more than full. There was no danger, and they had a good
+trained nurse.
+
+Once or twice it was, in these days, that again a few passing terrors ran
+through Mary's mind, on the subject of her mother. The fragility which
+had struck Meynell's unaccustomed eye when he first arrived in the valley
+forced itself now at times, though only at times, on her reluctant sense.
+There were nights when, without any definite reason, she could not sleep
+for anxiety. And then again the shadow entirely passed away. Catharine
+laughed at her; and when the moment came for Mary to follow Meynell to
+the Dunchester meeting, it was impossible even for her anxious love to
+persuade itself that there was good reason for her to stay away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before Meynell departed southward there was a long conversation between
+him 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's
+birth and of her tragic death. The beauty of Meynell's relation to the
+mother and child was plainly to be seen through a very reticent
+narrative; and to the tale of those hours in Long Whindale no man of
+heart like the little Bishop could have listened unmoved. At the end, the
+two men clasped hands in silence; and the Bishop looked wistfully at the
+priest that he and the diocese were so soon to lose.
+
+For the rest, as before, they met as equals, curiously congenial to each
+other, in spite of the battle in front. The Bishop's certainty of victory
+was once more emphatically shown by the friendly ease with which he still
+received his rebellious incumbent. Any agreeable outsider of whatever
+creed--Renan or Loisy or Tyrrell--might have been thus welcomed at the
+Palace. It was true that till the appeal was decided Meynell remained
+formally Rector of Upcote Minor. The church and the parish were still in
+his hands; and the Bishop pointedly made no reference to either. But a
+very few weeks now would see Meynell's successor installed, and the
+parish reduced to order.
+
+Such at least was the Bishop's confidence, and in the position in which
+he found himself--with seven Modernist evictions pending in his diocese,
+and many more than seven recalcitrant parishes to deal with, he was not
+the man to make needless friction.
+
+In Meynell's view, indeed, the Bishop's confidence was excessive; and the
+triumph of the orthodox majority in the Church, if indeed it were to
+triumph, was neither so near, nor likely to be so complete, as the Bishop
+believed. He had not yet been able to resume all the threads of
+leadership, but he was clear that there had been no ebbing whatever of
+the Modernist tide. On the contrary, it seemed to him that the function
+at Dunchester might yet ring through England, and startle even such
+an 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 on
+Sunday; and the loyalty of the parish to their Rector, their answer
+to the Arches judgment, was shown in the passion, the loving intelligence
+with which every portion of the beautiful Modernist service was followed
+by an audience of working men and women gathered both from Upcote
+itself and from the villages round, who knew very well--and gloried in
+the fact--that from their midst had started the flame now running through
+the country. Many of them had been trained by Methodism, and were now
+returning to the Church that Wesley had been so loath to leave. "The
+Rector's changed summat," said men to each other, puzzled by that
+aspect--that unconscious aspect--of spiritual dignity that falls like
+a robe of honour, as life goes on, about the Knights of the Spirit. But
+they knew, at least, from their newspapers, how and when that beautiful
+girl who had grown up from a child in their midst had perished; they
+remembered the winter months of calumny and persecution; and their rough,
+kind hearts went out to the man who was so soon, against their will and
+their protest, to be driven out from the church where for twenty years he
+had preached to his people a Christ they could follow, and a God they
+could adore.
+
+The week passed, and the Dunchester meeting was at hand. Meynell was to
+spend the night before the great service with the old Bishop, against
+whom--together with the whole of his Chapter--Privy Council action
+was now pending. Mary was to be the guest of one of the Canons in the
+famous Close.
+
+Meynell arrived to find the beautiful old town in commotion. As a protest
+against the Modernist demonstration, all the students from a famous
+Theological College in a neighbouring diocese under a High Church bishop
+had 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 be
+appointed to a Canonry of St. Paul's. The streets were full of rival
+crowds, jostling each other. Three hundred Modernist clergy were staying
+in or near the town; the old Cathedral city stared at them amazed; and
+from all parts had come, besides, the lay followers of the new Movement
+thronging to a day which represented for them the first fruits of a
+harvest, whereof not they perhaps but their children would see the full
+reaping.
+
+On the evening before the function Meynell went into the Cathedral with
+Mary just as the lengthening March afternoon was beginning to wane. They
+stepped through the western doors set open to the breeze and the sunshine
+into a building all opal and ebony, faintly flooded with rose from the
+sky without; a building of infinite height and majesty, where clustered
+columns of black marble, incredibly light, upheld the richness of the
+bossed roof, where every wall was broidered history, where every step was
+on "the ruined sides of Kings," and the gathered fragments of ancient
+glass, jewels themselves, let through a jewelled light upon the creamy
+stone.
+
+For the first time, since Hester's death, Meynell's sad face broke into
+joy. The glorious church appeared to him as the visible attestation of
+the 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 the
+nave, conscious of a strange tumult in the pulse, as though the great
+building with its immemorial history were half lending itself to, half
+resisting, the emotion that filled them. In the choir a practice was
+going on. Some thirty young clergy were going through the responses and
+canticles of the new service-book, with an elder man, also in clerical
+dress, directing them. At the entrance of the southern choir aisle stood
+the senior verger of the Cathedral in his black gown--open-mouthed and
+motionless, listening to the strange sounds.
+
+Meynell and Mary knelt for a moment of impassioned prayer, and then sat
+down to listen. Through the fast darkening church, chanted by half the
+choir, there stole those words of noblest poetry:
+
+"_A new commandment_--_a new commandment--I give unto you_ ..." To be
+answered by the voices on the other side--"_That ye love--ye love one
+another_!"
+
+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 the
+springing 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 the
+evening light, "and we two--and those men singing there--shall be
+outcasts and wanderers, perhaps for a time, perhaps while we live.
+But to-day--and to-morrow--we are still children in the house of our
+fathers--sons, not slaves!--speaking the free speech of our own day in
+these 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 walked
+silently through the Close, toward the Palace, pursued by the rise and
+fall of the music from within.
+
+The great service was over, with its bold adaptation of the religious
+language of the past, the language which is wrought into the being of
+Christendom, to the needs and the knowledge of the present. And now
+Meynell had risen, and was speaking to that thronged nave, crowded
+by men and women of many types and many distinctions, with that mingling
+of passion and simplicity which underlies success in all the poetic
+arts, and, first and foremost, the art of religious oratory. The
+sermon was to be known in after years by the name of "The Two
+Christianities"--and became one of the chief landmarks, or, rather,
+rallying cries of the Modernist cause. Only some fragments of it can be
+suggested here; one passage, above all, that Mary's brooding memory will
+keep close and warm to her life's end:
+
+"...Why are we here, my friends? For what purpose is this great
+demonstration, this moving rite in, which we have joined this day?
+One-sixth at least of this congregation stands here under a sentence of
+ecclesiastical death. A few weeks perhaps, and this mighty church will
+know its white-haired Bishop no more. Bishop and Chapter will have been
+driven out; and we, the rank and file, whose only desire is to cling to
+the Church in which we were baptized and bred, will find ourselves exiles
+and 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 in
+the National Church, till force drive us out. Why? Because there is
+something infinitely greater at stake than any reproach that can be
+hurled at us on the ground of broken pledges--pledges made too early,
+given in ignorance and good faith, and broken now, solemnly, in the face
+of God and this people--for a greater good. What does our personal
+consistency--which, mind you, is a very different thing from personal
+honesty!--matter? We are as sensitive as any man who attacks us on the
+point of personal honour. But we are constrained of God; we bear in our
+hands the cause of our brethren, the cause of half the nation; and we can
+no other. Ask yourselves what we have to gain by it. Nay! With expulsion
+and exile in sight--with years perhaps of the wilderness before us--we
+stand here for the liberties of Christ's Church!--its liberties of growth
+and life....
+
+"My friends, what is the life either of intellect or spirit but the
+response of man to the communication of God? Age by age, man's
+consciousness cuts deeper into the vast mystery that surrounds us;
+absorbs, transmutes, translates ever more of truth, into conceptions he
+can 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 this
+ever-living and growing advance, so religion--man's ideas of God and his
+own soul.
+
+"Within the last hundred years man's knowledge of the physical world has
+broadened beyond the utmost dreams of our fathers. But of far greater
+importance to man is his knowledge of himself. There, too, the century
+of which we are now the heirs has lifted the veil--for us first among
+living men--from secrets hitherto unknown. HISTORY has come into being.
+
+"What is history? Simply the power--depending upon a thousand laborious
+processes--of constructing a magic lens within the mind which allows us
+to look deep into the past, to see its life and colour and movement
+again, as no generation but our own has yet been able to see it. We hold
+our breath sometimes, as for a brief moment perhaps we catch its very
+gesture, its very habit as it lived, the very tone of its voices. It has
+been a new and marvellous gift of our God to us; and it has transformed
+or is transforming Christianity.
+
+"Like science, this new discipline of the human mind is divine and
+authoritative. It lessens the distance between our human thought and the
+thought of God, because, in the familiar phrase, it enables us to "think,
+in some sort, His thoughts after Him." Like science it marches slowly on
+its way; through many mistakes; through hypothesis and rectification;
+through daring vision and laborious proof; to an ever-broadening
+certainty. History has taken hold of the Christian tradition. History has
+worked upon it with an amazing tenderness, and patience, and reverence.
+And at the end of a hundred years what do we see?--that half of
+Christendom, at least, which we in this church represent?
+
+"We see a Christ stripped of Jewish legend, and Greek speculation, and
+medieval scholasticism; moving simply and divinely among the ways of His
+Jewish world, a man among men. We can watch, dimly indeed by comparison
+with our living scrutiny of living men, but still more clearly than any
+generation of Christendom since the disappearance of the first has been
+able to watch, the rise of His thoughts, the nature of His environment,
+the sequence of His acts, the original significance, the immediate
+interpretation, the subsequent influence of His death. We know much more
+of 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 with
+its working through two thousand years upon the world.
+
+"_There,_ for the Modernist, lies revelation!--in the unfolding of the
+Christian idea, through the successive stages of human thought and
+imagination, it has traversed, down to the burst of revelation in the
+present day. Yet we are only now at the beginning of an immense
+development. The content of the Christian idea of love--love,
+self-renouncing, self-fulfilling--is infinite, inexhaustible, like that
+of beauty, or of truth. Why? At this moment, I am only concerned to give
+you the Christian answer, which is the answer of a reasonable faith.
+Because, like the streams springing forever from 'the pure founts of
+Cephisus,' to nourish the swelling plains below, these governing ideas of
+our life--tested by life, confirmed by life--have their source in the
+very being of God, sharers in His Eternity, His Ever-Fruitfulness....
+
+"But even so, you have not exhausted the wealth of Christianity; For to
+the potency of the Christian idea is added the magic of an incomparable
+embodiment in human life. The story of Jesus bears the idea which it
+enshrines eternally through the world. It is to the idea as the vessel of
+the Grail.
+
+"... Do these conceptions make us love our Master less? Ask your
+own hearts? There must be many in this crowded church that have
+known sorrow--intolerable anguish and disappointment--gnawing
+self-reproach--during the past year, or months, or weeks; many that have
+watched sufferings which no philosophic optimism can explain, and
+catastrophes that leave men dumb. Some among them will have been
+driven back upon their faith--driven to the foot of the Cross. Through
+all intellectual difference, has not the natural language of their
+fathers been also their language? Is there anything in their changed
+opinions 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--that
+does--divide _us_--whose consciences dare not refuse it--from the
+immortal triumph of that death? In our sharpest straits, are we not
+comforted and cleansed and sustained by the same thoughts, the same
+visions that have always sustained and comforted the Christian? No!--the
+sons of tradition and dogma have no monopoly in the exaltation, the
+living passion of the Cross! We, too, watching that steadfastness grow
+steadfast; bowed before that innocent suffering, grow patient; drinking
+in the wonder of that faith, amid utter defeat, learn to submit and go
+forward. 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 still
+our sore hearts before our God."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Quietly and low, in tones that shook here and there, the words had fallen
+upon the spell-bound church.
+
+Mary covered her eyes. But they saw only the more intently the vision of
+Hester maimed and dying; and the face of Meynell bending over her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then from this intimity, this sacredness of feeling, the speaker
+passed gradually and finally into the challenge, the ringing yet
+brotherly challenge, it was in truth his mission to deliver. The note of
+battle--honourable, inevitable battle--pealed through the church, and
+when it ceased the immense congregation rose, possessed by one heat of
+emotion, and choir and multitude broke into the magnificent Modernist
+hymn, "Christus Rex"--written by the Bishop of the See, and already
+familiar throughout England.
+
+The service was over. Out streamed the great congregation. The Close was
+crowded to see them come. Lines of theological students were drawn up
+there, fresh-faced boys in round collars and long black coats, who, as
+the main body of the Modernist clergy approached, began defiantly to
+chant the Creed. Meynell, with the old yet stately Bishop leaning on his
+arm, passed them with a friendly, quiet look. He caught sight for a
+moment of the tall form of Fenton, standing at their rear--the long face
+ascetically white, and sternly fixed.
+
+He left the Bishop at the gates of the Palace, and went back quickly for
+Mary. Suddenly he ran into an advancing figure and found his hand grasped
+by 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 and
+clouded.
+
+"And there was one man there--not a Modernist--who grieved, like a
+Modernist, over the future!"
+
+"Ah, the future!" said Meynell, throwing his head back. "That is not for
+you or me--not for the bishops, nor for that body which we call the
+Church--that is for _England_ to settle."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But another meeting remained.
+
+At the parting with Dornal, Meynell turned a corner and saw in front of
+him, walking alone, a portly gentleman, with a broad and substantial
+back. A start ran through him. After a moment's hesitation, he began to
+quicken 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 quite
+unconscious of the fact that a passing group of clergy opposite were
+staring across the street in amazement at the juxtaposition of the two
+men, 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 to
+inquire after Maurice? I hope your mind is more at ease about him."
+
+"He is doing well--for the moment." Another pause--broken by Barron, who
+said hurriedly in a different voice--"I got from him the whole story of
+the 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 would
+have meant."
+
+"No doubt," said Meynell, struck with pity, as he looked at the sunken
+face of the speaker. "And anyway--bygones are bygones. I hope your
+daughter 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 orthodox
+party had no room in its ranks, at that moment, for Henry Barron; and it
+was not hard to imagine what exclusion and ostracism must mean to
+such a temper. But the generous compunctions in his own mind could find
+no practical expression; and after a few more words they parted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next morning, while every newspaper in the country was eagerly discussing
+the events at Dunchester, Catharine, in the solitude of Long Whindale,
+and with a full two hours yet to wait for the carrier who brought the
+papers from Whinborough, was pondering letters from Rose and Mary written
+from Dunchester on the preceding afternoon. Her prayer-book lay beside
+her. Before the post arrived she had been reading by herself the Psalms
+and Lessons, according to the old-fashioned custom of her youth.
+
+The sweetness of Mary's attempt to bring out everything in the Modernist
+demonstration that might be bearable or even consoling to Catharine, and
+to 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 the
+Palace; and though there were many people waiting to see him, he is
+writing to you now; and so am I. Through it all, he feels so near to
+you--and to my father; so truly your son, your most loving son....
+
+"Dearest--I am troubled to hear from Alice this morning that yesterday
+you were tired and even went to lie down. I know my too Spartan mother
+doesn't do that without ten times as much reason as other people. Oh! do
+take care of yourself, my precious one. To-morrow, I fly back to you with
+all my news. And you will meet me with that love of yours which has
+never failed me, as it never failed my father. It will take Richard and
+me a life time to repay it. But we'll try! ... Dear love to my poor
+Alice. 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 come
+out of it finely, though I must say he looks at times more like a ghost
+than a man. From the Church point of view, dear, you were wise not to
+come, for your feelings must have been sadly mixed, and you might have
+been compelled to take Privy Council proceedings against yourself. I need
+not say that Hugh and I felt an ungodly delight in it--in the crowd and
+the 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 in
+the throng of foolish youths from the Theological College who seemed to
+think they settled everything by singing the Creed at us. (What a pity
+you can't enjoy the latest description of the Athanasian Creed! It is by
+a Quaker. He compares it to 'the guesses of a ten-year old child at the
+contents of his father's library.' Hugh thinks it good--but I don't
+expect 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 Modernists
+will be all camping in tents, it seems, by the wayside. Very touching and
+very exciting. But I am getting too sleepy to think about it. Dear
+Cathie--I run on--but I love you. Please keep well. Good-bye."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Catharine laid the letter down, still smiling against her will over some
+of its chatter, and unconsciously made happy by the affection that
+breathed from its pages no less than from Mary's.
+
+Yet certainly she was very tired. She became sharply conscious of her
+physical 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 very
+dear to Catharine, partly for her own sake, and partly because to be in
+bitter need and helplessness was to be sure of Catharine's tenderness.
+Very possibly they two, when Mary married, might make their home
+together. And Catharine promised herself to bring calm at least and
+loving help to one who had suffered so much.
+
+The window was half open to the first mild day of March; beside it stood
+a 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 through
+the black buds of the ash-trees, and in the distance a sheep-dog could be
+heard barking on the fells. So quiet it was--the spring sunshine--and so
+sweet. Back into Catharine's mind there flowed the memory of her own
+love-story in the valley; her hand trembled again in the hand of her
+lover.
+
+Then with a sudden onset her mortal hour came upon her. She tried to
+move, to call, and could not. There was no time for any pain of parting.
+For one remaining moment of consciousness there ran through the brain
+the images, affections, adorations of her life. Swift, incredibly swift,
+the vision of an opening glory--a heavenly throng!... Then the tired
+eyelids fell, the head lay heavily on the cushion behind it, and in the
+little room the song of the robin and the murmur of the stream flowed
+on--unheard.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Case of Richard Meynell, by Mrs. Humphrey Ward
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CASE OF RICHARD MEYNELL ***
+
+***** This file should be named 9614.txt or 9614.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/9/6/1/9614/
+
+Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Mary
+Meehan and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/9614.zip b/9614.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..61359ae
--- /dev/null
+++ b/9614.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dc464c8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #9614 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9614)
diff --git a/old/7rmey10.txt b/old/7rmey10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8a3767a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/7rmey10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,17916 @@
+Project Gutenberg's The Case of Richard Meynell, by Mrs. Humphry Ward
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
+Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
+header without written permission.
+
+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
+important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
+how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
+donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: The Case of Richard Meynell
+
+Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward
+
+Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9614]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 10, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CASE OF RICHARD MEYNELL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+                      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 acquainted
+with the conditions of English rural and religious life to remember that
+the dominant factor in it--the factor on which the story of Richard
+Meynell depends--is the existence of the State Church, of the great
+ecclesiastical corporation, the direct heir of the pre-Reformation
+Church, which owns the cathedrals and the parish churches, which
+by right of law speaks for the nation on all national occasions, which
+crowns and marries and buries the Kings of England, and, through her
+bishops in the House of Lords, exercises a constant and important
+influence on the lawmaking of the country? This Church possesses half the
+elementary schools, and is the legal religion of the great public schools
+which shape the ruling upper class. She is surrounded with the prestige
+of centuries, and it is probable that in many directions she was never so
+active or so well served by her members as she is at present.
+
+At the same time, there are great forces of change ahead. Outside the
+Anglican Church stands quite half the nation, gathered in the various
+non-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 every
+village and small town this warfare exists. The non-conformist desires to
+deprive the Church of her worldly and political privileges; the churchman
+talks of the sin of schism, or draws up schemes of reunion which drop
+still-born. Meanwhile, alike in the Church, in non-conformity, and in the
+neutral world which owes formal allegiance to neither, vast movements of
+thought have developed in the last hundred years, years as pregnant with
+the germs of new life as the wonderful hundred years that followed the
+birth 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 the
+strife of tongues, whether the ideas of modernism; rife in all forms of
+Christianity, can be accommodated to the ancient practices and given a
+share in the great material possessions of a State Church; how individual
+lives are affected in the passionate struggle of spiritual faiths and
+practical interests involved in such an attempt; how conscience may be
+enriched by its success or sterilized by its failure; how the fight
+itself, ably waged, may strengthen the spiritual elements, the power of
+living and suffering in men and women--it is with such themes that this
+story attempts to deal. Twenty-two years ago I tried a similar subject in
+"Robert Elsmere." Since then the movement of ideas in religion and
+philosophy has been increasingly rapid and fruitful. I am deeply
+conscious how little I may be able to express it. But those who twenty
+years ago welcomed the earlier book--and how can I ever forget its
+reception in America!--may perhaps be drawn once again to some of the old
+themes 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 scene
+not intended for his eyes"
+
+"He shook hands with the Dean"
+
+"'I wonder whether she's ever had any real joy--a week's--a
+day's--happiness--in her life?'"
+
+"The old shepherd looked after her doubtfully"
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+
+
+
+MEYNELL
+
+
+"Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear
+The longest date do melt like frosty rime,
+That in the morning whitened hill and plain
+And is no more; drop like the tower sublime
+Of yesterday, which royally did wear
+His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain
+Some 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 at
+the summons and dismounted. The Rector approached him from the road, and
+the 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 the
+Rector's hands.
+
+The recipient smiled.
+
+"My word, what a post! I say, Preston, I add to your burdens pretty
+considerably."
+
+"It don't matter, sir, I'm sure," said the postman civilly. "There's not
+a deal of letters delivered in this village."
+
+"No, we don't trouble pen and ink much in Upcote," said the Rector; "and
+it's my belief that half the boys and girls that do learn to read and
+write at school make a point of forgetting it as soon as they can--for
+all practical purposes, anyway."
+
+"Well, there's a deal of newspapers read now, sir, compared to what there
+was."
+
+"Newspapers? Yes, I do see a _Reynolds_ or a _People_ or two about on
+Sunday. Do you think anybody reads much else than the betting and the
+police news, eh, Preston?"
+
+Preston looked a little vacant. His expression seemed to say, "And why
+should they?" The Rector, with his arms full of the post, smiled again
+and 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--he
+makes her go careful."
+
+"Quite right. Has Miss Puttenham been looking after her?"
+
+"She's been most kind, sir, most attentive, she have," said the postman
+warmly, his long hatchet face breaking into animation.
+
+"Lucky for you!" said the Rector, walking away. "When she cuts in, she's
+worth a regiment of doctors. Good-day!"
+
+The speaker passed on through the gate of the Rectory, pausing as he did
+so with a rueful look at the iron gate itself, which was off its hinges
+and sorely in want of a coat of new paint.
+
+"Disgraceful!" he said to himself; "must have a go at it to-morrow. And
+at the garden, too," he added, looking round him. "Never saw such a
+wilderness!"
+
+[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 an
+old clergy house, of which all traces had been ruthlessly effaced. The
+front garden lying before it was a tangle of old and for the most part
+ugly trees; elms from which heavy, decayed branches had recently fallen;
+acacias choked by the ivy which had overgrown them; and a crowded
+thicket of thorns and hazels, mingled with three or four large and
+vigorous though very ancient yews, which seemed to have drunk up for
+themselves all that life from the soil which should have gone to maintain
+the ragged or sickly shrubbery. The trees also had gradually encroached
+upon the house, and darkened all the windows on the porch side. On a
+summer afternoon, the deep shade they made was welcome enough; but on a
+rainy day the Rector's front-garden, with its coarse grass, its few
+straggling rose-bushes, and its pushing throng of half-dead or funereal
+trees, shed a dank and dripping gloom upon the visitor approaching his
+front door. Of this, however, the Rector himself was rarely conscious;
+and to-day, as he with difficulty gathered all the letters and packets
+taken from the postman into one hand, while he opened his front door with
+the other, his face showed that the state of his garden had already
+ceased to trouble him.
+
+He had no sooner turned the handle of the door than a joyous uproar of
+dogs arose within, and before he had well stepped over the threshold a
+leaping trio were upon him--two Irish terriers and a graceful young
+collie, 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-down
+sofa already littered with books and papers, and returned to the
+hall-table for the letter. He tore it open, read it with slightly
+frowning brows and a mouth that worked unconsciously, then thrust it into
+his pocket and returned to his sitting-room.
+
+"All right!" he said to himself. "He's got an odd list of 'aggrieved
+parishioners!'"
+
+The tidings, however, which the letter contained did not seem to distress
+him. On the contrary, his aspect expressed a singular and cheerful
+energy, as he sat a few moments on the sofa, softly whistling to himself
+and staring at the floor. That he was a person extravagantly beloved by
+his dogs was clearly shown meanwhile by the exuberant attentions and
+caresses with which they were now loading him.
+
+He shook them off at last with a friendly kick or two, that he might turn
+to his letters, which he sorted and turned over, much as an epicure
+studies his _menu_ at the Ritz, and with an equally keen sense of
+pleasure to come.
+
+A letter from Jena, and another from Berlin, addressed in small German
+handwriting and signed by names familiar to students throughout the
+world; two or three German reviews, copies of the _Revue Critique_ and
+the _Revue Chretienne_, a book by Solomon Reinach, and three or four
+French letters, one of them shown by the cross preceding the signature to
+be the letter of a bishop; a long letter from Oxford, enclosing the proof
+of an article in a theological review; and, finally, a letter sealed with
+red wax and signed "F. Marcoburg" in a corner of the envelope, which the
+Rector twirled in his hands a moment without opening.
+
+"After tea," he said at last, with the sudden breaking of a smile. And he
+put 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 a
+sun-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 the
+tea before him on a chair cleared with difficulty from some of the
+student's litter that filled the room.
+
+"All the more reason for tea," said Meynell, seizing thirstily on the
+teapot. "And you're quite mistaken, Anne. I had a magnificent bath-bun at
+the station."
+
+"Much good you'll get out of that!" was the scornful reply. "You know
+what 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 and
+crossed 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 at
+last.
+
+"So you did. But he said he must see his missus and hear how his little
+girl had done in her music exam."
+
+Mrs. Wellin delivered this piece of news very fast and with evident
+gusto. It might have been thought she enjoyed inflicting it on her
+master.
+
+The Rector laughed out.
+
+"And this was a man sent me a week ago by the Birmingham Distress
+Committee--nine weeks out of work--family in the workhouse--everything up
+the spout. Goodness gracious, Anne, how did he get the money? Return
+fare, 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 Rector
+helplessly.
+
+"Thought he might," said Anne, briefly.
+
+"How kind of him! Music exam! Lord save us! And three-and-ten thrown into
+the gutter on a week-end ticket--with seven children to keep--and all
+your possessions gone to 'my uncle.' And it isn't as though you'd been
+starving 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'll
+be 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 look
+after 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, and
+she won't nurse him--that's flat."
+
+"No reason why she should shovel him off on other people as wants their
+night'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 the
+windows were still wide open, and the Rector, who had had a long journey
+that day to take a funeral for a friend, lay back in sybaritic ease, now
+sipping his tea and now cutting open letters and parcels. The letter
+signed "F. Marcoburg" in the corner had been placed, still unopened, on
+the mantelpiece now facing him.
+
+The Rector looked at it from time to time; it might have been said by a
+close observer that he never forgot it; but, all the same, he went on
+dipping into books and reviews, or puzzling--with muttered imprecations
+on 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 single
+one of them! And what matter? Who's the worse? Is it any less wonderful
+when 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 the
+comfort of his own fireside. Yet, now that the face was at rest, certain
+cavernous hollows under the eyes, and certain lines on the forehead and
+at the corners of the mouth, as though graven by some long fatigue,
+showed themselves disfiguringly. The personality, however, on which this
+fatigue had stamped itself was clearly one of remarkable vigour, physical
+and mental. A massive head covered with strong black hair, curly at the
+brows; eyes grayish-blue, small, with some shade of expression in them
+which made them arresting, commanding, even; a large nose and irregular
+mouth, the lips flexible and kind, the chin firm--one might have made
+some such catalogue of Meynell's characteristics; adding to them the
+strength of a broad-chested, loose-limbed frame, made rather, one would
+have thought, for country labours than for the vigils of the scholar. But
+the hands were those of a man of letters--bony and long-fingered, but
+refined, touching things with care and gentleness, like one accustomed to
+the small tools of the writer.
+
+At last the Rector threw himself back in his chair, while some of the
+litter on his lap fell to the floor, temporarily dislodging one of the
+terriers, 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 had
+finished it he put it down and thought a while, then stretched out his
+hand for it again and reread the last paragraph:
+
+"You will, I am sure, realize from all I have said, my dear Meynell, that
+the last thing I personally wish to do is to interfere with the parochial
+work of a man for whom I have so warm a respect as I have for you. I have
+given you all the latitude I could, but my duty is now plain. Let me have
+your assurance that you will refrain from such sermons as that to which I
+have drawn your attention, and that you will stop at once the
+extraordinary innovations in the services of which the parishioners
+have complained, and I shall know how to answer Mr. Barron and to compose
+this whole difficult matter. Do not, I entreat you, jeopardize the noble
+work you are doing for the sake of opinions and views which you hold
+to-day, but which you may have abandoned tomorrow. Can you possibly put
+what you call 'the results of criticism'--and, remember, these results
+differ for you, for me, and for a dozen others I could name--in
+comparison with that work for souls God has given you to do, and in which
+He 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 act
+to 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 dear
+Meynell--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 down
+the letter; but even as he spoke the softness in his face passed into
+resolution. He sank once more into reverie.
+
+The stillness, however, was soon broken up. A step was heard outside, and
+the dogs sprang up in excitement. Amid a pandemonium of noise, the Rector
+put 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 clerical
+garb, and carried a couple of books under his arm.
+
+"I came to return these," he said, placing them beside the Rector; "and
+also--can you give me twenty minutes?"
+
+"Forty, if you want them. Sit down."
+
+The newcomer turned out various French and German books from a
+dilapidated armchair, and obeyed. He was a fresh-coloured, handsome
+youth, some fifteen years younger than Meynell, the typical public-school
+boy in appearance. But his expression was scarcely less harassed than the
+Rector'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 he
+had taken from the hall-table on coming in. But he pursued the subject no
+further.
+
+The young man fidgeted a moment.
+
+"All one can say is"--he broke out at last--"that if it had not been my
+father, it would have been some one else--the Archdeacon probably. The
+fight was bound to come."
+
+"Of course it was!" The Rector sprang to his feet, and, with his hands
+under his coat-tails and his back to the fire, faced his visitor. "That's
+what we're all driving at. Don't be miserable about it, dear fellow. I
+bear your father no grudge whatever. He is under orders, as I am. The
+parleying time is done. It has lasted two generations. And now comes
+war--honourable, necessary war!"
+
+The speaker threw back his head with emphasis, even with passion. But
+almost immediately the smile, which was the only positive beauty of the
+face, obliterated the passion.
+
+"And don't look so tragic over it! If your father wins--and as the law
+stands he can scarcely fail to win--I shall be driven out of Upcote. But
+there will always be a corner somewhere for me and my books, and a pulpit
+of 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!-you
+Liberals will have to take your part, and fire your shot some day, of
+course--fathers or no fathers."
+
+"I didn't mean that. I shall fire my shot, of course. But aren't you
+exposing yourself prematurely--unnecessarily?" said the young man, with
+vivacity. "It is not a general's part to do that."
+
+"You're wrong, Stephen. When my father was going out to the campaign
+in which he was killed, my mother said to him, as though she were
+half asking a question, half pleading--I can hear her now, poor
+darling!--'John, it's _right_ for a general to keep out of danger?' and
+he smiled and said, 'Yes, when it isn't right for him to go into it, head
+over ears.' However, that's nonsense. It doesn't apply to me. I'm no
+general. And I'm not going to be killed!"
+
+Young Barron was silent, while the Rector prepared a pipe, and began upon
+it; 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 his
+eyes 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--in
+Elsmere'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 now
+altogether changed. _I_ am not going till I am turned out; and there will
+be others with me. The world wants a heresy trial, and it is going to get
+one 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 father
+has a horribly strong will. And he will think every means legitimate."
+
+"I know. In the Roman Church, what the Curia could not do by argument
+they have done again and again--well, no use to inquire how! One must be
+prepared. All I can say is, I know of no skeletons in the cupboard at
+present. Anybody may have my keys!"
+
+He laughed as he spoke, spreading his hands to the blaze, and looking
+round at his companion. Barron's face in response was a face of
+hero-worship, undisguised. Here plainly were leader and disciple;
+pioneering will and docile faith. But it might have been observed that
+Meynell did nothing to emphasize the personal relation; that, on the
+contrary, he shrank from it, and often tried to put it aside.
+
+After a few more words, indeed, he resolutely closed the personal
+discussion. They fell into talk about certain recent developments of
+philosophy in England and France--talk which showed them as familiar
+comrades in the intellectual field, in spite of their difference of age.
+Barron, a Fellow of King's, had but lately left Cambridge for a small
+College living. Meynell--an old Balliol scholar--bore the marks of Jowett
+and Caird still deep upon him, except, perhaps, for a certain deliberate
+throwing over, here and there, of the typical Oxford tradition--its
+measure and reticence, its scholarly balancing of this against that. A
+tone as of one driven to extremities--a deep yet never personal
+exasperation--the poised quiet of a man turning to look a hostile host in
+the face--again and again these made themselves felt through his chat
+about new influences in the world of thought--Bergson or James, Eucken or
+Tyrell.
+
+And to this under-note, inflections or phrases in the talk of the other
+seemed to respond. It was as though behind the spoken conversation they
+carried on another unheard.
+
+And the unheard presently broke in upon the heard.
+
+"You mentioned Elsmere just now," said Barron, in a moment's pause, and
+with apparent irrelevance. "Did you know that his widow is now staying
+within a mile of this place? Some people called Flaxman have taken
+Maudeley End, and Mrs. Flaxman is a sister of Mrs. Elsmere. Mrs. Elsmere
+and her daughter are going to settle for the summer in the cottage near
+Forked Pond. Mrs. Elsmere seems to have been ill for the first time in
+her life, and has had to give up some of her work."
+
+"Mrs. Elsmere!" said Meynell, raising his eyebrows. "I saw her once
+twenty years ago at the New Brotherhood, and have never forgotten the
+vision of her face. She must be almost an old woman."
+
+"Miss Puttenham says she is quite beautiful still, in a wonderful, severe
+way. I think she never shared Elsmere's opinions?"
+
+"Never."
+
+The two fell silent, both minds occupied with the same story and the same
+secret comparisons. Robert Elsmere, the Rector of Murewell, in Surrey,
+had made a scandal in the Church, when Meynell was still a lad, by
+throwing up his orders under the pressure of New Testament criticism, and
+founding a religious brotherhood among London workingmen for the
+promotion of a simple and commemorative form of Christianity.
+
+Elsmere, a man of delicate physique, had died prematurely, worn out by
+the struggle to find new foothold for himself and others; but something
+in his personality, and in the nature of his effort--some brilliant,
+tender note--had kept his memory alive in many hearts. There were many
+now, however, who thrilled to it, who could never speak of him without
+emotion, who yet felt very little positive agreement with him. What he
+had done or tried to do made a kind of landmark in the past; but in the
+course of time it had begun to seem irrelevant to the present.
+
+"To-day--would he have thrown up?--or would he have held on?" Meynell
+presently said, in a tone of reverie, amid the cloud of smoke that
+enveloped him. Then, in another voice, "What do you hear of the
+daughter? I remember her as a little reddish-haired thing at her mother's
+side."
+
+"Miss Puttenham has taken a great fancy to her. Hester Fox-Wilton told me
+she had seen her there. She liked her."
+
+"H'm!" said the Rector. "Well, if she pleased Hester--critical little
+minx!"
+
+"You may be sure she'll please _me_!" said Barron suddenly, flushing
+deeply.
+
+The Rector looked up, startled.
+
+"I say?"
+
+Barron cleared his throat.
+
+"I'd better tell you at once, Rector. I got Hester's leave yesterday
+to tell you, when an opportunity occurred--you know how fond she is
+of you? Well, I'm in love with her--head over ears in love with her--I
+believe I have been since she was a little girl in the schoolroom. And
+yesterday--she said--she'd marry me some day."
+
+The young voice betrayed a natural tremor. Meanwhile, a strange look--a
+close observer would have called it a look of consternation--had rushed
+into Meynell's face. He stared at Barron, made one or two attempts to
+speak, 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 too
+young! 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, my
+dear boy, that there shall be nothing irrevocable--no engagement! I
+should strongly oppose it."
+
+The eyes of the two men met. Barron was evidently dumb with surprise; but
+the vivacity and urgency of Meynell's expression drove him into speech.
+
+"We thought you would have sympathized," he stammered. "After all, what
+is 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 would
+certainly object. And so should I. And, as you know, I am co-guardian of
+the children with her."
+
+Then, as the lover quivered under these barbs, Meynell suddenly recovered
+himself.
+
+"My dear fellow! No woman ought to marry under twenty-one. And every girl
+ought to have time to look round her. It's not right; it's not just--it
+isn'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 a
+strain of earnest and affectionate entreaty, which presently had a marked
+effect on the younger man. His chivalry was appealed to--his
+consideration for the girl he loved; and his aspect began to show the
+force of the attack. At last he said gravely:
+
+"I'll tell Hester what you say--of course I'll tell her. Naturally we
+can't marry without your consent and her mother's. But if Hester persists
+in wishing we should be engaged?"
+
+"Long engagements are the deuce!" said the Rector hotly. "You would be
+engaged for three years. Madness!--with such a temperament as Hester's.
+My dear Stephen, be advised--for her and yourself. There is no one who
+wishes your good more earnestly than I. But don't let there be any talk
+of an engagement for at least two years to come. Leave her free--even
+if you consider yourself bound. It is folly to suppose that a girl of
+such marked character knows her own mind at seventeen. She has all her
+development 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 forced
+laugh. "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 of
+the situation--holding out distant hopes. The young man's face gradually
+cleared. He was of a docile, open temper, and deeply attached to his
+mentor.
+
+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 are
+you up to now?"
+
+"There's a drunken fellow in the village--dying--and his wife won't look
+after 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 the
+village," 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 the
+Rector, settling himself in his chair and putting an old shawl over his
+knees. "And as you go out, just tell Anne, will you, to keep herself to
+herself for an hour and not to disturb me?"
+
+Stephen Barron moved to the door, and as he opened it he turned back a
+moment to look at the man in the chair, and the room in which he sat. It
+was as though he asked himself by what manner of man he had been
+thus gripped and coerced, in a matter so intimate, and, to himself, so
+vital.
+
+Meynell's eyes were already shut. The dogs had gathered round him, the
+collie's nose laid against his knee, the other two guarding his feet. All
+round, the walls were laden with books, so were the floor and the
+furniture. 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 choir
+decoration that Meynell and a class of village boys were making for the
+church, where the Rector had already carved with his own hand many of the
+available surfaces, whether of stone or wood. The carving, which was
+elaborate and rich, was technically faulty, as an Italian primitive is
+faulty, but _mutatis mutandis_ it had much of the same charm that belongs
+to Italian primitive work: the same joyous sincerity, the same passionate
+love of natural things, leaves and flowers and birds.
+
+For the rest, the furniture of the room was shabby and ugly. The pictures
+on the walls were mostly faded Oxford photographs, or outlines by
+Overbeck and Retsch, which had belonged to Meynell's parents and were
+tenderly cherished by him. There were none of the pretty, artistic
+trifles, the signs of travel and easy culture, which many a small country
+vicarage possesses in abundance. Meynell, in spite of his scholar's
+mastery 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 while
+still at Balliol, and had to bring up his two younger brothers. He had
+done it. They were both in Canada now and prospering. But the signs of
+the struggle were on this shabby house, and on this shabby, frugal,
+powerfully built man. Yet now he might have been more at ease; the
+living, though small, was by no means among the worst in the diocese.
+Ah, well! Anne, the housekeeper and only servant, knew how the money
+went--and didn't go, and she had passed on some of her grievances to
+Barron. They two knew--though Barron would never have dared to show his
+knowledge--what a wrestle it meant to get the Rector to spend what was
+decently necessary on his own food and clothes; and Anne spent hours of
+the night in indignantly guessing at what he spent on the clothes and
+food of other people--mostly, in her opinion, "varmints."
+
+These things flitted vaguely through the young man's sore mind. Then in a
+flash they were absorbed in a perception of a wholly different kind. The
+room seemed to him transfigured; a kind of temple. He thought of the
+intellectual life which had been lived there; the passion for truth which
+had burnt in it; the sermons and books that had been written on those
+crowded tables; the personality and influence that had been gradually
+built up within it, so that to him, as to many others, the dingy study
+was a place of pilgrimage, breathing inspiration; and his heart went out,
+first in discipleship, and then in a pain that was not for himself. For
+over his friend's head he saw the gathering of clouds not now to be
+scattered or dispersed; and who could foretell the course of the storm?
+
+The young man gently closed the door and went his
+way. He need not have left the house so quietly. The
+Rector got no sleep that evening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+The church clock of Upcote Minor was just striking nine o'clock as
+Richard 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 be
+balmy, and Meynell, who was an ardent sun-lover, shivered as he walked
+along, buttoning a much-worn parson's coat against the sharp air. Before
+him 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 hidden
+behind walls and trees. It was evidently a large village, almost a
+country town, with a considerable variety of life. At this hour of the
+evening 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 lights
+here and there, and in the houses of the gentility.
+
+The Rector passed the fine perpendicular church standing back from the
+road, with its churchyard about it; and just beyond it, he turned, his
+pace 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 wind
+shook the lime-blossom, and flung the scent in Meynell's face; while at
+the same time the dim masses of roses in the garden sent out their
+sweetness 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 a
+delicate and plaintive face, moving among the rose-beds she loved, her
+light dress trailing on the grass. The recollection stirred in him
+affection, and an impulse of sympathy, stronger than the mere thought of
+the flowers, and the woman's tending of them, could explain. It passed
+indeed immediately into something else--a touch of new and sharp anxiety.
+
+"And she's been very peaceful of late," he said to himself ruefully, "as
+far 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. It
+would help her. Anyway, we can't have everything rooted up again just
+yet--before the time."
+
+He walked on, and as the farther corner of the house came into view, he
+saw a thinly curtained window with a light inside it, and it seemed to
+him that he distinguished a figure within.
+
+"Reading?--or embroidering? Probably, at her work. She had that
+commission 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 use
+not 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 since
+Ralph's death--to insist on keeping her little house and her
+independence. 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 little
+house, and left it behind him. Before him, the village street, with its
+green and its pond, widened under the scudding sky. Far ahead, about a
+quarter of a mile away, among surrounding trees, certain outlines were
+visible through the July twilight. The accustomed eye knew them for the
+chimneys of the Fox-Wiltons' house, owned now, since the recent death
+of its master, Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton, by his widow, the sister of the lady
+with the cat and the embroidery, and mother of many children, for the
+most part an unattractive brood, peevish and slow-minded like their
+father. Hester was the bright, particular star in that house, as Stephen
+Barron had now found out.
+
+Alack!--alack! The Rector's face resumed for a moment the expression of
+painful or brooding perplexity it had worn during his conversation of the
+afternoon 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 the
+northern end of the village, was evidently doing trade. The Rector did
+not look up as he passed it; but in general he turned an indulgent eye
+upon it. Before entering upon the living, he had himself worked for a
+month as an ordinary miner, in the colliery whose tall chimneys could be
+seen to the east above the village roofs. His body still vividly retained
+the physical memory of those days--of the aching muscles, and the
+gargantuan thirsts.
+
+At last the rows of new-built cottages attached to the colliery came
+in 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 white
+house--stately and separate--dominating the village, the church, the
+collieries, and the Fox-Wiltons' plantations.
+
+The Rector threw a glance at it. It was from that house had come the
+letter he had found on his hall-table that afternoon; a letter in a
+handwriting large and impressive like the dim house on the hill. The
+handwriting of a man accustomed to command, whether his own ancestral
+estate, or the collieries which had been carved out of its fringe, or the
+village spreading humbly at his feet, or the church into which he walked
+on Sunday with heavy tread, and upright carriage, conscious of his
+threefold 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 to
+hate him--not at all--rather to respect and sympathize with him. I
+provoke the fight--and I may be thankful to have lit on a strong
+antagonist. What's Stephen afraid of? What can they do? Let 'em try!"
+
+A smile--contemptuous and good-humoured--crossed the Rector's face. Any
+angry bigot determined to rid his parish of a heretical parson might no
+doubt be tempted to use other than legal and theological weapons, if he
+could get them. A heretic with unpaid bills and some hidden vice is
+scarcely in a position to make much of his heresy. But the Rector's smile
+showed him humorously conscious of an almost excessive innocence of
+private life. The thought of how little an enemy could find to lay hold
+on in his history or present existence seemed almost to bring with it a
+kind of shamefacedness--as for experience irrevocably foregone, warm,
+tumultuous, human experience, among the sinners and sufferers of the
+world. For there are odd, mingled moments in the lives of most scholars
+and saints--like Renan in his queer envy of Theophile Gautier--when such
+men inevitably ask themselves whether they have not missed something
+irreplaceable, the student, by his learning--the saint even, by his
+goodness.
+
+Here now was "Miners' Row." As the Rector approached the cottage of which
+he was in search the clouds lightened in the east, and a pale moonshine,
+suffusing the dusk, showed in the far distance beyond the village, the
+hills of Fitton Chase, rounded, heathy hills, crowned by giant firs.
+Meynell looked at them with longing, and a sudden realization of his own
+weariness. A day or two, perhaps a week or two, among the fells, with
+their winds and scents about him, and their streams in his ears--he must
+allow himself that, before the fight began.
+
+No. 8. A dim light showed in the upper window. The Rector knocked at the
+door. A woman opened--a young and sweet-looking nurse in her bonnet and
+long cloak.
+
+"You look pretty done!" exclaimed the Rector. "Has he been giving
+trouble?"
+
+"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 whether
+she 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 believe
+she'd go near him."
+
+The Rector stepped in and asked a few questions as to arrangements for
+the night. The patient, it seemed, was asleep, in consequence of a
+morphia injection, and likely to remain so for an hour or two. He was
+dying of an internal injury inflicted by a fall of rock in the mine
+some ten days before. Surgery had done what it could, but signs of
+blood-poisoning had appeared, and the man's days were numbered.
+
+The doctor had left written instructions, which the nurse handed over to
+Meynell. If certain symptoms appeared, the doctor was to be summoned. But
+in all probability the man's fine constitution, injured though it had
+been by drink, would enable him to hold out another day or two. And the
+hideous pain of the first week had now ceased; mortification had almost
+certainly set in, and all that could be done was to wait the slow and
+sure failure of the heart.
+
+The nurse took leave. Meynell was hanging up his hat in the little
+passageway, when the door of the front parlour opened, after being
+unlocked.
+
+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 than
+thirty-five, and youth and comeliness had been long since battered
+from her face, partly by misery of mind, partly by direct ill usage of
+which 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 what
+the doctor was thinkin' of him."
+
+"The doctor thinks he may live through to-night and to-morrow night--not
+much more. He is your husband, Mrs. Bateson, and whatever you have
+against him, you'll be very sorry afterward if you don't give him help
+and 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 the
+shadow, as though to lead her.
+
+But she stepped backward.
+
+"I know what I'm about," she said, breathing quick. "He made a fule o' me
+wi' that wanton Lizzie Short, and he near killt me the last morning afore
+he went. And I'd been a good wife to him for fifteen year, and never
+a word between us till that huzzy came along. And she's got a child by
+him, 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, he
+said. And I sat and prayed God to punish him. An' He did. The roof came
+down 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 yourself
+come to die. He has sinned toward you--but remember!--he's a young man
+still--in the prime of life. He has suffered horribly--and he has only a
+few hours or days to live. He has asked for you already to-day, he is
+sure to ask for you to-night. Forgive him!--ask God to help him to die in
+peace!"
+
+While he spoke she stood motionless, impassive. Meynell's voice had
+beautiful inflections, and he spoke with strong feeling. Few persons whom
+he so addressed could have remained unmoved. But Mrs. Bateson only
+retreated farther into the dreary little parlour, with its wool mats and
+antimacassars, and a tray of untasted tea on the table. She passed her
+tongue 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 for
+ourselves. If there's anything you want I can get for you, you knock
+twice on the floor--I shall hear you. But I'm not comin' up."
+
+Meynell turned away discouraged, and went upstairs. In the room above lay
+the dying man--breathing quickly and shallowly under the influence of the
+drug 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, and
+he seemed even in his sleep to be fighting for air. In the twelve hours
+that had elapsed since Meynell had last seen him he had travelled with
+terrible rapidity toward the end. He looked years older than in the
+morning; it was as though some sinister hand had been at work on the
+face, expanding here, contracting there, substituting chaos and
+nothingness for the living man.
+
+The Rector sat down beside him. The room was small and bare--a little
+strip of carpet on the boards, a few chairs, and a little table with food
+and nourishment beside the bed. On the mantelpiece was a large printed
+card containing the football fixtures of the winter before. Bateson had
+once been a fine player. Of late years, however, his interest had been
+confined to betting heavily on the various local and county matches, and
+it was to his ill-luck as a gambler no less than to the influence of the
+flimsy little woman who had led him astray that his moral break-up might
+be traced.
+
+A common tale!--yet more tragic than usual. For the bedroom contained
+other testimonies to the habits of a ruined man. There was a hanging
+bookcase on the wall, and the Rector sitting by the bed could just make
+out the titles of the books in the dim light.
+
+Mill, Huxley, a reprint of Tom Paine, various books by Blatchford, the
+sixpenny editions of "Literature and Dogma," and Renan's "Life of
+Christ," some popular science volumes of Browning and Ruskin, and a group
+of well-thumbed books on the birds of Mercia--the little collection,
+hardly earned, and, to judge from its appearance, diligently read, showed
+that its owner had been a man of intelligence. The Rector looked from it
+to the figure in the bed with a pang at his heart.
+
+All was still in the little cottage. Through the open window the Rector
+could see fold after fold of the Chase stretching north and west above
+the village. The moorland ridges shone clear under the moon, now bare, or
+scantily plumed by gaunt trees, and now clothed in a dense blackness of
+wood. Meynell, who knew every yard of the great heath and loved it well,
+felt himself lifted there in spirit as he looked. The "bunchberries" must
+just be ripening on the high ground--nestling scarlet and white amid
+their glossy leaves. And among them and beside them, the taller, slender
+bilberries, golden green; the exquisite grasses of the heath, pale pink,
+and silver, and purple, swaying in the winds, clothing acre after acre
+with a beauty beyond the looms of men; the purple heather and the ling
+flushing toward its bloom: and the free-limbed scattered birch trees,
+strongly scrawled against the sky. The scurry of the clouds over the
+purple sweeps of moor, the beat of the wind, and then suddenly, pools of
+fragrant air sun-steeped--he drew in the thought of it all, as he might
+have drunk the moorland breeze itself, with a thrill of pleasure, which
+passed 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 the
+sleeper, and leaning forward tried to meditate and pray. But to-night he
+found it hard. He realized anew his physical and mental fatigue, and a
+certain confused clamour of thought, strangely persistent behind the more
+external experience alike of body and mind; like the murmur of a distant
+sea heard from far inland, as the bond and background of all lesser
+sounds.
+
+The phrases of the letter he had found on the hall-table recurred to him
+whether he would or no. They were mainly legal and technical, intimating
+that an application had been made to the Bishop of Markborough to issue a
+Commission of Inquiry into certain charges made by parishioners of Upcote
+Minor against the Rector of the parish. The writer of the letter was one
+of the applicants, and gave notice of his intention to prosecute the
+charges named, with the utmost vigour through all the stages prescribed
+by ecclesiastical law.
+
+But it was, rather, some earlier letters from the same hand--letters more
+familiar, intimate, and discursive--that ultimately held the Rector's
+thoughts as he kept his watch. For in those letters were contained almost
+all the objections that a sensitive mind and heart had had to grapple
+with before determining on the course to which the Rector of Upcote was
+now committed. They were the voice of the "adversary," the "accuser."
+Crude or conventional, as the form of the argument might be, it yet
+represented the "powers and principalities" to be reckoned with. If the
+Rector's conscience could not sustain him against it, he was henceforth a
+dishonest and unhappy man; and when his lawyers had failed to protect him
+against its practical result--as they must no doubt fail--he would be a
+dispossessed priest:
+
+"What discipline in life or what comfort in death can such a faith as
+yours bring to any human soul? Do, I beg of you, ask yourself this
+question. If the great miracles of the Creed are not true, what have you
+to give the wretched and the sinful? Ought you not in common human
+charity to make way for one who can offer the consolations, utter the
+warnings, or hold out the heavenly hopes from which you are debarred?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Rector fixed his gaze upon the sick man. It was as though the
+question of the letter were put to him through those parched lips. And as
+he 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 and
+milk, 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 fast
+enough."
+
+The Rector hesitated, but only for a moment. He took the stick and
+rapped.
+
+Almost immediately the sound of a turning key was heard through the small
+thinly built cottage. The door below opened and footsteps came up the
+stairs. But before they reached the landing the sound ceased. The two men
+listened 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 the
+Rector'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's
+eyes. "Aye!"
+
+Meynell made him drink a little more brandy, and then he went out to the
+person 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--he
+says you can see for yourself that he can't wrong you any more. Come--and
+be merciful!"
+
+The woman paused. The Rector could see the shiver of her thin shoulders
+under her print dress. Then she turned and quietly descended the cottage
+stairway. Half way down she looked up.
+
+"Tell him I should do him nowt but harm. I"--her voice trembled for the
+first time--"I doan't bear him malice; I hope he'll not suffer. But I'm
+not comin'."
+
+"Wait a moment, Mrs. Bateson! I was to tell you that in spite of all, he
+loved 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 him
+I'd have got Lizzie Short to come an' nurse 'im, if I could. It's her
+place. 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--she
+said 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 the
+sick-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 a
+queer thing. She wasn't used to be a tough 'un. I could most make her do
+what I wanted. Well, never mind, Rector, never mind. Sit tha down--mebbe
+you'd be wanting to say a prayer. You're welcome. I reckon it'll do me no
+harm."
+
+His lips parted in a smile--a smile of satire. But his brows frowned, and
+his 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 will
+say them."
+
+"But I doan't believe in 'em," said the sick man, smiling again, "an' you
+doan't believe in 'em, noather, if folk say true! Don't tha be vexed--I'm
+not saying it to cheek tha. But Mr. Barron, ee says ee'll make tha give
+up. Ee's been goin' roun' the village, talkin' to folk. I doan't care
+about that--an' I've never been one o' your men--not pious enough, be a
+long 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 in
+life.
+
+The Rector started. The inward challenge had taken voice.
+
+"Certainly I will tell you, if it will help you--if you're strong
+enough."
+
+Bateson waved his hand contemptuously.
+
+"I feel as strong as onything. That sup o' brandy has put some grit in
+me. Give me some more. Thank tha ... Does tha believe in God, Rector?"
+
+His whimsical, half-teasing, yet, at bottom, anxious look touched Meynell
+strangely.
+
+"With all my life--and with all my strength!"
+
+Meynell's gaze was fixed intently on his questioner. The night-light in
+the basin on the farther side of the room threw the strong features into
+shadowy relief, illumining the yearning kindliness of the eyes.
+
+"What made tha believe in Him?"
+
+"My own life--my own struggles--and sins--and sufferings," said
+Meynell, stooping toward the sick man, and speaking each word with an
+intensity behind which lay much that could never be known to his
+questioner. "A good man, Bateson, put it once in this way, 'There is
+something 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 is
+always a voice within--it may be weak or it may be strong--that asks of
+him to be--instead--pure and sober and kind. And perhaps he denies the
+Voice, refuses it--talks it down--again and again. Then the joy in his
+life dies out bit by bit, and the world turns to dust and ashes. Every
+time that he says No to the Voice he is less happy--he has less power of
+being 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 suppose
+he obeys, like a child stumbling. Then every time he stretches and bends
+his 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 him
+to love--to love men and women, not with lust, but with pure love; and as
+he obeys, as he loves--he _knows_--he knows that it is God asking, and
+that God has come to him and abides with him. So when death overtakes him
+he 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 nothing
+speak to you, nothing try to stop you?"
+
+The bright half-mocking eyes below Meynell's wandered a little--wavered
+in expression.
+
+"It was the hot blood in me--aye, an' in her too. Yo cawn't help them
+things."
+
+"Can't you? When your wife suffered, didn't that touch you? Wouldn't you
+undo 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 you
+gave 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 your
+heart--ask Him to give you love--love to Him, who has been pleading with
+you all your life--love to your wife, and your fellow men--love--and
+repentance--and faith."
+
+Meynell's voice shook. He was in an anguish at what seemed to him the
+weakness, 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 an
+infidel. But he hasn't read the books you an' I have read, I'll uphold
+yer!"
+
+The dying man raised his hand to the bookshelves beside him with a proud
+gesture.
+
+The Rector slowly raised himself. An expression as of some passion
+within, trying at once to check and to utter itself, became visible on
+his face in the half light.
+
+"It's not books that settle it, Jim. I'll try and put it to you--just as
+I see it myself--just in the way it comes to me."
+
+He paused a moment, frowning under the effort of simplification. The
+hidden need of the dying man seemed to be mysteriously conveyed to
+him--the pang of lonely anguish that death brings with it; the craving
+for comfort beneath the apparent scorn of faith; the human cry expressed
+in this strange catechism.
+
+"Stop me if I tire you," he said at last. "I don't know if I can make it
+plain--but to me, Bateson, there are two worlds that every man is
+concerned with. There is this world of everyday life--work and business,
+sleeping and talking, eating and drinking--that you and I have been
+living 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, and
+follow that voice I spoke of just now. Jesus Christ called that other
+world 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 that
+Love--see it under different shapes. To us--to you and to me--it speaks
+under the name and form of Jesus Christ. And so I come to say--so all
+Christians come to say--_'I believe--in Jesus Christ our Lord_'. For it
+is His life and His death that still to-day--as they have done for
+hundreds of years--draw men and women into the Kingdom--the Kingdom of
+Love--and so to God. He draws us to love--and so to God. And in God alone
+is the soul of man satisfied; _satisfied--and at rest_."
+
+The last words were but just breathed--yet they carried with them the
+whole 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 grave
+on 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 one
+thing that matters to you now--it's to feel God with you--to be giving
+your soul to God."
+
+The two men gazed at each other.
+
+"What are tha nursin' me for, Rector?" said Bateson, abruptly--"I'm nowt
+to you."
+
+"For the love of Christ," said Meynell, steadily, taking his hand--"and
+of 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 great
+chimneys of the colliery were becoming plain; the tints and substance of
+the hills were changing. Dim forms of cattle moved in the newly shorn
+grass; 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 the
+cry--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 home
+there first--as married folk. Tell her I'm goin'--goin' fast."
+
+He fell back, panting. Meynell gave him food and medicine. Then he went
+quickly downstairs, and knocked at the parlour door. After an interval of
+evident hesitation on the part of the occupant of the room, it was
+reluctantly 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 a
+peremptory hand on her arm.
+
+"I command you--in God's name. Come!"
+
+A struggle shook her. She yielded suddenly--and began to cry. Meynell
+patted her on the shoulder as he might have patted a child, said kind,
+soothing things, gave her her husband's message, and finally drew her
+from the room.
+
+She went upstairs, Meynell following, anxious about the physical result
+of 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 his
+side, 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 motionless
+and voiceless; a spectacle little less piteous, little less deathlike,
+than the man on the pillows. He still smiled at her, in a kind of
+triumph; also silent, but his lips trembled. Then, groping, she put out
+her hand--her disfigured, toil-worn hand--and took his, raising it to her
+lips. The touch of his flesh seemed to loosen in her the fountains of the
+great deep. She slid to her knees and kissed him--enfolding him with her
+arms, the two murmuring together.
+
+Meynell went out into the dawn. His mystical sense had beheld the Lord in
+that small upper room; had seen as it were the sacred hands breaking to
+those two poor creatures the sacrament of love. His own mind was for the
+time being tranquillized. It was as though he said to himself, "I know
+that trouble will come back--I know that doubts and fears will pursue me
+again; but this hour--this blessing--is from God!"...
+
+The sun was high in a dewy world, already busy with its first labours of
+field and mine, when Meynell left the cottage. The church clock was on
+the stroke of eight.
+
+He passed down the village street, and reached again the little gabled
+house which he had passed the night before. As he approached, there was a
+movement in the garden. A lady, who was walking among the roses, holding
+up 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 seen
+you 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 her
+among the roses Meynell perceived another lady--a girl, with bright
+reddish hair.
+
+"Mary!" said Miss Puttenham.
+
+The girl approached. Meynell had an impression of mingled charm and
+reticence as she gave him her hand. The eyes were sweet and shy. But the
+unconscious dignity of bearing showed that the shyness was the shyness of
+strong character, rather than of mere youth and innocence.
+
+"This is my new friend, Mary Elsmere. You've heard they're at Forked
+Pond?" Alice Puttenham said, smiling, as she slipped her arm round the
+girl. "I captured her for the night, while Mrs. Elsmere went to town. I
+want you to know each other."
+
+"Elsmere's daughter!" thought Meynell, with a thrill, as he followed the
+two 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 young
+face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+"I am in love with the house--I adore the Chase--I like heretics--and I
+don't think I'm ever going home again!"
+
+Mrs. Flaxman as she spoke handed a cup of tea to a tall gentleman, Louis
+Manvers by name, the possessor of a long, tanned countenance; of thin
+iron-gray hair, descending toward the shoulders; of a drooping moustache,
+and eyes that mostly studied the carpet or the knees of their owner. A
+shy, laconic person at first sight, with the manner of one to whom
+conversation, of the drawing-room kind, was little more than a series of
+doubtful experiments, that seldom or never came off.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman, on the other hand, was a pretty woman of forty, still young
+and slender, in spite of two boys at Eton, one of them seventeen, and in
+the Eleven; and her talk was as rash and rapid as that of her companion
+was the reverse. Which perhaps might be one of the reasons why they were
+excellent friends, and always happy in each other's society.
+
+Mr. Manvers overlooked a certain challenge that Mrs. Flaxman had thrown
+out, took the tea provided, and merely inquired how long the rebuilding
+of the Flaxmans' own house would take. For it appeared that they were
+only tenants of Maudeley House--furnished--for a year.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman replied that only the British workman knew. But she looked
+upon herself as homeless for two years, and found the prospect as
+pleasant as her husband found it annoying.
+
+"As if life was long enough to spend it in one county, and one house
+and park! I have shaken all my duties from me like old rags. No more
+school-treats, no more bean-feasts, no more hospital committees, for two
+whole years! Think of it! Hugh, poor wretch, is still Chairman of the
+County 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, next
+year. 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 can
+see a lion kill from the front windows, and zebras stub up your kitchen
+garden. That's Hugh's show. Then of course there'll be Japan--and by that
+time there'll be airships to the North Pole, and we can take it on our
+way home!"
+
+"Souvent femme varie!" Mr. Manvers raised a pair of surprisingly shrewd
+eyes from the carpet. "I remember the years when I used to try and dig
+you and Hugh out of Bagley, and drive you abroad--without the smallest
+success."
+
+"Those were the years when one was moral and well-behaved! But everybody
+who is worth anything goes a little mad at forty. I was forty last
+week"--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," said
+Manvers dryly. "Why should you be so much younger than anybody else in
+the 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 as
+much as you like. They will not prevent me from telling you that you are
+one 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 her
+teaspoon 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 most
+tempting 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--I
+should 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 Church
+of England--services, doctrines and all--off his own bat, so to
+speak--without a 'with your leave or by your leave'; his parishioners
+backing him up; his Bishop in a frightful taking and not the least
+knowing 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--and
+yet--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 each
+other.
+
+"Very sorry--but it leaves me quite cold. Heresy in the Church of England
+comes to nothing. Our heretics are never violent enough. They forget the
+excellent text about the Kingdom of Heaven! Now the heretics in the
+Church of Rome are violent. That is what makes them so far more
+interesting."
+
+"This man seems to be drastic enough!"
+
+"Oh, no!" said the other, gently but firmly incredulous. "Believe me--he
+will resign, or apologize--they always do."
+
+"Believe _me_!--you don't--excuse me!--know anything about it. In
+the first place, Mr. Meynell has got his parishioners--all except a
+handful--behind him--"
+
+"So had Voysey," interjected Manvers, softly.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman took no notice.
+
+"--And he has hundreds of other supporters--thousands perhaps--and some
+of them parsons--in this diocese, and outside it. And they are all
+convinced that they must fight--fight to the death--and _not_ give in.
+That, you see, is what makes the difference! My brother-in-law"--the
+voice speaking changed and softened--"died twenty years ago. I remember
+how sad it was. He seemed to be walking alone in a world that hardly
+troubled 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 the
+strain 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 world
+behind him?" Mrs. Flaxman persisted, as the man beside her slowly shook
+his 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, and
+there were scores of people from other villages and towns--a kind of
+demonstration. Then, as to the service--neither of us could find our way
+about. 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 the
+chancel steps that they were not fit to be read in a Christian church; we
+altered this prayer and that prayer; we listened to an extempore prayer
+for the widows and orphans of some poor fellows who have been killed in a
+mine ten miles from here, which made me cry like baby; and, most amazing
+of all, when it came to the Creeds--"
+
+Manvers suddenly threw back his head, his face for the first time
+sharpening 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 the
+congregation--and with just a word of preface--'Here follows the Creed,
+commonly called the Apostles' Creed,'--or 'Here follows the Nicene
+Creed.' And we all stood and listened--and nobody said a word. It was the
+strangest moment! You know--I'm not a serious person--but I just held my
+breath."
+
+"As though you heard behind the veil the awful Voices--'_Let us depart
+hence_?'" said Manvers, after a pause. His expression had gradually
+changed. Those who knew him best might have seen in it a slight and
+passing trace of conflicts long since silenced and resolutely forgotten.
+
+"If you mean by that that the church was irreverent--or disrespectful--or
+hostile--well, you are quite wrong!" cried Mrs. Flaxman impetuously. "It
+was like a moment of new birth--I can't describe it--as though a Spirit
+entered in. And when the Rector finished--there was a kind of breath
+through the church--like the rustling of new leaves--and I thought of
+the wind blowing where it listed.... And then the Rector preached on the
+Creeds--how they grew up and why. Fascinating!--why aren't the clergy
+always telling us such things? And he brought it all round to impressing
+upon us that some day _we_ might be worthy of another Christian creed--by
+being faithful--that it would flower again out of our lives and souls--as
+the old had done.... I wonder what it all meant!" she said abruptly, her
+light voice dropping.
+
+Manvers smiled. His emotion had quite passed away.
+
+"Ah! but I forgot"--she resumed hurriedly--"we left out several of the
+Commandments--and we chanted the Beatitudes--and then I found there was a
+little service paper in the seat, and everybody in the church but Hugh
+and 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 to
+him the remark of the Bishop of Cork on the Dean of Cork--'Excellent
+sermon!--eloquent, clever, argumentative!--and not enough gospel in it to
+save a tom-tit!"'
+
+Mrs. Flaxman looked at him oddly.
+
+"Well, but--the extraordinary thing was that Hugh made me stay for the
+second 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 course
+Ritualistic is the wrong word. Should I have said 'sacramental'? I only
+meant that it was full of symbolism. There were lights--and flowers, and
+music, but there was nothing priestly--or superstitious"--she frowned in
+her effort to explain. "It was all poetic--and mystical--and yet
+practical. There were a good many things changed in the Service,--but
+I hardly noticed--I was so absorbed in watching the people. Almost every
+one stayed for the second service. It was quite short--so was the first
+service. And a great many communicated. But the spirit of it was the
+wonderful thing. It had all that--that magic--that mystery--that one gets
+out of Catholicism, even simple Catholicism, in a village church--say at
+Benediction; 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 people
+that were saying them; things that you did believe, or could believe,
+instead of things that you only pretended to believe, or couldn't
+possibly believe! I haven't got over it yet, and as for Hugh, I have
+never seen him so moved since--since Robert died."
+
+Manvers was aware of Mrs. Flaxman's affection for her brother-in-law's
+memory; and it seemed to him natural and womanly that she should be
+touched--artist and wordling though she was--by this fresh effort in
+a similar direction. For himself, he was touched in another way: with
+pity, or a kindly scorn. He did not believe in patching up the Christian
+tradition. 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! And
+if 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 and
+looking through the open window beside her. "What do you think we've
+done? We have evoked him! _Parlez du diable_, etc. How stupid of us! But
+there's his carriage trotting up the drive--I know the horses. And that's
+his deaf daughter--poor, downtrodden thing!--sitting beside him. Now
+then--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 the
+colour in her fair skin. Manvers looked longingly at the door leading to
+the 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 is
+on 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 of
+magnificent, superior way. He never loses his temper--whereas the others
+would often like to flay him alive. Now then"--Mrs. Flaxman laid a finger
+on her mouth--"'Papa, potatoes, prunes, and prism'!"
+
+Steps were heard in the hall, and the butler announced "Mr. and Miss
+Barron."
+
+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 the
+newcomers with her sweetest smiles, set the deaf daughter down on the
+hearing 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 a
+portly man of fifty-five, with a penetrating look, and a composed manner;
+well dressed, yet with no undue display. Louis Manvers, struggling with
+an habitual plague of shyness, and all but silenced by the discovery that
+his neighbour was even deafer than himself, watched the "six-foot-two
+Inquisitor" with curiosity, but could find nothing lurid nor torturous in
+his aspect. There was indeed something about him which displeased a
+rationalist scholar and ascetic. But his information and ability, his
+apparent adequacy to any company, were immediately evident. It seemed to
+Manvers that he had very quickly disarmed Mrs. Flaxman's vague prejudice
+against him. At any rate she was soon picking his brains diligently on
+the subject of the neighbourhood and the neighbours, and apparently
+enjoying the result, to judge from her smiles and her questions.
+
+Mr. Barron indeed had everything that could be expected of him to say on
+the subject of the district and its population. He descanted on the
+beauty of the three or four famous parks, which in the eighteenth century
+had been carved out of the wild heath lands; he showed an intimate
+knowledge of the persons who owned the parks, and of their families,
+"though I myself am only a newcomer here, being by rights a Devonshire
+man"; he talked of the local superstitions with indulgence, and a proper
+sense of the picturesque; and of the colliers who believed the
+superstitions he spoke in a tone of general good humour, tempered by
+regret that "agitators" should so often lead them into folly. The
+architecture of the district came in, of course, for proper notice. There
+were 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 is
+Sandford Abbey from here?"
+
+Her visitor paused a moment before replying.
+
+"Sandford Abbey is about five miles from you--across the park. The two
+estates 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 old
+friend of Hugh's family."
+
+Mr. Barron was silent.
+
+"Is he such a scamp?" said Mrs. Flaxman, raising her fine eyes, with a
+laugh 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 gathers
+some strange company at the Abbey. He is there now for the fishing."
+
+Manvers inquired who this gentleman might be; and Mrs. Flaxman gave him a
+lightly touched account. A young man of wealth and family, it seemed, but
+spoilt from his earliest days, and left fatherless at nineteen, with only
+an adoring but quite ineffectual mother to take account of. Some
+notorious love affairs at home and abroad; a wild practical joke or two,
+played on prominent people, and largely advertised in the newspapers; an
+audacious novel, and a censored play--he had achieved all these things by
+the age of thirty, and was now almost penniless, and still unmarried.
+
+"Hugh says that the Abbey is falling into ruin--and that the young man
+has about a hundred a year left out of his fortune. On this he keeps
+apparently an army of servants and a couple of hunters! The strange
+thing is--Hugh discovered it when he went to call on the Rector the other
+day--that this preposterous young man is a first cousin of Mr. Meynell's.
+His mother, Lady Meryon, and the Rector's mother were sisters. The
+Rector, 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 the
+charms, both of villainy and mystery, let the subject drop.
+
+Mr. Barron returned, as though with relief, to architecture, talked
+agreeably 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 whole
+disappointing--inferior to those of other districts within reach.
+Here, indeed, he showed himself an expert; and a far too minute
+discourse on the relative merits of the church architecture of two or
+three of the midland counties flowed on and on through Mrs. Flaxman's
+tea-making, while the deaf daughter became entirely speechless; and
+Manvers--disillusioned--gradually assumed an aspect of profound
+melancholy, which merely meant that his wits were wool gathering.
+
+"Well, I thought Upcote Minor church a very pretty church," said
+Rose Flaxman at last, with a touch of revolt. "The old screen is
+beautiful--and who on earth has done all that carving of the
+pulpit--and the reredos?"
+
+Mr. Barron's expression changed. He bent toward his hostess, striking one
+hand 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 recovered
+their animation.
+
+"You were present then," said Mr. Barron with passionate energy, "at a
+scandalous 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. The
+slight pomposity of look and manner had disappeared.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman hesitated. Then she said gravely: "It was certainly very
+astonishing. 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 is
+impossible for him to be honest!"
+
+Mrs. Flaxman slowly poured out another cup of tea for Mr. Manvers, who
+was standing before her in a drooping attitude, like some long crumpled
+fly, apparently deaf and blind to what was going on, his hair falling
+forward 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 to
+me--everybody in the church appeared to us to be enjoying what the Rector
+was 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 all
+the worse. When I came here three years ago he had not yet done any of
+these things--publicly; these perfectly monstrous things. Up to last
+Sunday, indeed, he kept within certain bounds as to the services; though
+frequent complaints of his teaching had been made to the Bishop, and
+proceedings even had been begun--it might have been difficult to touch
+him. But last Sunday!--" He stopped with a little sad gesture of the hand
+as though the recollection were too painful to pursue. "I saw, however,
+within six months of my coming here--he and I were great friends at
+first--what his teaching was, and whither it was tending. He has taught
+the people systematic infidelity for years. Now we have the results!"
+
+"He also seems to have looked after their bodies," said Mrs. Flaxman, in
+a skirmishing tone that simply meant she was not to be brought to close
+quarters. "I am told that it was he brought the water-supply here; and
+that he has forced the owners to rebuild some of the worst cottages."
+
+Mr. Barron looked attentively at his hostess. It was as though he were
+for 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, he
+was not asked to take vows about the water-supply! But he did promise and
+vow at his ordination to hold the Faith--to 'banish and drive away
+strange doctrines'!"
+
+"What are 'strange doctrines' nowadays?" said a mild, falsetto voice in
+the distance.
+
+Barron turned to the speaker--the long-haired dishevelled person whose
+name he had not caught distinctly as Mrs. Flaxman introduced him. His
+manner unconsciously assumed a note of patronage.
+
+"No need to define them, I think--for a Christian. The Church has her
+Creeds."
+
+"Of course. But while this gentleman shelves them--no doubt a
+revolutionary proceeding--are there not excesses on the other side? May
+there not be too much--as well as too little?"
+
+And with an astonishing command of ecclesiastical detail Manvers gave an
+account--gently ironic here and there--of some neo-Catholic functions of
+which he had lately been a witness.
+
+Barron fidgeted.
+
+"Deplorable, I admit--quite deplorable! I would put that kind of thing
+down, just as firmly as the other."
+
+Manvers smiled.
+
+"But who are '_you_'? if I may ask it philosophically and without
+offence? The man here does not agree with you--the people I have been
+describing would scout you. Where's your authority? What _is_ the
+authority in the English Church?"
+
+"Well, of course we have our answer to that question," said Barron, after
+a moment.
+
+Manvers gave a pleasant little laugh. "Have you?"
+
+Barron hesitated again, then evidently found the controversial temptation
+too strong. He plunged headlong into a great gulf of cloudy argument,
+with the big word "authority" for theme. But he could find no foothold
+in the maze. Manvers drove him delicately from point to point,
+involving him in his own contradictions, rolling him in his own
+ambiguities, till--suddenly--vague recollections began to stir in the
+victim's mind. _Manvers_? Was that the name? It began to recall to
+him certain articles in the reviews, the Church papers. Was there not a
+well-known writer--a Dublin man--a man who had once been a clergyman, and
+had resigned his orders?
+
+He drew himself together with dignity, and retreated in as good order as
+he could. Turning to Mrs. Flaxman, who was endeavouring to make a few
+commonplaces audible to Miss Barron, while throwing occasional sly
+glances toward the field of battle, he somewhat curtly asked for his
+carriage.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman's hand was on the bell, when the drawing-room door opened to
+admit a gentleman.
+
+"Mr. Meynell!" said the butler.
+
+And at the same moment a young girl slipped in through the open French
+window, and with a smiling nod to Mrs. Flaxman and Mr. Manvers went up to
+the tea-table and began to replenish the teapot and relight the kettle.
+
+Mr. Barron made an involuntary movement of annoyance as the Rector
+entered. But a few minutes of waiting before the appearance of his
+carriage was inevitable. He stood motionless therefore in his place, a
+handsome, 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 friendly
+nod. 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 an
+evident look of pleasure.
+
+"I have just read your Bishop Butler article in the _Quarterly_," said
+Meynell eagerly. "Splendid! Have you seen it?" He turned to his hostess,
+with one of the rapid movements that expressed the constant energy of the
+man.
+
+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 bit
+from it?" The speaker turned to Manvers again. "There is a clerical
+conference 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, to
+his hostess: "Will you mind if I drink a good deal? I have just been down
+a 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 thought
+he 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 all
+away, married. Nobody to nurse him as usual. I say!"--he bent forward,
+looking into his hostess's face with his small, vivacious eyes--"how
+long 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, and
+it will do a lot of good," said the Rector earnestly. "The people here
+are awfully good to each other--but they don't know anything--poor
+souls--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 sat
+the squire of the parish, silent and impassive. Common report made Henry
+Barron a wealthy man. He could, no doubt, have provided half a dozen
+nurses for Upcote Minor if he had so chosen. Yet here was she, the
+newcomer of a few weeks, appealed to instead! It seemed to her that the
+Rector 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 difficulty
+in controlling, endeavoured nevertheless to strike the same easy note as
+the rest. He gave his reasons for thinking that a parish nurse was not
+really required in Upcote, the women in the village being in his opinion
+quite 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 all
+very well for Meynell to show this levity, this callous indifference to
+the situation. But he, Barron, could not forget it. That very week, the
+first steps had been taken which were to drive this heretical and
+audacious priest from the office and benefice he had no right to hold,
+and had so criminally misused. If he submitted and went quietly, well and
+good. But of course he would do nothing of the kind. There was a
+lamentable amount of disloyalty and infidelity in the diocese, and he
+would be supported. An ugly struggle was inevitable--a struggle for the
+honour of Christ and his Church. It would go down to the roots of things
+and was not to be settled or smoothed over by a false and superficial
+courtesy. The days of friendship, of ordinary social intercourse, were
+over. Barron did not intend to receive the Rector again within his own
+doors, intimate as they had been at one time; and it was awkward and
+undesirable that they should be meeting in other people's drawing-rooms.
+
+All these feelings were running through his mind while aloud he was
+laboriously giving Mrs. Flaxman his reasons for thinking a parish nurse
+unnecessary in Upcote Minor. When he came to the end of them, Meynell
+looked at him with amused exasperation.
+
+"Well, all I know is that in the last case of typhoid we had here--a poor
+lad on Reynolds's farm--his mother got him up every day while she made
+his 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 else
+they do with them--unless I stay and see them put on. Ah, well, never
+mind. 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 new
+German 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. Yet
+the eyes for all their intensity looked out from a face furrowed and
+pale--overshadowed by physical and mental strain. The girl sitting at the
+tea-table could scarcely take her eyes from it. It appealed at once to
+her heart and her intelligence. And yet there were other feelings in her
+which resisted the appeal. Once or twice she looked wistfully at Barron.
+She would gladly have found in him a more attractive champion of a
+majestic cause.
+
+"What can my coachman be about?" said Barron impatiently. "Might I
+trouble 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. "At
+once!"
+
+But the minutes passed on, and while trying to keep up a desultory
+conversation with his hostess, and with the young lady at the tea-table,
+to whom he was not introduced, Mr. Barron was all the while angrily
+conscious of the conversation going on between the Rector and Manvers.
+There seemed to be something personally offensive and humiliating to
+himself in the knowledge displayed by these two men--men who had deserted
+or were now betraying the Church--of the literature of Anglican
+apologetics, and of the thought of the great Anglican bishop. Why this
+parade of useless learning and hypocritical enthusiasm? What was Bishop
+Butler to them? He could hardy sit patiently through it, and it was with
+most evident relief that he rose to his feet when his carriage was
+announced.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"How pretty Mrs. Flaxman is!" said his daughter as they drove away. "Yet
+I'm sure she's forty, papa."
+
+Her face still reflected the innocent pleasure that Rose Flaxman's
+kindness had given her. It was not often that the world troubled itself
+much about her. Her father, however, took no notice. He sat absent and
+pondering, and soon he stretched out a peremptory hand and lowered the
+window which his daughter had raised against an east wind to protect a
+delicate ear and throat which had been the torment of her life. It was
+done with no conscious unkindness; far from it. He was merely absorbed in
+the planning of his campaign. The next all-important point was the
+selection of the Commission of Inquiry. No effort must be spared by the
+Church party to obtain the right men.
+
+Meanwhile, in the drawing-room which he had left, there was silence for a
+moment 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 the
+tea-table.
+
+"Oh, I had had quite enough of Mr. Barron. Mr. Meynell, have I ever
+introduced you to my niece?"
+
+"Oh, but we know each other!" said Meynell, eagerly. "We met first at
+Miss Puttenham's, a week ago--and since then--Miss Elsmere has been
+visiting a woman I know."
+
+"Indeed?"
+
+"A woman who lost her husband some days since--a terrible case. We are
+all so grateful to Miss Elsmere."
+
+He looked toward her with a smile and a sigh; then as he saw the shy
+discomfort in the girl's face, he changed the subject at once.
+
+The conversation became general. Some feeling that she could not explain
+to herself led Mrs. Flaxman into a closer observation of her niece Mary
+than usual. There was much affection between the aunt and the niece, but
+on Mrs. Flaxman's side, at least, not much understanding. She thought of
+Mary as an interesting creature, with some striking gifts--amongst them
+her mother's gift for goodness. But it seemed to the aunt that she was
+far too grave and reserved for her age; that she had been too strenuously
+brought up, and in a too narrow world. Rose Flaxman had often impatiently
+tried to enliven the girl's existence, to give her nice clothes, to take
+her to balls and to the opera. But Mary's adoration for her mother stood
+in 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 was
+talking--softly, and with a delicate and rather old-fashioned choice of
+words, but certainly with no lack of animation. And it was quite evident
+to an inquisitive aunt with a notorious gift for match making that the
+tired heretic with the patches of coal dust on his coat found her very
+attractive.
+
+But as the clock struck six Meynell sprang up.
+
+"I must go. Miss Elsmere"--he looked toward her--"has kindly promised to
+take me on to see your sister at the Cottage--and after to-day I may not
+have another opportunity." He hesitated, considering his hostess--then
+burst out: "You were at church last Sunday--I know--I saw you. I want to
+tell you--that you have a church quite as near to you as the parish
+church, where everything is quite orthodox--the church at Haddon End. I
+wish I could have warned you. I--I did ask Miss Elsmere to warn her
+mother."
+
+Rose looked at the carpet.
+
+"You needn't pity us," she said, demurely. "Hugh wants to talk to you
+dreadfully. But--I am afraid I am a Gallio."
+
+"Of course--you don't need to be told--it was all a deliberate defiance
+of the law--in order to raise vital questions. We have never done
+anything half so bad before. We determined on it at a public meeting last
+week, 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 laymen
+in the Church want a real franchise--a citizenship they can exercise--and
+a law of their own making!"
+
+There was silence a moment. Mary Elsmere took up her hat, and kissed her
+aunt; Meynell made his farewells, and followed the girl's lead into the
+garden.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman and Manvers watched them open the gate of the park and
+disappear behind a rising ground. Then the two spectators turned to each
+other by a common impulse, smiling at the same thought. Mrs. Flaxman's
+smile, however, was almost immediately drowned in a real concern. She
+clasped 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 hill
+and in a northwest direction across one of the most beautiful parks in
+England. It lay on the fringe of the Chase and contained, within its
+slopes and glades, now tracts of primitive woodland whence the charcoal
+burners 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, a
+seemly Georgian pile, with a columnar front, had the good fortune to
+belong to a man not rich enough to live in or rebuild it, but
+sufficiently attached to it to spend upon its decent maintenance the
+money he got by letting it. So the delicately faded beauty of the house
+had survived unspoilt; while there had never been any money to spend upon
+the park, where the woods and fences looked after themselves year by
+year, and colliers from the neighbouring villages poached freely.
+
+The two people walking through the ferny paths leading to the cottage of
+Forked Pond were not, however, paying much attention to the landscape
+round them. Meynell showed himself at first preoccupied and silent. A
+load of anxiety depressed his vitality; and on this particular day long
+hours of literary work and correspondence, beginning almost with the dawn
+and 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 to
+create a soothing and liberating atmosphere in which it was possible to
+speak with frankness, though without effort or excitement.
+
+The Rector indeed had so far very little precise knowledge of what his
+companion's feeling might be toward his own critical plight. He would
+have liked to get at it; for there was something in this winning,
+reserved girl that made him desire her good opinion. And yet he shrank
+from any discussion with her.
+
+He knew of course that the outlines of what had happened must be known to
+her. During the ten days since their first meeting both the local and
+London newspapers had given much space to the affairs of Upcote Minor. An
+important public meeting in which certain decisions had been taken with
+only three dissentients had led up to the startling proceedings in the
+village church which Mrs. Flaxman had described to Louis Manvers. The
+Bishop had written another letter, this time of a more hurried and
+peremptory kind. An account of the service had appeared in the _Times_,
+and columns had been devoted to it in various Mercian newspapers. After
+years of silence, during which his heart had burned within him; after a
+shorter period of growing propaganda and expanding utterance, Meynell
+realized fully that he had now let loose the floodgates. All round him
+was rising that wide response from human minds and hearts--whether in
+sympathy or in hostility--which tests and sifts the man who aspires to be
+a leader of men--in religion or economics. Every trade union leader
+lifted on the wave of a great strike, representing the urgent physical
+need of his fellows, knows what the concentration of human passion can
+be--in matters concerned with the daily bread and the homes of men.
+Religion can gather and bring to bear forces as strong. Meynell knew it
+well; and he was like a man stepping down into a rushing stream from
+which there is no escape. It must be crossed--that is all the wayfarer
+knows; but as he feels the water on his body he realizes that the moment
+is perhaps for life or death.
+
+Such crises in life bring with them, in the case of the nobler
+personalities, a great sensitiveness; and Meynell seemed to be living in
+a world where not only his own inner feelings and motives but those of
+others were magnified and writ large. As he walked beside Mary Elsmere
+his mind played round what he knew of her history and position; and it
+troubled him to think that, both for her and her mother, contact with him
+at this particular moment might be the reviving of old sorrows.
+
+As they paused on the top of a rising ground looking westward he looked
+at her with sudden and kindly decision.
+
+"Miss Elsmere, are you sure your mother would like to see me? It was very
+good of you to request that I should accompany you to-night--but--are you
+sure?"
+
+Mary coloured deeply and hesitated a moment.
+
+"Don't you think I'd better turn back?" he asked her, gently. "Your path
+is clear before you." He pointed to it winding through the fern. "And you
+know, I hope, that anything I could do for you and your mother during
+your stay here I should be only too enchanted to do. The one thing I
+shrink from doing is to interfere in any way with her rest here. And I am
+afraid just now I might be a disturbing element."
+
+"No, no! please come!" said Mary, earnestly. Then as she turned her head
+away, she added: "Of course--there is nothing new--to her--"
+
+"Except that my fight is waged from inside the Church--and your father's
+from 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 so
+terrible to her."
+
+"Any break with the old things? But doesn't it ever present itself to
+her--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 the
+trouble he divined in her. A great natural dignity in the girl--delicacy
+of feeling in the man--prevented it.
+
+None the less her betrayal of emotion had altered their relation; or
+rather had carried it farther. For he had already seen her in contact
+with tragic and touching things. A day or two after that early morning
+when he had told the outlines of the Batesons' story to the two ladies
+who had entertained him at breakfast he had found her in Bateson's
+cottage 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 friendly
+timid ways had stirred, as it were, the dark air of the house with a
+breath of tenderness. She would sit beside the widow, sewing at a black
+dress, or helping her to choose the text to be printed on the funeral
+card; or she would come with her hands full of wild flowers, and coax
+Mrs. Bateson to go in the dusk to the churchyard with them. She had
+shown, indeed, wonderful inventiveness in filling the first week of loss
+and anguish with such small incident as might satisfy feeling, and yet
+take 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 mind
+of her companion. It was a remarkable face; the lower lip a little
+prominent, and the chin firmly rounded. But the smile, though rare, was
+youth and sweetness itself, and the dark eyes beneath the full mass of
+richly coloured hair were finely conscious and attentive--disinterested
+also; so that they won the spectator instead of embarrassing him. She was
+very lightly and slenderly made, yet so as to convey an impression of
+strength and physical health. Meynell said to himself that there was
+something cloistered in her look, like one brought up in a grave
+atmosphere--an atmosphere of "recollection." At the same time nothing
+could 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 both
+their minds. Insensibly the barrier between them and it broke away.
+Neither, indeed, forgot the interposing shadow of Catharine Elsmere. But
+the 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 reveal
+them to each other. The growing delight of their conversation was
+presently beyond Meynell's resisting. And in Mary, the freedom of it, no
+less than the sense of personal conflict and tragic possibilities that
+lay behind it, awakened the subtlest and deepest feelings. Poignant,
+concrete images rushed through her mind--a dying face to which her own
+had been lifted, as a tiny child; the hall of the New Brotherhood, where
+she sat sometimes beside her veiled mother; the sad nobility of that
+mother's life; a score of trifling, heartpiercing things, that, to think
+of, 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 thought
+and doubt, of faith and denial, in a living and daring world. And yet
+again, times of passionate remorse, in which all movement of revolt had
+died 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-thwarted
+force. And under the pressure of her quick, searching sympathy his talk
+became insensibly more personal, more autobiographical. He was but little
+given to confession, but she compelled it. It was as though through his
+story she sought to understand her father's--to unveil many things yet
+dark to her.
+
+Thus gradually, through ways direct and indirect, the intellectual story
+of the man revealed itself to the pure and sensitive mind of the girl.
+She divined his home and upbringing--his father an Evangelical soldier of
+the old school, a home imbued with the Puritan and Biblical ideas. She
+understood something of the struggle provoked--after his ordination, in a
+somewhat late maturity--by the uprising of the typical modern problems,
+historical, critical, scientific. She pieced together much that only came
+out incidentally as to the counsellors within the Church to whom he had
+gone in his first urgent distress--the Bishop whom he reverenced--his
+old 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 small
+French books by a French priest and the sudden uprush of new life
+in the Roman Church had brought to the remote English clergyman at once
+the crystallization of doubt and the passion of a freed faith.
+"Modernism"--the attempt of the modern spirit, acting religiously, to
+refashion Christianity, not outside, but _inside_, the warm limits of the
+ancient churches--was born; and Richard Meynell became one of the first
+converts in England.
+
+"Ah, if your father had but lived!" he said at last, turning upon her
+with emotion. "He died his noble death twenty years ago--think of the
+difference between then and now! Then the Broad Church movement was
+at an end. All that seemed so hopeful, so full of new life in the
+seventies, had apparently died down. Stanley, John Richard Green, Hugh
+Pearson were dead, Jowett was an old man of seventy; Liberalism within
+the Church hardly seemed to breathe; the judgment in the Voysey case--as
+much a defiance of modern knowledge as any Papal encyclical--though
+people had nearly forgotten it, had yet in truth brought the whole
+movement to a stand. All _within_ the gates seemed lost. Your father went
+out into the wilderness, and there, amid everything that was poor and
+mean 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 of
+it depends now only on the faithfulness of those within it."
+
+Mary was moved and silenced. The man's power, his transparent purity of
+heart, affected her, as they had already affected thousands. She was
+drawn to him also, unconsciously, by that something in personality which
+determines the relations of men and women. Yet there were deep instincts
+in her that protested. Girl as she was, she felt herself for the moment
+more alive than he to the dead weight of the World, fighting the tug of
+those who would fain move it from its ancient bases.
+
+He seemed to guess at her thought; for he passed on to describe the
+events by which, amid his own dumb or hidden struggle, he had become
+aware of the same forces working all round him; among the more
+intelligent and quick-witted miners, hungry for history and science,
+reading voraciously a Socialist and anti-Christian literature, yet all
+the while cherishing deep at heart certain primitive superstitions, and
+falling periodically into hot abysses of Revivalism, under the influence
+of Welsh preachers; or among the young men of the small middle class, in
+whom a better education was beginning to awaken a number of new
+intellectual and religious wants; among women, too, sensitive,
+intelligent women--
+
+"Ah! but," said Mary, quickly interrupting him, "don't imagine there are
+many 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 very
+little part in this particular movement. I never know whether she is
+really with us. She stands outside the old things, but I can never make
+myself happy by the hope that I have been able to win her to the new!"
+
+Mary looked puzzled--interrogative. But she checked her question, and
+drew him back instead to his narrative--to the small incidents and signs
+which had gradually revealed to him, among even his brother clergy, years
+before that date, the working of ideas and thoughts like his own. And
+now--
+
+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 other
+counties. It made me think of what a French Catholic Modernist said to me
+two years ago--'Pius X may write encyclicals as he pleases--I could show
+him whole dioceses in France that are practically Modernist, where the
+Seminaries are Modernist, and two thirds of the clergy. The Bishop knows
+it quite well, and is helpless. Over the border perhaps you get an
+Ultramontane diocese, and an Ultramontane bishop. But the process goes
+on. Life and time are for _us_!'" He paused and laughed. "Ah, of course I
+don't pretend things are so here--yet. Our reforms in England--in Church
+and State--broaden slowly down. In France, reform, when it moves at all,
+tends to be catastrophic. But in the Markborough diocese alone we have
+won over perhaps a fifth of the clergy, and the dioceses all round are
+moving. As to the rapidity of the movement in the last few months it has
+been nothing short of amazing!"
+
+"And what is the end to be? Not only--oh! Not only--_to destroy_!" said
+Mary. The soft intensity of the voice, the beauty of the look, touched
+him strangely.
+
+He smiled, and there was a silence for a minute, as they wandered
+downward through a purple stretch of heather to a little stream,
+sun-smitten, that lay across their path. Once or twice she looked at him
+timidly, 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 yet
+intenser fellowship. We want to say to our fellowmen: 'Cease from groping
+among ruins!--from making life and faith depend upon whether Christ was
+born at Bethlehem or at Nazareth, whether He rose or did not rise,
+whether Luke or some one else wrote the Third Gospel, whether the Fourth
+Gospel 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 purify
+the gold. Take the cup of cold water to the thirsty, heal the sick, tend
+the dying, and feel it thrill within you--the ineffable, the immortal
+life! Let the false miracle go!--the true has grown out of it, up from
+it, as the flower from the sheath.' Ah! but then"--he drew himself up
+unconsciously; his tone hardened--"we turn to the sons of tradition, and
+we say: 'We too must have our rights in what the past has built up, the
+past has bequeathed--as well as you! Not for you alone, the institutions,
+the buildings, the arts, the traditions, that the Christ-life has so far
+fashioned for itself. They who made them are Our fathers no less than
+yours--give us our share in them!--we claim it! Give us our share in the
+cathedrals and churches of our country--our share in the beauty and
+majesty of our ancestral Christianity.' The men who led the rebellion
+against Rome in the sixteenth century claimed the _plant_ of English
+Catholicism. 'We are our fathers' sons, and these things are _ours!_'
+they said, as they looked at Salisbury and Winchester. We say the
+same--with a difference. 'Give us the rights and the citizenship that
+belong to us! But do not imagine that we want to attack yours. In God's
+name, follow your own forms of faith--but allow us ours also--within
+the common shelter of the common Church. We are children of the same
+God--followers of the same Master. Who made you judges and dividers over
+us? You shall not drive us into the desert any more. A new movement of
+revolt has come--an hour of upheaval--and the men, with it!'"
+
+Both stood motionless, gazing over the wide stretch of country--wood
+beyond wood, distance beyond distance, that lay between them and the
+Welsh border. Suddenly, as a shaft of light from the descending sun
+fled ghostlike across the plain, touching trees and fields and farms in
+its path, two noble towers emerged among the shadows--characters, as it
+were, that gave a meaning to the scroll of nature. They were the towers
+of Markborough Cathedral. Meynell pointed to them as he turned to his
+companion, his face still quivering under the strain of feeling.
+
+"Take the omen! It is for _them_, in a sense--a spiritual sense--we are
+fighting. They belong not to any body of men that may chance to-day to
+call itself the English Church. They belong to _England_--in her aspect
+of faith--and to the English people!"
+
+There was a silence. His look came back to her face, and the prophetic
+glow died from his own. "I should be very, very sorry"--he said
+anxiously--"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--of
+others." Her voice trembled.
+
+The words seemed to suggest everything that in her own personal history
+had stamped her with this sweet, shrinking look. Meynell was deeply
+touched. But he did not answer her, or pursue the conversation any
+farther. He gathered a great bunch of harebells for her, from the
+sun-warmed dells in the heather; and was soon making her laugh by his
+stories of colliery life and speech, _a propos_ of the colliery villages
+fringing the plain at their feet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The stream, as they neared it, proved to be the boundary between the
+heath land and the pastures of the lower ground. It ran fresh and
+brimming between its rushy banks, shadowed here and there by a few light
+ashes and alders, but in general open to the sky, of which it was the
+mirror. It shone now golden and blue under the deepening light of the
+afternoon; and two or three hundred yards away Mary Elsmere distinguished
+two 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. There
+should be a capital rise to-night. If that man has the sense to put on a
+sedge-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, on
+the other side of the stream. "What a wonderful old place!"
+
+For the house that revealed itself stood with an impressive dignity among
+its stern and blackish woods. The long, plain front suggested a monastic
+origin; 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 have
+grown into the landscape, and to be so deeply rooted in it that one could
+not imagine it away.
+
+Meynell glanced at it.
+
+"That is Sandford Abbey. It belongs, I regret to say, to a neer-do-weel
+cousin of mine who has spent all his time since he came into it in
+neglecting his duties to it. Provided the owner of it is safely away, I
+should 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 own
+sentiments!"
+
+Mary followed the house with her eyes as they walked along the bank of
+the stream toward the two figures on the opposite bank.
+
+A sudden exclamation from her companion caught her ear--and a light
+musical laugh. Startled by something familiar in it, Mary looked across
+the stream. She saw on the farther bank a few yards ahead a young man
+fishing, and a young girl in white sitting beside him.
+
+"Hester!--Miss Fox-Wilton!"--the tone showed her surprise; "and who is
+that with her?"
+
+Meynell, without replying, walked rapidly along the stream to a point
+immediately opposite the pair.
+
+"Good afternoon, Philip. I did not know you were here. Hester, I am going
+round by Forked 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't
+think what a rise there is. I have caught two myself. Sir Philip has been
+teaching me."
+
+"She frames magnificently!" said the young man. "How d'ye do, Meynell? A
+long time since we've met."
+
+"A long time," said Meynell briefly. "Hester, will you meet Miss Elsmere
+and 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 yards
+farther 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 good
+luck I wouldn't go with mother to dine at the White House! Don't you hate
+dinner parties? I told Mr. Barron that spiders were so much more refined
+than humans--they did at least eat their flies by themselves! He was
+quite angry--and I am afraid Stephen was too!"
+
+She laughed again, and so did the man beside her. He was a dark, slim
+fellow, finely made, dressed in blue serge, and a felt hat, which
+seemed at the moment to be slipping over the back of his handsome head.
+From a little distance he produced an impression of Apollo-like strength
+and good looks. As the spectator came closer, this impression was a good
+deal modified by certain loose and common lines in the face. But from
+Mary Elsmere's position only Sir Philip Meryon's good points were
+visible, and he appeared to her a dazzling creature.
+
+And in point of looks his companion was more than his match. They made
+indeed 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. In
+pushing along the overgrown stream, the coils of her hair had been
+disarranged 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 and
+smile shone out triumphantly. Exceptionally tall, with clear-cut aquiline
+features, with the movements and the grace of a wood nymph, the girl
+carried her beautiful brows and her full throat with a provocative and
+self-conscious arrogance. One might have guessed that fear was unknown
+to her; perhaps tenderness also. She looked much older than seventeen,
+until she moved or spoke; then the spectator soon realized that in spite
+of her height and her precocious beauty she was a child, capable still of
+a 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 across
+the stream. Meynell's peremptory voice reached her now and then, and she
+could not help hearing a sharp final demand that the truant should
+transfer 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 will
+allow me to join you. Miss Elsmere, I am very sorry, but I am afraid I
+must 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 I
+please!"
+
+Meanwhile Sir Philip Meryon had laid aside his rod and was apparently
+enjoying the encounter between his companion and the Rector.
+
+"Perhaps you have forgotten--this is _my_ side of the river, Meynell!" he
+shouted across it.
+
+"I am quite aware of it," said the Rector, as he shook hands with the
+embarrassed Mary. She was just moving away with a shy good-bye to the
+angry young goddess on the farther bank, when the goddess said:
+
+"Don't go, Mary! Here, Sir Philip--take the fly-book!" She flung it
+toward him. "Goodnight."
+
+And turning her back upon him without any further ceremony, she walked
+quickly along the stream toward the little bridge which Meynell had
+pointed out.
+
+"Congratulations!" said Meryon, with a mocking wave of the hand to the
+Rector, who made no reply. He ran to catch up Mary, and the two joined
+the girl in white at the bridge. The owner of Sandford Abbey stood
+meanwhile with his hand on his hip watching the receding figures. There
+was a smile on his handsome mouth, but it was an angry one; and his
+muttered remark as he turned away belied the unconcern he had affected.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"That comes, you see, of not letting me be engaged to Stephen!" said
+Hester 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 well
+that your mother does not approve of Sir Philip Meryon, and does not wish
+you to be in his company."
+
+"Precisely. But as I am not to be allowed to marry Stephen, I must of
+course 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'm
+bound."
+
+"At present all you're asked"--said Meynell dryly--"is not to disobey
+your mother. But don't you think it's rather rude to Miss Elsmere to be
+discussing private affairs she doesn't understand?"
+
+"Why shouldn't she understand them? Mary, my guardian here and my mother
+say that I mustn't be engaged to Stephen Barron--that I'm too young--or
+some nonsense of that kind. And Stephen--oh, well, Stephen's too good for
+this world! If he really loved me, he'd do something desperate, wouldn't
+he?--instead of giving in. I don't much mind, myself--I don't really care
+so much about marrying Stephen--only if I'm not to marry him, and
+somebody else wants to please me, why shouldn't I let him?"
+
+She turned her beautiful wild eyes upon Mary Elsmere. And as she
+did so Mary was suddenly seized with a strong sense of likeness in the
+speaker--her gesture--her attitude--to something already familiar. She
+could not identify the something, but her gaze fastened itself on the
+face before her.
+
+Meynell meanwhile answered Hester's tirade.
+
+"I'm quite ready to talk this over with you, Hester, on our way home. But
+don't you see that you are making Miss Elsmere uncomfortable?"
+
+"Oh, no, I'm not," said Hester coolly. "You've been talking to her of
+all 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 out
+more--you'd be so pretty! Let me do it for you. And you shouldn't wear
+that hat--no, you really shouldn't. It's a brute! I could trim you
+another 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, and
+it was evident that her temper was passing away.
+
+"I don't agree with you at all about my hat," said Mary with spirit. "I
+trimmed 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 what
+you like. I wonder what you _have_ been talking to her about? I shall
+make 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 explained
+again that Mr. Meynell and she were on the way to the Forked Pond
+cottage, 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 no
+good your saying she will. I saw her in the village yesterday. I'm not
+her sort. Let me go home by myself."
+
+Mary half laughed, half coaxed her into coming with them. But she went
+very unwillingly; fell completely silent, and seemed to be in a dream all
+the way to the cottage. Meynell took no notice of her; though once or
+twice she stole a furtive look toward him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The tiny house in which Catharine Elsmere and her daughter had settled
+themselves for the summer stood on a narrow isthmus of land belonging to
+the Maudeley estate, between the Sandford trout-stream and a large rushy
+pond of two or three acres. It was a very lonely and a very beautiful
+place, though the neighbourhood generally pronounced it damp and
+rheumatic. The cottage, sheltered under a grove of firs, looked straight
+out on the water, and over a bed of water-lilies. All round was a summer
+murmur of woods, the call of waterfowl, and the hum of bees; for, at the
+edges of the water, flowers and grasses pushed thickly out into the
+sunlight from the shadow of the woods.
+
+By the waterside, with a book on her knee, sat a lady who rose as they
+came in sight.
+
+Meynell approached her, hat in hand, his strong irregular face, which had
+always in it a touch of _naivete_, of the child, expressing both timidity
+and pleasure. The memory of her husband was enshrined deep in the minds
+of all religious liberals; and it was known to many that while the
+husband and wife had differed widely in opinion, and the wife had
+suffered profoundly from the husband's action, yet the love between them
+had 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, very
+lightly touched with gray and arranged with the utmost simplicity, framed
+a face in which the passage of years had emphasized and sharpened all
+the main features, replacing also the delicate smoothness of youth by a
+subtle network of small lines and shadows, which had turned the original
+whiteness of the skin into a brownish ivory, full of charm. The eyes
+looked steadily out from their deep hollows; the mouth, austere and
+finely cut, the characteristic hands, and the unconscious dignity of
+movement--these personal traits made of Elsmere's wife, even in late
+middle age, a striking and impressive figure.
+
+Yet Meynell realized at once, as she just touched his offered hand, that
+the sympathy and the homage he would so gladly have brought her would be
+unwelcome; and that it was a trial to her to see him.
+
+He sat down beside her, while Mary and Hester--who, on her introduction
+to 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--on
+anything and everything that was not Upcote Minor, its parish, or its
+church. Mrs. Elsmere's gentle courtesy never failed; yet behind it he was
+conscious of a steely withdrawal of her real self from any contact with
+his. 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 the
+wild flowers and birds of the Chase; he did his best; but never once
+was 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 of
+such a personality once formed were probably irrevocable. Would she
+discourage any acquaintance with her daughter? It startled him to feel
+how much the unspoken question hurt.
+
+Meanwhile the eyes of his hostess pursued the two girls, and she
+presently called to them, greeting their reappearance with an evident
+change and relaxation of manner. She made Hester sit near her, and it was
+not long before the child, throwing off her momentary awe, was chattering
+fast and freely, yet, as Mary perceived, with a tact, conscious or
+unconscious, that kept the chatter within bounds.
+
+Mrs. Elsmere watched the girl's beauty with evident delight, and when
+Meynell rose to go, and Hester with him, she timidly drew the radiant
+creature 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 some
+constraint:
+
+"You walked with him from Maudeley?"
+
+"Mr. Meynell? Yes, I found him there at tea. He was very anxious to pay
+his 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. Then
+she slipped her hand into her mother's.
+
+"You didn't mind, dearest? Aunt Rose likes him very much, and--and I
+wanted him to know you!" She smiled into her mother's eyes. "But we
+needn'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, rather
+stiffly. "But there is no need we should see him, is there?"
+
+"No," said Mary; her cheek dropped against her mother's knee, her eyes on
+the water. "No--not that I know of." After a moment she added with
+apparent 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 out
+of 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 service
+last Sunday. Your father would never--never--have done such a thing!"
+
+The repressed passion with which the last words were spoken startled
+Mary. She made no reply, but her face, now once more turned toward the
+sunlit pond, had visibly saddened. Inwardly she found herself asking--"If
+father had lived?--if father were here now?"
+
+Her reverie was broken by her mother's voice--softened--breathing
+a 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's
+words, were in her mind--little traits too and incidents of his
+parochial life that she had come across in the village. A man might
+preach 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 them
+Richard Meynell held, was not to be done by any mere pretender, any
+spiritual charlatan. How well his voice pleased her!--his tenderness to
+children--his impatience--his laugh.
+
+The thoughts, too, he had expressed to her on their walk ran kindling
+through her mind. There were in her many half-recognized thirsts and
+desires of the spirit that seemed to have become suddenly strong and
+urgent under the spur of his companionship.
+
+She sat dreaming; then her mother called her to the evening meal, and she
+went in. They passed the evening together, in the free and tender
+intimacy which was their habitual relation. But in the mind of each there
+were 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--by
+Hester's guardian. Disobedience to her mother's wishes; disloyalty toward
+those who loved her, including himself; deceit, open and unabashed, if
+the paradox may be allowed--all these had to be brought home to her. He
+talked, now tenderly, now severely, dreading to hurt her, yet hoping to
+make his blows smart enough to be remembered. She was not to make friends
+with Sir Philip Meryon. She was not to see him or walk with him. He was
+not a fit person for her to know; and she must trust her elders in the
+matter.
+
+"You are not going to make us all anxious and miserable, dear Hester!" he
+said 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 to
+trust 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 be
+far better if you took yourself in hand."
+
+"Why did you stop my being engaged to Stephen?" she cried, raising her
+head 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, and
+if 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. "I
+don't care about him now. But I should have cared about him if I had been
+engaged 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 to
+North Leigh, Lady Fox-Wilton's house. As she perceived it Hester suddenly
+took to flight, and her light form was soon lost to view in the summer
+dusk.
+
+The Rector did not attempt to pursue her. He turned back toward the
+Rectory, perturbed and self-questioning. But it was not possible, after
+all, to set a tragic value on the love affair of a young lady who, within
+a week of its breaking off, had already consoled herself with another
+swain. Anything less indicative of a broken heart than Hester's behaviour
+during that week the Rector could not imagine. Personally he believed
+that she spoke the simple truth when she said she no longer cared for
+Stephen. 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 take
+him half the night. But they must lie there a bit longer. At Miss
+Puttenham's gate he paused, hesitated a moment, then went straight into
+the twilight garden, where he imagined that he should find its mistress.
+
+He found her, in a far corner, among close-growing trees and with her
+usual occupations, her books and her embroidery, beside her. But she was
+neither reading nor sewing. She sprang up to greet him, and for an hour
+of summer twilight they held a rapid, low-voiced conversation.
+
+When he pressed her hand at parting they looked at each other, still
+overshadowed by the doubt and perplexity which had marked the opening of
+their 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, and
+as for the escapade to-day--"
+
+The woman before him shook her head.
+
+"She means to marry at the earliest possible moment--simply to escape
+from Edith--and that house. We sha'n't delay it long. And who knows what
+may happen if we thwart her too much?"
+
+"We _must_ delay it a year or two, if we possibly can--for her sake--and
+for yours," said Meynell firmly. "Good night, my dear friend. Try and
+sleep--put the anxiety away. When the moment comes--and of course I admit
+it must come--you will reap the harvest of the love you have sown. She
+does love you!--I am certain of that."
+
+He heard a low sound--was it a sobbing breath?--as Alice Puttenham
+disappeared in the darkness which had overtaken the garden.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Breakfast at the White House, Upcote Minor, was an affair of somewhat
+minute regulation.
+
+About a fortnight after Mr. Barron's call on the new tenants of Maudeley
+Hall, his deaf daughter Theresa entered the dining-room as usual on the
+stroke of half-past eight. She glanced round her to see that all was in
+order, the breakfast table ready, and the chairs placed for prayers. Then
+she went up to a side-table on which was placed a large Bible and
+prayer-book and a pile of hymn-books. She looked at the lessons and
+psalms for the day and placed markers in the proper places. Then she
+chose a hymn, and laid six open hymn-books one upon another. After which
+she stood for a moment looking at the first verse of the psalm for the
+day: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my
+help." The verse was one of her favourites, and she smiled vaguely, like
+one who recognizes in the distance a familiar musical phrase.
+
+Theresa Barron was nearly thirty. She had a long face with rather high
+cheek-bones, and timid gray eyes. Her complexion was sallow, her figure
+awkward. Her only beauty indeed lay in a certain shy and fleeting charm
+of expression, which very few people noticed. She passed generally for a
+dull and plain woman, ill-dressed, with a stoop that was almost a
+deformity, and a deafness that made her socially useless. But the young
+servants whom she trained, and the few poor people on her father's estate
+to 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 more
+unpopular than he was, indoors and out. The wounds made by his brusque or
+haughty manner to his inferiors were to a certain extent healed by the
+gentleness and the good heart of his daughter. And a kind of glory was
+reflected on him by her unreasoning devotion to him. She suffered under
+his hardness or his self-will, but she adored him all the time; nor was
+her ingenuity ever at a loss for excuses for him. He always treated her
+carelessly, sometimes contemptuously; but he would not have known how to
+get through life without her, and she was aware of it.
+
+On this August morning, having rung the bell for the butler, she placed
+the Bible and prayer-book beside her father's chair, and opening the door
+between the library and the dining-room, she called, "Papa!"
+
+Through the farther door into the hall there appeared a long procession
+of servants, headed by the butler, majestically carrying the tea-urn.
+Something in this daily procession, and its urn-bearer, had once
+sent Stephen Barron, the eldest son--then an Eton boy just home from
+school--into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, which had cost him his
+father's good graces for a week. But the procession had been in no way
+affected, and at this later date Stephen on his visits home took it as
+gravely as anybody else.
+
+The tea-urn, pleasantly hissing, was deposited on the white cloth; the
+servants settled themselves on their chairs, while Theresa distributed
+the open hymn-books amongst them; and when they were all seated, the
+master 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, and
+he read it with an emphasis which the footman opposite to him secretly
+though 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 servants
+remained stolidly silent, the Scotch cook in particular looking straight
+before her with dark-spectacled eyes and a sulky expression. She was
+making up her mind that either she must be excused from prayers in
+future, or Mr. Barron must be content with less cooking for breakfast.
+
+After the hymn, the prayer lasted about ten minutes. Stephen, a fervently
+religious mind, had often fidgeted under the minute and detailed
+petitions of it, which seemed to lay down the Almighty's precise course
+of action toward mankind in general for the ensuing day. But Theresa, who
+was no less spiritual, under other forms, took it all simply and
+devoutly, and would have been uncomfortable if any item in the long
+catalogue had been omitted. When the Amen came, the footman, who never
+knew what to do with his legs during the time of kneeling, sprang up with
+particular alacrity.
+
+As soon as the father and daughter were seated at breakfast--close
+together, for the benefit of Theresa's deafness--Mr. Barron opened the
+post-bag and took out the letters. They arrived half an hour before
+breakfast, but were not accessible to any one till the master of the
+house 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. Her
+father nodded, adding after a minute, as he began upon his egg:
+
+"However, I must have some conversation with Stephen before long. He
+knows that I have not felt able to stay my hand to meet his wishes; and
+perhaps 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 has
+fallen more and more under Meynell's influence of late, and I more than
+suspect that when the time comes he will take sides openly with him. It
+will be a bitter blow to me, but that he doesn't consider. I don't expect
+consideration from him, either as to that--or other things. Has he been
+hanging 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 about
+Stephen, so I waited. But the Rector and Lady Fox-Wilton have quite
+forbidden 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 father
+violently, staring at her.
+
+Theresa nodded.
+
+"A girl of the most headstrong and frivolous character!--a trouble to
+everybody about her. Lady Fox-Wilton has often complained to me that she
+is perfectly unmanageable with her temper and her vanity! The worst
+conceivable wife for a clergyman! Really, Stephen--"
+
+The master of the house pushed his plate away from him in speechless
+disgust.
+
+"And both Lady Fox-Wilton and the Rector have always taken such trouble
+about her--much more than about the other children!" murmured Theresa,
+helplessly.
+
+"What sort of a bringing up do you think Meynell can give anybody?" said
+her father, turning upon her.
+
+Theresa only looked at him silently, with her large mild eyes. She knew
+it was of no use to argue. Besides, on the subject of the Rector she very
+much agreed with her father. Her deafness and her isolation had entirely
+protected her from Meynell's personal influence.
+
+"A man with no religious principles--making a god of his own
+intellect--steeped in pride and unbelief--what can he do to train a girl
+like Hester? What can he do to train himself?" thundered Barron, bringing
+his 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 thrown
+over the Christian faith, may fall into sin at any moment. His unbelief
+is the result of sin. He can neither help himself--nor other people--and
+you need never be surprised to find that his supposed goodness is a mere
+sham 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 his
+letters, and presently Theresa saw his brow darken afresh over one of
+them.
+
+"Anything wrong, father?"
+
+"There's always something wrong on this estate. Crawley [Crawley was the
+head keeper] has caught those boys of John Broad again trespassing and
+stealing wood in the west plantation! Perfectly abominable! It's the
+second or third time. I shall give Broad notice at once, and we must put
+somebody 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 boys
+have no mother--and John works very hard."
+
+"Let him find another cottage all the same," said Barron briefly. "I
+shall go round, if I do get back from Markborough, and have a talk with
+him this evening."
+
+There was silence for a little. Theresa was evidently sad. "Perhaps Lady
+Fox-Wilton would find him something," she said anxiously at last. "His
+mother was her maid long ago. First she was their schoolroom maid--then
+she went back to them, when her husband died and John married, and was a
+kind of maid housekeeper. Nobody knew why Lady Fox-Wilton kept her so
+long. They tell you in the village she had a shocking temper, and wasn't
+at all a good servant. Afterward I believe she went to America and I
+think she died. But she was with them a long while. I daresay they'd do
+something for John."
+
+Barron made no reply. He had not been listening, and was already deep in
+other correspondence.
+
+One letter still remained unopened. Theresa knew very well that it was
+from her brother Maurice, in London. And presently she pushed it toward
+Barron.
+
+"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 he
+read it.
+
+"Not a bad report. He seems to like the work, and says they treat him
+kindly. He would like to come down for the Sunday--but he wants some
+money."
+
+"He oughtn't to!" cried Theresa, flushing. "You gave him plenty."
+
+"He makes out an account," said her father, glancing at the letter; "I
+shall send him a small cheque. I must say, Theresa, you are always rather
+inclined 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 when
+breakfast was over and her father had left the room, Theresa remained
+sitting idly by the table, her eyes fixed on the envelope of Maurice's
+letter, which had fallen to the floor. Maurice's behaviour was
+simply disgraceful! He had lost employment after employment by lazy
+self-indulgence, trusting always to his father's boundless affection for
+him, and abusing it time after time. Theresa was vaguely certain that he
+was besmirched by all sorts of dreadful things--drinking, and betting--if
+not worse. Her woman's instinct told her much more than his father had
+ever discovered about him. Though at the same time she had the good sense
+to remind herself that her own small knowledge of the world might lead
+her to exaggerate Maurice's misdoings. And for herself and Stephen, no
+less than for her father, Maurice was still the darling and Benjamin of
+the family, commended to them by a precious mother whose death had left
+the whole moral structure of their common life insecure.
+
+She was still absorbed in uneasy thoughts about her brother, when the
+library 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 the
+heading--"Extraordinary meeting at Markborough. Proceedings against the
+Rector of Upcote. Other clergy and congregations rally to his support."
+
+She read the account with stupefaction. It described a meeting summoned
+by the "Reformers' Club" of Markborough to consider the announcement that
+a Commission of Inquiry had been issued by the Bishop of Markborough in
+the case of the Rector of Upcote Minor, and that legal proceedings
+against him for heretical teaching and unauthorized services would be
+immediately begun by certain promoters, as soon as the Bishop's formal
+consent had been given.
+
+The meeting, it seemed, had been so crowded and tumultuous that
+adjournment had been necessary from the rooms of the Reformers' Club to
+the Town Hall. And there, in spite of a strong orthodox opposition, a
+resolution in support of the Rector of Upcote had been passed, amid
+scenes of astonishing enthusiasm. Three or four well-known local clergy
+had made the most outspoken speeches, declaring that there must be room
+made within the church for the liberal wing, as well as for the Ritualist
+wing; that both had a right to the shelter of the common and ancestral
+fold; and that the time had come when the two forms of Christianity now
+prevailing in Christendom should be given full and equal rights within
+the Church of the nation.
+
+Meynell himself had spoken, urging on the meeting the profound
+responsibility resting on the Reformers--the need for gentleness no less
+than for courage; bidding them remember the sacredness of the ground they
+were treading, the tenacity and depth of the roots they might be thought
+to be disturbing.
+
+"Yet at the same time we must _fight!_--and we must fight with all our
+strength. For over whole classes of this nation, Christianity is either
+dying or dead; and it is only we--and the ideas we represent--that can
+save it."
+
+The speech had been received with deep emotion rather than applause; and
+the meeting had there and then proceeded to the formation of a
+"Reformers' League" to extend throughout the diocese. "It is already
+rumoured," said the _Post_, "that at least sixteen or eighteen beneficed
+clergy, with their congregations, have either joined, or are about to
+join, the Reformers. The next move now lies with the Bishop, and with the
+orthodox majority of the diocese. If we are not mistaken, Mr. Meynell and
+his companions in heresy will very soon find out that the Church has
+still power enough to put down such scandalous rebellions against her
+power and authority as that of the Rector of Upcote, and to purge her
+borders of disloyal and revolutionary priests." Theresa looked up. Her
+face had grown pale. "How _terrible_, father! Did you know they were to
+hold the meeting?"
+
+"I heard something about a debate at this precious club. What does that
+matter? Let them blaspheme in private as they please, it hurts nobody but
+themselves. But a public meeting at the Bishop's very door--and eighteen
+of 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. "If
+there are dry bones on our side, this will put life into them. Those
+fellows have given themselves into our hands!"
+
+He paused in his walk, falling into a profound reverie in which he lost
+all sense of his daughter's presence. She dared not rouse him; and indeed
+the magnitude of the scandal and distress left her speechless. She could
+only think of the Bishop--their frail, saintly Bishop whom every one
+loved. 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 a
+letter from his pocket.
+
+"That is for Maurice. Put in anything you like, but don't miss the
+morning post."
+
+"Do you see the Bishop this morning, father?"
+
+"No--this afternoon. But there will be plenty to do this morning." He
+named two or three heads of the church party in Markborough on whom he
+must call. He must also see his solicitor, and find out whether the
+counsel whom the promoters of the writ against Meynell desired to secure
+had been already retained.
+
+He kissed his daughter absently and departed, settling all his home
+business before he left the house in his usual peremptory manner, leaving
+behind him indeed in the minds of his butler and head gardener, who had
+business with him, a number of small but smarting wraths, which would
+ultimately have to be smoothed away by Theresa.
+
+But when Theresa explored the open envelope he had given her for her
+brother, she found in it a cheque for L50, and a letter which seemed to
+Maurice's sister--unselfish and tender as she was--deplorably lacking in
+the scolding it ought to have contained. If only her father had ever
+shown the same affection for Stephen!
+
+Meanwhile as Barron journeyed to Markborough, under the shadow of the
+great Cathedral, quite another voice than his was in possession of the
+episcopal ear. Precisely at eleven o'clock Richard Meynell appeared on
+the doorstep of the Palace, and was at once admitted to the Bishop's
+study.
+
+As he entered the large book-lined room his name was announced in a tone
+which did not catch the Bishop's attention, and Meynell, as he
+hesitatingly advanced, became the spectator of a scene not intended for
+his eyes. On the Bishop's knee sat a little girl of seven or eight. She
+was crying bitterly, and the Bishop had his arms round her and was
+comforting her.
+
+[Illustration: "Meynell, as he hesitatingly advanced, became the
+spectator of a scene not intended for his eyes"]
+
+"There _was_ bogies, grandfather!--there _was!_--and Nannie said I told
+lies--and I didn't tell lies."
+
+"Darling, there aren't bogies anywhere--but I'm sure you didn't tell
+lies. What did you think they were like?"
+
+"Grandfather, they was all black--and they jumped--and wiggled--and
+spitted--o-o-oh!"
+
+And the child went off in another wail, at which moment the Bishop
+perceived 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 his
+little granddaughter that the "bogie" had really been "cook's black cat,"
+generally condemned to the kitchen and blackbeetles, but occasionally let
+loose to roam the upper floors in search of nobler game. The child dried
+her eyes, and listened, gravely weighing his remarks. Her face gradually
+cleared, and when at the end he said slyly, "And even if there were
+bogies, little girls shouldn't throw hairbrushes at their Nannies!" she
+nodded a judicial head, adding plaintively:
+
+"But then Nannies mustn't talk _all_ the time, grandfather! Little girls
+must 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 distance
+caught 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 it
+nicely."
+
+Barbara threw her arm round his neck and hugged him passionately. Then he
+set her down, and she ran happily away, through a door at the farther end
+of the room.
+
+Meynell advanced, and the Bishop came to meet him. Over both faces, as
+they approached each other, there dropped a sudden shadow--a tremor as of
+men who knew themselves on the brink of a tragical collision--decisive
+of many things. And yet they smiled, the presence of the child still
+enwrapping them.
+
+"Excuse these domesticities," said the Bishop, "but there was such woe
+and 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, and
+sat down himself.
+
+Francis Craye, Bishop of Markborough, was physically a person of great
+charm. He was small--not more than five foot seven; but so slenderly and
+perfectly made, so graceful and erect in bearing, that his height, or
+lack of it, never detracted in the smallest degree from his dignity, or
+from the reverence inspired by the innocence and unworldliness of his
+character. A broad brow, overshadowing and overweighting the face,
+combined, with extreme delicacy of feature, a touch of emaciation, and a
+pure rose in the alabaster of the cheeks, to produce the aspect of a most
+human ghost--a ghost which had just tasted the black blood, and recovered
+for an hour all the vivacity of life. The mouth, thin-lipped and mobile
+to excess, was as apt for laughter as for tenderness; the blue eyes were
+frankness and eagerness itself. And when the glance of the spectator
+pursued the Bishop downward, it was to find that his legs, in the
+episcopal gaiters, were no less ethereal than his face; while his silky
+white hair added the last touch of refinement to a personality of spirit
+and fire.
+
+Meynell was the first to speak.
+
+"My lord! let me begin this conversation by once more thanking you--from
+my heart--for all the personal kindness that you have shown me in the
+last 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 all
+that--after the letters I have written you this week--after the meeting
+of yesterday--you should have sent me that telegram last night, saying
+that you wished to see me to-day. That was like you--that touched me
+indeed!" He spoke with visible emotion.
+
+The Bishop looked up.
+
+"There can be no question, Meynell, of any personal enmity between
+yourself and me," he said gravely. "I shall act in the matter entirely as
+the responsibilities of my office dictate--that you know. But I have owed
+you much in the past--much help--much affection. This diocese owes you
+much. I felt I must make one last appeal to you--terrible as the
+situation has grown. You could not have foreseen that meeting of
+yesterday!" 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 many
+years."
+
+There was no answer for a moment. The Bishop sat with clasped hands, his
+legs stretched out before him, his white head bent. At last, without
+moving, he said:
+
+"There are grave times coming on this diocese, Meynell--there are grave
+times coming on the Church!"
+
+"Does any living church escape them?" said Meynell, watching him--with a
+heavy 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 melee, Strife and Confusion and
+Fate--"red with the blood of men." What can you--and those who were at
+that meeting yesterday--hope to gain by these proceedings? If you could
+succeed, you would break up the Church, the strongest weapon that exists
+in this country against sin and selfishness--and who would be the
+better?"
+
+"Believe me--we sha'n't break it up."
+
+"Certainly you will! Do you imagine that men who are the spiritual sons
+and heirs of Pusey and Liddon are going to sit down quietly in the same
+church with you and the eighteen who started this League yesterday? They
+would sooner die."
+
+Meynell bore the onslaught quietly.
+
+"It depends upon our strength," he said slowly, "and the strength we
+develop, as the fight goes on."
+
+"Not at all!--a monstrous delusion!" The Bishop raised an indignant
+brow. "If you overwhelmed us--if you got the State on your side, as in
+France at the Revolution--you would still have done nothing toward your
+end--nothing whatever! We refuse--we shall always refuse--to be unequally
+yoked with those who deny the fundamental truths of the Faith!"
+
+"My lord, you are so yoked at the present moment," said Meynell
+firmly--the colour had flashed back into his cheeks--"it is the
+foundation of our case that half the educated men and women we gather
+into our churches to-day are--in our belief--Modernists already. Question
+them!--they are with us--not with you. That is to say, they have tacitly
+shaken off the old forms--the Creeds and formularies that bind the
+visible, the legal, church. They do not even think much about them.
+Forgive me if I speak plainly! They are not grieving about the old. Their
+soul--those of them, I mean that have the gift of religion--is
+travailing--dumbly travailing--with the new. Slowly, irresistibly, they
+are evolving for themselves new forms, new creeds, whether they know it
+or not. You--the traditional party--you, the bishops and the orthodox
+majority--can help them, or hinder them. If you deny them organized
+expression and outlet, you prolong the dull friction between them and the
+current Christianity. You waste where you might gather--you quench where
+you might kindle. But there they are--in the same church with you--and
+you 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 his
+own master let each man stand or fall. But you ask us--_us_, the
+appointed guardians of the Faith--the _ecclesia docens_--the historic
+episcopate--to deny and betray the Faith! You ask us to assent formally
+to the effacing of all difference between Faith and Unfaith--you bid us
+tell the world publicly that belief matters nothing--that a man may deny
+all the Divine Facts of Redemption, and still be as good a Christian as
+any one else. History alone might tell you--and I am speaking for the
+moment as a student to a student--that the thing is inconceivable!"
+
+"Unless--_solvitur vivendo_!" said Meynell in a low voice. "What great
+change in the religious life of men has not seemed inconceivable--till it
+happened? Think of the great change that brought this English Church into
+being! Within a couple of generations men had to learn to be baptized,
+and married, and buried, with rites unknown to their fathers--to stand
+alone and cut off from the great whole of Christendom--to which they
+had once belonged--to see the Mass, the cult of Our Lady and the Saints,
+disappear from their lives. What change that any Modernist proposes could
+equal that? But England lived through it!--England emerged!--she
+recovered her equilibrium. Looking back upon it all now, we see--you and
+I agree there--that it was worth while--that the energizing, revealing
+power behind the world was in the confusion and the dislocation; and that
+England gained more than she lost when she made for herself an English
+and a national Church in these islands, out of the shattered debris of
+the Roman System."
+
+He bent forward, and looked intently into the Bishop's face. "What if
+another hour of travail be upon us? And is any birth possible without
+pain?"
+
+"Don't let us argue the Reformation!" said the Bishop, with a new
+sharpness of note. "We should be here all night. But let me at least
+point out to you that the Church kept her Creeds!--the Succession!--the
+four great Councils!--the unbroken unity of essential dogma. But you"--he
+turned with renewed passion on his companion--"what have you done with
+the Creeds? Every word in them steeped in the heart's blood of
+generations!--and you put them aside as a kind of theological
+bric-a-brac that concerns us no more. Meynell!--you have no conception of
+the forces that this movement of yours, if you persist in it, will
+unchain against you! You are like children playing with the lightning!"
+
+Denunciation and warning sat with a curious majesty on the little Bishop
+as he launched these words. It was with a visible effort that Meynell
+braced 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 that
+makes the novelty of the situation. Till now there has never been
+equality enough for war. The heretic has been an excrescence to be cut
+away. Now you will have to make some terms with him! For the ideas behind
+him have invaded your inmost life. They are all about you and around
+you--and when you go out to fight him, you will discover that you are
+half on his side!"
+
+"If that means," said the Bishop impatiently, "that the Church is
+accessible to new ideas--that she is now, as she has always been, a
+learned Church--the Church of Westcott and Lightfoot, of a host of
+younger scholars who are as well acquainted with the ideas and
+contentions of Modernism--as you call it--as any Modernist in Europe--and
+are still the faithful servants and guardians of Christian dogma--why,
+then, you say what is true! We perfectly understand your positions--and
+we reject them."
+
+Through Meynell's expression there passed a gleam--slight and gentle--of
+something like triumph.
+
+"Forgive me!--but I think you have given me my point. Let me recall to
+you the French sayings--'Comprendre, c'est pardonner--Comprendre, c'est
+aimer.' 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--it
+is for that very reason that we regard the field as half won, before the
+battle is even joined."
+
+The Bishop gazed upon him with a thin, dropping lip--an expression of
+suffering in the clear blue eyes.
+
+"That Christians"--he said under his breath--"should divide the forces of
+Christ--with the sin and misery of this world devouring and defiling our
+brethren day by day!"
+
+"What if it be not 'dividing'--but doubling--the forces of Christ!" said
+Meynell, with pale resolution. "All that we ask is the Church should
+recognize existing facts--that organization should shape itself to
+reality. In our eyes, Christendom is divided to-day--or is rapidly
+dividing itself--into two wholly new camps. The division between Catholic
+and Protestant is no longer the supreme division; for the force that is
+rising affects both Protestant and Catholic equally. Each of the new
+divisions has a philosophy and a criticism of its own; each of them has
+an immense hold on human life, though Modernism is only now slowly
+realizing and putting out its power. Two camps!--two systems of
+thought!--both of them _Christian_ thought. Yet one of them, one only,
+_is in possession_ of the churches, the forms, the institutions; the
+other is everywhere knocking at the gates. 'Give us our portion!'--we
+say--'in Christ's name.' But _only our portion!_ We do not dream of
+dispossessing the old--it is the last thing, even, that we desire. But
+for the sake of souls now wandering and desolate, we ask to live side by
+side with the old--in brotherly peace, in equal right--sharing what the
+past has bequeathed! Yes, even the loaves and fishes!--they ought to be
+justly divided out like the rest. But, above all, the powers, the
+opportunities, the trials, the labours of the Christian Church!"
+
+"In other words, so far as the English Church is concerned, you propose
+to reduce us within our own borders to a peddling confusion of sects,
+held together by the mere physical link of our buildings and our
+endowments!" said the Bishop, as he straightened himself in his chair.
+
+He spoke with a stern and contemptuous force which transformed the small
+body and sensitive face. In the old room, the library of the Palace, with
+its rows of calf-bound folios, and its vaulted fifteenth century roof, he
+sat as the embodiment of ancient, inherited things, his gentleness lost
+in that collective, that corporate, pride which has been at once the
+noblest 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?--is
+all well with the Church? How often have I found you here--forgive
+me!--grieving for the loss of souls--the decline of faith--the empty
+churches--the dwindling communicants--the spread of secularist
+literature--the hostility of the workmen! And yet what devotion, what
+zeal, there is in this diocese, beginning with our Bishop. Have we not
+often asked ourselves what such facts could possibly mean--why God seemed
+to have forsaken us?"
+
+"They mean luxury and selfishness--the loss of discipline at home and
+abroad," said the Bishop, with bitter emphasis. "It is hard indeed to
+turn the denial of Christ into an argument against His Gospel!"
+
+Meynell was silent. His heart was burning within him with a passionate
+sense at once of the vast need and hungry unrest so sharply dismissed by
+the Bishop, and of the efficacy of that "new teaching" for which he
+stood. But he ceased to try and convey it by argument. After a few
+moments he began in his ordinary voice to report various developments of
+the Movement in the diocese of which he believed the Bishop to be still
+ignorant.
+
+"We wish to conceal nothing from you," he said at last with emotion; "and
+consistently with the trial of strength that must come, we desire to
+lighten the burden on our Bishop as much as we possibly can. This will be
+a solemn testing of great issues--we on our side are determined to do
+nothing 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 promises
+of your ordination."
+
+"I was a boy then"--said Meynell slowly--"I am a man now. I took those
+vows sincerely, in absolute good faith; and all the changes in me have
+come about, as it seems to me, by the inbreathing of a spirit not my
+own--partly from new knowledge--partly in trying to help my people to
+live--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 certain
+rules and conditions. Now that I break them, must I not resign the
+position dependent on them? Clearly, if it were a question of any
+ordinary society. But the Christian Church is not an ordinary society! It
+is the sum of Christian life!"
+
+The Bishop raised a hand of protest, but without speaking. Meynell
+resumed:
+
+"And that Life makes the Church--moulds it afresh, from age to age. There
+are times--we hold--when the Church very nearly expresses the Life; there
+are others when there are great discordances between the Life, and its
+expression in the Church. We believe that there are such discordances now
+because--once more--of a New Learning. And we believe that to withdraw
+from the struggle to make the Church more fully represent the Life would
+be 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 the
+present--we speak out! We are inconsistent indeed with a past pledge; but
+are we any more inconsistent than the High Churchman who repudiates the
+'blasphemous fables' of the Mass when he signs the Articles, and then
+encourages adoration of the Reserved Sacrament in his church?"
+
+The Bishop made no immediate reply. He was at that moment involved in a
+struggle with an incumbent in Markborough itself who under the very
+shadow of the Cathedral had been celebrating the Assumption of the
+Blessed Virgin in flat disobedience to his diocesan. His mind wandered
+for a minute or two to this case. Then, rousing himself, he said
+abruptly, with a keen look at Meynell:
+
+"I know of course that, in your case, there can be no question of
+clinging to the money of the Church."
+
+Meynell flushed.
+
+"I had not meant to speak of it--but your lordship knows that all I
+receive from my living is given back to church purposes. I support myself
+by what I write. There are others of us who risk much more than I--who
+risk indeed their all!"
+
+"You have done a noble work for your people, Meynell." The Bishop's voice
+was 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 the
+dissenters. Mr. Barron, as you know, is the chief complainant, and there
+are 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 of
+repeating the service of last Sunday?"
+
+"Not at present. But the League will go to work at once on a revised
+service-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--breaches
+of 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 my
+request?"
+
+"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 at
+once to the Court of Arches preferring charges of heretical teaching and
+unauthorized services against yourself and two other clergy. I shall be
+represented by so-and-so." He named the lawyers.
+
+They stood, exchanging a few technical informations of this kind for a
+few 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 God
+that 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 moved
+to the window and stood looking out. Across the green of the quadrangle
+rose the noble mass of the Cathedral. His lips moved in prayer; but all
+the time it was as though he saw beside the visible structure--its
+ordered beauty, its proud and cherished antiquity--a ruined phantom of
+the great church, roofless and fissured, its sacred places open to the
+winds and rains, its pavements broken and desolate.
+
+The imagination grew upon him, and it was only with a great effort that
+he escaped from it.
+
+"My bogies are as foolish as Barbara's," he said to himself with a smile
+as he went back to the daily toil of his letters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Meynell left the Palace shaken and exhausted. He carried in his mind the
+image of his Bishop, and he walked in bitterness of soul. The quick,
+optimistic imagination which had alone made the action of these last
+weeks possible had for the moment deserted him, and he was paying the
+penalty of his temperament.
+
+He turned into the Cathedral, and knelt there some time, conscious less
+of articulate prayer than of the vague influences of the place; the warm
+gray of its shadows, the relief of its mere space and silence, the beauty
+of the creeping sunlight--gules, or, and purple--on the spreading
+pavements. And vaguely--while the Bishop's grief still, as it were,
+smarted within his own heart--there arose the sense that he was the mere
+instrument of a cause; that personal shrinking and compunction were not
+allowed him; that he was the guardian of nascent rights and claims far
+beyond anything affecting his own life. Some such conviction is essential
+to the religious leader--to the enthusiast indeed of any kind; and it was
+not withheld from Richard Meynell.
+
+When he rose and went out, he saw coming toward him a man he knew
+well--Fenton, the Vicar of a church on the outskirts of Markborough,
+famous for its "high" doctrine and services; a young boyish fellow, curly
+haired, in whom the "gayety" that Catholicism, Anglican or Roman,
+prescribes to her most devout children was as conspicuous as an ascetic
+and labourious life. Meynell loved and admired him. At a small clerical
+meeting the two men had once held an argument that had been long
+remembered--Fenton maintaining hotly the doctrine of an intermediate
+and purgatorical state after death, basing it entirely on a vision of
+Saint Perpetua recorded in the Acta of that Saint. Impossible, said the
+fair-haired, frank-eyed priest--who had been one of the best wicket-keeps
+of his day at Winchester--that so solemn a vision, granted to a martyr,
+at the moment almost of death, could be misleading. Purgatory therefore
+must be accepted and believed, even though it might not be expedient to
+proclaim it publicly from an Anglican pulpit. "Since the evening when I
+first read the Acta of SS. Perpetua and Felicitas," said the speaker,
+with an awed sincerity, "I have never doubted for myself, nor have I
+dared to hide from my penitents what is my own opinion."
+
+In reply, Meynell, instead of any general argument, had gently taken the
+very proof offered him--_i.e.,_ the vision--dissecting it, the time in
+which it arose, and the mind in which it occurred, with a historical
+knowledge and a quick and tender penetration which had presently absorbed
+the little company of listeners, till Fenton said abruptly, with a frown
+of perplexity:
+
+"In that way, one might explain anything--the Transfiguration for
+instance--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 been
+associated not long afterward in a heroic attempt to stop some dangerous
+rioting arising out of a strike in one of the larger collieries.
+
+Meynell watched the young figure of Fenton approaching through the bands
+of light and shadow in the great nave. As it came nearer, some instinct
+made him stand still, as though he became the mere spectator of what was
+about to happen. Fenton lifted his head; his eyes met Meynell's, and,
+without the smallest recognition, his gaze fixed on the pavement, he
+passed on toward the east end of the Cathedral.
+
+Meynell straightened himself for a minute's "recollection," and went his
+way. On the pavement outside the western portal he ran into another
+acquaintance--a Canon of the Cathedral--hurrying home to lunch from a
+morning's work in the Cathedral library. Canon France looked up, saw who
+it was, and Meynell, every nerve strained to its keenest, perceived the
+instant change of expression. But there was no ignoring him, though the
+Canon 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. But
+France--a man of sixty-five, with a large Buddha-like face, and a pair of
+remarkably shrewd and humorous black eyes--looked him quickly over from
+top to toe, and hurried on, throwing a "good-bye" over his shoulder. When
+he and Meynell had last met it had been to talk for a friendly hour over
+Monseigneur Duchesne's last book and its bearing on Ultramontane
+pretensions; 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 any
+secret of my opinions."
+
+All the same, as he walked on, he forced himself to acknowledge to the
+full the radical change in the situation. Acts of war suspend the normal
+order; and no combatant has any right to complain.
+
+Then a moment's weariness seized him of the whole train of thought to
+which his days and nights were now committed, and he turned with
+eagerness to look at the streets of Markborough, full of a market-day
+crowd, and of "the great mundane movement." Farmers and labourers were
+walking up and down; oxen and sheep in the temporary pens of the
+market-place were waiting for purchasers; there was a Socialist lecturer
+in one corner, and a Suffragist lady on a wagon in another. The late
+August sun shone upon the ruddy faces and broad backs of men to whom
+certainly it did not seem to be of great importance whether the
+Athanasian Creed were omitted from the devotions of Christian people or
+no. There was a great deal of chaffering going on; a little courting, and
+some cheating. Meynell recognized some of his parishioners, spoke to a
+farmer 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 the
+pits and come to "hire" himself at Markborough.
+
+It was plain to him, however, after a little, that although he might wish
+to forget himself among the crowd, the crowd was on the contrary rather
+sharply aware of the Rector of Upcote. He perceived as he moved slowly up
+the street that he was in fact a marked man. Looks followed him; and the
+men he knew greeted him with a difference.
+
+A little beyond the market-place he turned down a narrow street leading
+to the mother church of the town--an older foundation even than the
+Cathedral. Knocking at the door in the wall, he was admitted to an old
+rectory house, adjacent to the church, and in its low-ceiled dining-room
+he found six of the already famous "eighteen" assembled, among them the
+two other clergy who with himself had been singled out for the first
+testing prosecution. A joint letter was being drawn up for the press.
+
+Meynell was greeted with rejoicing--a quiet rejoicing, as of men occupied
+with grave matters, that precluded any ebullience of talk. With Meynell's
+appearance, the meeting became more formal, and it was proposed to put
+the 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 in
+days when double-firsts were everything, and in a class-list not much
+more modern than Mr. Gladstone's. He was a gentle, scholarly person,
+silent and timid in ordinary life, and his adhesion to the "eighteen" had
+been an astonishment to friends and foes. But he was not to be inveigled
+into 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 jurgia
+finis!_--let there be an age-limit in all things! Put Meynell in. It is
+he that has brought us all into this business."
+
+So, for some hours or more, Meynell and the six grappled with the letter
+that was to convey the challenge of the revolted congregations to the
+general public through the _Times_. It was not an easy matter, and some
+small jealousies and frictions lifted their heads that had been wholly
+lost 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 to
+lead 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 the
+recent flowing back of intellectual forces into the Church which for
+nearly half a century had abandoned her; Petitot, Swiss by origin, small,
+black-eyed, irrepressible, with a great popularity among the hosiery
+operatives of whom his parish was mainly composed; Derrick, the
+Socialist, of humble origin and starved education, yet possessed
+Of a natural sway over men, given him by a pair of marvellous blue
+eyes, a character of transparent simplicity, a tragic honesty and the
+bitter-sweet gift of the orator; Chesham, a man who had left the army for
+the Church, had been grappling for ten years with a large parish of
+secularist artisans, and was now preaching Modernism with a Franciscan
+fervour and success; and Rollin, who owned a slashing literary style, was
+a passionate Liberal in all fields, had done excellent work in the
+clearing and cleaning of slums, with much loud and unnecessary talk by
+the way, and wrote occasionally for the _Daily Watchman_. Chesham and
+Darwen were Meynell's co-defendants in the suit brought by the Bishop.
+
+Rollin alone seemed out of place in this gathering of men, drawing tense
+breath under a new and almost unbearable responsibility. He was so in
+love with the sensational, notoriety side of the business, so eager to
+pull wires, and square editors, so frankly exultant in the "big row"
+coming on, that Meynell, with the Bishop's face still in his mind, could
+presently hardly endure him. He felt as Renan toward Gavroche. Was it
+worth while to go through so much that Rollin might cut a figure, and
+talk at large about "modern thought?"
+
+However Darwen and Waller, Derrick also, were just as determined as
+Meynell to keep down the frothy self-advertising element in the campaign
+to the minimum that human nature seems unable to do without. So that
+Rollin found himself gradually brought into line, being not a bad fellow,
+but only a common one; and he abandoned with much inward chagrin the
+project of a flaming "interview" for the _Daily Watchman_ on the
+following day.
+
+And indeed, as this handful of men settled down to the consideration of
+the agenda for a large conference to be held in Markborough the following
+week, there might have been discerned in six of them, at least, a temper
+that glorified both them and their enterprise; a temper of seriousness,
+courage, unalterable conviction, with such delicacy of feeling as befits
+men whose own brethren and familiar companions have become their foes.
+They were all pastors in the true sense, and every man of them knew that
+in a few months he would probably have lost his benefice and his
+prospects. Only Treherne was married, and only he and Rollin had private
+means.
+
+Meynell was clearly their leader. Where the hopefulness of the others was
+intermittent his was constant; his knowledge of the English situation
+generally, as well as of the lie of forces in the Markborough district,
+was greater than theirs; and his ability as a writer made him their
+natural 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 had
+so heightened in them the sense of mission, so cheered them with the
+vision of a wide response from the mind of England, that all lesser
+thoughts were sunk, and they parted in quietness and courage.
+
+Meynell left the outskirts of Markborough by the Maudeley road, meaning
+to walk to Upcote by Forked Pond and Maudeley Park.
+
+It was now nearly a fortnight since he had seen Mary Elsmere, and for the
+first time, almost, in these days of storm and stress could the mind make
+room for some sore brooding on the fact. He had dined at Maudeley, making
+time with infinite difficulty; Mrs. Elsmere and her daughter were not
+there. He had asked Mrs. Flaxman to tea at the Rectory, and had suggested
+that she should bring her sister and her niece. Mr. and Mrs. Flaxman
+appeared--without companions. Once or twice he had caught sight of Mary
+Elsmere's figure in the distance of Miss Puttenham's garden. Yet he had
+not ventured to intrude upon the two friends. It had seemed to him by
+then it must be her will to avoid him, and he respected it.
+
+As to other misgivings and anxieties, they were many. As Meynell entered
+the Maudeley lane, with the woods of Sandford Abbey on his left, and the
+little trout-stream flashing and looping through the water meadows on his
+right, his mind was often occupied by a conversation between himself and
+Stephen Barron which had taken place the night before. Meynell could not
+but think of it remorsefully.
+
+"And I can explain nothing--to make it easier for the poor old
+fellow--nothing! He thinks if we had allowed the engagement, it would
+all have come right--he would have got a hold upon her, and been able to
+shape 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 indeed
+she has settled her destiny for herself by then, without any reference
+to us. And Stephen shall know--what there is to know!"
+
+As to Hester herself, she seemed to have been keeping the Fox-Wilton
+household in perpetual fear. She went about in her mocking, mysterious
+way, denying that she knew anything about Sir Philip Meryon, or had any
+dealings with him. Yet it was shrewdly suspected that letters had passed
+between them, and Hester's proceedings were so quick-silverish and
+incalculable that it was impossible to keep a constant watch upon her. In
+the wilderness of Maudeley Park, which lay directly between the two
+houses, they might quite well have met--they probably had met. Meynell
+noticed and rebuked in himself a kind of settled pessimism as to Hester's
+conduct and future. "Do what you will," it seemed to say--"do all you
+can--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 private
+trust much older than it, and no less sacred. In the midst of the turmoil
+of these weeks he had been corresponding on Lady Fox-Wilton's behalf with
+a lady in Paris to whom a girl of Hester's age and kind might be safely
+committed for the perfecting of her French and music. It had been
+necessary to warn the lady that in the case of such a pensionnaire as
+Hester the male sex might give trouble; and Hester had not yet signified
+her gracious consent to go.
+
+But she would go--she must go--and either he or Alice Puttenham would
+take her over and install her. Good heavens, if one had only Edith
+Fox-Wilton to depend on in these troubles!
+
+As for Philip Meryon, he was, of course, now and always, a man of vicious
+habits and no scruples. He seemed to be staying at Sandford with the
+usual crew of flashy, disreputable people, and to allow Hester to run any
+risks with regard to him would be simply criminal. Yet with so
+inefficient a watch-dog as Lady Fox-Wilton, who could guarantee anything?
+Alice, of course, thought of nothing else than Hester, night and day. But
+it was part of the pathos of the situation that she had so little
+influence on the child's thoughts and deeds.
+
+Poor, lonely woman! In Alice's sudden friendship for Mary Elsmere, her
+junior by some twelve years, the Rector, with an infinite pity, read the
+confession of a need that had become at last intolerable. For these
+seventeen years he had never known her make an intimate friend, and to
+see her now with this charming, responsive girl was to realize what the
+long hunger for affection must have been. Yet even now, how impossible to
+satisfy it, as other women could satisfy it! What ghosts and shadows
+about the path of friendship!
+
+"A dim and perilous way," his mind went sounding back along the
+intricacies of Alice Puttenham's story. The old problems arose in
+connection with it--problems now of ethics, now of expediency. And
+interfused with them a sense of dull amazement and yet of intolerable
+repetition--in this difficulty which had risen with regard to Hester. The
+owner of Sandford--_and Hester!_ When he had first seen them together, it
+had seemed a thing so sinister that his mind had refused to take it
+seriously. A sharp word to her, a word of warning to her natural
+guardians--and surely all was mended. Philip never stayed more than three
+weeks in the old house; he would very soon be gone, and Hester's fancy
+would turn to something else.
+
+But that the passing shock should become anything more! There rose before
+Meynell's imagination a vision of the two by the river, not in the actual
+brightness of the August afternoon, but bathed, as it were, in angry
+storm-light; behind them, darkness, covering "old, unhappy, far-off
+things." From that tragical gloom it seemed as though their young figures
+had but just emerged, unnaturally clear; and yet the trailing clouds were
+already threatening the wild beauty of the girl.
+
+He blamed himself for lack of foresight. It should have been utterly
+impossible for those two to meet! Meryon generally appeared at Sandford
+three times a year, for various sporting purposes. Hester might easily
+have been sent away during these descents. But the fact was she had grown
+up so rapidly--yesterday a mischievous child, to-day a woman in her first
+bloom--that they had all been taken by surprise. Besides, who could have
+imagined any communication whatever between the Fox-Wilton household and
+the riotous party at Sandford Abbey?
+
+As to the girl herself, Meynell was always conscious of being engaged in
+some long struggle to save and protect his ward against her will. There
+were circumstances connected with Hester that should have stirred in the
+few 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 watch
+over her upbringing; he had brought her to her first communion, and tried
+hard, and quite in vain, to instil into her the wholesome mysticisms of
+the Christian faith; and the more efforts he made, the more sharply was
+he aware of the hard, egotistical core of the girl's nature, of Hester's
+fatal difference from other girls.
+
+And yet, as he thought of her with sadness and perplexity, there came
+across him the memory of Mrs. Elsmere's sudden movement toward Hester;
+how she had drawn the child to her and kissed her--she, so unearthly
+and so spiritual, whose very aspect showed her the bondswoman of Christ.
+
+The remembrance rebuked him, and he fell into fresh plans about the
+child. She must be sent away at once!--and if there were really any sign
+of entanglement he must himself go to Sandford and beard Philip in his
+den. There was knowledge in his possession that might be used to frighten
+the fellow. He thought of his cousin with loathing and contempt.
+
+But--to do him justice--Meryon knew nothing of those facts that gave such
+an intolerable significance to any contact whatever between his
+besmirched 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 had
+been for years the terror of three lives--was she alive still? Ralph
+Fox-Wilton had originally made it well worth her while to go to the
+States. That was in the days when he was prepared to pay anything. Then
+for years she had received an allowance, which, however, Meynell believed
+had stopped sometime before Sir Ralph's death. Meynell remembered that
+the stopping of it had caused some friction between Ralph and his wife.
+Lady Fox-Wilton had wished it continued. But Ralph had obstinately
+refused to pay any more. Nothing had been heard of her, apparently, for a
+long while. But she had still a son and grand-children living in Upcote
+village.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meynell opened the gate leading into the Forked Pond enclosure. The pond
+had been made by the damming of part of the trout stream at the point
+where it entered the Maudeley estate, and the diversion of the rest to a
+new channel. The narrow strip of land between the pond and the new
+channel made a little waterlocked kingdom of its own for the cottage,
+which had been originally a fishing hut, built in an Izaak Walton-ish
+mood by one of the owners of Maudeley. But the public footpath through
+the park ran along the farther side of the pond, and the doings of the
+inhabitants of the cottage, thick though the leafage was, could sometimes
+be observed from it.
+
+Involuntarily Meynell's footsteps lingered as the little thatched
+house became visible, its windows set wide to the sounds and scents of
+the September day. There was conveyed to him a sense of its warm
+loneliness in the summer nights, of the stars glimmering upon it through
+the trees, of the owls crying round it. And within--in one of those upper
+rooms--those soft deep eyes, at rest in sleep?--or looking out, perhaps,
+into the breathing glooms of the wood?--the sweet face propped on the
+slender hand.
+
+He felt certain that the inner life of such a personality as Mary Elsmere
+was rich and passionate. Sometimes, in these lonely hours, did she think
+of the man who had told her so much of himself on that, to him, memorable
+walk? Meynell looked back upon the intimate and autobiographical talk
+into which he had been led, with some wonder and a hot cheek. He had
+confessed himself partly to Elsmere's daughter, on a hint of sympathy, as
+to one entitled to such a confidence, so to speak, by inheritance, should
+she desire it; but still more--he owned it--to a delightful woman. It was
+the first time in Meynell's strenuous life, filled to the brim with
+intellectual and speculative effort on the one hand, and with the care
+of his parish on the other, that he had been conscious of any such
+feeling as now possessed him. In his first manhood it had been impossible
+for him to marry, because he had his brothers to educate. And when they
+were safely out in the world the Rector, absorbed in the curing of sick
+bodies and the saving of sick souls, could not dream of spending the
+money thus set free on a household for himself.
+
+He had had his temptations of the flesh, his gusts of inclination, like
+other 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 of
+sight. The sun was sinking in a golden haze, the first prophecy of
+autumnal mists. Broad lights lay here and there upon the water, to be
+lost again in depths of shadow, wherein woods of dream gave back
+the woods that stooped to them from the shore. Everything was so still he
+could hear the fish rising, the run of a squirrel along a branch, the
+passage of a coot through the water.
+
+The very profoundity of nature's peace suddenly showed him to himself. A
+man engaged in a struggle beyond his power!--committed to one of those
+tasks that rend and fever the human spirit even while they ennoble it! He
+had talked boldly to Stephen and the Bishop of "war"--"inevitable" and
+"necessary war." At the same time there was no one who would suffer from
+war more than he. The mere daily practice of Christianity, as a man's
+life-work, is a daily training in sensitiveness, involves a daily
+refining of the nerves. When a man so trained, so refined, takes up the
+public tasks of leadership and organization, in this noisy, hard-hitting
+world, his nature is set at enmity with itself. Meynell did not yet know
+whether the mystic in him would allow the fighter in him to play his
+part.
+
+If the memory of Fenton's cold, unrecognizing eyes and rigid mouth, as
+they passed each other in the silence of the Cathedral, had power to
+cause so deep a stab of pain, how was he to brace himself in the future
+to what must come?--the alienation of friend after friend, the
+condemnation 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 by
+the mind of faith! "_Thou, Thou art being and breath_!--Thine is this
+truth, which, like a living hand, bridles and commands me. Grind my life
+as corn in Thy mill!--but forsake me not! Nay, Thou wilt not, Thou canst
+not forsake me!"
+
+No hope for a man attempting such an enterprise as Meynell's but in this
+simplicity, this passion of self-surrender. Without it no adventure in
+the spiritual fight has ever touched and fired the heart of man. Meynell
+was sternly and simply aware of it.
+
+But how is this temper, this passion, kindled?
+
+The answer flashed. Everywhere the divine ultimate Power mediates itself
+through the earthly elements and forces, speaks through small, childish
+things, incarnates itself in lover, wife, or friend--flashing its mystic
+fire through the web of human relations. It seemed to Meynell, as he
+stood in the evening stillness by the pond, hidden from sight by the
+light brushwood round him, that, absorbed as he had been from his youth
+in the symbolism and passion of the religious life, as other men are
+absorbed in art or science, he had never really understood one of these
+great words by which he imagined himself to live--Love, or Endurance, or
+Sacrifice, or Joy--because he had never known the most sacred, the most
+intimate, things of human life out of which they grow.
+
+And there uprose in him a sudden yearning--a sudden flame of desire--for
+the revealing love of wife and child. As it thrilled through him, he
+seemed to be looking down into the eyes--so frank, so human--of Mary
+Elsmere.
+
+Then while he watched, lost in feeling, yet instinctively listening for
+any movement in the wood, there was a flicker of white among the trees
+opposite. A girl, book in hand, came down to the water's edge, and paused
+there a little, watching the glow of sunset on the water. Meynell
+retreated farther into the wood; but he was still able to see her.
+Presently she sat down, propping herself against a tree, and began to
+read.
+
+Her presence, the grace of her bending neck, informed the silence of the
+woods with life and charm. Meynell watched her a few moments in a trance
+of pleasure. But memory broke in upon the trance and scattered all his
+pleasure. What reasonable hope of winning the daughter of that quiet,
+indomitable woman, who, at their first meeting, had shown him with such
+icy 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's
+life the same tragic conflict, in new form, which had already rent and
+seared it, was madness. He read his dismissal in her quiet avoidance of
+him 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 same
+kind, on such a mother. Meynell bowed his head, and went slowly away. It
+was as though he left youth and all delightfulness behind him, in the
+deepening dusk of the woods.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+While Meynell was passing through the woods of Forked Pond a very
+different scene, vitally connected with the Rector and his fortunes, was
+passing a mile away, in a workman's cottage at Upcote Minor.
+
+Barron had spent an agitated day. After his interview with the Bishop, in
+which he was rather angrily conscious that his devotion and his zeal were
+not rewarded with as much gratitude or as complete a confidence on the
+Bishop's part as he might have claimed, he called on Canon France.
+
+To him he talked long and emphatically on the situation, on the excessive
+caution of the Bishop, who had entirely refused to inhibit any one of the
+eighteen, at present, lest there should be popular commotions; on the
+measures that he and his friends were taking, and on the strong feeling
+that he believed to be rising against the Modernists. It was evident that
+he was discontented with the Bishop, and believed himself the only
+saviour of the situation.
+
+Canon France watched him, sunk deep in his armchair, the plump fingers of
+one hand playing with certain charter rolls of the fourteenth century,
+with their seals attached, which lay in a tray beside him. He had just
+brought them over from the Cathedral Library, and was longing to be at
+work 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 his
+impatience. He prophesied a speedy end to a ridiculous movement; wondered
+what on earth would happen to some of the men, who had nothing but their
+livings, and finally said, with a humorous eye, and no malicious
+intention:
+
+"The Romanists have always an easy way of settling these things. They
+find 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. "Of
+course 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 is
+becoming a great puzzle to mankind."
+
+"Apparent goodness," said Barron hotly.
+
+The Canon smiled again. He wished--and this time more intensely--that
+Barron would go, and let him get to his charters.
+
+And in a few minutes Barron did take his departure. As he walked to the
+inn to find his carriage he pondered the problem of the virtuous
+unbeliever. A certain Bampton lecture by a well-known and learned Bishop
+recurred to him, which most frankly and drastically connected "Unbelief"
+with "Sin." Yet somehow the view was not borne out, as in the interests
+of a sound theology it should have been, by experience.
+
+After all, he reached Upcote in good time before dinner, and remembering
+that he had to inflict a well-deserved lecture on the children who had
+been caught injuring trees and stealing wood in his plantations, he
+dismissed the carriage and made his way, before going home, to the
+cottage, which stood just outside the village, on the way from Maudeley
+to the Rectory and the church.
+
+He knocked peremptorily. But no one came. He knocked again, chafing at
+the 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 going
+away, in the belief that the cottage was empty, when there was a rattling
+sound at the front door. It opened, and an old woman stood in the
+doorway.
+
+"You've made a pretty noise," she said grimly, "but there's no one in but
+me."
+
+"I am Mr. Barron," said her visitor, sharply. "And I want to see John
+Broad. My keepers have been complaining to me about his children's
+behaviour 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. He
+did not allow his tenants to take in lodgers.
+
+And the more he examined her the stranger did her aspect seem. She was
+evidently a woman of seventy or upward, and it struck him that she looked
+haggard and ill. Her grayish-white hair hung untidily about a thin, bony
+face; the eyes, hollow and wavering, infected the spectator with their
+own distress; yet the distress was so angry that it rather repelled than
+appealed. Her dress was quite out of keeping with the labourer's cottage
+in which she stood. It was a shabby blue silk, fashionably cut, and set
+off 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 mother
+alive." But as he spoke some vague recollection of Theresa's talk in the
+morning 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've
+been away this eighteen year, come October."
+
+Barron, as she spoke, was struck with her accent, and recalled her
+mention of "the cars."
+
+"Why, you've been in the States," he said.
+
+"That's it--eighteen year." Then suddenly, pressing her hand to her
+forehead, she said angrily: "I don't know what you mean. What do you come
+bothering me for? I don't know who you are--and I don't know nothing
+about 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, and
+her jewellery, above all her sudden appearance on the scene as the mother
+of a man whom he had always supposed to be alone in the world, with three
+motherless, neglected children, puzzled him.
+
+So as one accustomed to keep a sharp eye on the morals and affairs of his
+cottage tenants, he began to question her about herself. She had thrown
+herself confusedly on a chair, and sat with her head thrown back, and her
+eyes half closed--as though in pain. The replies he got from her were
+short and grudging, but he made out from them that she had married a
+second 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 no
+idea as to his own identity was not surprising, for she had left Upcote
+for the States years before his succession to the White House estate.
+But her memory in all directions was confused, and her strange talk made
+him suspect drugs. She had also, it seemed, the usual grievances of the
+unsound mind, and believed herself to be injured and assailed by persons
+to 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 just
+returned to a scene once familiar and trying, with a clouded brain, to
+recover 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 wild
+astonishment.
+
+"That's her!--that's my Miss Alice!"
+
+Barron, following her gesture, perceived through the half-open door two
+figures standing in the road on the farther side of a bit of village
+green. Meynell, who had just emerged from Maudeley Park upon the
+highroad, had met Alice Puttenham on her way to pay an evening visit to
+the Elsmeres, and had stopped to ask a question about some village
+affairs. Miss Puttenham's face was turned toward John Broad's cottage;
+the Rector had his back to it. They were absorbed in what they were
+talking 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 that
+the level light now flooding the village street shone full upon him. Mrs.
+Sabin tottered back from the door, with another stifled cry, and sank
+into her chair. Her eyes seemed to be starting out of her head. "But--but
+they 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 know
+I'm not. But they give me my money for fifteen year--and then they
+stopped giving it--three year ago. I suppose they thought I'd never be
+back 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 and
+fifty pounds--and that was to be the last, they said. So when Mr. Sabin
+died, I said I'd come over and see for myself. But I'm ill--you see--and
+John's a fool--and I must find some one as 'ull tell me what to do. If
+you're a gentleman living here"--she peered into his face--"perhaps
+you'll tell me? Lady Fox-Wilton's left comfortable, I know. Why shouldn't
+she do what's handsome? Perhaps you'll give me a word of advice, sir? But
+you mustn't tell!--not a word to anybody. Perhaps they'll be for putting
+me 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 had
+grown white.
+
+"If you want my advice you must try and tell me plainly what all this
+means," he said, sternly.
+
+She looked at him--with a mad expression flickering between doubt and
+desire.
+
+"Then you must shut the door, sir," she said at last. Yet as he moved to
+do 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 half
+perplexed, half resentful. Then she turned peremptorily to Barron.
+
+"Shut the door!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Half an hour later Barron emerged into the road, from the cottage. He
+walked like a man bewildered. All that was evil in him rejoiced; all that
+was good sorrowed. He felt that God had arisen, and scattered his
+enemies; he also felt a genuine horror and awe in the presence of
+human frailty.
+
+All night long he lay awake, pondering how to deal with the story which
+had been told him; how to clear up its confusions and implications; to
+find some firm foothold in the mad medley of the woman's talk--some
+reasonable scheme of time and place. Much of what she had told him had
+been frankly incoherent; and to press her had only made confusion worse.
+He was tolerably certain that she was suffering from some obscure brain
+trouble. The effort of talking to him had clearly exhausted her; but he
+had not been able to refrain from making her talk. At the end of the half
+hour he had advised her--in some alarm at her ghastly look--to see a
+doctor. 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 John
+Broad's mother, Mrs. Richard Sabin, who had arrived from America only
+forty-eight hours before, had died suddenly in the night. The bursting
+of an unsuspected aneurism in the brain was, according to the doctor
+called in, the cause of death.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+
+
+
+HESTER
+
+
+"Light as the flying seed-balls is their play
+The 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 Sarah
+Fox-Wilton discontentedly.
+
+"Spend twenty guineas on it, my dear, as Lady Edith did on hers, and
+it'll be all right," said a mocking voice.
+
+Sarah frowned. She went on pinning and adjusting a serge skirt in the
+making, which hung on the dummy before her. "Oh, we all know what _you_
+would like to spend on your dress, Hester!" she said angrily, but
+indistinctly, as her mouth was full of pins.
+
+"Because really nice frocks are not to be had any other way," said Hester
+coolly. "You pay for them--and you get them. But as for supposing you can
+copy Lady Edith's frocks for nothing, why, of course you can't, and you
+don'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't
+eat any more toffy!"--and she flung out a mischievous hand and captured a
+box that was lying on the table, before a girl, who was sitting near it
+with 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, till
+Hester suddenly let it go.
+
+"Take it then--and good luck to you! I wouldn't spoil my teeth and my
+complexion as you do--not for tons of sweets. Hullo!"--the speaker sprang
+up--"the rain's over, and it's quite a decent evening. I shall go out for
+a 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 you
+are not to go out alone."
+
+Hester flushed. "Do you think I can't escape you all--if I want to? Of
+course I can. What geese you are! None of you will ever prevent me from
+doing what I want to do. It really would save such a lot of time and
+trouble if you would get that into your heads."
+
+"Where do you mean to go?" said Sarah stolidly, without taking any notice
+of her remark. "Because if you'll go to the village, I can get some
+binding I want."
+
+"I have no intention whatever of going out for your convenience, thank
+you!" said Hester, laughing angrily. "I am going into the garden, and you
+can come or not as you please." She opened the French window as she spoke
+and stepped out.
+
+"Has mamma heard from that Paris woman yet?" asked Lulu, looking after
+Hester, who was now standing on the lawn playing with a terrier-puppy she
+had lately brought home as a gift from a neighbouring farmer--much to
+Lady Fox-Wilton's annoyance. Hester had an absurd way of making friends
+with 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. She
+was a heavily made girl of twenty, with sleepy eyes and a dull
+complexion. She took little exercise, was inordinately fond of sweet
+things, helped her mother a little in the housekeeping, and was
+intimately acquainted with all the gossip of the village. So was Sarah;
+but her tongue was sharper than Lulu's, and her brain quicker. She was
+therefore the unpopular sister; while for Lulu her acquaintances felt
+rather a contemptuous indulgence. Sarah had had various love affairs,
+which had come to nothing, and was regarded as "disappointed" in the
+village. Lulu was not interested in young men, and had never yet been
+observed to take any trouble to capture one. So long as she was allowed
+sufficient sixpenny novels to read, and enough sweet things to eat, she
+was good-humoured enough, and could do kind things on occasion for her
+friends. Sarah was rarely known to do kind things; but as her woman
+friends were much more afraid of her than of Lulu, she was in general
+treated with much more consideration.
+
+Still it could not be said that Lady Fox-Wilton was to be regarded as
+blessed in either of her two elder daughters. And her sons were quite
+frankly a trouble to her. The eldest, Sarah's junior by a year and a
+half, had just left Oxford suddenly and ignominiously, without a degree,
+and was for the most part loafing at home. The youngest, a boy of
+fifteen, was supposed to be delicate, and had been removed from school by
+his mother on that account. He too was at home, and a tutor who lodged in
+the village was understood to be preparing him for the Civil Service. He
+was a pettish and spiteful lad, and between him and Hester existed
+perpetual 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 earliest
+childhood. They all felt instinctively that she despised them and the
+slow, lethargic temperament which was in most of them an inheritance from
+a father cast in one of the typical moulds of British Philistinism. There
+was some insurmountable difference between her and them. In the first
+place, her beauty set her apart from the rest; and, beside her, Sarah's
+sharp profile, and round apple-red cheeks, or Lulu's clumsiness, made,
+as both girls were secretly aware, an even worse impression than they
+need have made. And in the next, there were in her strains of romantic,
+egotistic ability to which nothing in them corresponded. She could
+play, she could draw--brilliantly, spontaneously--up to a certain
+point, when neither Sarah nor Lulu could stumble through a "piece," or
+produce anything capable of giving the smallest satisfaction to their
+drawing-master. She could chatter, on occasion, so that a room full of
+people instinctively listened. And she had read voraciously, especially
+poetry, where they were content with picture-papers and the mildest of
+novels. Hester brought nothing to perfection; but there could be no
+question that in every aspect of life she was constantly making, in
+comparison with her family, a dashing or dazzling effect all the more
+striking because of the unattractive _milieu_ out of which it sprang.
+
+The presence of Lady Fox-Wilton, in particular, was needed to show these
+contrasts at their sharpest.
+
+As Hester still raced about the lawn, with the dog, that lady came round
+the corner of the house, with a shawl over her head, and beckoned to the
+girl 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, and
+arrived laughing and breathless beside the newcomer. Edith Fox-Wilton was
+a 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 blue
+eyes were still appealing, especially when she smiled. But she did not
+smile often, and she had the expression of one perpetually protesting
+against all the agencies--this-worldly or other-worldly--which had the
+control of her existence. Her weak fretfulness depressed all the
+vitalities near her; only Hester resisted.
+
+At the moment, however, her look was not so much fretful as excited. Her
+thin cheeks were much redder than usual; she constantly looked round as
+though expecting or dreading some interruption; and in a hand which shook
+she held a just opened letter.
+
+"What is the matter, mamma?" asked Hester, a sharp challenging note in
+her gay voice. "You look as though something had happened."
+
+"Nothing has happened," said Lady Fox-Wilton hastily. "And I wish you
+wouldn't romp with the puppy in that way, Hester. He's always doing some
+damage to the flowers. I'm going out, and I wished to give you a message
+from the Rector."
+
+"Is that from Uncle Richard?" said Hester, glancing carelessly at the
+letter.
+
+Lady Fox-Wilton crushed it in her hand.
+
+"I told you it was. Why do you ask unnecessary questions? The Rector has
+heard 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 possible
+recommendations. You will enjoy it very much. They can get you the best
+lessons in Paris, they say. They know everybody."
+
+"H'm--" said Hester, reflectively. Then she looked at the speaker. "Do
+you 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 do
+what 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't
+want to."
+
+"You can behave like a naughty, troublesome girl, without any proper
+feeling, of course!--if you choose," said Lady Fox-Wilton warmly. "But I
+trust you will do nothing of the kind. We are your guardians till you are
+twenty-one; and you ought to be guided by us."
+
+"Well, of course I can't be engaged to Stephen, if you say I
+mayn't--because there's Stephen to back you up. But if Queen Victoria
+could be a queen at eighteen, I don't see why _I_ shouldn't be fit at
+eighteen to manage my own wretched affairs! Anyway--I--am--not--going to
+Paris--unless I want to go. So I don't advise you to promise that lady
+just 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-Wilton
+helplessly. "I try to keep you--the Rector tries to keep you--out of
+mischief that any girl ought to be ashamed--of--and--"
+
+"What mischief?" demanded Hester peremptorily. "Don't run into
+generalities, mamma."
+
+"You know very well what mischief I mean!"
+
+"I know that you think I shall be running away some day with Sir Philip
+Meryon!" said the girl, laughing, but with a fierce gleam in her eyes. "I
+have no intention at present of doing anything of the kind. But if
+anything could make me do it, it would be the foolish way in which you
+and the others behave. I don't believe the Rector ever told you to set
+Sarah and Lulu on to dog me wherever I go!"
+
+"He told me you were not to be allowed to meet that man. You won't
+promise me not to meet him--and what can we do? You know what the Rector
+feels. You know that he spent an hour yesterday arguing and pleading with
+you, when he had been up most of the night preparing papers for this
+commission. What's the matter with you, Hester? Are you quite in your
+right senses?"
+
+The girl had clasped her hands behind her back, and stood with one foot
+forward, "on tiptoe for a flight," her young figure and radiant look
+expressing the hot will which possessed her. At the mention of Meynell's
+name 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. He
+does not care twopence about me, and it's mere humbug and hypocrisy all
+his pretending to care."
+
+"And your Aunt Alice--who's always worshipped you? Why, she's just
+miserable about you!"
+
+"She says exactly what you and Uncle Richard tell her to say--she always
+has! Well, I don't know about Paris, mamma--I'll think about it. If you
+and Sarah will just let me be, I'll take Roddy for a stroll, and then
+after tea I'll tell you what I'll do." And, turning, she beckoned to a
+fine collie lazily sunning himself on the drawing-room steps, and he
+sprang 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. "I
+haven't the smallest intention of meeting him. Come, Roddy!"
+
+The eyes of the two met--in those of the older woman, impatience, a kind
+of cold exasperation; in Hester's, defiance. It was a strange look to
+pass 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 Alice
+something if you were going that way."
+
+"Mamma!"
+
+Sarah suddenly emerged from the schoolroom window and ran excitedly
+across the lawn toward her mother. "Have you heard this extraordinary
+story 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 have
+seen that her bright colour precipitately left her.
+
+"Why, what harm was it?" cried Sarah, wondering. "He told me, because it
+seems Mrs. Sabin used to be a servant of ours long ago. Do you remember
+her, 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 off
+some 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 thought
+she was dead. He hadn't heard of her for four years. But she turned
+up on Tuesday--the queerest old woman! She sat there boasting and
+chattering--in a silk dress with gold bracelets!--they thought she was
+going to make all their fortunes. But she must just have been off her
+head, for she died last night in her sleep, and there were only a few
+shillings on her--not enough to bury her. There's to be an inquest this
+evening, they say."
+
+"Don't spend all your time chattering in the village, Sarah," said Lady
+Fox-Wilton severely, as, still with her back toward the girls, she moved
+away in the direction of the drive. "You'll never get your dress done if
+you 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 the
+family. So that she at once resented the remark.
+
+"If she's worrying about anything, she's worrying about you," said Sarah
+tartly, as she went back to the house. "We all know that."
+
+Hester, with her dog beside her, went strolling leisurely through the
+village street, past Miss Puttenham's cottage on the one hand and the
+Rectory gates on the other, making for a footpath that led from the back
+of the village, through fields and woods, on to the Chase.
+
+As she passed beneath the limes that overhung Miss Puttenham's railings
+she perceived some distant figures in the garden. Uncle Richard, with
+mamma and Aunt Alice on either side of him. They were walking up and down
+in close conversation; or, rather, Uncle Richard seemed to be talking
+earnestly, addressing now one lady, now the other.
+
+What a confabulation! No doubt all about her own crimes and
+misdemeanours. 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 into
+the footpath and began to mount toward the borders of the Chase. It was a
+brilliant September afternoon, and the new grass in the shorn hayfields
+was vividly green. In front rose the purple hills of the Chase, while
+to the left, on the far borders of the village, the wheels and chimneys
+of two collieries stood black against a blaze of sun. But the sharp
+emphasis of light and colour, which in general would have set her own
+spirits racing, was for a while lost on Hester. As soon as she was out
+of sight of the village, or any passers-by, her aspect changed. Once or
+twice she caught her breath in what was very like a sob; and there were
+moments when she could only save herself from the disgrace of tears by a
+wild burst of racing with Roddy. It was evident that her brush with Lady
+Fox-Wilton had not left her as callous as she seemed.
+
+Presently the path forsook the open fields and entered a plantation of
+dark and closely woven trees where the track was almost lost in the
+magnificence of the bracken. Beyond this, a short climb of broken slopes,
+and Hester was out on the bare heath, with the moorland wind blowing
+about her.
+
+She sat down on a bank beneath a birch tree, twisted and tortured out of
+shape by the northwesterly gales that swept the heath in winter. All
+round her a pink and purple wilderness, with oases of vivid green and
+swaying grass. Nothing in sight but a keeper's hut, and some grouse butts
+far away; an ugly red building on the horizon, in the very middle of the
+heath, the Markborough isolation hospital; and round the edge of the vast
+undulating plateau in all directions the faint smoke of the colliery
+chimneys. But the colour of the heath was the marvel. The world seemed
+stained in crimson, and in every shade and combination of it. Close at
+hand the reds and pinks were diapered with green and gold as the
+bilberries and the grasses ran in and out of the heather; but on every
+side the crimson spread and billowed to the horizon, covering the hollows
+and hills of the Chase, absorbing all lesser tones into itself. After the
+rain of the morning, the contours of the heath, the distances of the
+plain, were unnaturally clear; and as the sunshine, the high air, the
+freshly moving wind, played upon Hester, her irritation passed away in a
+sensuous delight.
+
+"Why should I let them worry me? I won't! I am here! I am alive! I am
+only eighteen! I am going to manage my life for myself--and get out of
+this 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-heather
+intergrown with bunchberries. And while a whole vague series of thoughts
+and memories passed through her mind she was still vividly conscious of
+the pink bells, the small bright leaves. Sensation in her was
+exceptionally keen, whether for pleasure or pain. She knew it and had
+often coolly asked herself whether it meant that she would wear out--life
+and brain--quicker than other people--burn faster to the socket. So much
+the better if it did.
+
+What was it she really wanted?--what did she mean to do? Proudly, she
+refused 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 did
+not melt her. She knew very well that she had nothing to blame her
+guardian for; that year after year from her childhood up she had repelled
+and resisted him, that her whole relation to him had been one of
+stubbornness and caprice. Well, there were reasons for it; she was not
+going to repent or change.
+
+Of late his conduct with regard to Stephen's proposal had stirred in her
+a kind of rage. It was not that she imagined herself in love with
+Stephen; but she had chosen to be engaged to him; and that any one should
+affect to control her in such a matter, should definitely and decidedly
+cross her will, was intolerable to her wild pride. If Stephen had
+rebelled with her, she might have fallen fiercely in love with him--for a
+month. But he had submitted--though it was tolerably plain what it had
+cost him; and all her careless liking for him, the fruit of years of very
+poorly requited devotion on his part, seemed to have disappeared in a
+night.
+
+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. She
+recalled her interview with Meynell, in which the Rector had roused in
+her a new and deeper antagonism than any she had yet felt toward his
+efforts to control her. It was as though he did not altogether believe in
+his own arguments; as though there were something behind which she could
+not get at. But if there were something behind, she had a right to know
+it. She had a right to know the meaning of her father's extraordinary
+letter to Meynell--the letter attached to his will--in which she had been
+singled out by name as needing the special tutelage of the Rector. So far
+as the Rector's guardianship of the other children was concerned, it was
+almost a nominal thing. Another guardian had been named in the will, Lady
+Fox-Wilton's elder brother, and practically everything that concerned the
+other children was settled by him, in concert with the mother. The Rector
+never interfered, was never indeed consulted, except on purely formal
+matters of business. But for her--for her only--Uncle Richard--as she
+always called her guardian--was to be the master--the tyrant!--close at
+hand. For so Sir Ralph had laid it down, in his testamentary letter--"I
+commend Hester to your special care. And in any difficulties that may
+arise in connection with her, I beg for our old friendship's sake that
+you 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 years
+before, the story of it had got about; and the injustice, as she held, of
+her position under it had sunk deep into the girl's passionate sense, and
+made her infinitely more difficult to manage than she had been before. Of
+course everybody said it was because of her temper; because of the
+constant friction between her and her father; people believed the hateful
+things he used sometimes to say about her.
+
+Nor was it only the guardianship--there was the money too! Provision made
+for all of them by name--and nothing for her! She had made Sarah show her
+a copy of the will--she knew! Nothing indeed for any of them--the girls
+at least--till Lady Fox-Wilton's death, or till they married; but nothing
+for _her_, under any circumstances.
+
+"Well, why should there be?" Sarah had said. "You know you'll have Aunt
+Alice'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 up
+to scorn by your own father!
+
+A flood of bitterness surged in the girl's heart. And then they expected
+her 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 might
+not be engaged to Stephen--for two years at any rate; and yet if she
+amused herself with any one else she was to be packed off to Paris, to
+some house of detention or other, under lock and key.
+
+Her cheeks flamed. When had she first come across Philip Meryon? Only the
+day before that evening when Uncle Richard had found her fishing with
+him. She knew very well that he was badly spoken of; trust Upcote for
+gossip and scandal! Well, so was she!--they were outcasts together.
+Anyway, he was more amusing to walk and talk with than her sisters, or
+the dreadful young men they sometimes gathered about them. Why shouldn't
+she walk and talk with him? As if she couldn't protect herself! As if she
+didn'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-tattle
+of 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 French
+books, which she had read eagerly--at night or in the woods--wherever
+she could be alone and unobserved. Why shouldn't she read them? There was
+one among them--"Julie de Trecoeur," by Octave Feuillet, that still
+seemed running, like a great emotion, through her veins. The tragic
+leap of Julie, as she sets her horse to the cliff and thunders to her
+death, was always in Hester's mind. It was so that she herself would like
+to die, spurning submission and patience, and all the humdrum virtues.
+
+She raised herself, and the dog beside her sprang up and barked. The sun
+was just dropping below a bank of fiery cloud, and a dazzling and garish
+light lay on the red undulations of the heath. As she stood up she
+suddenly perceived the figure of a man about a hundred yards off emerging
+from a gully--a sportsman with his gun over his shoulder. He had
+apparently just parted from the group with whom he had been shooting, who
+were disappearing in another direction.
+
+Philip Meryon! Now she remembered! He and two other men had taken the
+shooting on this side of the Chase. Honestly she had forgotten it;
+honestly her impression was that he had gone to Scotland. But of course
+none of her family would ever believe it. They would insist she had
+simply come out to meet him.
+
+What was she to do? She was in a white serge dress, and with Roddy
+beside her, on that bare heath, she was an object easily recognized.
+Indeed, as she hesitated, she heard a call in the distance, and saw that
+Meryon was waving to her and quickening his pace. Instantly, with a
+leaping pulse, she turned and fled, Roddy beside her, barking his
+loudest. She ran along the rough track of the heath, as though some vague
+wild terror had been breathed into her by the local Pan. She ran fleet
+and light as air--famous as a runner from her childhood. But the man
+behind 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 path
+ran 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-set
+trees, whence the light had already departed, and lain close among the
+fern. 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 through
+the fern. "Now what do you deserve--for running away?"
+
+"A _gentleman_ would not have tried to catch me!" she said haughtily, as
+she 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 the
+vision before him--this angry wood-nymph, half-vanishing like another
+Daphne into the deep fern amid which she stood. But at the same time he
+was puzzled--and checked--by her expression. There was no mere
+provocation in it, no defiance that covers a yielding mind; but, rather,
+an energy of will, a concentrated force, that held at bay a man whose
+will was the mere register of his impulses.
+
+"You forget," said Hester coolly, "that I have Roddy with me." And as she
+spoke the dog couching at her side poked up his slender nose through the
+fern and growled. He did not like Sir Philip.
+
+Meryon looked upon her smiling--his hands on his sides. "Do you mean to
+say that when you ran you did not mean me to follow?"
+
+"On the contrary, if I ran, it was evidently because I wished to get
+away."
+
+"Then you were very ungrateful and unkind; for I have at this moment in
+my pocket a book you asked me to get for you. That's what I get for
+trying 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 I
+managed to borrow it, and there it is." He pointed triumphantly to a
+yellow-paper-bound volume sticking out of his coat pocket. "Of course you
+know George Sand is a sort of old Johnnie now; nobody reads her. But
+that's your affair. Will you have it?" He offered it.
+
+The excitement, the wild flush in the girl's face, had subsided. She
+looked at the book, and at the man holding it out.
+
+"What is it?" She stooped to read the title--"Mauprat." "What's it
+about?"
+
+"Some nonsense about a cad tamed by a sentimental young woman." He
+shrugged his shoulders, "I tried to read it, and couldn't. But they say
+it's one of her best. If you want it, there it is."
+
+She took it reluctantly, and moved on along the downward path, he
+following, and the dog beside them.
+
+"Have you read the other book?" he asked her.
+
+"'Julie de Trecoeur?' Yes."
+
+"What did you think of it?"
+
+"It was magnificent!" she said shortly, with a quickened breath. "I shall
+get some more by that man."
+
+"Well, you'd better be careful!" He laughed. "I've got some others, but I
+didn't want to recommend them to you. Lady Fox-Wilton wouldn't exactly
+approve."
+
+"I don't tell mamma what I read." The girl's young voice sounded sharply
+beside him in the warm autumnal dusk. "But if you lent me anything you
+oughtn'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 I
+ought to have lent you 'Julie de Trecoeur' if it comes to that."
+
+"Why not?" Hester turned her great, astonished eyes upon him. "One might
+as 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 in
+Scotland?"
+
+"Because I had to go to London instead. Beastly nuisance! But there was
+some 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 a
+trace in her manner of timidity or tremor. In spite of her flight from
+him he could not flatter himself that he had made any impression on her
+nerves. Whereas her beauty and her provocative way were beginning to tell
+deeply on his own.
+
+"Well, I daresay!" His laugh was as frank as her question. "I'm generally
+in 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 had
+had to write another, that would have been work; and I should probably
+have loathed it."
+
+"That I don't believe," she said, shaking her head. "One can always do
+what succeeds. It's like pouring petrol into the motor."
+
+"So you think I'm only idle because I'm a failure?" he asked her, his
+tone 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 why
+you allow yourself these _franchises_!"
+
+"Because I am interested in you--rather. Why won't the neighbourhood call
+on you--why do you have disreputable people to stay with you? It is all
+so foolish!" she said, with childish and yet passionate emphasis. "You
+needn't do it!"
+
+Meryon had turned rather white.
+
+"When you grow a little older," he said severely, "you will know better
+than to believe all the gossip you hear. I choose the friends that suit
+me--and the life too. My friends are mostly artists and actors--they are
+quite content to be excluded from Upcote society--so am I. I don't gather
+you 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 amiable
+cousin--allows himself to make all kinds of impertinent statements about
+me. Well, you'll understand some day that there's no such bad judge of
+men as a clergyman. When he's not ignorant he's prejudiced--and when he's
+not 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 he
+should be cousins!"
+
+"Well, we do happen to be cousins. And I've no doubt that you would
+like me to resemble him. Unfortunately I can't accommodate you. If I
+am to take a relation for a model, I prefer a very different sort of
+person--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, Hester
+carelessly turned her head to look at a squirrel that had run across the
+glade 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 a
+Frenchman--that's a superb thing. He was the best fencer in England--and
+one of the best shots. He had a beautiful voice--he could write--he could
+do anything he pleased. Of course he got into scrapes--such men do--and
+if Richard ever talked to you about him, of course he'd crab him. All the
+same, if one must be like one's relations--which is, of course, quite
+unnecessary--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 a
+certain Ralph Flood, my grandfather, an old hunting squire, a regular bad
+lot! Oh! I can tell you the family history doesn't give me much chance!
+He came from Lincolnshire originally, having made the county there too
+hot to hold him, and bought the Abbey, which he meant to restore and
+never did. He worried his wife into her grave, and she left him three
+children: Neville, who succeeded his father; and two daughters--Meynell's
+mother, who was a good deal older than Neville and married Colonel
+Meynell, as he was then; and my mother, who was much the youngest, and
+died three years ago. She was Neville's favourite sister, and as he knew
+Richard didn't want the Abbey, he left it to me. A precious white
+elephant--not worth a fiver to anybody. I was only thirteen when Neville
+was drowned--"
+
+"Drowned?"
+
+Meryon explained that Neville Flood had lost his life in a storm on an
+Irish lough; a queer business, which no one had ever quite got to the
+bottom of. Many people had talked of suicide. There was no doubt he was
+in very low spirits just before it happened. He was unhappily married,
+mainly through his own fault. His wife could certainly have got a divorce
+from him if she had applied for it. But very soon after she separated
+from Flood she became a Catholic, and nothing would induce her to divorce
+him. And against her there was never a breath. It was said of course that
+he was in love with some one else, and broken-hearted that his wife
+refused to lend herself to a divorce. But nobody knew anything.
+
+"And, by Jove, I wonder why I'm telling you all these shady tales. You
+oughtn'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 see
+that picture."
+
+"What--of my Uncle Neville?"
+
+Meryon eyed her curiously, as they strolled on through the arched green
+of the woodland. Every now and then there were openings through which
+poured a fiery sun, illuminating Hester's face and form.
+
+"Do you know"--he said at last--"there is an uncommonly queer likeness
+between 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 Uncle
+Richard--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 Neville
+was a deal handsomer than old Richard. However, nobody can account for
+likenesses. If you come to think of it, we are all descended from a small
+number of people. But it has often struck me--" He looked at her again
+attentively. "The setting of the ear--and the upper lip--and the shape
+of the brow--I shall bring you a photograph of the picture."
+
+"What does it matter!" said Hester impatiently. "Besides, I am going away
+directly--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'm
+such an idle dog. I'm nothing of the sort. I've nearly finished a whole
+new play. Only--well, I couldn't talk to you about it--it's not a play
+for _jeunes filles_. But after all I might read you a few scenes. That
+wouldn't do any harm. You're so deuced clever!--your opinion would be
+worth having. I can tell you the managers are all after it! I'm getting
+letters by every post asking for parts. What do you say? Can you meet
+me somewhere? I'll choose some of the best bits. Just name your time!"
+
+Her face had kindled, answering to the vivacity--the peremptoriness--in
+his. 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, wild
+thing!"
+
+"Take care!" Hester sprang away from him as he put out an incautious
+hand. "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 new
+stimulus through jaded nerves. Had he met her in London on equal terms
+with other men he knew instinctively that he would have had but small
+chance with her. It was the circumstances of this quiet country place,
+where young men of Hester's class were the rarest of apparitions, and
+where Philip, flying from his creditors and playing the part of a needy
+Don Juan amid the picturesque dilapidations of the Abbey, was gravelled
+day after day for lack of occupation--it was these surroundings that had
+made the flirtation possible. Well, she was a handsome daredevil little
+minx. It amused him to make love to her, and in spite of his parsonical
+cousin, he should continue to do so. And that the proceeding annoyed
+Richard Meynell made it not less, but more, enticing. Parsons, cousins or
+no, 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 took
+no notice of any one till, just as she was nearing the Cowroast, she saw
+groups 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 an
+evident 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 for
+once she had been out by herself without a keeper. He took no notice of
+her tone, and walked on beside her, his eyes on the ground. Presently she
+wondered whether he had heard her reply at all, he was so evidently
+thinking of something else. In her turn she began to ask questions.
+
+"What's happening in the village? Why are those people coming out of the
+Cowroast?"
+
+"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 her
+head?"
+
+"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, Uncle
+Richard--good night! You go too slow for me."
+
+She walked away with a defiant air, intended to show him that he was in
+her black books. He stood a moment looking after her, compunction and sad
+affection in his kind eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Meanwhile, for Catharine Elsmere and Mary these days of early autumn were
+passing in a profound external quiet which bore but small relation to the
+mental 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. She
+set no limit to her own calls, or to her readiness to be called upon. The
+Flaxman dinner and tennis parties were soon an institution in the
+neighbourhood; and the distinguished persons who gathered at Maudeley for
+the Flaxman week-ends shed a reflected lustre on Upcote itself. But Rose
+Flaxman stoutly protected her widowed sister. Mrs. Elsmere was delicate
+and in need of rest; she was not to be expected to take part in any
+social 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 brought
+steadily closer to her by the mere passage of life. Rose was an artist
+and an optimist. In her youth she had been an eager and exquisite
+musician; in her middle life she was a loving and a happy woman, though
+she too had known a tragic moment in her first youth. Catharine, her
+elder by some years, still maintained, beneath an exquisite refinement,
+the strong north-country characteristics of the Westmoreland family to
+which the sisters belonged. Her father had been an Evangelical scholar
+and 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 married
+life beside a nature so plastic and sensitive as Elsmere's, and of her
+passionate love for her husband, it was the early influences on her
+character 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 a
+slender connection that no one misunderstood with the New Brotherhood,
+the slow effect of his withdrawal from her life made itself inevitably
+felt. She stiffened and narrowed intellectually; while for all sinners
+and sufferers, within the lines of sympathy she gradually traced out
+for herself, she would have willingly given her body to be burned, so
+strong was the Franciscan thirst in her for the self-effacement and
+self-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 extent
+balanced the claims of what many might have thought a devastating and
+depersonalizing charity. Catharine was a tender though an austere mother;
+she became and deserved to become the idol of her daughter. But as Mary
+grew up she was drawn inevitably into her mother's activities; and
+Catharine, in the blindness of her ascetic faith, might have injured the
+whole spring of the girl's youth by the tremendous strain thus put upon
+it by affection on the one hand and pity on the other.
+
+Mercifully, perhaps, for them both, Catharine's nerve and strength
+suddenly gave way; and with them that abnormal exaltation and clearness
+of spiritual vision which had carried her through many sorrowing years.
+She entered upon a barren and darkened path; the Christian joy deserted
+her, and there were hours and days when little more than the Christian
+terrors remained. It was her perception of this which roused such a
+tender and desperate pity in Mary. Her mother's state fell short indeed
+of religious melancholy; but for a time it came within sight of it.
+Catharine dreaded to be found herself a castaway; and the memory of
+Robert's denials of the faith--magnified by her mental state, like trees
+in mist--had now become an ever-haunting misery which tortured her
+unspeakably. Her mind was possessed by the parables of judgment--the
+dividing of the sheep from the goats, the shutting of the door of
+salvation on those who had refused the heavenly offers, and by all those
+sayings of the early Church that make "faith" the only passport to
+eternal safety.
+
+Her saner mind struggled in vain against what was partly a physical
+penalty for defied physical law. And Mary also, her devoted companion,
+whose life depended hour by hour on the aspects and changes of her
+mother, must needs be drawn within the shadow of Catharine's dumb and
+phantom-ridden pain. The pain itself was dumb, because it concerned the
+deepest feelings of a sternly reserved woman. But mingled with the pain
+were other matters--resentments, antagonisms--the expression of which
+often half consciously relieved it. She rose in rebellion against those
+sceptical and deadly forces of the modern world which had swept her
+beloved from the narrow way. She fled them for herself; she feared them
+for Mary, in whom she had very early divined the working of Robert's
+aptitudes and powers.
+
+And now--by ill-fortune--a tired and suffering woman had no sooner found
+refuge and rest in the solitude of Forked Pond than, thanks partly to the
+Flaxmans' new friendship for Upcote's revolutionary parson, and partly to
+all the public signs, not to be escaped, of the commotion brewing in the
+diocese, and in England generally, the same agitations, the same troubles
+which had destroyed her happiness and peace of mind in the past, came
+clattering 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 of
+the Bishop; the characters and motives of his opponents; the chances of
+the struggle--and the points on which it turned; even in the little
+solitary house between the waters Catharine could not escape them. The
+Bishop, too, was an old friend; before his promotion he had been the
+incumbent of a London parish in which Catharine had worked. She was no
+sooner settled at Forked Pond than he came to see her; and what more
+natural than he should speak of the anxieties weighing upon him to one so
+able to feel for them?
+
+Then!--the first involuntary signs of Mary's interest in, Mary's sympathy
+with, the offender! In Catharine's mind a thousand latent terrors sprang
+at once to life. For a time--some weeks--she had succeeded in checking
+all developments. Invitations were refused; meetings were avoided. But
+gradually the situation changed. Points of contact began inevitably to
+multiply between Mary and the disturber of Christ's peace in Upcote.
+Mary's growing friendship for Alice Puttenham, her chance encounters with
+Meynell there, or in the village, or in the Flaxmans' drawing-room, were
+all distasteful and unwelcome to Catharine Elsmere. At least her Robert
+had sacrificed himself--had done the honest and honourable thing. But
+this man--wounding the Church from within--using the opportunities of the
+Church for the destruction of the Church--who would make excuses for such
+a combatant?
+
+And the more keenly she became aware of the widening gulf between her
+thoughts and Mary's--of Mary's involuntary, instinctive sympathy with the
+enemy--the greater was her alarm.
+
+For the first time in all her strenuous, self-devoted life she would
+sometimes make much of her physical weakness in these summer days, so as
+to keep Mary with her, to prevent her from becoming more closely
+acquainted with Meynell and Meynell's ideas. And in fact this new anxiety
+interfered with her recovery; she had only to let herself be ill, and ill
+most genuinely she was.
+
+Mary understood it all, and submitted. Her mother's fears were indeed
+amply justified! Mary's secret mind was becoming absorbed, from a
+distance, in Meynell's campaign; Meynell's personality, through all
+hindrance and difficulty--nay, perhaps, because of them--was gradually
+seizing upon and mastering her own; and processes of thought that, so
+long as she and her mother were, so to speak, alone in the world
+together, were still immature and potential, grew apace. The woods and
+glades of Maudeley, the village street, the field paths, began to be for
+her places of magic, whence at any moment might spring flowers of joy
+known to her alone. To see him pass at a distance, to come across him in
+a miner's cottage, or in Miss Puttenham's drawing-room--these rare
+occasions were to her the events of the summer weeks. Nevertheless, when
+September arrived, she had long since forbidden herself to hope for
+anything more.
+
+Meanwhile, Rose Flaxman was the only person who ever ventured to feel and
+show the irritation of the natural woman toward her sister's
+idiosyncrasies.
+
+"Do for heaven's sake stop her reading these books!" she said impatiently
+one evening to Mary, when she had taken leave of Catharine, and her niece
+was strolling back with her toward Maudeley.
+
+"What books?"
+
+"Why, lives of bishops and deans and that kind of thing! I never come but
+I find a pile of them beside her. It should be made absolutely illegal to
+write the life of a clergyman! My dear, your mother would be well in a
+week 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 the
+postman just now while I was with her, and I looked at the book she had
+been reading with her mark in it. I should like to have thrown it into
+the pond! Some tiresome canon or other writing to a friend about Eternal
+Punishment. What does he know about it? I should like to ask! I declare I
+hope he may know something more about it some day! There was your mother
+as white as her ruffles, with dark lines under her eyes. I tell you
+clerical intimidation should be made a punishable offence. It's just as
+bad as any other!"
+
+Mary let her run on. She moved silently along the grassy path, her pretty
+head bent, her hands clasped behind her. And presently her aunt resumed:
+"And the strange thing is, my dear, saving your presence--that your
+beloved mother is quite lax in some directions, while she is so strict in
+others. I never can make her pay the smallest attention to the things I
+tell her about Philip Meryon, for instance, that Hugh tells me. 'Poor
+fellow!' she always calls him, as though his abominable ways were like
+the measles--something you couldn't help. And as for that wild minx
+Hester!--she has positively taken a fancy to her. It reminds me of what
+an old priest said to me once in Rome--'Sins, madame!--the only sins that
+matter are those of the intellect!' There!--send me off--before I say any
+more _inconvenances_!"
+
+Mary waved farewell to her vivacious aunt, and walked slowly back to the
+cottage. She was conscious of inner smart and pain; conscious also for
+the first time of a critical mind toward the mother whose will had been
+the 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 last
+aloud--with an impetuous energy; and then, with a swift return upon
+herself--"Mother, _darling_!--mother, who has no one in the world--but
+me!"
+
+As the words escaped her, she came in sight of the cottage, and saw that
+her mother was sitting in her usual place beside the water. Catharine's
+hands were resting on a newspaper they had evidently just put down, and
+she was gazing absently across the lights and shadows, the limpid blues
+and 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 her
+mother's knee was the _Church Guardian_, in which a lively correspondence
+on the subject of Meynell and the Modernist Movement generally was at the
+moment proceeding.
+
+"Yes, I have been reading," said Catharine slowly--"and I have been very
+sad."
+
+"Then I wish you wouldn't read!" cried Mary, kissing her hand. "I should
+like to burn all the newspapers!"
+
+"What good would that do?" said Catharine, trying to smile. "I have been
+reading Bishop Craye's letter to the _Guardian_. Poor Bishop!--what a
+cruel, 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 her
+daughter's.
+
+There was silence for a little, broken by Catharine, speaking with the
+same quiet vehemence:
+
+"I cannot understand how you, Mary, or any one else can defend what this
+man--Mr. Meynell--is doing. If he cannot agree with the Church, let him
+leave 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 and
+opportunities--with everything they want. They are not asked to give
+anything up--nobody thinks of interfering with them--they have all the
+old dear things, the faiths and the practices they love--and that help
+_them_. They are only asked to tolerate other people who want different
+things. Mr. Meynell stands--I suppose--for the people--who are starved,
+whose souls wither, or die, for lack of the only food that could nourish
+them."
+
+"'I am the bread of life,'" said Catharine with an energy that shook her
+slight frame. "The Church has no other food to give. Let those who refuse
+it go outside. There are other bodies, and other means."
+
+"But, mother, this is the _National_ Church!" pleaded Mary, after a
+moment. "The Modernists too say--don't they?--that Christ--or what
+Christ stands for--is the bread of life. Only they understand the
+words--differently from you. And if"--she came closer to her mother, and
+putting her hands on Catharine's knees, she looked up into the elder
+woman's face--"if there were only a few here and there, they could of
+course do nothing; they could only suffer, and be silent. But there are
+so many of them--so many! What is the 'Church' but the living souls that
+make it up? And now thousands of these living souls want to change things
+in the Church. Their consciences are hurt--they can't believe what they
+once believed. What is the justice of driving them out--or leaving them
+starved--forever? They were born in the Church; baptized in the Church!
+They love the old ways, the old buildings, the old traditions. 'Comfort
+our consciences!' they say; 'we will never tyrannize over yours. Give us
+the teaching and the expression we want; you will always have what you
+want! Make room for us--beside you. If your own faith is strong it will
+only be the stronger because you let ours speak and live--because you
+give us our bare rights, as free spirits, in this Church that belongs to
+the whole English people.' Dear mother, you are so just always--so
+loving--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 answered
+slowly.
+
+Mary turned away, shading her eyes with her hand.
+
+"Yes," she said, with shrinking; "at least I know it is what he would
+say."
+
+"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's
+neck.
+
+"I will never hurt you, my beloved! you know I won't."
+
+The two gazed into each other's eyes, questions and answers, unspoken yet
+understood, passing between them. Then Catharine disengaged herself,
+rose, and went away.
+
+During the night that followed Mary slept little. She was engaged in
+trying to loosen and tear away those tendrils of the heart that had begun
+to climb and spread more than she knew. Toward the early dawn it seemed
+to her she heard slight sounds in her mother's room. But immediately
+afterward she fell asleep.
+
+The next day, Mary could not tell what had happened; but it was as
+though, in some inexplicable way, doors had been opened and weights
+lifted; as though fresh winds had been set blowing through the House of
+Life. Her mother seemed shaken and frail; Mary hovered about her with
+ministering tenderness. There were words begun and left unfinished,
+movements and looks that strangely thrilled and bewildered the younger
+woman. She had no key to them; but they seemed to speak of change--of
+something in her mother that had been beaten down, and was still faintly,
+pitifully striving. But she dared say nothing. They read, and wrote
+letters, and strolled as usual; till in the evening, while Mary was
+sitting 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 the
+Reformers' 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 tears
+sprang to her eyes. "I want to go nowhere--to do nothing--that gives you
+pain!"
+
+"I know that," said Catharine quietly. "But I--I should like to
+understand him."
+
+And with a light touch of her hand on Mary's red-gold hair, she went back
+into the house. Mary wandered away by herself into the depths of the
+woods, weeping, she scarcely knew why. But some sure instinct, lost in
+wonder as she was, bade her ask her mother no questions; to let time
+show.
+
+The day of the League meeting came. It happened also to be the date on
+which the Commission of Inquiry into the alleged heresies and
+irregularities of the Rector of Upcote was holding its final meeting at
+Markborough.
+
+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 great
+monastery formerly connected with it had disappeared, except for the
+Library and a vaulted room below it which now made a passageway from the
+Deanery to the north transept.
+
+The Library offered a worthy setting for high themes. The walls were, of
+course, wreathed in the pale golds and dignified browns of old books. A
+light gallery ran round three sides of the room, while a large
+perpendicular window at the farther end contained the armorial bearings
+of various benefactors of the see. Beneath the window was a bookcase
+containing several chained books--a Vulgate, a Saint Augustine, the
+_Summa_ of St. Thomas; precious possessions, and famous in the annals of
+early printing. And wherever there was a space of wall left free,
+pictures or engravings of former bishops and dignitaries connected with
+the Cathedral enforced the message and meaning of the room.
+
+A seemly, even beautiful place--pleasantly scented with old leather, and
+filled on this September afternoon with the sunshine which, on the Chase,
+was at the same moment kindling the heather into a blood-red
+magnificence. Here the light slipped in gently, subdued to the quiet note
+and standard of the old Library.
+
+The Dean was in the Chair. He was a man of seventy who had only just
+become an old man, submitting with difficulty, even with resentment, to
+the weight of his years. He wore a green shade over his eyes, beneath
+which his long sharp nose and pointed chin--in the practical absence of
+the eyes--showed with peculiar emphasis. He was of heavy build, and
+suffered from chronic hoarseness. In his youth he had been a Broad
+churchman and a Liberal, and had then passed, through stages mysterious
+to his oldest friends, into an actively dogmatic and ecclesiastical
+phase. 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 high
+orthodoxy in the Chapter, and an advocate of disestablishment as the only
+means of restoring "Catholic liberty" to the Church.
+
+The Dean's enemies, of whom he had not a few, brought various charges
+against him. It was said that he was a worldling with an undue leaning to
+notabilities. And indeed in every gathering, social or ecclesiastical,
+the track of the Dean's conversation sufficiently indicated the relative
+importance of the persons present. Others declared that during his long
+tenure of a country living he had left the duties of it mainly to a
+curate, and had found it more interesting to live in London, conferring
+with Cabinet Ministers on educational reform; while the women-folk of the
+Chapter pitied his wife, whose subdued or tremulous aspect certainly
+suggested that the Dean's critical and sarcastic temper sharpened itself
+at home for conflicts abroad.
+
+On the Dean's right hand sat Canon Dornal, a man barely forty, who owed
+his canonry to the herculean work he had done for fourteen years in a
+South London parish, work that he would never have relinquished for the
+comparative ease of the Markborough precincts but for a sudden failure in
+health which had pulled him up in mid-career, and obliged him to think of
+his wife and children. He had insisted, however, on combining with his
+canonry a small living in the town, where he could still slave as he
+pleased; and his sermons in the Cathedral were generally held to be, next
+to the personality of the Bishop, all that was noblest in Markborough
+Christianity. His fine head, still instinct with the energy of youth, was
+covered with strong black hair; dark brows shadowed Cornish blue eyes,
+simple, tranquil, almost _naif_, until of a sudden there rushed into them
+the 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. He
+was a man in whom conscience was a gadfly, remorseless and tormenting. He
+was himself overstrained and his influence sometimes produced in others a
+tension on which they looked back with resentment. But he was a saint;
+open, pure, and loving as a child; yet often tempest-driven with new
+ideas, since he possessed at once the imagination that frees a man from
+tradition, and the piety which clings to it.
+
+Beside him sat a University professor, the young holder of an important
+chair, who had the face, the smile, the curly hair of a boy of twenty, or
+appeared to have them, till you came to notice the subtleties of the
+mouth and the crow's-feet which had gathered round the eyes. And the
+paradox of his aspect only repeated the paradox within. His "History and
+the Gospels," recently published, would have earned him excommunication
+under 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 who
+admired and applauded him did not read his books. It was rumoured indeed
+that there were many things in them which were unsound; but the rumour
+only gave additional zest to the speeches in which at Church Congresses
+and elsewhere he flattered clerical prejudice, and encouraged clerical
+ignorance. To him there was no more "amusing" study--using "amusing" in
+the French sense as meaning something that keeps a man intellectually
+happy and awake--than the study of the Gospels. They presented an endless
+series of riddles, and riddles were what he liked. But the scientific
+treatment of these riddles had, according to him, nothing to do with the
+discipline of the Church; and to the discipline of the Church this young
+man, with the old eyes and mouth, was rigorously attached. He was a
+bachelor and a man of means--facts which taken together with his literary
+reputation and his agreeable aspect made him welcome among women; of
+which he was well aware.
+
+The Archdeacon, Doctor Froswick, and the Rural Dean, Mr. Brathay, who
+completed the Commission of Inquiry, were both men of middle age; the
+Archdeacon, fresh-coloured and fussy, a trivial, kindly person of no
+great account; the Rural Dean, broad-shouldered and square-faced, a
+silent, trustworthy man, much beloved in a small circle.
+
+A pile of books, MSS., and letters lay to the Chairman's right hand. On
+the blotting-pad before him was the voluminous written report of the
+commission 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 he
+arrived, and conversation had become general.
+
+"You have seen the leader in the _Oracle_ this morning?" asked the
+Archdeacon, nervously biting his quill. "Perfectly monstrous, I think! I
+shall withdraw my subscription."
+
+"With the _Oracle_," said the Professor, "it will be a mere question of
+success or failure. At present they are inclined to back the rebellion."
+
+"And not much wonder!" put in the Dean's hoarse voice. "The news this
+morning is uncommonly bad. Four more men joined the League here--a whole
+series of League meetings in Yorkshire!--half the important newspapers
+gone over or neutral--and a perfectly scandalous speech from the Bishop
+of Dunchester!"
+
+"I thought we should hear of Dunchester before long," said the Professor,
+with a sarcastic lip. "Anything that annoys his brethren has his constant
+support. But if the Church allows a Socinian to be put over her, she must
+take the consequences!"
+
+"What can the Church do?" said the Dean, shrugging his shoulders. "If we
+had accepted Disestablishment years ago, Dunchester would never have been
+a 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 be
+thrown against Disestablishment. There comes the dividing line between it
+and the past. I say again, we have missed our chance. If the High
+Churchmen had known their own minds--if they had joined hands boldly with
+the Liberation society, and struck off the State fetters--we should at
+least have been left in quiet possession of what remained to us. We
+should 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 endowments
+and our churches?" said Canon Dornal.
+
+The Dean flushed.
+
+"We have been called a nation of shopkeepers," he said vehemently, "but
+nobody has ever called us a nation of thieves."
+
+The Canon was silent. Then his eye caught the bulky MS. report lying
+before the Dean, and he made a restless movement as though the sight of
+it displeased him.
+
+"The demonstrations the papers report this morning are not all on one
+side," said the Rural Dean slowly but cheerfully, as though from a rather
+unsatisfactory 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 outrage
+people's dearest feelings for nothing. The scandal and misery of it! Of
+course we shall put it down--but the Church won't recover for a
+generation. And all that this handful of agitators may advertise
+themselves and their opinions!"
+
+Canon Dornal frowned and fidgeted.
+
+"We must remember," he said, "that--unfortunately--they have the greater
+part of European theology behind them."
+
+"European theology!" cried the Archdeacon. "I suppose you mean German
+theology?"
+
+"The same thing--almost," said the Canon, smiling a little sadly.
+
+"And what on earth does German theology matter to us?" retorted the
+Archdeacon. "Haven't we got theologians of our own? What have the Germans
+ever 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 have
+to give it up. I don't read German," said the Archdeacon, hastily, "but
+that's what I understand from the Church papers."
+
+Silence a moment. The Professor looked at the ceiling, a smile twitching
+the corners of his mouth. The green shade concealed the Dean's
+expression. He also knew no German, but it did not seem necessary to say
+so. Canon Dornal looked uncomfortable.
+
+"Do you see who it was that protected Darwen from the roughs outside his
+church?" he said presently.
+
+Brathay looked up.
+
+"A party of Wesleyans?--class-leaders? Yes, I saw. Oh! Darwen has always
+been on excellent terms with the Dissenters!"
+
+"Meynell too," said the Professor. "That of course is their game. Meynell
+has always gone for the inclusion of the Dissenters."
+
+"Well, it was Arnold's game!" said the Canon, his look kindling. "Don't
+let's forget that. Meynell's dream is not unlike his--to include
+everybody that would be included."
+
+"Except the Unitarians," said the Professor with emphasis--"the deniers
+of the Incarnation. Arnold drew the line there. So must we."
+
+He spoke with a crisp and smiling decision--as of one in authority. All
+kinds of assumptions lay behind his manner. Dornal looked at him with a
+rather troubled and hostile eye. This whole matter of the coming trial
+was to him deeply painful. He would have given anything to avoid it; but
+he did not see how it could be avoided. The extraordinary spread of the
+Movement indeed had made it impossible.
+
+At this moment one of the vergers of the Cathedral entered the room to
+say that Mr. Meynell was waiting below. The Dean directed that he should
+be shown up, and the whole commission dropped their conversational air
+and sat expectant.
+
+Meynell came in, rather hastily, brushing his hair back from his
+forehead. He shook hands with the Dean and the Archdeacon, and bowed
+to the other members of the commission. As he sat down, the Archdeacon,
+who was very sensitive to such things, and was himself a model of
+spick-and-span-ness, noticed that the Rector's coat was frayed, and one
+of the buttons loose. Anne indeed was not a very competent valet of her
+master; and nothing but a certain esthetic element in Meynell preserved
+him from a degree of personal untidiness which might perhaps have been
+excused in a man alternating, hour by hour, between his study-table and
+the humblest practical tasks among his people.
+
+[Illustration: "He shook hands with the Dean"]
+
+The other members of the commission observed him attentively. Perhaps all
+in their different ways and degrees were conscious of change in him: the
+change wrought insensibly in a man by some high pressure of emotion and
+responsibility--the change that makes a man a leader of his fellows,
+consecrates and sets him apart. Canon Dornal watched him with a secret
+sympathy and pity. The Archdeacon said to himself with repugnance that
+Meynell now had the look of a fanatic.
+
+The Dean took a volume from the pile beside him, and opened it at a
+marked page.
+
+"Before concluding our report to the Bishop, Mr. Meynell, we wished to
+have your explanation of an important passage in one of your recent
+sermons; and you have been kind enough to meet us with a view to giving
+us 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 marked
+sentences 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 of
+fact the continuous life of the spirit of Christ in mankind began with
+the death of Jesus of Nazareth. The Resurrection beliefs, so far as we
+can see, were the natural means by which that Life was secured."
+
+"Are we right in supposing, Mr. Meynell," said the Dean, slowly, "that in
+those sentences you meant to convey that the Resurrection narratives of
+the New Testament were not to be taken as historical fact, but merely as
+mythical--or legendary?"
+
+"The passage means, I think, what it says, Mr. Dean."
+
+"It is not, strictly speaking, logically incompatible," said the
+Professor, bending forward with a suave suggestiveness, "with acceptance
+of the statement in the Creed?"
+
+Meynell threw him a slightly perplexed look, and did not reply
+immediately. The Dean sharply interposed.
+
+"Do you in fact accept the statements of the Creed? In that case we might
+report to the Bishop that you felt you had been misinterpreted--and would
+withdraw the sermon complained of, in order to allay the scandal it has
+produced?"
+
+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 the
+speaker'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, must
+be 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 the
+statements in these volumes on this particular subject, much relief would
+be 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 teemed
+with heresy!
+
+But Meynell was for the moment only aware of his questioner. He leaned
+across the table as though addressing him alone.
+
+"To us too--the Resurrection is vital--the transposition of it, I
+mean--from the natural, or physical to the spiritual order."
+
+Dornal did not of course attempt to argue. But as Meynell met the
+sensitive melancholy of his look the Rector remembered that during the
+preceding year Dornal had lost a little son, a delicate, gifted child, to
+whom he had been peculiarly attached. And Meynell's quick imagination
+realized in a moment the haunted imagination of the other--the dear ghost
+that lived there--and the hopes that grouped themselves about it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A long wrestle followed between Meynell and the Professor. But Meynell
+could not be induced to soften or recant anything. He would often say
+indeed with an eager frown, when confronted with some statement of his
+own, "That was badly put! It should be so-and-so." And then would follow
+some vivid correction or expansion, which sometimes left the matter worse
+than before. The hopes of the Archdeacon, for one set of reasons, and of
+Dornal, for another, that some bridge of retreat might be provided by the
+interview, died away. The Dean had never hoped anything, and Mr. Brathay
+sat open-mouthed and aghast, while Meynell's voice and personality drove
+home 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 the
+whole critical onslaught--especially the German onslaught--was a beaten
+and discredited thing? It seemed to him terribly alive!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The library door opened again, and Meynell disappeared--ceremoniously
+escorted to the threshold by the Professor. When that gentleman was
+seated again, the Dean addressed the meeting.
+
+"A most unsatisfactory interview! There is nothing for it, I fear, but to
+send in our report unaltered to the Bishop. I must therefore ask you to
+append your signatures."
+
+All signed, and the meeting broke up.
+
+"Do you know at all when the case is likely to come on?" said Dornal to
+the Dean.
+
+"Hardly before November. The Letters of Request are ready. Then after the
+Arches will come the appeal to the Privy Council. The whole thing may
+take some time."
+
+"You see the wild talk in some of the papers this morning," said the
+Professor, interposing, "about a national appeal to Parliament to 'bring
+the Articles of the Church of England into accordance with modern
+knowledge.' If there is any truth in it, there may be an Armageddon
+before us."
+
+Dornal looked at him with distaste. The speaker's light tone, the note of
+relish in it, as of one delighting in the drama of life, revolted him.
+
+On coming out of the Cathedral Library, Dornal walked across to the
+Cathedral and entered. He found his way to a little chapel of St. Oswald
+on the north side, where he was often wont to sit or kneel for ten
+minutes' quiet in a busy day. As he passed the north transept he saw
+a figure sitting motionless in the shadow, and realized that it was
+Meynell.
+
+The silence of the great Cathedral closed round him. He was conscious of
+nothing but his own personality, and, as it seemed, of Meynell's. They
+two seemed to be alone together in a world outside the living world.
+Dornal could not define it, save that it was a world of reconciled
+enmities and contradictions. The sense of it alternated with a
+disagreeable recollection of the table in the Library and the men sitting
+round it, especially the cherubic face of the Professor; the thought also
+of the long, signed document which reported the "heresy" of Meynell.
+
+He had been quite right to sign it. His soul went out in a passionate
+adhesion to the beliefs on which his own life was built. Yet still the
+strange reconciling sense flowed in and round him, like the washing of a
+pure stream. He was certain that the Eternal Word had been made flesh in
+Jesus of Nazareth, had died and risen, and been exalted; that the Church
+was now the mysterious channel of His risen life. He must, in mere
+obedience and loyalty, do battle for that certainty--guard it as the
+most precious thing in life for those that should come after.
+Nevertheless he was conscious that there was in him none of the righteous
+anger, none of the moral condemnation, that his father or grandfather
+might have felt in the same case. As far as _feeling_ went, nothing
+divided him from Meynell. They two across the commission table--as
+accuser and accused--had recognized, each in the other, the man of faith.
+The same forces played on both, mysteriously linking them, as the same
+sea links the headland which throws back its waves with the harbour which
+receives 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 and
+excitement of the preceding weeks, and these moments of rest in the
+Cathedral were sometimes all that enabled him to go through his day. He
+endeavoured often at such times to keep his mind merely vacant and
+passive, avoiding especially the active religious thoughts which were
+more than brain and heart could continuously bear. "One cannot always
+think of it--one must not!" he would say to himself impatiently. And then
+he would offer himself eagerly to the mere sensuous impressions of the
+Cathedral--its beauty, its cool prismatic spaces, its silences.
+
+He did so to-day, though always conscious beyond the beauty, and the
+healing quiet, of the mysterious presence on which he "propped his
+soul."...
+
+Conscious, too, of a dear human presence, closely interwoven now with his
+sense of things ineffable.
+
+Latterly, as we have seen, he had not been without some scanty
+opportunities 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 the
+village, Mrs. Flaxman was beginning to give him generous help; the parish
+nurse was started. And sometimes when she came to consult, her niece was
+with her, and Meynell, while talking to the aunt either of his people or
+of the progress of the heresy campaign, was always keenly aware of the
+girlish figure beside her--of the quick, shy smile--the voice and its
+tones.
+
+She was with him in spirit--that he knew--passionately knew. But the
+barriers between them were surely insurmountable. Her sympathy with him
+was like some warm, stifled thing--some chafing bird "beating up against
+the wind."
+
+For a time, indeed, he had tried to put love from him, in the name of his
+high enterprise and its claims upon him. But as he sat tranced in the
+silence of the Cathedral that attempt finally gave way. His longing was
+hopeless, but it enriched his life. For it was fused with all that held
+him to his task; all that was divinest and sincerest in himself.
+
+One of the great bells of the Cathedral struck the quarter. His moment of
+communion and of rest broke up. He rose abruptly and left the Cathedral
+for the crowded streets outside, thinking hard as he walked of quite
+other things.
+
+The death of Mrs. Sabin in her son's cottage had been to Meynell like a
+stone flung into some deep shadowed pool--the ripples from it had been
+spreading 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 of
+the Rector within a few hours of its occurrence. His mother had returned
+home, he said, unexpectedly, after many years of wanderings in the
+States; he had not had very much conversation with her, as she had seemed
+ill and tired and "terrible queer" when she arrived. He and his boys had
+given up their room to her for the night, and she had been very late in
+coming 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 and
+unable to talk to him. She would not allow him to call any doctor, and
+had locked herself in her room. In the morning he had forced the door and
+had found her dead. He did not know that she had seen anybody but himself
+and his boys since her arrival.
+
+But she had seen some one else. As the Rector walked along the street he
+had in his pocket a cutting from the Markborough _Post_, containing the
+report of the inquest, from which it appeared--the Rector of course was
+well aware of it--that Mr. Henry Barron of the White House, going to the
+cottage to complain of the conduct of the children in the plantation, had
+found her there, and had talked to her for some time. "I thought her
+excited--and overtired--no doubt by the journey," he had said to the
+Coroner. "I tried to persuade her to let me send in a woman to look after
+her, but she refused."
+
+In Barron's evidence at the inquest, to which Meynell had given close
+attention, there had been no hint whatever as to the nature of his
+conversation with Mrs. Sabin. Nor had there been any need to inquire. The
+medical evidence was quite clear as to the cause of death--advanced brain
+disease, fatally aggravated by the journey.
+
+Immediately after his interview with John Broad the Rector had
+communicated the news of Mrs. Sabin's unexpected arrival and sudden death
+to two other persons in the village. He still thought with infinite
+concern of the effect it had produced on one of them. Since his hurried
+note telling her of Barron's evidence before the Coroner, and of his own
+impressions of it, he had not seen her. But he must not leave her too
+much to herself. A patient and tender pity, as of one on whom the burden
+of a struggling and suffering soul has long been thrown, dictated all his
+thoughts of her. He had himself perceived nothing which need alarm her in
+Barron's appearance at the inquest. Barron's manner to himself had been
+singularly abrupt and cold when they happened to run across each other,
+outside the room in which the inquest was held; but all that was
+sufficiently explained by the position of the heresy suit.
+
+Still anxiously pondering, Meynell passed the last houses in the
+Cathedral Close. The last of all belonged to Canon France, and Meynell
+had no sooner left it behind him than a full and portly figure emerged
+from its front door.
+
+Barron--for it was he--stood a moment looking after the retreating
+Rector. A hunter's eagerness gave sharpening, a grim sharpening, to the
+heavy face; yet there was perplexity mixed with the eagerness. His
+conversation with France had not been very helpful. The Canon's worldly
+wisdom and shrewd contempt for enthusiasts had found their natural food
+in the story which Barron had brought him. His comments had been witty
+and pungent enough. But when it had come to the practical use of the
+story, France had been of little assistance. His advice inclined too much
+to the Melbourne formula--"Can't you let it alone?" He had pointed out
+the risks, difficulties, and uncertainties of the matter with quite
+unnecessary iteration. Of course there were risks and difficulties; but
+was a man of the type of Richard Meynell to be allowed to play the
+hypocrite, as the rapidly emerging leader of a religious movement--a
+movement directed against the unity and apostolicity of the English
+Church--when there were those looking on who were aware of the grave
+suspicions resting on his private life and past history?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+On the same afternoon which saw the last meeting of the Commission of
+Inquiry at Markborough, the windows of Miss Puttenham's cottage in Upcote
+Minor were open to the garden, and the sun stealing into the half
+darkened drawing-room touched all the many signs it contained of a
+woman's refinement and woman's tastes. The room was a little austere. Not
+many books, but those clearly the friends and not the passing
+acquaintance of its mistress; not many pictures, and those rather slight
+suggestions on the dim blue walls than finished performances; a few
+"notes" in colour, or black and white, chosen from one or other of those
+moderns who can in a sensitive line or two convey the beauty or the
+harshness of nature. Over the mantelpiece there was a pencil drawing by
+Domenichino, of the Madonna and Child; a certain ecstatic languor in the
+Madonna, and, in all the lines of form and drapery, an exquisite flow and
+roundness.
+
+The little maidservant brought in the afternoon letters and with them a
+folded newspaper--the Markborough _Post_. A close observer might have
+detected that it had been already opened, and hurriedly refolded in the
+old folds. There was much interest felt in Upcote Minor in the inquest
+held on John Broad's mother; and the kitchen had taken toll before the
+paper reached the drawing-room.
+
+As though the maid's movement downstairs had been immediately perceived
+by a listening ear overhead, there was a quick sound of footsteps. Miss
+Puttenham ran downstairs, took the letters and the newspaper from the
+hands of the girl, and closed the door behind her.
+
+She opened the paper with eagerness, and read the account it gave of the
+Coroner's inquiry held at the Cowroast a week before. The newspaper
+dropped to the ground. She stood a moment, leaning against the
+mantelpiece, every feature in her face expressing the concentration of
+thought which held her; then she dropped into a chair, and raising her
+two hands to her eyes, she pressed the shut lids close, lifting her face
+as though to some unseen misery, while a little sound--infinitely
+piteous--escaped her.
+
+She saw a bedroom in a foreign inn--a vague form in the bed--a woman
+moving about in nurse's dress, the same woman who had just died in John
+Broad's cottage--and her sister Edith sitting by the fire. The door
+leading to the passage is ajar, and she is watching.... Or is it the
+figure 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, movement
+and life, like a rush of mountain air, come into the ugly shaded room. He
+is tall, with a long face, refined and yet violent, instinct with the
+character 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 a
+sound of bitter sobbing, of low words--
+
+Alice Puttenham's hands dropped from her face--and lay outstretched upon
+her 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 beauty
+at thirty-seven than she had been at twenty. And yet from childhood her
+face had been a winning one--with its childish upper lip and its thin
+oval, its delicate brunette colour, and the lovely clearness of its brown
+eyes. In youth its timid sweetness had been constantly touched with
+laughter. Now it shrank from you and appealed to you in one. But the
+departure of youth had but emphasized a certain distinction, a certain
+quality. Laughter was gone, but grace and character remained, imprinted
+also on the fragile body, the beautiful arms and hands. The only marring
+of the general impression came from an effect of restlessness and
+constraint. To live with Alice Puttenham was to conceive her as a
+creature subtly ill at ease, doing her best with a life which was, in
+some hidden way, injured at the core.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She thought herself quite alone this quiet afternoon, and likely to
+remain so. Hester, who had been lunching with her, had gone shopping into
+Markborough with the schoolroom maid, and was afterward to meet Sarah and
+Lulu at a garden party in the Cathedral Close. Lady Fox-Wilton had just
+left her sister's house after a long, querulous, excited visit, the
+latest 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 the
+event had reopened all the old wounds in Edith's mind, revived all the
+old grievances and terrors. Strange that a woman should be capable of one
+supreme act of help and devotion, and should then spend her whole after
+life in resenting it!
+
+"It was you and your story--that shocking thing we had to do for
+you--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'll
+be the good of all we've suffered!"
+
+That was Edith's attitude--the attitude of a small, vindictive soul. It
+never varied year by year; it showed itself both in trifles and on great
+occasions; it hindered all sisterly affection; and it was the explanation
+of her conduct toward Hester--it had indeed made Hester what she was.
+
+Again the same low sound of helpless pain broke from Alice Puttenham's
+lips. The sense of her unloved, solitary state, of all that she had borne
+and must still bear, roused in her anew a flame of memory. Torch-like it
+ran through the past, till she was shaken with anguish and revolt. She
+had 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 the
+present, that she had once had a man at her feet who had been the desired
+and adored of his day; that she had breathed her heart out in the passion
+of youth on his breast; that although he had wronged her, he had suffered
+because of her, had broken his heart for her, and had probably died
+because circumstances denied him the power to save and restore her, and
+he was not of the kind that bears patiently either thwarting from without
+or reproach from within.
+
+For his selfish passion, his weakness and his suffering, and her own
+woman's power to make him suffer; for his death, no less selfish indeed
+than his passion, for it had taken from her the community of the same
+air, and the same earth with him, the sense that somewhere in the world
+his warm life beat with hers, though they might be separated in bodily
+presence forever--for each and all of these things she had loved him. And
+there were still times when, in spite of the years that had passed away,
+and of other and perhaps profounder feelings that had supervened, she
+felt within her again the wild call of her early love, responding to it
+like an unhappy child, in vain appeal against her solitude, her sister's
+unkindness, and the pressure of irrevocable and unforgotten facts.
+
+Suddenly, she turned toward a tall and narrow chest of drawers that stood
+at her left hand. She chose a key from her watch-chain, a small gold key
+that in their childhood had been generally mistaken by her nieces and
+nephews 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. Her
+hand slipped in; she threw a hasty look round her, at the window, the
+garden. Not a sound of anything but the evening wind, which had just
+risen, and was making a smart rustling among the shrubs just outside. Her
+hand, a white, furtive thing, withdrew itself, and in it lay a packet,
+wrapped in some faded, green velvet. Hurriedly--with yet more pauses to
+listen and to look--the wrapping was undone; the case within fell open.
+
+It contained a miniature portrait of a man--French work, by an excellent
+pupil of Meissonier. The detail of it was marvellous; so, in Alice
+Puttenham's view, was the likeness. She remembered when and how it had
+been commissioned--the artist, and his bare studio in a street on the
+island, near Notre Dame; the chestnuts in the Luxembourg garden as
+they walked home; the dust of the falling blossoms, and the children
+playing in the alleys. And through it all, what passionate, guilty
+happiness--what dull sense of things irreparable!--what deliberate
+shutting 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, Rene-like charm. "Rene" had been
+her laughing name for him--her handsome, melancholy, eloquent _poseur!_
+Like many of his family, he was proud of his French culture, his French
+accent, and his knowledge of French books. The tradition that came
+originally from a French marriage had been kept up from father to son.
+They were not a learned or an industrious race, but their tongue soon
+caught the accent of the boulevards--of the Paris they loved and
+frequented. Her hand lifted the miniature the better to catch the
+slanting light.
+
+As she did so she was freshly struck with a resemblance she had long
+ceased to be conscious of. Familiarity with a living face, as so often
+happens, had destroyed for her its likeness--likeness in difference--to a
+face 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 in
+blue enamel--
+
+"_A ma mie!_"
+
+But before she could see it she must with her cold, quick fingers remove
+the fragment of stained paper that lay upon it like a veil. The half of a
+page of Moliere--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--but
+clingingly, as though it represented her only wealth, amid so much
+poverty. Then her hand, holding it, dropped to her knee again; the other
+hand came to close over it; and her eyes shut. Tears came slowly through
+the lashes.
+
+Amazing!--that that woman should have come back--and died--within a few
+hundred yards, and she, Alice, know nothing! In spite of all Richard's
+persuasions she tortured herself anew with the thought of the interview
+between Judith and Mr. Barron. What could they have talked about--so
+long? Judith was always an excitable, hot-tempered creature. Her silence
+had been heavily and efficiently bought for fifteen years. Then steps
+had been taken--insisted upon--by Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton. His wife and his
+sister-in-law had opposed him in vain. And Ralph had after all triumphed
+in Judith's apparent acquiescence.
+
+Supposing she had now come home, perhaps on a sudden impulse, with a view
+to further blackmail, would not her wisest move be to risk some
+indiscretion, some partial disclosure, so that her renewed silence
+afterward might have the higher price? An hour's _tete-a-tete_ with
+that shrewd, hard-souled man, Henry Barron! Alice Puttenham guessed that
+her own long-established dislike of him as acquaintance and neighbour was
+probably returned with interest; that he classed her now as one of
+"Meynell's lot," and would be only too glad to find himself possessed of
+any secret information that might, through her, annoy and harass Richard
+Meynell, her friend and counsellor.
+
+Was it conceivable that nothing should have been said in that lengthy
+interview as to the causes for Judith's coming home?--or of the reasons
+for her original departure? What else could have accounted for so
+prolonged a conversation between two persons, so different in social
+grade, and absolute strangers to each other?
+
+Richard had told her, indeed, and she saw from the _Post_, that at the
+inquest Barron had apparently accounted for the conversation. "She gave
+me a curious history of her life in the States. I was interested by her
+strange personality--and touched by her physical condition."
+
+Richard was convinced that there was no reasonable cause for alarm. But
+Richard 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, not
+from the springs of the past, but from the deepest sources of the
+present.
+
+_Richard!_
+
+That little villa on the Cap Martin--the steep pathway to it--and Richard
+mounting it, with that pale look, those tattered, sea-stained leaves in
+his hand--and the tragedy that had to be told, in his eyes, and on his
+lips. Could any other human being have upheld her as he did through that
+first year--through the years after? Was it not to him that she owed
+everything that had been recovered from the wreck; the independence and
+freedom of her daily life; protection from her hard brother-in-law, and
+from her sister's reproaches; occupation--hope--the gradual healing of
+intolerable wounds--the gradual awakening of a spiritual being?
+
+Thus--after passion--she had known friendship; its tenderness, its
+disinterested affection and care.
+
+_Tenderness?_ Her hand dashed away some more impetuous tears, then locked
+itself in the other, the tension of the muscles answering to the inward
+effort for self-control. Thank God, she had never asked him for more; had
+often seemed indeed to ask him for much less; had made herself
+irresponsive, difficult, remote. At least she had never lost her dignity
+in his eyes--(ah! in whose eyes but his had she ever possessed it?)--she
+had never forfeited--never risked even--her sacred place in his life, as
+the soul he had helped through dark places, true servant as he was of the
+Master of Pity.
+
+The alarms of the week died away, as this emotion gained upon her. She
+bethought her of certain central and critical years, when, after long
+dependence on him as comrade and friend, suddenly, she knew not how, her
+own pulse had quickened, and the sharpest struggle of her life had come
+upon her. It was the crisis of the mature woman, as compared with that of
+the innocent and ignorant girl; and in the silent mastering of it she
+seemed to have parted with her youth.
+
+But she had never parted with self-control and self-respect. She had
+never persuaded herself that the false was true. She had kept her
+counsel, and her sanity, and the wage of it had not been denied her. She
+had emerged more worthy of his friendship, more capable of rewarding it.
+
+Yes, but with a clear and sad perception of the necessities laid upon
+her--of the sacrifices involved.
+
+He believed her--she knew it--indifferent to the great cause of religious
+change and reform which he had at heart. In these matters, indeed, she
+had quietly, unwaveringly held aloof. There are efforts and endurances
+that can only be maintained--up to a point. Beyond that point resistance
+breaks. The life that is fighting emotion must not run too many risks of
+emotion. At the root of half the religious movements of the world lies
+the appeal of the preacher and the prophet--to women. Because women are
+the creatures and channels of feeling; and feeling is to religion as air
+to life.
+
+But _she_--must starve feeling--not feed and cherish it. Richard's voice
+was too powerful with her already. To hear it dealing with the most
+intimate and touching things of the soul would have tested the resistance
+of her will too sorely. Courage and honour alike told her that she would
+be defeated and undone did she attempt to meet and follow him--openly--in
+the paths of religion. _Entbehren sollst du_--_sollst entbehren!_
+
+So, long before this date, she had chosen her line of action. She took no
+part in the movement, and she rarely set foot in the village church,
+which was close to her gates. Meynell sadly believed her unshakeable--one
+of the natural agnostics or pessimists of the world who cannot be
+comforted through religion.
+
+And meanwhile secretly, ardently, she tracked all the footsteps of his
+thoughts, reading what he read, thinking as far as possible what he
+thought, and revealing nothing.
+
+Except that, lately, she had been indiscreet sometimes in talk with Mary
+Elsmere. Mary had divined her--had expressed her astonishment that her
+friend should declare herself and her sympathies so little; and Alice had
+set up some sort of halting explanation.
+
+But in this nascent friendship it was not Mary alone who had made
+discoveries....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Alice Puttenham sat very still, in the quiet shadowy room, her eyes
+closed, her hands crossed over the miniature, the Markborough paper lying
+on the floor beside her. As the first activity of memory, stirred and
+goaded by an untoward event, lost its poignancy; as she tried in
+obedience 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 never
+absent from Alice Puttenham's consciousness. One face, one problem, more
+or less acutely realized, haunted her life continuously. But this
+afternoon they had, for the moment, receded into the background. Hester
+had been, surely, more reasonable, more affectionate lately. Philip
+Meryon had now left Sandford; a statement to that effect had appeared in
+the _Post_; and Hester had even shown some kindness to poor Stephen. She
+had at last declared her willingness to go to Paris, and the arrangements
+were all made. The crisis in her of angry revolt, provoked apparently by
+the refusal of her guardian to allow her engagement to Stephen, seemed to
+be over.
+
+So that for once Alice Puttenham was free to think and feel for her own
+life and what concerned it. From the events connected with Judith Sabin's
+death--through the long history of Meynell's goodness to her--the mind
+of this lonely woman travelled on, to be filled and arrested by the
+great new fact of the present. She had made a new friend. And at the
+same moment she had found in her--at last--the rival with whom her
+own knowledge of life had threatened her these many years. A rival so
+sweet--so unwitting! Alice had read her. She had scarcely yet read
+herself.
+
+Alice opened her eyes--to the quiet room, and the windy sky
+outside. She was very pale, but there were no tears. "It is not
+renouncing"--she whispered to herself--"for I never possessed. It
+is accepting--loving--giving--all one has to give."
+
+And vaguely there ran through her mind immortal words--"_good
+measure--pressed down, and running over_."
+
+A smile trembled on her lip. She closed her eyes again, lost in one of
+those spiritual passions accessible only to those who know the play and
+heat of the spiritual war. The wind was blowing briskly outside, and from
+the wood-shed in the back garden came a sound of sawing. Miss Puttenham
+did not hear a footstep approaching on the grass outside.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hester paused at the window--smiling. There was wildness--triumph--in her
+look, as though for her this quiet afternoon had seen some undisclosed
+adventure. Her cheek was hotly flushed, her loosened hair made a glory in
+the evening sun. Youth, selfishly pitiless--youth, the supplanter and
+destroyer--stood embodied in the beautiful creature looking down upon
+Alice Puttenham, on the still intensity of the plaintive face, the closed
+eyes, the hands holding the miniature.
+
+Mischievously the girl came closer. She took the stillness before her for
+sleep.
+
+"Auntie! Aunt Alsie!"
+
+With a start, Alice Puttenham sprang up. The miniature dropped from
+her hands to the floor, opening as it fell. Hester looked at it
+astonished--and her hand stooped for it before Miss Puttenham had
+perceived her loss.
+
+"Were you asleep, Aunt Alsie?" she asked, wondering. "I got tired of
+that stupid party--and I--well, I just slipped away"--the clear high
+voice had grown conscious--"and I looked in here, because I left a book
+behind 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 returned
+it. In the act she caught the inscription and her face kindled.
+
+Impetuously throwing herself down beside Miss Puttenham, the girl looked
+up 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, "though
+you 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 your
+things by heart--and now you've been keeping something from me!" The
+girl's tone had changed to one of curious resentment. "You know how you
+scold _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 her
+knee, prevented it.
+
+"Why is it different?" she said, audaciously. "You always say
+you--you--want to be everything to me--and then you hide things from
+me--and I--"
+
+She raised herself, sitting upright on the floor, her hands round her
+knees, 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_ care
+about are the people who _live_--and feel--and do things! There's verse
+in one of your books"--she pointed to a little bookshelf of poets on a
+table 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 loathe
+all the humdrum _bourgeois_ talk--'don't do this--don't do that!' Aunt
+Alsie, there's a German line, too, you know it--' _Was uns alle baendigt,
+das Gemeine'_--don't you hate it too--_das Gemeine?_" the word came
+with vehemence through the white teeth. "And how can we escape it--we
+women--except through freedom--through asserting ourselves--through love,
+of course? It all comes to love!--love that mamma says one ought not to
+talk about. I wouldn't talk about it, if it only meant what it means to
+Sarah and Lulu--I'd scorn to!"
+
+She stopped--and looked with her blazing and wonderful eyes at her
+companion--her lips parted. Then she suddenly stooped and kissed the cold
+hand trying to withdraw itself from hers.
+
+"Who was he, dear?"--she laid the hand caressingly against her
+cheek--"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 any
+one--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 overtired
+this morning."
+
+And she went feebly toward the door.
+
+Hester looked after her, panting and wounded. Aunt Alsie repel--refuse
+her!--Aunt Alsie!--who had always been her special possession and
+chattel. 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, at
+least, never failed. Hester's clothes were Miss Puttenham's special care;
+it was for Hester that she stitched and embroidered. Hester was to
+inherit her jewels and her money. In all Hester's scrapes it was Aunt
+Alice who stood by her, who had often carried her off bodily out of reach
+of 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, had
+never been specially grateful, or much more amenable to counsels from
+Aunt Alice than from anybody else. The slender, graceful woman, so
+gentle, plaintive and reserved, so easily tyrannized over, had never
+seemed to mean much to her. Yet now, as she stood looking at the door
+through which Miss Puttenham had disappeared, the girl was conscious of a
+profound 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 the
+window and down the steps into the garden.
+
+"If she had told me"--she said to herself, with the childish fury that
+mingled 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 face
+pressed 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 much
+less food than usual, with--all the while--the pressure of a vague
+corrosive terror on nerve and brain. The shock of that miniature in
+Hester's hands had just turned the scale; endurance had given way.
+
+The quick footsteps receded. Yet she could do nothing to arrest them. Her
+mind floated in darkness.
+
+Presently out of the darkness emerged a sound, a touch--a warm hand on
+hers.
+
+"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 not
+hear. 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 to
+lavish on a sufferer. Gradually Alice mastered herself, but more than a
+broken 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 been
+weighing 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. The
+servant whispered, and she returned at once.
+
+"Mr. Meynell is here," she said, hesitating. "You will let me send him
+away?"
+
+Alice Puttenham opened her eyes.
+
+"I can't see him. But please--give him some tea. He'll have walked--from
+Markborough."
+
+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's
+nothing"--she raised herself in the chair--"only bad nights! I'll go to
+bed--that'll be best. Go down--give him tea. And Mrs. Flaxman's going
+with you?"
+
+"No. Mother said she wished to go," said Mary, slowly. "She and I were to
+meet 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 the
+meeting. I--I want you to be there. Good night."
+
+And she gently pushed the girl from her, putting up her pale lips to be
+kissed, and asking that the little parlour-maid should be sent to help
+her undress.
+
+Mary went unwillingly. She gave Miss Puttenham's message to the maid, and
+when the girl had gone up to her mistress she lingered a moment at the
+foot of the stairs, her hands lightly clasped on her breast, as though to
+quiet the stir within.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meynell, expecting to see the lady of the house, could not restrain the
+start of surprise and joy with which he turned toward the incomer. He
+took her hand in his--pressing it involuntarily. But it slipped away, and
+Mary explained with her soft composure why she was there alone--that Miss
+Puttenham was suffering from a succession of bad nights and was keeping
+her room--that she sent word the Rector must please rest a little before
+going home, and allow Mary to give him tea.
+
+Meynell sank obediently into a chair by the open window, and Mary
+ministered to him. The lines of his strong worn face relaxed. His look
+returned to her again and again, wistfully, involuntarily; yet not so as
+to cause her embarrassment.
+
+She was dressed in some thin gray stuff that singularly became her; and
+with the gray dress she wore a collar or ruffle of soft white that gave
+it a slight ascetic touch. But the tumbling red-gold of the hair, the
+frank dignity of expression, belonged to no mere cloistered maid.
+
+Meynell heard the news of Miss Puttenham's collapse with a sigh--checked
+at 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 the
+cottage during the preceding week.
+
+Mary reported that she had been in and out as usual, and seemed
+reconciled to the prospect of Paris.
+
+"Are you--is Miss Puttenham sure that she hasn't still been meeting that
+man?"
+
+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 I
+could--but at this time--what use am I?"
+
+The Rector threw himself back wearily in his chair, his hands behind his
+head. Mary was conscious of some deep throb of feeling that must not come
+to words. Even since she had known it the face had grown older--the
+lines deeper--the eyes finer. She stooped forward a little.
+
+"It is hard that you should have this anxiety too. Oh! but I _hope_ there
+is no need!"
+
+He raised himself again with energy.
+
+"There is always need with Hester. Oh! don't suppose I have forgotten
+her! I have written to that fellow, my cousin. I went, indeed, to see him
+the day before yesterday, but the servants at Sandford declared he had
+gone to town, and they were packing up to follow. Lady Fox-Wilton and
+Miss 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 is
+quite kind to me--she tells me when she thinks my frock is hideous--or
+my 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 the
+sofa-cushion."
+
+Meynell shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"She has no bump of respect--never had!" and he began to give a half
+humorous account of the troubles and storms of Hester's bringing up. "I
+often ask myself whether we haven't all--whether I, in particular,
+haven't been a first-class bungler and blundered all through with regard
+to Hester. Did we choose the wrong governesses? They seemed most
+estimable people. Did we thwart her unnecessarily? I can't remember a
+time 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. "But
+he was kind to her--according to his lights; and--he said some very sound
+and 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 upon
+me--just now."
+
+"Just now?"
+
+"Here am I preaching to others," he said slowly, "leading what people
+call a religious movement, and this homely elementary task seems to be
+all going wrong. I don't seem to be able to protect this child confided
+to me."
+
+"Oh, but you will protect her!" cried Mary, "you will! She mayn't seem to
+give way--when you talk to her; but she has said things to me--to my
+mother 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--how
+you've cared for her," said Mary, stammering a little.
+
+"I have done nothing but my plainest, simplest duty. I have made
+innumerable mistakes; and if I fail with her, it's quite clear that I'm
+not fit to teach or lead anybody."
+
+The words were spoken with an impatient emphasis to which Mary did not
+venture a reply. But she could not restrain an expression in her gray
+eyes which was a balm to the harassed combatant beside her.
+
+They said no more of Hester. And presently Mary's hunger for news of
+the Reform Movement could not be hid. It was clear she had been reading
+everything she could on the subject, and feeding upon it in a loneliness,
+and under a constraint, which touched Meynell profoundly. The conflict
+in her between a spiritual heredity--the heredity of her father's
+message--and her tender love for her mother had never been so plain to
+him. Yet he could not feel that he was abetting any disloyalty in
+allowing the conversation. She was mature. Her mind had its own rights!
+
+Mary indeed, unknown to him, was thrilling under a strange and secret
+sense 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, her
+sympathy, 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 the
+campaign; its astonishing developments; the kindling on all sides of the
+dry bones of English religion.
+
+The new--or re-written--Liturgy of the Reform was, it seemed, almost
+completed. From all parts: from the Universities, from cathedral
+cloisters, from quiet country parishes, from the clash of life in the
+great towns, men had emerged as though by magic to bring to the making of
+it their learning and their piety, the stored passion of their hearts.
+And the mere common impulse, the mere release of thoughts and aspirations
+so long repressed, had brought about an extraordinary harmony, a
+victorious selflessness, among the members of the commission charged with
+the task. The work had gone with rapidity, yet with sureness, as in those
+early years of Christianity, which saw so rich and marvellous an upgrowth
+from the old soil of humanity. With surprising ease and spontaneity the
+old had passed over into the new; just as in the first hundred years
+after Christ's death the psalms and hymns and spiritual songs of the
+later Judaism had become, with but slight change, the psalms and hymns of
+Christianity; and a new sacred literature had flowered on the stock of
+the old.
+
+"To-night--here!--we submit the new marriage service and the new burial
+service to the Church Council. And the same thing will be happening, at
+the same moment, in all the churches of the Reform--scattered through
+England."
+
+"How many churches now?" she asked, with a quickened breath.
+
+"Eighteen in July--this week, over a hundred. But before our cases come
+on for trial there will be many more. Every day new congregations come in
+from new dioceses. The beacon fire goes leaping on, from point to point!"
+
+But the emotion which the phrase betrayed was instantly replaced by the
+business tone of the organizer as he went on to describe some of the
+practical developments of the preceding weeks: the founding of a
+newspaper; the collection of propagandist funds; the enrolment of
+teachers 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 hoped
+to see the spread of such a force in the dusty modern world! You remember
+the fairy story of the prince whose heart was bound with iron bands--and
+how one by one, the bands give way? I have seen it like that--in life
+after life."
+
+"And the fighting?"
+
+She had propped her face on her hands, and her eyes, with their eager
+sympathy, their changing lights, rained influence on the man beside her;
+an influence insensibly mingling with and colouring the passion for ideas
+which 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 to
+feel 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 shut
+out, 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 it
+natural you should miscalculate the forces against you? Oh! they are so
+strong! 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 you
+are right. Now let me tell you what the other side are doing. That
+chastens one! There is a conference of Bishops next week; there was one
+a week ago. These are of course thundering resolutions in Convocation.
+The English Church Union has an Albert Hall meeting; it will be
+magnificent. A 'League of the Trinity' has started against us, and will
+soon be campaigning all over England. The orthodox newspapers are all in
+full cry. Meanwhile the Bishops are only waiting for the decision of my
+case--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 Privy
+Council. A hundred cases--that will take time! Meanwhile--from us--a
+monster petition--first to the Bishops for the assembling of a full
+Council of the English Church, then to Parliament for radical changes in
+the 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 the
+conflict before him.
+
+"That," he said quietly, "is nothing to us. We are but soldiers under
+command."
+
+He rose; and, suddenly, she realized with a fluttering heart how empty
+that 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 Council
+consists 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. They
+are my spiritual brothers, or sons--picked men--the leaders of their
+fellows--far better Christians than I. I wish you could see them--and
+hear 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 an
+instant, and then said with gentle emphasis:
+
+"I don' think there will be anything to wound her. At any rate, there
+will 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 be
+going 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 the
+Lakes, in Long Whindale. We came here because mother was ill--and Aunt
+Rose begged us. But--"
+
+"Do you know"--he interrupted her impetuously--"that for six months I've
+had a hunger for just one fortnight up there among the fells?"
+
+"You love them?" Her face bloomed with pleasure. "You know the dear
+mountains?"
+
+He smiled.
+
+"It doesn't do to think of them, does it? You should see the letters on
+my table! But I may have to take a few days' rest, some time. Should I
+find you in Long Whindale--if I dropped down on you--over Goat Scar?"
+
+"Yes--from December till March!" Then she suddenly checked the happiness
+of 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 up
+round them in which every tone and movement had suddenly become
+magnified--significant.
+
+Meynell recovered himself. He held out his hand in farewell, but he had
+scarcely turned away from her, when she made a startled movement toward
+the open window.
+
+"What is that?"
+
+There was a sound of shouting and running in the street outside. A
+crowd seemed to be approaching. Meynell ran out into the garden to
+listen. By this time the noise had grown considerably, and he thought
+he distinguished his own name among the cries.
+
+"Something has happened at the colliery!" he said to Mary, who had
+followed him.
+
+And he hurried toward the gate, bareheaded, just as a gray-haired lady in
+black entered the garden.
+
+"Mother," cried Mary, in amazement.
+
+Catharine Elsmere paused--one moment; she looked from her daughter to
+Meynell. Then she hurried to the Rector.
+
+"You are wanted!" she said, struggling to get her breath. "A terrible
+thing has happened. They think four lives have been lost--some accident
+to the cage--and people blame the man in charge. They've got him shut up
+in the colliery office--and declare they'll kill him. The crowd looks
+dangerous--and there are very few police. I heard you were here--some
+one, the postman, saw you come in--you must stop it. The people will
+listen to you."
+
+Her fine, pale face, framed in her widow's veil, did not so much ask as
+command. He replied by a gesture--then by two or three rapid inquiries.
+Mary--bewildered--saw them for an instant as allies and equals, each
+recognizing the other. Then Meynell ran to the gate, and was at once
+swallowed up in the moving groups which had gathered there, and seemed to
+carry him back with them toward the colliery.
+
+Catharine Elsmere turned to follow--Mary at her side. Mary looked at her
+in 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 they
+hurried on; "their faces were like wild beasts. They have telephoned to
+Cradock for police. If Mr. Meynell can keep them in check for half an
+hour, there may be hope."
+
+They ran on, swept along by the fringe of the crowd till they reached the
+top of a gentle descent at the farther end of the village. At the bottom
+of this hill lay the colliery, with its two huge chimneys, its shed and
+engine houses, its winding machinery, and its heaps of refuse. Within the
+enclosure, from the height where they stood, could be seen a thin line of
+police surrounding a small shed--the pay-office. On the steps of it stood
+the manager, and the Rector, to be recognized by his long coat and his
+bare head, had just joined him. Opposite to the police, and separated
+from the shed by about ten yards and a wooden paling, was a threatening
+and vociferating mob, which stretched densely across the road and up the
+hill on either side; a mob largely composed of women--dishevelled,
+furious women--their white faces gleaming amid the coal-blackened forms
+of the miners.
+
+"They'll have 'im out," said a woman in front of Mary Elsmere. "Oh, my
+God!--they'll have 'im out! It was he caused the death of the boy--yo
+mind 'im--young Jimmy Ragg--a month sen; though the crowner's jury did
+let '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 the
+cage 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 yan
+goes down, as the other cooms up. An' there's catches as yo mun knock
+away to let 'un go down--an' this banksman--ee's a devil!--he niver so
+much as walked across to the other shaft to see--an' theer was the
+catches fast--an' instead o' goin' down, theer was the cage stuck, an'
+the rope uncoilin' itsel', and fallin' off the drum--an' foulin' the
+other rope--An' then all of a suddent, just as them poor fellows wor
+nearin' top--the drum began to work t'other way--run backards, you
+unnerstan?--an' the engineman lost 'is head an' niver thowt to put on
+t'breaks--an'--oh! Lord save us!--whether they was drownt at t'bottom
+i' the sump, or killt afore they got theer--theer's no one knows
+yet--They're getten of 'em up now."
+
+And as she spoke, a great shout which became a groan ran through the
+crowd. Men climbed up the railings at the side of the road that they
+might see better. Women stood on tiptoe. A confused clamour came from
+below, 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 the
+crowd made way. Up the hill they came, a great wail preceding and
+surrounding them; behind them the murmurs of an ungovernable indignation.
+
+As the procession neared them Mary saw a gray-haired woman throw up her
+arm, 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's
+juries?--Let's settle it oursel's!"
+
+Deep murmurs answered her.
+
+"And it's this same Jenkins," said another fierce voice, "as had a sight
+to 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't
+murder 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' if
+them 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 their
+heads, and the women wailing. In front came a piteous group--a young
+half-fainting wife, supported by an older woman, with children clinging
+to her skirts. Catharine went forward, and lifted a baby or two that was
+being dragged along the ground. Mary took up another child, and they both
+joined the procession.
+
+As they did so, there was a shout from below.
+
+Mary, white as her dress, asked an elderly miner beside her, who had
+shown no excitement whatever, to tell her what had happened. He clambered
+up on the bank to look and came back to her.
+
+"They've beaten 'un back, miss," he said in her ear. "They've got the
+surface men to help, and Muster Meynell he's doing his best; if there's
+anybody can hold 'em, he can; but there's terrible few on 'em. It is time
+as the Cradock men came up. They'll be trying fire before long, an' the
+women 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 memory
+of Meynell on the steps--speaking, gesticulating--and the surging crowd
+in front of him.
+
+There was that to do, however, which deadened fear. In the main street
+the procession was met by hurrying doctors and nurses. For those broken
+bodies indeed--young men in their prime--nothing could be done, save to
+straighten 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 no
+office and no sight, however terrible. But she would not permit them to
+Mary, and they were presently separated.
+
+Mary had a trio of sobbing children on her knee, in the living-room of
+one of the cottages, when there was a sudden tramp outside. Everybody in
+Miners' Row, including those who were laying out the dead, ran to the
+windows.
+
+"The police from Cradock!"--fifty of them.
+
+The news passed from mouth to mouth, and even those who had been maddest
+half an hour before felt the relief of it.
+
+Meanwhile detachments of shouting men and women ran clattering at
+intervals through the village streets. Sometimes stragglers from them
+would drop into the cottages alongside--and from their panting talk, what
+had happened below became roughly clear. The police had arrived only just
+in time. The small band defending the office was worn out, the Rector had
+been struck, palings torn down; in another half-hour the rioters would
+have set the place on fire and dragged out the man of whom they were in
+search.
+
+The narrator's story was broken by a howl--
+
+"Here he comes!" And once again, as though by a rush of muddy water, the
+street filled up, and a strong body of police came through it, escorting
+the banksman who had been the cause of the accident. A hatless, hunted
+creature, with white face and loosened limbs, he was hurried along by the
+police, amid a grim silence that had suddenly succeeded to the noise.
+
+Behind came a group of men, officials of the colliery, and to the right
+of them walked the Rector, bareheaded as before, a bandage on the left
+temple. His eyes ran along the cottages, and he presently perceived Mary
+Elsmere standing at an open door, with a child that had cried itself to
+sleep in her arms.
+
+Stepping out of the ranks, he approached her. The people made way for
+him, a few here and there with sullen faces, but in the main with a
+friendly and remorseful eagerness.
+
+"It's all over," he said in Mary's ear. "But it was touch and go. An
+unpopular man--suspected of telling union secrets to the masters last
+year. He was concerned in another accident to a boy--a month ago; they
+all think he was in fault, though the jury exonerated him. And now--a
+piece of abominable carelessness!--manslaughter at least. Oh! he'll catch
+it hot! But we weren't going to have him murdered on our hands. If he
+hadn't got safe into the office, the women alone would have thrown him
+down the shaft. By the way, are you learned in 'first aid'?"
+
+He pointed, smiling, to his temple, and she saw that the wound beneath
+the rough bandage was bleeding afresh.
+
+"It makes me feel a bit faint," he said with annoyance; "and there is so
+much to do!"
+
+"May I see to it?" said her mother's voice behind her. And Catharine, who
+had just descended from an upper room, went quickly to a nurse's wallet
+which had been left on a table in the kitchen, and took thence an
+antiseptic 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 ray
+of strange sweetness stole through the tragedy of the day.
+
+In a very few minutes Meynell rose. They were in the cottage of one of
+the victims. The dead lay overhead, and the cries of wife and mother
+could be heard through the thin flooring.
+
+"Don't go up again!" he said peremptorily to Catharine. "It is too much
+for you."
+
+She looked at him gently.
+
+"They asked me to come back again. It is not too much for me. Please let
+me."
+
+He gave way. Then, as he was following her upstairs, he turned to say to
+Mary:
+
+"Gather some of the people, if you can, outside. I want to give a notice
+when I come down."
+
+He mounted the ladder-stairs leading to the upper room. Violent sounds of
+wailing broke out overhead, and the murmur of his voice could be heard
+between.
+
+Mary quietly sent a few messengers into the street. Then she gathered
+up the sleeping child again in her arms, and sat waiting. In spirit she
+was in the room overhead. The thought of those two--her mother and
+Meynell--beside a bed of death together, pierced her heart.
+
+After what seemed to her an age, she heard her mother's step, and the
+Rector following. Catharine stood again beside her daughter, brushing
+away 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 has
+been 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 hurried
+out to speak to them.
+
+Meanwhile evening had fallen, a late September evening, shot with gold
+and purple. Behind the village the yellow stubbles stretched up to the
+edge of the Chase and drifts of bluish smoke from the colliery chimneys
+hung in the still air.
+
+Meynell, standing on the raised footpath above the crowd, gave notice
+that a special service of mourning would be held in the church that
+evening. The meeting of the Church Council would of course be postponed.
+
+During his few words Mary made her way to the farther edge of the
+gathering, looking over it toward the speaker. Behind him ran the row of
+cottages, and in the doorway opposite she saw her mother, with her arm
+tenderly folded round a sobbing girl, the sister of one of the dead. The
+sudden tranquillity, the sudden pause from tumult and anguish seemed to
+draw a "wind-warm space" round Mary, and she had time, for a moment, to
+think of herself and the strangeness of this tragic day.
+
+How amazing that her mother should be here at all. This meeting of the
+Reformers' League to which she had insisted on coming--as a spectator of
+course, and with the general public--what did it mean? Mary did not yet
+know, long as she had pondered it.
+
+How beautiful was the lined face!--so pale in the golden dusk, in its
+heavy frame of black. Mary could not take her eyes from it. It betrayed
+an 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 swiftest
+and purest; through all the tragedy and the horror some burden seemed to
+have dropped from Catharine's soul. She met her daughter's eyes, and
+smiled.
+
+When Meynell had finished, the crowd silently drifted away, and he
+came back to the Elsmeres. They noticed the village fly coming toward
+them--saw it stop in the roadway.
+
+"I sent for it," Meynell explained rapidly. "You mustn't let your mother
+do any more. Look at her! Please, will you both go to the Rectory? My
+cook will give you tea; I have let her know. Then the fly will take you
+home."
+
+They protested in vain--must indeed submit. Catharine flushed a little at
+being so commanded; but there was no help for it.
+
+"I _would_ like to come and show you my den!" said Meynell, as he put
+them 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 she
+was, she was accustomed to have her way.
+
+They drove into the dark shrubbery that lay between the Rectory and the
+road. At the door of the little house stood Anne in a white cap and clean
+apron. But the white cap sat rather wildly on its owner's head; nor would
+she take any interest in her visitors till she had got from them a fuller
+account of the tumult at the pit than had yet reached her, and assurances
+that Meynell's wound was but slight. But when these were given she
+pounced 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-table
+spread.
+
+She bustled away to bring the tea.
+
+Then exhaustion seized on Catharine. She submitted to be put on the sofa
+after it had been cleared of its pile of books; and Mary sat by her a
+while, holding her hands. Death and the agony of broken hearts
+overshadowed them.
+
+But then the dogs came in, discreet at first, and presently--at scent of
+currant cake--effusively friendly. Mary fed them all, and Catharine
+watched the colour coming back to her face, and the dumb sweetness in the
+gray eyes.
+
+Presently, while her mother still rested, Mary took courage to wander
+round the room, looking at the books, the photographs on the walls, the
+rack of pipes, the carpenter's bench, and the panels of half-finished
+carving. Timidly, yet eagerly, she breathed in the message it seemed
+to bring her from its owner--of strenuous and frugal life. Was that
+half-faded miniature of a soldier his father--and that sweet gray-haired
+woman his mother? Her heart thrilled to each discovery.
+
+Then Anne invaded them, for conversation, and while Catharine, unable to
+hide her fatigue, lay speechless, Anne chattered about her master. Her
+indignation was boundless that any hand could be lifted against him in
+his own parish. "Why he strips himself bare for them, he does!"
+
+And--with Mary unconsciously leading her--out came story after story, in
+the racy Mercian vernacular, illustrating a good man's life, and all
+
+His little nameless unremembered acts
+Of kindness and of love.
+
+As they drove slowly home through the sad village street they perceived
+Henry Barron calling at some of the stricken houses. The squire was
+always punctilious, and his condolences might be counted on. Beside him
+walked a young man with a jaunty step, a bored sallow face, and a long
+moustache which he constantly caressed. Mary supposed him to be the
+squire's second son, "Mr. Maurice," whom nobody liked.
+
+Then the church, looming through the dusk; lights shining through its
+fine perpendicular windows, and the sound of familiar hymns surging out
+into 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 thirsty
+spoke 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 the
+tragic tumult, the human action of the day; let well alone!
+
+And for the first time, as she sat in the darkness, holding her mother's
+hand, 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 that
+afternoon through the extremes of hate and sorrow unpacked their hearts
+in singing and prayer. The hymns rose and fell through the dim red
+sandstone church--symbol of the endless plaint of human life, forever
+clamouring in the ears of Time; and Meynell's address, as he stood on the
+chancel steps, almost among the people, the disfiguring strips of
+plaster on the temple and brow sharply evident between the curly black
+hair and the dark hollows of the eyes, sank deep into grief-stricken
+souls. It was the plain utterance of a man, with the prophetic gift,
+speaking to human beings to whom, through years of checkered life, he had
+given all that a man can give of service and of soul. He stood there as
+the living expression of their conscience, their better mind, conceived
+as the mysterious voice of a Divine power in man; and in the name of that
+Power, and its direct message to the human soul embodied in the tale we
+call Christianity, he bade them repent their bloodthirst, and hope in God
+for their dead. He spoke amid weeping; and from that night forward one
+might have thought his power unshakeable, at least among his own people.
+
+But there were persons in the church who remained untouched by it. In the
+left aisle Hester sat a little apart from her sisters, her hard, curious
+look ranging from the preacher through the crowded benches. She surveyed
+it all as a spectacle, half thrilled, half critical. And at the western
+end of the aisle the squire and his son stood during the greater part of
+the service, showing plainly by their motionless lips and folded arms
+that 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 was
+posted in Markborough, and duly delivered the following morning to an
+address in Upcote Minor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+"What on earth can Henry Barron desire a private interview with me
+about?" said Hugh Flaxman looking up from his letters, as he and
+his wife sat together after breakfast in Mrs. Flaxman's sitting-room.
+
+"I suppose he wants subscriptions for his heresy hunt? The Church party
+seem to be appealing for funds in most of the newspapers."
+
+"I should have thought he knew I am not prepared to support him," said
+Flaxman quietly.
+
+"Where are you, old man?" His wife laid a caressing hand on his
+shoulder--"I don't really quite know."
+
+Flaxman smiled at her.
+
+"You and I are not theologians, are we, darling?" He kissed the hand. "I
+don't find myself prepared to swear to Meynell's precise 'words' any more
+than I was to Robert's. But I am ready to fight to prevent his being
+driven 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 place
+in 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 asked
+to meet him. I really do not think you ought to have asked Meynell."
+
+"There we must agree to differ," said Rose firmly. "Social relations in
+this country must be maintained--in spite of politics--in spite of
+religion--in spite of everything."
+
+"That's all very well--but if you mix people too violently, you make them
+uncomfortable."
+
+"My dear Hugh!--how many drawing-rooms are there?" His wife waved a vague
+hand toward the folding doors on her right, implying the suite of
+Georgian rooms that stretched away beyond them; "one for every _nuance_
+if it comes to that. If they positively won't mix I shall have to
+segregate them. But they will mix." Then she fell into a reverie for a
+moment, adding at the end of it--"I must keep one drawing-room for the
+Rector 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 member
+in a Cabinet headed by a Prime Minister in rapidly failing health; to
+whose place, either by death or retirement it was generally expected that
+Edward Norham would succeed.
+
+"Well, darling, I shall watch your manoeuvres with interest," said
+Flaxman, rising and gathering up his letters--"and, _longo intervallo_, I
+shall 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--and
+Alice Puttenham. How that sister of hers bullies her--horrid little
+woman! _And_ Mr. Barron!"--Flaxman made an exclamation--"and the deaf
+daughter--and the nice elder son--and the unpresentable younger one--in
+fact 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 big
+party. And as for the weekenders, you chose them yourself." She ran
+through the list, while Flaxman vainly protested that he had never in
+their joint existence been allowed to do anything of the kind. "But
+to-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 be
+followed 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 to
+date. Yes--from her observation of the two--she was certain there was a
+good 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 the
+accident--and the Church Council that was put off?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"Catharine made up her mind suddenly to go to that Church Council--after
+not 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--the
+first time she has done it. She arrived in the village just as the
+dreadful thing had happened in the pit. Then of course she and the Rector
+took command. Nobody who knew Catharine would have expected anything
+else. And now she and Mary and the Rector are busy looking after the poor
+survivors. '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 that
+Council for?"
+
+"Perhaps to lift up her voice?"
+
+"No. Catharine isn't that sort. She would have suffered dreadfully--and
+sat still."
+
+And with a thoughtful shake of the head, as though to indicate that the
+veins of meditation opened up by the case were rich and various, Rose
+went slowly away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then Hugh was left to his _Times_, and to speculations on the reasons why
+Henry Barron--a man whom he had never liked and often thwarted--should
+have asked for this interview in a letter marked "private." Flaxman made
+an agreeable figure, as he sat pondering by the fire, while the _Times_
+gradually slipped from his hands to the floor. And he was precisely what
+he looked--an excellent fellow, richly endowed with the world's good
+things, material and moral. He was of spare build, with grizzled hair;
+long-limbed, clean-shaven and gray-eyed. In general society he appeared
+as a person of polished manners, with a gently ironic turn of mind. His
+friends were more numerous and more devoted than is generally the case in
+middle age; and his family were rarely happy out of his company. Certain
+indeed of his early comrades in life were inclined to accuse him of a too
+facile contentment with things as they are, and a rather Philistine
+estimate of the value of machinery. He was absorbed in "business" which
+he did admirably. Not so much of the financial sort, although he was a
+trusted member of important boards. But for all that unpaid multiplicity
+of affairs--magisterial, municipal, social or charitable--which make the
+country gentleman's sphere Hugh Flaxman's appetite was insatiable. He was
+a born chairman of a county council, and a heaven-sent treasurer of a
+hospital.
+
+And no doubt this natural bent, terribly indulged of late years, led
+occasionally to "holding forth"; at least those who took no interest in
+the things which interested Flaxman said so. And his wife, who was much
+more concerned for his social effect than for her own, was often
+nervously on the watch lest it should be true. That her handsome, popular
+Hugh should ever, even for a quarter of an hour, sit heavy on the soul
+even of a youth of eighteen was not to be borne; she pounced on each
+incipient harangue with mingled tact and decision.
+
+But though Flaxman was a man of the world, he was by no means a
+worldling. Tenderly, unflinchingly, with a modest and cheerful devotion,
+he had made himself the stay of his brother-in-law Elsmere's harassed and
+broken life. His supreme and tyrannical common sense had never allowed
+him any delusions as to the ultimate permanence of heroic ventures like
+the New Brotherhood; and as to his private opinions on religious matters
+it is probable that not even his wife knew them. But outside the strong
+affections of his personal life there was at least one enduring passion
+in Flaxman which dignified his character. For liberty of experiment, and
+liberty of conscience, in himself or others, he would gladly have gone to
+the stake. Himself the loyal upholder of an established order, which he
+helped to run decently, he was yet in curious sympathy with many obscure
+revolutionists in many fields. To brutalize a man's conscience seemed to
+him worse than to murder his body. Hence a constant sympathy with
+minorities of all sorts; which no doubt interfered often with his
+practical efficiency. But perhaps it accounted for the number of his
+friends.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"We shall, I presume, be undisturbed?"
+
+The speaker was Henry Barron; and he and Flaxman stood for a moment
+surveying each other after their first greeting.
+
+"Certainly. I have given orders. For an hour if you wish, I am at your
+disposal."
+
+"Oh, we shall not want so long."
+
+Barron seated himself in the chair pointed out to him. His portly
+presence, in some faultlessly new and formal clothes, filled it
+substantially; 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 papers
+from his breast pocket--"but--after much thought--I came to the
+conclusion that there was no one in this neighbourhood I could consult
+upon 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 his
+host.
+
+Flaxman read it. His face changed and worked as he did so. He read it
+twice, turned it over to see if it contained any signature, and returned
+it 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 aggrieved
+parishioners in the Meynell case?"
+
+"He is. But he is by no means personally hostile to Meynell--quite the
+contrary. He brought it to me in much distress, thinking it well that we
+should take counsel upon it, in case other documents of the same kind
+should be going about."
+
+"And you, I imagine, pointed out to him the utter absurdity of the
+charge, 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 turned
+sharply on the speaker.
+
+"You mean to say you believe there is a word of truth in that
+preposterous story?"
+
+"I have good reason, unfortunately, to know that it cannot at once be put
+aside."
+
+Both paused--regarding each other. Then Flaxman said, in a raised accent
+of wonder:
+
+"You think it possible--_conceivable_--that a man of Mr. Meynell's
+character--and transparently blameless life--should have not only been
+guilty of an intrigue of this kind twenty years ago--but should have
+done nothing since to repair it--should actually have settled down to
+live in the same village side by side with the lady whom the letter
+declares to be the mother of his child--without making any attempt to
+marry her--though perfectly free to do so? Why, my dear sir, was there
+ever a more ridiculous, a more incredible tale!"
+
+Flaxman sprang to his feet, and with his hands in his pockets, turned
+upon his visitor, impatient contempt in every feature.
+
+"Wait a moment before you judge," said Barron dryly. "Do you remember a
+case of sudden death in this village a few weeks ago?--a woman who
+returned from America to her son John Broad, a labourer living in one of
+my 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 some
+curious medical evidence?"
+
+Barron nodded assent.
+
+"By the merest chance, I happened to see that woman the night after she
+arrived. I went to the cottage to remonstrate on the behaviour of John
+Broad's boys in my plantation. She was alone in the house, and she came
+to the door. By the merest chance also, while we stood there, Meynell and
+Miss Puttenham passed in the road outside. The woman--Mrs. Sabin--was
+terribly 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. I
+admit that she was scarcely responsible, that she died within a few hours
+of our conversation, of brain disease. But I still do not see--I wish to
+heaven I did!--any way out of what she told me--when one comes to combine
+it with--well, with other things. But whether I should finally have
+decided to make any use of the information I am not sure. But
+unfortunately"--he pointed to the letter still in Flaxman's hand--"that
+shows me that other persons--persons unknown to me--are in possession of
+some, at any rate, of the facts--and therefore that it is now vain to
+hope 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 or
+less. However--we will return presently to the letter. Mrs. Sabin's
+communication to you was of a nature to confirm the statements contained
+in it?"
+
+"Mrs. Sabin declared to me that having herself--independently--become
+aware of certain facts, while she was a servant in Lady Fox-Wilton's
+employment, that lady--no doubt in order to ensure her silence--took
+her abroad with herself and her young sister, Miss Alice, to a place in
+France she had some difficulty in pronouncing--it sounded to me like
+Grenoble; that there Miss Puttenham became the mother of a child, which
+passed thenceforward as the child of Sir Ralph and Lady Fox-Wilton, and
+received the name of Hester. She herself nursed Miss Puttenham, and no
+doctor was admitted. When the child was two months old, she accompanied
+the sisters to a place on the Riviera, where they took a villa. Here
+Sir Ralph Wilton, who was terribly broken and distressed by the whole
+thing, joined them, and he made an arrangement with her by which she
+agreed to go to the States and hold her tongue. She wrote to her people
+in Upcote--she had been a widow for some years--that she had accepted a
+nurse's situation in the States, and Sir Ralph saw her off from Genoa for
+New York. She seems to have married again in the States; and in the
+course of years to have developed some grievance against the Fox-Wiltons
+which ultimately determined her to come home. But all this part of her
+story was so excited and incoherent that I could make nothing of it. Nor
+does it matter very much to the subject--the real subject--we are
+discussing."
+
+Flaxman, who was standing in front of the speaker, intently listening,
+made no immediate reply. His eyes--half absently--considered the man
+before him. In Barron's aspect and tone there was not only the pompous
+self-importance of the man possessed of exclusive and sensational
+information; there were also indications of triumphant trains of
+reasoning 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 the
+ladies at Grenoble--we will say it was Grenoble--received a visitor. Miss
+Puttenham was still in her room. A gentleman arrived, and was admitted to
+see her. Mrs. Sabin was bundled out of the room by Lady Fox-Wilton. But
+it was a small wooden house, and Mrs. Sabin heard a good deal. Miss
+Puttenham was crying and talking excitedly. Mrs. Sabin was certain from
+what, 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 was
+necessary." 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 Lady
+Fox-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--such
+at least was her own story--from the door of her son's cottage, while I
+was with her, she saw Miss Puttenham--and Meynell--standing in the road
+outside."
+
+Flaxman took a turn along the room, and paused.
+
+"You admit that she was ill at the time she spoke to you--and in a
+distracted, incoherent state?"
+
+"Certainly I admit it." Barron drew himself erect, with a slight frown,
+as though tacitly protesting against certain suggestions in Flaxman's
+manner and voice. "But now let us look at another line of evidence. You
+as a newcomer are probably quite unaware of the gossip there has always
+been in this neighbourhood, ever since Sir Ralph Wilton's death, on the
+subject of Sir Ralph's will. That will in a special paragraph committed
+Hester Fox-Wilton to Richard Meynell's guardianship in remarkable terms;
+no provision whatever was made for the girl under Sir Ralph's will, and
+it is notorious that he treated her quite differently from his other
+children. From the moment also of the French journey, Sir Ralph's
+character and temper appeared to change. I have inquired of a good many
+persons as to this; of course with absolute discretion. He was a man of
+narrow Evangelical opinions"--at the word "narrow" Flaxman threw a
+sudden glance at the speaker--"and of strict veracity. My belief is that
+his later life was darkened by the falsehood to which he and his wife
+committed themselves. Finally, let me ask you to look at the young lady
+herself; at the extraordinary difference between her and her supposed
+family; at her extraordinary likeness--to the Rector."
+
+Flaxman raised his eyebrows at the last words, his aspect expressing
+disbelief and disgust even more strongly than before. Barron glanced at
+him, and then, after a moment, resumed in another manner, loftily
+explanatory:
+
+"I need not say that personally I find myself mixed up in such a business
+with the utmost reluctance."
+
+"Naturally," put in Flaxman dryly. "The risks attaching to it are simply
+gigantic."
+
+"I am aware of it. But as I have already pointed out to you, by some
+strange 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 my
+exclusive possession, and how many people are already aware of it and may
+be aware of it we cannot tell. I thought it well to come to you in the
+first instance, because I know that--you have taken some part lately--in
+Meynell'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 quite
+right. Both my wife and I greatly like and respect the Rector." He laid
+stress on the words.
+
+"It was for that very reason--let me repeat--that I came to you. You have
+influence 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 venture
+to suggest is that you should inform him of the stories that are now
+current. It is surely just that he should be informed. And then--we
+have to consider the bearings of this report on the unhappy situation in
+the diocese. How can we prevent its being made use of? It would be
+impossible. You know what the feeling is--you know what people are. In
+Meynell's own interest, and in that of the poor lady whose name is
+involved with his in this scandal, would it not be desirable in every
+way that he should now quietly withdraw from this parish and from
+the public contest in which he is engaged? Any excuse would be
+sufficient--health--overwork--anything. The scandal would then die out of
+itself. There is not one of us--those on Meynell's side, or those against
+him--who would not in such a case do his utmost to stamp it out. But--if
+he persists--both in living here, and in exciting public opinion as he is
+now doing--the story will certainly come out! Nothing can possibly stop
+it."
+
+Barron leant back and folded his arms. Flaxman's eyes sparkled. He felt
+an insane desire to run the substantial gentleman sitting opposite to the
+door and dismiss him with violence. But he restrained himself.
+
+"I am greatly obliged to you for your belief in the power of my good
+offices," he said, with a very frosty smile, "but I am afraid I must ask
+to be excused. Of course if the matter became serious, legal action would
+be taken very promptly."
+
+"How can legal action be taken?" interrupted Barron roughly. "Whatever
+may 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 in
+this village for many years is to be dragged to light--for what? In
+order--excuse my plain speaking--to blackmail Richard Meynell, and to
+force him to desist from the public campaign in which he is now engaged?
+These are hardly measures likely, I think, to commend themselves to some
+of 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 course
+guided by my own judgment and conscience. And I altogether protest
+against the word you have just employed. I came to you, Mr. Flaxman, I
+can honestly say, in the interests of peace!--in the interests of Meynell
+himself."
+
+"But you admit that there is really no evidence worthy of the name
+connecting Meynell with the story at all!" said Flaxman, turning upon
+him. "The crazy impression of a woman dying of brain disease--some gossip
+about 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 a
+rancorous obstinacy at last unveiled. "I believe that the woman's
+identification was a just one--though I admit that the proof is
+difficult. But then perhaps I approach the matter in one way, and you in
+another. A man, Mr. Flaxman, in my belief, does not throw over the faith
+of Christ for nothing! No! Such things are long prepared. Conscience, my
+dear sir, conscience breaks down first. The man becomes a hypocrite in
+his 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 kind
+of monstrosity. He thought of Meynell, of the eager refinement, the clean
+idealism, 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 perceive
+more plainly than he had yet done some of the intricacies of the
+situation.
+
+"I have nothing to do," he said, in a tone that he endeavoured to make
+reasonably calm, "nor has anybody, with generalization of that kind, in a
+case like this. The point is--could Meynell, being what he is, what we
+all know him to be, have not only betrayed a young girl, but have then
+failed to do her the elementary justice of marrying her? And the reply is
+that the thing is incredible!"
+
+"You forget that Meynell was extremely poor, and had his brothers to
+educate--"
+
+Flaxman shrugged his shoulders in laughing contempt.
+
+"Meynell desert the mother of his child--because of poverty--because of
+his brothers' education!--_Meynell_! You have known him some years--I
+only for a few months. But go into the cottages here--talk to the
+people--ask them, not what he believes, but what he _is_--what he has
+been to them. Get one of them, if you can, to credit this absurdity!"
+
+"The Rector's intimate friendship with Miss Puttenham has long been an
+astonishment--sometimes a scandal--to the village!" exclaimed Barron,
+doggedly.
+
+Flaxman stared at him in a blank amazement, then flushed. He took a turn
+up 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 the
+mere conversation were an insult to Meynell, in which he was forced to
+participate.
+
+He took a seat deliberately, and put on his magisterial manner, which,
+however, was much more delicately and unassumingly authoritative than
+that of other men.
+
+"I think we had better clear up our ideas. You bring me a story--a
+painful story--concerning a lady with whom we are both acquainted, which
+may 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 would
+certainly follow the diffusion of it. You invite me to connect with it
+the name of a man for whom I have the deepest respect and admiration; who
+bears an absolutely stainless record; and you threaten to make use of the
+charge in connection with the heresy trials now coming on. Now let me
+give you my advice--for what it may be worth. I should say--as you have
+asked my opinion--have nothing whatever to do with the matter! If anybody
+else brings you anonymous letters, tell them something of the law of
+libel--and something too of the guilt of slander! After all, with a
+little 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 is
+your influence, and not mine, which is important in this matter. You are
+a permanent resident, and I a mere bird of passage. And"--Flaxman's
+countenance kindled--"let me just remind you of this: if you want to
+strengthen Meynell's cause--if you want to win him thousands of new
+adherents--you have only to launch against him a calumny which is sure
+to break down--and will inevitably recoil upon you!"
+
+The two men had risen. Barron's face, handsome in feature, save for some
+thickened lines and the florid tint of the cheeks, had somehow emptied
+itself of expression while Flaxman was speaking.
+
+"Your advice is no doubt excellent," he said quietly, as he buttoned his
+coat, "but it is hardly practical. If there is one anonymous letter,
+there are probably others. If there are letters--there is sure to be
+talk--and talk cannot be stopped. And in time everything gets into the
+newspapers."
+
+Flaxman hesitated a moment. Something warned him not to push matters to
+extremities--to make no breach with Barron--to keep him in play.
+
+"I admit, of course, if this goes beyond a certain point it may be
+necessary to go to Meynell--it may be necessary for Meynell to go to his
+Bishop. But at present, if you _desire_ to suppress the thing, you have
+only to keep your own counsel--and wait. Dawes is a good fellow, and
+will, I am sure, say nothing. I could, if need be, speak to him myself. I
+was 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 to
+suppress it--always supposing that it could be suppressed--my convictions
+being what they are?"
+
+Then--suddenly--it was borne in on Flaxman that in the whole interview
+there had been no genuine desire whatever on Barron's part for advice and
+consultation. He had come determined on a certain course, and the object
+of the visit had been, in truth, merely to convey to one of Meynell's
+supporters a hint of the coming attack, and some intimation of its
+strength. 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," said
+Flaxman, with cold politeness. His manner changed instantly. Peremptorily
+dismissing the subject, he became, on the spot, the mere suave and
+courteous host of an interesting house; he pointed out the pictures and
+the view, and led the way to the hall.
+
+As he took leave, Barron stiffly intimated that he should not himself be
+able to attend Mrs. Flaxman's party that evening; but his daughter and
+sons hoped to have the pleasure of obeying her invitation.
+
+"Delighted to see them," said Flaxman, standing in the doorway, with his
+hands 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 before
+the year's out. My wife was determined to bring him and Meynell together.
+He seems to have the traditional interest in theology without which no
+English premier is complete."
+
+Pursued by this parting shot, Barron retired, and Flaxman went back
+thoughtfully to his wife's sitting-room. Should he tell her? Certainly.
+Her ready wits and quick brain were indispensable in the battle that
+might 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 been
+made to him.
+
+As he approached his wife's door he heard voices. Catharine! He
+remembered that she was to lunch and spend the day with Rose. Now what to
+do! Devoted as he was to his sister-in-law, he was scarcely inclined to
+trust her with the incident of the morning.
+
+But as soon as he opened the door, Rose ran upon him, drew him in and
+closed it. Catharine was sitting on the sofa--with a pale, kindled
+look--a letter in her hand.
+
+"Catharine has had an abominable letter, Hugh!--the most scandalous
+thing!"
+
+Flaxman took it from Catharine's hand, looked it through, and turned it
+over. The same script, a little differently disguised, and practically
+the same letter, as that which had been shown him in the library! But it
+began with a reference to the part which Mrs. Elsmere and her daughter
+had played in the terrible accident of the preceding week, which showed
+that the rogue responsible for it was at least a rogue possessed of some
+local 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 the
+perversity of men.
+
+Flaxman dropped on the sofa beside her.
+
+"You feel with me, that it is a mere clumsy attempt to injure Meynell, in
+the interests of the campaign against him?" he asked her, eagerly.
+
+"I don't know about that," said Catharine slowly--a shining sadness in
+her look. "But I do know that it could only injure those who are trying
+to fight his errors--if it could be supposed that they had stooped to
+such weapons!"
+
+"You dear woman!" cried Flaxman, impulsively, and he raised her hand to
+his lips. Catharine and Rose looked their astonishment. Whereupon he gave
+them the history of the hour he had just passed through.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+But although what one may call the natural freemasonry of the children of
+light had come in to protect Catharine from any touch of that greedy
+credulity which had fastened on Barron; though she and Rose and Hugh
+Flaxman were at one in their contemptuous repudiation of Barron's reading
+of the story, the story itself, so far as it concerned Alice Puttenham
+and Hester, found in all their minds but little resistance.
+
+"It may--it may be true," said Catharine gently. "If so--what she has
+gone through! Poor, poor thing!"
+
+And as she spoke--her thin fingers clasped on her black dress, the
+nun-like veil falling about her shoulders, her aspect had the frank
+simplicity of those who for their Lord's sake have faced the ugly things
+of life.
+
+"What a shame--what an outrage--that any of us here should know a word
+about it!" cried Rose, her small foot beating on the floor, the hot
+colour 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 stopped
+before his wife.
+
+"You must realize, darling, that we may be all walking on the edge of a
+volcano to-night."
+
+"If only Henry Barron were!--and I might be behind to give the last
+little _chiquenade_!" cried Rose.
+
+Flaxman devoutly echoed the wish.
+
+"But the point is--are there any more of these letters out? If so, we may
+hear of others to-night. Then--what to do? Do I make straight for
+Meynell?"
+
+They pondered it.
+
+"Impossible to leave Meynell in ignorance," said Flaxman--"if the thing
+spreads Meynell of course would be perfectly justified--in his ward's
+interests--in denying the whole matter absolutely, true or no. But can
+he?--with Barron in reserve--using the Sabin woman's tale for his own
+purposes?"
+
+Catharine's face, a little sternly set, showed the obscure conflict
+behind.
+
+"He cannot say what is false," she said stiffly. "But he can refuse to
+answer."
+
+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 the
+world--almost."
+
+Catharine made no reply, but her quiet face showed she did not agree with
+him.
+
+"That child Hester!" Rose emerged suddenly from a mental voyage
+of recollection and conjecture. "Now one understands why Lady
+Fox-Wilton--stupid woman!--has never seemed to care a rap for her. It
+must indeed be annoying to have to mother a child so much handsomer than
+your own."
+
+"I think I am very sorry for Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton," said Catharine, after
+a moment.
+
+Rose assented.
+
+"Yes!--just an ordinary dull, pig-headed country gentleman confronted
+with a situation that only occurs in plays to which you don't demean
+yourself by going!--and obliged to tell and act a string of lies, when
+lies happen to be just one of the vices you're not inclined to! And then
+afterward you find yourself let in for living years and years with a bad
+conscience--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 saw
+Miss Fox-Wilton--with Philip Meryon--in Hewlett's spinney this morning. I
+came back from Markborough by a path I had never discovered before--and
+there, sure enough, they were. They heard me on the path, I think, and
+vanished most effectively. The wood is very thick. But I am sure it was
+they--though they were some distance from me."
+
+Rose exclaimed.
+
+"Naughty, _naughty_ child: She has been absolutely forbidden to see
+him, the whole Fox-Wilton family have made themselves into gaolers and
+spies--and she just outwits them all! Poor Alice Puttenham hovers about
+her--trying to distract and amuse her--and has no more influence than a
+fly. 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 to
+him from all over England to come and speak--or consult--or organize--(I
+don'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 till
+this girl is safely off the scene! He means to take her to Paris himself
+on Monday. I only hope he has found a proper sort of Gorgon to leave her
+with!"
+
+Flaxman could not but reflect that the whole relation of Meynell to his
+ward might well give openings to such a scoundrel like the writer of the
+anonymous letters, who was certainly acquainted with local affairs. But
+he did not express this feeling aloud. Meanwhile Catharine, who showed an
+interest in Hester which surprised both him and Rose, began to question
+him on the subject of Philip Meryon. Meryon's mother, it seemed, had been
+an intimate friend of one of Flaxman's sisters, Lady Helen Varley, and
+Flaxman was well acquainted with the young man's most unsatisfactory
+record. He drew a picture of the gradual degeneracy of the handsome lad
+who 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 unluckily
+he has put himself beyond the pale now, one way and another. It is too
+disastrous about this pretty child! What on earth does she see in him?"
+
+"Simply a means of escaping from her home," said Rose--"the situation
+working out! But who knows whether he hasn't got a wife already? Nobody
+should trust this young man farther than they can see him."
+
+"It musn't--it can't be allowed!" said Catharine, with energy. And, as
+she spoke, she seemed to feel again the soft bloom of Hester's young
+cheek against her own, just as when she had drawn the girl to her, in
+that instinctive caress. The deep maternity in Catharine had never yet
+found scope enough in the love of one child.
+
+Then, with a still keener sense of the various difficulties rising along
+Meynell's path, Flaxman and Rose returned to the anxious discussion of
+Barron's move and how to meet it. Catharine listened, saying little; and
+it was presently settled that Flaxman should himself call on Dawes, the
+colliery 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 further
+developments.
+
+"Tell me"--said Rose presently, when Flaxman had left the sisters
+alone--"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 from
+Mary that there _was_ a scandal--of some sort--in circulation, if the
+thing 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 whom
+she had ever been afraid. But at last she took the plunge.
+
+"Catharine!--don't be angry with me--but I think Mary is interested in
+Richard Meynell."
+
+"Why should I be angry?" said Catharine. She had coloured a little, but
+she was perfectly composed. With her gray hair, and her plain widow's
+dress, she threw her sister's charming mondanity into bright relief. But
+beauty--loftily understood--lay with Catharine.
+
+"It _is_ ill luck--his opinions!" cried Rose, laying her hand upon her
+sister's.
+
+"Opinions are not 'luck,'" said Catharine, with a rather cold smile.
+
+"You mean we are responsible for them? Perhaps we are, if we are
+responsible for anything--which I sometimes doubt. But you like
+him--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 please
+don'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 anything
+that would be a grief to you."
+
+Catharine was silent a moment. Then she said in a tone that went to the
+listener's heart:
+
+"Whatever happened--will be God's will."
+
+She sat motionless, her eyes drooped, her features a little drawn and
+pale; her thoughts--Rose knew it--in the past.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Flaxman came back from his interview with Dawes, reporting that nothing
+could have been in better taste or feeling than Dawes's view of the
+matter. As far as the Rector was concerned--and he had told Mr. Barron
+so--the story was ridiculous, the mere blunder of a crazy woman; and, for
+the rest, what had they to do in Upcote with ferreting into other
+people's private affairs? He had locked up the letter in case it might
+some time be necessary to hand it to the police, and didn't intend
+himself to say a word to anybody. If the thing went any further, why of
+course the Rector must be informed. Otherwise silence was best. He had
+given a piece of his mind to Mr. Barron and "didn't want to be mixed up
+in any such business." "As far as I'm concerned, Mr. Flaxman, I'm
+fighting 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 got
+into the hands of a certain Miss Nairn in the village there might be
+trouble."
+
+"Miss Nairn?--Miss Nairn?" The sisters looked at each other. "Oh, I
+know--the lady in black we saw in church the day the revolution began--a
+strange little shrivelled spinster-thing who lives in that house by the
+post-office. She quarrelled mortally with the Rector last year, because
+she ill-treated a little servant girl of hers, and the Rector
+remonstrated."
+
+"Well, she's one of the 'aggrieved.'"
+
+"They seem to be an odd crew! There's the old sea-captain that lives in
+that queer house with the single yew tree and the boarded-up window on
+the edge of the Heath. He's one of them. He used to come to church about
+once a quarter and wrote the Rector interminable letters on the meaning
+of Ezekiel. Then there's the publican--East--who nearly lost his license
+last year--he always put it down to the Rector and vowed he'd be even
+with him. I must say, the church in Upcote seems rather put to it for
+defenders!"
+
+"In Upcote," corrected Flaxman. "That's because of Meynell's personal
+hold. Plenty of 'em--quite immaculate--elsewhere. However, Dawes is a
+perfectly decent, honest man, and grieved to the heart by the Rector's
+performances."
+
+Catharine had waited silently to hear this remark, and then went away to
+write a letter.
+
+"Poor darling! Will she go and call on Dawes--for sympathy?" said
+Flaxman, mischievously to his wife as the door closed.
+
+"Sympathy?" Rose's face grew soft. "It's much as it was with Robert. It
+ought to be so simple--and it is so mixed! Nature of course _ought_ to
+have endowed all unbelievers with the proper horns and tail. And there
+they go--stealing your heart away!--and your daughter's."
+
+The Flaxmans and Catharine--who spent the day with her sister, before the
+evening party--were more and more conscious of oppression as the hours
+went on; as though some moral thunder hung in the air.
+
+Flaxman asked himself again and again--"Ought I to go to Meynell at
+once?" and could not satisfy himself with any answer; while he, his
+wife, and his sister-in-law, being persons of delicacy, were all
+ashamed of finding themselves the possessors, against their will, of
+facts--supposing they were facts--to which they had no right. Meynell's
+ignorance--Alice Puttenham's ignorance--of their knowledge, tormented
+their consciences. And it added to their discomfort that they shared
+their knowledge with such a person as Henry Barron. However, there was no
+help for it.
+
+A mild autumn day drew to its close, with a lingering gold in the west
+and a rising moon. The charming old house, with its faded furniture, and
+its out-at-elbows charm, was lit up softly, with lamps that made a dim
+but friendly shining in its wide spaces. It had never belonged to rich
+people, but always to people of taste. It boasted no Gainsboroughs or
+Romneys; but there were lesser men of the date, possessed of pretty
+talents of their own, painters and pastellists, who had tried their hands
+on the family, of whom they had probably been the personal friends. The
+originals of the portraits on the walls were known neither to history nor
+scandal; but their good, modest faces, their brave red or blue coats,
+their white gowns, and drooping feathers looked winningly out from the
+soft shadows of the rooms. At Maudeley, Rose wore her simplest dresses,
+and was astonished at the lightness of the household expenses. The house
+indeed had never known display, or any other luxury than space; and to
+live in it was to accept its tradition.
+
+The week-enders arrived at tea-time; Mr. Norham with a secretary and a
+valet, much preoccupied, and chewing the fag-end of certain Cabinet
+deliberations in the morning; Flaxman's charming sister, Lady Helen
+Varley, and her husband; his elder brother, Lord Wanless, unmarried, an
+expert on armour, slightly eccentric, but still, in the eyes of all
+intriguing mothers, and to his own annoyance, more than desirable as a
+husband owing to the Wanless collieries and a few other trifles of the
+same kind; the Bishop of Markborough; Canon France and his sister; a
+young poet whose very delicate muse had lodged itself oddly in the frame
+of an athlete; a high official in the Local Government Board, Mr.
+Spearman, whom Rose regarded with distrust as likely to lead Hugh into
+too much talk about workhouses; Lady Helen's two girls just out, as
+dainty and well-dressed, as gayly and innocently sure of themselves
+and their place in life as the "classes" at their best know how to
+produce; and two or three youths, bound for Oxford by the end of
+the week, samples, these last, of a somewhat new type in that old
+University--combining the dash, family, and insolence of the old "tuft"
+or Bullingdon man, with an amazing aptitude for the classics, rare indeed
+among the "tufts" of old. Two out of the three had captured almost every
+distinction that Oxford offers; and all three had been either gated for
+lengthy periods or "sent down," or otherwise trounced by an angry
+college, puzzled by the queer connection between Irelands and Hertfords
+on the one hand and tipsy frolics on the other.
+
+Meynell appeared for dinner--somewhat late. It was only with great
+difficulty that the Flaxmans had prevailed on him to come, for the
+purpose of meeting Mr. Norham. But the party within the church which,
+foreseeing a Modernist defeat in the church courts, was appealing to
+Parliament to take action, was strengthening every week; Meynell's
+Saturday articles in the _Modernist_, the paper founded by the Reformers'
+League, were already providing these parliamentarians with a policy and
+inspiration; and if the Movement were to go on swelling during the
+winter, the government might have to take very serious cognizance of it
+during the spring. Mr. Norham therefore had expressed a wish for some
+conversation with the Modernist leader, who happened to be Rector of
+Upcote; and Meynell, who had by now cut himself adrift from all social
+engagements, had with difficulty saved an evening.
+
+As far as Norham was concerned Meynell would have greatly preferred to
+take the Home Secretary for a Sunday walk on the Chase; but he had begun
+to 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 let
+himself think too much?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So that Rose, as she surveyed her dinner table, could feel that she was
+maintaining the wide social traditions of England, by the mingling of as
+many contraries as possible. But the oil and vinegar were after all
+cunningly mixed, and the dinner went well. The Bishop was separated from
+Meynell by the length of the table, and Norham was carefully protected
+from Mr. Spearman, in his eyes a prince of bores, who was always
+bothering the Home Office.
+
+The Bishop, who was seated beside Rose at one end of the table, noticed
+the black patch on Meynell's temple, and inquired its origin. Rose gave
+him a graphic account both of the accident and the riot. The Bishop
+raised his eyebrows.
+
+"How does he contrive to live the two lives?" he said in a tone slightly
+acid. "If he continues to lead this Movement, he will have to give up
+fighting mobs and running up and down mines."
+
+"What is going to happen to the Movement?" Rose asked him, with her most
+sympathetic smile. Socially and in her own house she was divinely all
+things to all men. But the Bishop was rather suspicious of her.
+
+"What can happen to it but defeat? The only other alternative is the
+break-up of the Church. And for that, thank God, they are not strong
+enough."
+
+"And no compromise is possible?"
+
+"None. In three months Meynell and all his friends will have ceased to
+belong to the English Church. It is very lamentable. I am particularly
+sorry 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 National
+Church? Hasn't she the right and the power?"
+
+But her instincts as hostess stifled her pugnacity. And the little Bishop
+looked so worn and fragile that she had no heart for anything but
+cossetting him. At the same time she noticed--as she had done before on
+other occasions--the curious absence of any ferocity, any smell of
+brimstone, in the air! How different from Robert's day! Then the
+presumption underlying all controversy was of an offended authority
+ranged against an apologetic rebellion. A tone of moral condemnation on
+the one side, a touch of casuistry on the other, confused the issues. And
+now--behind and around the combatants--the clash of equal hosts!--over
+ground strewn with dead assumptions. The conflict might be no less
+strenuous; nay! from a series of isolated struggles it had developed into
+a world-wide battle; but the bitterness between man and man was less.
+
+Yes!--for the nobler spirits--the leaders and generals of each army. But
+what of the rank and file? And at the thought of Barron she laughed at
+herself for supposing that religious rancour and religious slander had
+died out of the world!
+
+"Can we have some talk somewhere?" said Norham languidly, in Meynell's
+ear, as the gentlemen left the dining-room.
+
+"I think Mrs. Flaxman will have arranged something," said Meynell, with a
+smile--detecting the weariness of the political Atlas.
+
+And indeed Rose had all her dispositions made. They found her in the
+drawing-room, amid a bevy of bright gowns and comely faces, illumined by
+the cheerful light of a big wood fire--a circle of shimmering stuffs and
+gems, the blaze sparkling on the pointed slippers, the white necks and
+glossy 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 her
+two _gros bonnets_.
+
+"The green drawing-room!" she murmured in Meynell's ear, and tripped on
+before them, while the incoming crowd of gentlemen, mingling with the
+ladies, served to mask the movement.
+
+Not, however, before the Bishop had perceived the withdrawal of the
+politician 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 that
+delicate face beyond the sentiments proper to the situation?--the public
+situation? As to the personal emotion involved, that, the Canon knew, was
+for the time almost exhausted. The Bishop had suffered much during the
+preceding months--in his affections, his fatherly feeling toward his
+clergy, in his sense of the affront offered to Christ's seamless vesture
+of the Church. But now, France thought, pain had been largely deadened by
+the mere dramatic interest of the prospect ahead, by the anodyne of an
+immense correspondence, and of a vast increase in the business of the
+day, 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 was
+evidently a favourite with them, and with all nice women. Finally he sank
+into an armchair beside Lady Helen Varley, exchanging Mrs. Flaxman's
+cossetting for hers. His small figure was almost lost in the armchair.
+The firelight danced on his slender stockinged legs, on his episcopal
+shoe buckles, on the cross which adorned his episcopal breast, and then
+on the gleaming snow of his hair, above his blue eyes with their slight
+unearthliness, so large and flower-like in his small white face. He
+seemed very much at ease--throwing off all burdens.
+
+No!--the Slander which had begun to fly through the diocese, like an
+arrow by night, had not yet touched the Bishop.
+
+Nor Meynell himself?
+
+Yet France was certain that Barron had not been idle, that he had not
+let it drop. "I advised him to let it drop"--he said uneasily to
+himself--"that was all I could do."
+
+Then he looked round him, at the faces of the women present. He scarcely
+knew any of them. Was she among them--the lady of Barron's tale? He
+thought 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 subject
+of speculation. And Barron could not have confided it to any one in the
+diocese, so discreet--so absolutely discreet--as he.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I gather this Movement of yours is rapidly becoming formidable?" said
+Norham to his companion.
+
+He spoke with the affectation of interest that all politicians in office
+must learn. But there was no heart in it, and Meynell wondered why the
+great man had desired to speak with him at all.
+
+He replied that the growth of the Movement was certainly a startling
+fact.
+
+"It is now clear that we must ultimately go to Parliament. The immediate
+result in the Church courts is of course not in doubt. But our hope lies
+in such demonstrations in the country as may induce Parliament"--he
+paused, laying a quiet emphasis on each word--"to reconsider--and
+resettle--the conditions of membership and office in the English Church."
+
+"Good heavens!" cried Norham, throwing up his hand--"What a prospect! If
+that business once gets into the House of Commons, it'll have everything
+else 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 an
+ecclesiastical debate. You'd think it was in the condition of Sydney
+Smith with a cold--not sure whether there were nine Articles and
+Thirty-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 marked
+prematurely by hard work and hard fighting. His black hair had receded on
+the temples, and was obviously thinning on the crown of the head; he wore
+spectacles, and his shoulders had taken the stoop of office work. But the
+eyes behind the spectacles lost nothing that they desired to see; and the
+general impression was one of bull-dog strength, which could be
+impertinent and aggressive, and could also masque itself in a good humour
+and charm by no means insincere. In his political career, he was on the
+eve 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 to
+glean in many fields, and keep his eye on many chances that his
+colleagues perforce neglected. The Modernist Movement was one of these
+chances. For years he had foreseen great changes ahead in the relations
+of 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 had
+been teasing. As he did so there was a little crash at his elbow and
+something 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 had
+rolled out of it--a gold coin of Velia, with a head of Athene--one of
+the great prizes of the collector.
+
+Norham took it with eagerness. He was a Cambridge man, and a fine
+scholar, 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 the
+table. "But he loves them too. Mrs. Flaxman always has them put out on
+great occasions. It seems to me they ought to have a watcher! They
+are quite priceless, I believe. Such things are soon lost."
+
+"Oh!--they are safe enough here," said Norham, returning the coin to its
+place, with another loving look at it. Then, with an effort, he pulled
+himself together,  and with great rapidity began to question his
+companion as to the details and progress of the Movement. All the facts
+up to date, the number of Reformers enrolled since the foundation of the
+League, the League's finances, the astonishing growth of its petition to
+Parliament, the progress of the Movement in the Universities, among the
+ardent and intellectual youth of the day, its spread from week to week
+among the clergy: these things came out steadily and clearly in Meynell's
+replies.
+
+"The League was started in July--it is now October. We have fifty
+thousand enrolled members, all communicants in Modernist churches.
+Meetings and demonstrations are being arranged at this moment all over
+England; and in January or February there will be a formal inauguration
+of the new Liturgy in Dunchester Cathedral."
+
+"Heavens!" said Norham, dropping all signs of languor. "Dunchester will
+venture it?"
+
+Meynell made a sign of assent.
+
+"It is of course possible that the episcopal proceedings against the
+Bishop, which, as you see, have just begun, may have been brought to a
+close, 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 as
+his Bishop! Upon my word, the government has been badly informed or I
+have not kept up. I had no idea--simply no idea--that things had gone so
+far. Markborough of course gives us very different accounts--he and the
+Bishops 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 few
+months, temporarily at least. It will rest with Parliament whether we
+remain so!"
+
+"The Non-Jurors of the twentieth century!" murmured Norham, with a
+half-sceptical intonation.
+
+"Ah, but this _is_ the twentieth century!"--said Meynell smiling. "And in
+our belief the _denouement_ 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 long
+as there are any of us left in our livings, each will come to the help of
+the other."
+
+"But you yourself?"
+
+"I have already made arrangements for a big barn in the village"--said
+Meynell, smiling--"a great tithe-barn of the fifteenth century, a
+magnificent old place, with a forest of wooden arches, and a vault like a
+church. The village will worship there for a while. We shall make it
+beautiful!"
+
+Norham was silent for a moment. He was stupefied by the energy, the
+passion of religious hope in the face beside him. Then the critical
+temper 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 I
+have always thought the ideas of Liberal Christianity a rather beggarly
+set-out--excuse the phrase!"
+
+"There is nothing to excuse!--the phrase fits. 'A reduced
+Christianity'--as opposed to a 'full Christianity'--that is the
+description lately given, I think, by a divinity professor. I don't
+quarrel 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--was
+unwilling in these surroundings to play the prophet, to plunge into the
+central stream of argument. But Norham, the outsider and dilettante, was
+conscious of a kindled mind.
+
+"That is the question to which it always seems to me there is no
+answer," he said easily, leaning back in his chair. "You think you
+can take what you like of a great historical religion and leave the
+rest--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 old
+fundamental notions that still stands, unchallenged? What are we in the
+eyes of modern psychology--but a world of automata--dancing to stimuli
+from outside? What has become of conscience--of the moral law--of Kant's
+imperative--in the minds of writers like these?"
+
+He pointed to two recent novels lying on the table, both of them
+brilliant 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 National
+Church--of the nation, that is, in its spiritual aspect. The question for
+which we are campaigning is as to the terms of membership in that
+society. But terms and conditions there must always be. The 'wild living
+intellect of man' must accept conditions in the Church, as _we_ conceive
+it, 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 the
+church suffers and souls are lost--wantonly, without reason. But there is
+no church--no religion--without some venture, some leap of faith! If you
+can't make any leap at all--any venture--then you remain outside--and you
+think yourself, perhaps, entitled to run amuck--as these men do!" He
+pointed to the books. "But _we_ make the venture!--_we_ accept the great
+hypothesis--of faith."
+
+The sound of voices came dimly to them from the farther rooms. Norham
+pointed toward them.
+
+"What difference then between you--and your Bishop?"
+
+"Simply that in his case--as _we_ say--the hypothesis of faith is
+weighted with a vast mass of stubborn matter that it was never meant to
+carry--bad history, bad criticism, an out-grown philosophy. To make
+it carry it--in our belief--you have to fly in the face of that gradual
+education of the world--education of the mind, education of the
+conscience--which is the chief mark of God in the world. But the
+hypothesis 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 true
+ones. But what the saint means by it, I suppose, in the first instance,
+is that there is in man something mysterious, superhuman--a Life in
+life--which can be indefinitely strengthened, enlightened, purified, till
+it 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 he
+relapses into the animal. Believe it, we say! Live by it!--make the
+venture. _Verificatur vivendo_!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Again the conversation paused. From the distance once more came the merry
+clamour of the farther drawing-room. A din of young folk, chaffing and
+teasing each other--a girl's defiant voice above it--outbursts of
+laughter. Norham, who had in him a touch of dramatic imagination, enjoyed
+the contrast between the gay crowd in the distance and this quiet room
+where he sat face to face with a visionary--surely altogether remote from
+the marrying, money-making, sensuous world. Yet after all the League was
+a big, practical, organized fact.
+
+"What you have expressed--very finely, if I may say so--is of course the
+mystical creed," he replied at last, with suave politeness. "But why call
+it Christianity?"
+
+As he spoke, he was conscious of a certain pride in himself. He felt
+complacently that he understood Meynell and appreciated him; and that
+hardly 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 mankind
+must have tales and symbols."
+
+"And the life of Christ is your symbol?"
+
+"More!--it is our Sacrament--the supreme Sacrament--to which all other
+symbols 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 the
+meeting-place of God and man, as to the Catholic--Roman or Anglican."
+
+"Strange that there should be so many of you!" said Norham, after a
+moment, with an incredulous smile.
+
+"Yes--that has been the discovery of the last six months. But we might
+all 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 became
+presently aware that the parish priest, the visionary, possessed a
+surprising amount of practical and statesman-like ability.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile--a room or two away--in the great bare drawing-room, with
+its faded tapestries, and its warm mixture of lamplight and firelight,
+the evening guests had been arriving. Rose stood at the door of the
+drawing-room, receiving, her husband beside her, Catharine a little way
+behind.
+
+"Oh!" cried Rose suddenly, under her breath, only heard by Hugh--a little
+sound of perturbation.
+
+Outside, in the hall, hardly lit at intervals by oil-lamps, a group could
+be seen advancing; in front Alice Puttenham and Mary, and behind, the
+Fox-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 came
+dreamily forward; and Rose saw her marked out, by the lovely oval of the
+face, its whiteness, its melancholy, from all the moving shapes around
+her. She wore a dress of black gauze over white; a little scarf of old
+lace lay on her shoulders; her still abundant hair was rolled back from
+her high brow and sad eyes. She looked very small and childish--as frail
+as thistledown.
+
+And behind her, Hester's stormy beauty! Rose gave a little gulp. Then she
+found herself pressing a cold hand, and was conscious of sudden relief.
+Miss Puttenham's shy composure was unchanged. She could not have looked
+so--she could not surely have confronted such a gathering of neighbours
+and strangers, if--
+
+No, no! The Slander--Rose, in her turn, saw it under an image, as though
+a dark night-bird hovered over Upcote--had not yet descended on this
+gentle head. With eager kindness, Hugh came forward--and Catharine. They
+found her a place by the fire, where presently the glow seemed to make
+its way to her pale cheeks, and she sat silent and amused, watching the
+triumph of Hester.
+
+For Hester was no sooner in the room than, resenting perhaps the
+decidedly cool reception that Mrs. Flaxman had given her, she at once set
+to work to extinguish all the other young women there. And she had very
+soon succeeded. The Oxford youths, Lord Wanless, the sons of two or three
+neighbouring squires, they were all presently gathered about her, as
+thick as bees on honeycomb, recognizing in her instantly one of those
+beings endowed from their cradle with a double portion of sex-magic, who
+leave such a wild track behind them in the world.
+
+By her chair stood poor Stephen Barron, absorbed in her every look and
+tone. 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, a
+magnificent fellow, radiating health and gayety, who was trying to wear
+her down in one of the word-games of the day. They fought hard and
+breathlessly, everybody listening partly for the amusement of the game,
+partly for the pleasure of watching the good looks of the young creatures
+playing 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. I
+never found anybody near so good as you at it before, except a man I met
+once at Newmarket--Philip Meryon--do you know him? Never saw a fellow so
+good at games. But an awfully queer fish!"
+
+It seemed to the morbid sensitiveness of Rose that there was an
+instantaneous and a thrilling silence. Hester tossed her head; her
+colour, 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 he
+beat you!"
+
+The young man gave a half-laugh, and looked at his friends. Then he
+changed the subject. But Hester got up impatiently from her seat, and
+would not play any more. Rose caught the sudden intentness with which
+Alice 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?" she
+thought rebelliously, as she watched the disagreeable face of Maurice
+Barron, who had been standing in the circle not far from Hester. He had a
+look of bad company which displeased her; and she resented what seemed to
+her an inclination to stare at the pretty women--especially at Hester,
+and Miss Puttenham. Heavens!--if that odious father had betrayed anything
+to such a son! Surely, surely it was inconceivable!
+
+The party was beginning to thin when Meynell, impatient to be quit of his
+Cabinet Minister that he might find Mary Elsmere before it was too late,
+hurried from the green drawing-room, in the wake of Mr. Norham, and
+stumbled against a young man, who in the very imperfect illumination had
+not perceived the second figure behind the Home Secretary.
+
+"Hullo!" said Meynell brusquely, stepping back. "How do you do? Is
+Stephen here?"
+
+Maurice Barron answered in the affirmative--and added, as though from the
+need 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 contempt
+even, that was rare with him. He and Norham passed through the next
+drawing-room, and met various acquaintances at the farther door. Maurice
+Barron stood watching them. The persons invading the room had come
+intending to see the coins. But meeting the Home Secretary they turned
+back with him, and Meynell followed them, eager to disengage himself from
+them. At the door some impulse made him turn and look back. He saw
+Maurice Barron disappearing into the green drawing-room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The night was soft and warm. Catharine and Mary had come prepared to walk
+home, Catharine eagerly resuming, now that her health allowed it, the
+Spartan habits of their normal life. Flaxman was drawn by the beauty of
+the moonlight and the park to offer to escort them to the lower lodge.
+Hester declared that she too would walk, and carelessly accepted
+Stephen's escort. Meynell stepped out from the house with them, and in
+the natural sequence of things he found himself with Mary.
+
+Flaxman and Catharine, who led the way, hardly spoke to each other. They
+walked, 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 fresh
+talk about it. Just behind them they could hear Hester laughing and
+sparring with Stephen; and when Catharine looked back she could see
+Meynell and Mary far away, in the distance of the avenue they were
+following.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The great lime-trees on either side threw long shadows on grass covered
+with the fresh fallen leaf, which gleamed, a pale orange, through the
+dusk. The sky was dappled with white cloud, and the lime-boughs overhead
+broke it into patterns of delight. The sharp scent of the fallen leaves
+was in the air; and the night for all its mildness prophesied winter.
+Meynell seemed to himself to be moving on enchanted ground, beneath
+enchanted trees. The tension of his long talk with Norham, the cares of
+his leadership--the voices of a natural ambition, dropped away. Mary in a
+blue cloak, a white scarf wound about her head, summed up for him the
+pure beauty of nature and the night. For the first time he did not
+attempt to check the thrill in his veins; he began to hope. It was
+impossible to ignore the change in Mrs. Elsmere's attitude toward him. He
+had no idea what had caused it; but he felt it. And he realized also that
+through unseen and inexplicable gradations Mary had come mysteriously
+near to him. He dared not have spoken a word of love to her; but such
+feeling as theirs, however restrained, penetrates speech and gesture, and
+irresistibly makes all things new.
+
+They spoke of the most trivial matters, and hardly noticed what they
+said. He all the time was thinking: "Beyond this tumult there will be
+rest some day--then I may speak. We could live hardly and simply--neither
+of us wants luxury. But _now_ it would be unjust--it would bring too
+great a burden on her--and her poor mother. I must wait! But we shall see
+each other--we shall understand each other!"
+
+Meanwhile she, on her side, would perhaps have given the world to share
+the 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 first
+column.
+
+"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 legacy
+with his father. Since the outbreak of the Reform Movement there had been
+frequent disputes between the father and son, if aggressive attack on the
+one side and silent endurance on the other make a dispute. Barron scorned
+his eldest son, as a faddist and a dreamer; while Stephen could never
+remember the time when his father had not seemed to him the living
+embodiment of prejudice, obstinacy, and caprice. He had always reckoned
+it indeed the crowning proof of Meynell's unworldly optimism that, at the
+moment of his father's accession to the White House estate, there should
+have been a passing friendship between him and the Rector. Yet whenever
+thoughts of this kind presented themselves explicitly to Stephen he tried
+to suppress them. His life, often, was a constant struggle between a
+genuine and irrepressible dislike of his father and a sore sense that no
+Christian priest could permit himself such a feeling.
+
+He made no reply to his father's interjection. But Barron knew very well
+that his son's self-control was no indication of lack of will; quite the
+contrary; and the father was conscious of a growing exasperation as he
+watched the patient compression of the young mouth. He wanted somehow to
+convict and crush Stephen; and he believed that he held the means thereto
+in his hand. He had not been sure before Stephen arrived whether he
+should 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 unforgivable
+offence. What a gentle, malleable fellow he had seemed in his school and
+college days!--how amenable to the father's spiritual tyranny! It was
+Barron's constant excuse to himself for his own rancorous feeling--that
+Meynell had robbed him of his son.
+
+"You probably think it strange"--he resumed harshly--"that I should
+rejoice in what of course is your misfortune--that your people reject
+you; but there are higher interests than those of personal affection
+concerned in this business. We who are defending her must think first of
+the Church!"
+
+"Naturally," said Stephen.
+
+His father looked at him in silence for a moment, at the mild pliant
+figure, the downcast eyes.
+
+"There is, however, one thing for which I have cause--we all have
+cause--to be grateful to Meynell," he said, with emphasis.
+
+Stephen looked up.
+
+"I understand he refused to sanction your engagement to Hester
+Fox-Wilton."
+
+The young man flushed.
+
+"It would be better, I think, father, if we are to talk over these
+matters quietly--which I understood is the reason you asked me to come
+here to-day--that you should avoid a tone toward myself and my affairs
+which can only make frank conversation difficult or impossible between
+us."
+
+"I have no desire to be offensive," said Barron, checking himself with
+difficulty, "and I have only your good in view, though you may not
+believe it. My reason for approving Meynell in the matter is that he was
+aware--and you were not aware"--he fell into the slow phrasing he always
+affected on important occasions--"of facts bearing vitally on your
+proposal; and that in the light of them he acted as any honest man was
+bound to act."
+
+"What do you mean!" cried Stephen, springing to his feet.
+
+"I mean"--the answer was increasingly deliberate--"that Hester
+Fox-Wilton--it is very painful to have to go into these things, but it is
+necessary, I regret to say--is not a Fox-Wilton at all--and has no right
+whatever 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_ Lady
+Fox-Wilton."
+
+Barron had now assumed the habitual attitude--thumbs in his pockets, legs
+slightly apart--that Stephen had associated from his childhood with the
+long bullying, secular and religious, that Barron's family owed to
+Barron'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 you
+look at me in that fashion! Believe me--it is not my fault, but my
+misfortune, that I happen to be acquainted with this very disagreeable
+secret. And I have one thing to say--you must give me your promise that
+you 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 Judith
+Sabin, omitting only those portions of it which connected the story with
+Meynell. It was evident, presently, that Stephen--to the dawning triumph
+of his father--listened with an increasingly troubled mind. And indeed,
+at the first whisper of the story, there had flashed through the young
+man's memory the vision of Meynell arguing and expostulating on that
+July afternoon, when he, Stephen, had spoken so confidingly, so
+unsuspectingly of his love for Hester. He recalled his own amazement, his
+sense of shock and strangeness. What Meynell said on that occasion
+seemed to have so little relation to what Meynell habitually was.
+Meynell, for whom love, in its spiritual aspect, was the salt and
+significance of life, the foundation of all wisdom--Meynell on that
+occasion had seemed to make comparatively nothing of love!--to deny its
+simplest rights--to put it despotically out of count. Stephen, as he had
+long recognized, had been overborne and silenced by Meynell's personality
+rather than by Meynell's arguments--by the disabling force mainly of his
+own devotion to the man who bade him wait and renounce. But in his heart
+he had never quite forgiven, or understood; and for all the subsequent
+trouble about Hester, all his own jealousy and pain, he had not been able
+to prevent himself from blaming Meynell. And now--now!--if this story
+were true--he began to understand. Poor child--poor mother! With the
+marriage of the child, must come--he felt the logic of it--the confession
+of the mother. A woman like Alice Puttenham, a man like Meynell, were not
+likely to give Hester to her lover without telling that lover what he had
+a right to know. Small blame to them if they were not prepared to bring
+about that crisis prematurely, while Hester was still so young! It must
+be 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 his
+father was telling with that heavy tragic touch which the son
+instinctively hated as insincere and theatrical.
+
+"Now then, perhaps,"--Barron wound up--"you will realize why it is I feel
+Meynell has acted considerately, and as any true friend of yours was
+bound to act. He knew--and you were ignorant. Such a marriage could not
+have been for your happiness, and he rightly interposed."
+
+"What difference does it make to Hester herself," cried Stephen
+hotly--"supposing the thing is true? I admit--it may be true," and as he
+spoke a host of small confirmations came thronging into his unwilling
+mind. "But in any case--"
+
+He walked up to his father again.
+
+"What have you done about it, father?" he said, sharply. "I suppose you
+went to Meynell at once."
+
+Barron smiled, with a lift of the eyebrows. He knocked off the end of his
+cigarette, 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 same
+emphasis, "not at all easy."
+
+"What do you mean, father? There seems to be something more behind. If
+there is, considering my feeling for Hester, it seems to me that having
+told me so much you are bound to tell me _all_ you know. Remember--this
+story concerns the girl I love!"
+
+Passion and pain spoke in the young man's voice. His father looked at him
+with 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 the
+view of Judith Sabin was--what the facts seem to point to. But--in any
+case, whether I believe Judith Sabin or no, I should not have said a word
+to you on the subject but for the circumstance that--unfortunately--there
+are other people in the case."
+
+Whereupon--watching his son carefully--Barron repeated the story that he
+had 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 could
+scarcely bring himself to listen at all, after he had once gathered the
+real gist of what his father was saying.
+
+Yet, by this time, the story was much better worth listening to than it
+had been when Barron had first presented it to Flaxman. By dint of much
+brooding, and under the influence of an angry obstinacy which must have
+its prey, Barron had made it a good deal more plausible than it had been
+to begin with, and would no doubt make it more plausible still. He had
+brought in by now a variety of small local observations bearing on the
+relations between the three figures in the drama--Hester, Alice
+Puttenham, Meynell--which Stephen must and did often recognize as true
+and telling. It was true that there was much friction and difference
+between Hester and the Fox-Wilton family; that Alice Puttenham's
+position and personality had always teased the curiosity of the
+neighbourhood; that the terms of Sir Ralph's will were perplexing; and
+that Meynell was Hester's guardian in a special sense, a fact for which
+there was no obvious explanation. It was true also that there emerged at
+times a singular likeness in Hester's beauty--a likeness of expression
+and gesture--to the blunt and powerful aspect of the Rector....
+
+And yet! Did his father believe, for a moment, the preposterous things he
+was saying? The young man sharpened his wits as far as possible for
+Hester's and his friend's sake, and came presently to the conclusion that
+it was one of those violent, intermittent half-beliefs which, in the
+service of hatred and party spirit, can be just as effective and
+dangerous as any other. And when the circumstantial argument passed
+presently into the psychological--even the theological--this became the
+more evident.
+
+For in order to explain to himself and others how Meynell could possibly
+have behaved in a fashion so villainous, Barron had invented by now a
+whole psychological sequence. He was prepared to show in detail how the
+thing 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 practical
+consequences of the intrigue. He certainly could not have kept his living
+had the facts been known. On the one hand his poverty--his brothers to
+educate,--his benefice to be saved. On the other, the natural desire of
+the Fox-Wiltons and of Alice Puttenham to conceal everything that had
+occurred. The sophistries of love would come in--repentance--the desire
+to make a fresh start--to protect the woman he had sacrificed.
+
+And all that might have availed him against sin and temptation--a
+steadfast Christian faith--was already deserting him; must have been
+already undermined. What was there to wonder at?--what was there
+incredible in the story? The human heart was corrupt and desperately
+wicked; and nothing stood between any man, however apparently holy, and
+moral catastrophe but the grace of God.
+
+Stephen bore the long, incredible harangue, as best he could, for
+Meynell's sake. He sat with his face turned away from his father, his
+hand closing and unclosing on his knee, his nerves quivering under the
+exasperation of his father's monstrous premises, and still more monstrous
+deductions. At the end he faced round abruptly.
+
+"I do not wish to offend you, father, but I had better say at once that I
+do not accept, for a single instant, your arguments or your conclusion. I
+am positive that the facts, whatever they may be, are _not_ what you
+suppose 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, I
+must."
+
+Barron's look flashed.
+
+"You gave me your promise"--he said imperiously--"before I told you this
+story--that you would not communicate it without my permission. I
+withhold 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 shall
+choose my own time."
+
+And as he raised his cold eyes upon his son it pleased his spirit of
+intrigue, and of domination through intrigue, that he had already
+received a letter from Flaxman giving precisely opposite advice, and did
+not intend to tell Stephen anything about it. Stephen's impulsive
+candour, however, appealed to him much more than Flaxman's reticence. It
+would indeed be physically and morally impossible for him--anonymous
+letters or no--to lock the scandal much longer within his own breast. It
+had become a living and burning thing, like some wild creature straining
+at a leash.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A little while later Stephen found himself alone. He believed himself to
+have got an undertaking from his father that Meynell should be
+communicated with promptly--perhaps that very evening. But the terms
+of the promise were not very clear; and the young man's mind was full of
+a seething wrath and unhappiness. If the story were true, so far as
+Hester and her unacknowledged mother were concerned--and, as we have
+seen, there was that in his long and intimate knowledge of Hester's
+situation which, as he listened, had suddenly fused and flashed in a most
+unwilling conviction--then, what dire, what pitiful need, on their part,
+of protection and of help! If indeed any friendly consideration for
+him, Stephen, had entered into Meynell's conduct, the young man angrily
+resented the fact.
+
+He paced up and down the library for a time, divided thus between a
+fierce contempt for Meynell's slanderers and a passionate pity for
+Hester.
+
+His father had gone to Markborough. Theresa was, he believed, in the
+garden 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 suddenly
+remembered--Maurice!
+
+He blamed himself for not having remembered earlier that Maurice was at
+home--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 to
+the second-floor bedroom which had always been his brother's.
+
+"Maurice!" He knocked. No answer. But there was a hurried movement
+inside, and something that sounded like the opening of a drawer.
+
+He called again, and tried the door. It was locked. But after further
+shuffling inside, as though some one were handling papers, it was thrown
+open.
+
+"Well, Maurice, I hope I haven't disturbed you in anything very
+important. I thought I must come and have a look at you. Are you all
+right?"
+
+"Come in, old fellow," said Maurice with affected warmth--"I was only
+writing a few letters. No room for anybody downstairs but the pater and
+Theresa, so I have to retreat up here."
+
+"And lock yourself in?" said Stephen, laughing. "Any secrets going?" And
+as he took a seat on the edge of the bed, while Maurice returned to his
+chair, he could not prevent himself from looking with a certain keen
+scrutiny both at the room and his younger brother.
+
+He and Maurice had never been friends. There was a gap of nearly ten
+years between them, and certain radical and profound differences of
+temperament. And these differences nature had expressed, with an entire
+absence of subtlety, in their physique--in the slender fairness and
+wholesomeness 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 note
+of the half-consumed brandy and soda on the table, of the saucer of
+cigarette ends beside it, and the general untidiness and stuffiness of
+the room.
+
+"Not bad," said Maurice, resuming his cigarette.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"An agency--one of these new phonographs--Yankee of course. I manage the
+office. A lot of cads--but I make 'em sit up."
+
+And he launched into boasting of his success in the business--the orders
+he had secured, the economies he had brought about in the office. Stephen
+found himself wondering meanwhile what kind of a business it could be
+that entrusted its affairs to Maurice. But he betrayed no scepticism, and
+the two talked in more or less brotherly fashion for a few minutes, till
+Stephen, with a look at his watch, declared that he must find his horse
+and go.
+
+"I thought you were only coming for the week-end," he said as he moved
+toward the door.
+
+"I got seedy--and took a week off. Besides, I found pater in such a
+stew."
+
+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 know
+is, 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 you
+ever have against him?"
+
+He looked sharply at his brother. The disagreeable idea crossed his mind
+that his father, whose weakness for Maurice he well knew, might have told
+the 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 some
+disagreeable reminiscences of a school holiday when Maurice had been
+discovered drunk in one of the public-houses of the village by the
+Rector, who had firmly dug him out and walked him home. But this and
+other recollections, not dissimilar, soon passed away, under the steady
+assault of thoughts far more compelling....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He took the bridle-path through Maudeley, and was presently aware, in a
+clearing of the wood, of the figure of Meynell in front of him.
+
+The Rector was walking in haste, without his dogs. He was therefore out
+on business, which indeed was implied by the energy of his whole
+movement.
+
+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 of
+gold and orange leaf overhead, of red-brown leaf below, with passages
+here and there where the sun struck through the beech trees, of purest
+lemon-yellow, or intensest green, breathed and murmured round them. A
+light wind sang in the tree-tops, and every now and then the plain broke
+in--purple through the gold; with its dim colliery chimneys, its wreaths
+of smoke, and its paler patches which stood for farms and villages.
+
+Meynell walked by the horse in silence for a while, till, suddenly wiping
+a 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 of
+remorse.
+
+Stephen stared at him in silence.
+
+"Flaxman walked home with me last night--came into the Rectory, and told
+me that--yesterday--he saw Meryon and Hester together--in Hewlett's
+wood--as you know, a lonely place where nobody goes. It was a great blow
+to 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 this
+morning to see her--found the whole household in confusion! Nobody knew
+where Hester was. She had gone out immediately after breakfast, with
+the maid who is supposed to be always with her. Then suddenly--about an
+hour later--one of the boys appeared, having seen this woman at the
+station--and no Hester. The woman, taken by surprise--young Fox-Wilton
+just had a few words with her as the train was moving off--confessed she
+was going into Markborough to meet Hester and come back with her. She
+didn't know where Miss Hester was. She had left her in the village, and
+was to meet her at a shop in Markborough. After that, things began to
+come out. The butler told tales. The maid is clearly an unprincipled
+hussy, and has probably been in Meryon's pay all the time--"
+
+"Where is Hester?--where are you going to?" cried Stephen in impatient
+misery, 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 that
+scoundrel in his own house!"
+
+"It appears she has once or twice declared that, in spite of us all, she
+would go and see his house and his pictures. In my belief, she has done
+it 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, his
+lips 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 he
+could not help the reproach.
+
+"I tried to act for the best," said Meynell, after a moment, his eyes on
+the ground.
+
+Stephen watched his friend uncertainly. Again and again he was on the
+point of crying out--
+
+"Tell me the truth about Hester!"--on the point also of warning and
+informing the man beside him. But he had promised his father. He held his
+tongue with difficulty.
+
+When they reached the spot where Stephen's path diverged from that which
+led 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 ride
+home. 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--a
+melancholy, dilapidated pile; and they struck into a long and neglected
+evergreen avenue leading up to it. At the end of the avenue there was an
+enclosure and a lodge, with some iron gates. A man saw them, and came out
+to 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 along
+the road, letting his horse pasture on its grassy fringe. The lodge
+keeper--sulky and puzzled--watched him a few moments and then went back
+into the house.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Rector paused to reconnoitre as he came in sight of the house. It was
+a strange, desolate, yet most romantic spot. Although, seen from the road
+and the stream, it seemed to stand on an eminence, it was really at the
+bottom of a hill which encircled it on three sides, and what with its own
+dilapidation, its broken fences and gates, the trees which crowded about
+it, and the large green-grown pond in front of it, it produced a dank and
+sinister impression. The centre of the building, which had evidently been
+rebuilt about 1700, to judge from its rose-red brick, its French
+classical lunettes, its pedimented doors and windows, and its fine
+_perron_, was clearly the inhabited portion of the building. The two
+wings of much earlier date, remains of the old Abbey, were falling into
+ruin. In front of one a garage had evidently been recently made, and a
+motor was standing at its door. To the left of the approaching spectator
+was a small deserted church, of the same date as the central portion of
+the Abbey, with twin busts of William and Mary still inhabiting a niche
+above the classical entrance, and marking the triumph of the Protestant
+Succession over the crumbling buildings of the earlier faith. The windows
+of the church were boarded up and a few tottering tombstones surrounded
+it.
+
+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 slimy
+pond 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 man
+in 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 trouble
+you to take my card."
+
+The youth's expression changed. He stood silent and sheepish, while
+Meynell considered a moment, on the steps.
+
+Suddenly a sound of voices from a distance became audible through the
+grudgingly 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 led
+through a curtain-wall to the garden. Meanwhile the house door was
+hastily banged behind him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Uncle Richard!"
+
+Behind the house Meynell came upon the persons he sought. In an overgrown
+formal garden, full of sun, he perceived an old stone bench, under an
+overhanging yew. Upon it sat Hester, bareheaded, the golden masses of her
+hair shining against the blackness of the tree. Roddy mounted guard
+beside her, his nose upon her lap; and on a garden chair in front of her
+lounged Philip Meryon, smoking and chatting. At sight of Meynell they
+both sprang to their feet. Roddy first growled, and then, as soon as he
+recognized 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 the
+rugged figure in the short clerical coat and wide-awake, and of the
+searching look with which he regarded them. Hester nervously began to
+put 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 later
+on. The lies you have instructed your servants to tell are a sufficient
+indication that you are ashamed of your behaviour. This young lady is
+under age. Her mother and I, who are her lawful guardians, forbid her
+acquaintance 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 to
+call upon you to-morrow."
+
+"This time you may really find me fled," laughed Philip, insolently. But
+he had turned white.
+
+Meynell made no reply. He went to Hester, and lifting the girl's silk
+cape, which had fallen off, he put it round her shoulders. He felt them
+trembling. But she looked at him fiercely, put him aside, and ran to
+Meryon.
+
+"Good-bye, Philip, good-bye!--it won't be for long!" And she held out
+her two hands--pleadingly. Meryon took them, and they stared at each
+other--while the Rector was conscious of a flash of dismay.
+
+What if there was now more in the business than mere mischief and
+wantonness? Hester was surprisingly lovely, with this touching, tremulous
+look, so new, and, to the Rector, so intolerable!
+
+"I must ask you to come at once," he said, walking up to her, and the
+girl, with compressed lips, dropped Meryon's hands and obeyed.
+
+Meryon walked beside them to the garden door, very pale, and breathing
+quick.
+
+"You can't separate us"--he said to Meynell--"though of course you'll
+try. 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 desired
+Meryon not to follow them. Philip hesitated, and yielded. He stood in the
+doorway, his hands in his pockets, watching them, a splendid figure, with
+his melodramatic good looks and vivid colour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Hester and Meynell walked down the avenue, side by side. Behind them, the
+lunette window under the roof opened again, and a woman's face, framed in
+black, touzled hair, looked out, grinned and disappeared.
+
+Hester carried her head high, a scornful defiance breathing from the
+flushed cheeks and tightened lips. Meynell made no attempt at
+conversation, till just as they were nearing the lodge he said--"We shall
+find Stephen a little farther on. He was riding, and thought you might
+like his horse to give you a lift home."
+
+"Oh, a _plot_!"--cried Hester, raising her chin still higher--"and
+Stephen in it too! Well, really I shouldn't have thought it was worth
+anybody'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 her
+companion. There was absurdity in her pose, and yet, as Meynell
+uncomfortably recognized, a new touch of something passionate and real.
+
+The Rector made no reply, for they were at the turn of the road and
+behind 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 send
+for 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 features
+emerged with unusual emphasis.
+
+"I think you had better accept," said Meynell gently. As he looked at
+her, he wondered whether she might not faint on their hands with anger
+and excitement. But she controlled herself, and as Stephen brought the
+brown mare alongside, and held out his hand, she put her foot in it, and
+he swung her to the saddle.
+
+"I don't want both of you," she said, passionately. "One warder is
+enough!"
+
+"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 horse
+in motion. Stephen's way lay with them for a hundred yards. He tried to
+make a little indifferent conversation, but neither Meynell nor Hester
+replied. Where the lane they had been following joined the Markborough
+road, he paused to take his leave of them, and as he did so he saw his
+two companions brought together, as it were, into one picture by the
+overcircling shade of the autumnal trees which hung over the road; and he
+suddenly perceived as he had never yet done the strange likeness between
+them. Perplexity, love--despairing and jealous love--a passionate
+championship of the beauty that was being outraged and insulted by the
+common talk and speculation of indifferent and unfriendly mouths; an
+earnest desire to know the truth, and the whole truth, that he might the
+better prove his love, and protect his friend; and a dismal certainty
+through it all that Hester had been finally snatched from him--these
+conflicting feelings very nearly overpowered him. It was all he could do
+to take a calm farewell of them. Hester's eyes under their fierce brows
+followed 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 unconscious
+grace to the quiet movements of the horse, which Meynell was leading.
+Overhead the October day was beginning to darken, and the yellow leaves
+shaken by occasional gusts were drifting mistily down on Hester's hair
+and dress, and on the glossy flanks of the mare.
+
+At last Meynell looked up. There was intense feeling in his face--a deep
+and troubled tenderness.
+
+"Hester!--is there no way in which I can convince you that if you go on
+as you have been doing--deceiving your best friends--and letting this man
+persuade 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 be
+able 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 will
+not believe me--who am his kinsman and have no interest whatever in
+blackening his character--when I tell you that he is a bad man, corrupted
+by low living and self-indulgence, with whom no girl should trust
+herself. The action you have taken to-day, your deliberate defiance of us
+all, make it necessary that I should speak in even plainer terms to you
+than I have done yet; that I should warn you as strongly as I can that by
+allowing this man to make love to you--perhaps to propose a runaway match
+to you--how do I know what villainy he may have been equal to?--you are
+running 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 man
+dieth to himself! It is the affair of all those who love you--of your
+family--of your poor Aunt Alice, who cannot sleep for grieving--"
+
+Hester raised her free hand, and angrily pushed back the masses of fair
+hair that were falling about her face.
+
+"What is the good of talking about 'love,' Uncle Richard?" She spoke with
+a passionate impatience--"You know very well that _nobody_ at home loves
+me. Why should we all be hypocrites? I have got, I tell you, to look
+after _myself_, to plan my life for myself! My mother can't help it if
+she doesn't love me. I don't complain; but I do think it a shame you
+should say she does, when you know--know--_know_--she doesn't! My sisters
+and brothers just dislike me--that's all there is in that! All my life
+I've known it--I've felt it. Why, when I was a baby they never played
+with me--they never made a pet of me--they wouldn't have me in their
+games. My father positively disliked me. Whenever the nurse brought me
+downstairs--he used to call to her to take me up again. Oh, how tired I
+got of the nursery!--I hated it--I hated nurse--I hated all the old
+toys--for I never had any new ones. Do you remember"--she turned on
+him--"that day when I set fire to all the clean clothes--that were airing
+before the fire?"
+
+"Perfectly!" said the Rector, with an involuntary smile that relaxed the
+pale gravity of his face.
+
+"I did it because I hadn't been downstairs for three nights. I might
+have been dead for all anybody cared. Then I was determined they should
+care--and I got hold of the matches. I thought the clothes would burn
+first--and then my starched frock would catch fire--and then--everybody
+would be sorry for me at last. But unfortunately I got frightened, and
+ran up the passage screaming--silly little fool! That might have made an
+end of it--once for all--"
+
+Meynell interrupted--
+
+"And after it," he said, looking her in the eyes--"when the fuss was
+over--I remember seeing you in Aunt Alsie's arms. Have you forgotten how
+she cried over you, and defended you--and begged you off? You were ill
+with terror and excitement; she took you off to the cottage, and nursed
+you till you were well again, and it had all blown over; as she did again
+and again afterward. Have you forgotten _that_--when you say that no one
+loved you?"
+
+He turned upon her with that bright penetrating look, with its touch of
+accusing sarcasm, which had so often given him the mastery over erring
+souls. For Meynell had the pastoral gift almost in perfection; the
+courage, the ethical self-confidence and the instinctive tenderness
+which belong to it. The certitudes of his mind were all ethical; and in
+this region he might have said with Newman that "a thousand difficulties
+cannot make one doubt."
+
+Hester had often yielded, to this power of his in the past, and it was
+evident that she trembled under it now. To hide it she turned upon him
+with fresh anger.
+
+"No, I haven't forgotten it!--and I'm _not_ an ungrateful fiend--though
+of 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 that
+she 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 trust
+me--then she treats me like a child--and shakes me off as if I were just
+a stranger. If she holds me at arm's-length, I am not going to tell her
+all _my_ affairs!"
+
+The rounded bosom under the little black mantle rose and fell
+tumultuously, and angry tears shone in the brown eyes. Meynell had raised
+his 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 was
+some one she had been in love with--I am certain it was--a handsome, dark
+man. And I _begged_ her to tell me--and she just got up and went away. So
+then 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--"some
+griefs we have no right to meddle with. But we can heal them--or make
+them worse. You"--his kind eyes scourged her again--"have been making
+everything worse for Aunt Alsie for a long time past."
+
+Hester shrugged her shoulders passionately, as though to repel the
+charge, but she said nothing. They moved on in silence for a little. In
+Meynell's mind there reigned a medley of feelings--tragic recollections,
+moral questionings, which time had never silenced, perplexity as to the
+present and the future, and with it all, the liveliest and sorest pity
+for the young, childish, violent creature beside him. It was not for
+those who, with whatever motives, had contributed to bring her to that
+state 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 of
+beauty at bay. The sight determined him toward frankness.
+
+"Hester!--I have told you that if you go on flirting with Philip Meryon
+you run the risk of disgrace and misery, because he has no conscience and
+no scruples, and you are ignorant and inexperienced, and have no idea of
+the fire you are playing with. But I think I had better go farther. I am
+going to say what you force me to say to you--young as you are. My strong
+belief is that Philip Meryon is either married already, or so entangled
+that he has no right to ask any decent woman to marry him. I have
+suspected 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 her
+most obstinate voice.
+
+"Very well. Then I must set at once about proving it. The reasons
+which make me believe it are not for your ears." Then his tone
+changed--"Hester!--my child!--you can't be in love with that fellow--that
+false, common fellow!--you can't!"
+
+Hester tightened her lips and would not answer. A rush of distress came
+over 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 would
+comfort you for all the past, and show you what joy really means. Be
+patient, dear Hester--be patient! If you wanted to punish us for not
+making you happy enough, well, you have done it! But don't plunge us all
+into despair--and take a little thought for your old guardian, who seems
+to have the world on his shoulders, and yet can't sleep at nights, for
+worrying about his ward, who won't believe a word he says, and sets all
+his 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 that
+he was but imperfectly able to gauge the conflict of forces in her mind.
+He resumed his pleading with her--tenderly--urgently. And at last she
+gave way, at least apparently. She allowed him to lay a friendly hand on
+hers 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 young
+women! But if you'll say 'I want to be friends, Uncle Richard, and I
+won't deceive you any more,' why, then, you'll make an old fellow
+happy! Will you?"
+
+Slowly she let her cold fingers slip into his warm, protecting palm
+as he smiled upon her. She yielded to the dignity and charm of
+Meynell's character as she had done a thousand times before; but in the
+proud, unhappy look she bent upon him there were new and disquieting
+things--prophecies of the coming womanhood, not to be unravelled. Meynell
+pressed her hand, and put it back upon the reins with a sigh he could not
+restrain.
+
+He began to talk with a forced cheerfulness of their coming journey--of
+the French _milieu_ to which she was going. Hester answered in
+monosyllables, every now and then--he thought--choking back a sob. And
+again and again the discouraging thought struck through him--"Has this
+fellow touched her heart?"--so strong was the impression of an emerging
+soul and a developing personality.
+
+Suddenly through the dispersing trees a light figure came hurriedly
+toward 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 his
+finger on his lips, and she controlled herself. Hester greeted her
+without any sign of emotion; and the three went homeward along the misty
+ways of the park. The sun had been swallowed up by rising fog; all colour
+had been sucked out of the leaves and the heather, even from the golden
+glades of fern. Only Hester's hair, and her white dress as she passed
+along, uplifted, made of her a kind of luminous wraith, and beside her,
+like the supports of an altar-piece, moved the two pensive figures of
+Meynell and Alice.
+
+From a covert of thorn in the park, a youth who had retreated into its
+shelter on their approach watched them with malicious eyes. Another man
+was with him--a sheepish, red-faced person, who peered curiously at the
+little 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, but
+with hours of occupation and correspondence still before him. He had left
+Hester with Alice Puttenham, in a state which Meynell interpreted as at
+once alarming and hopeful; alarming because it suggested that there might
+be an element of passion in what had seemed to be a mere escapade
+dictated by vanity and temper; and hopeful because of the emotion the
+girl had once or twice betrayed, for the first time in the experience
+of any one connected with her. When they entered Alice Puttenham's
+drawing-room, for instance--for Hester had stipulated she was not to be
+taken home--Alice had thrown her arms round her, and Hester had broken
+suddenly into crying, a thing unheard of. Meynell of course had hastily
+disappeared.
+
+Since then the parish had taken its toll. Visits to two or three sick
+people had been paid. The Rector had looked in at the schools, where a
+children's evening was going on, and had told the story of Aladdin with
+riotous success; he had taken off his coat to help in putting up
+decorations for an entertainment in the little Wesleyan meeting-house of
+corrugated iron; the parish nurse had waylaid him with reports, and he
+had dashed into the back parlour of a small embarrassed tradesman, in
+mortal fear of collapse and bankruptcy, with the offer of a loan, sternly
+conditional upon facing the facts, and getting in an auditor. Lady
+Fox-Wilton of course had been seen, and the clamour of her most
+unattractive offspring allayed as much as possible. And now, emerging
+from this tangle of personal claims and small interests, in the silence
+and freedom of the night hours, Meynell was free to give himself once
+more to the intellectual and spiritual passion of the Reform Movement.
+His table was piled with unopened letters; on his desk lay a half-written
+article, and two or three foreign books, the latest products of the
+Modernist Movement abroad. His crowded be-littered room smiled upon him,
+as he shut its door upon the outer world. For within it, he lived more
+truly, more vividly, than anywhere else; and all the more since its
+threadbare carpet had been trodden by Mary Elsmere.
+
+Yet as he settled himself by the fire with his pipe and his letters for
+half an hour's ease before going to his desk, his thoughts were still
+full of Hester. The incurable optimism, the ready faith where his
+affections 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, he
+should be dealt with this time with a proper disregard of either his own
+or his servants' lying. Hester was now to spend some months with a
+charming and cultivated French family. Plenty of occupation, plenty of
+amusement, plenty of appeal to her intelligence. Then, perhaps, travel
+for a couple of years, with Aunt Alice--as much separation as possible,
+anyway, from the Northleigh family and house. Alice was not rich, but she
+could 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 to
+the fore, the crisis must be faced, and the child must know! and it would
+be a cold-blooded lover that would weigh her story against her face.
+
+Comfort himself as he would, however, dream as he would, Meynell's
+conscience was always sore for Hester. Had they done right?--or hideously
+wrong? Had not all their devices been a mere trifling with nature--a mere
+attempt to "bind the courses of Orion," with the inevitable result in
+Hester's unhappy childhood and perverse youth?
+
+The Rector as he pulled at his pipe could still feel the fluttering of
+her slender hand in his. The recollection stirred in him again all the
+intolerable pity, the tragic horror of the past. Poor, poor little girl.
+But she should be happy yet, "with rings on her fingers," and everything
+proper!
+
+Then from this fatherly and tender preoccupation he passed into a more
+intimate and poignant dreaming. Mary!--in the moonlight, under the
+autumn trees, was the vision that held him; varied sometimes by the dream
+of her in that very room, sitting ghostly in the chair beside him, her
+lovely eyes wandering over its confusion of books and papers. He thought
+of her exquisite neatness of dress and delicacy of movement, and smiled
+happily to himself. "How she must have wanted to tidy up!" And he dared
+to think of a day when she would come and take possession of him
+altogether--books, body and soul, and gently order his life....
+
+"Why, you rascals!"--he said, jealously, to the dogs--"she fed you--I
+know she did--she patted and pampered you, eh, didn't she? She likes
+dogs--you may thank your lucky stars she does!"
+
+But they only raised their eager heads, and turned their loving eyes upon
+him, prepared to let loose pandemonium as soon as he showed signs of
+moving.
+
+"Well, you don't expect me to take you out for a walk at ten o'clock at
+night, do you?--idiots!" he hurled at them reprovingly; and after another
+moment of bright-eyed interrogation, disappointment descended, and down
+went their noses on their paws again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His trust in the tender steadfastness of Mary's character made itself
+powerfully felt in these solitary moments. She knew that while these
+strenuous days were on he could allow himself no personal aims. But the
+growing knowledge that he was approved by a soul so pure and so devout
+had both strung up all his powers and calmed the fevers of battle. He
+loved his cause the more because it was ever more clear to him that
+she passionately loved it too. And sensitive and depressed as he often
+was--the penalty of the optimist--her faith in him had doubled his faith
+in himself.
+
+There was a singular pleasure also in the link his love for her had
+forged between himself and Elsmere--the dead leader of an earlier
+generation. "Latitudinarianism is coming in upon us like a flood!"--cried
+the _Church Times_, wringing its hands. In other words, thought Meynell,
+"a New Learning is at last penetrating the minds and consciences of
+men--in the Church, no less than out of it." And Elsmere had been one of
+its martyrs. Meynell thought with emotion of the emaciated form he had
+last seen in the thronged hall of the New Brotherhood. "_Our_ venture is
+possible--because _you_ suffered," he would say to himself, addressing
+not 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 her
+in the flesh, had been to him, through the reports of many friends, a
+kind of legendary presence--the embodiment of the Old Faith. Meynell only
+knew that as far as he was concerned something had happened--something
+which he could not define. She was no longer his enemy; and he blessed
+her humbly in his heart. He thought also, with a curious thankfulness, of
+her strong and immovable convictions. Each thinking mind, as it were,
+carries within it its own Pageant of the Universe, and lights the show
+with its own passion. Not to quench the existing light in any human
+breast--but to kindle and quicken where no light is: to bring forever new
+lamp-bearers into the Lampadephoria of life, and marshal them there in
+their places, on equal terms with the old, neither excluded, nor
+excluding: this, surely this was the ideal of Modernism.
+
+Elsmere's widow might never admit his own claim to equal rights within
+the Christian society. What matter! It seemed to him that in some
+mysterious way she had now recognized the spiritual necessity laid upon
+him to fight for that claim; had admitted him, so to speak, to the rights
+of a belligerent. And that had made all the difference.
+
+He did not know how it had happened. But he was strangely certain that it
+had happened.
+
+But soon the short interval of rest and dream he had allowed himself was
+over. 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 the
+emotion, the stirring of all the dead-bones it has brought about. There
+has been of course a secession; but the church at Patten End amply
+provides for the seceders, and among our own people one seems to realize
+at last something of what the simplicity and sincerity of the first
+Christian feeling must have been! No 'allowances' to make for scandalous
+mistranslations and misquotations--no foolish legends, or unedifying
+tales of barbarous people--no cursing psalms--no old Semitic nonsense
+about God resting on the seventh day, delivered in the solemn sing-song
+which makes it not only nonsense but hypocrisy....
+
+"I have held both a marriage and a funeral this week under the new
+service-book. I think that all persons accustomed to think of what they
+are saying felt the strangest delight and relief in the disappearance of
+the old marriage service. It was like the dropping of a weight to which
+our shoulders had become so accustomed that we hardly realized it till it
+was gone. Instead of pompous and futile absurdity--as in the existing
+exhortation, and homily--beautiful and fitting quotation from the unused
+treasures of the Bible. Instead of the brutal speech, the crudely
+physical outlook of an earlier day, the just reticence and nobler
+perceptions of our own, combined with perfectly plain and tender
+statement as to the founding of the home and the family. Instead of
+besmirching bits of primitive and ugly legend like the solemn
+introduction of Adam's rib into the prayers, a few new prayers of great
+beauty--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 in
+any age of the Christian Church?). Instead of the old 'obey,' for the
+woman, which has had such a definitely debasing effect, as I believe, on
+the position of women, especially in the working classes--a formula, only
+slightly altered, but the same for the man and the woman....
+
+"In short, a seemly, and beautiful, and moving thing, instead of a
+ceremony which in spite of its few fine, even majestic, elements, had
+become 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 its
+arguments which are dead, and confined to its cries of poetry and faith
+which are immortal, made a new and thrilling impression. I confess I
+thought I should have broken my heart over the omission of 'I know that
+my Redeemer liveth'--and yet now that it is gone, there is a sense of
+moral exhilaration in having let it go! One knew all the time that
+whoever wrote the poem of Job neither said what he was made to say in the
+famous passage, nor meant what he was supposed to mean. One was perfectly
+aware, from one's Oxford days, as the choir chanted the great words, that
+they were a flagrant mistranslation of a corrupt and probably
+interpolated passage. And yet the glory of Handel's music, the glamour
+of association overcame one. But now that it is cut ruthlessly away
+from those moments in life when man can least afford any make-believe
+with himself or his fellows--now that music alone declaims and fathers
+it--there is the strangest relief! One feels, as I have said, the joy
+that comes from something difficult and righteous _done_--in spite of
+everything!
+
+"I could go on for hours telling you these very simple and obvious things
+which must be so familiar to you. To me the amazement of this Movement is
+that it has taken so long to come. We have groaned under the oppression
+of what we have now thrown off, so long and so hopelessly; the Revision
+that the High Churchmen made such a bother about a few years ago came to
+so little; that now, to see this thing spreading like a great spring-tide
+over the face of England is marvellous indeed! And when one knows what it
+means--no mere liturgical change, no mere lopping off here and changing
+there, but a transformation of the root ideas of Christianity; a
+transference of its whole proof and evidence from the outward to the
+inward field, and therewith the uprush of a certainty and joy unknown to
+our modern life; one can but bow one's head, as those that hear
+mysterious voices on the wind.
+
+"For so into the temple of man's spirit, age by age, comes the renewing
+Master of man's life--and makes His tabernacle with man. 'Lift up your
+heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, And the King
+of Glory shall come in.'"
+
+Meynell bowed his head upon his hands. The pulse of hope and passion in
+the letter was almost overpowering. It came, he knew, from an elderly
+man, broken by many troubles, and tormented by arthritis, yet a true
+saint, 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 to
+make both clergy and laity sign the Modernist decrees has had a
+prodigious effect all over France--precisely in the opposite sense to
+that 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 single
+intellectual of any eminence--and it is a misfortune for _us_, the
+liberals. We have nothing to fight--we seem to be beating the air.'
+
+"Scherer could not have said this to-day. There are Catholics
+everywhere--in the University, the Ecole Normale, the front ranks of
+literature. But with few exceptions _they are all Modernist_; they have
+thrown overboard the whole _fatras_ of legend and tradition. Christianity
+has become to them a symbolical and spiritual religion; not only
+personally important and efficacious, but of enormous significance from
+the national point of view. But as you know, _we_ do not at present
+aspire to outward or ceremonial changes. We are quite content to leaven
+the meal from within; to uphold the absolute right and necessity of the
+two languages in Christianity--the popular and the scientific, the
+mythological and the mystical. If the Pope could have his way,
+Catholicism would soon be at an end--except as a peasant-cult--in the
+Latin countries. But, thank God, he will not have his way. One hears of a
+Modernist freemasonry among the Italian clergy--of a secret press--an
+enthusiasm, like that of the Carboneria in the forties. So the spirit of
+the Most High blows among the dead clods of the world--and, in a moment
+the harvest is there!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meynell let the paper drop. He began to write, and he wrote without
+stopping with great ease and inspiration for nearly two hours. Then as
+midnight struck, he put down his pen, and gazed into the dying fire. He
+felt as Wordsworth's skater felt on Esthwaite, when, at a sudden pause,
+the mountains and cliffs seemed to whirl past him in a vast headlong
+procession. So it was in Meynell's mind with thoughts and ideas.
+Gradually they calmed and slackened, till at last they passed into an
+abstraction and ecstasy of prayer.
+
+When he rose, the night had grown very cold. He hurriedly put his papers
+in order, before going to bed, and as he did so, he perceived two
+unopened letters which had been overlooked.
+
+One was from Hugh Flaxman, communicating the news of the loss of two
+valuable gold coins from the collection exhibited at the party. "We are
+all in tribulation. I wonder whether you can remember seeing them when
+you were talking there with Norham? One was a gold stater of Velia with a
+head of Athene."...
+
+The other letter was addressed in Henry Barron's handwriting. Meynell
+looked at it in some surprise as he opened it, for there had been no
+communication between him and the White House for a long time.
+
+"I should be glad if you could make it convenient to see me to-morrow
+morning. I wish to speak with you on a personal matter of some
+importance--of which I do not think you should remain in ignorance. Will
+it 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 so
+pertickler. 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 the
+house. But he won't be long, sir."
+
+And Anne, very stiff and on her dignity, relieved one of the two
+armchairs of its habitual burden of books, gave it a dusting with her
+apron, and offered it to the visitor. It was evident that she regarded
+his presence with entire disfavour, but was prepared to treat him with
+prudence for the master's sake. Her devotion to Meynell had made her
+shrewd; she perfectly understood who were his enemies, and who his
+friends.
+
+Barron, with a sharp sense of annoyance that he should be kept waiting,
+merely because a drunken miner happened to be beating his wife, coldly
+accepted her civilities, and took up a copy of the _Times_ which was
+lying on the table. But when Anne had retired, he dropped the newspaper,
+and began with a rather ugly curiosity to examine the room. He walked
+round the walls, looking at the books, raising his eyebrows at the rows
+of paper-bound German volumes, and peering closely into the titles of the
+English ones. Then his attention was caught by a wall-map, in which a
+number of small flags attached to pins were sticking. It was an outline
+map of England, apparently sketched by Meynell himself, as the notes and
+letterings were in his handwriting. It was labelled "Branches of the
+Reform League." All over England the little flags bristled, thicker here,
+and thinner there, but making a goodly show on the whole. Barron's face
+lengthened 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 the
+sheets. Beside it was a copy of Thomas a Kempis, and Father Tyrrell's
+posthumous book, in which a great soul, like a breaking wave, had foamed
+itself away; a volume of Sanday, another of Harnack, into the open cover
+of which the Rector had apparently just pinned an extract from a Church
+paper. Barron involuntarily stooped to read it. It ran:
+
+"This is no time for giving up the Athanasian Creed. The moment when the
+sewage of continental unbelief is pouring into England is not the moment
+for banishing to a museum a screen that was erected to guard the
+sanctuary."
+
+Beneath it, in Meynell's writing:
+
+"A gem, not to be lost! The muddle of the metaphor, the corruption of the
+style, everything is symbolic. In a preceding paragraph the writer makes
+an attack on Harnack, who is described as 'notorious for opposing' the
+doctrines of the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection. That history has a
+right to its say on so-called historical events never seems to have
+occurred to this gentleman; still less that there is a mystical and
+sacred 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 probably
+infinitely greater than Harnack's in dealing historically with the Birth
+Stories. The fact is the whole onus is now on the orthodox side. It is
+not 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 deal
+drastically with a clergyman who could write such things.
+
+A step outside. The sleeping dogs on the doorstep sprang up and noisily
+greeted their master. Meynell shut them out, to their great disgust, and
+came hurriedly toward the study.
+
+Barron, as he saw him in the doorway, drew back with an exclamation. The
+Rector's dress and hair were dishevelled and awry, and his face--pale,
+drawn, and damp with perspiration--showed that he had just come through a
+personal struggle.
+
+"Sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Barron. But that fellow,
+Pinches--you remember?--the new blacksmith--has been drinking for nearly
+a week, and went quite mad this morning. We just prevented him from
+killing his wife, but it was a tough business. I'll go and wash and
+change my coat, if you will allow me."
+
+So he went away, and Barron had a few more minutes in which to meditate
+on the room and its owner. When at last Meynell came back, and settled
+himself in the chair opposite to his visitor, with a quiet "Now I am
+quite at your service," Barron found himself overtaken with a curious and
+unwelcome hesitation. The signs--a slightly strained look, a quickened
+breathing--that Meynell still bore upon him of a physical wrestle,
+combined perhaps with a moral victory, suddenly seemed, even in Barron's
+own eyes, to dwarf what he had to say--to make a poor mean thing out of
+his story. And Meynell's shining eyes, divided between close attention to
+the man before him and some recent and disturbing recollections in which
+Barron had no share, reinforced the impression.
+
+But he recaptured himself quickly. After all, it was at once a charitable
+and a high-judicial part that he had come to play. He gathered his
+dignity 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 friendly
+relations. Meynell made a slight inclination.
+
+"Then I hope you will tell it me as quickly as may be. Does it concern
+yourself, or me? Maurice, I hope, is doing well?"
+
+Barron winced. It seemed to him an offence on the Rector's part that
+Meynell's tone should subtly though quite innocently remind him of days
+when he had been thankful to accept a strong man's help in dealing with
+the escapades of a vicious lad.
+
+"He is doing excellently, thank you--except that his health is not all I
+could wish. My business to-day," he continued, slowly--"concerns a woman,
+formerly of this village, whom I happened by a strange accident to see
+just 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 a
+suddenly heightened colour he struck straight--violently--for the heart
+of the thing.
+
+"She told me a lamentable story--and she was led to tell it me by
+seeing--and identifying--yourself--as you were standing with a lady in
+the 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 you
+wish to consult me about something that Judith Sabin communicated to
+you?"
+
+"I do. But the story she told me turns very closely on her identification
+of yourself; and therefore it does matter," said Barron, with emphasis.
+
+A puzzled look passed again over Meynell's face. But he said nothing. His
+attitude, coldly expectant, demanded the story.
+
+Barron told it--once more. He repeated Judith Sabin's narrative in the
+straightened, rearranged form he had now given to it, postponing,
+however, any further mention of Meynell's relation to it till a last
+dramatic moment.
+
+He did not find his task so easy on this occasion. There was something in
+the personality of the man sitting opposite to him which seemed to make a
+narrative that had passed muster elsewhere sound here a mere vulgar
+impertinence, the wanton intrusion of a common man on things sacredly and
+justly 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 speaker
+arrived at the incident of the Grenoble visitor.
+
+"I naturally find this a very disagreeable task," he said, pausing a
+moment. He got, however, no help from Meynell, who was dumb; and he
+presently resumed--"Judith Sabin saw the gentleman who came distinctly.
+She felt perfectly certain in her own mind as to his relation to Miss
+Puttenham and the child; and she was certain also, when she saw you and
+Miss Puttenham standing in the road, while I was with her that--"
+
+Meynell looked up, slightly frowning, awaiting the conclusion of the
+sentence--
+
+--"that she saw--the same man again!"
+
+Barron's naturally ruddy colour had faded a little; his eyes blinked. He
+drew his coat forward over his knee, and put it back again nervously.
+
+Meynell's face was at first blank, or bewildered. Then a light of
+understanding shot through it. He fell back in his chair with an odd
+smile.
+
+"So _that_--is what you have in your mind?"
+
+Barron coughed a little. He was angrily conscious of an anxiety and
+misgiving he had not expected. He made all the greater effort to recover
+what seemed to him the proper tone.
+
+"It is all most sad--most lamentable. But I had, you perceive, the
+positive statement of a woman who should have known the facts first-hand,
+if any one did. Owing to her physical state, it was impossible to
+cross-examine her, and her sudden death made it impossible to refer her
+to you. I had to consider what I should do--"
+
+"Why should you have done anything--" said Meynell dryly, raising his
+eyes--"but forget as quickly as possible a story you had no means of
+verifying, 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 _prima
+facie_ absurdity, I desire to say nothing offensive to you, but there
+have been many curious circumstances connected with your relation to
+the Fox-Wilton family which have given rise before now to gossip in this
+neighbourhood. I could not but perceive that the story told me threw
+light upon them. The remarkable language of Sir Ralph's will, the
+position of Miss Hester in the Fox-Wilton family, your relation to
+her--and to--to Miss Puttenham."
+
+Meynell's composure became a matter of some difficulty, but he maintained
+it.
+
+"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," said
+Barron, with all the dignity he could bring to bear. "For the unfortunate
+thing is--the thing which obliged me whether I would or no--and you will
+see from the dates that I have hesitated a long time--to bring Judith
+Sabin's statement to your notice--is that she seems to have talked to
+some one else in the neighbourhood before she died, besides myself. Her
+son declares that she saw no one. I have questioned him; of course
+without revealing my object. But she must have done so. And whoever it
+was has begun to write anonymous letters--repeating the story--in full
+detail--_with_ the identification--that I have just given you."
+
+"Anonymous letters?" repeated Meynell, raising himself sharply. "To
+whom?"
+
+"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 to
+you, 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 a
+copy."
+
+"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 presently
+to an abrupt pause in front of his visitor.
+
+"This story then is now all over the village--will soon be all over the
+diocese. Now--what was your object in yourself bringing it to me?"
+
+"I thought it right to inform you--to give you warning--perhaps also to
+suggest to you that a retreat from your present position--"
+
+"I see--you thought it a means of bringing pressure to bear upon me?--you
+propose, in short, that I should throw up the sponge, and resign my
+living?"
+
+"Unless, of course, you can vindicate yourself publicly."
+
+Barron to his annoyance could not keep his hand which held a glove from
+shaking a little. The wrestle between their personalities was rapidly
+growing 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!" Meynell
+repeated, with emphasis.
+
+"In that case--I suggest--it might be better to meet the wishes of your
+Bishop, and so avoid further publicity."
+
+"By resigning my living?"
+
+"Precisely. The scandal would then drop of itself. For Miss Puttenham's
+sake alone you must, I think, desire to stop its development."
+
+Meynell flushed hotly. He took another turn up the room--while Barron sat
+silent, looking straight before him.
+
+"I shall not take action"--Meynell resumed--"and I shall not dream of
+retreating from my position here. Judith Sabin's story is untrue. She did
+not see me at Grenoble and I am not the father of Hester Fox-Wilton. As
+to 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 thought
+and will seemed to pass through his face. As Barron rose, he began to
+speak.
+
+"I have no doubt you think yourself justified in taking the line
+you clearly do take in this matter. I can hardly imagine that you
+really believe the story you say you got from Judith Sabin--which you
+took to Flaxman--and have, I suppose, discussed with Dawes. I am
+convinced--forgive me if I speak plainly--that you cannot and do not
+believe anything so preposterous--or at any rate you would not believe it
+in 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 the
+thing has been done again and again. If you cannot defeat a man in fair
+fight, the next best thing is to blacken his character. We see that
+everywhere--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 a
+time. All I can say is, I would rather be the man to suffer from it than
+the man to gain from it!"
+
+Barron took up his hat. "I cannot be surprised that you receive me in
+this manner," he said, with all the steadiness he could muster. "But as
+you cannot deal with this very serious report in the ordinary way, either
+by 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. You
+cannot distrust either the Bishop's discretion, or his good will. If he
+were satisfied, we no doubt should be the same."
+
+Meynell shook his head.
+
+"Not if I know anything of the _odium theologicum!_ Besides, the Miss
+Nairns of this world pay small attention to bishops. By the way--I forgot
+to ask--you can tell me nothing on the subject of the writer of the
+anonymous 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-pocket
+the letter to Dawes, which he had again borrowed from its owner that
+morning. Meynell put it into a drawer of his writing-table without
+looking at it.
+
+The two men moved toward the door.
+
+"As to any appeal to you on behalf of a delicate and helpless
+lady--" said Meynell, betraying emotion for the first time--"that I
+suppose is useless. But when one remembers her deeds of kindness in this
+village, her quiet and irreproachable life amongst us all these years,
+one would have thought that any one bearing the Christian name would have
+come to me as the Rector of this village on one errand only--to consult
+how best to protect her from the spread of a cruel and preposterous
+story! You--I gather--propose to make use of it in the interests of your
+own Church party."
+
+Barron straightened himself, resenting at once what seemed to him the
+intrusion of the pastoral note.
+
+"I am heartily sorry for her"--he said coldly. "Naturally it is the women
+who suffer in these things. But of course you are right--though you put
+the matter from your own point of view--in assuming that I regard this as
+no ordinary scandal. I am not at liberty to treat it as such. The honour
+concerned--is the honour of the Church. To show the intimate connection
+of creed and life may be a painful--it is also an imperative duty!"
+
+He threw back his head with a passion which, as Meynell clearly
+recognized, was not without its touch of dignity.
+
+Meynell stepped back.
+
+"We have talked enough, I think. You will of course take the course that
+seems to you best, and I shall take mine. I bid you good day."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From the study window Meynell watched the disappearing figure of his
+adversary. The day was wet, and the funereal garden outside was dank with
+rain. The half-dead trees had shed such leaves as they had been able to
+put forth, and behind them was a ragged sky of scudding cloud.
+
+In Meynell's soul there was a dull sense of catastrophe. In Barron's
+presence he had borne himself as a wronged man should; but he knew very
+well 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 visualizing
+power showed him the groups in the various bar parlours, discussing the
+Scandal, dividing it up into succulent morsels, serving it up with every
+variety of personal comment, idle or malicious; amplyfying, exaggerating,
+completing. He saw the neat and plausible spinster from whose cruel hands
+he had rescued a little dumb, wild-eyed child, reduced by ill-treatment
+to skin and bone--he saw her gloating over the anonymous letter, putting
+two and two maliciously together, whispering here, denouncing there. He
+seemed to be actually present in the most disreputable public-house of
+the village, a house he had all but succeeded in closing at the preceding
+licensing 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 the
+village, the members of his Parish Council, who would suffer, and stand
+firm. The postponed meeting of the Council, for the acceptance of the new
+Liturgy, was to be held the day after his return from Paris. To them he
+would speak--so far as he could; yes, to them he would speak! Then his
+thought spread to the diocese. Charges of this kind spread with
+extraordinary rapidity. Whoever was writing the anonymous letters had
+probably not confined himself to two or three. Meynell prepared himself
+for 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 he
+read. He had expected something of a vulgarer and rougher type. The
+handwriting was clearly disguised, and there was a certain amount of
+intermittent bad spelling, which might very easily be a disguise also.
+But whoever wrote it was acquainted with the Fox-Wilton family, with
+their 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 elder
+Fox-Wilton girls--it had become a source of gossip in the village. The
+writer of it could not be far away. Was it a man or a woman? Meynell
+examined the handwriting carefully. He had a vague impression that he had
+seen something like it before, but could not remember where or in what
+connection.
+
+He put it back in his drawer, and as he did so his eyes fell upon his
+half-written article for the _Modernist _and on the piles of
+correspondence beside it. A sense of bitter helplessness overcame him, a
+pang not for himself so much as for his cause. He realized the inevitable
+effect of the story in the diocese, weighted, as it would be, with all
+the colourable and suspicious circumstances that could undoubtedly be
+adduced in support of it; its effect also beyond the diocese, through
+the Movement of which he was the life and guiding spirit; through
+England--where his name was rapidly becoming a battle-cry.
+
+And what could he do to meet it? Almost nothing! The story indeed as a
+whole could be sharply and categorically denied, because it involved a
+fundamental 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 formal
+vow of secrecy to any one. He was free to confide in whom he would. But
+all that was tender, pitiful, chivalrous in his soul stood up and
+promised for him, as he stood looking out into the October rain, that for
+no personal--yes!--and for no public advantage--would he trifle with what
+he had regarded for eighteen years as a trust, laid upon him by the dying
+words of a man he had loved, and enforced more and more sharply with time
+by the constant appeal of a woman's life--its dumb pain, the paradox of
+its frail strength, its shrinking courage. That life had depended upon
+him during the worst crisis of its fate as its spiritual guide. He had
+toward Alice Puttenham the feeling of the "director," as the saints have
+understood it; and toward her story something of the responsibility of a
+priest toward a confession. To reveal it in his own interest was simply
+impossible. If the Movement rejected him--it must reject him.
+
+"Not so will I fight for thee, my God!--not so!" he said to himself in
+great anguish of mind.
+
+It was true indeed that at some future time Alice Puttenham's poor secret
+must be told--to a specified person, with her consent, and by the express
+direction of that honest, blundering man, her brother-in-law, whose life,
+sorely against his will, had been burdened with it. But the
+indiscriminate admission of the truth, after the lapse of years, would,
+he believed, simply bring back the old despair, and paralyze what had
+always been a frail vitality. And as to Hester, the sudden divulgence of
+it might easily upset the unstable balance in her of mind and nerve and
+drive 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 had
+already happened? Supposing it had, he might not be able to prevent her
+from doing what would place the part played toward her by himself in its
+true light. She would probably insist upon his taking legal action, and
+allowing her to make her statement in court.
+
+The thought of this was so odious to him that he promptly put it from
+him. He should assume that she knew nothing; though as a practical man he
+was well aware that she could not long remain ignorant; certainly not if
+she continued to live in Upcote. Then, it was a question probably of days
+or hours. Her presence in the cottage, when once the village was in full
+possession of the slander, would be a perpetual provocation. One way or
+another the truth must penetrate to her.
+
+An idea occurred to him. Paris! So far he had insisted on going himself
+with Hester to Paris because of his haunting feeling of responsibility
+toward the girl, and his resolve to see with his own eyes the household
+in which he was placing her. But suppose he made excuses? The burden of
+work upon him was excuse enough for any man. Suppose he sent Alice in his
+stead, and so contrived as to keep her in or near Paris for a while? Then
+Edith Fox-Wilton would of course have the forwarding of her sister's
+correspondence, and might, it seemed to him, take the responsibility of
+intercepting whatever might inform or alarm her.
+
+Not much prospect of doing so indefinitely!--that he plainly saw. But to
+gain time was an immense thing; to prevent her from taking at once
+Quixotic steps. He knew that in health she had never been the same since
+the episode of Judith's return and death. She seemed suddenly to have
+faded and drooped, as though poisoned by some constant terror.
+
+He stood lost in thought a little longer by his writing-table. Then his
+hand felt slowly for a parcel in brown paper that lay there.
+
+He drew it toward him and undid the wrappings. Inside it was a little
+volume of recent poems of which he had spoken to Mary Elsmere on their
+moonlit walk through the park. He had promised to lend her his copy, and
+he meant to have left it at the cottage that afternoon. Now he
+lingeringly removed the brown paper, and walking to the bookcase, he
+replaced the volume.
+
+He sat down to write to Alice Puttenham, and to scribble a note to Lady
+Fox-Wilton asking her to see him as soon as possible. Then Anne forced
+some luncheon on him, and he had barely finished it when a step outside
+made itself heard. He looked up and saw Hugh Flaxman.
+
+"Come in!" said the Rector, opening the front door himself. "You are very
+welcome."
+
+Flaxman grasped--and pressed--the proffered hand, looking at Meynell the
+while with hesitating interrogation. He guessed from the Rector's face
+that 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 had
+pushed a chair toward his guest. "He told me he had shown one of these
+precious 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 may
+thereby--perhaps--be enabled to be of some little use to you. Barron
+knows what I think of him, and of the business."
+
+"Oh! for him it is a weapon--like any other. Though to do him justice
+he might not have used it, but for the other mysterious person in the
+case--the writer of these letters. You know--" he straightened himself
+vehemently--"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 in
+arguing with myself as to whether I should come to you at all. Finally I
+decided you might blame me if I did not. You may not be aware of the
+letter 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--"except
+for a few references to the part Mrs. Elsmere had played in helping the
+families of those poor fellows who were killed in the cage-accident."
+
+"And Miss Elsmere?" said Meynell in a tone that wavered in spite of
+himself. He sat with his head bent and his eyes on the floor.
+
+"Knows, of course, nothing whatever about it," said Flaxman hastily. "Now
+will 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 what
+you wish?"
+
+Meynell assented.
+
+"In the village, I shall deal with it at the Reform meeting on Thursday
+night." Then he rose. "Are you going to Forked Pond?"
+
+"I was on my way there."
+
+"I will go with you. If Mrs. Elsmere is free, I should like to have some
+conversation with her."
+
+They started together through a dripping world on which the skies had but
+just ceased to rain. On his way through the park Meynell took off his hat
+and walked bareheaded through the mist, evidently feeling it a physical
+relief to let the chill, moist air beat freely on brow and temples.
+Flaxman could not help watching him occasionally--the forehead with its
+deep vertical furrow, the rugged face, stamped and lined everywhere by
+travail of mind and body, and the nobility of the large grizzled head. In
+the voluminous cloak--of an antiquity against which Anne protested in
+vain--which was his favourite garb on wet days, he might have been a
+friar of the early time, bound on a preaching tour. The spiritual,
+evangelic note in the personality became--so Flaxman thought--ever more
+conspicuous. And yet he walked to-day in very evident trouble, without,
+however, allowing to this trouble any spoken expression whatever.
+
+As they neared the Forked Pond enclosure, Meynell suddenly paused.
+
+"I had forgotten--I must go first to Sandford--where indeed I am
+expected."
+
+"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 going
+to threaten."
+
+"With anything to go upon?"
+
+"Yes. I hope at last to be able to get some grip on him; though no doubt
+my chances are not improved since yesterday," said Meynell, with a grim
+shadow of a smile, "supposing that anybody from Upcote has been
+gossipping at Sandford. It does not exactly add to one's moral influence
+to 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 the
+high road, Flaxman accompanying his friend so far. There they parted, and
+Hugh returned slowly to the cottage by the water, Meynell promising to
+join 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 Forked Pond Catharine and Mary Elsmere were
+sitting at work. Mary was embroidering a curtain in a flowing Venetian
+pattern--with a handful of withered leaves lying beside her to which she
+occasionally matched her silks. Catharine was knitting. Outside the rain
+was howling through the trees; the windows streamed with it. But within,
+the bright wood-fire threw a pleasant glow over the simple room, and the
+figures of the two ladies. Mary's trim jacket and skirt of prune-coloured
+serge, with its white blouse fitting daintily to throat and wrist, seemed
+by its neatness to emphasize the rebellious masses and the fare colour of
+her hair. She knew that her hair was beautiful, and it gave her a
+pleasure she could not help, though she belonged to that type of
+Englishwoman, not yet nearly so uncommon as modern newspapers and books
+would have us believe, who think as little as they can of personal
+adornment and their own appearance, in the interests of some hidden ideal
+that "haunts them like a passion; of which even the most innocent vanity
+seems to make them unworthy."
+
+In these feelings and instincts she was, of course, her mother's
+daughter. Catharine Elsmere's black dress of some plain woollen stuff
+could 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 the
+spiritual beauty which had always been hers was hers still. One might
+guess that she, too, knew it; that in her efforts to save persons in sin
+or suffering she must have known what it was worth to her; what the gift
+of lovely line and presence is worth to any human being. But if she had
+been made to feel this--passingly, involuntarily--she had certainly
+shrunk from feeling it.
+
+Mary put her embroidery away, made up the fire, and sat down on a stool
+at her mother's feet.
+
+"Darling, how many socks have you knitted since we came here? Enough to
+stock a shop?"
+
+"On the contrary. I have been very idle," laughed Catharine, putting her
+knitting 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 your
+feet in London a day earlier," said Mary, laying her head on Catharine's
+knee. "You needn't grumble. Next week you'll have your fells and your
+becks--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 and
+speaking with energy; "but, oh dear, I wish I could do something for
+her!"
+
+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--a
+day's--happiness--in her life?"
+
+[Illustration: "'I wonder whether she's ever had any real joy--a
+week's--a day's--happiness--in her life?'"]
+
+She said it musingly but intensely. Catharine did not know how to answer
+her. All the day long, and a good deal of the night, she had been
+debating with herself what to do--toward Mary. Mary was no longer a
+child. 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 places
+of London life. The betrayal--which could not be hidden from her--of a
+young servant girl in their employ, the year before, and the fierce
+tenderness with which Mary had thrown herself into the saving of the girl
+and her child, had brought about--Catharine knew it--a great deepening
+and overshadowing of her youth. Catharine had in some ways regretted it
+bitterly; for she belonged to that older generation which believed--and
+were amply justified in believing--that it is well for the young to be
+ignorant, so long as they can be ignorant, of the ugly and tragic things
+of sex. It was not that her Mary seemed to her in the smallest degree
+besmirched by the experience she had passed through; that any bloom had
+been shaken from the flower. Far from it. It was rather that some touch
+of careless joy was gone forever from her child's life; and how that
+may hurt a mother, only those know who have wept in secret hours over the
+first ebbing of youth in a young face.
+
+So that she received Mary's outburst in silence. For she said to herself
+that she could have no right to reveal Alice Puttenham's secret, even to
+Mary. That cruel tongues should at that moment be making free with it
+burnt like a constant smart in Catharine's mind. Was the poor thing
+herself aware of it?--could it be kept from her? If not, Mary must
+know--would know--sooner or later. "But for me to tell her without
+permission"--thought Catharine firmly--"would not be right--or just.
+Besides, I know nothing--directly."
+
+As to the other and profounder difficulty involved, Catharine wavered
+perpetually between two different poles of feeling. The incidents of the
+preceding weeks had made it plain that her resistance to Meynell's
+influence with Mary had strangely and suddenly broken down. Owing to an
+experience of which she had not yet spoken to Mary, her inner will had
+given way. She saw with painful clearness what was coming; she was blind
+to 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 she
+submitted. Her submission had cost her tears often, at night, when
+there was no one to see. And yet it had brought her also a strange
+happiness--like all such yieldings of soul.
+
+But if she had yielded, if there was in her a reluctant practical
+certainty that Mary would some day be Meynell's wife, then her
+conscience, which was that of a woman who had passionately loved her
+husband, began to ask: "Ought she not to be standing by him in this
+trouble? If we keep it all from her, and he suffers and perhaps breaks
+down, when she might have sustained him, will she not reproach us? Should
+I not have bitterly reproached any one who had kept me from helping
+Robert in such a case?"
+
+A state of mind, it will be seen, into which there entered not a trace of
+ordinary calculations. It did not occur to her that Mary might be injured
+in the world's eyes by publicly linking herself with a man under a cloud.
+Catharine, whose temptation to "scruple" in the religious sense was
+constant and tormenting, who recoiled in horror from what to others were
+the merest venial offences, in this connection asked one thing only.
+Where Barron had argued that an unbeliever must necessarily have a carnal
+mind, Catharine had simply assured herself at once by an unfailing
+instinct that the mind was noble and the temper pure. In those matters
+she was not to be deceived; she knew.
+
+That being so, and if her own passionate objections to the marriage were
+to be put aside, then she could only judge for Mary as she would judge
+for herself. _Not_ to love--_not_ to comfort--could there be--for
+Love--any greater wound, any greater privation? She shrank, in a kind of
+terror, from inflicting it on Mary--Mary, unconscious and unknowing.
+
+... The soft chatter of the fire, the plashing of the rain, filled the
+room with the atmosphere of reverie. Catharine's thoughts passed from her
+obligations toward Mary to grapple anxiously with those she might be
+under toward Meynell himself. The mere possession of the anonymous
+letter--and Flaxman had not given her leave to destroy it--weighed upon
+her conscience. It seemed to her she ought not to possess it; and she had
+been only half convinced by Flaxman's arguments for delay. She was
+rapidly coming to the belief that it should have been handed instantly to
+the Rector.
+
+A step outside.
+
+"Uncle Hugh!" said Mary, springing up. "I'll go and see if there are any
+scones for tea!" And she vanished into the kitchen, while Catharine
+admitted her brother-in-law.
+
+"Meynell is to join me here in an hour or so," he said, as he followed
+her into the little sitting-room. Catharine closed the door, and looked
+at 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 to
+you, 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 were
+wrong to delay."
+
+"He told me nothing--and I asked nothing. But, of course, what the
+situation 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. At
+any ordinary time that would be enough. But now--with all the hot feeling
+there is on the other subject--and the natural desire to discredit
+him--" Flaxman shrugged his shoulders despondently. "Rose's maid--you
+know the dear old thing she is--came to her last night, in utter distress
+about the talk in the village. There was a journalist here, a reporter
+from one of the papers that have been opposing Meynell most actively--"
+
+"They are quite right to oppose him," interrupted Catharine quickly. Her
+face 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 a
+woman--walking fast toward the cottage along the narrow grass causeway
+that ran between the two ponds. On either side of the woman the autumn
+trees swayed and bent under the rising storm, and every now and then a
+mist of scudding leaves almost effaced her. She seemed to be breathlessly
+struggling with the wind as she sped onward, and in her whole aspect
+there was an indescribable forlornness and terror.
+
+Catharine peered into the rain....
+
+"Hugh!"--She turned swiftly to her brother-in-law--"There is some one
+coming to see me. Will you go?"--she pointed to the garden door on the
+farther side of the drawing-room--"and will you take Mary? Go round to
+the back. You know the old summer-house at the end of the wood-walk. We
+have often sheltered there from rain. Or there's the keeper's cottage a
+little 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 he
+too saw the advancing form. In an instant he had disappeared by the
+garden door. Catharine went into the hall, opened the door of the kitchen
+and beckoned to Mary, who was standing there with their little maid.
+"Don't come back just yet, darling!" she said in her ear--"Get your
+things on, and go with Uncle Hugh. I want to be alone."
+
+Mary stepped back bewildered, and Catharine shut her in. Then she went
+back 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 the
+cloak off."
+
+And as she drew off the soaked waterproof, Catharine felt the trembling
+of 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 on
+Catharine. Every feature in the delicate oval face was pinched and drawn.
+The struggle with wild weather had drained the lips and the cheeks of
+colour, and her brown hair under her serge cap fell limply about her
+small ears and neck. She was an image not so much of grief as of some
+unendurable 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 it
+so strange of me to come to you in this way. But I am in trouble--such
+great trouble--and I don't know what to do. Then I thought I'd come to
+you. You--you always seem to me so kind--you won't despise--or repulse
+me--I know you won't!"
+
+Her voice sank to a whisper. Catharine took the two icy hands in her warm
+grasp.
+
+"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's
+friend--when I'd no right. I'm not what you think. I--I have a
+secret--or--I had. And now it's discovered--and I don't know what I shall
+do--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 spoke
+in 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 cold
+hands, she pressed it to her lips.
+
+But Alice suddenly raised herself.
+
+"You knew!"--she said--"You knew!" And her eyes, full of fear, stared
+into Catharine's. Then as Catharine did not speak immediately she went on
+with growing agitation, "You've heard--what everybody's saying? Oh! I
+don'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 a
+nightmare. For I felt certain she'd come home because she was angry with
+us--and that she'd said something--before she died. Then nothing
+happened--and I've tried to think--lately--it was all right. But last
+night--"
+
+She paused for self-control. Catharine was alarmed by her state--by its
+anguish, its excitement. It required an effort of her whole being before
+the 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 nursed
+me sometimes--when I've been ill. She loves me--she's good to me. And she
+came to tell me what people were saying in the village--how there were
+letters going round, about me--and Hester--how everybody knew--and they
+were talking in the public-houses. She thought I ought to know--she
+cried--and wanted me to deny it. And of course I denied it--I was fierce
+to 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 said
+people were saying--that the Rector--that Mr. Meynell--was Hester's
+father--and Judith Sabin had told Mr. Barron so before her death. And
+they 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 were
+many people who were angry--who didn't believe a word--but this woman who
+told me was astonished that so many _did_ believe.... So then I thought
+all 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 I
+should bring disgrace on them in the end--and her life had been a burden
+to 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 say
+nothing--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 she
+pressed the damp hair back from her face, and began to pace the
+room--unconsciously--still talking.
+
+"I asked her what was to happen about Richard--about the Rector. I said
+he 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 sin
+had spoilt her life--and Ralph's. They had done all they could--and now
+the publicity--if I insisted--would disgrace them all--and ruin the
+girls' chances of marrying, and I don't know what besides. But if I held
+my tongue--we could go away for a time--it would be forgotten, and nobody
+out of Upcote need ever hear of it. People would never believe such a
+thing of Richard Meynell. Of course he would deny it--and of course his
+word 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 were
+her whole strength to pour it--slowly, deliberately--into the words that
+followed:
+
+"But I--will run no risk of ruining Richard Meynell! As for me--what does
+it matter what happens to me! And darling Hester!--we could keep it from
+her--we would! She and I could live abroad. And I don't see how it could
+disgrace Edith and the girls--people would only say she and Ralph had
+been very good to me. But Richard Meynell!--with these trials coming
+on--and all the excitement about him--there'll be ever so many who would
+be wild to believe it! They won't care how absurd it is--they'll want
+to _crush_ him! And he--he'll _never_ say a word for himself--to
+explain--never! Because he couldn't without telling all my story. And
+that--do you suppose Richard Meynell would ever do _that_?--to any poor
+human 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 her
+in doubt--trouble--amazement. And then, her pure sense divined
+something--dimly--of what the full history of this soul had been; and her
+heart melted. She put out her hands and drew the speaker down again into
+the seat beside her.
+
+"I think you'll have to let him decide that for you. He's a strong
+man--and a wise man. He'll judge what's right. And I ought to warn you
+that 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 Catharine
+reluctantly.
+
+Alice shrank and trembled. "It's terrible!"--her voice was scarcely to be
+heard. "Who is it hates me so?--or Richard?"
+
+There was silence a moment. And in the pause the stress and tumult of
+nature without, the beating of the wind, and the plashing of the rain,
+seemed to be rushing headlong through the little room. But neither
+Catharine nor Alice was aware of it, except in so far as it played
+obscurely on Alice's tortured nerves, fevering and goading them the more.
+Catharine's gaze was bent on her companion; her mind was full of projects
+of help, which were also prayers; moments in that ceaseless dialogue with
+a Greater than itself, which makes the life of the Christian. And it was
+as though, by some secret influence, her prayers worked on Alice; for
+presently she turned in order that she might look straight into the face
+beside 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 you
+don't know about Neville--no one does now. People seem all to have
+forgotten him. But he came into his property here--the Abbey--the old
+Abbey--just when I was growing up. I saw him here first--but only once or
+twice. Then we met in Scotland. I was staying at a house near his
+shooting. And we fell in love. Oh, I knew he was married!--I can never
+say that I didn't know, even at the beginning. But his wife was so cruel
+to him--he was very, very unhappy. She couldn't understand him--or make
+allowances for him--she despised him, and wouldn't live with him. He was
+miserable--and so was I. My father and mother were dead! I had to live
+with Ralph and Edith; and they always made me feel that I was in their
+way. 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 do
+everything. I was staying with some old cousins in Rossshire, who used to
+ask me now and then. There were no young people in the house. My cousins
+were quite kind to me, but I spent a great deal of time alone--and
+Neville 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 me
+books--and read to me. He was sorry for me--and at last--he loved me! And
+we never looked ahead. Then--in one week--everything happened together. I
+had to go home. He talked of going to Sandford, and implored me still to
+meet him. And I thought how Ralph and Edith would watch us, and spy upon
+us, and I implored him never to go to Sandford when I was at Upcote. We
+must meet at other places. And he agreed. Then the day came for me to go
+south. I travelled by myself--and he rode twenty miles to a junction
+station and joined me. Then we travelled all day together."
+
+Her voice failed her. She pressed her thin hands together under the onset
+of memory, and that old conquered anguish which in spite of all the life
+that had been lived since still smouldered amid the roots of being.
+
+"I may tell you?" she said at last, with a piteous look. Catharine bent
+over her.
+
+"Anything that will help you. Only remember I don't ask or expect you to
+say 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 thought
+we could never meet again--it seemed as though we were both--with every
+station we passed--coming nearer to something like death--something worse
+than death. Then--before we got to Euston--I couldn't bear it--I--I gave
+way. We sent a telegram from Euston to Edith that I was going to stay
+with 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 I
+went home. In a few weeks Edith guessed--and so did Judith Sabin, who was
+Edith's maid. Edith made me tell her everything. She and Ralph were
+nearly beside themselves. They were very strict in those days; Ralph was
+a great Evangelical, and used to speak at the May meetings. All his party
+looked up to him so--and consulted him. It was a fearful blow to him. But
+Edith thought of what to do--and she made him agree. We went abroad, she
+and I--with Judith. It was given out that Edith was delicate, and must
+have a year away. We stopped about in little mountain places--and Hester
+was born at Grenoble. And then for the last and only time, they let
+Neville 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 an
+accident--but it wasn't. He had hoped and hoped to get his wife to
+divorce him--and make amends. And when Mrs. Flood's--his wife's--final
+letter came--she was a Catholic and nothing would induce her--he just
+took his boat out in a storm, and never came back--"
+
+The story lost itself in a long sobbing sigh that came from the depths of
+life. When she spoke again it was with more strength:
+
+"But he had written the night before to Richard--Richard Meynell. You
+know he was the Rector's uncle, though he was only seven years older? I
+had 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 Richard
+was still at college, and Neville was in the Guards. They used to talk of
+religion and philosophy. Neville was a great reader always--and they
+became great friends. So on his last night he wrote to Richard, telling
+him everything, and asking him to be kind to me--and Hester. And
+Richard--who had just been appointed to the living here--came out to
+the Riviera, and brought me the letter--and the little book that was in
+his pocket--when they found him. So you see ..."
+
+She spoke with fluttering colour and voice, as though to find words at
+all were a matter of infinite difficulty:
+
+"You see that was how Richard came to take an interest in us--in Hester
+and me--how he came to be the friend too of Ralph and Edith. Poor
+Ralph!--Ralph was often hard to me, but he meant kindly--he would never
+have 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 have
+had any peace--any comfort in life again--but for Richard. He found
+somebody to live with me abroad for those first years, and then, when I
+came back to Upcote, he made Ralph and Edith consent to my living in that
+little house by myself--with my chaperon. He would have preferred--indeed
+he urged it--that I should go on living abroad. But there was
+Hester!--and I knew by that time that none of them had the least bit of
+love for her!--she was a burden to them all. I couldn't leave her to
+them--I _couldn't!_... Oh! they were terrible, those years!" And again
+she caught Catharine's hands and held them tight. "You see, I was so
+young--not much over twenty--and nobody suspected anything. Nobody in the
+world 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 preached
+to me--but by his life. I couldn't have lived at all--but for him. And
+now you see--you see--how I am paying him back!"
+
+And again, as the rush of emotion came upon her, she threw herself into a
+wild pleading, as though the gray-haired woman beside her were thwarting
+and opposing her.
+
+"How can I let my story--my wretched story--ruin his life--and all his
+work? I can't--I can't! I came to you because you won't look at it as
+Edith does. You'll think of what's right--right to others. Last night I
+thought one must die of--misery. I suppose people would call it shame. It
+seemed to me I heard what they were all saying in the village--how they
+were gloating over it--after all these years. It seemed to strip one of
+all self-respect--all decency. And to-day I don't care about that! I care
+only that Richard shouldn't suffer because of what he did for me--and
+because of me. Oh! do help me, do advise me! Your look--your manner--have
+often made me want to come and tell you"--her voice was broken now with
+stifled sobs--"like a child--a child. Dear Mrs. Elsmere!--what ought I to
+do?"
+
+And she raised imploring eyes to the face beside her, so finely worn with
+living 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 would
+tell you that. She is your first--your sacredest duty."
+
+Alice Puttenham shivered as though something in Catharine's tender voice
+reproached her.
+
+"Oh, I know--my poor Hester! My life has set hers all wrong. Wouldn't
+it have been better to face it all from the beginning--to tell the
+truth--wouldn't it?" She asked it piteously.
+
+"It might have been. But the other way was chosen; and now to undo
+it--publicly--affects not you only, but Hester. It mayn't be possible--it
+mayn't be right."
+
+"I must!--I must!" said Alice impetuously, and rising to her feet she
+began to pace the room again with wild steps, her hands behind her, her
+slender form drawn tensely to its height.
+
+At that moment Catharine became aware of some one standing in the porch
+just 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 murmured
+conversation passed between the two persons in the little hall. Then
+Catharine came in again, followed by Meynell, who closed the door, and
+stood looking sadly at the pale woman confronting him.
+
+"So they haven't spared even you?" he said at last, in a voice bitterly
+subdued. "But don't be too unhappy. It wants courage and wisdom on our
+part. But it will all pass away."
+
+He quietly pushed a chair toward Alice, and then took off his dripping
+cloak, carried it into the passage outside, and returned.
+
+"Don't go, Mrs. Elsmere," he said, as he perceived Catharine's
+uncertainty. "Stay and help us, if you will."
+
+Catharine submitted. She took her accustomed seat by the fire; Alice, or
+the ghost of Alice, sat opposite to her, in Mary's chair, surrounded by
+Mary's embroidery things; and Meynell was between them.
+
+He looked from one to the other, and there was something in his aspect
+which restrained Alice's agitation, and answered at once to some high
+expectation in Catharine.
+
+"I know, Mrs. Elsmere, that you have received one of the anonymous
+letters that are being circulated in this neighbourhood, and I presume
+also--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 must
+be 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 helped
+her 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 state
+of life and mind. She imagines herself to be in love with my cousin
+Philip Meryon, a worthless man, without an ounce of conscience where
+women are concerned, who, in my strong belief, is already married
+under 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. I
+have convinced him at last--this morning--that I mean to bring this home
+to him. But that does not dispose of the thing--finally. Hester is in
+danger--in danger from herself. She is at war with her family--with the
+world. She believes nobody loves her--that she is and always has been a
+pariah at home--and with her temperament she is in a mood for desperate
+things. Tell her now that she is illegitimate--let your sister Edith go
+talking to her about 'disgrace'--and there is no saying what will happen.
+She will say--and think--that she has no responsibilities, and may do
+what she pleases. There is no saying what she might do. We might have a
+tragedy that none of us could prevent."
+
+Alice lifted her head.
+
+"I could go away with her," she said, imploringly. "I could watch over
+her 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 to
+return to give evidence."
+
+"Yes--for a short time. But that could be managed. She should never see
+the English papers--I could promise that."
+
+"And what is to prevent Philip Meryon telling her? At present he is
+entirely ignorant of her parentage. I have convinced myself of that this
+morning. 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 off
+to-night. We must, of course, always take the risk of his knowing, and of
+his 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 do
+not 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 tell
+her?"
+
+Alice did not reply. She sat wringing her delicate hands in a silent
+desperation; while Catharine opposite was lost in the bewilderment of the
+situation--the insistence of the woman, the refusal of the man.
+
+"My advice is this"--continued Meynell, still addressing Alice--"that you
+should take her to Paris tomorrow in my stead, and should stay near her
+for some months. Lady Fox-Wilton--whom I have just seen--she overtook me
+driving on the Markborough road half an hour ago, and we had some
+conversation--talks of taking a house at Tours for a year--an excellent
+thing--for them all. We don't want her on the spot any longer--we don't
+want any of them!" said the Rector, dismissing the Fox-Wilton family with
+an emphatic gesture which probably represented what he had gone through
+in the interview with Edith. ... "In that way the thing will soon die
+down. There will be nobody here--nobody within reach--for the scoundrel
+who is writing these letters to attack--except, of course, myself--and
+I 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 believed
+them. 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 is
+very important--very true. But for me personally"--she looked round the
+room with wandering eyes; then found a sudden passionate gesture,
+pressing back the hair from her brow with both hands--"for me
+personally--to tell the truth--to face the truth--would be
+relief--infinite relief! It would kill the fear in which I have lived all
+these years--kill it forever. It would be better for all of us if we had
+told the truth--from the beginning. And as for Hester--she must know--you
+say yourself she must know before long--when she is of age--when she
+marries--"
+
+Meynell's face took an unconscious hardness.
+
+"Forgive me!--the matter must be left to me. The only person who could
+reasonably take legal action would be myself--and I shall not take it. I
+beg you, be advised by me." He bent forward again. "My dear friend!"--and
+now he spoke with emotion--"in your generous consideration for me you do
+not know what you are proposing--what an action in the courts would mean,
+especially at this moment. Think of the party spirit that would be
+brought into it--the venom--the prejudice--the base insinuations.
+No!--believe me--that is out of the question--for your sake--and
+Hester's."
+
+"And your work--your influence?"
+
+"If they suffer--they must suffer. But do not imagine that I shall not
+defend myself--and you--you above all--from calumny and lies. Of course I
+shall--in my own way."
+
+There was silence--a dismal silence. At the end of it Meynell stretched
+out 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." Then
+he 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 Miss
+Puttenham 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 to
+Alice.
+
+"Go to him--go to him at once!" she said with a sob she could not
+repress.
+
+Another silence. Then Meynell walked to the window and looked at the
+weather.
+
+"It is not raining so fast," he said in his cheerful voice. "Oughtn't you
+to be going home--getting ready and arranging with Hester? It's an awful
+business going abroad."
+
+Alice rose silently. Catharine went into the kitchen to fetch the
+waterproof 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. It
+seems to burn one's heart--the coarse and horrible things that are being
+said--"
+
+He frowned and fidgeted--till the thought within forced its way:
+
+"Christ was hated. Yet directly the least touch of it comes to us, we
+rebel--we cry out against God."
+
+"It is because we are so weak--we are not Christ!" She covered her face
+with 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 in
+Thee_!'" He fell--murmuring--into lines that had evidently been in his
+thoughts, smiling upon her.
+
+Then Catharine returned. Alice was warmly wrapped up, and Catharine took
+her 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 to
+which 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 was
+standing 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--with
+regard to my daughter?"
+
+He turned--pale with amazement.
+
+And so began what one may call--perhaps--the most romantic action of a
+noble life!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+When Catharine returned to the little sitting-room, in which the darkness
+of a rainy October evening was already declaring itself, she came shaken
+by many emotions in which only one thing was clear--that the man before
+her 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 the
+threatened scandal a means of freeing Mary from an undesirable
+attachment. But just as in her married life, her heart had not been able
+to stand against her husband while her mind condemned him, so now. While
+in theory, and toward people with whom she never came in contact, she had
+grown even more bitter and intransigent since Robert's death than she had
+been in her youth, she had all the time been living the daily life of
+service and compassion which--unknown to herself--had been the real
+saving and determining force. Impulses of love, impulses of sacrifice
+toward the miserable, the vile, and the helpless--day by day she had felt
+them, day by day she had obeyed them. And thus all the arteries, so to
+speak, of the spiritual life had remained soft and pliant--that life
+itself in her was still young. It was there in truth that her
+Christianity lay; while she imagined it to lie in the assent to certain
+historical and dogmatic statements. And so strong was this inward and
+vital faith--so strengthened in fact by mere living--that when she was
+faced with this second crisis in her life, brought actually to close
+grips with it, that faith, against all that might have been expected,
+carried her through the difficult place with even greater sureness than
+at first. She suffered indeed. It seemed to her all through that she was
+endangering Mary, and condoning a betrayal of her Lord. And yet she could
+not act upon this belief. She must needs act--with pain often, and yet
+with mysterious moments of certainty and joy, on quite another faith, the
+faith which has expressed itself in the perennial cry of Christianity:
+"Little children, love one another!" And therein lay the difference
+between her and Barron.
+
+It was therefore in this mixed--and yet single--mood that she came back
+to Meynell, and asked him--quietly--the strange question: "What shall I
+do--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. He
+stared at her in bewilderment, at first pale, and then in a sudden heat
+and 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 you
+cannot, for good reasons, involving other persons, prosecute those
+responsible for it in the usual way. And if she comes across any signs of
+it, or its effects, she is to trust your wisdom in dealing with it--and
+not 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 her
+gravely.
+
+"Or--will you say it yourself?"
+
+He started.
+
+"Mrs. Elsmere!"--he spoke with quick emotion--"You are wonderfully good
+to me." He scanned her with an unsteady face--then made an agitated step
+toward her. "It almost makes me think--you permit me--"
+
+"No--no," said Catharine, hurriedly, drawing back. "But if you would like
+to 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 a
+question; it will be her business to know nothing of the matter--in
+itself. But she will be able to show you her confidence, and to feel that
+we have treated her as a woman--not a child."'
+
+Meynell drew a deep breath. He took Catharine's hand and pressed it. She
+felt with a thrill--which was half bitterness--that it was already a
+son'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 to
+speak of it--to intrude myself and my affairs on her notice at all at
+this moment...." He looked at his companion almost sternly. "Is it not
+clear that I ought not? I meant to have brought her a book to-day. I have
+not brought it. I have been even glad--thankful--to think you were going
+away, although--" But again he checked the personal note. "The truth is I
+could not endure that through me--through anything connected with me--she
+might be driven upon facts and sorrows--ugly facts that would distress
+her, and sorrows for which she is too young. It seemed to me indeed I
+might 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 smallest
+degree to presume upon her--and your--kindness to me. Above all"--his
+voice shook--"I could not come forward--I could not speak to her--as at
+another time I might have spoken. I could not run the smallest risk--of
+her name being coupled with mine--when my character was being seriously
+called in question. It would not have been right for her; it would not
+have been seemly for myself. So what was there--but silence? And yet I
+felt--that through this silence--we should somehow trust each other!"
+
+He paused a moment, looking down upon his companion. Catharine was
+sitting by the fire near a small table on which her elbow rested, her
+face propped on her hand. There was something in the ascetic refinement,
+the grave sweetness of her aspect, that played upon him with a tonic and
+consoling force. He remembered the frozen reception she had given him at
+their first meeting; and the melting of her heart toward him seemed a
+wonderful thing. And then came the delicious thought--"Would she so treat
+him, 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 communication
+with him, to show any kindness toward him, till this cloud had wholly
+cleared away, and the sky was clear again. He became almost angry as he
+urged this; so excited, indeed, and incoherent that a charming smile
+stole into Catharine's gray eyes.
+
+"I understand quite what you feel," she said as she rose, "and why you
+feel it. But I am not bound to follow your advice--or to agree with
+you--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 a
+little--"but it seems to me right--I have been _led_--else why was
+it 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 more
+mystical Christian experience. She hurried on:
+
+"When two people--two people like you and Mary--feel such a deep
+interest in each other--surely it is God's sign." Then, suddenly, the
+tears 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 was
+great.
+
+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 her
+hand, and turned aside to gather up some letters on the table.
+
+A sound of footsteps could be heard outside. Catharine moved to the
+window.
+
+"It is Mary," she said quietly. "Will you wait a little while I meet
+her?" And without giving him time to reply, she left the room.
+
+He walked up and down, not without some humorous bewilderment in spite of
+his emotion. The saints, it seemed, are persons of determination! But,
+after a minute, he thought of nothing, realized nothing, save that Mary
+was in the little house again, and that one of those low voices he could
+just hear, as a murmur in the distance, through the thin walls of the
+cottage, was hers.
+
+The door opened softly, and she came in. Though she had taken off her
+hat, she still wore her blue cloak of Irish frieze, which fell round her
+slender figure in long folds. Her face was rosy with rain and wind; the
+same wind and rain which had stamped such a gray fatigue on Alice
+Puttenham's cheeks. Amid the dusk, the fire-light touched her hair and
+her ungloved hand. She was a vision of youth and soft life; and her
+composure, her slight, shy smile, would alone have made her beautiful.
+
+Their hands met as she gently greeted him. But there was that in his look
+which disturbed her gentleness--which deepened her colour. She hurried to
+speak.
+
+"I am so glad that mother made you stay--just that I might tell
+you." Then her breath began to hasten. "Mother says you are--or may
+be--unjustly attacked--that you don't think it right to defend yourself
+publicly--and those who follow you, and admire you, may be hurt and
+troubled. I wanted to say--and mother approves--that whoever is hurt and
+troubled, I can never be--except for you. Besides, I shall know and ask
+nothing. You may be sure of that. And people will not dare to speak to
+me."
+
+She stood proudly erect.
+
+Meynell was silent for a moment. Then, by a sudden movement, he stooped
+and 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, dropped
+them, 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 it
+may be a hard fight. But whatever happens, you are going to Westmoreland
+immediately. That is my great comfort."
+
+"Is it?" She laughed unsteadily.
+
+He too smiled. There was intoxication he could not resist--in her
+presence--and in what it implied.
+
+"It is the best possible thing that could be done. Then--whatever
+happens--I shall not be compromising my friends. For a while--there must
+be no communication between them and me."
+
+"Oh, yes!" she said, involuntarily clasping her hands. "Friends may
+write."
+
+"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 are
+preaching--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 the
+mountains 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 and
+tremulous joy, she began to question him about the meetings and
+engagements ahead. But he would not be drawn into any talk about them. It
+was no doubt quite possible--though not, he thought, probable--that he
+might soon be ostracized from them all. But upon this he would not dwell,
+and though her understanding of the whole position was far too vague
+to warn her from these questions, she soon perceived that he was
+unwilling to answer them as usual. Silence indeed fell between them; but
+it was a silence of emotion. She had thrown off her cloak, and sat
+looking 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 at
+her feet. As they realized each other's nearness indeed, in the quiet of
+the dim room, it was with a magic sense of transformation. Outside the
+autumn storm was still beating--symbol of the moral storm which
+threatened them. Yet within were trust and passionate gratitude and
+tender hope, intertwined, all of them, with the sacred impulse of the
+woman toward the man, and of the man toward the woman. Each moment as it
+passed built up one of those watersheds of life from which henceforward
+the rivers flow broadening to undreamt-of seas.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Catharine returned, Meynell was hat in hand for departure. There was
+no more expression of feeling or reference to grave affairs. They stood a
+few moments chatting about ordinary things. Incidentally Hugh Flaxman's
+loss of the two gold coins was mentioned. Meynell inquired when they were
+first missed.
+
+"That very evening," said Mary. "Rose always puts them away herself. She
+missed the two little cases at once. One was a coin of Velia, with a head
+of Athene--"
+
+"I remember it perfectly," said Meynell. "It dropped on the floor when I
+was talking to Norham--and I picked it up--with another, if I remember
+right--a Hermes!"
+
+Mary replied that the Hermes too was missing--that both were exceedingly
+rare; and that in the spring a buyer for the Louvre had offered Hugh four
+hundred pounds for the two.
+
+"They feel most unhappy and uncomfortable about it. None of the servants
+seems to have gone into that room during the party. Rose put all the
+coins on the table herself. She remembers saying good-bye to Canon France
+and his sister in the drawing-room--and two or three others--and
+immediately afterward she went into the green drawing-room to lock up the
+coins. 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--the
+Bishop!--Canon Dornal!"
+
+They both laughed. Then Meynell's face set sharply. A sudden recollection
+shot through his mind. He beheld the figure of a sallow, dark-haired
+young man slipping--alone--through the doorway of the green drawing-room.
+And this image in the mind touched and fired others, like a spark running
+through dead leaves....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he had gone, Catharine turned to Mary, and Mary, running, wound her
+arms close round her mother, and lay her head on Catharine's breast.
+
+"You angel!--you darling!" she said, and raising her mother's hand she
+kissed it passionately.
+
+Catharine's eyes filled with tears, and her heart with mingled joy and
+revolt. Then, quickly, she asked herself as she stood there in her
+child's embrace whether she should speak of a certain event--certain
+experience--which had, in truth, though Mary knew nothing of it, vitally
+affected 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 breaking
+down of an opposition and a hostility which might in time have poisoned
+all their relations to each other.
+
+But when Mary had gone away to change her damp clothes, the visionary
+experience of which Catharine could not tell came back upon her; and
+again she felt the thrill--the touch of bodiless ecstasy.
+
+It had been in the early morning, when all such things befall. For then
+the mind is not yet recaptured by life and no longer held by sleep. There
+is in it a pure expectancy, open to strange influences: influences from
+memory and the under-soul. It visualizes easily, and dream and fact are
+one.
+
+In this state Catharine woke on a September morning and felt beside her a
+presence that held her breathless. The half-remembered images and
+thoughts 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 dialogue
+began 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 the
+dancing shadows of the autumn leaves were all present to her. She poured
+out the sorrow, the anxiety--about Mary--that pressed so heavy on her
+heart, and the tender voice answered, now consoling, now rebuking.
+
+"And we forbade him, because he followed not us ... Forbid him
+not--_forbid him not_!"--seemed to go echoing through the quiet air.
+
+The words sank deep into her sense--she heard herself sobbing--and
+the 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 of
+the mingled ideas and passions on which her life was founded, piercing
+through the intellectualism of her dogmatic belief. But though she would
+have patiently accepted any scientific explanation, she believed in her
+heart that Robert had spoken to her, bidding her renounce her repugnance
+to Mary's friendship with Meynell--to Mary's love for Meynell.
+
+She came down the morning after with a strange, dull sense of change
+and disaster. But the currents of her mind and will had set firmly in a
+fresh direction. It was almost mechanically--under a strong sense of
+guidance--that she had made her hesitating proposal to Mary to go with
+her to the Upcote meeting. Mary's look of utter astonishment had sent new
+waves of disturbance and compunction through the mother's mind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But if these things could not be told--even to Mary--there were other
+revelations 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 embrace
+of her mother, she went away upstairs, only pausing at the door of the
+sitting-room to ask when they should start for the cottage.
+
+Upstairs Mary sat for long in the dark, thinking.... Through her
+uncurtained windows she watched the obscure dying away of the storm, the
+calming of the trees, and the gradual clearing of the night sky. Between
+the upfurling clouds the stars began to show; tumult passed into a great
+tranquillity; and a breath of frost began to steal through the woods, and
+over the water....
+
+Catharine too passed an hour of reflection--and of yearning over the
+unhappy. Naturally, to Mary, her lips had been sealed on that deepest
+secret of all, which she had divined for a moment in Alice. She had
+clearly perceived what was or had been the weakness of the woman,
+together with the loyal unconsciousness and integrity of the man. And
+having perceived it, not only pity but the strain in Catharine of plain
+simplicity 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 to
+help her. She began however to understand what might be the full meaning
+of Alice's last injunction--and her eyes grew wet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mother and daughter started about eight o'clock for the cottage. They had
+a lantern with them, but they hardly needed it, for through the
+tranquillized air a new moon shone palely, and the frost made way.
+Catharine walked rejoicing apparently in renewed strength and recovered
+powers of exertion. Some mining, crippling influence seemed to have been
+removed from her since her dream. And yet, even at this time, she was not
+without premonitions--physical premonitions--as to the future--faint
+signal-voices that the obscure life of the body can often communicate to
+the spirit.
+
+They found the cottage all in light and movement. Servants were flying
+about; boxes were in the hall; Hester had come over to spend the night at
+the cottage that she and "Aunt Alice" might start by an early train.
+
+Alice came out to meet her visitors in the little hall. Catharine slipped
+into the drawing-room. Alice and Mary held each other enwrapped in one of
+those moments of life that have no outward expression but dimmed eyes
+and fluttering breath.
+
+"Is it all done? Can't I help?" said Mary at last, scarcely knowing what
+she said, as Alice released her.
+
+"No, dear, it's all done--except our books. Come up with me while I pack
+them."
+
+And they vanished upstairs, hand in hand.
+
+Meanwhile Hester in her most reckless mood was alternately flouting and
+caressing Catharine Elsmere. She was not in the least afraid of
+Catharine, and it was that perhaps which had originally drawn Catharine's
+heart to her. Elsmere's widow was accustomed to feel herself avoided by
+young people who discussed a wild literature, and appeared to be without
+awe toward God, or reverence toward man. Yet all the time, through her
+often bewildered reprobation of them, she hungered for their affection,
+and knew that she carried in herself treasures of love to give--though no
+doubt, on terms.
+
+But Hester had always divined these treasures, and was, besides, as a
+rule, far too arrogant and self-centred to restrain herself in anything
+she wished to say or do for fear of hurting or shocking her elders.
+
+At this moment she had declared herself tired out with packing, and
+was lounging in an armchair in the little drawing-room. A Japanese
+dressing-gown of some pale pink stuff sprayed with almond blossom floated
+about her, disclosing a skimpy silk petticoat and a slender foot from
+which she had kicked its shoe. Her pearly arms and neck were almost bare;
+her hair tumbled on her shoulders; her eyes shone with excitement
+provoked by a dozen hidden and conflicting thoughts. In her beauty, her
+ardent and provocative youth, she seemed to be bursting out of the little
+room, 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 and
+talk."
+
+And she put out an impatient hand, and drew the stately Catharine toward
+a chair beside her.
+
+"You ought to be in bed," said Catharine, retaining her hand. The girl's
+ignorance of all that others knew affected her strangely--produced a
+great softness and compunction.
+
+"I shouldn't sleep. I wonder when I shall get a decent amount of sleep
+again!" said Hester, pressing back the hair from her cheeks. Then she
+turned sharply on her visitor:
+
+"Of course you know, Mrs. Elsmere, that I am simply being sent away--in
+disgrace."
+
+"I know"--Catharine smiled, though her tone was grave--"that those who
+love 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 the
+same it's true. They're sending me away because they don't know what
+I'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, not
+without severity. "They are never at rest about you. My dear--they only
+wish your good."
+
+Hester laughed. She threw out a careless hand and laid it on Catharine's
+knee.
+
+"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 do
+like you so. But you can't know anything, can you, about girls--like
+me?"
+
+And looking up from where she lay deep in the armchair, she turned
+half-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--with
+girls."
+
+"Oh--poor girls? Girls in factories--girls that wear fringes, and sham
+pearl beads, and six ostrich feathers in their hats on Sundays? No, I
+don't think I'm like them. If I were they, I shouldn't care about
+feathers or the sham pearls. I should be more likely to try and steal
+some real ones! No, but I mean really girls like me--rich girls, though
+of course I'm not rich--but you understand? Do you know any girls who
+gamble and paint--their faces I mean--and let men lend them money, and
+pay for their dresses?"
+
+Hester sat up defiantly, looking at her companion.
+
+"No, I don't know any of that kind," said Catharine quietly. "I'm
+old-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 suppose
+I 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 Catharine
+sharply.
+
+Hester's look was enigmatic.
+
+"Well, I never did it. But I knew a girl in London--very pretty--and as
+mad as you like. She was an orphan and her relatives didn't care twopence
+about her. She got into debt, and a horrid old man offered to lend her a
+couple of hundred pounds if she'd give him a kiss. She said no, and then
+she told an older woman who was supposed to look after her. And what do
+you suppose she said?"
+
+Catharine was silent.
+
+"'Well, you _are_ a little fool!' That was all she got for her pains. Men
+are villains--_I_ think! But they're exciting!" And Hester clasped her
+hands 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's
+chair, she took the girl in her arms.
+
+"Hester, dear!--if you want a friend--whenever you want a friend--come to
+me! 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 Hester
+lightly 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 kinds
+of 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 in
+her 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 the
+miniature.
+
+"How can I love her when she won't trust me?" she cried again, with
+stormy breath.
+
+Catharine's heart melted within her.
+
+"But you _must_ love her, Hester! Why, she has watched over you all your
+life. 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 a
+veiled future, unable, by no fault of her own, to distinguish her lovers
+from 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 for
+you"--she bent forward like a queen, and lightly kissed Catharine on the
+cheek--"I daresay I'll remember what you've said--you're a great, great
+dear! It was luck for Mary to have got you for a mother. But I'm all
+right--I'm all right!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the Elsmeres were gone, Hester still sat on alone in the
+drawing-room. The lamp had burnt dim, and the little room was cold.
+
+Presently she slipped her hand into the white bodice she wore. A letter
+lay there, and her fingers caressed it. "I don't know whether I love him
+or not--perhaps I do, and perhaps I don't. I don't know whether I believe
+Uncle Richard--or this letter. But--I'm going to find out! I'm not going
+to be stopped from finding out."
+
+And as she lay there, she was conscious of bonds she was half determined
+to escape, half willing to bear; of a fluttering excitement and dread.
+Step by step, and with a childish bravado, she had come within the
+influences of sex; and her fate was upon her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+Meanwhile, amid this sensitive intermingling of the thoughts and feelings
+of women, there arose the sudden tumult and scandal of the new elements
+which had thrust themselves into what was already known to the religious
+world throughout England as "the Meynell case." During November and
+December that case came to include two wholly different things: the
+ecclesiastical suit in the Court of Arches, which, owing to a series of
+delays and to the illness of the Dean of the Court, was not to be heard
+in all probability before February, and the personal charges brought
+against the incumbent of Upcote Minor.
+
+These fresh charges were formally launched by Henry Barron, the chief
+promoter also, as we know, of the ecclesiastical suit, in a letter
+written by him to Bishop Craye, on the very night when Alice Puttenham
+revealed her secret to Catharine Elsmere. But before we trace the effect
+of the letter, let us look for a moment at the general position of the
+Movement when this second phase of Meynell's connection with it began.
+
+At that time the pending suits against the Modernist leaders--for there
+were now five instituted by different bishops, as test cases, in
+different parts of England--were already the subject of the keenest
+expectation and debate not only in church circles, but amid sections of
+the nation which generally trouble themselves very little about clerical
+or religious disputes. New births of time were felt to be involved in the
+legal struggle; passionate hopes and equally passionate fears hung upon
+it. There were old men in quiet country parsonages who, when they read
+the _Modernist_ and followed the accounts of the Movement, were inclined
+to say to themselves with secret joy and humility that other men were
+entering into their labours, and the fields were at last whitening to
+harvest; while others, like Newman of old, had "fierce thoughts toward
+the Liberals," talked and spoke of Meynell and the whole band of
+Modernist clergy as traitors with whom no parley could be kept, and were
+ready to break up the Church at twenty-four hours' notice rather than sit
+down at the same table of the Lord with heretics and Socinians.
+
+Between these two groups of men, each equally confident and clear, though
+by no means equally talkative, there was a middle region that contained
+many anxious minds and some of the wisest heads in England. If, at the
+time of Norham's visit to Maudeley, Bishop Craye of Markborough, and many
+other bishops with him, were still certain that the Movement would be
+promptly and easily put down, so far at least as its organic effect on
+the Church of England was concerned, yet, as November and December wore
+on, anxieties deepened, and confidence began to waver. The passion of the
+Movement was beginning to run through England, as it seemed to many, like
+the flame of an explosion through a dusty mine. What amazed and terrified
+the bishops was the revelation of pent-up energies, rebellions, ideals,
+not only among their own flocks, but in quarters, and among men and
+women, hitherto ruled out of religious affairs by general consent. They
+pondered the crowds which had begun to throng the Modernist churches, the
+extraordinary growth of the Modernist press, and the figures reported day
+by day as to the petition to be presented to Parliament in February.
+There was no orthodox person in authority who was not still determined on
+an unconditional victory; but it was admitted that the skies were
+darkening.
+
+The effect of the Movement on the Dissenters--on that half of religious
+England which stands outside the National Church, where "grace" takes the
+place of authority, and bishops are held to be superfluities incompatible
+with the pure milk of the Word--was in many respects remarkable. The
+majority of the Wesleyan Methodists had thrown themselves strongly on
+to the side of the orthodox party in the Church; but among the
+Congregationalists and Presbyterians there was visible a great ferment of
+opinion and a great cleavage of sympathy; while, among the Primitive
+Methodists, a body founded on the straitest tenets of Bible worship, yet
+interwoven, none the less, with the working class life of England and
+Wales, and bringing day by day the majesty and power of religion to bear
+upon the acts and consciences of plain, poor, struggling men, there was
+visible a strong and definite current of acquiescence in Modernist ideas,
+which was inexplicable, till one came to know that among Meynell's
+friends at Upcote there were two or three Primitive local preachers who
+had 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 persons
+standing on tiptoe before an opening glory. In their isolated and often
+mistaken struggle they had felt themselves for generations stricken with
+chill and barrenness; their blood now began to feel the glow of new
+kinships, the passion of large horizons. So, along the banks of some
+slender and much hindered stream, there come blown from the nearing sea
+prophetic scents and murmurs, and one may dream that the pent water knows
+at last the whence and whither of its life.
+
+But the strangest spectacle of all perhaps was presented by the orthodox
+camp. For, in proportion as the Modernist attack developed, was the
+revival of faith among those hostile to it, or unready for it. For the
+first time in their lives, religion became interesting--thrilling
+even--to thousands of persons for whom it had long lost all real savour.
+Fierce question and answer, the hot cut and thrust of argument, the
+passion 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 a
+new life, and express itself in a new language. These were times when men
+on all sides felt that stretching and straining of faculty which ushers
+in the days of spiritual or poetic creation; times when the most
+confident Modernist of them all knew well that he, no more than any one
+else, could make any guess worth having as to the ultimate future.
+
+Of all this rapid and amazing development the personality and the
+writings of Richard Meynell had in few months become the chief popular
+symbol. There were some who thought that he was likely to take much
+the same place in the Modernist Movement of the twentieth century as
+Newman had taken in the Oxford Movement of the nineteenth; and men were
+beginning to look for the weekly article in the _Modernist_ with the
+same emotion of a passionate hero-worship on the one hand, and of angry
+repulsion on the other, with which the Oxford of the thirties had been
+wont to look for each succeeding "Tract," or for Newman's weekly sermon
+at St. Mary's. To Newman's high subtleties of brain, to Newman's magic of
+style, Richard Meynell could not pretend. But he had two advantages over
+the great leader of the past: he was the disciple of a new learning which
+was inaccessible to Newman; and he was on fire with social compassions
+and enthusiasms to which Newman, the great Newman, was always
+pathetically a stranger. In these two respects Meynell was the
+representative of his own generation; while the influences flowing from
+his personal character and life were such that thousands who had never
+seen him loved and trusted him wholly. Men who had again and again
+watched great causes break down for want of the incommunicable something
+which humanity exacts from its leaders felt with a quiet and confident
+gladness that in Meynell they had got the man they wanted, the
+efficacious, indispensable man.
+
+And now--suddenly--incredible things began to be said. It was actually
+maintained that the leader round whom such feelings had gathered had
+been, since his ordination, the betrayer of a young and innocent
+girl, belonging to a well-known family; that although it had been in his
+power for twenty years to marry the lady he had wronged, he had never
+attempted to do so, but had rather, during all that time, actively
+connived at the fraud by which his illegitimate child had passed as the
+daughter of Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton; while over the whole period he had kept
+up 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 of
+the prosecutors in the ecclesiastical suit, had obtained unexpected and
+startling confirmation of these extraordinary facts from the confession
+of a woman who had been present at the birth of the child and had
+identified the Rector of Upcote as the father. Then, very soon,
+paragraphs of a veiled sort began to appear in some of the less
+responsible newspapers. The circulation of the anonymous letters began
+to be known; and the reader of a Modernist essay at an Oxford meeting
+caused universal consternation by telling an indiscreet friend, who
+presently spread it abroad, that Barron had already written to the Bishop
+of Markborough, placing in his hands a mass of supporting evidence
+relating to "this most lamentable business."
+
+At first Meynell's friends throughout the country regarded these rumours
+as a mere device of the evil one. Similar things they said, and with
+truth, are constantly charged against heretics who cannot be put down.
+Slander is the first weapon of religious hatred. Meynell, they
+triumphantly answered, will put the anonymous letters in the hands of the
+police, and proceed against Henry Barron. And they who have taken up such
+a 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 did
+the anonymous letters reappear from time to time, untracked and
+unpunished, but reports of a meeting held at Upcote itself began to
+spread--a meeting where Meynell had been definitely and publicly
+challenged 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 and
+responsible 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 hot
+political argument with his little granddaughter Barbara.
+
+"All Tories are wicked," said Barbara, who had a Radical father, "except
+grandpapa, and he, mummy says, is weally a Riberal."
+
+With which she had leaped into the arms of her nurse, and was carried off
+gurgling, while the Bishop threatened her from afar.
+
+Then, with a sigh of impatience, as he recognized the signature on the
+envelope, he resigned himself to Barron's letter. When he had done it,
+sitting by the table in his library, he threw it from him with
+indignation, called for his coat, and hurried across his garden to the
+Cathedral for matins. After service, as with a troubled countenance he
+was emerging from the transept door, he saw Dornal in the Close and
+beckoned to him.
+
+"Come into the library for ten minutes. I very much want to speak to
+you."
+
+The Bishop led the way, and as soon as the door was shut he turned
+eagerly on his companion:
+
+"Do you know anything of these abominable stories that are being spread
+about Richard Meynell?"
+
+Dornal looked at him sadly.
+
+"They are all over Markborough--and there is actually a copy of one of
+the anonymous letters--with dashes for the names--in the _Post_ to-day?"
+
+"I never hear these things!" said the Bishop, with an impatience which
+was meant, half for a scandal-mongering world, and half for himself. "But
+Barron has written me a perfectly incredible letter to-day. He seems to
+be the head and front of the whole business. I don't like Barron, and I
+don't like his letters!"
+
+And throwing one slender leg over the other, while the tips of his long
+fingers met in a characteristic gesture, the little Bishop stared into
+the fire before him with an expression of mingled trouble and disgust.
+
+Dornal, clearly, was no less unhappy. Drawing his chair close to the
+Bishop's he described the manner in which the story had reached himself.
+When he came to the curious facts concerning the diffusion and variety of
+the 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 person
+only--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 knowledge
+of his mother's history--comes this crop of extraordinary letters,
+showing, you tell me, an intimate acquaintance with the neighbourhood
+and the parties concerned. And yet Barron--the only person Mrs. Sabin
+saw--knows nothing of them! They are a mystery to him. But, my dear
+Dornal, how _can_ they be?" The Bishop faced round with energy on his
+companion. "He must at least have talked incautiously before some one!"
+
+Dornal agreed, but could put forward no suggestion of his own. He sat
+drooping by the Bishop's fire, his aspect expressing the deep distress he
+did not shape in words. That very distress, however, was what made his
+company so congenial to the much perturbed Bishop, who felt, moreover, a
+warmer 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 relations
+as 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 my
+fatherly help just as freely as ever, if he chose to ask for it. But I
+don't know whether to send for him. I don't think I can send for him. The
+fact is--one feels the whole thing an outrage!"
+
+Dornal looked up.
+
+"That's the word!" he said gratefully. Then he added--hesitating--"I
+ought perhaps to tell you that I have written to Meynell--I wrote when
+the first report of the thing reached me. And I am sure that he can have
+no possible objection to my showing you his reply!" He put his hand into
+his pocket.
+
+"By all means, my dear Dornal!" cried the Bishop with a brightening
+countenance. "We are both his friends, in spite of all that has happened
+and 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 kindness
+and delicacy. But even to you I can only say what I say to other
+questioners of a very different sort. The story to which you refer is
+untrue. But owing to peculiar circumstances it is impossible for me to
+defend myself in the ordinary way, and my lips are sealed with regard to
+it. I stand upon my character as known to my neighbours and the diocese
+for nearly twenty years. If that is not enough, I cannot help it.
+
+"Thank you always for the goodness and gentleness of your letter. I wish
+with all my heart I could give you more satisfaction."
+
+The two men looked at each other, the same conjectures passing through
+both minds.
+
+"I hear the Fox-Wiltons and Miss Puttenham have all gone abroad," said
+the Bishop thoughtfully. "Poor things! I begin to see a glimmer. It seems
+to me that Meynell has been the repository of some story he feels he
+cannot honourably divulge. And then you tell me the letters show the
+handiwork of some one intimately acquainted with the local circumstances,
+who seems to have watched Meynell's daily life. It is of course possible
+that he may have been imprudent with regard to this poor lady. Let us
+assume that he knew her story and advised her. He may not have been
+sufficiently careful. Further, there is that striking and unfortunate
+likeness 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 and
+Meynell in the same room. It is difficult to say in what it consists, but
+it 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 will
+make all the difference to the atmosphere in which it is conducted. One
+can imagine how certain persons are already gloating over it--what use
+they will make of it--how they will magnify and embroider everything. And
+such an odious story! It is the degradation of a great issue!"
+
+The little Bishop frowned. As he sat there in the dignity of his
+great library, so scrupulously refined and correct in every detail of
+dress, yet without a touch of foppery, the gleam of the cross on his
+breast answering the silver of the hair and the frank purity of the
+eyes, it was evident that he felt a passionate impatience--half moral,
+half esthetic--toward these new elements of the Meynell case. It was
+the fastidious impatience of a man for whom personal gossip and scandal
+ranked among the forbidden indulgences of life. "Things, not persons!"
+had been the time-honoured rule for conversation at the Palace
+table--persons, that is, of the present day. In those happy persons who
+had already passed into biography and history, in their peccadilloes no
+less than their virtues, the Bishop's interest was boundless. The
+distinction tended to make him a little super- or infra-human; but it
+enhanced the fragrance and delicacy of his personality.
+
+Dornal was no less free from any stain of mean or scandalous gossip than
+the Bishop, but his knowledge of the human heart was far deeper, his
+sympathy 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 Council
+meeting--which of course will be also one of their campaign meetings--the
+day after to-morrow. Barron declares that he means to challenge Meynell
+publicly to vindicate his character. Can I do anything?"
+
+Dornal did not see anything could be done. The parish was already in open
+rebellion.
+
+"It is a miserable, miserable business!" said the Bishop unhappily. "How
+can 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 has
+neither written to me, nor consulted me, I will wait a little. We must
+watch--we must watch. Meanwhile, my dear fellow!"--he laid his hand
+on Dornal's shoulder--"let us think how to stop the talk! It will spoil
+everything. Those who are fighting with us must understand there are
+weapons we cannot stoop to use!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As Dornal left the Palace, on his way past the Cathedral, he met young
+Fenton, the High Churchman who some months earlier had refused to
+recognize Meynell after the first Modernist meeting in Markborough.
+Fenton was walking slowly and reading the local newspaper--the
+same which contained the anonymous letter. His thin, finely modelled
+face, which in a few years would resemble the Houdon statue of St. Bruno,
+expressed an eager excitement that was not unlike jubilation. Dornal was
+practically certain that he was reading the paragraph that concerned
+Meynell, and certain also that it gave him pleasure. He hurriedly
+passed over to the other side of the street, that Fenton might not accost
+him.
+
+Afterward, he spent the evening, partly in writing urgently in Meynell's
+defence to certain of his own personal friends in the diocese, and partly
+in composing an anti-Modernist address, full of a sincere and earnest
+eloquence, to be delivered the following week at a meeting of the Church
+party in Cambridge.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile Cyril Fenton had also spent the evening in writing. He kept an
+elaborate journal of his own spiritual state; or rather he had begun to
+keep it about six months before this date, at the moment when the
+emergence of the Modernist Movement had detached him from his nascent
+friendship with Meynell, and had thrown him back, terrified, on a more
+resolute opposition than ever to the novelties and presumptions of free
+inquiry. The danger of reading anything, unawares, that might cause him
+even a moment's uneasiness had led to his gradually cutting himself off
+entirely from modern newspapers and modern books, in which, indeed, he
+had never taken any very compelling interest. His table was covered by
+various English and French editions of the Fathers--of St. Cyprian in
+particular, for whom he had a cult. On the bare walls of his study
+were various pictures of saints, a statuette of the Virgin, and another
+of St. Joseph, both of them feebly elegant in the Munich manner. Through
+his own fresh youthfulness, once so winning and wholesome, something
+pinched and cloistered had begun to thrust itself. His natural sweetness
+of temper was rapidly becoming sinful in his own eyes, his natural love
+of 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 up
+his mind to go to bed earlier than usual, lest he should be thereby
+pampering the flesh. He was thoroughly dissatisfied with his own
+spiritual condition during the day, and had just made ample confession
+thereof in the pages of his diary. A few entries from that document will
+show the tone of a mind morbid for lack of exercise:
+
+"D. came to see me this morning. We discussed war a good deal. In
+general, of course, I am opposed to war, but when I think of this ghastly
+plague of heresy which is sweeping away so many souls at the present
+moment, I feel sometimes that the only war into which I could enter
+with spirit would be a civil war.... In a great deal of my talk with D. I
+posed abominably. I talked of shooting and yachting as though I knew all
+about them. I can't be content that people should think me 'out' of
+anything, or a dull fool. It was the same with my talk to S. about church
+music. I talked most arrogantly; and in reality I know hardly anything
+about it.
+
+"As to my vow of simplicity in food, I must keep my attention more on the
+alert. Yet to-day I have not done so badly; some cold ends of herring at
+breakfast, and a morsel of mackerel at lunch are the only things I have
+to reproach myself with; the only lapses from the strict rule of
+simplicity. But the quantity was deplorable--no moderation--not even a
+real attempt at it. Whenever I am disgusted with myself for having eaten
+too much at dinner, I constantly fail to draw the proper inference--that
+I should eat less at tea....
+
+"I feel that this scandal about poor Meynell is probably providential. It
+must and will weaken the Modernist party enormously. To thank God for
+such a thing sounds horrible, but after all, have we any right to be more
+squeamish than Holy Writ? 'Let God arise and let His enemies be
+scattered.' The warnings and menaces of what are called the Imprecatory
+Psalms show us plainly that His enemies must be ours."
+
+He closed his book, and came to shiver over the very inadequate fire
+which was all he allowed himself. Every shilling that he could put aside
+was being saved in order to provide his church with a new set of altar
+furniture. The congregation of the church was indeed fast ebbing
+away, and his heart was full of bitterness on the subject. But how could
+a true priest abate any fraction of either his Church principles, or his
+sound doctrine, to appease persons who were not and could not be judges
+of what was necessary to their own spiritual health?
+
+As he warmed his thin hands, his bodily discomfort increased his
+religious despondency. Then, of a sudden, his eyes fell upon the portrait
+of 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 letter
+all fun and baby-talk, and fantastic drawings, in the course of which
+Tommy grew up, developed moustaches, and became a British Grenadier.
+
+When he had finished it and put it up, he lay back laughing to himself, a
+different being.
+
+But the gleam was only momentary. A recurring sense of chill and physical
+oppression dispersed it. Presently he rose heavily, glanced at his open
+diary, reread the last page with a sigh, and closed it. Then, as it was
+nearly midnight, he retreated upstairs to his bare and icy bedroom, where
+half-an-hour's attempt to meditate completed the numbness of body and
+mind, 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 House
+of the village a few days after the Bishop's conversation with Canon
+Dornal. It was an evening long remembered by those who shared in it.
+The figure of Meynell instinct with a kind of fierce patience; the face
+rugged 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 new
+tones and shades of feeling--on those who believed in him the effect
+of these slight but significant changes in the man they loved was
+electrical.
+
+And five-sixths of those present believed in him, loved him, and were
+hotly indignant at the scandals which had arisen. They were, some of
+them, the elite of the mining population, men whom he had known
+and taught from childhood; there were many officials from the
+surrounding collieries; there was a miners' agent, who was also one of
+the well-known local preachers of the district; there were half a dozen
+women--the schoolmistress, the wife of the manager of the cooeperative
+store, and three or four wives of colliers--women to whom other women in
+childbirth, or the girl who had gone astray, or the motherless child,
+might appeal without rebuff, who were in fact the Rector's agents
+in any humanizing effort.
+
+All these persons had come to the meeting eagerly expecting to hear from
+the Rector's own lips the steps he proposed to take for the putting down
+of the slanders circulating in the diocese, and the punishment of their
+authors. In the rear of the Council--who had been themselves elected by
+the whole parish--there were two or three rows of seats occupied by other
+inhabitants of the village, who made an audience. In the front row sat
+the strange spinster, Miss Nairn, a thin, sharp nosed woman of fifty, in
+rusty black clothes, holding her head high; not far from her the dubious
+publican who had been Maurice Barron's companion on a certain walk some
+days before. There too were Hugh and Rose Flaxman. And just as the
+proceedings were about to begin, Henry Barron opened the heavy door, hat
+in hand, came in with a firm step, and took a seat at the back, while a
+thrill of excitement went through the room.
+
+It was an ancient room, near the church, and built like it, of red
+sandstone. It had been once the tiny grammar school of the village.
+Meynell had restored and adapted it, keeping still its old features--the
+low ceiling heavily beamed with oak, and the row of desks inscribed with
+the scholars' names of three centuries. Against the background of its
+white walls he stood thrown out in strong relief by the oil lamp on the
+table in front of him, his eyes travelling over the rows of familiar
+faces.
+
+He spoke first of the new Liturgy of which copies had been placed on the
+seats. He reminded them they were all--or nearly all--comrades with him
+in the great Modernist venture; that they had given him the help of their
+approval and support at every step, and were now rebels with him against
+the authorities of the day. He pointed to his approaching trial, and the
+probability--nay the certainty--of his deprivation. He asked them to be
+steadfast 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. The
+audience looked in suppressed excitement from one to the other.
+
+"I regret," said the Rector, courteously, "that we cannot hear Mr. Barron
+at this moment. He is not a member of the Church Council. When the
+proceedings 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 the
+two dissentients was Dawes, the colliery manager, a sincere and
+consistent evangelical of the Simeon School, who made a short speech in
+support of his vote, dwelling in a voice which shook on the troubles
+coming on the parish.
+
+"We may get another Rector," he said as he sat down. "We shall never get
+another Richard Meynell." A deep murmur of acquiescence ran through the
+room.
+
+Meynell rose again from his seat.
+
+"Our business is over. We now become an open meeting. Mr. Barron, I
+believe, wishes to speak."
+
+The room was, at this point, densely crowded and every face turned toward
+the tall and portly form rising from the back. In the flickering
+lamplight it could be seen that the face usually so ruddy and full was
+blanched by determination and passion.
+
+"My friends and neighbours!" said Barron, "it is with sorrow and grief
+that I rise to say the few words that I intend to say. On the audacity
+and 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 just
+been led--misled--into an act of heresy and rebellion by the man who
+should be your pastor in the Faith, who is responsible to God for your
+souls. _Why_ have you been misled?--_why_ do you follow him?" He flung
+out his hand toward Meynell.
+
+"Because you admire and respect him--because you believe him a good
+man--a man of honest and pure life. And I am here to tell you, or rather
+to remind you, for indeed you all know it--that your Rector lies at this
+moment under a painful and disgraceful charge; that this charge has been
+circulated--in a discreditable way--a way for which I have no defence and
+of which I know nothing--throughout this diocese, and indeed throughout
+England; that your fair fame, as well as his are concerned; and,
+nevertheless, he refuses to take the only steps which can clear his
+character, and repay you for the devotion you have shown him! I call upon
+you, sir!"--the speaker bent forward, pointing impressively to the
+chairman of the meeting and emphasizing every word--"to take those steps
+at 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 done
+do not continue, in the face of the congregation you have deceived and
+led astray, to assume the tone of hypocritical authority in which you
+have just spoken! You have no moral right to any authority among us; you
+never had any such right; and in Christian eyes your infidel teaching has
+led to its natural results. At any rate, I trust that now, at last, even
+these your friends and dupes will see the absolute necessity, before
+many weeks are over, of either _forcing_ you to resign your living, or
+_forcing_ you to take the only means open to honest men of protecting
+their character!"
+
+He resumed his seat. The audience sat petrified a moment. Then Hugh
+Flaxman sprang to his feet, and two or three others, the local preacher
+among them. But Meynell had also risen.
+
+"Please, Mr. Flaxman--my friends--!"
+
+He waved a quiet hand toward those who had risen, and they unwillingly
+gave way. Then the Rector looked round the room for a few silent
+instants. He was very white, but when he spoke it was with complete
+composure.
+
+"I expected something of this kind to happen, and whether it had happened
+or no I should have spoken to you on this matter before we separated. I
+know--you all know--to what Mr. Barron refers--that he is speaking of the
+anonymous letters concerning myself and others which have been circulated
+in this neighbourhood. He calls upon me, I understand, to take legal
+action with regard both to them and to the reports which he has himself
+circulated, by word of mouth, and probably by letter. Now I want you
+plainly to understand"--he bent forward, his hands on the table before
+him, 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 my
+character among you all these years. This only I will say to you, my
+friends and my parishioners: The abominable story told in these
+letters--the story which Mr. Barron believes, or tries to make himself
+believe--is untrue. But I will say no more than that--to you, or any one
+else. And if you are to make legal action on my part a test of whether
+you 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 I
+must go mine. There will be still work for me to do; and God knows our
+hearts--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 you
+should wish to discuss it. But I shall not discuss it with you. I shall
+withdraw. Mr. Dawes--will you take the chair?"
+
+He beckoned to the colliery manager, who automatically obeyed him. The
+room broke into a hubbub, men and women pressing round Meynell as he made
+his way to the door. But he put them aside, gently and cheerfully.
+
+"Decide it for yourselves!" he said with his familiar smile. "It is your
+right."
+
+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 the
+Church 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 of
+Dawes, and at last secured silence by a passionate speech in defence of
+Meynell and in denunciation of the men who in order to ruin him
+ecclesiastically were spreading these vile tales about him "and a poor
+lady that has done many a good turn to the folk of this village, and
+nothing said about it too!"
+
+"Don't you, sir"--he said, addressing Barron with a threatening
+finger--"don't you come here, telling us what to think about the man
+we've known for twenty years in this parish! The people that don't know
+Richard Meynell may believe these things if they please--it'll be the
+worse for them! But we've seen this man comforting and uplifting our old
+people in their last hours--we've seen him teaching our children--and
+giving just a kind funny word now an' again to keep a boy or a girl
+straight--aye, an' he did it too--they knew he had his eye on 'em! We've
+seen him go down these pits, when only a handful would risk their lives
+with him, to help them as was perhaps past hope. We've seen him skin
+himself to the bone that other men might have plenty--we've heard him
+Sunday after Sunday. We _know_ him!" The speaker brought one massive hand
+down on the other with an emphasis that shook the room. "Don't you go
+talking to us! If Richard Meynell won't go to law with you and the likes
+of you, sir, he's got his reasons, and his good ones, I'll be bound. And
+don't you, my friends"--he turned to the room--"don't you be turned back
+from this furrow you've begun to plough. You stick to your man! If you
+don't, you're fools, aye, and ungrateful fools too! You know well enough
+that Albert Beswick isn't a parson's man! You know that I don't hold with
+Mr. Meynell in many of his views. There's his views about 'election,' and
+the like o' that--quite wrong, in my 'umble opinion. But what does that
+matter? You know that I never set foot in Upcote Church till three years
+ago--that bishops and ceremonies are nought to me--that I came to God, as
+many of you did, by the Bible class and the penitent form. But I declare
+to you that Richard Meynell, and the men with him, are _out for a big
+thing!_ They're out for breaking down barriers and letting in light.
+They're out for bringing Christian men together and letting them worship
+freely in the old churches that our fathers built. They're out for giving
+men and women new thoughts about God and Christ, and for letting them put
+them into new words, if they want to. Well, I say again, it's _a big
+thing_! And Satan's out, too, for stopping it! Don't you make any mistake
+about it! This bad business--of these libels that are about--is one of
+the obstacles in our race he'll trip us up on, if he can. Now I put it to
+you--let us clear it out o' the way this very night, as far as we're
+concerned! Let us send the Rector such a vote of confidence from this
+meeting as'll show him fast enough where he stands in Upcote--aye, and
+show others too! And as for these vile letters that are going round--I'd
+give my right hand to know the man who wrote them!--and the story that
+you, sir"--he pointed again to Barron--"say you took from poor Judith
+Sabin when her mind was clouded and she near her end--why, it's base
+minds that harbour base thoughts about their betters! He shall be no
+friend of mine--that I know--that spreads these tales. Friends and
+neighbours, let us keep our tongues from them--and our children's
+tongues! Let us show that we can trust a man that deserves our trust. Let
+us stand by a good man that's stood by us; and let us pray God to show
+the right!"
+
+The greater part of the audience, sincerely moved, rose to their feet and
+cheered. Barron endeavoured to reply, but was scarcely listened to. The
+publican East sat twirling his hat in his hands, sarcastic smiles going
+out and in upon his fat cheeks, his furtive eyes every now and then
+consulting the tall spinster who sat beside him, grimly immovable, her
+spectacled eyes fixed apparently on the lamp above the platform.
+
+Flaxman wished to speak, but was deterred by the reflection that as a
+newcomer in the district he had scarcely a valid right to interfere. He
+and Rose stayed till the vote of confidence had been passed by a large
+majority--though not so large as that which had accepted the new
+Liturgy--after which they drove home rather depressed and ill at ease.
+For in truth the plague of anonymous letters was rather increasing than
+abating. Flaxman had had news that day of the arrival of two more among
+their own country-house acquaintance of the neighbourhood. He sat down,
+in obedience to a letter from Dornal, to write a doleful report of the
+meeting to the Bishop.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meynell received the vote of confidence very calmly, and wrote a short
+note of thanks to Beswick. Then for some weeks, while the discussion of
+his 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. He
+prepared his defence for the Court of Arches; he wrote for the
+_Modernist_; and he gave as much mind as he could possibly spare to the
+unravelling of Philip Meryon's history.
+
+In this matter, however, he made but very slow and disappointing
+progress. He became more and more convinced, and his solicitor with him,
+that there had been a Scotch marriage some eighteen months before this
+date between Meryon and the sister of a farmer in the Lothians, with whom
+he had come in contact during a fishing tenancy. But what appeared in the
+course of investigation was that the woman concerned and all her kindred
+were now just as anxious--aided by the ambiguities of the Scotch marriage
+law--to cover up and conceal the affair as was Meryon himself. She could
+not be got to put forward any claim; her family would say nothing; and
+the few witnesses hitherto available were tending to disappear. No doubt
+Philip was at work corrupting them; and the supposed wife was evidently
+quite willing, if not eager, to abet him.
+
+Every week he heard from Mary, letters which, written within bounds fully
+understood by them both and never transgressed, revealed to him the
+tremulous tenderness and purity of the heart he knew--though he would not
+confess it to himself--he had conquered. These letters became to him the
+stay 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 was
+determined not to know the details of his struggle; and nothing helped
+him more than the absolute trust of her ignorance.
+
+He heard also constantly from Alice Puttenham. She, too, poor soul--but
+how differently!--was protecting herself as best she could from an odious
+knowledge.
+
+"Edith writes to me, full of terrible things that are being said in
+England; but as I can do nothing, and must do nothing according to you, I
+do not read her letters. She sends me a local newspaper sometimes, scored
+with her marks and signs that are like shrieks of horror, and I put it in
+the fire. What I suffer I will keep to myself. Perhaps the worst part of
+every 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 in
+spirits or buoyancy.
+
+"She is very well and wonderfully beautiful; at present she is having
+lessons 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 how
+the quiet family she is with clucks after her in perpetual anxiety, and
+how cavalierly she treats them. I think she is fairly happy; she never
+mentions Meryon's name; but I often have a strange sense that she is
+looking 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 it
+matters 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 of
+what is going on in England--and she says she adores Paris."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One night in December Meynell came in late from a carpentering class of
+village boys. The usual pile of letters and books awaited him, and he
+began upon them reluctantly. As he read them, and put them aside, one
+by one, his face gradually changed and darkened. He recalled a saying of
+Amiel's about the French word "consideration"--what it means to a man to
+have enjoyed unvarying and growing "consideration" from his world; and
+then, suddenly, to be threatened with the loss of it. Life and
+consciousness 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 Central
+Modernist Committee. For some months it had been a settled thing that
+Meynell should preach the sermon in Dunchester Cathedral on the great
+occasion in January when the new Liturgy of the Reform was to be
+inaugurated with all possible solemnity in one of England's most famous
+churches.
+
+His correspondent wrote to suggest that after all the sermon would be
+more fitly entrusted to the Modernist Bishop of Dunchester himself. "He
+has worked hard, and risked much for us. I may say that inquiries have
+been thrown out, and we find he is willing."
+
+No apology--perfunctory regrets--and very little explanation! Meynell
+understood.
+
+He put the letter away, conscious of a keenly smarting mind. It was now
+clear to him that he had made a grave misreckoning; humiliating, perhaps
+irreparable. He had counted, with a certain confident simplicity, on
+the power of his mere word, backed by his character and reputation, to
+put the thing down; and they were not strong enough. Barron's influence
+seemed to him immense and increasing. A proud and sensitive man forced
+himself to envisage the possibility of an eventual overthrow.
+
+He opened a drawer in order to put away the letter. The drawer was very
+full, and in the difficulty of getting it out he pulled it too far and
+its contents fell to the floor. He stooped to pick them up--perceived
+first the anonymous letter that Barron had handed to him, the letter
+addressed to Dawes; and then, beneath it, a long envelope deep in
+dust--labelled "M.B.--Keep for three years." He took up both letter and
+envelope 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 long
+envelope and broke the seal. Inside was a document headed, "A
+Confession." And at the foot of it appeared a signature--"Maurice
+Barron."
+
+Meynell put the two things together--the "confession" and the anonymous
+letter. Very soon he began to compare word with word and stroke with
+stroke, gradually penetrating the disguise of the later handwriting.
+At the end of the process he understood the vague recollection which had
+disturbed him when he first saw the letter.
+
+He stood motionless a little, expressions chasing each other across his
+face. Then he locked up both letters, reached a hand for his pipe, called
+a good night to Anne, who was going upstairs to bed, and with his dogs
+about him fell into a long meditation, while the night wore on.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+It was in the week before Christmas that Professor Vetch--the same
+Professor who had been one of the Bishop's Commission of Inquiry in
+Richard Meynell's case--knocked one afternoon at Canon France's door to
+ask for a cup of tea. He had come down to give a lecture to the Church
+Club which had been recently started in Markborough in opposition to the
+Reformers' Club; but his acceptance of the invitation had been a good
+deal determined by his very keen desire to probe the later extraordinary
+developments of the Meynell affair on the spot.
+
+France was in his low-ceiled study, occupied as usual with drawers full
+of documents of various kinds; most of them mediaeval deeds and charters
+which he was calendaring for the Cathedral Library. His table and the
+floor were littered by them; a stack of the Rolls publications was on his
+right hand; a Dugdale's "Monasticon" lay open at a little distance; and
+curled upon a newspaper beside it lay a gray kitten. The kitten had that
+morning upset an inkstand over three sheets of the Canon's laborious
+handwriting. At the time he had indeed dropped her angrily by the scruff
+of the neck into a wastepaper basket to repent of her sins; but here she
+was 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, who
+lived with him, was aware. Twenty years before--just after his
+appointment to the canonry--he had married a young and--in the opinion of
+his family--flighty wife, who had lived a year and then died. She had
+passed like a spring flower; and after a year or two all that was
+remembered about her was that she had chosen the drawing-room paper,
+which was rather garishly pink, like her own cheeks. In the course of
+time the paper had become so discoloured and patchy that Miss France was
+ashamed of it. For years her brother turned a deaf ear to her remarks on
+the subject. At last he allowed her to repaper the room. But she
+presently discovered that close to the seat he generally occupied in the
+drawing-room of an evening there was a large hole in the new paper made
+by the rubbing and scraping of the Canon's fingers as he sat at tea.
+Through it the original pink reappeared. More than once Miss France
+caught her brother looking contentedly at his work of mischief. But she
+dared not speak of it to him, nor do anything to repair the damage.
+
+As France perceived the identity of the visitor whom his old manservant
+was showing into the study, a slight shade of annoyance passed over his
+face. But he received the Professor civilly, cleared a chair of books in
+order 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 of
+Meynell, and he therefore dallied a little with matters of Biblical
+criticism. France, however, took no interest whatever in them; and even
+an adroit description of a paper recently read by the speaker himself
+at an Oxford meeting failed to kindle a spark. Vetch found himself driven
+upon the real object of his visit.
+
+He desired to know--understanding that the Canon was an old friend of
+Henry 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 in
+the 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 have
+come to the conclusion," he added dryly, "that Barron is not a person of
+delicacy."
+
+The Professor, rather taken aback, argued on Barron's behalf. Would
+it have been seemly or right for a man--a Churchman of Barron's
+prominence--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 eyes
+that shone so vividly above his large hanging cheeks. "Meynell says the
+story is untrue."
+
+"Ah! but let him prove it!" cried the Professor, his young-old face
+flushing. "He has made a wanton attack upon the Church; he cannot
+possibly expect any quarter from us. We are not in the least bound to
+hold 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, let
+Meynell take the usual steps. If he takes them successfully, we shall all
+rejoice. But his character has been made, so to speak, one of the pieces
+in 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 was
+beginning to be tarred with the Modernist brush. No!--impossible. For
+that 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, of
+course, is that there is some truth in the story, but that Meynell is not
+the hero. And he doesn't see his way to clear himself by dishing other
+people."
+
+"I see." The obstinacy in the smooth voice rasped France. "If so, most
+unlucky for him! But then let him resign his living, and go quietly into
+obscurity. He owes it to his own side. For them the whole thing is
+disaster. He _must_ either clear himself or go."
+
+"Oh, give him a little time!" said France sharply, "give him a little
+time." Then, with a change of tone--"The anonymous letters, of course,
+are the really interesting things in the case. Perhaps you have a theory
+about 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 that
+they grow increasingly dramatic and detailed. Evidently some clever
+fellow--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, who
+was for deserting his knee, and with the other he drew toward him the
+folio 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, thinking
+with 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 left
+hand. 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, and
+disgusted with himself.
+
+"Why haven't I given Meynell a helping hand? Why did I talk like that to
+Barron when he first began this business? And why have I let him come
+here as he has done since--without telling him what I really thought
+of him?"
+
+He fell for some minutes into an abyss of thought; thought which seemed
+to range not so much over the circumstances connected with Meynell as
+over 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 bitter
+decision, and laying down his pipe he went back to his papers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Almost at the same moment the Bishop was interviewing Henry Barron in the
+little book-lined room beyond the main library, which he kept for the
+business he most disliked. He never put the distinction into words, but
+when 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, very
+much on his defence, he sat _tete-a-tete_ with the Bishop. He had
+recognized from the beginning that nothing of what he had done was really
+welcome or acceptable to Bishop Craye. While he, on his side, felt
+himself a benefactor to the Church in general, and to the Bishop of
+Markborough in particular, instinctively he knew that the Bishop's taste
+ungratefully disapproved of him; and the knowledge contributed an extra
+shade of pomposity to his manner.
+
+He had just given a sketch of the church meeting at Upcote, and of the
+situation in the village up to date. The Bishop sat absently patting his
+thin knees, and evidently very much concerned.
+
+"A most unpleasant--a most painful scene. I confess, Mr. Barron, I think
+it 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 into
+the open. For his own sake--for the parish's--the situation must be
+brought to an end, in some way. The indecency of it at present is
+intolerable."
+
+"You forget. The trial is only a few weeks off. Meynell will certainly be
+deprived."
+
+"No doubt. But then there is the Privy Council Appeal. And even when he
+is deprived, Meynell does not mean to leave the village. He has made all
+his 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 he
+clears himself of this business this diocese at least will have none of
+him!"
+
+"Why, the great majority of the people adore him!" cried the Bishop. "And
+meanwhile I understand the other poor things are already driven away.
+They tell me the Fox-Wiltons' house is to let, and Miss Puttenham gone to
+Paris 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 same
+time that all these persons have been in a conspiracy together to impose
+a falsehood on their neighbours; and that for many years we have been
+admitting Miss Puttenham to our house and our friendship--to the
+companionship of our daughters--in complete ignorance of her character."
+
+"Oh, poor thing! poor thing!" said the Bishop hastily. "The thought
+of her haunts me. She must know what is going on--or a great deal of
+it--though indeed I hope she doesn't--I hope with all my heart she
+doesn't! Well, now, Mr. Barron--you have written me long letters--and I
+trust that you will allow me a little close inquiry into some of these
+matters."
+
+"The closer the better, my lord."
+
+"You have not as yet come to any opinion whatever as to the authorship of
+these letters?"
+
+Barron looked troubled.
+
+"I am entirely at a loss," he said, emphatically. "Once or twice I have
+thought myself on the track. There is that man East, whose license
+Meynell opposed--"
+
+"One of the 'aggrieved parishioners'," said the Bishop, raising his hands
+and eyebrows.
+
+"You regret, my lord, that we should be mixed up with such a person? So
+do I. But with a whole parish in a conspiracy to support the law-breaking
+that was going on, what could we do? However, that is not now the point.
+I have suspected East. I have questioned him. He showed extraordinary
+levity, and was--to myself personally--what I can only call insolent. But
+he swore to me that he had not written the letters; and indeed I am
+convinced that he could not have written them. He is almost an
+illiterate--can barely read and write. I still suspect him. But if he is
+in 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 Broad
+is a very simple fellow--has no enmity against Meynell, quite the
+contrary. He vows that he never knew why his mother went abroad with Lady
+Fox-Wilton, or why she went to America; and though she talked a lot of
+what he calls 'queer stuff' in the few hours he had with her before my
+visit, he couldn't make head or tail of a good deal of it, and didn't
+trouble his head about it. And after my visit, he found her incoherent
+and delirious. Moreover, he declared to me solemnly that he knew nothing
+about the letters; and I certainly have no means of bringing it home to
+him."
+
+The Bishop's blue eyes were sharply fixed upon the speaker. But on the
+whole Barron's manner in these remarks had favourably impressed his
+companion.
+
+"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 your
+own conversation--of course quite unconsciously on your part--has not
+given hints to some person, some unscrupulous third person, an enemy of
+Meynell's, who has been making use of information he may have got from
+you to write these letters? Forgive the inquiry--but you will realize how
+very important it is--for Church interests--that the suit against Meynell
+in the Church Courts should not be in any way mixed up with this wretched
+and discreditable business of the anonymous letters!"
+
+Barron flushed a little.
+
+"I have of course spoken of the matter in my own family," he said
+proudly. "I have already told you, my lord, that I confided the whole
+thing to my son Stephen very early in the day."
+
+The Bishop smiled.
+
+"We may dismiss Stephen I think--the soul of honour and devoted to
+Meynell. Can you remember no one else?"
+
+Barron endeavoured to show no resentment at these inquiries. But it was
+clear that they galled.
+
+"The only other members of my household are my daughter Theresa, and
+occasionally, 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 that
+recently all the letters have been typewritten?"
+
+"All but two--the letter to Dawes, and a letter which I believe was
+received by Mrs. Elsmere. I gave the Dawes letter to Meynell at his
+request."
+
+"Having failed to identify the handwriting?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+Yet, even as he spoke, for the first time, a sudden misgiving, like the
+pinch of an insect, brushed Barron's consciousness. He had not, as a
+matter of fact, examined the Dawes letter very carefully, having been, as
+he now clearly remembered, in a state of considerable mental excitement
+during the whole time it was in his possession and thinking much more of
+the effect of the first crop of letters on the situation, than of the
+details of the Dawes letter itself. But he did remember, now that the
+Bishop pressed him, that when he first looked at the letter he had been
+conscious of a momentary sense of likeness to a handwriting he knew; to
+Maurice's handwriting, in fact. But he had repelled the suggestion as
+absurd in the first instance, and after a momentary start, he angrily
+repelled it now.
+
+The Bishop emerged from a brown study.
+
+"It is a most mysterious thing! Have you been able to verify the
+postmarks?"
+
+"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 little
+reminder. 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 put
+the Church's interest first."
+
+Something in the Bishop suddenly and sharply drew away from the man
+beside him. He held himself with a cold dignity.
+
+"For myself, personally--I tell you frankly--I cannot bring myself to
+believe a word of this story, so far as it concerns Meynell. I believe
+there is a terrible mistake at the bottom of it, and I prefer to trust
+twenty years of noble living rather than the tale of a poor distraught
+creature like Judith Sabin. At the same time, of course, I recognize
+that you have a right to your opinions, as I have to mine. But, my dear
+sir"--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 all
+that tells for him! Don't--you will allow me this friendly word--don't
+land yourself in a great, perhaps a life-long self-reproach!"
+
+There was a note of sternness in the speaker's voice; but the small
+parchment face and the eyes of china-blue shone, as though kindled from
+within by the pure and generous spirit of the man.
+
+"My lord, I have said my say." Barron had also risen, and stood towering
+over 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 see
+you? 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; "no
+doubt because of our already strained relations."
+
+On Barron's lips there dawned something which could hardly be called a
+smile--or triumphant; but the Bishop caught it. In another minute the
+door had closed upon his visitor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Barron walked away through the Close, his mind seething with anger and
+resentment. He felt that he had been treated as an embarrassment rather
+than an ally; and he vowed to himself that the Bishop's whole attitude
+had been grudging and unfriendly.
+
+As he passed on to the broad stone pavement that bordered the south
+transept he became aware of a man coming toward him. Raising his eyes he
+saw that it was Meynell.
+
+There was no way of avoiding the encounter. As the two men passed Barron
+made a mechanical sign of recognition. Meynell lifted his head and looked
+at him full. It was a strange look, intent and piercing, charged with the
+personality of the man behind it.
+
+Barron passed on, quivering. He felt that he hated Meynell. The disguise
+of a public motive dropped away; and he knew that he hated him
+personally.
+
+At the same time the sudden slight misgiving he had been conscious of in
+the 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 expression
+mingled with the vague uneasiness he tried in vain to put from him.
+
+Meynell walked home by Forked Pond to Maudeley. He lingered a little in
+the leafless woods round the cottage, now shut up, and he chose the
+longer path that he might actually pass the very window near which Mary
+had stood when she spoke those softly broken words--words from a woman's
+soul--which his memory had by heart. And his pulse leapt at the scarcely
+admitted thought that perhaps--now--in a few weeks he might be walking
+the 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 the
+library, where Rose, though bubbling over with question and conjecture,
+self-denyingly refrained from joining them. The consultation of the two
+men lasted about an hour, and when Flaxman rejoined his wife, he came
+alone.
+
+"Gone?" said Rose, with a disappointed look. "Oh! I did want to shake his
+hand!"
+
+Flaxman's gesture was unsympathetic.
+
+"It is not the time for that yet. This business has gone deep with him. I
+don't exactly know what he will do. But he has made me promise various
+things."
+
+"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 may
+crush Lady St. Morice."
+
+Lady St. Morice was the wife of the Lord Lieutenant, and had at a recent
+dinner party, in Rose's presence, hotly asserted her belief in the
+charges brought against the Rector of Upcote. She possessed a private
+chapel adorned with pre-Raphaelite frescoes, and was the sister of one of
+the chief leaders of the High Orthodox party in convocation.
+
+"She doesn't often speak to the likes of me," said Rose; "which of course
+is a great advantage for the likes of me. But next time I shall speak to
+her--which will be so good for her. My dear Hugh, don't let Meynell be
+too magnanimous--I can't stand it."
+
+Flaxman laughed, but rather absently. It was evident that he was still
+under the strong impression of the conversation he had just passed
+through.
+
+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 the
+Christmas business of a large parish. His mind was full of agitation, and
+when midnight struck, ushering in Christmas Eve, he was still undecided
+as to his precise course.
+
+Among the letters of the day lying scattered beside him on the floor
+there was yet further evidence of the power of Barron's campaign. There
+were warm expressions indeed of sympathy and indignation to be found
+among them, but on the whole Meynell realized that his own side's belief
+in him was showing some signs of distress, while the attack upon him was
+increasing in violence. His silence even to his most intimate friends,
+even to his Bishop; the disappearance from England of the other persons
+named in the scandal; the constant elaborations and embellishments of the
+story as it passed from mouth to mouth--these things were telling against
+him steadily and disastrously.
+
+As he hung over the fire, he anxiously reconsidered his conduct toward
+the Bishop, while Catharine's phrase--"He, too, has his rights!" lingered
+in 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 Bishop
+in possession of the whole story? The Bishop's bare denial would have
+been added to his; nothing more. There could have been no explanation,
+public or private; nothing to persuade those who did not wish to be
+persuaded.
+
+His thought wandered hither and thither. From the dim regions of the past
+there emerged a letter....
+
+"My dear old Meynell, the thing is to be covered up. Ralph will
+acknowledge the child, and all precautions are to be taken. I think
+what 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 way
+out--which will be the best for her too in the end, poor darling. My
+wife's letter a week ago destroyed my last hope. I am going out
+to-night--and I shall not come back. Stand by her, Richard. I think this
+kind of lie on which we are all embarked is wrong (not that you had
+anything to do with it!) But it is society which is wrong and imposes it
+on us. Anyway, the choice is made, and now you must support and protect
+her--and the child--for my sake. For I know you love me, dear boy--little
+as I deserve it. It is part of your general gift of loving, which has
+always seemed to me so strange. However--whatever I was made for, you
+were made to help the unhappy. So I have the less scruple in sending you
+this last word. She will want your help. The child's lot in that
+household 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, I
+hope, will marry. And when the child marries, you may--nay, I think you
+must--tell the husband. I have written this to Ralph. But for all the
+rest of the world, the truth is now wiped out. The child is no longer
+mine--Alice was never my love--and I am going to the last sleep. My
+sister Fanny Meryon knows something; enough to make her miserable; but no
+names or details. Well!--good-bye. In your company alone have I ever
+seemed 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--but
+forgive me!--my very dear Richard! Here comes the boat; and there is a
+splendid sea rising."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There, in a locked drawer, not far from him, lay this letter. Meynell's
+thought plunged back into the past; into its passionate feeling, its
+burning pity, its powerless affection. He recalled his young hero-worship
+for his brilliant kinsman; the hour when he had identified the battered
+form on the shore of the Donegal Lough; the sight of Alice's young
+anguish; 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 from
+which his own soul had learnt so much.
+
+Pure and sacred recollections!--mingled often with the moral or
+intellectual 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 the
+name of Christ--in the name of the Church!
+
+To-morrow! He rose, with a face set like iron, and went back to his table
+to 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 her
+sitting-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 of
+Maurice, troubled her sorely. It was only that morning Mr. Barron had
+become aware that Maurice had lost his employment, and was again adrift
+in the world. Theresa had known it for a week or two, but had not been
+allowed to tell. And she tried not to remember how often of late her
+brother had applied to her for money.
+
+Going back to her accounts with a sigh, she missed a necessary receipt
+and went into the dining-room to look for it. While she was there the
+front door bell rang and was answered, unheard by her. Thus it fell out
+that as she came back into the hall she found herself face to face with
+Richard Meynell.
+
+She stood paralyzed with astonishment. He bowed to her gravely and passed
+on. Something in his look seemed to her to spell calamity. She went back
+to her room, and sat there dumb and trembling, dreading what she might
+see 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 each
+other as the door closed.
+
+Barron spoke first.
+
+"You will, I trust, let me know, Mr. Meynell, without delay to what I owe
+this unexpected visit. I was of course quite ready to meet your desire
+for 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 suddenly
+he raised them.
+
+"Mr. Barron, what I have come to say will be a shock to you. I have
+discovered the author of the anonymous letters which have now for nearly
+three months been defiling this parish and diocese."
+
+Barron's sudden movement showed the effect of the words. But he held
+himself well in hand.
+
+"I congratulate you," he said coldly. "It is what we have all been trying
+to discover."
+
+"But the discovery will be painful to you. For the author of these
+letters, 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 to
+insult my family and myself! It would have been better to write. And you
+may be very sure that if you cannot punish your slanderers we can--and
+will!"
+
+His attitude expressed a quivering fury. Meynell took a packet from his
+breast-pocket and quietly laid it on the table beside him.
+
+"In this envelope you will find a document--a confession of a piece of
+wrongdoing on Maurice's part of which I believe you have never been
+informed. His poor sister concealed it--and paid for it. Do you remember,
+three years ago, the letting loose of some valuable young horses from
+Farmer Grange's stables--the hue and cry after them--and the difficulty
+there was in recapturing them on the Chase?"
+
+Barron stared at the speaker--speechless.
+
+"You remember that a certain young fellow was accused--James Aston--one
+of my Sunday school teachers--who had proposed to Grange's daughter,
+and had been sent about his business by the father? Aston was in fact
+just about to be run in by the police, when a clue came to my hands. I
+followed it up. Then I found out that the ringleader in the whole affair
+had been your son Maurice. If you remember, he was then at home, hanging
+about the village, and he had had a quarrel with Grange--I forget about
+what. He wrote an anonymous post-card accusing Aston. However, I got on
+the track; and finally I made him give me a written confession--to
+protect Aston. Heavy compensation was paid to Grange--by your
+daughter--and the thing was hushed up. I was always doubtful whether I
+ought not to have come to you. But it was not long after the death of
+your wife. I was very sorry for you all--and Maurice pleaded hard. I did
+not even tell Stephen; but I kept the confession. I came upon it a night
+or two ago, in the drawer where I had also placed the letter to Dawes
+which I got from you. Suddenly, the likeness in the handwritings struck
+me; and I made a very careful comparison."
+
+He opened the packet, and took out the two papers, which he offered to
+Barron.
+
+"I think, if you will compare the marked passages, you will see at least
+a striking resemblance."
+
+With a shaking hand Barron refused the papers.
+
+"I have no doubt, sir, you can manufacture any evidence you please!--but
+I 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 same
+composure. "I think you had better listen ... A passage in one of the
+recent letters gave me a hint--an idea. I went straight to East the
+publican, and taxed him with being the accomplice of the writer. I
+blustered a little--he thought I had more evidence than I had--and at
+last I got the whole thing out of him. The first letter was written"--the
+speaker raised his finger, articulating each word with slow precision,
+"by your son Maurice, and posted by East, the day after the cage-accident
+at the Victoria pit; and they have pursued the same division of labour
+ever since. East confesses he was induced to do it by the wish to revenge
+himself on me for the attack on his license; and Maurice occasionally
+gave him a little money. I have all the dates of the letters, and a
+statement of where they were posted. If necessary, East will give
+evidence."
+
+A silence. Barron had resumed his seat, and was automatically lifting a
+small book which lay on a table near him and letting it fall, while
+Meynell was speaking. When Meynell paused, he said thickly--
+
+"A plausible tale no doubt--and a very convenient one for you. But allow
+me to point out, it rests entirely on East's word. Very likely he wrote
+the letters himself, and is attempting to make Maurice the scapegoat."
+
+"Where do you suppose he could have got his information from?" said
+Meynell, looking up. "There is no suggestion that _he_ saw Judith Sabin
+before her death."
+
+Barron's face worked, while Meynell watched him implacably. At last he
+said:
+
+"How should I know? The same question applies to Maurice."
+
+"Not at all. There the case is absolutely clear. Maurice got his
+information from you."
+
+"A gratuitous statement, sir!--which you cannot prove."
+
+"From you"--repeated Meynell. "And from certain spying operations that he
+and East undertook together. Do you deny that you told Maurice all that
+Judith Sabin told you--together with her identification of myself?"
+
+The room seemed to wait for Barron's reply. He made none. He burst out
+instead--
+
+"What possible motive could Maurice have had for such an action? The
+thing 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 need
+to say how. I tried to prevent him from publicly disgracing himself
+and you; and I did prevent him. He saw in this business an easy revenge
+on a sanctimonious parson who had interfered with his pleasures."
+
+Barron had risen and was pacing the room with unsteady steps. Meynell
+still watched him, with the same glitter in the eye. Meynell's whole
+nature indeed, at the moment, had gathered itself into one avenging
+force; he was at once sword and smiter. The man before him seemed to him
+embodied cruelty and hypocrisy; he felt neither pity nor compunction. And
+presently he said abruptly--
+
+"But I am afraid I have much more serious matter to lay before you than
+this 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 to
+refuse it, as he had refused the others. But Meynell insisted.
+
+"Believe me, you had better read it. It is a letter from Mr. Flaxman to
+myself, and it concerns a grave charge against your son. I bring you a
+chance 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 same
+impassive "possessed" state.
+
+Suddenly, Barron put his hand over his face, and a groan he could not
+repress broke from him. He turned his back and stood bending over the
+letter.
+
+At the same instant a shiver ran through Meynell, like the return to life
+of some arrested energy, some paralyzed power. The shock of that sound of
+suffering had found him iron; it left him flesh. The spiritual habit of a
+lifetime 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 at
+least--if you will. I have arranged that with Flaxman. It was my seeing
+him 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 you
+see, certain dealers' shops were watched by a private detective. Maurice
+appeared--sold the Hermes coin--was traced to his lodgings and
+identified. So far the thing has not gone beyond private inquiry; for the
+dealer will do what Flaxman wants him to do. But Maurice still has the
+more famous of the two coins; and if he attempts to sell that, after the
+notices to the police, there may be an exposure any day. You must go up
+to London as soon as you can--"
+
+"I will go to-night," said Barron, in a tone scarcely to be heard. He
+stood with his hands on his sides, staring out upon the wintry garden
+outside, just as a gardener's boy laden with holly and ivy for the
+customary 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 and
+ruddy face for any tragic expression made it the more tragic.
+
+"I propose to write to the Bishop at once. Do you desire a public
+statement?"
+
+"There must be a public statement," said Meynell gravely. "The thing has
+gone 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 the
+open page. "I don't want you to sign that by _force majeure_. Dismiss--if
+you can--any thought of any hold I may have upon you, because of
+Maurice'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 any
+compulsion--to accept my word as an honest man that I am absolutely
+innocent of the charge you have brought against me."
+
+Barron, who was sitting before his writing-table, buried his face in his
+hands 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 of
+emotion--"And I may also count upon your doing henceforth what you can to
+protect that poor lady, Miss Puttenham, and her kinsfolk, from the
+consequences of this long persecution?"
+
+Barron made a sign of assent. Meynell left him to read and sign the
+public apology and retraction, which Flaxman had mainly drawn up; while
+the Rector himself took up a Bradshaw lying on the table, and walked to
+the window to consult it.
+
+"You will catch the 1.40," he said, as Barron rose from the
+writing-table. "Let me advise you to get him out of the country for a
+time."
+
+Barron said nothing. He came heavily toward the window, and the two men
+stood looking at each other, overtaken both of them by a mounting wave of
+consciousness. The events, passions, emotions of the preceding months
+pressed into memory, and beat against the silence. But it was Meynell who
+turned pale.
+
+"What a pity--to spoil the fight!" he said in a low voice. "It would have
+been 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 toward
+the door:
+
+"Remember--Flaxman holds his hand entirely. The situation is with you."
+Then, after a moment's hesitation, he added simply, almost shyly--"God
+help you! Won't you consult your daughter?"
+
+Barron made no answer. The door opened and shut.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV
+
+
+
+
+MEYNELL AND MARY
+
+
+".... but Life ere long
+Came on me in the public ways and bent
+Eyes 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 of
+hoar-frost the sun was shining brightly on the terrace, and on the
+panorama it commands. A pleasant light lay on the charming houses that
+front the skirts of the forest, on the blue-gray windings of the Seine,
+on the groves of leafless poplars interwoven with its course, on the
+plain with its thickly sown villages, on the height of Mont Valerien,
+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 road
+leading from it to the town were deserted; and it was easy to see from
+the aspect of the famous hotel at the corner of the terrace that,
+although not closed, it despaired of visitors. Only a trio of French
+officers 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 was
+briskly pacing up and down that section of the terrace which abuts on the
+hotel.
+
+The young man was Philip Meryon. His dark tweed suit and fur waistcoat
+disclosed a figure once singularly agile and slender, on which
+self-indulgence was now beginning to tell. Nevertheless, as the _bonne_
+passed him she duly noted and admired his pictorial good looks, opining
+at the same time that he was not French. Why was he there? She decided in
+her own mind that he was there for an assignation, by which she meant, of
+course, a meeting with a married woman; and she smiled the incorrigible
+French smile.
+
+Assignation or no, she would have seen, had she looked closer, that the
+young man in question was in no merely beatific or expectant frame of
+mind. Meryon's look was a look both of excitement--as of one under the
+influence 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 to
+any 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 careless
+letter enclosing the payment of a debt, and written by a young actor, who
+had formed part of one of the bohemian parties at the Abbey, during the
+summer, and had now been playing for a week in the Markborough theatre,
+had given Meryon the clue to the many vague conjectures or perplexities
+which had already crossed his mind with regard to Hester's origin and
+history.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Your sanctified cousin, Richard Meynell" [wrote the young man] "seems
+after all to be made of the common clay. There are strange stories going
+the round about him here; especially in a crop of anonymous letters of
+which the author can't be found. I send you a local newspaper which has
+dared to print one of them with dashes for the names. The landlord of the
+inn told me how to fill them up, and you will see I have done it. The
+beauteous maiden herself has vanished from the scene--as no doubt you
+know. 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 print
+these things, you may perhaps be interested in what I enclose. Alack, my
+dear Philip, for the saints! They seem not so very different from you and
+me."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The eagerness with which Philip had read the newspaper cutting enclosed
+in the letter was only equalled by the eagerness with which afterward he
+fell to meditating upon it; pursuing and ferreting out the truth, through
+a maze of personal recollection and inference.
+
+Richard!--nonsense! He laughed, from a full throat. Not for one moment
+was Philip misled by Judith Sabin's mistake. He was a man of great
+natural shrewdness, blunted no doubt by riotous living; but there was
+enough of it left, aided by his recent forced contacts with his cousin
+Richard all turning on the subject of Hester, to keep him straight. So
+that without any demur at all he rejected the story as it stood.
+
+But then, what was the fact behind it? Impossible that Judith Sabin's
+story should be all delusion! For whom did she mistake Richard?
+
+Suddenly, as he sat brooding and smoking, a vision of Hester flashed upon
+him as she had stood laughing and pouting, beneath the full length
+picture of Neville Flood, which hung in the big hall of the Abbey. He had
+pointed it out to her on their way through the house--where she had
+peremptorily 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 be
+offended! He was the handsome man of his day."
+
+Of course! The truth jumped to the eyes, now that one was put in the way
+of seeing it. And on this decisive recollection there had followed a rush
+of others, no less pertinent: things said by his dead mother about the
+brother whom she had loved and bitterly regretted. So the wronged lady
+whom 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 Upcote
+woods. Hester had pointed her out, finger on lip, as they stood hiding in
+a thicket of fern; a pretty woman still. His mother had never mentioned a
+name; probably she had never known it; but to the love-affair she had
+always attributed some share in her brother's death.
+
+From point to point he tracked it, the poor secret, till he had run it
+down. By degrees everything fitted in; he was confident that he had
+guessed the truth.
+
+Then, abruptly, he turned to look at its bearing on his own designs and
+fortunes.
+
+He supposed himself to be in love with Hester. At any rate he was
+violently conscious of that hawk-like instinct of pursuit which he was
+accustomed to call love. Hester's mad and childish imprudences, which the
+cooler self in Meryon was quite ready to recognize as such, had made the
+hawking a singularly easy task so far. Meynell, of course, had put up
+difficulties; with regard to this Scotch business it had been necessary
+to lie pretty hard, and to bribe some humble folk in order to get round
+him. But Hester, by the double fact that she was at once so far removed
+from the mere _ingenue_, and so incredibly ready to risk herself, out of
+sheer ignorance of life, both challenged and tempted the man whom a
+disastrous fate had brought across her path, to such a point that he had
+long since lost control of himself, and parted with any scruples of
+conscience he might possess.
+
+At the same time he was by no means sure of her. He realized his
+increasing power over her; he also realized the wild, independent streak
+in her. Some day--any day--the capricious, wilful nature might tire,
+might change. The prey might escape, and the hawk go empty home. No
+dallying too long! Let him decide what to risk--and risk it.
+
+Meantime that confounded cousin of his was hard at work, through some
+very capable lawyers, and unless the instructions he--Philip--had
+conveyed to the woman in Scotland, who, thank goodness, was no less
+anxious to be rid of him than he to be rid of her, were very shrewdly
+and exactly carried out, facts might in the end reach Hester which would
+give even her recklessness pause. He knew that so far Meynell had been
+baffled; he knew that he carried about with him evidence that, for the
+present, could be brought to bear on Hester with effect; but things were
+by no means safe.
+
+For his own affairs, they were desperate. As he stood there, he was
+nothing more in fact than the common needy adventurer, possessed,
+however, of greater daring, and the _debris_ of much greater pretensions,
+than most such persons. His financial resources were practically at an
+end, and he had come to look upon a clandestine marriage with Hester as
+the best means of replenishing them. The Fox-Wilton family passed for
+rich; and the notion that they must and would be ready to come forward
+with money, when once the thing was irrevocable, counted for much in the
+muddy plans of which his mind was full. His own idea was to go to South
+America--to Buenos Ayres, where money was to be made, and where he had
+some acquaintance. In that way he would shake off his creditors, and the
+Scotch woman together; and Meynell would know better than to interfere.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Suddenly a light figure came fluttering round the corner of the road
+leading to the chateau and the town. Philip turned and went to meet her.
+And as he approached her he was shaken afresh by the excitement of her
+presence, in addition to his more sordid preoccupation. Her wild,
+provocative beauty seemed to light up the whole wintry scene; and the few
+passers-by, each and all, stopped to stare at her. Hester laughed aloud
+when she saw Meryon; and with her usual recklessness held up her umbrella
+for signal. It pleased her that two _rapins_ in large black ties and
+steeple hats paid her an insolent attention as they passed her; and she
+stopped to pinch the cheek of a chubby child that had planted itself
+straight in her path.
+
+"Am I late?" she said, as they met. "I only just caught the train. Oh! I
+am so hungry! Don't let's talk--let's _dejeuner_."
+
+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 something
+like order. The loveliness of the young curving form, of the pretty
+hands, of the golden brown hair, struck full on Meryon's turbid sense.
+
+They turned toward the hotel, and were presently seated in a corner of
+its glazed gallery, with all the wide, prospect of plain and river spread
+beneath them. Hester was in the highest spirits, and as she sat waiting
+for the first _plat_, chattering, and nibbling at her roll, her black
+felt hat with its plume of cock feathers falling back from the brilliance
+of her face, she once more attracted all the attention available; from
+the two savants who, after a morning in the Chateau, were lunching at a
+farther table; from an American family of all ages reduced to silence
+by sheer wonder and contemplation; from the waiters, and, not least, from
+the hotel dog, wagging his tail mutely at her knee.
+
+Philip felt himself an envied person. He was, indeed, vain of his
+companion; but certain tyrannical instincts asserted themselves once or
+twice. When, or if, she became his possession, he would try and moderate
+some of this chatter and noise.
+
+For the present he occupied himself with playing to her lead, glancing
+every now and then mentally, with a secret start, at the information he
+had possessed about her since the morning.
+
+She described to him, with a number of new tricks of gesture caught from
+her French class-mates, how she had that morning outwitted all her
+guardians, who supposed that she had gone to Versailles with one of the
+senior members of the class she was attending at the Conservatoire, a
+young teacher, "_tres sage_," with whom she had been allowed once or
+twice to go to museums and galleries. To accomplish it had required an
+elaborate series of deceptions, which Hester had carried through,
+apparently, without a qualm. Except that at the end of her story there
+was a passing reference to Aunt Alice--"poor darling!"--"who would have a
+fit if she knew."
+
+Philip, coffee-cup in hand, half smiling, looked at her meantime through
+his partially closed lids. Richard, indeed! She was Neville all through,
+the Neville of the picture, except for the colour of the hair, and the
+soft 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 her
+share over the table, with a peremptory gesture.
+
+Meryon took it with a smile and a shrug, and she, throwing away the
+cigarette she had been defiantly smoking, rose from the table.
+
+"Now then, what shall we do? Oh! no museums! I am being educated to
+death! Let us go for a walk in the forest; and then I must catch my
+train, or the world will go mad."
+
+So they walked briskly into the forest, and were soon sufficiently deep
+among its leaf-strewn paths, to be secure from all observation. Two hours
+remained of wintry sunlight before they must turn back toward the
+station.
+
+Hester walked along swinging a small silk bag in which she carried her
+handkerchief and purse. Suddenly, in a narrow path girt by some tall
+hollies and withered oaks, she let it fall. Both stooped for it, their
+hands 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 stood
+still 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 wonder
+whether you do!"
+
+And flushed and panting, she leant against a tree, looking at him with a
+strange expression, in which melancholy mingled with resentment; passing
+slowly into something else--that soft and shaken look, that yearning of
+one longing and yet fearing to be loved, which had struck dismay into
+Meynell 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 me
+again!"
+
+He refrained. But catching her hand, and leaning against the trunk beside
+her, he poured into her ear protestations and flattery; the ordinary
+language of such a man at such a moment. Hester listened to it with a
+kind of eagerness. Sometimes, with a slight frown, as though ear and mind
+waited, intently, for something that did not come.
+
+"I wonder how many people you have said the same things to before!" she
+said suddenly, looking searchingly into his face. "What have you got to
+tell me about that Scotch girl?"
+
+"Richard's Scotch girl?"--he laughed, throwing his handsome head back
+against the tree--"whom Richard supposes me to have married? Well, I had
+a great flirtation with her, I admit, two years ago, and it is sometimes
+rather difficult in Scotland to know whether you are married or no. You
+know of course that all that's necessary is to declare yourselves man and
+wife before witnesses? However--perhaps you would like to see a letter
+from the lady herself on the subject?"
+
+"You had it ready?" she said, doubtfully.
+
+"Well, considering that Richard has been threatening me for months, not
+only with the loss of you, but with all sorts of pains and penalties
+besides, 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 to
+be my injured wife!"
+
+He placed an envelope in her hands.
+
+Hester opened it with a touch of scornful reluctance. It contained a
+categorical denial and repudiation of the supposed marriage.
+
+"Has Uncle Richard seen it?" she asked coldly, as she gave it back to
+him.
+
+"Certainly he has, by now." He took another envelope from his pocket. "I
+won't bother you with anything more--the thing is really too absurd!--but
+here, if you want it, is a letter from the girl's brother. Brothers are
+generally supposed to keep a sharp lookout on their sisters, aren't they?
+Well, this brother declares that Meynell's inquiries have come to
+nothing, absolutely nothing, in the neighbourhood--except that they have
+made people very angry. He has got no evidence--simply because there is
+none to get! I imagine, indeed, that by now he has dropped the whole
+business. And certainly it is high time he did; or I shall have to be
+taking action on my own account before long!"
+
+He looked down upon her, as she stood beside him, trying to make out her
+expression.
+
+"Hester!" he broke out, "don't let's talk about this any more--it's
+damned nonsense! Let's talk about ourselves. Hester!--darling!--I want
+to make you happy!--I want to carry you away. Hester, will you marry me
+at 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 we
+could 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 Italian
+Riviera--in a little bay all orange and lemon and blue sea. We'd
+honeymoon there; and when we were tired of honeymooning--though how could
+any one tire of honeymooning, with you, you darling!--we'd go to South
+America. I have an opening at Buenos Ayres which promises to make me a
+rich 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 and
+ride and explore--we'd have a glorious life!"
+
+He had caught her hands again, and stood towering over her, intoxicated
+with his own tinsel phrases; almost sincere; a splendid physical
+presence, save for the slight thickening of face and form, the looseness
+of the lips, the absence of all freshness in the eyes.
+
+But Hester, after a first moment of dreamy excitement, drew herself
+decidedly away.
+
+"No, no!--I can't be such a wretch--I can't! Mamma and Aunt Alice would
+break 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 know
+each 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 you
+let me alone--if you don't tease me--I--I'll marry you. But let's do it
+openly. It's amusing to get one's own way, even by lies, up to a certain
+point. They wouldn't let me see you, or get to know you, and I was
+determined 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's
+opposition, exaggerating the legal powers of guardians, declaring
+vehemently that it was now or never. Hester grew very white as they
+wandered on through the forest, but she did not yield. Some last scruple
+of conscience, perhaps--some fluttering fear, possessed her.
+
+So that in the end Philip was pushed to the villainy that even he would
+have 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--you
+don't know what a position you're in. I want to save you from it. I
+would 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 afternoon
+sun, now dropping fast to westward, slipped through the slender oaks, on
+which the red leaves still danced, touched the girl's hair and shone into
+her beautiful eyes. She stood there so young, so unconscious; a victim,
+on the threshold of doom. Philip, who was no more a monster than other
+men who do monstrous things, felt a sharp stab of compunction; and then,
+rushed headlong at the crime he had practically resolved on before they
+met.
+
+He told her in a few agitated words the whole--and the true--story of her
+birth. He described the return of Judith Sabin to Upcote Minor, and the
+narrative she had given to Henry Barron, without however a word of
+Meynell in the case, so far at least as the original events were
+concerned. For he was convinced that he knew better, and that there was
+no object in prolonging an absurd misunderstanding. His version of the
+affair was that Judith in a fit of excitement had revealed Hester's
+parentage to Henry Barron; that Barron out of enmity toward Meynell,
+Hester's guardian, and by way of getting a hold upon him, had not kept
+the matter to himself, but had either written or instigated anonymous
+letters which had spread such excitement in the neighbourhood that Lady
+Fox-Wilton had now let her house, and practically left Upcote for good.
+The story had become the common talk of the Markborough district; and all
+that 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 absence
+and silence; and on the other to keep the facts from Hester herself as
+long as possible.
+
+The girl had listened to him with wide, startled eyes. Occasionally a
+sound broke from her--a gasp--an exclamation--and when he paused, pursued
+by almost a murderer's sense of guilt, he saw her totter. In an instant
+he had his arm round her, and for once there was both real passion and
+real pity in the excited words he poured into her ears.
+
+"Hester, dearest!--don't cry, don't be miserable, my own beautiful
+Hester! I am a beast to have told you, but it is because I am not only
+your lover, but your cousin--your own flesh and blood. Trust yourself
+to 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 damned
+scandal-mongers that what they say is nothing to us--that we don't care a
+fig 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 push
+it; but it did not fail to occur, at least once, to a mind steeped in
+third-rate drama, what a "strong" dramatic scene might be drawn from the
+whole situation.
+
+Hester heard him for a few minutes, in evident stupefaction; then with a
+recovery 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 her
+mind--prepared indeed, through years, by all the perplexities and
+rebellions of her girlhood--betraying itself in her quivering face, and
+lips. Suddenly, she dropped upon a fallen log beside the path, hiding her
+face in her hands, struggling again with the sheer faintness of the
+shock. And Philip, kneeling in the dry leaves beside her, completed his
+work, 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 many
+complaints she had made to him of her sense of isolation within her
+supposed family; of the strange provisions of Sir Ralph's will; of the
+arrangement which had made her Meynell's ward in a special sense.
+
+"Why, of course, that was so natural! You remember I suggested to you
+once that Richard probably judged Neville from the same Puritanical
+standpoint that he judged me? Well, I was a fool to talk like that. I
+remember now perfectly what my mother used to say. They were of different
+generations, but they were tremendous friends; and there was only a few
+years between them. I am certain it was by Neville's wish that Richard
+became your guardian." He laughed, in some embarrassment. "He couldn't
+exactly foresee that another member of the family would want to cut in. I
+love you--I adore you! Let's give all these people the slip. Hester, my
+pretty, pretty darling--look at me! I'll show you what life means--what
+love means!"
+
+And doubly tempted by her abasement, her bewildered pain, he tried again
+to 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 Aunt
+Alsie"--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 believe
+it!"
+
+She sprang to her feet. Then, as she stood confronting his silence, the
+whole episode of that bygone September afternoon--the miniature--Aunt
+Alice's silence and tears--rushed back on memory. She trembled, and
+the 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 without
+speaking, she refusing his aid. And all the time swiftly,
+inexorably, memory and inference were at work, dragging to light the
+deposit--obscure, or troubling, or contradictory--left in her by the
+facts and feelings of her childhood and youth.
+
+She had told him with emphasis at luncheon that he was not to be allowed
+to accompany her home; that she would go back to Paris by herself. But
+when, at the St. Germains station, Meryon jumped into the empty railway
+carriage beside her, she said nothing to prevent him. She sat in the
+darkest corner of the carriage, her arms hanging beside her, her eyes
+fixed on objects of which she saw nothing. Her pride in herself, her
+ideal of herself, which is to every young creature like the protective
+sheath to the flower, was stricken to the core. She thought of Sarah and
+Lulu, whom she had all her life despised and ridiculed. But they had a
+right to their name and place in the world!--and she was their nameless
+inferior, the child taken in out of pity, accepted on sufferance. She
+thought of the gossip now rushing like a mud-laden stream through every
+Upcote or Markborough drawing-room. All the persons whom she had snubbed
+or flouted were concerning themselves maliciously with her and her
+affairs--were pitying "poor Hester Fox-Wilton."
+
+Her heart seemed to dry and harden within her. The strange thought of her
+real mother--her suffering, patient, devoted mother--did not move her. It
+was bound up with all that trampled on and humiliated her.
+
+And, moreover, strange and piteous fact, realized by them both! this
+sudden sense of fall and degradation had in some mysterious way altered
+her whole relation to the man who had brought it upon her. His evil power
+over her had increased. He felt instinctively that he need not in future
+be so much on his guard. His manner toward her became freer. She had
+never yet returned him the kisses which, as on this day, she had
+sometimes allowed him to snatch. But before they reached Paris she had
+kissed him; she had sought his hands with hers; and she had promised to
+meet him again.
+
+While these lamentable influences and events were thus sweeping Hester's
+life toward the abyss, mocking all the sacrifices and the efforts that
+had been made to save her, the publication of Barron's apology had opened
+yet another stage in "the Meynell case."
+
+As drafted by Flaxman, it was certainly comprehensive enough. For
+himself, Meynell would have been content with much less; but in dealing
+with Barron, he was the avenger of wrongs not his own, both public and
+private; and when his own first passion of requital had passed away,
+killed in him by the anguish of his enemy, he still let Flaxman decide
+for him. And Flaxman, the mildest and most placable of men, showed
+himself here inexorable, and would allow no softening of terms. So that
+Barron "unreservedly withdrew" and "publicly apologized" "for those false
+and calumnious charges, which to my great regret, and on erroneous
+information, I have been led to bring against the character and conduct
+of 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 they
+were written by a member of my family on information derived from me.
+I apologize for and repudiate the false and slanderous statements these
+letters contain, and those also included in letters I myself have written
+to various persons. I agree that a copy of this statement shall be sent
+to the Bishop of Markborough, and to each parish clergyman in the diocese
+of Markborough; as also that it shall be published in such newspapers as
+the solicitors of the Rev. Richard Meynell may determine."
+
+The document appeared first on a Saturday, in all the local papers, and
+was greedily read and discussed by the crowds that throng into
+Markborough on market day, who again carried back the news to the
+villages of the diocese. It was also published on the same day in
+the _Modernist_ and in the leading religious papers. Its effect on
+opinion was rapid and profound. The Bishop telegraphed--"Thank God. Come
+and see me." France fidgeted a whole morning among his papers, began two
+or three letters to Meynell, and finally decided that he could write
+nothing adequate that would not also be hypocritical. Dornal wrote a
+little note that Meynell put away among those records that are the
+milestones of life. From all the leading Modernists, during January,
+came a rush of correspondence and congratulations, in all possible notes
+and tones of indignant triumph; and many leaders on the other side wrote
+with generous emotion and relief. Only in the extreme camp of the extreme
+Right there was, of course, silence and chagrin. Compared to the eternal
+interests of the Church, what does one man's character matter?
+
+The old Bishop of Dunchester, a kind of English Doellinger, the learned
+leader of a learned party, and ready in the last years of life to risk
+what would have tasked the nerves and courage of a man in the prime of
+physical and mental power, wrote:
+
+"MY DEAR RICHARD MEYNELL: Against my better judgment, I was persuaded
+that you might have been imprudent. I now know that you have only been
+heroic. Forgive me--forgive us all. Nothing will induce me to preach the
+sermon 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 off
+Meynell to Maudeley, that she might "help him write his letters," and
+watch for a week or two over a man wearied and overtaxed. It was by her
+means also that the reaction in public opinion spread far beyond Meynell
+himself. It is true that even men and women of good will looked at each
+other in bewilderment, after the publication of the apology, and asked
+each other under their breaths--"Then is there no story!--and was Judith
+Sabin's whole narrative a delusion?" But with whatever might be true in
+that narrative no public interest was now bound up; and discussion grew
+first shamefaced, and then dropped. The tendency strengthened indeed to
+regard the whole matter as the invention of a half-crazy and dying woman,
+possessed of some grudge against the Fox-Wilton family. Many surmised
+that some tragic fact lay at the root of the tale, since those concerned
+had not chosen to bring the slanderer to account. But what had once been
+mere matter for malicious or idle curiosity was now handled with
+compunction and good feeling. People began to be very sorry for the
+Fox-Wiltons, very sorry for "poor Miss Puttenham." Cards were left, and
+friendly inquiries were made; and amid the general wave of scepticism and
+regret, the local society showed itself as sentimental, and as futile as
+usual.
+
+Meanwhile poor Theresa had been seen driving to the station with red
+eyes; and her father, it was ascertained, had been absent from home since
+the day before the publication of the apology. It was very commonly
+guessed that the "member of my family" responsible for the letters was
+the unsatisfactory younger son; and many persons, especially in Church
+circles, were secretly sorry for Barron, while everybody possessed of any
+heart at all was sorry for his elder son Stephen.
+
+Stephen indeed was one of Meynell's chief anxieties during these
+intermediate hours, when a strong man took a few days' breathing space
+between the effort that had been, and the effort that was to be. The
+young man would come over, day by day, with the same crushed, patient
+look, now bringing news to Meynell which they talked over where none
+might overhear, and now craving news from Paris in return. As to
+Stephen's own report, Barron, it seemed, had made all arrangements
+to send Maurice to a firm of English merchants trading at Riga. The head
+of the firm was under an old financial obligation to Henry Barron, and
+Stephen had no doubt that his father had made it heavily worth their
+while to give his brother this fresh chance of an honest life. There
+had been, Stephen believed, some terrible scenes between the father and
+son, and Stephen neither felt nor professed to feel any hope for the
+future. Barron intended himself to accompany Maurice to Riga and settle
+him there. Afterward he talked of a journey to the Cape. Meanwhile the
+White House was shut up, and poor Theresa had come to join Stephen in the
+little vicarage whence the course of events in the coming year would
+certainly drive him out.
+
+So much for the news he gave. As to the news he hungered for, Meynell had
+but crumbs to give him. To neither Stephen nor any one else could Alice
+Puttenham's letters be disclosed. Meynell's lips were sealed upon her
+story now as they had ever been; and, however shrewdly he might guess at
+Stephen's guesses, he said nothing, and Stephen asked nothing on the
+subject.
+
+As to Hester, he was told that she was well, though often moody and
+excitable, that she seemed already to have tired of the lessons and
+occupations she had taken up with such prodigious energy at the beginning
+of her stay, and that she had made violent friends with a young teacher
+from the Ecole Normale, a refined, intelligent woman, in every way fit to
+be her companion, with whom on holidays she sometimes made long
+excursions out of Paris.
+
+But to Meynell, poor Alice Puttenham poured out all the bitterness of her
+heart:
+
+"It seems to me that the little hold I had over her, and the small
+affection she had for me when we arrived here, are both now less than
+they were. During the last week especially (the letter was dated the
+fourteenth of January) I have been at my wits' end how to amuse or please
+her. She resents being watched and managed more than ever. One feels
+there is a tumult in her soul to which we have no access. Her teachers
+complain of her temper and her caprice. And yet she dazzles and
+fascinates as much as ever. I suspect she doesn't sleep--she has a worn
+look quite unnatural at her age--but it makes her furious to be asked.
+Sometimes, indeed, she seems to melt toward me; the sombre look passes
+away, and she is melancholy and soft, with tears in her eyes now and
+then, which I dare not notice.
+
+"Oh, my dear friend, I am grateful for all you tell me of the changed
+situation at Markborough. But after all the thing is done--there can be
+no undoing it. The lies mingled with the truth have been put down.
+Perhaps people are ready now to let the truth itself slip back with
+the lies into the darkness. But how can we--Edith and I--and Hester--ever
+live the old life again? The old shelter, the old peace, are gone. We are
+wanderers and pilgrims henceforward!
+
+"As far as I know, Hester is still in complete ignorance of all that has
+happened. I have told her that Edith finds Tours so economical that she
+prefers to stay abroad for a couple of years, and to let the Upcote
+house. And I have said also that when she herself is tired of Paris, I
+am ready to take her to Germany, and then to Italy. She laughed, as
+though 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 that
+she has seen no English newspaper that could have given her a clue. As to
+Philip Meryon, as I have told you before, I often feel a vague
+uneasiness; 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 the
+whole world would change for me. But even what I once possessed these
+last few months seem to have taken from me!"
+
+"The thing is done!--there can be no undoing it." That was the sore
+burden of all Meynell's thoughts, awakening in him, at times, the "bitter
+craving to strike heavy blows" at he knew not what. What, indeed, could
+ever undo the indecency, the cruelty, the ugly revelations of these
+three months? The grossness of the common public, the weakness of
+friends, the solemn follies to which men are driven by hate or bigotry:
+these things might well have roused the angry laughter that lives in all
+quick and honest souls. But the satiric mood, when it appeared, soon
+vanished. He remembered the saying of Meredith concerning the spectacle
+of Bossuet over the dead body of Moliere--"at which the dark angels may,
+but men do not, laugh."
+
+This bitterness might have festered within him, but for the blessedness
+of Mary Elsmere's letters. She had seen the apology; she knew nothing of
+its causes. But she betrayed a joy that was almost too proud to know
+itself as joy; since what doubt could there ever have been but that right
+and nobleness would prevail? Catharine wrote the warmest and kindest of
+letters. 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 her
+trust take any shape he would. And though she knew nothing, she seemed by
+some divine instinct to understand also the pain that overshadowed the
+triumph; to be ready to sit silent with him before the irreparable. Day
+by day, as he read these letters, his heart burned within him; and Rose
+noted the growing restlessness. But he had heavy arrears of parish
+business upon him, of correspondence, of literary work. He struggled on,
+the powers of mind and body flagging, till one night, when he had been
+nearly a week at Maudeley, Rose came to him one evening, and said with a
+smile 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 you
+stay?"
+
+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 he
+quietly 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 the
+following day, Meynell spent half an hour with his Bishop in the
+episcopal library.
+
+It was a strange meeting. When Bishop Craye first caught sight of the
+entering figure, he hurried forward, and as the door closed upon the
+footman, he seized Meynell's hand in both his own.
+
+"I see what you have gone through," he said, with emotion; "and you would
+not 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 the
+world. They fell upon the anonymous letters, a comparatively safe topic,
+and the relation of Barron to them. Naturally Meynell gave the Bishop no
+hint whatever of the graver matter which had finally compelled Barron's
+surrender. He described his comparison of the Dawes letters with "a
+document in the young man's handwriting which I happened to have in my
+possession," 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 the
+Bishop. "I hope you have sometimes given a thought to the men on our side
+compelled 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 say
+a profound and affectionate admiration, which contrasted curiously with
+the public position in which they stood to each other. It was now very
+generally recognized, and especially in Markborough and its diocese, that
+Meynell had borne himself with extraordinary dignity and patience under
+the ordeal through which he had passed. And the Bishop--whose guess had
+so nearly hit the truth, who had been persuaded that in the whole matter
+Meynell was but the victim of some trust, some duty, which honour and
+conscience would not let him betray in order to save himself--the Bishop
+was but the more poignantly of this opinion now that he had the man
+before him. The weeks of suffering, the long storm of detraction, had
+left their mark; and it was not a light one. The high-hearted little
+Bishop felt himself in some way guilty, obscurely and representatively,
+if not directly.
+
+Yet, at the same time, when the personal matter dropped away, and they
+passed, as they soon did, to a perfectly calm discussion of the action in
+the Court of Arches which was to begin within a week, nothing could be
+clearer or more irrevocable than the differences, ecclesiastical and
+intellectual, which divided these two men, who in matters of personal
+feeling were so sensitively responsive the one to the other.
+
+Meynell dwelt on the points of law raised in the pleadings, on the
+bearing of previous cases--the _Essays and Reviews_ case above all--upon
+the suit. The antecedents of the counsel employed on both sides, the
+idiosyncrasies of the judge, the probable length of the trial; their talk
+ranged round these matters, without ever striking deeper. It was assumed
+between them that the expulsion of the Modernist clergy was only a
+question of months--possibly weeks. Once indeed Meynell referred slightly
+to the agitation in the country, to the growing snowball of the petition
+to Parliament, to the now certain introduction of a Bill "To promote an
+amended constitution for the Church of England." The Bishop's eyebrows
+went up, his lip twitched. It was the scorn of a spiritual aristocracy
+threatened by the populace.
+
+But in general they talked with extraordinary frankness and mutual good
+feeling; and they grasped hands more than cordially at the end. They
+might have been two generals, meeting before a battle, under the white
+flag.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Still the same mild January weather; with unseasonable shoots putting
+forth, and forebodings on the part of all garden-lovers, as fresh and
+resentful as though such forebodings, with their fulfilments, were not
+the natural portion of all English gardeners.
+
+In the Westmoreland dales, the month was rainier than elsewhere, but if
+possible, milder. Yellow buds were already foolishly breaking on the
+gorse, and weak primroses, as though afraid to venture, and yet
+venturing, were to be found in the depths of many woods.
+
+Meynell had slept at Whindale. In the morning a trap conveyed him and his
+bag to the farmhouse at the head of the valley; and the winter sun had
+only just scattered the mists from the dale when, stick in hand, he found
+himself on the road to Mrs. Elsmere's little house, Burwood.
+
+With every step his jaded spirits rose. He was a passionate lover of
+mountains, with that modern spirit which finds in them man's best refuge
+from modernness. The damp fragrance of the mossy banks and bare hedges;
+the racing freshness of the stream, and the little eddies of foam blown
+from it by the wind; the small gray sheep in the fields; the crags
+overhead dyed deep in withered heather; the stone farmhouses with their
+touch of cheerful white on door and window; all the exquisite detail of
+grass, and twig and stone; and overhead the slowly passing clouds in the
+wide sweep of the dale--these things to him were spiritual revival, they
+dressed and prepared him for that great hour to which dimly, yet through
+all his pulses, he felt he was going.
+
+The little house sent up a straight column of blue smoke into the quiet
+air. Its upper windows were open; the sun was on its lichened porch, and
+on the silver stem of the birch tree which rose from the mossy grass
+beside it.
+
+He did not need to knock. Mary was in the open doorway, her face all
+light and rose colour; and in the shadows of the passage behind her stood
+Catharine. When with the touch of Mary's hand still warm in his, Meynell
+turned to greet her mother, he was seized, even through the quiet emotion
+which held them all, by an impression of change. Some energy of physical
+life 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 left
+them alone in the little sitting-room.
+
+"You allow it?" said Meynell, hardly knowing what he said, and still
+retaining her hand.
+
+Catharine smiled.
+
+"Mary is her own mistress." Then she added, with a deep, involuntary
+sigh: "Whatever she says to you, she knows she has her mother's
+blessing."
+
+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. Mingled
+sweetness and bitterness filled her mind. She pictured to herself for an
+instant what it would have been if she had been giving Mary to a
+Christian pastor of the stamp of her own father, "sound in the faith," a
+"believer," entering upon what had always seemed to her from her
+childhood the ideal and exalted life of the Christian ministry. As things
+were, 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 the
+National Church; without any of the dignity--that dignity which had been
+her husband's--of voluntary renunciation. And Mary would become his wife
+only to share in his rebellion, his defiance, and his exile.
+
+She crossed her hands tightly upon her breast as though she were
+imprinting these sad facts upon her consciousness, learning to face them,
+to bear them with patience. And yet--in some surprising way--they did not
+hurt her as sharply as they would once have done. Trembling--almost in
+terror--she asked herself whether her own faith was weakening. And amid
+the intensity of aspiration and love with which her mind threw itself on
+the 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 she
+sat now following Meynell and Mary in thought along the valley, and now
+listening vaguely to the murmur of the fire or the stream outside, there
+came upon her a first gentle premonition--as though a whisper, from far
+away--of the solitude of death.
+
+Lines from the _Christian Year_, the book on which her girlhood had been
+nourished, 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 wintry
+warmth. The soft sound of Mary's dress beside him; the eyes she turned
+upon him when she spoke, so frank and sweet, yet for her lover, so full
+of mystery; the lines of her young form, compact of health and grace; the
+sound of her voice, the turn of her head--everything about her filled him
+with a tumult of feeling not altogether blissful, though joy was
+uppermost. For now that the great moment was come, now that he trembled
+on the verge of a happiness he had every reason to think was his, he was
+a prey to many strange qualms and tremors. In the first place he was
+suddenly 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 a
+sense of guilt. These six months of strenuous battle and leadership,
+these new responsibilities, and the fierce call which had been made on
+every gift and power, ending in the dumb, proud struggle, the growing
+humiliation of the preceding weeks, had left him ripened indeed,
+magnified indeed, as a personality; but it was as though down the
+shadowed vista of life he saw his youth, as "Another self," a
+Doppelgaenger, disappearing forever.
+
+While she!--before _her_ were all the years of glamour, of happy
+instinctive action, when a man or woman is worth just what they dream,
+when dream and act flow together. Could he give her anything worth her
+having in exchange for this sheer youth of hers? He saw before him a long
+and dusty struggle; the dust of it choking, often, the purest sources of
+feeling. Cares about money; cares about health; the certain enmity of
+many good men; the bitterness that waits on all controversial success or
+failure: 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 he
+had suffered. As the Bishop had perceived, it was written on his aspect.
+But her timidity as yet prevented her from taking the initiative with
+him, as later she would learn to do. She felt for him at this stage
+partly the woman's love, partly the deep and passionate loyalty of the
+disciple. And it was possibly this very loyalty in her from which Meynell
+shrank. He felt toward himself and his role, in the struggle to which he
+was committed, a half despairing, half impatient irony, which saved him
+from anything like a prophetic pose. Some other fellow would do it so
+much better! But meanwhile it had to be done.
+
+So that, charged as was the atmosphere between them, it was some time
+before 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 first
+masked and hesitating. They talked a little--perfunctorily--about the
+dale and its folk, and Mary fell without difficulty now and then into the
+broad Westmoreland speech, which delighted Meynell's ear, and brought the
+laugh back to his eyes. Then, abruptly, he told her that the campaign of
+slander was over, and that the battle, instead of "infinite mess and
+dislocation," was now to be a straight and clean one. He said nothing of
+Barron; but he spoke tenderly of the Bishop, and Mary's eyes swam a
+little.
+
+She on her part dared to speak of Alice and Hester. And very soon it was
+quietly recognized between these two that Alice's story was known to
+Mary; and, for the first time in his life, Meynell spoke with free
+emotion and self-criticism of the task which Neville Flood had laid
+upon him. Had there been in Mary some natural dread of the moment when
+she must first hear the full story of his relation to Alice? If so, it
+was soon dispelled. He could not have told the story more simply; but its
+beauty shone out. Only, she was startled, even terrified, by certain
+glimpses 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 he
+could 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 was
+strangely--morbidly--dependent upon the fate of Hester. If he was able to
+save 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 any
+man's leader, and should feel himself the Jonah of any cause. There was a
+certain mystical passion in it, the strong superstition of a man in whom
+a great natural sensitiveness led often and readily to despondency; as
+though he "asked for a sign."
+
+They passed the noisy little river by the stepping-stones and then
+climbed a shoulder of fell between Long Whindale and the next valley.
+Descending a sunny mountainside, they crossed some water meadows, and
+mounted 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 a
+flat-topped rock commanding all the spectacle of flood and fell. Mary
+guided him there; and then stood silent and flushed, conscious that she
+herself had brought the supreme moment to its birth. The same perception
+rushed upon Meynell. He looked into her eyes, smiling and masterful, all
+his 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 hand
+and caught hers. She found herself trembling, and looking down into his
+upturned face.
+
+"Mary!--Mary _darling_!--is it mine?"
+
+The question was just whispered, and she whispered her reply. They were
+alone in a lovely wilderness of fell and stream. Only a shepherd walked
+with his flock in a field half a mile away, and across the valley a
+ploughman drove his horses.
+
+At the murmur in his ear, Meynell, this time, put up both hands, and drew
+her 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 an
+old 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 the
+colour 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 hair
+from 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, and
+drew her within the shelter of his cloak, looking down upon her with
+infinite tenderness.
+
+"You don't know what you're undertaking," he said, his eyes moist, his
+lips smiling. "I am an old bachelor, and my ways are detestable! Can you
+ever 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 very
+uncomfortable. Can you really stand it--and me?"
+
+"Shall we have a roof over our heads at all?" asked Mary, but so dizzily
+happy that she knew but vaguely what she said.
+
+"I have already bespoken a cottage. They are going to make me Editor of
+the _Modernist_. We shall have bread and butter, dearest, but not much
+more."
+
+"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 a
+money-box. Then when we want something really amusing--a cathedral--or
+a yacht--we'll take it out."
+
+So they laughed together, he all the while holding her close crushed
+against him, and she deafened almost by the warm beating of a man's heart
+beneath her cheek.
+
+And presently silence came, a silence in which one of the rare ecstasies
+of life came upon them and snatched them to the third heaven. From the
+fold of the hill in which they sat, sheltered both by the fell itself,
+and by the encircling hollies, they overlooked a branching dale, half
+veiled, and half revealed by sunny cloud. Above the western fells they
+had just crossed, hung towers and domes of white cumulus, beneath which a
+pearly sunshine slipped through upon the broad fell-side, making of it
+one wide sunlit pleasance, dyed in the red and orange of the withered
+fern, and dotted with black holly and juniper. Round the head of the dale
+the curtain of cloud hung thicker, save where one superb crag tore it
+asunder, falling sheer into the green gentleness of the fields. In the
+silence, all the voices of nature spoke; the rising wind, which flung
+itself against the hill-slopes at their feet; the insistent flow of the
+river, descending from the reservoirs far away; and the sharp chatter of
+the little beck leaping at their side from stone to stone. Passionately,
+in Meynell's heart the "buried life" awoke, which only love can free from
+the 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, then
+there is no key, and no man need preach any more. Only, my Amor has been
+till now a stern God! He has in his hands!--I know it!--all the noblest
+rewards and ecstasies of life; but so far, I have seen him wring them out
+of horror, or pain. The most heavenly things I have ever seen have been
+the things of suffering. I think of a poor fellow dying in the pit and
+trying to give me his last message to his wife; of a mother fading out of
+life, still clasping her babes, with hands twisted almost out of human
+shape by hard work; or a little lad--" his voice dropped--"only last
+week!--who saved his worthless brother's life by giving him warning of
+some escaping trucks, and was crushed himself. 'I couldn't help it,
+sir!'--_apologizing_ to me and the foreman, as we knelt by him!--'I knew
+Jim had the drink in him.' In all these visions, Love was divine--but
+awful! And here!--_here_!--I see his wings outspread upon that
+mountain-side; he comes clothed, not in agony, but in this golden
+peace--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 thought
+of a great man, which seizes upon us dull lesser creatures, and seems to
+give us, for a time at least, new eyes and ears, as though, like
+Melampus, we had caught the hidden language of the world! It rests
+on the notion of the endless creativeness and freedom of life. It is the
+negation of all fate, all predestination. _Nothing_ foreknown, nothing
+predestined! No _necessity_--no _anangke_--darling!--either in the world
+process, or the mind of God, that you and I should sit here to-day, heart
+to heart! It was left for our wills to do, our hearts to conceive, God
+lending us the world, so to speak, to work on! All our past cutting
+into--carving out--this present; all our past alive in the present; as
+all this present shall be alive in the future. There is no 'iron law' for
+life and will, beloved--they create, they are the masters, they are
+forever new. All the same!"--his tone changed--"I believe firmly that
+this 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; her
+hair had escaped its bounds, and must be rigorously put to rights. She
+sat there flushed and bareheaded, her hands working; while Meynell's
+eyes 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 on
+the word, without moving however. "Mary!--next to you I love your
+mother!"
+
+Mary's sweet face darkened a little; she buried it in her hands. Meynell
+drew them tenderly away.
+
+"All that affection can do to soften the differences between us, shall be
+done," he said, with his whole heart. "I believe too that the sense of
+them 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 the
+conflict which had always haunted and scorched it, between love and
+religion; first in the case of her husband, and then in that of her
+daughter. "But oh! how could I--how could I help it?" was the cry of
+Mary's own conscience and personality.
+
+She turned with painful eagerness to Meynell. "How did you think
+her?--how does she strike you?"
+
+"Physically?" He chose his words. "She is so beautiful! But--sometimes--I
+think she looks frail."
+
+The tears sprang to Mary's eyes. She quickly threw herself upon his
+misgiving, and tried to argue it away, both in herself and him. She dwelt
+upon her mother's improvement in sleep and appetite, her cheerfulness,
+her increased power of walking; she was insistent, almost resentful, her
+white brow furrowed with pain, even while her hand lay warm in Meynell's.
+He must needs comfort her; must needs disavow his own impression. After
+all, what value had such an impression beside the judgment of her daily
+and hourly watchfulness?--the favourable opinion too, so she insisted, of
+their local doctor.
+
+As they walked home, he startled her by saying that he should only have
+three 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, and
+that 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 be
+made the opportunity for something like a demonstration; and that he
+shrank from the thought of it.
+
+She perceived, indeed, a certain general flagging of the merely combative
+forces in him, not without dismay. Such moments of recoil are natural to
+such men--half saints, half organizers. The immediate effect of her
+perception of it was to call out something heroic and passionate in
+herself. She was very sweet, and very young; there were eighteen years
+between them; and yet in these very first hours of their engagement, he
+felt her to be not only rest, but inspiration; not only sympathy, but
+strength.
+
+When they neared the little ivy-covered house, on their return home, Mary
+broke from him. Her step on the gravel was heard by Catharine. She came
+quickly to the door and stood awaiting them. Mary ran forward and threw
+herself into the tender arms that drew her into the shadows of the
+passage.
+
+"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 tender
+mockery.
+
+"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 him
+claim 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, he
+and Mary walked incessantly among them, exploring those first hours of
+love, when every tone and touch is charged, for lovers, with the whole
+meaning of the world. And in the evenings he sat between the two women in
+the little cottage room, reading aloud Catharine's favourite poets; or in
+the familiar talk, now gay now grave, of their new intimacy, disclosing
+himself ever more fully, and rooting himself ever more firmly in their
+hearts. His sudden alarm as to Catharine's health passed away, and Mary's
+new terror with it. Scarcely a word was said of the troubles ahead. But
+it 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 seeing
+Oedipus Rex played by Mounet Sully at the Comedie Francaise. In this
+half-sophisticated girl, the famous performance, traditional now through
+two generations of playgoers, had clearly produced an emotion whereof the
+expression in her letter greatly disquieted Catharine Elsmere. She felt
+too--a little grimly--the humour of its address to herself.
+
+"Tell me how to answer it, please," she said, handing it to Meynell with
+a twitching lip. "It is a language I don't understand! And why did they
+take her to such a play?"
+
+Meynell shared her disquiet. For the Greek conception of a remorseless
+fate, as it is forever shaped and embodied in the tale of Oedipus, had
+led Hester apparently to a good deal of subsequent browsing in the
+literature--the magazine articles at any rate--of French determinism; and
+she rattled through some of her discoveries in this reckless letter:
+
+"You talked to me so nicely, dear Mrs. Elsmere, that last evening at
+Upcote. 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?--and
+yet--you see!
+
+"'_Apollo, friends, Apollo it was, that brought all these my woes, my
+sore, sore woes!--to pass_.'
+
+"Dear Mrs. Elsmere!--you can't think what a good doctrine it is after
+all--how it steadies one! What chance have we against these blundering
+gods?
+
+"Nothing one can do makes any difference. It is, really very consoling if
+you come to think of it; and it's no sort of good being angry with
+Apollo!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Part nonsense, part bravado," said Catharine, raising clear eyes, with
+half 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 run
+over to see them."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meynell and Mary travelled to town together, and Mary was duly deposited
+for a few days with some Kensington cousins.
+
+On the night of their arrival--a Saturday--Meynell, not without some
+hesitation, made an appearance at the Reformers' Club, which had been
+recently organized as a London centre for the Movement, in Albemarle
+Street.
+
+It was no sooner known that he was in the building than a flutter ran
+through the well-filled rooms. That very morning an article in the
+_Modernist_ signed R. M. had sounded a note of war, so free, lofty, and
+determined, 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 to
+defend himself; and the attention of the country would be fixed upon the
+duel between him and the great orthodox counsel, Sir Wilfrid Marsh.
+
+Men gathered quickly round him. Most of the six clergy who, with him, had
+launched the first Modernist Manifesto, were present, in expectation of
+the sermon on the morrow, and the trial of the following week. Chesham
+and Darwen, his co-defendants in the Arches suit, with whom he had been
+in constant correspondence throughout the winter, came to discuss a few
+last points and understandings; Treherne, the dear old scholar in whose
+house they had met to draw up the Manifesto, under the shadow of the
+Cathedral, 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 Modernist
+Sacraments among the slums of a great midland town.
+
+And in the voices that spoke to him, and the eyes that met his, Meynell
+could not but realize a wide and warm sympathy, an eagerness to make
+amends--sometimes a half confessed compunction for a passing doubt.
+
+He stood among them, haggard and worn, but steeped in a content and
+gratitude that had more sources than they knew. And under the kindling of
+their faith and their affection, his own hesitations passed away; his
+will 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 representing
+science, literature, politics, the best of English thought and English
+social endeavour, was but the outward and visible sign of things inward
+and spiritual.
+
+"_Can these dry bones live_?"
+
+As Meynell gave out the text, there were many who remembered the picture
+of Oxford hanging in Newman's study at Edgbaston, and those same words
+written below it.
+
+"_Can these dry bones live_?"--So Newman had asked in despair, of his
+beloved University, and of English religion, in the early years after he
+had deserted Anglicanism for Rome. And now, more than half a century
+afterward, the leader of a later religious movement asked the same
+question on the eve of another contest which would either regenerate or
+destroy the English Church. The impulse given by Newman and the
+Tractarians had spent itself, though not without enormous and permanent
+results within the life of the nation; and now it was the turn of that
+Liberal reaction and recoil which had effaced Newman's work in Oxford,
+yet had been itself wandering for years without a spiritual home. During
+those years it had found its way through innumerable channels of the
+national life as a fertilizing and redeeming force. It had transformed
+education, law, science and history. Yet its own soul had hungered. And
+now, thanks to that inner necessity which governs the spiritual progress
+of men, the great Liberal Movement, enriched with a thousand conquests,
+was sweeping back into the spiritual field; demanding its just share in
+the National Church; and laying its treasures at the feet of a Christ,
+unveiled, illuminated, by its own labour, by the concentrated and
+passionate effort of a century of human intelligence.
+
+Starting from this conception--the full citizen-right within the Church
+of both Liberal and High Churchman--the first part of Meynell's sermon
+became a moving appeal for religious freedom; freedom of development
+and "variation," within organized Christianity itself. Simpler Creeds,
+modernized tests, alternative forms, a "unity of the spirit in the bond
+of peace,"--with these ideas the Modernist preacher built up the vision
+of a Reformed Church, co-extensive with the nation, resting on a
+democratic government, yet tenderly jealous of its ancient ceremonies, so
+long as each man might interpret them "as he was able," and they were no
+longer made a source of tyranny and exclusion.
+
+Then, from the orthodox opponent in whose eyes the Modernist faith was a
+mere beggarly remnant, Meynell turned to the sceptic for whom it was only
+a modified superstition. An eloquent prelude, dealing with the
+preconceptions, the modern philosophy and psychology which lie at the
+root of religious thought to-day--and the rest of the sermon flowed on
+into what all Christian eloquence must ultimately be, the simple
+"preaching of Christ."
+
+Amid the hush of the crowded church Meynell preached the Christ of our
+day--just as Paul of Tarsus preached the Christ of a Hellenized Judaism
+to the earliest converts; as St. Francis, in the Umbrian hills preached
+the Lord of Poverty and Love; as the Methodist preachers among the
+villages of the eighteenth century preached the democratic individualism
+of the New Testament to the English nascent democracy.
+
+In each case the form of the preaching depended on the knowledge and the
+thought-world of the preacher. So with Meynell's Christ.
+
+Not the phantom of a Hellenistic metaphysic; not the Redeemer and Judge
+of a misunderstood Judaism; not the mere ethical prophet of a German
+professorial theology; but the King of a spiritual kingdom, receiving
+allegiance, and asking love, from the free consciences of men; repeating
+forever in the ears of those in whom a Divine influence has prepared the
+way, the melting and constraining message: "This do in remembrance of
+me."
+
+"'Of me--and of all the just, all the righteous, all the innocent, of all
+the ages, in me--pleading through me--symbolized in me! Are you for
+Man--or for the Beast that lurks in man? Are you for Chastity--or
+Lust? 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 longer
+a man made God, a God made man. Those categories of thought, for us,
+are past. But neither is he merely the crucified Galilean, the
+Messianic prophet of the first century. For by a mysterious and unique
+destiny--unique at least in degree--that life and death have become
+Spirit and Idea. The Power behind the veil, the Spirit from whom issues
+the world, has made of them a lyre, enchanted and immortal, through which
+He breathes His music into men. The setting of the melody varies with the
+generations, but the melody remains. And as we listen to it to-day,
+expressed through the harmonies of that thought which is ourselves--blood
+of 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 God
+who was 'in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.'
+
+"Of that God, all life is in some sense, the sacramental expression. But
+in the course of ages some sacraments and symbols of the divine are
+approved and verified beyond others--immeasurably beyond others. This is
+what has happened--and so far as we can see by the special will and
+purpose of God--with the death-unto-life--with the Cross of Christ....
+
+"The symbol of the Cross is concerned with our personal and profoundest
+being. But the symbol of the Kingdom is social, collective--the power of
+every reformer, every servant of men....
+
+"Many thinkers," said the preacher, in his concluding passage, while all
+eyes were fixed on the head sprinkled with gray, and the strong humanity
+of the face--"many men, in all ages and civilizations have dreamed of a
+City of God, a Kingdom of Righteousness, an Ideal State, and a Divine
+Ruler. Jesus alone has made of that dream, history; has forced it upon,
+and stamped it into history. The Messianic dream of Judaism--though
+wrought of nobler tissue--it's not unlike similar dreams in other
+religions; but in this it is unique, that it gave Jesus of Nazareth his
+opportunity, and that from it has sprung the Christian Church. Jesus
+accepted 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 death
+transformed a world. He died indeed, overwhelmed; with the pathetic cry
+of utter defeat upon his lips. And the leading races of mankind have
+knelt ever since to the mighty spirit who dared not only to conceive
+and found the Kingdom of God, but to think of himself as its Spiritual
+King--by sheer divine right of service, of suffering, and of death! Only
+through tribulation and woe--through the _peirasmos_ or sore trial of the
+world--according to Messianic belief, could the Kingdom be realized, and
+Messiah revealed. It was the marvellous conception of Jesus, inspired by
+the ancient poetry and prophecy of his nation, that he might, as the
+Suffering Servant, concentrate in himself the suffering due from his
+race, and from the world, and by his death bring about--violently, "by
+force"--the outpouring of the Spirit, the Resurrection, and the dawn of
+the heavenly Kingdom. He went up to Jerusalem to die; he provoked his
+death; he died. And from the Resurrection visions which followed
+naturally on such a life and death, inspired by such conceptions, and
+breathing them with such power into the souls of other men, arose the
+Christian 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 us
+any more.
+
+"But its spirit is immortal. The vision of a kingdom of Heaven--a polity
+of the soul, within, or superseding the earthly polity--once interfused
+with man's thought and life, has proved to be imperishable, a thing that
+cannot die.
+
+"Only it must be realized afresh from age to age; embodied afresh in the
+conceptions and the language of successive generations.
+
+"And these developing embodiments and epiphanies of the kingdom can only
+be brought into being by the method of Christ--that is to say, by
+'_violence_'.
+
+"Again and again has the kingdom 'suffered violence'--has been brought
+fragmentarily into the world '_by force_'--by the only irresistible
+force--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 the
+whole thought of Christ. When the work of preparation is over, still men
+must brace themselves, as their Master did, to the last stroke of
+'violence'--to a final effort of resolute, and, if need be, revolutionary
+action--to the 'violence' that brings ideas to birth and shapes them into
+deeds.
+
+"It was to 'violence' of this sacred sort that the Christian Church owed
+its beginning; and it is this same 'violence' that must, as the
+generations rise and fall, constantly maintain it among men. To cut away
+the old at need and graft in the new, requires the high courage and the
+resolute hand of faith. Only so can the Christian Life renew itself; only
+so 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 walked
+with his eyes on the ground, smiling to himself.
+
+"A little persecution!" he said, rubbing his hands, as he looked up--"and
+how it would go!"
+
+"Well--the persecution begins this week--in the Court of Arches."
+
+"Persecution--nonsense! You mean 'propaganda.' I understand Meynell's
+defence will proceed on totally new lines. He means to argue each point
+on its merits?"
+
+"Yes. The Voysey judgment gave him his cue. You will remember, Voysey was
+attacked by the Lord Chancellor of the day--old Lord Hatherley--as a
+'private clergyman,' who 'of his own mere will, not founding himself upon
+any critical inquiry, but simply upon his own taste and judgment'
+maintained certain heresies. Now Meynell, I imagine, will give his judges
+enough 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 you
+maintain that a system which insists upon a man's beliefs at forty-four
+being identical with his beliefs at twenty-four is not condemned _ipso
+facto_!"
+
+"Oh I know what you say!--I know what you say!" cried Norham
+good-humouredly. "We shall all be saying it in Parliament presently--Good
+heavens! Well, I shall look into the court to-morrow, if I can possibly
+find an hour, and hear Meynell fire away."
+
+"As Home Secretary, you may get in!"--laughed Flaxman--"on no other
+terms. 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 took
+precedence, and were to be followed by half a dozen others--test
+cases--from different parts of England. But on the Markborough suits
+everything turned. The Modernist defendants everywhere had practically
+resolved on the same line of defence; on the same appeal from the mind of
+the sixteenth century to the mind of the twentieth; from creeds and
+formularies 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 a
+large, clean-shaven face, a domed head and smooth straight hair, still
+jetty black. He wore a look of quiet assurance and was clearly a man
+of all the virtues; possessing a portly wife and a tribe of daughters.
+
+His speech was marked in all its earlier sections by a studied liberality
+and moderation. "I am not going to appeal, sir, for that judgment in the
+promoters' favour which I confidently claim, on any bigoted or
+obscurantist lines. The Church of England is a learned Church; she is
+also a Church of wide liberties."
+
+No slavish submission to the letter of the Articles on the Liturgy was
+now demanded of any man. Subscription had been relaxed; the final
+judgment in the _Essays and Reviews_ case had given a latitude in the
+interpretation of Scripture, of which, as many recent books showed, the
+clergy--"I refer now to men of unquestioned orthodoxy"--had taken
+reasonable advantage; prayer-book revision "within the limits of the
+faith," if constantly retarded by the divisions of the faithful, was
+still probable; both High Churchmen and Broad Churchmen--here an aside
+dropped out, "so far as Broad Churchmen still exist!"--are necessary to
+the Church.
+
+But there are limits. "Critical inquiry, sir, if you will--reasonable
+liberty, within the limits of our formularies and a man's ordination
+vow--by all means!
+
+"But certain things are _vital_! With certain fundamental beliefs let no
+one suppose that either the bishops, or convocation, or these Church
+courts, or Parliament, or what the defendants are pleased to call the
+nation" [one must imagine the fine gesture of a sweeping hand] "can
+meddle." The _animus imponentis_ is not that of the Edwardian or
+Elizabethan legislation, it is not that of the Bishops! it is that of the
+Christian Church itself!--handing down the _deposition fidei_ from the
+earliest to the latest times.
+
+"_The Creeds, sir, are vital_! Put aside Homilies, Articles, the
+judgments and precedents of the Church Courts--all these are, in this
+struggle, beside the mark. _Concentrate on the Creeds_! Let us examine
+what the defendants in these suits have made of the Creeds of
+Christendom."
+
+The evidence was plain. Regarded as historical statement, the defendants
+had 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, that
+formal creeds were mere "landmarks in the Church's life,"
+crystallizations of thought, that were no sooner formed than they became
+subject to the play, both dissolvent and regenerating, of the Christian
+consciousness.
+
+"And so you come to that inconceivable entity, a Church without a
+creed--a mere chaos of private opinion, where each man is a law unto
+himself."
+
+On this theme, Sir Wilfrid--who was a man of singularly strong private
+opinions, of all kinds and on all subjects--spoke for a whole day; from
+the 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, what
+authority--if any--there is in the English Church; or what limits--if
+any--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 Wilfrid
+carefully avoided saying--'We have the Scriptures.'"
+
+"Perhaps," said Dornal despondently.
+
+"And as to the Creeds," the other resumed, after another pause--"Do you
+think that one per cent of the Christians that you and I know believe in
+the Descent into Hell, or the Resurrection of the Body?"
+
+Dornal made no reply.
+
+Cyril Fenton also walked home with a young priest just ordained. Both
+were extremely dissatisfied with the later portions of Sir Wilfrid's
+speech, which had seemed to them tainted in several passages with
+Erastian complacency toward the State. Parliament especially, and a
+possible intervention of Parliament, ought never to have been so much as
+mentioned--even for denunciation--in an ecclesiastical court.
+
+"_Parliament!"_ cried Fenton, coming to a sudden stop beside the water in
+St. James' Park, his eyes afire, "What is Parliament but the lay synod of
+the 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 the
+audience day after day; with the Bishop of S----, lank and long-jawed,
+with reddish hair turning to gray, a deprecating manner in society, but
+in the pulpit a second Warburton for truculence and fire; the Bishop of
+D----, beloved, ugly, short-sighted, the purest and humblest soul alive;
+learned, mystical, poetical, in much sympathy with the Modernists, yet
+deterred by the dread of civil war within the Church, a master of the Old
+Latin Versions, and too apt to address schoolgirls on the charms of
+textual criticism; the Bishop of F----, courtly, peevish and distrusted;
+the Dean of Markborough, with the green shade over his eyes, and fretful
+complaint on his lips of the "infection" generated by every Modernist
+incumbent; and near him, Professor Vetch, with yet another divinity
+professor 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 case
+for the prosecution closed thunderously in a fierce onslaught on the
+ethics of the Modernist position, and on the personal honesty and
+veracity of each and every Modernist holding office in the Anglican
+Church, claiming sentences of immediate deprivation against the
+defendants, of their vicarages and incumbencies, and of all profits and
+benefits derived therefrom "unless within a week from this day they (the
+defendants) should expressly and unreservedly retract the several
+errors in which they have so offended."
+
+The court broke up in a clamour of excitement and discussion, with crowds
+of country parishioners standing outside to greet the three incriminated
+priests as they came out.
+
+The following morning Meynell rose. And for one brilliant week, his
+defence of the Modernist position held the attention of England.
+
+On the fourth or fifth day of his speech, the white-haired Bishop of
+Dunchester, against whom proceedings had just been taken in the
+Archbishop's Court, said to his son:
+
+"Herbert, just before I was born there were two great religious leaders
+in England--Newman and Arnold of Rugby. Arnold died prematurely, at
+the height of bodily and spiritual vigour; Newman lived to the age of
+eighty-nine, and to be a Cardinal of the Roman Church. His Anglican
+influence, continued, modified, distributed by the High Church movement,
+has lasted till now. To-day we have been listening again, as it were, to
+the voice of Arnold, the great leader whom the Liberals lost in '42,
+Arnold was a devoutly orthodox believer, snatched from life in the very
+birth-hour of that New Learning of which we claim to be the children. But
+a church of free men, coextensive with the nation, gathering into one
+fold every English man, woman and child, that was Arnold's dream, just as
+it is Meynell's.... And yet though the voice, the large heart, the
+fearless mind, and the broad sympathies were Arnold's, some of the
+governing ideas were Newman's. As I listened, I seemed"--the old man's
+look glowed suddenly--"to see the two great leaders, the two foes of a
+century 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 be
+addressing his judges, he was in truth speaking quite as consciously to a
+sweet woman's face in a far corner of the crowded hall. Mary went into
+the long wrestle with him, as it were, and lived through every moment of
+it at his side. Then in the evening there were half hours of utter
+silence, when he would sit with her hands in his, just gathering strength
+for the morrow.
+
+Six days of Meynell's speech were over. On the seventh the Court opened
+amid the buzz of excitement and alarm. The chief defendant in the suit
+was not present, and had sent--so counsel whispered to each other--a
+hurried note to the judge to the effect that he should be absent
+through the whole remainder of the trial owing to "urgent private
+business."
+
+In a few more hours it was known that Meynell had left England, and men
+on 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 the
+smallest trace. But she believes she is with Meryon. I go to Paris
+to-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 afternoon
+lay heavy on Long Whindale. A strong and bitter wind from the north blew
+down the valley with occasional spits and snatches of snow, not enough as
+yet 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 a
+shepherd on the path leading over the pass to Marly Head could scarcely
+hold himself upright against them. Tempestuous sounds filled all the
+upper and the lower air. From the high ridges came deep reverberating
+notes, a roaring in the wind; while the trees along the stream sent forth
+a shriller voice, as they whistled and creaked and tossed in the eddying
+gusts. Cold gray clouds were beating from the north, hanging now over the
+cliffs on the western side, now over the bare screes and steep slopes of
+the northern and eastern walls. Gray or inky black, the sharp edges of
+the rocks cut into the gloomy sky; while on the floor of the valley,
+blanched grass and winding stream seemed alike to fly scourged before the
+persecuting wind.
+
+A trap--Westmoreland calls it a car--a kind of box on wheels, was
+approaching the head of the dale from the direction of Whinborough. It
+stopped at the foot of the steep and narrow lane leading to Burwood, and
+a young lady got out.
+
+"You're sure that's Burwood?" she said, pointing to the house partially
+visible 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 had
+brought from Whinborough station. She was quite a young girl he guessed,
+and a handsome one. But there seemed to be something queer about her. She
+looked so tumbled and tired.
+
+Hester Fox-Wilton took out her purse, and paid him with an uncertain
+hand, one or more of the shillings falling on the road, where the driver
+and she groped for them. Then she raised the small bag she had brought
+with her in the car, and turned away.
+
+"Good day to yer, miss," said the man as he mounted the box. She made no
+reply. After he had turned his horse and started on the return journey to
+Whinborough, he looked back once or twice. But the high walls of the lane
+hid the lady from him.
+
+Hester, however, did not go very far up the lane. She sank down very soon
+on 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-like
+place, even on this bitter afternoon. In one of the windows was a glow of
+firelight; white muslin curtains everywhere gave it a dainty, refined
+look; and it stood picturesquely within the shelter of its trees, and of
+the yew hedge which encircled the garden.
+
+Yet Hester shivered as she looked at it. She was very imperfectly clothed
+for such an afternoon, in a serge jacket and skirt supplemented by a
+small fur collarette, which she drew closer round her neck from time to
+time, as though in a vain effort to get warm. But she was not conscious
+of doing so, nor of the cold as cold. All her bodily sensations were
+miserable and uncomfortable. But she was only actively aware of the
+thoughts racing through her mind.
+
+There they were, within a stone's throw of her--Mary and Mrs. Elsmere--in
+the warm, cosy little house, without an idea that she, Hester, the
+wretched, disgraced Hester, was sitting in the lane so close to them. And
+yet they were perhaps thinking of her--they must have often thought about
+her in the last fortnight. Mrs. Elsmere must of course have been sorry.
+Good people were always sorry when such things happened. And Mary?--who
+was eight years older--_older!_ than this girl of eighteen who sat there,
+sickened by life, conscious of a dead wall of catastrophe drawn between
+her and the future.
+
+Should she go to them? Should she open their door and say--"Here I
+am!--Horrible things have happened. No decent person will ever know me or
+speak 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 the
+inward sight the vision of Catharine Elsmere's face--its purity, its
+calm, its motherliness. For a moment it drew, it touched, it gave
+courage. And then the terrible sense of things irreparable, grim matters
+of fact not to be dreamed or thought away, rushed in and swept the
+clinging, 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 perhaps
+they'll cry--they'll pray with me, and I can't stand that! Why did I ever
+come? Where on earth shall I go?"
+
+And she looked round her in petulant despair, angry with herself for
+having done this foolish thing, angry with the loneliness and barrenness
+of 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 and
+stung 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 with
+cold.
+
+"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 and
+left. Which way? The thought of the long dreary road back to Whinborough
+repelled her. She turned toward the head of the valley. Perhaps she might
+find a house which would take her in. The driver had said there was a
+farm which let lodgings in the summer. She had money--some pounds at any
+rate; that was all right. And she was not hungry. She had arrived at a
+junction station five miles from Whinborough by a night train. At six
+o'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 station
+hotel, and she had engaged a room and ordered a fire. There she had
+thrown herself down without undressing on the bed, and had slept heavily
+for four or five hours. Then she had had some breakfast, and had taken
+a midday train to Whinborough, and a trap to Long Whindale.
+
+She had travelled straight from Nice without stopping. She would not let
+herself think now as she hurried along the lonely road what it was she
+had fled from, what it was that had befallen. The slightest glimpse into
+this past made her begin to sob, she put it away from her with all her
+strength. But she had had, of course, to decide where she should go, with
+whom she should take refuge.
+
+Not with Uncle Richard, whom she had deceived and defied. Not with "Aunt
+Alice." No sooner did the vision of that delicate withered face, that
+slender form come before her, than it brought with it terrible fancies.
+Her conduct had probably killed "Aunt Alice." She did not want to think
+about 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--things
+that no one supposed she had heard--that Mrs. Elsmere had given years of
+her life, and sacrificed her health, to "rescue" work. The rescue of
+girls 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 had
+thirsted for. They had brought her all the way from Nice to this northern
+valley--this bleak, forbidding country. She shivered again from head to
+foot, as she made her way painfully against the wind.
+
+Yet now she was flying even from Catharine Elsmere; even from those
+tender eyes that haunted her.
+
+The road turned toward a bridge, and on the other side of the bridge
+degenerated into a rough and stony bridle path, giving access to two gray
+farms beneath the western fell. On the near side of the bridge the
+road became a cart-track leading to the far end of the dale.
+
+Hester paused irresolute on the bridge, and looked back toward Burwood. A
+light appeared in what was no doubt the sitting-room window. A lamp
+perhaps that, in view of the premature darkening of the afternoon by the
+heavy storm-clouds from the north, a servant had just brought in. Hester
+watched it in a kind of panic, foreseeing the moment when the curtains
+would be drawn and the light shut out from her. She thought of the little
+room within, the warm firelight, Mary with her beautiful hair--and Mrs.
+Elsmere. They were perhaps working and reading--as though that were all
+there were to do and think about in the world! No, no! after all they
+couldn't be very peaceful--or very cheerful. Mary was engaged to Uncle
+Richard now; and Uncle Richard must be pretty miserable.
+
+The exhausted girl nearly turned back toward that light. Then a hand came
+quietly and shut it out. The curtains were drawn. Nothing now to be seen
+of the little house but its dim outlines in the oncoming twilight, the
+smoke blown about its roof, and a faint gleam from a side-window, perhaps
+the kitchen.
+
+Suddenly, a thought, a wild, attacking thought, leapt out upon her, and
+held 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 confused
+in one mad flux of misery. Was it _possible_ that they too could be
+Here--Uncle Richard, and "Aunt Alice?" She had said something about Mrs.
+Elsmere in her telegram--she could not recollect what. That had been
+meant to comfort them, and yet to keep them away, to make them leave
+her to her own plans. But supposing, instead, its effect had been to
+bring them here at once, in pursuit of her?
+
+She hurried forward, sobbing dry sobs of terror as though she already
+heard their steps behind her. What was she afraid of? Simply their
+love!--simply their sorrow! She had broken their hearts; and what could
+she say to them?
+
+The recollection of all her cruelty to "Aunt Alice" in Paris--her
+neglect, her scorn, her secret, unjust anger with those who had kept from
+her the facts of her birth--seemed to rise up between her and all ideas
+of hope and help. Oh, of course they would be kind to her!--they would
+forgive her--but--but she couldn't bear it! Impatience with the very
+scene of wailing and forgiveness she foresaw, as of something utterly
+futile and vain, swept through the quivering nerves.
+
+"And it can never be undone!" she said to herself roughly, as though she
+were throwing the words in some one's face. "It can never, _never_ be
+undone! What's the good of talking?"
+
+So the only alternative was to wander a while longer into these clouds
+and storms that were beginning to beat down from the pass through the
+darkness of the valley; to try and think things out; to find some shelter
+for the night; then to go away again--somewhere. She was conscious now of
+a first driving of sleet in her face; but it only lasted for a few
+minutes. Then it ceased; and a strange gleam swept over the valley--a
+livid storm-light from the west, which blanched all the withered grass
+beside her, and seemed to shoot along the course of the stream as she
+toiled up the rocky path beside it.
+
+What a country, what a sky! Her young body was conscious of an angry
+revolt against it, against the northern cold and dreariness; her body,
+which still kept as it were the physical memory of sun, and blue sea, and
+orange trees, of the shadow of olives on a thin grass, of the scent of
+orange blossom on the broken twigs that some one was putting into her
+hand.
+
+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-haired
+man, was seated on a rock, staff in hand, watching his dog collect the
+sheep from the rocky slope on which they were scattered.
+
+At sight of Hester, the old man started and stared. Her fair hair
+escaping in many directions from the control of combs and hairpins, and
+the pale lovely face in the midst of it, shone in the stormy gleam that
+filled 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 of
+a living being brought a kind of comfort.
+
+"It's going to snow--" she said, as she stood beside him, surprised by
+the sound of her own voice amid the roar of the wind.
+
+"Aye--it's onding o' snaw--" said the shepherd, his shrewd blue eyes
+travelling 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, a
+stone's throw away. The gate of it was open, and the dog was gradually
+chasing the sheep within it.
+
+"I doan't like leavin' 'em on t' fells this bitter weather. I'm afraid
+for t' ewes. It's too cauld for 'em. They'll be for droppin' their lambs
+too soon if this wind goes on. It juist taks t' strength out on 'em, doos
+the wind."
+
+"Do you think it's going to snow a great deal?"
+
+The old man looked round at the clouds and the mountains; at the
+powdering of snow that had already whitened the heights.
+
+"It'll be more'n a bit!" he said cautiously. "I dessay we'll have to be
+gettin' 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 ter
+happen ter foak as want the doctor?"
+
+"Did you ever know people lost on these hills?" asked the girl, looking
+into the blackness ahead of them. Her shrill, slight voice rang out in
+sharp 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's
+betther 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 coom
+February. 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 ahead
+into 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 was
+my son, gooin afther th' lambs i' the snaw, as found him. He heard
+summat--a voice like a lile child cryin'--an he scratted aboot, an
+dragged 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 a
+figure 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 came
+back, followed by his dog, to the place where she stood, listlessly
+watching.
+
+"Doan't yo go too far on t' fells, missy. It's coomin' on to snaw, an
+it'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 as
+knaws 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 enoof
+you 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 that
+what the lady did was none of his business, and turned back toward one of
+the farms across the bridge. Who was she? She was a strange sort of body
+to be walking by herself up the head of Long Whindale. He supposed she
+came from Burwood--there was no other house where a lady like that could
+be staying. But it was a bit queer anyhow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hester walked on. She turned a craggy corner beyond which she was
+out of sight of any one on the lower stretches of the road. The struggle
+with the wind, the roar of water in her ears, had produced in her a kind
+of trance-like state. She walked mechanically, half deafened, half
+blinded, measuring her force against the wind, conscious every now and
+then of gusts of snow in her face, of the deepening gloom overhead
+climbing up and up the rocky path. But, as in that fatal moment when she
+had paused in the Burwood lane, her mind was not more than vaguely
+conscious of her immediate surroundings. It had become the prey of
+swarming recollections--captured by sudden agonies, unavailing,
+horror-stricken revolts.
+
+At last, out of breath, and almost swooning, she sank down under the
+shelter of a rock, and became in a moment aware that white mists were
+swirling and hurrying all about her, and that only just behind her, and
+just above her, was the path clear. Without knowing it, she had
+climbed and climbed till she was very near the top of the pass. She
+looked down into a witch's cauldron of mist and vapour, already thickened
+with snow, and up into an impenetrable sky, as it seemed, close upon her
+head, from which the white flakes were beginning to fall, steadily and
+fast.
+
+She was a little frightened, but not much. After all, she had only to
+rest and retrace her steps. The watch at her wrist told her it was not
+much past four; and it was February. It would be daylight till half-past
+five, unless the storm put out the daylight. A little rest--just a little
+rest! But she began to feel ill and faint, and so bitterly, bitterly
+cold. The sense of physical illness, conquering the vague overwhelming
+anguish of heart and mind, began to give her back some clearness of
+brain.
+
+Who was she?--why was she there? She was Hester Fox-Wilton--no! Hester
+Meryon, who had escaped from a man who had called himself, for a few days
+at least, her husband; a man whom in scarcely more than a week she had
+come to loathe and fear; whose nature and character had revealed to her
+infamies of which she had never dreamed; who had claimed to be her
+master, and use her as he pleased, and from whom she had escaped by
+night, 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 his
+mocking ones--and the helpless sense of indignity and wrong--and of her
+own utter and criminal folly.
+
+And through her memory there ran in an ugly dance those things, those
+monstrous things, he had said to her about the Scotch woman. It was not
+at all absolutely sure that she, Hester, was his wife. He had shown her
+those letters at St. Germains, of course, to reassure her; and the
+letters were perfectly genuine letters, written by the people they
+professed to be written by. Still Scotch marriage law was a damned
+business--one never knew. He _hoped_ it was all right; but if she did
+hate him as poisonously as she said, if she did really want to get rid of
+him, he might perhaps be able to assist her.
+
+Had he after all tricked and ruined her? Yet as her consciousness framed
+the question in the conventional phrases familiar to her through
+newspapers and novels, she hardly knew what they meant, this child of
+eighteen, who in three short weeks had been thrust through the fire of an
+experience on which she had never had time to reflect. Flattered vanity,
+and excitement, leading up almost from the first day to instinctive and
+fierce revolt--intervals of acquiescence, of wild determination to be
+happy, drowned in fresh rebellions of soul and sense--through these
+alternations the hours had rushed on, culminating in her furtive and
+sudden escape from the man of whom she was now in mad fear--her blind
+flight for "home."
+
+The _commonness_ of her case, the absence of any romantic or poetic
+element in it--it was that which galled, which degraded her in her own
+eyes. Only three weeks since she had felt that entire and arrogant belief
+in herself, in her power over her own life and Philip's, on which she now
+looked back as merely ludicrous!--inexplicable in a girl of the most
+ordinary intelligence. What power had girls over men?--such men as Philip
+Meryon?
+
+Her vanity was bleeding to death--and her life with it. Since the
+revelation of her birth, she seemed to have been blindly struggling to
+regain her own footing in the world--the kind of footing she was
+determined to have. Power and excitement; _not_ to be pitied, but to be
+followed, wooed, adored; not to be forced on the second and third bests
+of the world, but to have the "chief seat," the daintest morsel, the
+_beau role_ always--had not this been her instinctive, unvarying demand
+on life? And now? If she were indeed married, she was tied to a man who
+neither loved her, nor could bring her any position in the world; who was
+penniless, and had only entrapped her that he might thereby get some
+money out of her relations; who, living or dead, would be a disgrace to
+her, standing irrevocably between her and any kind of honour or
+importance in society.
+
+And if he had deceived her, and she were not his wife--she would be free
+indeed; but what would her freedom matter to her? What decent man would
+ever 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 could
+have laughed at her own thoughts; and yet at the same time it was so
+ghastly true! No need now to invent a half-sincere chatter about "Fate."
+She felt herself in miserable truth the mere feeble mouse wherewith the
+great 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 followed
+her, the lip that trembled when she said an unkind or wanton thing; she
+heard again the phrases of Uncle Richard's weekly letters, humorous,
+tender phrases, with here and there an occasional note of austerity, or
+warning.
+
+Oh yes--she had done it--she had ruined herself.
+
+She felt the tears running over her cheeks, mingling with the snow as it
+pelted 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 put
+out her own, groping helplessly--and rose to her feet.
+
+But the darkness was now much advanced, and the great snowstorm of the
+night had begun. She could not see the path below her at all, and only
+some twenty yards of its course above her. In the whirling gloom and in
+the fury of the wind, although she turned to descend the path, her
+courage suddenly failed her. She remembered a stream she had crossed
+on a little footbridge with a rail; could she ever see to recross it
+again?--above the greedy tumult of the water? Peering upward it seemed to
+her that she saw something like walls in front of her--perhaps another
+sheepfold? That would give her shelter for a little, and perhaps the snow
+would stop--perhaps it was only a shower. She struggled on, and up, and
+found indeed some fragments of walls, beside the path, one of the many
+abandoned places among the Westmoreland fells that testify to the closer
+settlement of the dales in earlier centuries.
+
+And just as she clambered within them, the clouds sweeping along the
+fell-side lifted and parted for the last time, and she caught a glimpse
+of a wide, featureless world, the desolate top of the fells, void of
+shelter or landmark, save that straight across it, from gloom to gloom,
+there ran a straight white thing--a ghostly and forsaken track. The Roman
+road, no doubt, of which the shepherd had spoken. And a vision sprang
+into 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 to
+perceive 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 of
+the shelter she had found, taking, as she supposed, the path toward the
+valley. But blinded with snow and mist, she lost it almost at once. She
+stumbled on over broken and rocky ground, wishing to descend, yet keeping
+instinctively upward, and hearing on her right from time to time, as
+though from depths of chaos, the wild voices of the valley, the wind
+tearing the cliffs, the rushing of the stream. Soon all was darkness; she
+knew that she had lost herself; and was alone with rock and storm. Still
+she moved; but nerve and strength ebbed; and at last there came a step
+into infinity--a sharp pain--and the flame of consciousness went out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+The February afternoon in Long Whindale, shortened by the first heavy
+snowstorm of the winter, passed quickly into darkness. Down through all
+the windings of the valley the snow showers swept from the north,
+becoming, as the wind dropped a little toward night, a steady continuous
+fall, which in four or five hours had already formed drifts of some depth
+in exposed places.
+
+Toward six o'clock, the small farmer living across the lane from Burwood
+became anxious about some sheep which had been left in a high "intak" on
+the fell. He was a thriftless, procrastinating fellow, and when the
+storm came on about four o'clock had been taking his tea in a warm
+ingle-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 enough
+from the stone walls of the "intak," and that all was well. But a couple
+of hours later the persistence of the snowfall, together with his wife's
+reproaches, goaded him into action. He went out with his son and
+lanterns, intending to ask the old shepherd at the Bridge Farm to help
+them in their expedition to find and fold the sheep.
+
+Meanwhile, in the little sitting-room at Burwood Catherine Elsmere and
+Mary 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's
+needlework often dropped unheeded from her fingers; and the pages of
+Mary's book remained unturned. The postman who brought letters up the
+dale in the morning, and took letters back to Whinborough at night, had
+just passed by in his little cart, hooded and cloaked against the storm,
+and hoping to reach Whinborough before the drifts in the roads had made
+travelling too difficult. Mary had put into his hands a letter addressed
+to the Rev. Richard Meynell, Hotel Richelieu, Paris. And beside her on
+the table lay a couple of sheets of foreign notepaper, covered closely
+with Meynell's not very legible handwriting.
+
+Catharine also had some open letters on her lap. Presently she turned to
+Mary.
+
+"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't
+think Richard will be misunderstood again."
+
+"No. The Bishop says that mysterious as it all is, nobody blames him for
+being absent. They trust him. But this time, it seems, he _did_ write to
+the Bishop--just a few words."
+
+"Yes, I know. I am glad." But as she spoke, the pale severity of the
+girl's look belied the word she used. During the fortnight of Meynell's
+absence, while he and Alice Puttenham in the south of France had been
+following every possible clue in a vain search for Hester, and the Arches
+trial had been necessarily left entirely to the management of Meynell's
+counsel, and to the resources of his co-defendants, Darwen and Chesham,
+Mary had suffered much. To see his own brilliant vindication of himself
+and his followers, in the face of religious England, snuffed out and
+extinguished in a moment by the call of this private duty had been
+hard!--all the more seeing that the catastrophe had been brought about by
+misconduct so wanton, so flagrant, as Hester's. There had sprung up in
+Mary's mind, indeed, a _saeva indignatio,_ not for herself, but for
+Richard, first and foremost, and next for his cause. Dark as she knew
+Meynell's forebodings and beliefs to be, anxiety for Hester must
+sometimes 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 aside
+the 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 be
+temporarily blinded by the rush of wind and snow through the opening.
+
+"A telegram!" she exclaimed, in wonder. "Please come in and wait. Isn't
+it very bad?"
+
+"I hope I'll be able to get back!" laughed the young man who had brought
+it. "The roads are drifting up fast. It was noa good bicycling. I got 'em
+to 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 into
+the sitting-room.
+
+"Mother!--Richard and Miss Puttenham will be here to-night. They have
+heard of Hester."
+
+In stupefaction they read the telegram, which had had been sent from
+Crewe:
+
+"Received news of Hester on arrival Paris yesterday. She has left M. Says
+she has gone to find your mother. Keep her. We arrive to-night
+Whinborough 7.10."
+
+"It is now seven," said Catharine, looking at her watch. "But
+where--where is she?"
+
+Hurriedly they called their little parlour-maid into the room and
+questioned her with closed doors. No--she knew nothing of any visitor.
+Nobody had called; nobody, so far as she knew, had passed by, except the
+ordinary neighbours. Once in the afternoon, indeed, she had thought she
+heard a carriage pass the bottom of the lane, but on looking out from the
+kitchen she had seen nothing of it.
+
+Out of this slender fact, the only further information that could be
+extracted was a note of time. It was, the girl thought, about four
+o'clock when she heard the carriage pass.
+
+"But it couldn't have passed," Catharine objected, "or you would have
+seen it go up the valley."
+
+The girl assented, for the kitchen window commanded the road up to the
+bridge. Then the carriage, if she had really heard it, must have come to
+the 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; and
+thankful for something to do, Catharine and Mary, with minds full of
+conjecture and distress, set about preparing two rooms for their guests.
+
+"Will they ever get here?" Mary murmured to herself, when at last the two
+rooms lay neat and ready, with a warm fire in each, and she could allow
+herself to open the front door again, an inch or two, and look out into
+the weather. Nothing to be seen but the whirling snow-flakes. The horrid
+fancy seized her that Hester had really been in that carriage and had
+turned back at their very door. So that again Richard, arriving weary and
+heart-stricken, would be disappointed. Mary's bitterness grew.
+
+But all that could be done was to listen to every sound without, in the
+hope of catching something else than the roaring of the wind, and to give
+the rein to speculation and dismay.
+
+Catharine sat waiting, in her chair, the tears welling silently. It
+touched her profoundly that Hester, in her sudden despair, should have
+thought of coming to her; though apparently it was a project she had not
+carried 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 and
+hope in the arms of an all-pitying God. Catharine knew much more of
+Meryon's history and antecedents--from Meynell--than did Mary. She was
+convinced that the marriage, if there had been a marriage, had been a
+bogus one, and that the disgrace was irreparable. But in her stern,
+rich nature, now that the culprit had turned from her sin, there was not
+a thought of condemnation; only a yearning pity, an infinite tenderness.
+
+At last toward nine o'clock there were steps on the garden path. Mary
+flew to the door. In the porch there stood the old shepherd from the
+Bridge Farm. His hat, beard, and shoulders were heavy with snow, and his
+face 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 his
+sheep in. Varra careless of him to ha' left it so long!--aw mine wor safe
+i't' fold by fower o'clock. An' I thowt, miss, as I'd mak bold, afore
+goin' back to t' farm, to coom an' ast yo, if t' yoong leddy got safe
+hoam 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' Bridge
+Farm, an' it wor noan weather for a stranger, miss, yo unnerstan', to be
+oot 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 Catharine
+had already sprung to her feet in terror. There they questioned him.
+Yes--they had been expecting a lady. When had he seen her?--the young
+lady he spoke of? What was she like? In what direction had she gone? He
+answered their questions as clearly as he could, his own honest face
+growing 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 tired
+out! 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 small
+dressing-bag of green leather and on it appeared the initials--"H. F.-W."
+
+They looked at each other speechless. The old man hastened to explain
+that on opening the gate which led to the house from the lane his foot
+had stumbled against something on the path. By the light of his lantern
+he had seen it was a bag of some sort, had picked it up and brought it
+in.
+
+"She _was_ in the carriage!" said Mary, under her breath, "and must have
+just pushed this inside the gate before--"
+
+Before she went to her death? Was that what would have to be added? For
+there was horror in both their minds. The mountains at the head of Long
+Whindale run up to no great height, but there are plenty of crags on them
+with a sheer drop of anything from fifty to a hundred feet. Ten or twenty
+feet would be quite enough to disable an exhausted girl. Five hours since
+she 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 and
+voices--vying with the storm. Mary ran into the hall. Two figures
+appeared in the porch in the light of the lamp as she held it up, with a
+third behind them, carrying luggage. In front stood Meynell, and an
+apparently fainting woman, clinging to and supported by his arm.
+
+"Help me with this lady, please!" said Meynell, peremptorily, not
+recognizing who it was holding the light. "This last little climb has
+been 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 all
+his face relaxed in a sudden, irrepressible joy. "But she would come."
+Then, in a lower voice--"Is Hester here?" Mary shook her head, and
+something in her eyes warned him of fresh calamity. He stooped suddenly
+to look at Alice, and perceived that she was quite unconscious. He and
+Mary, between them, raised her and carried her into the sitting-room.
+Then, while Mary ministered to her, Meynell grasped Catharine's
+hand--with the brusque question--
+
+"What has happened?"
+
+Catharine beckoned to old David, the shepherd, and she, with David and
+Meynell, went across, out of hearing, into the tiny dining-room of the
+cottage. Meanwhile the horses and man who had brought the travellers from
+Whinborough had to be put up for the night, for the man would not venture
+the return journey.
+
+Meynell had soon heard what there was to tell. He himself was gray with
+fatigue 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 farmer
+across the lane, his own master, the young tenant of the Bridge Farm, and
+the cowman from the same farm.
+
+"And the Lord knaws I'd goa wi you myself, sir"--said the fine-featured
+old man, a touch of trouble in his blue eyes--"for I feel soomhow as
+though there were a bit o' my fault in it. But we've had a heavy job on
+t' fells awready, an I should be noa good to you."
+
+He went over to the neighbouring farm, to recruit some young men, and
+presently returned with them, the driver, also, from Whinborough, a
+stalwart 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, looking
+down upon the just reviving Alice.
+
+"She's been a plucky woman," he said, with emotion; "but she's about at
+the end of her tether." And in a few brief sentences he described the
+agitated pursuit of the last fortnight; the rapid journeys, prompted now
+by this clue, now by that; the alternate hopes and despairs; with no real
+information of any kind, till Hester's telegram, sent originally to
+Upcote and reforwarded, had reached Meynell in Paris, just as they had
+returned thither for a fresh consultation with the police at
+headquarters.
+
+As the sound of men's feet in the kitchen broke in upon the hurried
+narrative, 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 real
+clue 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 the
+porch, holding the lamp high for the departure of the rescuers. There
+were five men with lanterns, ropes, and poles, laden, besides, with
+blankets, and everything else that Catharine's practical sense could
+suggest. 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 the
+wind showed some signs of abating.
+
+"They'll find it easier goin', past t' bridge, than it would ha' been an
+hour since," said old David to Mary, pitying the white anxiety of her
+face. She thanked him with a smile, and then while he marched ahead, she
+put 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 the
+lights wavered, and presently, standing at the kitchen window, Catharine
+and Mary could watch them dancing up the dale, now visible, now
+vanishing. It must be at least, and at best, two or three hours before
+the party reappeared; it might be much more. They turned from useless
+speculation to give all their thoughts to Alice Puttenham.
+
+Too exhausted to speak or think, she was passive in their hands. She was
+soon in bed, in a deep sleep, and Mary, having induced her mother to lie
+down in the sitting-room, and having made up fires throughout the
+house, sent the servants to bed, and herself began her watch in Alice
+Puttenham's room.
+
+Dreary and long, the night passed away. Once or twice through the waning
+storm Mary heard the deep bell of the little church, tolling the hours;
+once or twice she went hurriedly downstairs thinking there were steps
+in the garden, only to meet her mother in the hall, on the same bootless
+errand. At last, worn with thinking and praying, she fell fitfully
+asleep, and woke to find moonlight shining through the white blind in
+Alice Puttenham's room. She drew aside the blind and saw with a shock of
+surprise that the storm was over; the valley lay pure white under a
+waning 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 to
+seek.
+
+Suddenly--out of the dark bosom of the valley, lights emerged. Mary
+sprang to her feet. Yes! it was they--it was Richard returning.
+
+One look at the bed, where the delicate pinched face still lay high on
+the pillows, drenched in a sleep which was almost a swoon, and Mary stole
+out of the room.
+
+There was time to complete their preparations and renew the fires. When
+Catharine softly unlatched the front door, everything was ready--warm
+blankets, hot milk, hot water bottles. But now they hardly dared
+speak to each other; dread kept them dumb. Nearer and nearer came the
+sound of feet and lowered voices. Soon they could hear the swing of the
+gate 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 say
+in his haggard look before he spoke.
+
+"We found her a long way up the pass. She has had a bad fall--but she is
+alive. 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 the
+Whinborough lad who had brought them from, the station--"will take one of
+his horses and go for the doctor. We shall get him here in a couple of
+hours."
+
+Silently they brought her in, the stalwart, kindly men, they mounted the
+cottage stairs, and on Mary' bed they laid her down.
+
+O crushed and wounded youth! The face, drawn and fixed in pain, was
+marble-cold and marble-white; the delicate mire-stained hands hung
+helpless. Masses of drenched hair fell about the neck and bosom; and
+there was a wound on the temple which had been bandaged, but was now
+bleeding afresh. Catharine bent over her in an anguish, feeling for pulse
+and heart. Meynell, whispering, pointed out that the right leg was broken
+below the knee. He himself had put it in some rough splints, made out of
+the poles the shepherds were carrying.
+
+Both Catharine and Mary had ambulance training, and, helped by their two
+maids, they did all they could. They cut away the soaked clothes. They
+applied warmth in every possible form; they got down some spoonfuls of
+warm milk and brandy, dreading always to hear the first sounds of
+consciousness 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 doctor
+will be coming directly."
+
+His tone was tender as a woman's. His ghostly face, disfigured by
+exhaustion, showed him absorbed in pity. Mary, standing near, longed to
+kneel down by him, and weep; but there was an austere sense that not even
+she 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, watching
+her, sometimes whispering to her.
+
+At last she said, "I couldn't face you all. I'm dying." She moved her
+right hand restlessly. "Give me something for this pain--I--I can't stand
+it."
+
+"Dear Hester--can you bear it a little longer? We will do all we can. We
+have 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 very
+unhappy?"
+
+"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 of
+naughtiness 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 she
+understood his silence, for she feebly moved her uninjured hand toward
+him; 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 was
+borne in upon him that he _must_ tell her--if she was to die; that in the
+last strait, Alice's arms must be about her. But the doctor must decide.
+
+Presently, she was a little easier. The warm stimulant dulled the
+consciousness which came in gusts.
+
+Once or twice, as she recognized the faces near her, there was a touch of
+life, 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 into
+unconsciousness Meynell reported something of the search. They had found
+her a long distance from the path, at the foot of a steep and rocky
+scree, some twenty or thirty feet high, down which she must have slipped
+headlong. There she had lain for some eight hours in the storm before
+they found her. She neither moved nor spoke when they discovered her, nor
+had 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 at
+first not without hope. She _might_ live; if there were no internal
+injuries of importance. The next few hours would show. He sent his motor
+back to Whinborough Cottage Hospital for a couple of nurses, and
+prepared, himself, to stay the greater part of the day. He had just gone
+downstairs 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 to
+see my mother."
+
+Catharine stooped toward her, in an agitation she found it difficult to
+conceal.
+
+"Dear Hester!--we are sending a telegram as soon as the post-office is
+open to Lady Fox-Wilton."
+
+Hester moved her hand impatiently.
+
+"She's not my mother, and I'm glad. Where is--_my mother_?" She laid a
+strange, deep emphasis on the word, opening her eyes wide and
+threateningly. Catharine understood at once that, in some undiscovered
+way, she knew what they had all been striving to keep from her. It was no
+time 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, who
+gave a reluctant consent, lest more harm should come of refusing the
+interview than of granting it. And as Catharine ran up again to Mary's
+room she had time to reflect, with self-reproach, on the strange
+completeness with which she at any rate had forgotten that frail
+ineffectual woman asleep in Mary's room from the moment of Hester's
+arrival till now.
+
+But Mary had not forgotten her. When Catharine opened the door, it was to
+see a thin, phantom-like figure, standing fully dressed, and leaning on
+Mary's arm. Catharine went up to her with tears, and kissed her, holding
+her hands close.
+
+"Hester asks for you--for her mother--her real mother. She knows."
+
+"_She knows_?" Alice stood paralyzed a moment, gazing at Catharine. Then
+the colour rushed back into her face. "I am coming--I am coming--at
+once," 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--would
+stand by the door--I would call in a moment--if--"
+
+They agreed. She went with tottering steps across the landing. On the
+threshold, Catharine paused; Mary remained a little behind. Alice went in
+and shut the door.
+
+The blinds in Hester's room were up, and the snow-covered fells rising
+steeply above the house filled it with a wintry, reflected light; a
+dreary light, that a large fire could not dispel. On the white bed
+lay Hester, breathing quickly and shallowly; bright colour now in
+each sunken cheek. The doctor himself had cut off a great part of her
+hair--her glorious hair. The rest fell now in damp golden curls about her
+slender neck, beneath the cap-like bandage which hid the forehead and
+temples 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 restrain
+the 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 as
+scarcely to be heard--and then again--"_Mother_!"
+
+Alice sank down beside her with a sob, and without a word they gazed into
+each other's eyes. Slowly Hester's filled with tears. But Alice's were
+dry. In her face there was as much ecstasy as anguish. It was the first
+look that Hester's _soul_ had ever given her. All the past was in it; and
+that 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 that
+made me go with him."
+
+But she did not say it. And while Alice's mind, rushing miserably over
+the past, was trying to piece together some image of what had happened,
+Hester began to talk intermittently about the preceding weeks. Alice
+tried 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 her
+own responsibility.
+
+"I needn't have gone--but I would go. There was a devil in me--that
+wanted to know. Now I know--too much. I'm glad it's over. This life isn't
+worth while--not for me."
+
+So, from these lips of eighteen, came the voice of the world's old
+despairs!
+
+Presently she asked peremptorily for Meynell, and he came to her.
+
+"Uncle Richard, I want to be sure"--she spoke strongly and in her natural
+voice--"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. We
+signed registers and things. Then--when we quarrelled--Philip said--he
+wasn't certain about that woman--in Scotland. You might be right. Tell me
+the truth, please. Am I--his wife?"
+
+And as the words dropped faintly, the anxiety in her beautiful
+death-stricken eyes was strange and startling to see. Through all her
+recklessness, her defiance of authority and custom, could be seen at last
+the strength of inherited, implanted things; the instinct of a race, a
+family, 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. My
+inquiries all broke down. There was no Scotch marriage."
+
+Hester said nothing for a little; but the look of relief was clear. Alice
+on the farther side of the bed dropped her face in her hands. Was it not
+only forty-eight hours since, in Paris, Meynell had told her that he had
+received conclusive evidence of the Scotch marriage, and that Hester was
+merely Philip's victim, not his wife? Passionately her heart thanked him
+for the falsehood. She saw clearly that Hester's mortal wounds were not
+all bodily. She was dying partly of self-contempt, self-judgment.
+Meynell's strong words--his "noble lie"--had lifted, as it were, a
+fraction of the moral weight that was destroying her; had made a space--a
+freedom, in which the spirit could move.
+
+So much Alice saw; blind meanwhile to the tragic irony of this piteous
+stress 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 the
+nurses came at midday, however, the pulse had already begun to fail. They
+could do nothing; and though within call, they left her mainly to those
+who loved her.
+
+In the early afternoon she asked suddenly for the Communion, and Meynell
+administered it. The three women who were watching her received it with
+her. In Catharine's mind, as Meynell's hands brought her the sacred bread
+and wine, all thought of religious difference between herself and him had
+vanished, 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 was
+only 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 more
+strength--"beyond? How strange that--I shall know before you! Uncle
+Richard--I'm--I'm sorry!"
+
+At that the difficult tears blinded him, and he could not reply. But she
+was beyond tears, concentrating all the last effort of the mind on the
+sheer maintenance of life. Presently she added:
+
+"I don't hate--even Philip now. I--I forget him. Mother!" And again she
+clung 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. But
+now 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 poor
+mother!"
+
+So the hours wore on. Science was clever and merciful and eased her pain.
+Love encompassed her, and when the wintry light failed, her faintly
+beating 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 that
+trance of silence in which they had all been standing round the dead. He
+yielded to her; he was ready to see the doctor and to submit to the
+absolute rest enjoined. But already there was something in his aspect
+which 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 her
+love was close upon her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+On the day following Hester's death an inquest was held in the
+dining-room at Burwood. Meynell and old David, the shepherd, stood out
+chief 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 Miss
+Hester 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 am
+told, owing to illness--were her guardians?"
+
+Meynell assented. He stood to the right of the Coroner, leaning heavily
+on the chair before him. The doctor who had been called in to Hester sat
+beside him, and wondered professionally whether the witness would get
+through.
+
+"I understand also," the Coroner resumed, "that Miss Fox-Wilton had left
+the 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, in
+company I believe with Miss Fox-Wilton's aunt, Miss Alice Puttenham. Miss
+Puttenham, 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 precarious
+state, in consequence of grief and shock, and I should greatly fear the
+results 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, of
+Hester's disappearance from the family with whom she was boarding, of the
+anxiety of her relations, and the search that he and Miss Puttenham had
+made.
+
+His conscience was often troubled. Vaguely, his mind was pronouncing
+itself all the while--"It is time now the truth were known. It is better
+it should be known." Hester's death had changed the whole situation. But
+he could himself take no step whatever toward disclosure. And he knew
+that it was doubtful whether he should or could have advised Alice to
+take any.
+
+The inquiry went on, the Coroner avoiding the subject of Hester's French
+escapade as much as possible. After all there need be--there was--no
+question of suicide; only some explanation had to be suggested of the
+dressing-bag left within the garden gate, and of the girl's reckless
+climb into the fells, against old David's advice, on such an afternoon.
+
+Presently, in the midst of David's evidence, describing his meeting with
+Hester by the bridge, the handle of the dining-room door turned. The door
+opened a little way and then shut again. Another minute or two passed,
+and then the door opened again timidly as though some one were hesitating
+outside. The Coroner annoyed, beckoned to a constable standing behind the
+witnesses. But before he could reach it, a lady had slowly pushed it
+open, and entered the room.
+
+It was Alice Puttenham.
+
+The Coroner looked up, and the doctor rose in astonishment. Alice
+advanced 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 beyond
+all touch of beauty--and the childish overhanging lip quivered as she
+tried to speak; but no words came.
+
+"Miss Puttenham, I presume?" said the Coroner. "We were told, madam, that
+you 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 the
+effort, she should give her evidence as soon as possible, and should give
+it sitting."
+
+A murmur of assent ran round the table. Over the weather-beaten
+Westmoreland faces had passed a sudden wave of animation.
+
+Alice took her seat, and the oath. Meynell sitting opposite to her
+covered his face with his hands. He foresaw what she was about to do, and
+his heart went out to her.
+
+Everybody at the table bent forward to listen. The two shorthand writers
+lifted 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 to
+hear anything she might have to say.
+
+Alice fixed her eyes on the old man, as though she would thereby shut out
+all 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 the
+daughter of the late Sir Ralph and Lady Fox-Wilton?"
+
+"She was their adopted daughter. Her father was Mr. Neville Flood, and
+I--am her mother. Mr. Flood, of Sandford Abbey, died nearly twenty years
+ago. He and I were never married. My sister and brother-in-law adopted
+the child. She passed always as theirs, and when Sir Ralph died, he
+appointed--Mr. Meynell--and my sister her guardians. Mr. Meynell
+has 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 uncovered
+his eyes and tried to meet hers, so as to give her encouragement.
+
+She resumed--
+
+"Last August the nurse who attended me--in my confinement--came
+home to Upcote. She made a statement to a gentleman there--a false
+statement--and then she died. I wished then to make the truth public--but
+Mr. Meynell--as Hester's guardian--and for her sake, as well as mine--did
+not wish it. She knew nothing--then; and he was afraid of its effect upon
+her. I followed his advice, and took her abroad, in order to protect her
+from a bad man who was pursuing her. We did all we could--but we were not
+able to protect her. They were married without my knowing--and she went
+away with him. Then he--this man--told her--or perhaps he had done it
+before, I don't know--who she was. I can only guess how he knew; but he
+is Mr. Flood's nephew. My poor child soon found out what kind of man he
+was. She tried to escape from him. And because Mrs. Elsmere had been
+always 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 away
+again--in despair--when she actually got here. But her death was a pure
+accident--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 she
+was dying--she told me she knew--I was her mother. And now--that she is
+dead--"
+
+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 mine
+now--my child--forever--only mine!"
+
+She broke off incoherently, bowing her head upon her hands, her slight
+shoulders 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. Meynell
+whispered to her.
+
+The Coroner spoke, drawing his handkerchief hastily across his eyes.
+
+"The Court is very grateful to you, Miss Puttenham, for this frank and
+brave statement. We tender you our best thanks. There is no need for us
+to detain you longer."
+
+She rose, and Meynell led her from the room. Outside was a nurse to whom
+he 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 a
+fitful and frosty sunshine. The rocks and screes with their steep beds of
+withered heather made dark scrawls and scratches on the white; the smoke
+from the farmhouses rose bluish against the snowy wall of fell; and the
+river, amid the silence of the muffled roads and paths, seemed the only
+audible thing in the valley.
+
+In the tiny churchyard the new-made grave had been filled in with frozen
+earth, and on the sods lay flowers piled there by Rose Flaxman's kind and
+busy hands. She and Hugh had arrived from the south that morning.
+
+Another visitor had come from the south, also to lay flowers on that
+wintry grave. Stephen Barron's dumb pain was bitter to see. The silence
+of spiritual and physical exhaustion in which Meynell had been wrapped
+since the morning of the inquest was first penetrated and broken up by
+the sight of Stephen's anguish. And in the attempt to comfort the
+younger, the elder man laid hold on some returning power for himself.
+
+But he had been hardly hit; and the depth of the wound showed itself
+strangely--in a kind of fear of love itself, a fear of Mary! Meynell's
+attitude toward her during these days was almost one of shrinking. The
+atmosphere between them was electrical; charged with things unspoken, and
+a conflict that must be faced.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The day after Hester's funeral the newspapers were full of the sentence
+delivered on the preceding day, in the Arches Court, on Meynell and his
+co-defendants. A telegram from Darwen the evening before had conveyed
+the news to Meynell himself.
+
+The sentence of deprivation _ab officio et beneficio_ in the Church of
+England, on the ground of heretical opinion and unauthorized services,
+had been expressed by the Dean of Arches in a tone and phraseology of
+considerable vehemence. According to him the proceedings of the
+Modernists were "as contrary to morality as to law," and he marvelled how
+"honest men" could consent to occupy the position of Meynell and his
+friends.
+
+Notice of appeal to the Privy Council was at once given by the Modernist
+counsel, 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 Rose
+and Mary were sitting. Rose, reading his face, disappeared, and he put
+the letter into Mary's hands.
+
+It was addressed to the Bishop of Dunchester. The great gathering in
+Dunchester Cathedral, after several postponements to match the delays in
+the 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 of
+its history; the period of open revolt, of hot and ardent conflict.
+
+The letter which Mary was invited to read was short. It simply asked that
+the writer should be relieved from a task he felt he could not adequately
+carry out. He desired to lay it down, not for his own sake, but for the
+sake of the cause. "I am not the man, and this is not my job. This
+conviction has been borne in upon me during the last few weeks with an
+amazing clearness. I will only say that it seems to represent a
+command--a prohibition--laid upon me, which I cannot ignore. There are of
+course tragic happenings and circumstances connected with it, my dear
+lord, on which I will not dwell. The effect of them at present on my mind
+is that I wish to retire from a public and prominent part in our great
+Movement; at any rate for a time. I shall carry through the Privy Council
+appeal; but except for that intend to refuse all public appearance. When
+the sentence is confirmed, as of course it will be, it will be best for
+me to confine myself to thinking and writing in solitude and behind the
+scenes. 'Those also serve who only stand and wait.' The quotation is
+hackneyed, but it must serve. Through thought and self-proving, I believe
+that in the end I shall help you best. I am not the fighter I thought
+I was; the fighter that I ought to be to keep the position that has been
+so generously given me. Forgive me for a while if I go into the
+wilderness--a rather absurd phrase, however, as you will agree, when
+I tell you that I am soon to marry a woman whom I love with my whole
+heart. But it applies to my connection with the Modernist Movement, and
+to my position as a leader. My old friends and colleagues--many of them
+at least--will, I fear, blame the step I am taking. It will seem to them
+a mere piece of flinching and cowardice. But each man's soul is in his
+own keeping; and he alone can judge his own powers."
+
+The letter then became a quiet discussion of the best man to be chosen in
+the writer's stead, and passed on into a review of the general situation
+created by the sentence of the Court of Arches.
+
+But of these later pages of the letter Mary realized nothing. She sat
+with it in her hands, after she had read the passage which has been
+quoted, 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 rocky
+slope, 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 her
+again with a note of humility, of sad appeal, that struck most poignantly
+on the woman's heart--"but I cannot resist it. What use can I be to any
+human being as guide, or prophet, or counsellor--if I was so little use
+to her? Is there not a kind of hypocrisy--a dismal hypocrisy--in my
+claim to teach--or inspire--great multitudes of people--when this one
+child--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 for
+the public, the impersonal note. She set against the tragic appeal of the
+dead the equally tragic appeal of the living. She had in her mind the
+memory of that London church, with the strained upturned faces, the
+"hungry sheep"--girls among them, perhaps, in peril like Hester, men
+assailed by the same vile impulses that had made a brute of Philip
+Meryon. During the preceding months Mary's whole personality had
+developed with great rapidity, after a somewhat taciturn and slowly
+ripening youth. The need, enforced upon her by love itself, of asserting
+herself even against the mother she adored; the shadow of Meynell's cloud
+upon her, and her suffering under it, during the weeks of slander; and
+now this rending tragedy at her doors--had tempered anew the naturally
+high heart, and firm will. At this critical moment, she saved Meynell
+from a fatal step by the capacity she showed of loving his cause, only
+next to himself. And, indeed, Meynell was made wholesomely doubtful once
+or twice whether it were not in truth his cause she loved in him. For
+the sweet breakdowns of love which were always at her lips she banished
+by a mighty effort, till she should have won or lost. Thus throughout she
+showed herself her mother's daughter--with her father's thoughts.
+
+It was long, however, before she succeeded in making any real impression
+upon him. All she could obtain at first was delay, and that Catharine
+should be informed.
+
+As soon as that had been done, the position became once more curiously
+complex. Here was a woman to whom the whole Modernist Movement was
+anathema, driven finally into argument for the purpose of compelling
+the Modernist leader, the contriver and general of Modernist victory, to
+remain 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 mere
+feeling, however sharp, however legitimate. You had undertaken the
+thing, and it must, at all costs, be carried through. That was the
+dominant habit of her mind; and there were persons connected with her on
+whom the rigidity of it had at times worked harshly.
+
+On this occasion it was no doubt interfered with--(the Spirit of Comedy
+would have found a certain high satisfaction in the dilemma)--by the fact
+that Meynell's persistence in the course he had entered upon must be,
+in her eyes, and _sub specie religionis_, a persistence in heresy and
+unbelief. What decided it ultimately, however, was that she was not only
+an orthodox believer, but a person of great common sense--and Mary's
+mother.
+
+Her natural argument was that after the tragic events which had occurred,
+and the public reports of them which had appeared, Meynell's abrupt
+withdrawal from public life would once more unsettle and confuse the
+public mind. If there had been any change in his opinions--
+
+"Oh! do not imagine"--she turned a suddenly glowing face upon him--"I
+should be trying to dissuade you, if that were your reason. No!--it is
+for personal and private reasons you shrink from the responsibility
+of leadership. And that being so, what must the world say--the ignorant
+world 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 dear
+friend--I am not thinking of you at all. I leave you out of count; I am
+thinking of Alice--and--Mary!"
+
+Catharine unconsciously straightened herself, a touch of something
+resentful--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 has
+happened gone to soften people's hearts? to make them repent doubly of
+their scandal, and their false witness? Every one knows the truth
+now--every one who cares; and every one understands. But now--after the
+effort poor Alice has made--after all that she and you have suffered--you
+insist on turning fresh doubt and suspicion on yourself, your motives,
+your past history. Can't you see how people may gossip about it--how they
+may interpret it? You have no right to do it, my dear Richard!--no right
+whatever. Your 'good report' belongs not only to yourself--but--to Mary!"
+
+Catharine's breath had quickened; her hand shook upon her knee. Meynell
+rose from his seat, paced the room and came back to her.
+
+"I have tried to explain to Mary"--he said, desperately--"that I should
+feel myself a hypocrite and pretender in playing the part of a spiritual
+leader--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, sweet
+timidity--"that you felt you had tried to do for Hester what only
+grace--what only a living Redeemer--could do for her--"
+
+She broke off. But at last, as Meynell, her junior by fifteen years--her
+son almost--looked down into her face--her frail, aging, illumined
+face--there was something in the passion of her faith which challenged
+and roused his own; which for the moment, at any rate, and for the first
+time since the crisis had arisen revived in him the "fighter" he had
+tried to shed.
+
+"The fault was not in the thing preached," he said, with a groan; "or so
+it seems to me--but in the preacher. The preacher--was unequal to the
+message."
+
+Catharine was silent. And after a little more pacing he said in a more
+ordinary 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 ever
+known--what you and I knew?"
+
+His eyes, full of trouble, propitiated her. He took her hand and kissed
+it.
+
+"Bear with me, dear mother! I don't see my way, but Mary--is to me--my
+life. At any rate, I won't do in a hurry what you disapprove."
+
+Thus a little further delay was gained. The struggle lasted indeed
+another couple of days, and the aspect of both Meynell and Mary showed
+deep marks of it by the end. Throughout it Mary made little or no appeal
+to the mere womanly arts. And perhaps it was the repression of them that
+cost her most.
+
+On the third day of discussion, while the letter still lay unposted in
+Meynell's writing-case, he went wandering by himself up the valley. The
+weather was soft again, and breathing spring. The streams ran free; the
+buds were swelling on the sycamores; and except on the topmost crags the
+snow had disappeared from the fells. Harsh and austere the valley was
+still; the winter's grip would be slow to yield; but the turn of the year
+had come.
+
+That morning a rush of correspondence forwarded from Upcote had brought
+matters to a crisis. On the days immediately following the publication of
+the evidence given at the inquest on Hester the outside world had made no
+sign. All England knew now why Richard Meynell had disappeared from the
+Arches Trial, only to become again the prey of an enormous publicity, as
+one 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 few
+days the England interested in Richard Meynell simply held its breath
+and let him be.
+
+But he belonged to the public; and after just the brief respite that
+decency and sympathy imposed, the public fell upon him. The Arches
+verdict had been given; the appeal to the Privy Council had been lodged.
+With every month of the struggle indeed, as the Modernist attack had
+grown more determined, and its support more widespread, so the orthodox
+defence had gathered force and vehemence. Yet through the length and
+breadth of the country the Modernist petition to Parliament was now
+kindling such a fire as no resistance could put out. Debate in the House
+of Commons on the Modernist proposals for Church Reform would begin after
+Easter. Already every member of the House was being bombarded from both
+sides by his constituents. Such a heat of religious feeling, such a
+passion of religious hope and fear, had not been seen in England for
+generations.
+
+And meanwhile Meynell, whose action had first released the great forces
+now at work, who as a leader was now doubly revered, doubly honoured by
+those who clamoured to be led by him, still felt himself utterly
+unable to face the struggle. Heart and brain were the prey of a deadly
+discouragement; the will could make no effort; his confidence in himself
+was lamed and helpless. Not even the growing strength and intensity of
+his 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 he
+walked, some words of Newman possessed him; breathed into his ear through
+all the wind and water voices of the valley:
+
+_Thou_ to wax fierce
+In the cause of the Lord
+To threat and to pierce
+With the heavenly sword!
+Anger and Zeal
+And the Joy of the brave
+Who bade _thee_ to feel--
+
+Dejectedly, he made his way along the fatal path; he found the ruin where
+Hester had sheltered; he gradually identified the route which the rescue
+party had taken along the side of the fell; and the precipitous scree
+where they had found her. The freshly disturbed earth and stones still
+showed plainly where she had fallen, and where he and the shepherds had
+stood, 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 load
+of responsibility crushed him; and he could not resign himself to such a
+fate for such a human being. Before him, on the chill background of the
+tells, 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 disowned
+of God--prophesy to his brethren?....
+
+Thus there descended upon him the darkest hour of his history. It was
+simply a struggle for existence on the part of all those powers of the
+soul that make for action, against the forces that make for death and
+inertia.
+
+It lasted long; and it ended in the slow and difficult triumph, the final
+ascendency of the "Yeas" of Life over the "Nays," which in truth his
+character secured. He won the difficult fight not as a philosopher, but
+as a Christian; impelled, chastened, brought into line again, by purely
+Christian memories and Christian ideas. The thought of Christ healed
+him--gradually gave him courage to bear an agony of self-criticism,
+self-reproach, that was none the less overwhelming because his calmer
+mind, looking on, knew it to be irrational. There was no prayer to
+Christ, no "Christe eleison" on his rips. But there was a solemn kneeling
+by the Cross; a solemn opening of the mind to the cleansing and
+strengthening forces that flow from that life and death which are
+Christendom's central possession; the symbol through which, now
+understood in this way, now in that, the Eternal speaks to the Christian
+soul.
+
+So, amid "the cheerful silence of the fells," a good man, heavily, took
+back his task. From this wreck of affection, this ruin of hope, he must
+go forth to preach love and hope to other men; from the depths of his
+grief 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 personal
+complacency; smarting under the conviction of personal weakness and
+defeat; tormented still, as he would ever be, by all the "might have
+beens" of Hester's story, he was conscious of the "supersensual
+moment," the inrush of Divine strength, which at some time or other
+rewards 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 planting
+snowdrops. He helped her, and then they descended to the main road
+together. Looking at his face, she hardly dared, close as his hand clung
+to hers, to break the silence.
+
+It was dusk, and there was no one in sight. In the shelter of a group of
+trees, 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 should
+have 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 ruling
+her beloved was odious. Yet as they walked on hand in hand, the modern
+in Mary prevailed, and she must needs accept the equal rights of a love
+which is also life's supreme friendship.
+
+A few more days Meynell spent in the quiet of the valley, recovering, as
+best he could, and through a struggle constantly renewed, some normal
+steadiness of mood and nerve; dealing with an immense correspondence;
+and writing the Dunchester sermon; while Stephen Barron, who had already
+resigned his own living, was looking after the Upcote Church and parish.
+Meanwhile Alice Puttenham lay upstairs in one of the little white rooms
+of 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 "this
+shocking business which had disgraced us all." But Catharine at Alice's
+entreaty had merely appealed to the indisputable fact that the tiny house
+was already more than full. There was no danger, and they had a good
+trained nurse.
+
+Once or twice it was, in these days, that again a few passing terrors ran
+through Mary's mind, on the subject of her mother. The fragility which
+had struck Meynell's unaccustomed eye when he first arrived in the valley
+forced itself now at times, though only at times, on her reluctant sense.
+There were nights when, without any definite reason, she could not sleep
+for anxiety. And then again the shadow entirely passed away. Catharine
+laughed at her; and when the moment came for Mary to follow Meynell to
+the Dunchester meeting, it was impossible even for her anxious love to
+persuade itself that there was good reason for her to stay away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before Meynell departed southward there was a long conversation between
+him 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's
+birth and of her tragic death. The beauty of Meynell's relation to the
+mother and child was plainly to be seen through a very reticent
+narrative; and to the tale of those hours in Long Whindale no man of
+heart like the little Bishop could have listened unmoved. At the end, the
+two men clasped hands in silence; and the Bishop looked wistfully at the
+priest that he and the diocese were so soon to lose.
+
+For the rest, as before, they met as equals, curiously congenial to each
+other, in spite of the battle in front. The Bishop's certainty of victory
+was once more emphatically shown by the friendly ease with which he still
+received his rebellious incumbent. Any agreeable outsider of whatever
+creed--Renan or Loisy or Tyrrell--might have been thus welcomed at the
+Palace. It was true that till the appeal was decided Meynell remained
+formally Rector of Upcote Minor. The church and the parish were still in
+his hands; and the Bishop pointedly made no reference to either. But a
+very few weeks now would see Meynell's successor installed, and the
+parish reduced to order.
+
+Such at least was the Bishop's confidence, and in the position in which
+he found himself--with seven Modernist evictions pending in his diocese,
+and many more than seven recalcitrant parishes to deal with, he was not
+the man to make needless friction.
+
+In Meynell's view, indeed, the Bishop's confidence was excessive; and the
+triumph of the orthodox majority in the Church, if indeed it were to
+triumph, was neither so near, nor likely to be so complete, as the Bishop
+believed. He had not yet been able to resume all the threads of
+leadership, but he was clear that there had been no ebbing whatever of
+the Modernist tide. On the contrary, it seemed to him that the function
+at Dunchester might yet ring through England, and startle even such
+an 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 on
+Sunday; and the loyalty of the parish to their Rector, their answer
+to the Arches judgment, was shown in the passion, the loving intelligence
+with which every portion of the beautiful Modernist service was followed
+by an audience of working men and women gathered both from Upcote
+itself and from the villages round, who knew very well--and gloried in
+the fact--that from their midst had started the flame now running through
+the country. Many of them had been trained by Methodism, and were now
+returning to the Church that Wesley had been so loath to leave. "The
+Rector's changed summat," said men to each other, puzzled by that
+aspect--that unconscious aspect--of spiritual dignity that falls like
+a robe of honour, as life goes on, about the Knights of the Spirit. But
+they knew, at least, from their newspapers, how and when that beautiful
+girl who had grown up from a child in their midst had perished; they
+remembered the winter months of calumny and persecution; and their rough,
+kind hearts went out to the man who was so soon, against their will and
+their protest, to be driven out from the church where for twenty years he
+had preached to his people a Christ they could follow, and a God they
+could adore.
+
+The week passed, and the Dunchester meeting was at hand. Meynell was to
+spend the night before the great service with the old Bishop, against
+whom--together with the whole of his Chapter--Privy Council action
+was now pending. Mary was to be the guest of one of the Canons in the
+famous Close.
+
+Meynell arrived to find the beautiful old town in commotion. As a protest
+against the Modernist demonstration, all the students from a famous
+Theological College in a neighbouring diocese under a High Church bishop
+had 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 be
+appointed to a Canonry of St. Paul's. The streets were full of rival
+crowds, jostling each other. Three hundred Modernist clergy were staying
+in or near the town; the old Cathedral city stared at them amazed; and
+from all parts had come, besides, the lay followers of the new Movement
+thronging to a day which represented for them the first fruits of a
+harvest, whereof not they perhaps but their children would see the full
+reaping.
+
+On the evening before the function Meynell went into the Cathedral with
+Mary just as the lengthening March afternoon was beginning to wane. They
+stepped through the western doors set open to the breeze and the sunshine
+into a building all opal and ebony, faintly flooded with rose from the
+sky without; a building of infinite height and majesty, where clustered
+columns of black marble, incredibly light, upheld the richness of the
+bossed roof, where every wall was broidered history, where every step was
+on "the ruined sides of Kings," and the gathered fragments of ancient
+glass, jewels themselves, let through a jewelled light upon the creamy
+stone.
+
+For the first time, since Hester's death, Meynell's sad face broke into
+joy. The glorious church appeared to him as the visible attestation of
+the 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 the
+nave, conscious of a strange tumult in the pulse, as though the great
+building with its immemorial history were half lending itself to, half
+resisting, the emotion that filled them. In the choir a practice was
+going on. Some thirty young clergy were going through the responses and
+canticles of the new service-book, with an elder man, also in clerical
+dress, directing them. At the entrance of the southern choir aisle stood
+the senior verger of the Cathedral in his black gown--open-mouthed and
+motionless, listening to the strange sounds.
+
+Meynell and Mary knelt for a moment of impassioned prayer, and then sat
+down to listen. Through the fast darkening church, chanted by half the
+choir, there stole those words of noblest poetry:
+
+"_A new commandment_--_a new commandment--I give unto you_ ..." To be
+answered by the voices on the other side--"_That ye love--ye love one
+another_!"
+
+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 the
+springing 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 the
+evening light, "and we two--and those men singing there--shall be
+outcasts and wanderers, perhaps for a time, perhaps while we live.
+But to-day--and to-morrow--we are still children in the house of our
+fathers--sons, not slaves!--speaking the free speech of our own day in
+these 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 walked
+silently through the Close, toward the Palace, pursued by the rise and
+fall of the music from within.
+
+The great service was over, with its bold adaptation of the religious
+language of the past, the language which is wrought into the being of
+Christendom, to the needs and the knowledge of the present. And now
+Meynell had risen, and was speaking to that thronged nave, crowded
+by men and women of many types and many distinctions, with that mingling
+of passion and simplicity which underlies success in all the poetic
+arts, and, first and foremost, the art of religious oratory. The
+sermon was to be known in after years by the name of "The Two
+Christianities"--and became one of the chief landmarks, or, rather,
+rallying cries of the Modernist cause. Only some fragments of it can be
+suggested here; one passage, above all, that Mary's brooding memory will
+keep close and warm to her life's end:
+
+"...Why are we here, my friends? For what purpose is this great
+demonstration, this moving rite in, which we have joined this day?
+One-sixth at least of this congregation stands here under a sentence of
+ecclesiastical death. A few weeks perhaps, and this mighty church will
+know its white-haired Bishop no more. Bishop and Chapter will have been
+driven out; and we, the rank and file, whose only desire is to cling to
+the Church in which we were baptized and bred, will find ourselves exiles
+and 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 in
+the National Church, till force drive us out. Why? Because there is
+something infinitely greater at stake than any reproach that can be
+hurled at us on the ground of broken pledges--pledges made too early,
+given in ignorance and good faith, and broken now, solemnly, in the face
+of God and this people--for a greater good. What does our personal
+consistency--which, mind you, is a very different thing from personal
+honesty!--matter? We are as sensitive as any man who attacks us on the
+point of personal honour. But we are constrained of God; we bear in our
+hands the cause of our brethren, the cause of half the nation; and we can
+no other. Ask yourselves what we have to gain by it. Nay! With expulsion
+and exile in sight--with years perhaps of the wilderness before us--we
+stand here for the liberties of Christ's Church!--its liberties of growth
+and life....
+
+"My friends, what is the life either of intellect or spirit but the
+response of man to the communication of God? Age by age, man's
+consciousness cuts deeper into the vast mystery that surrounds us;
+absorbs, transmutes, translates ever more of truth, into conceptions he
+can 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 this
+ever-living and growing advance, so religion--man's ideas of God and his
+own soul.
+
+"Within the last hundred years man's knowledge of the physical world has
+broadened beyond the utmost dreams of our fathers. But of far greater
+importance to man is his knowledge of himself. There, too, the century
+of which we are now the heirs has lifted the veil--for us first among
+living men--from secrets hitherto unknown. HISTORY has come into being.
+
+"What is history? Simply the power--depending upon a thousand laborious
+processes--of constructing a magic lens within the mind which allows us
+to look deep into the past, to see its life and colour and movement
+again, as no generation but our own has yet been able to see it. We hold
+our breath sometimes, as for a brief moment perhaps we catch its very
+gesture, its very habit as it lived, the very tone of its voices. It has
+been a new and marvellous gift of our God to us; and it has transformed
+or is transforming Christianity.
+
+"Like science, this new discipline of the human mind is divine and
+authoritative. It lessens the distance between our human thought and the
+thought of God, because, in the familiar phrase, it enables us to "think,
+in some sort, His thoughts after Him." Like science it marches slowly on
+its way; through many mistakes; through hypothesis and rectification;
+through daring vision and laborious proof; to an ever-broadening
+certainty. History has taken hold of the Christian tradition. History has
+worked upon it with an amazing tenderness, and patience, and reverence.
+And at the end of a hundred years what do we see?--that half of
+Christendom, at least, which we in this church represent?
+
+"We see a Christ stripped of Jewish legend, and Greek speculation, and
+medieval scholasticism; moving simply and divinely among the ways of His
+Jewish world, a man among men. We can watch, dimly indeed by comparison
+with our living scrutiny of living men, but still more clearly than any
+generation of Christendom since the disappearance of the first has been
+able to watch, the rise of His thoughts, the nature of His environment,
+the sequence of His acts, the original significance, the immediate
+interpretation, the subsequent influence of His death. We know much more
+of 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 with
+its working through two thousand years upon the world.
+
+"_There,_ for the Modernist, lies revelation!--in the unfolding of the
+Christian idea, through the successive stages of human thought and
+imagination, it has traversed, down to the burst of revelation in the
+present day. Yet we are only now at the beginning of an immense
+development. The content of the Christian idea of love--love,
+self-renouncing, self-fulfilling--is infinite, inexhaustible, like that
+of beauty, or of truth. Why? At this moment, I am only concerned to give
+you the Christian answer, which is the answer of a reasonable faith.
+Because, like the streams springing forever from 'the pure founts of
+Cephisus,' to nourish the swelling plains below, these governing ideas of
+our life--tested by life, confirmed by life--have their source in the
+very being of God, sharers in His Eternity, His Ever-Fruitfulness....
+
+"But even so, you have not exhausted the wealth of Christianity; For to
+the potency of the Christian idea is added the magic of an incomparable
+embodiment in human life. The story of Jesus bears the idea which it
+enshrines eternally through the world. It is to the idea as the vessel of
+the Grail.
+
+"... Do these conceptions make us love our Master less? Ask your
+own hearts? There must be many in this crowded church that have
+known sorrow--intolerable anguish and disappointment--gnawing
+self-reproach--during the past year, or months, or weeks; many that have
+watched sufferings which no philosophic optimism can explain, and
+catastrophes that leave men dumb. Some among them will have been
+driven back upon their faith--driven to the foot of the Cross. Through
+all intellectual difference, has not the natural language of their
+fathers been also their language? Is there anything in their changed
+opinions 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--that
+does--divide _us_--whose consciences dare not refuse it--from the
+immortal triumph of that death? In our sharpest straits, are we not
+comforted and cleansed and sustained by the same thoughts, the same
+visions that have always sustained and comforted the Christian? No!--the
+sons of tradition and dogma have no monopoly in the exaltation, the
+living passion of the Cross! We, too, watching that steadfastness grow
+steadfast; bowed before that innocent suffering, grow patient; drinking
+in the wonder of that faith, amid utter defeat, learn to submit and go
+forward. 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 still
+our sore hearts before our God."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Quietly and low, in tones that shook here and there, the words had fallen
+upon the spell-bound church.
+
+Mary covered her eyes. But they saw only the more intently the vision of
+Hester maimed and dying; and the face of Meynell bending over her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then from this intimity, this sacredness of feeling, the speaker
+passed gradually and finally into the challenge, the ringing yet
+brotherly challenge, it was in truth his mission to deliver. The note of
+battle--honourable, inevitable battle--pealed through the church, and
+when it ceased the immense congregation rose, possessed by one heat of
+emotion, and choir and multitude broke into the magnificent Modernist
+hymn, "Christus Rex"--written by the Bishop of the See, and already
+familiar throughout England.
+
+The service was over. Out streamed the great congregation. The Close was
+crowded to see them come. Lines of theological students were drawn up
+there, fresh-faced boys in round collars and long black coats, who, as
+the main body of the Modernist clergy approached, began defiantly to
+chant the Creed. Meynell, with the old yet stately Bishop leaning on his
+arm, passed them with a friendly, quiet look. He caught sight for a
+moment of the tall form of Fenton, standing at their rear--the long face
+ascetically white, and sternly fixed.
+
+He left the Bishop at the gates of the Palace, and went back quickly for
+Mary. Suddenly he ran into an advancing figure and found his hand grasped
+by 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 and
+clouded.
+
+"And there was one man there--not a Modernist--who grieved, like a
+Modernist, over the future!"
+
+"Ah, the future!" said Meynell, throwing his head back. "That is not for
+you or me--not for the bishops, nor for that body which we call the
+Church--that is for _England_ to settle."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But another meeting remained.
+
+At the parting with Dornal, Meynell turned a corner and saw in front of
+him, walking alone, a portly gentleman, with a broad and substantial
+back. A start ran through him. After a moment's hesitation, he began to
+quicken 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 quite
+unconscious of the fact that a passing group of clergy opposite were
+staring across the street in amazement at the juxtaposition of the two
+men, 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 to
+inquire after Maurice? I hope your mind is more at ease about him."
+
+"He is doing well--for the moment." Another pause--broken by Barron, who
+said hurriedly in a different voice--"I got from him the whole story of
+the 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 would
+have meant."
+
+"No doubt," said Meynell, struck with pity, as he looked at the sunken
+face of the speaker. "And anyway--bygones are bygones. I hope your
+daughter 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 orthodox
+party had no room in its ranks, at that moment, for Henry Barron; and it
+was not hard to imagine what exclusion and ostracism must mean to
+such a temper. But the generous compunctions in his own mind could find
+no practical expression; and after a few more words they parted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next morning, while every newspaper in the country was eagerly discussing
+the events at Dunchester, Catharine, in the solitude of Long Whindale,
+and with a full two hours yet to wait for the carrier who brought the
+papers from Whinborough, was pondering letters from Rose and Mary written
+from Dunchester on the preceding afternoon. Her prayer-book lay beside
+her. Before the post arrived she had been reading by herself the Psalms
+and Lessons, according to the old-fashioned custom of her youth.
+
+The sweetness of Mary's attempt to bring out everything in the Modernist
+demonstration that might be bearable or even consoling to Catharine, and
+to 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 the
+Palace; and though there were many people waiting to see him, he is
+writing to you now; and so am I. Through it all, he feels so near to
+you--and to my father; so truly your son, your most loving son....
+
+"Dearest--I am troubled to hear from Alice this morning that yesterday
+you were tired and even went to lie down. I know my too Spartan mother
+doesn't do that without ten times as much reason as other people. Oh! do
+take care of yourself, my precious one. To-morrow, I fly back to you with
+all my news. And you will meet me with that love of yours which has
+never failed me, as it never failed my father. It will take Richard and
+me a life time to repay it. But we'll try! ... Dear love to my poor
+Alice. 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 come
+out of it finely, though I must say he looks at times more like a ghost
+than a man. From the Church point of view, dear, you were wise not to
+come, for your feelings must have been sadly mixed, and you might have
+been compelled to take Privy Council proceedings against yourself. I need
+not say that Hugh and I felt an ungodly delight in it--in the crowd and
+the 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 in
+the throng of foolish youths from the Theological College who seemed to
+think they settled everything by singing the Creed at us. (What a pity
+you can't enjoy the latest description of the Athanasian Creed! It is by
+a Quaker. He compares it to 'the guesses of a ten-year old child at the
+contents of his father's library.' Hugh thinks it good--but I don't
+expect 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 Modernists
+will be all camping in tents, it seems, by the wayside. Very touching and
+very exciting. But I am getting too sleepy to think about it. Dear
+Cathie--I run on--but I love you. Please keep well. Good-bye."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Catharine laid the letter down, still smiling against her will over some
+of its chatter, and unconsciously made happy by the affection that
+breathed from its pages no less than from Mary's.
+
+Yet certainly she was very tired. She became sharply conscious of her
+physical 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 very
+dear to Catharine, partly for her own sake, and partly because to be in
+bitter need and helplessness was to be sure of Catharine's tenderness.
+Very possibly they two, when Mary married, might make their home
+together. And Catharine promised herself to bring calm at least and
+loving help to one who had suffered so much.
+
+The window was half open to the first mild day of March; beside it stood
+a 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 through
+the black buds of the ash-trees, and in the distance a sheep-dog could be
+heard barking on the fells. So quiet it was--the spring sunshine--and so
+sweet. Back into Catharine's mind there flowed the memory of her own
+love-story in the valley; her hand trembled again in the hand of her
+lover.
+
+Then with a sudden onset her mortal hour came upon her. She tried to
+move, to call, and could not. There was no time for any pain of parting.
+For one remaining moment of consciousness there ran through the brain
+the images, affections, adorations of her life. Swift, incredibly swift,
+the vision of an opening glory--a heavenly throng!... Then the tired
+eyelids fell, the head lay heavily on the cushion behind it, and in the
+little room the song of the robin and the murmur of the stream flowed
+on--unheard.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Case of Richard Meynell, by Mrs. Humphry Ward
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CASE OF RICHARD MEYNELL ***
+
+This file should be named 7rmey10.txt or 7rmey10.zip
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7rmey11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7rmey10a.txt
+
+Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
+even years after the official publication date.
+
+Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.
+
+Most people start at our Web sites at:
+http://gutenberg.net or
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
+Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
+eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
+
+
+Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
+can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
+also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
+indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
+announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
+ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03
+
+Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
+
+Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
+as it appears in our Newsletters.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
+files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
+We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
+If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
+will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
+
+Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):
+
+eBooks Year Month
+
+    1  1971 July
+   10  1991 January
+  100  1994 January
+ 1000  1997 August
+ 1500  1998 October
+ 2000  1999 December
+ 2500  2000 December
+ 3000  2001 November
+ 4000  2001 October/November
+ 6000  2002 December*
+ 9000  2003 November*
+10000  2004 January*
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
+to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
+and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
+Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
+Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
+Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
+Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
+Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
+Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
+Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
+
+We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
+that have responded.
+
+As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
+will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
+Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
+
+In answer to various questions we have received on this:
+
+We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
+request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
+you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
+just ask.
+
+While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
+not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
+donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
+donate.
+
+International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
+how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
+deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
+ways.
+
+Donations by check or money order may be sent to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655-4109
+
+Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
+method other than by check or money order.
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
+the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
+[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
+tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
+requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
+made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+You can get up to date donation information online at:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
+you can always email directly to:
+
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
+
+We would prefer to send you information by email.
+
+
+**The Legal Small Print**
+
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
+you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
+is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
+through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
+Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
+under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
+any commercial products without permission.
+
+To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
+receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
+all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from. If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
+and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
+with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
+legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
+following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
+[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
+or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word
+     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
+     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
+     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
+     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
+     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
+     let us know your plans and to work out the details.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
+public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
+in machine readable form.
+
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
+public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
+Money should be paid to the:
+"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
+software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
+when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
+Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
+used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
+they hardware or software or any other related product without
+express permission.]
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*
+
diff --git a/old/7rmey10.zip b/old/7rmey10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4a46e72
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/7rmey10.zip
diff --git a/old/8rmey10.txt b/old/8rmey10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f7cdfdd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/8rmey10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,17916 @@
+Project Gutenberg's The Case of Richard Meynell, by Mrs. Humphry Ward
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
+Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
+header without written permission.
+
+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
+important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
+how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
+donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: The Case of Richard Meynell
+
+Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward
+
+Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9614]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 10, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CASE OF RICHARD MEYNELL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland,
+Mary Meehan and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+                      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 acquainted
+with the conditions of English rural and religious life to remember that
+the dominant factor in it--the factor on which the story of Richard
+Meynell depends--is the existence of the State Church, of the great
+ecclesiastical corporation, the direct heir of the pre-Reformation
+Church, which owns the cathedrals and the parish churches, which
+by right of law speaks for the nation on all national occasions, which
+crowns and marries and buries the Kings of England, and, through her
+bishops in the House of Lords, exercises a constant and important
+influence on the lawmaking of the country? This Church possesses half the
+elementary schools, and is the legal religion of the great public schools
+which shape the ruling upper class. She is surrounded with the prestige
+of centuries, and it is probable that in many directions she was never so
+active or so well served by her members as she is at present.
+
+At the same time, there are great forces of change ahead. Outside the
+Anglican Church stands quite half the nation, gathered in the various
+non-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 every
+village and small town this warfare exists. The non-conformist desires to
+deprive the Church of her worldly and political privileges; the churchman
+talks of the sin of schism, or draws up schemes of reunion which drop
+still-born. Meanwhile, alike in the Church, in non-conformity, and in the
+neutral world which owes formal allegiance to neither, vast movements of
+thought have developed in the last hundred years, years as pregnant with
+the germs of new life as the wonderful hundred years that followed the
+birth 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 the
+strife of tongues, whether the ideas of modernism; rife in all forms of
+Christianity, can be accommodated to the ancient practices and given a
+share in the great material possessions of a State Church; how individual
+lives are affected in the passionate struggle of spiritual faiths and
+practical interests involved in such an attempt; how conscience may be
+enriched by its success or sterilized by its failure; how the fight
+itself, ably waged, may strengthen the spiritual elements, the power of
+living and suffering in men and women--it is with such themes that this
+story attempts to deal. Twenty-two years ago I tried a similar subject in
+"Robert Elsmere." Since then the movement of ideas in religion and
+philosophy has been increasingly rapid and fruitful. I am deeply
+conscious how little I may be able to express it. But those who twenty
+years ago welcomed the earlier book--and how can I ever forget its
+reception in America!--may perhaps be drawn once again to some of the old
+themes 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 scene
+not intended for his eyes"
+
+"He shook hands with the Dean"
+
+"'I wonder whether she's ever had any real joy--a week's--a
+day's--happiness--in her life?'"
+
+"The old shepherd looked after her doubtfully"
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+
+
+
+MEYNELL
+
+
+"Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear
+The longest date do melt like frosty rime,
+That in the morning whitened hill and plain
+And is no more; drop like the tower sublime
+Of yesterday, which royally did wear
+His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain
+Some 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 at
+the summons and dismounted. The Rector approached him from the road, and
+the 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 the
+Rector's hands.
+
+The recipient smiled.
+
+"My word, what a post! I say, Preston, I add to your burdens pretty
+considerably."
+
+"It don't matter, sir, I'm sure," said the postman civilly. "There's not
+a deal of letters delivered in this village."
+
+"No, we don't trouble pen and ink much in Upcote," said the Rector; "and
+it's my belief that half the boys and girls that do learn to read and
+write at school make a point of forgetting it as soon as they can--for
+all practical purposes, anyway."
+
+"Well, there's a deal of newspapers read now, sir, compared to what there
+was."
+
+"Newspapers? Yes, I do see a _Reynolds_ or a _People_ or two about on
+Sunday. Do you think anybody reads much else than the betting and the
+police news, eh, Preston?"
+
+Preston looked a little vacant. His expression seemed to say, "And why
+should they?" The Rector, with his arms full of the post, smiled again
+and 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--he
+makes her go careful."
+
+"Quite right. Has Miss Puttenham been looking after her?"
+
+"She's been most kind, sir, most attentive, she have," said the postman
+warmly, his long hatchet face breaking into animation.
+
+"Lucky for you!" said the Rector, walking away. "When she cuts in, she's
+worth a regiment of doctors. Good-day!"
+
+The speaker passed on through the gate of the Rectory, pausing as he did
+so with a rueful look at the iron gate itself, which was off its hinges
+and sorely in want of a coat of new paint.
+
+"Disgraceful!" he said to himself; "must have a go at it to-morrow. And
+at the garden, too," he added, looking round him. "Never saw such a
+wilderness!"
+
+[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 an
+old clergy house, of which all traces had been ruthlessly effaced. The
+front garden lying before it was a tangle of old and for the most part
+ugly trees; elms from which heavy, decayed branches had recently fallen;
+acacias choked by the ivy which had overgrown them; and a crowded
+thicket of thorns and hazels, mingled with three or four large and
+vigorous though very ancient yews, which seemed to have drunk up for
+themselves all that life from the soil which should have gone to maintain
+the ragged or sickly shrubbery. The trees also had gradually encroached
+upon the house, and darkened all the windows on the porch side. On a
+summer afternoon, the deep shade they made was welcome enough; but on a
+rainy day the Rector's front-garden, with its coarse grass, its few
+straggling rose-bushes, and its pushing throng of half-dead or funereal
+trees, shed a dank and dripping gloom upon the visitor approaching his
+front door. Of this, however, the Rector himself was rarely conscious;
+and to-day, as he with difficulty gathered all the letters and packets
+taken from the postman into one hand, while he opened his front door with
+the other, his face showed that the state of his garden had already
+ceased to trouble him.
+
+He had no sooner turned the handle of the door than a joyous uproar of
+dogs arose within, and before he had well stepped over the threshold a
+leaping trio were upon him--two Irish terriers and a graceful young
+collie, 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-down
+sofa already littered with books and papers, and returned to the
+hall-table for the letter. He tore it open, read it with slightly
+frowning brows and a mouth that worked unconsciously, then thrust it into
+his pocket and returned to his sitting-room.
+
+"All right!" he said to himself. "He's got an odd list of 'aggrieved
+parishioners!'"
+
+The tidings, however, which the letter contained did not seem to distress
+him. On the contrary, his aspect expressed a singular and cheerful
+energy, as he sat a few moments on the sofa, softly whistling to himself
+and staring at the floor. That he was a person extravagantly beloved by
+his dogs was clearly shown meanwhile by the exuberant attentions and
+caresses with which they were now loading him.
+
+He shook them off at last with a friendly kick or two, that he might turn
+to his letters, which he sorted and turned over, much as an epicure
+studies his _menu_ at the Ritz, and with an equally keen sense of
+pleasure to come.
+
+A letter from Jena, and another from Berlin, addressed in small German
+handwriting and signed by names familiar to students throughout the
+world; two or three German reviews, copies of the _Revue Critique_ and
+the _Revue Chrétienne_, a book by Solomon Reinach, and three or four
+French letters, one of them shown by the cross preceding the signature to
+be the letter of a bishop; a long letter from Oxford, enclosing the proof
+of an article in a theological review; and, finally, a letter sealed with
+red wax and signed "F. Marcoburg" in a corner of the envelope, which the
+Rector twirled in his hands a moment without opening.
+
+"After tea," he said at last, with the sudden breaking of a smile. And he
+put 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 a
+sun-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 the
+tea before him on a chair cleared with difficulty from some of the
+student's litter that filled the room.
+
+"All the more reason for tea," said Meynell, seizing thirstily on the
+teapot. "And you're quite mistaken, Anne. I had a magnificent bath-bun at
+the station."
+
+"Much good you'll get out of that!" was the scornful reply. "You know
+what 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 and
+crossed 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 at
+last.
+
+"So you did. But he said he must see his missus and hear how his little
+girl had done in her music exam."
+
+Mrs. Wellin delivered this piece of news very fast and with evident
+gusto. It might have been thought she enjoyed inflicting it on her
+master.
+
+The Rector laughed out.
+
+"And this was a man sent me a week ago by the Birmingham Distress
+Committee--nine weeks out of work--family in the workhouse--everything up
+the spout. Goodness gracious, Anne, how did he get the money? Return
+fare, 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 Rector
+helplessly.
+
+"Thought he might," said Anne, briefly.
+
+"How kind of him! Music exam! Lord save us! And three-and-ten thrown into
+the gutter on a week-end ticket--with seven children to keep--and all
+your possessions gone to 'my uncle.' And it isn't as though you'd been
+starving 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'll
+be 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 look
+after 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, and
+she won't nurse him--that's flat."
+
+"No reason why she should shovel him off on other people as wants their
+night'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 the
+windows were still wide open, and the Rector, who had had a long journey
+that day to take a funeral for a friend, lay back in sybaritic ease, now
+sipping his tea and now cutting open letters and parcels. The letter
+signed "F. Marcoburg" in the corner had been placed, still unopened, on
+the mantelpiece now facing him.
+
+The Rector looked at it from time to time; it might have been said by a
+close observer that he never forgot it; but, all the same, he went on
+dipping into books and reviews, or puzzling--with muttered imprecations
+on 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 single
+one of them! And what matter? Who's the worse? Is it any less wonderful
+when 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 the
+comfort of his own fireside. Yet, now that the face was at rest, certain
+cavernous hollows under the eyes, and certain lines on the forehead and
+at the corners of the mouth, as though graven by some long fatigue,
+showed themselves disfiguringly. The personality, however, on which this
+fatigue had stamped itself was clearly one of remarkable vigour, physical
+and mental. A massive head covered with strong black hair, curly at the
+brows; eyes grayish-blue, small, with some shade of expression in them
+which made them arresting, commanding, even; a large nose and irregular
+mouth, the lips flexible and kind, the chin firm--one might have made
+some such catalogue of Meynell's characteristics; adding to them the
+strength of a broad-chested, loose-limbed frame, made rather, one would
+have thought, for country labours than for the vigils of the scholar. But
+the hands were those of a man of letters--bony and long-fingered, but
+refined, touching things with care and gentleness, like one accustomed to
+the small tools of the writer.
+
+At last the Rector threw himself back in his chair, while some of the
+litter on his lap fell to the floor, temporarily dislodging one of the
+terriers, 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 had
+finished it he put it down and thought a while, then stretched out his
+hand for it again and reread the last paragraph:
+
+"You will, I am sure, realize from all I have said, my dear Meynell, that
+the last thing I personally wish to do is to interfere with the parochial
+work of a man for whom I have so warm a respect as I have for you. I have
+given you all the latitude I could, but my duty is now plain. Let me have
+your assurance that you will refrain from such sermons as that to which I
+have drawn your attention, and that you will stop at once the
+extraordinary innovations in the services of which the parishioners
+have complained, and I shall know how to answer Mr. Barron and to compose
+this whole difficult matter. Do not, I entreat you, jeopardize the noble
+work you are doing for the sake of opinions and views which you hold
+to-day, but which you may have abandoned tomorrow. Can you possibly put
+what you call 'the results of criticism'--and, remember, these results
+differ for you, for me, and for a dozen others I could name--in
+comparison with that work for souls God has given you to do, and in which
+He 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 act
+to 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 dear
+Meynell--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 down
+the letter; but even as he spoke the softness in his face passed into
+resolution. He sank once more into reverie.
+
+The stillness, however, was soon broken up. A step was heard outside, and
+the dogs sprang up in excitement. Amid a pandemonium of noise, the Rector
+put 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 clerical
+garb, and carried a couple of books under his arm.
+
+"I came to return these," he said, placing them beside the Rector; "and
+also--can you give me twenty minutes?"
+
+"Forty, if you want them. Sit down."
+
+The newcomer turned out various French and German books from a
+dilapidated armchair, and obeyed. He was a fresh-coloured, handsome
+youth, some fifteen years younger than Meynell, the typical public-school
+boy in appearance. But his expression was scarcely less harassed than the
+Rector'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 he
+had taken from the hall-table on coming in. But he pursued the subject no
+further.
+
+The young man fidgeted a moment.
+
+"All one can say is"--he broke out at last--"that if it had not been my
+father, it would have been some one else--the Archdeacon probably. The
+fight was bound to come."
+
+"Of course it was!" The Rector sprang to his feet, and, with his hands
+under his coat-tails and his back to the fire, faced his visitor. "That's
+what we're all driving at. Don't be miserable about it, dear fellow. I
+bear your father no grudge whatever. He is under orders, as I am. The
+parleying time is done. It has lasted two generations. And now comes
+war--honourable, necessary war!"
+
+The speaker threw back his head with emphasis, even with passion. But
+almost immediately the smile, which was the only positive beauty of the
+face, obliterated the passion.
+
+"And don't look so tragic over it! If your father wins--and as the law
+stands he can scarcely fail to win--I shall be driven out of Upcote. But
+there will always be a corner somewhere for me and my books, and a pulpit
+of 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!-you
+Liberals will have to take your part, and fire your shot some day, of
+course--fathers or no fathers."
+
+"I didn't mean that. I shall fire my shot, of course. But aren't you
+exposing yourself prematurely--unnecessarily?" said the young man, with
+vivacity. "It is not a general's part to do that."
+
+"You're wrong, Stephen. When my father was going out to the campaign
+in which he was killed, my mother said to him, as though she were
+half asking a question, half pleading--I can hear her now, poor
+darling!--'John, it's _right_ for a general to keep out of danger?' and
+he smiled and said, 'Yes, when it isn't right for him to go into it, head
+over ears.' However, that's nonsense. It doesn't apply to me. I'm no
+general. And I'm not going to be killed!"
+
+Young Barron was silent, while the Rector prepared a pipe, and began upon
+it; 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 his
+eyes 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--in
+Elsmere'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 now
+altogether changed. _I_ am not going till I am turned out; and there will
+be others with me. The world wants a heresy trial, and it is going to get
+one 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 father
+has a horribly strong will. And he will think every means legitimate."
+
+"I know. In the Roman Church, what the Curia could not do by argument
+they have done again and again--well, no use to inquire how! One must be
+prepared. All I can say is, I know of no skeletons in the cupboard at
+present. Anybody may have my keys!"
+
+He laughed as he spoke, spreading his hands to the blaze, and looking
+round at his companion. Barron's face in response was a face of
+hero-worship, undisguised. Here plainly were leader and disciple;
+pioneering will and docile faith. But it might have been observed that
+Meynell did nothing to emphasize the personal relation; that, on the
+contrary, he shrank from it, and often tried to put it aside.
+
+After a few more words, indeed, he resolutely closed the personal
+discussion. They fell into talk about certain recent developments of
+philosophy in England and France--talk which showed them as familiar
+comrades in the intellectual field, in spite of their difference of age.
+Barron, a Fellow of King's, had but lately left Cambridge for a small
+College living. Meynell--an old Balliol scholar--bore the marks of Jowett
+and Caird still deep upon him, except, perhaps, for a certain deliberate
+throwing over, here and there, of the typical Oxford tradition--its
+measure and reticence, its scholarly balancing of this against that. A
+tone as of one driven to extremities--a deep yet never personal
+exasperation--the poised quiet of a man turning to look a hostile host in
+the face--again and again these made themselves felt through his chat
+about new influences in the world of thought--Bergson or James, Eucken or
+Tyrell.
+
+And to this under-note, inflections or phrases in the talk of the other
+seemed to respond. It was as though behind the spoken conversation they
+carried on another unheard.
+
+And the unheard presently broke in upon the heard.
+
+"You mentioned Elsmere just now," said Barron, in a moment's pause, and
+with apparent irrelevance. "Did you know that his widow is now staying
+within a mile of this place? Some people called Flaxman have taken
+Maudeley End, and Mrs. Flaxman is a sister of Mrs. Elsmere. Mrs. Elsmere
+and her daughter are going to settle for the summer in the cottage near
+Forkéd Pond. Mrs. Elsmere seems to have been ill for the first time in
+her life, and has had to give up some of her work."
+
+"Mrs. Elsmere!" said Meynell, raising his eyebrows. "I saw her once
+twenty years ago at the New Brotherhood, and have never forgotten the
+vision of her face. She must be almost an old woman."
+
+"Miss Puttenham says she is quite beautiful still, in a wonderful, severe
+way. I think she never shared Elsmere's opinions?"
+
+"Never."
+
+The two fell silent, both minds occupied with the same story and the same
+secret comparisons. Robert Elsmere, the Rector of Murewell, in Surrey,
+had made a scandal in the Church, when Meynell was still a lad, by
+throwing up his orders under the pressure of New Testament criticism, and
+founding a religious brotherhood among London workingmen for the
+promotion of a simple and commemorative form of Christianity.
+
+Elsmere, a man of delicate physique, had died prematurely, worn out by
+the struggle to find new foothold for himself and others; but something
+in his personality, and in the nature of his effort--some brilliant,
+tender note--had kept his memory alive in many hearts. There were many
+now, however, who thrilled to it, who could never speak of him without
+emotion, who yet felt very little positive agreement with him. What he
+had done or tried to do made a kind of landmark in the past; but in the
+course of time it had begun to seem irrelevant to the present.
+
+"To-day--would he have thrown up?--or would he have held on?" Meynell
+presently said, in a tone of reverie, amid the cloud of smoke that
+enveloped him. Then, in another voice, "What do you hear of the
+daughter? I remember her as a little reddish-haired thing at her mother's
+side."
+
+"Miss Puttenham has taken a great fancy to her. Hester Fox-Wilton told me
+she had seen her there. She liked her."
+
+"H'm!" said the Rector. "Well, if she pleased Hester--critical little
+minx!"
+
+"You may be sure she'll please _me_!" said Barron suddenly, flushing
+deeply.
+
+The Rector looked up, startled.
+
+"I say?"
+
+Barron cleared his throat.
+
+"I'd better tell you at once, Rector. I got Hester's leave yesterday
+to tell you, when an opportunity occurred--you know how fond she is
+of you? Well, I'm in love with her--head over ears in love with her--I
+believe I have been since she was a little girl in the schoolroom. And
+yesterday--she said--she'd marry me some day."
+
+The young voice betrayed a natural tremor. Meanwhile, a strange look--a
+close observer would have called it a look of consternation--had rushed
+into Meynell's face. He stared at Barron, made one or two attempts to
+speak, 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 too
+young! 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, my
+dear boy, that there shall be nothing irrevocable--no engagement! I
+should strongly oppose it."
+
+The eyes of the two men met. Barron was evidently dumb with surprise; but
+the vivacity and urgency of Meynell's expression drove him into speech.
+
+"We thought you would have sympathized," he stammered. "After all, what
+is 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 would
+certainly object. And so should I. And, as you know, I am co-guardian of
+the children with her."
+
+Then, as the lover quivered under these barbs, Meynell suddenly recovered
+himself.
+
+"My dear fellow! No woman ought to marry under twenty-one. And every girl
+ought to have time to look round her. It's not right; it's not just--it
+isn'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 a
+strain of earnest and affectionate entreaty, which presently had a marked
+effect on the younger man. His chivalry was appealed to--his
+consideration for the girl he loved; and his aspect began to show the
+force of the attack. At last he said gravely:
+
+"I'll tell Hester what you say--of course I'll tell her. Naturally we
+can't marry without your consent and her mother's. But if Hester persists
+in wishing we should be engaged?"
+
+"Long engagements are the deuce!" said the Rector hotly. "You would be
+engaged for three years. Madness!--with such a temperament as Hester's.
+My dear Stephen, be advised--for her and yourself. There is no one who
+wishes your good more earnestly than I. But don't let there be any talk
+of an engagement for at least two years to come. Leave her free--even
+if you consider yourself bound. It is folly to suppose that a girl of
+such marked character knows her own mind at seventeen. She has all her
+development 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 forced
+laugh. "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 of
+the situation--holding out distant hopes. The young man's face gradually
+cleared. He was of a docile, open temper, and deeply attached to his
+mentor.
+
+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 are
+you up to now?"
+
+"There's a drunken fellow in the village--dying--and his wife won't look
+after 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 the
+village," 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 the
+Rector, settling himself in his chair and putting an old shawl over his
+knees. "And as you go out, just tell Anne, will you, to keep herself to
+herself for an hour and not to disturb me?"
+
+Stephen Barron moved to the door, and as he opened it he turned back a
+moment to look at the man in the chair, and the room in which he sat. It
+was as though he asked himself by what manner of man he had been
+thus gripped and coerced, in a matter so intimate, and, to himself, so
+vital.
+
+Meynell's eyes were already shut. The dogs had gathered round him, the
+collie's nose laid against his knee, the other two guarding his feet. All
+round, the walls were laden with books, so were the floor and the
+furniture. 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 choir
+decoration that Meynell and a class of village boys were making for the
+church, where the Rector had already carved with his own hand many of the
+available surfaces, whether of stone or wood. The carving, which was
+elaborate and rich, was technically faulty, as an Italian primitive is
+faulty, but _mutatis mutandis_ it had much of the same charm that belongs
+to Italian primitive work: the same joyous sincerity, the same passionate
+love of natural things, leaves and flowers and birds.
+
+For the rest, the furniture of the room was shabby and ugly. The pictures
+on the walls were mostly faded Oxford photographs, or outlines by
+Overbeck and Retsch, which had belonged to Meynell's parents and were
+tenderly cherished by him. There were none of the pretty, artistic
+trifles, the signs of travel and easy culture, which many a small country
+vicarage possesses in abundance. Meynell, in spite of his scholar's
+mastery 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 while
+still at Balliol, and had to bring up his two younger brothers. He had
+done it. They were both in Canada now and prospering. But the signs of
+the struggle were on this shabby house, and on this shabby, frugal,
+powerfully built man. Yet now he might have been more at ease; the
+living, though small, was by no means among the worst in the diocese.
+Ah, well! Anne, the housekeeper and only servant, knew how the money
+went--and didn't go, and she had passed on some of her grievances to
+Barron. They two knew--though Barron would never have dared to show his
+knowledge--what a wrestle it meant to get the Rector to spend what was
+decently necessary on his own food and clothes; and Anne spent hours of
+the night in indignantly guessing at what he spent on the clothes and
+food of other people--mostly, in her opinion, "varmints."
+
+These things flitted vaguely through the young man's sore mind. Then in a
+flash they were absorbed in a perception of a wholly different kind. The
+room seemed to him transfigured; a kind of temple. He thought of the
+intellectual life which had been lived there; the passion for truth which
+had burnt in it; the sermons and books that had been written on those
+crowded tables; the personality and influence that had been gradually
+built up within it, so that to him, as to many others, the dingy study
+was a place of pilgrimage, breathing inspiration; and his heart went out,
+first in discipleship, and then in a pain that was not for himself. For
+over his friend's head he saw the gathering of clouds not now to be
+scattered or dispersed; and who could foretell the course of the storm?
+
+The young man gently closed the door and went his
+way. He need not have left the house so quietly. The
+Rector got no sleep that evening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+The church clock of Upcote Minor was just striking nine o'clock as
+Richard 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 be
+balmy, and Meynell, who was an ardent sun-lover, shivered as he walked
+along, buttoning a much-worn parson's coat against the sharp air. Before
+him 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 hidden
+behind walls and trees. It was evidently a large village, almost a
+country town, with a considerable variety of life. At this hour of the
+evening 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 lights
+here and there, and in the houses of the gentility.
+
+The Rector passed the fine perpendicular church standing back from the
+road, with its churchyard about it; and just beyond it, he turned, his
+pace 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 wind
+shook the lime-blossom, and flung the scent in Meynell's face; while at
+the same time the dim masses of roses in the garden sent out their
+sweetness 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 a
+delicate and plaintive face, moving among the rose-beds she loved, her
+light dress trailing on the grass. The recollection stirred in him
+affection, and an impulse of sympathy, stronger than the mere thought of
+the flowers, and the woman's tending of them, could explain. It passed
+indeed immediately into something else--a touch of new and sharp anxiety.
+
+"And she's been very peaceful of late," he said to himself ruefully, "as
+far 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. It
+would help her. Anyway, we can't have everything rooted up again just
+yet--before the time."
+
+He walked on, and as the farther corner of the house came into view, he
+saw a thinly curtained window with a light inside it, and it seemed to
+him that he distinguished a figure within.
+
+"Reading?--or embroidering? Probably, at her work. She had that
+commission 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 use
+not 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 since
+Ralph's death--to insist on keeping her little house and her
+independence. 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 little
+house, and left it behind him. Before him, the village street, with its
+green and its pond, widened under the scudding sky. Far ahead, about a
+quarter of a mile away, among surrounding trees, certain outlines were
+visible through the July twilight. The accustomed eye knew them for the
+chimneys of the Fox-Wiltons' house, owned now, since the recent death
+of its master, Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton, by his widow, the sister of the lady
+with the cat and the embroidery, and mother of many children, for the
+most part an unattractive brood, peevish and slow-minded like their
+father. Hester was the bright, particular star in that house, as Stephen
+Barron had now found out.
+
+Alack!--alack! The Rector's face resumed for a moment the expression of
+painful or brooding perplexity it had worn during his conversation of the
+afternoon 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 the
+northern end of the village, was evidently doing trade. The Rector did
+not look up as he passed it; but in general he turned an indulgent eye
+upon it. Before entering upon the living, he had himself worked for a
+month as an ordinary miner, in the colliery whose tall chimneys could be
+seen to the east above the village roofs. His body still vividly retained
+the physical memory of those days--of the aching muscles, and the
+gargantuan thirsts.
+
+At last the rows of new-built cottages attached to the colliery came
+in 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 white
+house--stately and separate--dominating the village, the church, the
+collieries, and the Fox-Wiltons' plantations.
+
+The Rector threw a glance at it. It was from that house had come the
+letter he had found on his hall-table that afternoon; a letter in a
+handwriting large and impressive like the dim house on the hill. The
+handwriting of a man accustomed to command, whether his own ancestral
+estate, or the collieries which had been carved out of its fringe, or the
+village spreading humbly at his feet, or the church into which he walked
+on Sunday with heavy tread, and upright carriage, conscious of his
+threefold 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 to
+hate him--not at all--rather to respect and sympathize with him. I
+provoke the fight--and I may be thankful to have lit on a strong
+antagonist. What's Stephen afraid of? What can they do? Let 'em try!"
+
+A smile--contemptuous and good-humoured--crossed the Rector's face. Any
+angry bigot determined to rid his parish of a heretical parson might no
+doubt be tempted to use other than legal and theological weapons, if he
+could get them. A heretic with unpaid bills and some hidden vice is
+scarcely in a position to make much of his heresy. But the Rector's smile
+showed him humorously conscious of an almost excessive innocence of
+private life. The thought of how little an enemy could find to lay hold
+on in his history or present existence seemed almost to bring with it a
+kind of shamefacedness--as for experience irrevocably foregone, warm,
+tumultuous, human experience, among the sinners and sufferers of the
+world. For there are odd, mingled moments in the lives of most scholars
+and saints--like Renan in his queer envy of Théophile Gautier--when such
+men inevitably ask themselves whether they have not missed something
+irreplaceable, the student, by his learning--the saint even, by his
+goodness.
+
+Here now was "Miners' Row." As the Rector approached the cottage of which
+he was in search the clouds lightened in the east, and a pale moonshine,
+suffusing the dusk, showed in the far distance beyond the village, the
+hills of Fitton Chase, rounded, heathy hills, crowned by giant firs.
+Meynell looked at them with longing, and a sudden realization of his own
+weariness. A day or two, perhaps a week or two, among the fells, with
+their winds and scents about him, and their streams in his ears--he must
+allow himself that, before the fight began.
+
+No. 8. A dim light showed in the upper window. The Rector knocked at the
+door. A woman opened--a young and sweet-looking nurse in her bonnet and
+long cloak.
+
+"You look pretty done!" exclaimed the Rector. "Has he been giving
+trouble?"
+
+"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 whether
+she 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 believe
+she'd go near him."
+
+The Rector stepped in and asked a few questions as to arrangements for
+the night. The patient, it seemed, was asleep, in consequence of a
+morphia injection, and likely to remain so for an hour or two. He was
+dying of an internal injury inflicted by a fall of rock in the mine
+some ten days before. Surgery had done what it could, but signs of
+blood-poisoning had appeared, and the man's days were numbered.
+
+The doctor had left written instructions, which the nurse handed over to
+Meynell. If certain symptoms appeared, the doctor was to be summoned. But
+in all probability the man's fine constitution, injured though it had
+been by drink, would enable him to hold out another day or two. And the
+hideous pain of the first week had now ceased; mortification had almost
+certainly set in, and all that could be done was to wait the slow and
+sure failure of the heart.
+
+The nurse took leave. Meynell was hanging up his hat in the little
+passageway, when the door of the front parlour opened, after being
+unlocked.
+
+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 than
+thirty-five, and youth and comeliness had been long since battered
+from her face, partly by misery of mind, partly by direct ill usage of
+which 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 what
+the doctor was thinkin' of him."
+
+"The doctor thinks he may live through to-night and to-morrow night--not
+much more. He is your husband, Mrs. Bateson, and whatever you have
+against him, you'll be very sorry afterward if you don't give him help
+and 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 the
+shadow, as though to lead her.
+
+But she stepped backward.
+
+"I know what I'm about," she said, breathing quick. "He made a fule o' me
+wi' that wanton Lizzie Short, and he near killt me the last morning afore
+he went. And I'd been a good wife to him for fifteen year, and never
+a word between us till that huzzy came along. And she's got a child by
+him, 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, he
+said. And I sat and prayed God to punish him. An' He did. The roof came
+down 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 yourself
+come to die. He has sinned toward you--but remember!--he's a young man
+still--in the prime of life. He has suffered horribly--and he has only a
+few hours or days to live. He has asked for you already to-day, he is
+sure to ask for you to-night. Forgive him!--ask God to help him to die in
+peace!"
+
+While he spoke she stood motionless, impassive. Meynell's voice had
+beautiful inflections, and he spoke with strong feeling. Few persons whom
+he so addressed could have remained unmoved. But Mrs. Bateson only
+retreated farther into the dreary little parlour, with its wool mats and
+antimacassars, and a tray of untasted tea on the table. She passed her
+tongue 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 for
+ourselves. If there's anything you want I can get for you, you knock
+twice on the floor--I shall hear you. But I'm not comin' up."
+
+Meynell turned away discouraged, and went upstairs. In the room above lay
+the dying man--breathing quickly and shallowly under the influence of the
+drug 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, and
+he seemed even in his sleep to be fighting for air. In the twelve hours
+that had elapsed since Meynell had last seen him he had travelled with
+terrible rapidity toward the end. He looked years older than in the
+morning; it was as though some sinister hand had been at work on the
+face, expanding here, contracting there, substituting chaos and
+nothingness for the living man.
+
+The Rector sat down beside him. The room was small and bare--a little
+strip of carpet on the boards, a few chairs, and a little table with food
+and nourishment beside the bed. On the mantelpiece was a large printed
+card containing the football fixtures of the winter before. Bateson had
+once been a fine player. Of late years, however, his interest had been
+confined to betting heavily on the various local and county matches, and
+it was to his ill-luck as a gambler no less than to the influence of the
+flimsy little woman who had led him astray that his moral break-up might
+be traced.
+
+A common tale!--yet more tragic than usual. For the bedroom contained
+other testimonies to the habits of a ruined man. There was a hanging
+bookcase on the wall, and the Rector sitting by the bed could just make
+out the titles of the books in the dim light.
+
+Mill, Huxley, a reprint of Tom Paine, various books by Blatchford, the
+sixpenny editions of "Literature and Dogma," and Renan's "Life of
+Christ," some popular science volumes of Browning and Ruskin, and a group
+of well-thumbed books on the birds of Mercia--the little collection,
+hardly earned, and, to judge from its appearance, diligently read, showed
+that its owner had been a man of intelligence. The Rector looked from it
+to the figure in the bed with a pang at his heart.
+
+All was still in the little cottage. Through the open window the Rector
+could see fold after fold of the Chase stretching north and west above
+the village. The moorland ridges shone clear under the moon, now bare, or
+scantily plumed by gaunt trees, and now clothed in a dense blackness of
+wood. Meynell, who knew every yard of the great heath and loved it well,
+felt himself lifted there in spirit as he looked. The "bunchberries" must
+just be ripening on the high ground--nestling scarlet and white amid
+their glossy leaves. And among them and beside them, the taller, slender
+bilberries, golden green; the exquisite grasses of the heath, pale pink,
+and silver, and purple, swaying in the winds, clothing acre after acre
+with a beauty beyond the looms of men; the purple heather and the ling
+flushing toward its bloom: and the free-limbed scattered birch trees,
+strongly scrawled against the sky. The scurry of the clouds over the
+purple sweeps of moor, the beat of the wind, and then suddenly, pools of
+fragrant air sun-steeped--he drew in the thought of it all, as he might
+have drunk the moorland breeze itself, with a thrill of pleasure, which
+passed 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 the
+sleeper, and leaning forward tried to meditate and pray. But to-night he
+found it hard. He realized anew his physical and mental fatigue, and a
+certain confused clamour of thought, strangely persistent behind the more
+external experience alike of body and mind; like the murmur of a distant
+sea heard from far inland, as the bond and background of all lesser
+sounds.
+
+The phrases of the letter he had found on the hall-table recurred to him
+whether he would or no. They were mainly legal and technical, intimating
+that an application had been made to the Bishop of Markborough to issue a
+Commission of Inquiry into certain charges made by parishioners of Upcote
+Minor against the Rector of the parish. The writer of the letter was one
+of the applicants, and gave notice of his intention to prosecute the
+charges named, with the utmost vigour through all the stages prescribed
+by ecclesiastical law.
+
+But it was, rather, some earlier letters from the same hand--letters more
+familiar, intimate, and discursive--that ultimately held the Rector's
+thoughts as he kept his watch. For in those letters were contained almost
+all the objections that a sensitive mind and heart had had to grapple
+with before determining on the course to which the Rector of Upcote was
+now committed. They were the voice of the "adversary," the "accuser."
+Crude or conventional, as the form of the argument might be, it yet
+represented the "powers and principalities" to be reckoned with. If the
+Rector's conscience could not sustain him against it, he was henceforth a
+dishonest and unhappy man; and when his lawyers had failed to protect him
+against its practical result--as they must no doubt fail--he would be a
+dispossessed priest:
+
+"What discipline in life or what comfort in death can such a faith as
+yours bring to any human soul? Do, I beg of you, ask yourself this
+question. If the great miracles of the Creed are not true, what have you
+to give the wretched and the sinful? Ought you not in common human
+charity to make way for one who can offer the consolations, utter the
+warnings, or hold out the heavenly hopes from which you are debarred?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Rector fixed his gaze upon the sick man. It was as though the
+question of the letter were put to him through those parched lips. And as
+he 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 and
+milk, 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 fast
+enough."
+
+The Rector hesitated, but only for a moment. He took the stick and
+rapped.
+
+Almost immediately the sound of a turning key was heard through the small
+thinly built cottage. The door below opened and footsteps came up the
+stairs. But before they reached the landing the sound ceased. The two men
+listened 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 the
+Rector'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's
+eyes. "Aye!"
+
+Meynell made him drink a little more brandy, and then he went out to the
+person 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--he
+says you can see for yourself that he can't wrong you any more. Come--and
+be merciful!"
+
+The woman paused. The Rector could see the shiver of her thin shoulders
+under her print dress. Then she turned and quietly descended the cottage
+stairway. Half way down she looked up.
+
+"Tell him I should do him nowt but harm. I"--her voice trembled for the
+first time--"I doan't bear him malice; I hope he'll not suffer. But I'm
+not comin'."
+
+"Wait a moment, Mrs. Bateson! I was to tell you that in spite of all, he
+loved 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 him
+I'd have got Lizzie Short to come an' nurse 'im, if I could. It's her
+place. 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--she
+said 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 the
+sick-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 a
+queer thing. She wasn't used to be a tough 'un. I could most make her do
+what I wanted. Well, never mind, Rector, never mind. Sit tha down--mebbe
+you'd be wanting to say a prayer. You're welcome. I reckon it'll do me no
+harm."
+
+His lips parted in a smile--a smile of satire. But his brows frowned, and
+his 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 will
+say them."
+
+"But I doan't believe in 'em," said the sick man, smiling again, "an' you
+doan't believe in 'em, noather, if folk say true! Don't tha be vexed--I'm
+not saying it to cheek tha. But Mr. Barron, ee says ee'll make tha give
+up. Ee's been goin' roun' the village, talkin' to folk. I doan't care
+about that--an' I've never been one o' your men--not pious enough, be a
+long 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 in
+life.
+
+The Rector started. The inward challenge had taken voice.
+
+"Certainly I will tell you, if it will help you--if you're strong
+enough."
+
+Bateson waved his hand contemptuously.
+
+"I feel as strong as onything. That sup o' brandy has put some grit in
+me. Give me some more. Thank tha ... Does tha believe in God, Rector?"
+
+His whimsical, half-teasing, yet, at bottom, anxious look touched Meynell
+strangely.
+
+"With all my life--and with all my strength!"
+
+Meynell's gaze was fixed intently on his questioner. The night-light in
+the basin on the farther side of the room threw the strong features into
+shadowy relief, illumining the yearning kindliness of the eyes.
+
+"What made tha believe in Him?"
+
+"My own life--my own struggles--and sins--and sufferings," said
+Meynell, stooping toward the sick man, and speaking each word with an
+intensity behind which lay much that could never be known to his
+questioner. "A good man, Bateson, put it once in this way, 'There is
+something 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 is
+always a voice within--it may be weak or it may be strong--that asks of
+him to be--instead--pure and sober and kind. And perhaps he denies the
+Voice, refuses it--talks it down--again and again. Then the joy in his
+life dies out bit by bit, and the world turns to dust and ashes. Every
+time that he says No to the Voice he is less happy--he has less power of
+being 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 suppose
+he obeys, like a child stumbling. Then every time he stretches and bends
+his 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 him
+to love--to love men and women, not with lust, but with pure love; and as
+he obeys, as he loves--he _knows_--he knows that it is God asking, and
+that God has come to him and abides with him. So when death overtakes him
+he 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 nothing
+speak to you, nothing try to stop you?"
+
+The bright half-mocking eyes below Meynell's wandered a little--wavered
+in expression.
+
+"It was the hot blood in me--aye, an' in her too. Yo cawn't help them
+things."
+
+"Can't you? When your wife suffered, didn't that touch you? Wouldn't you
+undo 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 you
+gave 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 your
+heart--ask Him to give you love--love to Him, who has been pleading with
+you all your life--love to your wife, and your fellow men--love--and
+repentance--and faith."
+
+Meynell's voice shook. He was in an anguish at what seemed to him the
+weakness, 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 an
+infidel. But he hasn't read the books you an' I have read, I'll uphold
+yer!"
+
+The dying man raised his hand to the bookshelves beside him with a proud
+gesture.
+
+The Rector slowly raised himself. An expression as of some passion
+within, trying at once to check and to utter itself, became visible on
+his face in the half light.
+
+"It's not books that settle it, Jim. I'll try and put it to you--just as
+I see it myself--just in the way it comes to me."
+
+He paused a moment, frowning under the effort of simplification. The
+hidden need of the dying man seemed to be mysteriously conveyed to
+him--the pang of lonely anguish that death brings with it; the craving
+for comfort beneath the apparent scorn of faith; the human cry expressed
+in this strange catechism.
+
+"Stop me if I tire you," he said at last. "I don't know if I can make it
+plain--but to me, Bateson, there are two worlds that every man is
+concerned with. There is this world of everyday life--work and business,
+sleeping and talking, eating and drinking--that you and I have been
+living 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, and
+follow that voice I spoke of just now. Jesus Christ called that other
+world 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 that
+Love--see it under different shapes. To us--to you and to me--it speaks
+under the name and form of Jesus Christ. And so I come to say--so all
+Christians come to say--_'I believe--in Jesus Christ our Lord_'. For it
+is His life and His death that still to-day--as they have done for
+hundreds of years--draw men and women into the Kingdom--the Kingdom of
+Love--and so to God. He draws us to love--and so to God. And in God alone
+is the soul of man satisfied; _satisfied--and at rest_."
+
+The last words were but just breathed--yet they carried with them the
+whole 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 grave
+on 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 one
+thing that matters to you now--it's to feel God with you--to be giving
+your soul to God."
+
+The two men gazed at each other.
+
+"What are tha nursin' me for, Rector?" said Bateson, abruptly--"I'm nowt
+to you."
+
+"For the love of Christ," said Meynell, steadily, taking his hand--"and
+of 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 great
+chimneys of the colliery were becoming plain; the tints and substance of
+the hills were changing. Dim forms of cattle moved in the newly shorn
+grass; 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 the
+cry--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 home
+there first--as married folk. Tell her I'm goin'--goin' fast."
+
+He fell back, panting. Meynell gave him food and medicine. Then he went
+quickly downstairs, and knocked at the parlour door. After an interval of
+evident hesitation on the part of the occupant of the room, it was
+reluctantly 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 a
+peremptory hand on her arm.
+
+"I command you--in God's name. Come!"
+
+A struggle shook her. She yielded suddenly--and began to cry. Meynell
+patted her on the shoulder as he might have patted a child, said kind,
+soothing things, gave her her husband's message, and finally drew her
+from the room.
+
+She went upstairs, Meynell following, anxious about the physical result
+of 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 his
+side, 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 motionless
+and voiceless; a spectacle little less piteous, little less deathlike,
+than the man on the pillows. He still smiled at her, in a kind of
+triumph; also silent, but his lips trembled. Then, groping, she put out
+her hand--her disfigured, toil-worn hand--and took his, raising it to her
+lips. The touch of his flesh seemed to loosen in her the fountains of the
+great deep. She slid to her knees and kissed him--enfolding him with her
+arms, the two murmuring together.
+
+Meynell went out into the dawn. His mystical sense had beheld the Lord in
+that small upper room; had seen as it were the sacred hands breaking to
+those two poor creatures the sacrament of love. His own mind was for the
+time being tranquillized. It was as though he said to himself, "I know
+that trouble will come back--I know that doubts and fears will pursue me
+again; but this hour--this blessing--is from God!"...
+
+The sun was high in a dewy world, already busy with its first labours of
+field and mine, when Meynell left the cottage. The church clock was on
+the stroke of eight.
+
+He passed down the village street, and reached again the little gabled
+house which he had passed the night before. As he approached, there was a
+movement in the garden. A lady, who was walking among the roses, holding
+up 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 seen
+you 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 her
+among the roses Meynell perceived another lady--a girl, with bright
+reddish hair.
+
+"Mary!" said Miss Puttenham.
+
+The girl approached. Meynell had an impression of mingled charm and
+reticence as she gave him her hand. The eyes were sweet and shy. But the
+unconscious dignity of bearing showed that the shyness was the shyness of
+strong character, rather than of mere youth and innocence.
+
+"This is my new friend, Mary Elsmere. You've heard they're at Forkéd
+Pond?" Alice Puttenham said, smiling, as she slipped her arm round the
+girl. "I captured her for the night, while Mrs. Elsmere went to town. I
+want you to know each other."
+
+"Elsmere's daughter!" thought Meynell, with a thrill, as he followed the
+two 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 young
+face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+"I am in love with the house--I adore the Chase--I like heretics--and I
+don't think I'm ever going home again!"
+
+Mrs. Flaxman as she spoke handed a cup of tea to a tall gentleman, Louis
+Manvers by name, the possessor of a long, tanned countenance; of thin
+iron-gray hair, descending toward the shoulders; of a drooping moustache,
+and eyes that mostly studied the carpet or the knees of their owner. A
+shy, laconic person at first sight, with the manner of one to whom
+conversation, of the drawing-room kind, was little more than a series of
+doubtful experiments, that seldom or never came off.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman, on the other hand, was a pretty woman of forty, still young
+and slender, in spite of two boys at Eton, one of them seventeen, and in
+the Eleven; and her talk was as rash and rapid as that of her companion
+was the reverse. Which perhaps might be one of the reasons why they were
+excellent friends, and always happy in each other's society.
+
+Mr. Manvers overlooked a certain challenge that Mrs. Flaxman had thrown
+out, took the tea provided, and merely inquired how long the rebuilding
+of the Flaxmans' own house would take. For it appeared that they were
+only tenants of Maudeley House--furnished--for a year.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman replied that only the British workman knew. But she looked
+upon herself as homeless for two years, and found the prospect as
+pleasant as her husband found it annoying.
+
+"As if life was long enough to spend it in one county, and one house
+and park! I have shaken all my duties from me like old rags. No more
+school-treats, no more bean-feasts, no more hospital committees, for two
+whole years! Think of it! Hugh, poor wretch, is still Chairman of the
+County 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, next
+year. 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 can
+see a lion kill from the front windows, and zebras stub up your kitchen
+garden. That's Hugh's show. Then of course there'll be Japan--and by that
+time there'll be airships to the North Pole, and we can take it on our
+way home!"
+
+"Souvent femme varie!" Mr. Manvers raised a pair of surprisingly shrewd
+eyes from the carpet. "I remember the years when I used to try and dig
+you and Hugh out of Bagley, and drive you abroad--without the smallest
+success."
+
+"Those were the years when one was moral and well-behaved! But everybody
+who is worth anything goes a little mad at forty. I was forty last
+week"--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," said
+Manvers dryly. "Why should you be so much younger than anybody else in
+the 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 as
+much as you like. They will not prevent me from telling you that you are
+one 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 her
+teaspoon 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 most
+tempting 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--I
+should 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 Church
+of England--services, doctrines and all--off his own bat, so to
+speak--without a 'with your leave or by your leave'; his parishioners
+backing him up; his Bishop in a frightful taking and not the least
+knowing 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--and
+yet--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 each
+other.
+
+"Very sorry--but it leaves me quite cold. Heresy in the Church of England
+comes to nothing. Our heretics are never violent enough. They forget the
+excellent text about the Kingdom of Heaven! Now the heretics in the
+Church of Rome are violent. That is what makes them so far more
+interesting."
+
+"This man seems to be drastic enough!"
+
+"Oh, no!" said the other, gently but firmly incredulous. "Believe me--he
+will resign, or apologize--they always do."
+
+"Believe _me_!--you don't--excuse me!--know anything about it. In
+the first place, Mr. Meynell has got his parishioners--all except a
+handful--behind him--"
+
+"So had Voysey," interjected Manvers, softly.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman took no notice.
+
+"--And he has hundreds of other supporters--thousands perhaps--and some
+of them parsons--in this diocese, and outside it. And they are all
+convinced that they must fight--fight to the death--and _not_ give in.
+That, you see, is what makes the difference! My brother-in-law"--the
+voice speaking changed and softened--"died twenty years ago. I remember
+how sad it was. He seemed to be walking alone in a world that hardly
+troubled 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 the
+strain 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 world
+behind him?" Mrs. Flaxman persisted, as the man beside her slowly shook
+his 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, and
+there were scores of people from other villages and towns--a kind of
+demonstration. Then, as to the service--neither of us could find our way
+about. 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 the
+chancel steps that they were not fit to be read in a Christian church; we
+altered this prayer and that prayer; we listened to an extempore prayer
+for the widows and orphans of some poor fellows who have been killed in a
+mine ten miles from here, which made me cry like baby; and, most amazing
+of all, when it came to the Creeds--"
+
+Manvers suddenly threw back his head, his face for the first time
+sharpening 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 the
+congregation--and with just a word of preface--'Here follows the Creed,
+commonly called the Apostles' Creed,'--or 'Here follows the Nicene
+Creed.' And we all stood and listened--and nobody said a word. It was the
+strangest moment! You know--I'm not a serious person--but I just held my
+breath."
+
+"As though you heard behind the veil the awful Voices--'_Let us depart
+hence_?'" said Manvers, after a pause. His expression had gradually
+changed. Those who knew him best might have seen in it a slight and
+passing trace of conflicts long since silenced and resolutely forgotten.
+
+"If you mean by that that the church was irreverent--or disrespectful--or
+hostile--well, you are quite wrong!" cried Mrs. Flaxman impetuously. "It
+was like a moment of new birth--I can't describe it--as though a Spirit
+entered in. And when the Rector finished--there was a kind of breath
+through the church--like the rustling of new leaves--and I thought of
+the wind blowing where it listed.... And then the Rector preached on the
+Creeds--how they grew up and why. Fascinating!--why aren't the clergy
+always telling us such things? And he brought it all round to impressing
+upon us that some day _we_ might be worthy of another Christian creed--by
+being faithful--that it would flower again out of our lives and souls--as
+the old had done.... I wonder what it all meant!" she said abruptly, her
+light voice dropping.
+
+Manvers smiled. His emotion had quite passed away.
+
+"Ah! but I forgot"--she resumed hurriedly--"we left out several of the
+Commandments--and we chanted the Beatitudes--and then I found there was a
+little service paper in the seat, and everybody in the church but Hugh
+and 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 to
+him the remark of the Bishop of Cork on the Dean of Cork--'Excellent
+sermon!--eloquent, clever, argumentative!--and not enough gospel in it to
+save a tom-tit!"'
+
+Mrs. Flaxman looked at him oddly.
+
+"Well, but--the extraordinary thing was that Hugh made me stay for the
+second 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 course
+Ritualistic is the wrong word. Should I have said 'sacramental'? I only
+meant that it was full of symbolism. There were lights--and flowers, and
+music, but there was nothing priestly--or superstitious"--she frowned in
+her effort to explain. "It was all poetic--and mystical--and yet
+practical. There were a good many things changed in the Service,--but
+I hardly noticed--I was so absorbed in watching the people. Almost every
+one stayed for the second service. It was quite short--so was the first
+service. And a great many communicated. But the spirit of it was the
+wonderful thing. It had all that--that magic--that mystery--that one gets
+out of Catholicism, even simple Catholicism, in a village church--say at
+Benediction; 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 people
+that were saying them; things that you did believe, or could believe,
+instead of things that you only pretended to believe, or couldn't
+possibly believe! I haven't got over it yet, and as for Hugh, I have
+never seen him so moved since--since Robert died."
+
+Manvers was aware of Mrs. Flaxman's affection for her brother-in-law's
+memory; and it seemed to him natural and womanly that she should be
+touched--artist and wordling though she was--by this fresh effort in
+a similar direction. For himself, he was touched in another way: with
+pity, or a kindly scorn. He did not believe in patching up the Christian
+tradition. 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! And
+if 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 and
+looking through the open window beside her. "What do you think we've
+done? We have evoked him! _Parlez du diable_, etc. How stupid of us! But
+there's his carriage trotting up the drive--I know the horses. And that's
+his deaf daughter--poor, downtrodden thing!--sitting beside him. Now
+then--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 the
+colour in her fair skin. Manvers looked longingly at the door leading to
+the 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 is
+on 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 of
+magnificent, superior way. He never loses his temper--whereas the others
+would often like to flay him alive. Now then"--Mrs. Flaxman laid a finger
+on her mouth--"'Papa, potatoes, prunes, and prism'!"
+
+Steps were heard in the hall, and the butler announced "Mr. and Miss
+Barron."
+
+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 the
+newcomers with her sweetest smiles, set the deaf daughter down on the
+hearing 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 a
+portly man of fifty-five, with a penetrating look, and a composed manner;
+well dressed, yet with no undue display. Louis Manvers, struggling with
+an habitual plague of shyness, and all but silenced by the discovery that
+his neighbour was even deafer than himself, watched the "six-foot-two
+Inquisitor" with curiosity, but could find nothing lurid nor torturous in
+his aspect. There was indeed something about him which displeased a
+rationalist scholar and ascetic. But his information and ability, his
+apparent adequacy to any company, were immediately evident. It seemed to
+Manvers that he had very quickly disarmed Mrs. Flaxman's vague prejudice
+against him. At any rate she was soon picking his brains diligently on
+the subject of the neighbourhood and the neighbours, and apparently
+enjoying the result, to judge from her smiles and her questions.
+
+Mr. Barron indeed had everything that could be expected of him to say on
+the subject of the district and its population. He descanted on the
+beauty of the three or four famous parks, which in the eighteenth century
+had been carved out of the wild heath lands; he showed an intimate
+knowledge of the persons who owned the parks, and of their families,
+"though I myself am only a newcomer here, being by rights a Devonshire
+man"; he talked of the local superstitions with indulgence, and a proper
+sense of the picturesque; and of the colliers who believed the
+superstitions he spoke in a tone of general good humour, tempered by
+regret that "agitators" should so often lead them into folly. The
+architecture of the district came in, of course, for proper notice. There
+were 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 is
+Sandford Abbey from here?"
+
+Her visitor paused a moment before replying.
+
+"Sandford Abbey is about five miles from you--across the park. The two
+estates 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 old
+friend of Hugh's family."
+
+Mr. Barron was silent.
+
+"Is he such a scamp?" said Mrs. Flaxman, raising her fine eyes, with a
+laugh 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 gathers
+some strange company at the Abbey. He is there now for the fishing."
+
+Manvers inquired who this gentleman might be; and Mrs. Flaxman gave him a
+lightly touched account. A young man of wealth and family, it seemed, but
+spoilt from his earliest days, and left fatherless at nineteen, with only
+an adoring but quite ineffectual mother to take account of. Some
+notorious love affairs at home and abroad; a wild practical joke or two,
+played on prominent people, and largely advertised in the newspapers; an
+audacious novel, and a censored play--he had achieved all these things by
+the age of thirty, and was now almost penniless, and still unmarried.
+
+"Hugh says that the Abbey is falling into ruin--and that the young man
+has about a hundred a year left out of his fortune. On this he keeps
+apparently an army of servants and a couple of hunters! The strange
+thing is--Hugh discovered it when he went to call on the Rector the other
+day--that this preposterous young man is a first cousin of Mr. Meynell's.
+His mother, Lady Meryon, and the Rector's mother were sisters. The
+Rector, 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 the
+charms, both of villainy and mystery, let the subject drop.
+
+Mr. Barron returned, as though with relief, to architecture, talked
+agreeably 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 whole
+disappointing--inferior to those of other districts within reach.
+Here, indeed, he showed himself an expert; and a far too minute
+discourse on the relative merits of the church architecture of two or
+three of the midland counties flowed on and on through Mrs. Flaxman's
+tea-making, while the deaf daughter became entirely speechless; and
+Manvers--disillusioned--gradually assumed an aspect of profound
+melancholy, which merely meant that his wits were wool gathering.
+
+"Well, I thought Upcote Minor church a very pretty church," said
+Rose Flaxman at last, with a touch of revolt. "The old screen is
+beautiful--and who on earth has done all that carving of the
+pulpit--and the reredos?"
+
+Mr. Barron's expression changed. He bent toward his hostess, striking one
+hand 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 recovered
+their animation.
+
+"You were present then," said Mr. Barron with passionate energy, "at a
+scandalous 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. The
+slight pomposity of look and manner had disappeared.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman hesitated. Then she said gravely: "It was certainly very
+astonishing. 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 is
+impossible for him to be honest!"
+
+Mrs. Flaxman slowly poured out another cup of tea for Mr. Manvers, who
+was standing before her in a drooping attitude, like some long crumpled
+fly, apparently deaf and blind to what was going on, his hair falling
+forward 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 to
+me--everybody in the church appeared to us to be enjoying what the Rector
+was 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 all
+the worse. When I came here three years ago he had not yet done any of
+these things--publicly; these perfectly monstrous things. Up to last
+Sunday, indeed, he kept within certain bounds as to the services; though
+frequent complaints of his teaching had been made to the Bishop, and
+proceedings even had been begun--it might have been difficult to touch
+him. But last Sunday!--" He stopped with a little sad gesture of the hand
+as though the recollection were too painful to pursue. "I saw, however,
+within six months of my coming here--he and I were great friends at
+first--what his teaching was, and whither it was tending. He has taught
+the people systematic infidelity for years. Now we have the results!"
+
+"He also seems to have looked after their bodies," said Mrs. Flaxman, in
+a skirmishing tone that simply meant she was not to be brought to close
+quarters. "I am told that it was he brought the water-supply here; and
+that he has forced the owners to rebuild some of the worst cottages."
+
+Mr. Barron looked attentively at his hostess. It was as though he were
+for 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, he
+was not asked to take vows about the water-supply! But he did promise and
+vow at his ordination to hold the Faith--to 'banish and drive away
+strange doctrines'!"
+
+"What are 'strange doctrines' nowadays?" said a mild, falsetto voice in
+the distance.
+
+Barron turned to the speaker--the long-haired dishevelled person whose
+name he had not caught distinctly as Mrs. Flaxman introduced him. His
+manner unconsciously assumed a note of patronage.
+
+"No need to define them, I think--for a Christian. The Church has her
+Creeds."
+
+"Of course. But while this gentleman shelves them--no doubt a
+revolutionary proceeding--are there not excesses on the other side? May
+there not be too much--as well as too little?"
+
+And with an astonishing command of ecclesiastical detail Manvers gave an
+account--gently ironic here and there--of some neo-Catholic functions of
+which he had lately been a witness.
+
+Barron fidgeted.
+
+"Deplorable, I admit--quite deplorable! I would put that kind of thing
+down, just as firmly as the other."
+
+Manvers smiled.
+
+"But who are '_you_'? if I may ask it philosophically and without
+offence? The man here does not agree with you--the people I have been
+describing would scout you. Where's your authority? What _is_ the
+authority in the English Church?"
+
+"Well, of course we have our answer to that question," said Barron, after
+a moment.
+
+Manvers gave a pleasant little laugh. "Have you?"
+
+Barron hesitated again, then evidently found the controversial temptation
+too strong. He plunged headlong into a great gulf of cloudy argument,
+with the big word "authority" for theme. But he could find no foothold
+in the maze. Manvers drove him delicately from point to point,
+involving him in his own contradictions, rolling him in his own
+ambiguities, till--suddenly--vague recollections began to stir in the
+victim's mind. _Manvers_? Was that the name? It began to recall to
+him certain articles in the reviews, the Church papers. Was there not a
+well-known writer--a Dublin man--a man who had once been a clergyman, and
+had resigned his orders?
+
+He drew himself together with dignity, and retreated in as good order as
+he could. Turning to Mrs. Flaxman, who was endeavouring to make a few
+commonplaces audible to Miss Barron, while throwing occasional sly
+glances toward the field of battle, he somewhat curtly asked for his
+carriage.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman's hand was on the bell, when the drawing-room door opened to
+admit a gentleman.
+
+"Mr. Meynell!" said the butler.
+
+And at the same moment a young girl slipped in through the open French
+window, and with a smiling nod to Mrs. Flaxman and Mr. Manvers went up to
+the tea-table and began to replenish the teapot and relight the kettle.
+
+Mr. Barron made an involuntary movement of annoyance as the Rector
+entered. But a few minutes of waiting before the appearance of his
+carriage was inevitable. He stood motionless therefore in his place, a
+handsome, 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 friendly
+nod. 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 an
+evident look of pleasure.
+
+"I have just read your Bishop Butler article in the _Quarterly_," said
+Meynell eagerly. "Splendid! Have you seen it?" He turned to his hostess,
+with one of the rapid movements that expressed the constant energy of the
+man.
+
+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 bit
+from it?" The speaker turned to Manvers again. "There is a clerical
+conference 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, to
+his hostess: "Will you mind if I drink a good deal? I have just been down
+a 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 thought
+he 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 all
+away, married. Nobody to nurse him as usual. I say!"--he bent forward,
+looking into his hostess's face with his small, vivacious eyes--"how
+long 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, and
+it will do a lot of good," said the Rector earnestly. "The people here
+are awfully good to each other--but they don't know anything--poor
+souls--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 sat
+the squire of the parish, silent and impassive. Common report made Henry
+Barron a wealthy man. He could, no doubt, have provided half a dozen
+nurses for Upcote Minor if he had so chosen. Yet here was she, the
+newcomer of a few weeks, appealed to instead! It seemed to her that the
+Rector 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 difficulty
+in controlling, endeavoured nevertheless to strike the same easy note as
+the rest. He gave his reasons for thinking that a parish nurse was not
+really required in Upcote, the women in the village being in his opinion
+quite 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 all
+very well for Meynell to show this levity, this callous indifference to
+the situation. But he, Barron, could not forget it. That very week, the
+first steps had been taken which were to drive this heretical and
+audacious priest from the office and benefice he had no right to hold,
+and had so criminally misused. If he submitted and went quietly, well and
+good. But of course he would do nothing of the kind. There was a
+lamentable amount of disloyalty and infidelity in the diocese, and he
+would be supported. An ugly struggle was inevitable--a struggle for the
+honour of Christ and his Church. It would go down to the roots of things
+and was not to be settled or smoothed over by a false and superficial
+courtesy. The days of friendship, of ordinary social intercourse, were
+over. Barron did not intend to receive the Rector again within his own
+doors, intimate as they had been at one time; and it was awkward and
+undesirable that they should be meeting in other people's drawing-rooms.
+
+All these feelings were running through his mind while aloud he was
+laboriously giving Mrs. Flaxman his reasons for thinking a parish nurse
+unnecessary in Upcote Minor. When he came to the end of them, Meynell
+looked at him with amused exasperation.
+
+"Well, all I know is that in the last case of typhoid we had here--a poor
+lad on Reynolds's farm--his mother got him up every day while she made
+his 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 else
+they do with them--unless I stay and see them put on. Ah, well, never
+mind. 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 new
+German 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. Yet
+the eyes for all their intensity looked out from a face furrowed and
+pale--overshadowed by physical and mental strain. The girl sitting at the
+tea-table could scarcely take her eyes from it. It appealed at once to
+her heart and her intelligence. And yet there were other feelings in her
+which resisted the appeal. Once or twice she looked wistfully at Barron.
+She would gladly have found in him a more attractive champion of a
+majestic cause.
+
+"What can my coachman be about?" said Barron impatiently. "Might I
+trouble 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. "At
+once!"
+
+But the minutes passed on, and while trying to keep up a desultory
+conversation with his hostess, and with the young lady at the tea-table,
+to whom he was not introduced, Mr. Barron was all the while angrily
+conscious of the conversation going on between the Rector and Manvers.
+There seemed to be something personally offensive and humiliating to
+himself in the knowledge displayed by these two men--men who had deserted
+or were now betraying the Church--of the literature of Anglican
+apologetics, and of the thought of the great Anglican bishop. Why this
+parade of useless learning and hypocritical enthusiasm? What was Bishop
+Butler to them? He could hardy sit patiently through it, and it was with
+most evident relief that he rose to his feet when his carriage was
+announced.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"How pretty Mrs. Flaxman is!" said his daughter as they drove away. "Yet
+I'm sure she's forty, papa."
+
+Her face still reflected the innocent pleasure that Rose Flaxman's
+kindness had given her. It was not often that the world troubled itself
+much about her. Her father, however, took no notice. He sat absent and
+pondering, and soon he stretched out a peremptory hand and lowered the
+window which his daughter had raised against an east wind to protect a
+delicate ear and throat which had been the torment of her life. It was
+done with no conscious unkindness; far from it. He was merely absorbed in
+the planning of his campaign. The next all-important point was the
+selection of the Commission of Inquiry. No effort must be spared by the
+Church party to obtain the right men.
+
+Meanwhile, in the drawing-room which he had left, there was silence for a
+moment 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 the
+tea-table.
+
+"Oh, I had had quite enough of Mr. Barron. Mr. Meynell, have I ever
+introduced you to my niece?"
+
+"Oh, but we know each other!" said Meynell, eagerly. "We met first at
+Miss Puttenham's, a week ago--and since then--Miss Elsmere has been
+visiting a woman I know."
+
+"Indeed?"
+
+"A woman who lost her husband some days since--a terrible case. We are
+all so grateful to Miss Elsmere."
+
+He looked toward her with a smile and a sigh; then as he saw the shy
+discomfort in the girl's face, he changed the subject at once.
+
+The conversation became general. Some feeling that she could not explain
+to herself led Mrs. Flaxman into a closer observation of her niece Mary
+than usual. There was much affection between the aunt and the niece, but
+on Mrs. Flaxman's side, at least, not much understanding. She thought of
+Mary as an interesting creature, with some striking gifts--amongst them
+her mother's gift for goodness. But it seemed to the aunt that she was
+far too grave and reserved for her age; that she had been too strenuously
+brought up, and in a too narrow world. Rose Flaxman had often impatiently
+tried to enliven the girl's existence, to give her nice clothes, to take
+her to balls and to the opera. But Mary's adoration for her mother stood
+in 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 was
+talking--softly, and with a delicate and rather old-fashioned choice of
+words, but certainly with no lack of animation. And it was quite evident
+to an inquisitive aunt with a notorious gift for match making that the
+tired heretic with the patches of coal dust on his coat found her very
+attractive.
+
+But as the clock struck six Meynell sprang up.
+
+"I must go. Miss Elsmere"--he looked toward her--"has kindly promised to
+take me on to see your sister at the Cottage--and after to-day I may not
+have another opportunity." He hesitated, considering his hostess--then
+burst out: "You were at church last Sunday--I know--I saw you. I want to
+tell you--that you have a church quite as near to you as the parish
+church, where everything is quite orthodox--the church at Haddon End. I
+wish I could have warned you. I--I did ask Miss Elsmere to warn her
+mother."
+
+Rose looked at the carpet.
+
+"You needn't pity us," she said, demurely. "Hugh wants to talk to you
+dreadfully. But--I am afraid I am a Gallio."
+
+"Of course--you don't need to be told--it was all a deliberate defiance
+of the law--in order to raise vital questions. We have never done
+anything half so bad before. We determined on it at a public meeting last
+week, 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 laymen
+in the Church want a real franchise--a citizenship they can exercise--and
+a law of their own making!"
+
+There was silence a moment. Mary Elsmere took up her hat, and kissed her
+aunt; Meynell made his farewells, and followed the girl's lead into the
+garden.
+
+Mrs. Flaxman and Manvers watched them open the gate of the park and
+disappear behind a rising ground. Then the two spectators turned to each
+other by a common impulse, smiling at the same thought. Mrs. Flaxman's
+smile, however, was almost immediately drowned in a real concern. She
+clasped 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 hill
+and in a northwest direction across one of the most beautiful parks in
+England. It lay on the fringe of the Chase and contained, within its
+slopes and glades, now tracts of primitive woodland whence the charcoal
+burners 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, a
+seemly Georgian pile, with a columnar front, had the good fortune to
+belong to a man not rich enough to live in or rebuild it, but
+sufficiently attached to it to spend upon its decent maintenance the
+money he got by letting it. So the delicately faded beauty of the house
+had survived unspoilt; while there had never been any money to spend upon
+the park, where the woods and fences looked after themselves year by
+year, and colliers from the neighbouring villages poached freely.
+
+The two people walking through the ferny paths leading to the cottage of
+Forkéd Pond were not, however, paying much attention to the landscape
+round them. Meynell showed himself at first preoccupied and silent. A
+load of anxiety depressed his vitality; and on this particular day long
+hours of literary work and correspondence, beginning almost with the dawn
+and 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 to
+create a soothing and liberating atmosphere in which it was possible to
+speak with frankness, though without effort or excitement.
+
+The Rector indeed had so far very little precise knowledge of what his
+companion's feeling might be toward his own critical plight. He would
+have liked to get at it; for there was something in this winning,
+reserved girl that made him desire her good opinion. And yet he shrank
+from any discussion with her.
+
+He knew of course that the outlines of what had happened must be known to
+her. During the ten days since their first meeting both the local and
+London newspapers had given much space to the affairs of Upcote Minor. An
+important public meeting in which certain decisions had been taken with
+only three dissentients had led up to the startling proceedings in the
+village church which Mrs. Flaxman had described to Louis Manvers. The
+Bishop had written another letter, this time of a more hurried and
+peremptory kind. An account of the service had appeared in the _Times_,
+and columns had been devoted to it in various Mercian newspapers. After
+years of silence, during which his heart had burned within him; after a
+shorter period of growing propaganda and expanding utterance, Meynell
+realized fully that he had now let loose the floodgates. All round him
+was rising that wide response from human minds and hearts--whether in
+sympathy or in hostility--which tests and sifts the man who aspires to be
+a leader of men--in religion or economics. Every trade union leader
+lifted on the wave of a great strike, representing the urgent physical
+need of his fellows, knows what the concentration of human passion can
+be--in matters concerned with the daily bread and the homes of men.
+Religion can gather and bring to bear forces as strong. Meynell knew it
+well; and he was like a man stepping down into a rushing stream from
+which there is no escape. It must be crossed--that is all the wayfarer
+knows; but as he feels the water on his body he realizes that the moment
+is perhaps for life or death.
+
+Such crises in life bring with them, in the case of the nobler
+personalities, a great sensitiveness; and Meynell seemed to be living in
+a world where not only his own inner feelings and motives but those of
+others were magnified and writ large. As he walked beside Mary Elsmere
+his mind played round what he knew of her history and position; and it
+troubled him to think that, both for her and her mother, contact with him
+at this particular moment might be the reviving of old sorrows.
+
+As they paused on the top of a rising ground looking westward he looked
+at her with sudden and kindly decision.
+
+"Miss Elsmere, are you sure your mother would like to see me? It was very
+good of you to request that I should accompany you to-night--but--are you
+sure?"
+
+Mary coloured deeply and hesitated a moment.
+
+"Don't you think I'd better turn back?" he asked her, gently. "Your path
+is clear before you." He pointed to it winding through the fern. "And you
+know, I hope, that anything I could do for you and your mother during
+your stay here I should be only too enchanted to do. The one thing I
+shrink from doing is to interfere in any way with her rest here. And I am
+afraid just now I might be a disturbing element."
+
+"No, no! please come!" said Mary, earnestly. Then as she turned her head
+away, she added: "Of course--there is nothing new--to her--"
+
+"Except that my fight is waged from inside the Church--and your father's
+from 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 so
+terrible to her."
+
+"Any break with the old things? But doesn't it ever present itself to
+her--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 the
+trouble he divined in her. A great natural dignity in the girl--delicacy
+of feeling in the man--prevented it.
+
+None the less her betrayal of emotion had altered their relation; or
+rather had carried it farther. For he had already seen her in contact
+with tragic and touching things. A day or two after that early morning
+when he had told the outlines of the Batesons' story to the two ladies
+who had entertained him at breakfast he had found her in Bateson's
+cottage 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 friendly
+timid ways had stirred, as it were, the dark air of the house with a
+breath of tenderness. She would sit beside the widow, sewing at a black
+dress, or helping her to choose the text to be printed on the funeral
+card; or she would come with her hands full of wild flowers, and coax
+Mrs. Bateson to go in the dusk to the churchyard with them. She had
+shown, indeed, wonderful inventiveness in filling the first week of loss
+and anguish with such small incident as might satisfy feeling, and yet
+take 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 mind
+of her companion. It was a remarkable face; the lower lip a little
+prominent, and the chin firmly rounded. But the smile, though rare, was
+youth and sweetness itself, and the dark eyes beneath the full mass of
+richly coloured hair were finely conscious and attentive--disinterested
+also; so that they won the spectator instead of embarrassing him. She was
+very lightly and slenderly made, yet so as to convey an impression of
+strength and physical health. Meynell said to himself that there was
+something cloistered in her look, like one brought up in a grave
+atmosphere--an atmosphere of "recollection." At the same time nothing
+could 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 both
+their minds. Insensibly the barrier between them and it broke away.
+Neither, indeed, forgot the interposing shadow of Catharine Elsmere. But
+the 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 reveal
+them to each other. The growing delight of their conversation was
+presently beyond Meynell's resisting. And in Mary, the freedom of it, no
+less than the sense of personal conflict and tragic possibilities that
+lay behind it, awakened the subtlest and deepest feelings. Poignant,
+concrete images rushed through her mind--a dying face to which her own
+had been lifted, as a tiny child; the hall of the New Brotherhood, where
+she sat sometimes beside her veiled mother; the sad nobility of that
+mother's life; a score of trifling, heartpiercing things, that, to think
+of, 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 thought
+and doubt, of faith and denial, in a living and daring world. And yet
+again, times of passionate remorse, in which all movement of revolt had
+died 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-thwarted
+force. And under the pressure of her quick, searching sympathy his talk
+became insensibly more personal, more autobiographical. He was but little
+given to confession, but she compelled it. It was as though through his
+story she sought to understand her father's--to unveil many things yet
+dark to her.
+
+Thus gradually, through ways direct and indirect, the intellectual story
+of the man revealed itself to the pure and sensitive mind of the girl.
+She divined his home and upbringing--his father an Evangelical soldier of
+the old school, a home imbued with the Puritan and Biblical ideas. She
+understood something of the struggle provoked--after his ordination, in a
+somewhat late maturity--by the uprising of the typical modern problems,
+historical, critical, scientific. She pieced together much that only came
+out incidentally as to the counsellors within the Church to whom he had
+gone in his first urgent distress--the Bishop whom he reverenced--his
+old 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 small
+French books by a French priest and the sudden uprush of new life
+in the Roman Church had brought to the remote English clergyman at once
+the crystallization of doubt and the passion of a freed faith.
+"Modernism"--the attempt of the modern spirit, acting religiously, to
+refashion Christianity, not outside, but _inside_, the warm limits of the
+ancient churches--was born; and Richard Meynell became one of the first
+converts in England.
+
+"Ah, if your father had but lived!" he said at last, turning upon her
+with emotion. "He died his noble death twenty years ago--think of the
+difference between then and now! Then the Broad Church movement was
+at an end. All that seemed so hopeful, so full of new life in the
+seventies, had apparently died down. Stanley, John Richard Green, Hugh
+Pearson were dead, Jowett was an old man of seventy; Liberalism within
+the Church hardly seemed to breathe; the judgment in the Voysey case--as
+much a defiance of modern knowledge as any Papal encyclical--though
+people had nearly forgotten it, had yet in truth brought the whole
+movement to a stand. All _within_ the gates seemed lost. Your father went
+out into the wilderness, and there, amid everything that was poor and
+mean 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 of
+it depends now only on the faithfulness of those within it."
+
+Mary was moved and silenced. The man's power, his transparent purity of
+heart, affected her, as they had already affected thousands. She was
+drawn to him also, unconsciously, by that something in personality which
+determines the relations of men and women. Yet there were deep instincts
+in her that protested. Girl as she was, she felt herself for the moment
+more alive than he to the dead weight of the World, fighting the tug of
+those who would fain move it from its ancient bases.
+
+He seemed to guess at her thought; for he passed on to describe the
+events by which, amid his own dumb or hidden struggle, he had become
+aware of the same forces working all round him; among the more
+intelligent and quick-witted miners, hungry for history and science,
+reading voraciously a Socialist and anti-Christian literature, yet all
+the while cherishing deep at heart certain primitive superstitions, and
+falling periodically into hot abysses of Revivalism, under the influence
+of Welsh preachers; or among the young men of the small middle class, in
+whom a better education was beginning to awaken a number of new
+intellectual and religious wants; among women, too, sensitive,
+intelligent women--
+
+"Ah! but," said Mary, quickly interrupting him, "don't imagine there are
+many 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 very
+little part in this particular movement. I never know whether she is
+really with us. She stands outside the old things, but I can never make
+myself happy by the hope that I have been able to win her to the new!"
+
+Mary looked puzzled--interrogative. But she checked her question, and
+drew him back instead to his narrative--to the small incidents and signs
+which had gradually revealed to him, among even his brother clergy, years
+before that date, the working of ideas and thoughts like his own. And
+now--
+
+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 other
+counties. It made me think of what a French Catholic Modernist said to me
+two years ago--'Pius X may write encyclicals as he pleases--I could show
+him whole dioceses in France that are practically Modernist, where the
+Seminaries are Modernist, and two thirds of the clergy. The Bishop knows
+it quite well, and is helpless. Over the border perhaps you get an
+Ultramontane diocese, and an Ultramontane bishop. But the process goes
+on. Life and time are for _us_!'" He paused and laughed. "Ah, of course I
+don't pretend things are so here--yet. Our reforms in England--in Church
+and State--broaden slowly down. In France, reform, when it moves at all,
+tends to be catastrophic. But in the Markborough diocese alone we have
+won over perhaps a fifth of the clergy, and the dioceses all round are
+moving. As to the rapidity of the movement in the last few months it has
+been nothing short of amazing!"
+
+"And what is the end to be? Not only--oh! Not only--_to destroy_!" said
+Mary. The soft intensity of the voice, the beauty of the look, touched
+him strangely.
+
+He smiled, and there was a silence for a minute, as they wandered
+downward through a purple stretch of heather to a little stream,
+sun-smitten, that lay across their path. Once or twice she looked at him
+timidly, 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 yet
+intenser fellowship. We want to say to our fellowmen: 'Cease from groping
+among ruins!--from making life and faith depend upon whether Christ was
+born at Bethlehem or at Nazareth, whether He rose or did not rise,
+whether Luke or some one else wrote the Third Gospel, whether the Fourth
+Gospel 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 purify
+the gold. Take the cup of cold water to the thirsty, heal the sick, tend
+the dying, and feel it thrill within you--the ineffable, the immortal
+life! Let the false miracle go!--the true has grown out of it, up from
+it, as the flower from the sheath.' Ah! but then"--he drew himself up
+unconsciously; his tone hardened--"we turn to the sons of tradition, and
+we say: 'We too must have our rights in what the past has built up, the
+past has bequeathed--as well as you! Not for you alone, the institutions,
+the buildings, the arts, the traditions, that the Christ-life has so far
+fashioned for itself. They who made them are Our fathers no less than
+yours--give us our share in them!--we claim it! Give us our share in the
+cathedrals and churches of our country--our share in the beauty and
+majesty of our ancestral Christianity.' The men who led the rebellion
+against Rome in the sixteenth century claimed the _plant_ of English
+Catholicism. 'We are our fathers' sons, and these things are _ours!_'
+they said, as they looked at Salisbury and Winchester. We say the
+same--with a difference. 'Give us the rights and the citizenship that
+belong to us! But do not imagine that we want to attack yours. In God's
+name, follow your own forms of faith--but allow us ours also--within
+the common shelter of the common Church. We are children of the same
+God--followers of the same Master. Who made you judges and dividers over
+us? You shall not drive us into the desert any more. A new movement of
+revolt has come--an hour of upheaval--and the men, with it!'"
+
+Both stood motionless, gazing over the wide stretch of country--wood
+beyond wood, distance beyond distance, that lay between them and the
+Welsh border. Suddenly, as a shaft of light from the descending sun
+fled ghostlike across the plain, touching trees and fields and farms in
+its path, two noble towers emerged among the shadows--characters, as it
+were, that gave a meaning to the scroll of nature. They were the towers
+of Markborough Cathedral. Meynell pointed to them as he turned to his
+companion, his face still quivering under the strain of feeling.
+
+"Take the omen! It is for _them_, in a sense--a spiritual sense--we are
+fighting. They belong not to any body of men that may chance to-day to
+call itself the English Church. They belong to _England_--in her aspect
+of faith--and to the English people!"
+
+There was a silence. His look came back to her face, and the prophetic
+glow died from his own. "I should be very, very sorry"--he said
+anxiously--"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--of
+others." Her voice trembled.
+
+The words seemed to suggest everything that in her own personal history
+had stamped her with this sweet, shrinking look. Meynell was deeply
+touched. But he did not answer her, or pursue the conversation any
+farther. He gathered a great bunch of harebells for her, from the
+sun-warmed dells in the heather; and was soon making her laugh by his
+stories of colliery life and speech, _ŕ propos_ of the colliery villages
+fringing the plain at their feet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The stream, as they neared it, proved to be the boundary between the
+heath land and the pastures of the lower ground. It ran fresh and
+brimming between its rushy banks, shadowed here and there by a few light
+ashes and alders, but in general open to the sky, of which it was the
+mirror. It shone now golden and blue under the deepening light of the
+afternoon; and two or three hundred yards away Mary Elsmere distinguished
+two 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. There
+should be a capital rise to-night. If that man has the sense to put on a
+sedge-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, on
+the other side of the stream. "What a wonderful old place!"
+
+For the house that revealed itself stood with an impressive dignity among
+its stern and blackish woods. The long, plain front suggested a monastic
+origin; 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 have
+grown into the landscape, and to be so deeply rooted in it that one could
+not imagine it away.
+
+Meynell glanced at it.
+
+"That is Sandford Abbey. It belongs, I regret to say, to a neer-do-weel
+cousin of mine who has spent all his time since he came into it in
+neglecting his duties to it. Provided the owner of it is safely away, I
+should 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 own
+sentiments!"
+
+Mary followed the house with her eyes as they walked along the bank of
+the stream toward the two figures on the opposite bank.
+
+A sudden exclamation from her companion caught her ear--and a light
+musical laugh. Startled by something familiar in it, Mary looked across
+the stream. She saw on the farther bank a few yards ahead a young man
+fishing, and a young girl in white sitting beside him.
+
+"Hester!--Miss Fox-Wilton!"--the tone showed her surprise; "and who is
+that with her?"
+
+Meynell, without replying, walked rapidly along the stream to a point
+immediately opposite the pair.
+
+"Good afternoon, Philip. I did not know you were here. Hester, I am going
+round 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't
+think what a rise there is. I have caught two myself. Sir Philip has been
+teaching me."
+
+"She frames magnificently!" said the young man. "How d'ye do, Meynell? A
+long time since we've met."
+
+"A long time," said Meynell briefly. "Hester, will you meet Miss Elsmere
+and 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 yards
+farther 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 good
+luck I wouldn't go with mother to dine at the White House! Don't you hate
+dinner parties? I told Mr. Barron that spiders were so much more refined
+than humans--they did at least eat their flies by themselves! He was
+quite angry--and I am afraid Stephen was too!"
+
+She laughed again, and so did the man beside her. He was a dark, slim
+fellow, finely made, dressed in blue serge, and a felt hat, which
+seemed at the moment to be slipping over the back of his handsome head.
+From a little distance he produced an impression of Apollo-like strength
+and good looks. As the spectator came closer, this impression was a good
+deal modified by certain loose and common lines in the face. But from
+Mary Elsmere's position only Sir Philip Meryon's good points were
+visible, and he appeared to her a dazzling creature.
+
+And in point of looks his companion was more than his match. They made
+indeed 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. In
+pushing along the overgrown stream, the coils of her hair had been
+disarranged 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 and
+smile shone out triumphantly. Exceptionally tall, with clear-cut aquiline
+features, with the movements and the grace of a wood nymph, the girl
+carried her beautiful brows and her full throat with a provocative and
+self-conscious arrogance. One might have guessed that fear was unknown
+to her; perhaps tenderness also. She looked much older than seventeen,
+until she moved or spoke; then the spectator soon realized that in spite
+of her height and her precocious beauty she was a child, capable still of
+a 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 across
+the stream. Meynell's peremptory voice reached her now and then, and she
+could not help hearing a sharp final demand that the truant should
+transfer 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 will
+allow me to join you. Miss Elsmere, I am very sorry, but I am afraid I
+must 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 I
+please!"
+
+Meanwhile Sir Philip Meryon had laid aside his rod and was apparently
+enjoying the encounter between his companion and the Rector.
+
+"Perhaps you have forgotten--this is _my_ side of the river, Meynell!" he
+shouted across it.
+
+"I am quite aware of it," said the Rector, as he shook hands with the
+embarrassed Mary. She was just moving away with a shy good-bye to the
+angry young goddess on the farther bank, when the goddess said:
+
+"Don't go, Mary! Here, Sir Philip--take the fly-book!" She flung it
+toward him. "Goodnight."
+
+And turning her back upon him without any further ceremony, she walked
+quickly along the stream toward the little bridge which Meynell had
+pointed out.
+
+"Congratulations!" said Meryon, with a mocking wave of the hand to the
+Rector, who made no reply. He ran to catch up Mary, and the two joined
+the girl in white at the bridge. The owner of Sandford Abbey stood
+meanwhile with his hand on his hip watching the receding figures. There
+was a smile on his handsome mouth, but it was an angry one; and his
+muttered remark as he turned away belied the unconcern he had affected.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"That comes, you see, of not letting me be engaged to Stephen!" said
+Hester 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 well
+that your mother does not approve of Sir Philip Meryon, and does not wish
+you to be in his company."
+
+"Precisely. But as I am not to be allowed to marry Stephen, I must of
+course 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'm
+bound."
+
+"At present all you're asked"--said Meynell dryly--"is not to disobey
+your mother. But don't you think it's rather rude to Miss Elsmere to be
+discussing private affairs she doesn't understand?"
+
+"Why shouldn't she understand them? Mary, my guardian here and my mother
+say that I mustn't be engaged to Stephen Barron--that I'm too young--or
+some nonsense of that kind. And Stephen--oh, well, Stephen's too good for
+this world! If he really loved me, he'd do something desperate, wouldn't
+he?--instead of giving in. I don't much mind, myself--I don't really care
+so much about marrying Stephen--only if I'm not to marry him, and
+somebody else wants to please me, why shouldn't I let him?"
+
+She turned her beautiful wild eyes upon Mary Elsmere. And as she
+did so Mary was suddenly seized with a strong sense of likeness in the
+speaker--her gesture--her attitude--to something already familiar. She
+could not identify the something, but her gaze fastened itself on the
+face before her.
+
+Meynell meanwhile answered Hester's tirade.
+
+"I'm quite ready to talk this over with you, Hester, on our way home. But
+don't you see that you are making Miss Elsmere uncomfortable?"
+
+"Oh, no, I'm not," said Hester coolly. "You've been talking to her of
+all 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 out
+more--you'd be so pretty! Let me do it for you. And you shouldn't wear
+that hat--no, you really shouldn't. It's a brute! I could trim you
+another 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, and
+it was evident that her temper was passing away.
+
+"I don't agree with you at all about my hat," said Mary with spirit. "I
+trimmed 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 what
+you like. I wonder what you _have_ been talking to her about? I shall
+make 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 explained
+again that Mr. Meynell and she were on the way to the Forkéd Pond
+cottage, 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 no
+good your saying she will. I saw her in the village yesterday. I'm not
+her sort. Let me go home by myself."
+
+Mary half laughed, half coaxed her into coming with them. But she went
+very unwillingly; fell completely silent, and seemed to be in a dream all
+the way to the cottage. Meynell took no notice of her; though once or
+twice she stole a furtive look toward him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The tiny house in which Catharine Elsmere and her daughter had settled
+themselves for the summer stood on a narrow isthmus of land belonging to
+the Maudeley estate, between the Sandford trout-stream and a large rushy
+pond of two or three acres. It was a very lonely and a very beautiful
+place, though the neighbourhood generally pronounced it damp and
+rheumatic. The cottage, sheltered under a grove of firs, looked straight
+out on the water, and over a bed of water-lilies. All round was a summer
+murmur of woods, the call of waterfowl, and the hum of bees; for, at the
+edges of the water, flowers and grasses pushed thickly out into the
+sunlight from the shadow of the woods.
+
+By the waterside, with a book on her knee, sat a lady who rose as they
+came in sight.
+
+Meynell approached her, hat in hand, his strong irregular face, which had
+always in it a touch of _naiveté_, of the child, expressing both timidity
+and pleasure. The memory of her husband was enshrined deep in the minds
+of all religious liberals; and it was known to many that while the
+husband and wife had differed widely in opinion, and the wife had
+suffered profoundly from the husband's action, yet the love between them
+had 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, very
+lightly touched with gray and arranged with the utmost simplicity, framed
+a face in which the passage of years had emphasized and sharpened all
+the main features, replacing also the delicate smoothness of youth by a
+subtle network of small lines and shadows, which had turned the original
+whiteness of the skin into a brownish ivory, full of charm. The eyes
+looked steadily out from their deep hollows; the mouth, austere and
+finely cut, the characteristic hands, and the unconscious dignity of
+movement--these personal traits made of Elsmere's wife, even in late
+middle age, a striking and impressive figure.
+
+Yet Meynell realized at once, as she just touched his offered hand, that
+the sympathy and the homage he would so gladly have brought her would be
+unwelcome; and that it was a trial to her to see him.
+
+He sat down beside her, while Mary and Hester--who, on her introduction
+to 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--on
+anything and everything that was not Upcote Minor, its parish, or its
+church. Mrs. Elsmere's gentle courtesy never failed; yet behind it he was
+conscious of a steely withdrawal of her real self from any contact with
+his. 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 the
+wild flowers and birds of the Chase; he did his best; but never once
+was 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 of
+such a personality once formed were probably irrevocable. Would she
+discourage any acquaintance with her daughter? It startled him to feel
+how much the unspoken question hurt.
+
+Meanwhile the eyes of his hostess pursued the two girls, and she
+presently called to them, greeting their reappearance with an evident
+change and relaxation of manner. She made Hester sit near her, and it was
+not long before the child, throwing off her momentary awe, was chattering
+fast and freely, yet, as Mary perceived, with a tact, conscious or
+unconscious, that kept the chatter within bounds.
+
+Mrs. Elsmere watched the girl's beauty with evident delight, and when
+Meynell rose to go, and Hester with him, she timidly drew the radiant
+creature 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 some
+constraint:
+
+"You walked with him from Maudeley?"
+
+"Mr. Meynell? Yes, I found him there at tea. He was very anxious to pay
+his 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. Then
+she slipped her hand into her mother's.
+
+"You didn't mind, dearest? Aunt Rose likes him very much, and--and I
+wanted him to know you!" She smiled into her mother's eyes. "But we
+needn'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, rather
+stiffly. "But there is no need we should see him, is there?"
+
+"No," said Mary; her cheek dropped against her mother's knee, her eyes on
+the water. "No--not that I know of." After a moment she added with
+apparent 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 out
+of 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 service
+last Sunday. Your father would never--never--have done such a thing!"
+
+The repressed passion with which the last words were spoken startled
+Mary. She made no reply, but her face, now once more turned toward the
+sunlit pond, had visibly saddened. Inwardly she found herself asking--"If
+father had lived?--if father were here now?"
+
+Her reverie was broken by her mother's voice--softened--breathing
+a 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's
+words, were in her mind--little traits too and incidents of his
+parochial life that she had come across in the village. A man might
+preach 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 them
+Richard Meynell held, was not to be done by any mere pretender, any
+spiritual charlatan. How well his voice pleased her!--his tenderness to
+children--his impatience--his laugh.
+
+The thoughts, too, he had expressed to her on their walk ran kindling
+through her mind. There were in her many half-recognized thirsts and
+desires of the spirit that seemed to have become suddenly strong and
+urgent under the spur of his companionship.
+
+She sat dreaming; then her mother called her to the evening meal, and she
+went in. They passed the evening together, in the free and tender
+intimacy which was their habitual relation. But in the mind of each there
+were 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--by
+Hester's guardian. Disobedience to her mother's wishes; disloyalty toward
+those who loved her, including himself; deceit, open and unabashed, if
+the paradox may be allowed--all these had to be brought home to her. He
+talked, now tenderly, now severely, dreading to hurt her, yet hoping to
+make his blows smart enough to be remembered. She was not to make friends
+with Sir Philip Meryon. She was not to see him or walk with him. He was
+not a fit person for her to know; and she must trust her elders in the
+matter.
+
+"You are not going to make us all anxious and miserable, dear Hester!" he
+said 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 to
+trust 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 be
+far better if you took yourself in hand."
+
+"Why did you stop my being engaged to Stephen?" she cried, raising her
+head 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, and
+if 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. "I
+don't care about him now. But I should have cared about him if I had been
+engaged 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 to
+North Leigh, Lady Fox-Wilton's house. As she perceived it Hester suddenly
+took to flight, and her light form was soon lost to view in the summer
+dusk.
+
+The Rector did not attempt to pursue her. He turned back toward the
+Rectory, perturbed and self-questioning. But it was not possible, after
+all, to set a tragic value on the love affair of a young lady who, within
+a week of its breaking off, had already consoled herself with another
+swain. Anything less indicative of a broken heart than Hester's behaviour
+during that week the Rector could not imagine. Personally he believed
+that she spoke the simple truth when she said she no longer cared for
+Stephen. 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 take
+him half the night. But they must lie there a bit longer. At Miss
+Puttenham's gate he paused, hesitated a moment, then went straight into
+the twilight garden, where he imagined that he should find its mistress.
+
+He found her, in a far corner, among close-growing trees and with her
+usual occupations, her books and her embroidery, beside her. But she was
+neither reading nor sewing. She sprang up to greet him, and for an hour
+of summer twilight they held a rapid, low-voiced conversation.
+
+When he pressed her hand at parting they looked at each other, still
+overshadowed by the doubt and perplexity which had marked the opening of
+their 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, and
+as for the escapade to-day--"
+
+The woman before him shook her head.
+
+"She means to marry at the earliest possible moment--simply to escape
+from Edith--and that house. We sha'n't delay it long. And who knows what
+may happen if we thwart her too much?"
+
+"We _must_ delay it a year or two, if we possibly can--for her sake--and
+for yours," said Meynell firmly. "Good night, my dear friend. Try and
+sleep--put the anxiety away. When the moment comes--and of course I admit
+it must come--you will reap the harvest of the love you have sown. She
+does love you!--I am certain of that."
+
+He heard a low sound--was it a sobbing breath?--as Alice Puttenham
+disappeared in the darkness which had overtaken the garden.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Breakfast at the White House, Upcote Minor, was an affair of somewhat
+minute regulation.
+
+About a fortnight after Mr. Barron's call on the new tenants of Maudeley
+Hall, his deaf daughter Theresa entered the dining-room as usual on the
+stroke of half-past eight. She glanced round her to see that all was in
+order, the breakfast table ready, and the chairs placed for prayers. Then
+she went up to a side-table on which was placed a large Bible and
+prayer-book and a pile of hymn-books. She looked at the lessons and
+psalms for the day and placed markers in the proper places. Then she
+chose a hymn, and laid six open hymn-books one upon another. After which
+she stood for a moment looking at the first verse of the psalm for the
+day: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my
+help." The verse was one of her favourites, and she smiled vaguely, like
+one who recognizes in the distance a familiar musical phrase.
+
+Theresa Barron was nearly thirty. She had a long face with rather high
+cheek-bones, and timid gray eyes. Her complexion was sallow, her figure
+awkward. Her only beauty indeed lay in a certain shy and fleeting charm
+of expression, which very few people noticed. She passed generally for a
+dull and plain woman, ill-dressed, with a stoop that was almost a
+deformity, and a deafness that made her socially useless. But the young
+servants whom she trained, and the few poor people on her father's estate
+to 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 more
+unpopular than he was, indoors and out. The wounds made by his brusque or
+haughty manner to his inferiors were to a certain extent healed by the
+gentleness and the good heart of his daughter. And a kind of glory was
+reflected on him by her unreasoning devotion to him. She suffered under
+his hardness or his self-will, but she adored him all the time; nor was
+her ingenuity ever at a loss for excuses for him. He always treated her
+carelessly, sometimes contemptuously; but he would not have known how to
+get through life without her, and she was aware of it.
+
+On this August morning, having rung the bell for the butler, she placed
+the Bible and prayer-book beside her father's chair, and opening the door
+between the library and the dining-room, she called, "Papa!"
+
+Through the farther door into the hall there appeared a long procession
+of servants, headed by the butler, majestically carrying the tea-urn.
+Something in this daily procession, and its urn-bearer, had once
+sent Stephen Barron, the eldest son--then an Eton boy just home from
+school--into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, which had cost him his
+father's good graces for a week. But the procession had been in no way
+affected, and at this later date Stephen on his visits home took it as
+gravely as anybody else.
+
+The tea-urn, pleasantly hissing, was deposited on the white cloth; the
+servants settled themselves on their chairs, while Theresa distributed
+the open hymn-books amongst them; and when they were all seated, the
+master 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, and
+he read it with an emphasis which the footman opposite to him secretly
+though 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 servants
+remained stolidly silent, the Scotch cook in particular looking straight
+before her with dark-spectacled eyes and a sulky expression. She was
+making up her mind that either she must be excused from prayers in
+future, or Mr. Barron must be content with less cooking for breakfast.
+
+After the hymn, the prayer lasted about ten minutes. Stephen, a fervently
+religious mind, had often fidgeted under the minute and detailed
+petitions of it, which seemed to lay down the Almighty's precise course
+of action toward mankind in general for the ensuing day. But Theresa, who
+was no less spiritual, under other forms, took it all simply and
+devoutly, and would have been uncomfortable if any item in the long
+catalogue had been omitted. When the Amen came, the footman, who never
+knew what to do with his legs during the time of kneeling, sprang up with
+particular alacrity.
+
+As soon as the father and daughter were seated at breakfast--close
+together, for the benefit of Theresa's deafness--Mr. Barron opened the
+post-bag and took out the letters. They arrived half an hour before
+breakfast, but were not accessible to any one till the master of the
+house 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. Her
+father nodded, adding after a minute, as he began upon his egg:
+
+"However, I must have some conversation with Stephen before long. He
+knows that I have not felt able to stay my hand to meet his wishes; and
+perhaps 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 has
+fallen more and more under Meynell's influence of late, and I more than
+suspect that when the time comes he will take sides openly with him. It
+will be a bitter blow to me, but that he doesn't consider. I don't expect
+consideration from him, either as to that--or other things. Has he been
+hanging 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 about
+Stephen, so I waited. But the Rector and Lady Fox-Wilton have quite
+forbidden 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 father
+violently, staring at her.
+
+Theresa nodded.
+
+"A girl of the most headstrong and frivolous character!--a trouble to
+everybody about her. Lady Fox-Wilton has often complained to me that she
+is perfectly unmanageable with her temper and her vanity! The worst
+conceivable wife for a clergyman! Really, Stephen--"
+
+The master of the house pushed his plate away from him in speechless
+disgust.
+
+"And both Lady Fox-Wilton and the Rector have always taken such trouble
+about her--much more than about the other children!" murmured Theresa,
+helplessly.
+
+"What sort of a bringing up do you think Meynell can give anybody?" said
+her father, turning upon her.
+
+Theresa only looked at him silently, with her large mild eyes. She knew
+it was of no use to argue. Besides, on the subject of the Rector she very
+much agreed with her father. Her deafness and her isolation had entirely
+protected her from Meynell's personal influence.
+
+"A man with no religious principles--making a god of his own
+intellect--steeped in pride and unbelief--what can he do to train a girl
+like Hester? What can he do to train himself?" thundered Barron, bringing
+his 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 thrown
+over the Christian faith, may fall into sin at any moment. His unbelief
+is the result of sin. He can neither help himself--nor other people--and
+you need never be surprised to find that his supposed goodness is a mere
+sham 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 his
+letters, and presently Theresa saw his brow darken afresh over one of
+them.
+
+"Anything wrong, father?"
+
+"There's always something wrong on this estate. Crawley [Crawley was the
+head keeper] has caught those boys of John Broad again trespassing and
+stealing wood in the west plantation! Perfectly abominable! It's the
+second or third time. I shall give Broad notice at once, and we must put
+somebody 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 boys
+have no mother--and John works very hard."
+
+"Let him find another cottage all the same," said Barron briefly. "I
+shall go round, if I do get back from Markborough, and have a talk with
+him this evening."
+
+There was silence for a little. Theresa was evidently sad. "Perhaps Lady
+Fox-Wilton would find him something," she said anxiously at last. "His
+mother was her maid long ago. First she was their schoolroom maid--then
+she went back to them, when her husband died and John married, and was a
+kind of maid housekeeper. Nobody knew why Lady Fox-Wilton kept her so
+long. They tell you in the village she had a shocking temper, and wasn't
+at all a good servant. Afterward I believe she went to America and I
+think she died. But she was with them a long while. I daresay they'd do
+something for John."
+
+Barron made no reply. He had not been listening, and was already deep in
+other correspondence.
+
+One letter still remained unopened. Theresa knew very well that it was
+from her brother Maurice, in London. And presently she pushed it toward
+Barron.
+
+"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 he
+read it.
+
+"Not a bad report. He seems to like the work, and says they treat him
+kindly. He would like to come down for the Sunday--but he wants some
+money."
+
+"He oughtn't to!" cried Theresa, flushing. "You gave him plenty."
+
+"He makes out an account," said her father, glancing at the letter; "I
+shall send him a small cheque. I must say, Theresa, you are always rather
+inclined 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 when
+breakfast was over and her father had left the room, Theresa remained
+sitting idly by the table, her eyes fixed on the envelope of Maurice's
+letter, which had fallen to the floor. Maurice's behaviour was
+simply disgraceful! He had lost employment after employment by lazy
+self-indulgence, trusting always to his father's boundless affection for
+him, and abusing it time after time. Theresa was vaguely certain that he
+was besmirched by all sorts of dreadful things--drinking, and betting--if
+not worse. Her woman's instinct told her much more than his father had
+ever discovered about him. Though at the same time she had the good sense
+to remind herself that her own small knowledge of the world might lead
+her to exaggerate Maurice's misdoings. And for herself and Stephen, no
+less than for her father, Maurice was still the darling and Benjamin of
+the family, commended to them by a precious mother whose death had left
+the whole moral structure of their common life insecure.
+
+She was still absorbed in uneasy thoughts about her brother, when the
+library 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 the
+heading--"Extraordinary meeting at Markborough. Proceedings against the
+Rector of Upcote. Other clergy and congregations rally to his support."
+
+She read the account with stupefaction. It described a meeting summoned
+by the "Reformers' Club" of Markborough to consider the announcement that
+a Commission of Inquiry had been issued by the Bishop of Markborough in
+the case of the Rector of Upcote Minor, and that legal proceedings
+against him for heretical teaching and unauthorized services would be
+immediately begun by certain promoters, as soon as the Bishop's formal
+consent had been given.
+
+The meeting, it seemed, had been so crowded and tumultuous that
+adjournment had been necessary from the rooms of the Reformers' Club to
+the Town Hall. And there, in spite of a strong orthodox opposition, a
+resolution in support of the Rector of Upcote had been passed, amid
+scenes of astonishing enthusiasm. Three or four well-known local clergy
+had made the most outspoken speeches, declaring that there must be room
+made within the church for the liberal wing, as well as for the Ritualist
+wing; that both had a right to the shelter of the common and ancestral
+fold; and that the time had come when the two forms of Christianity now
+prevailing in Christendom should be given full and equal rights within
+the Church of the nation.
+
+Meynell himself had spoken, urging on the meeting the profound
+responsibility resting on the Reformers--the need for gentleness no less
+than for courage; bidding them remember the sacredness of the ground they
+were treading, the tenacity and depth of the roots they might be thought
+to be disturbing.
+
+"Yet at the same time we must _fight!_--and we must fight with all our
+strength. For over whole classes of this nation, Christianity is either
+dying or dead; and it is only we--and the ideas we represent--that can
+save it."
+
+The speech had been received with deep emotion rather than applause; and
+the meeting had there and then proceeded to the formation of a
+"Reformers' League" to extend throughout the diocese. "It is already
+rumoured," said the _Post_, "that at least sixteen or eighteen beneficed
+clergy, with their congregations, have either joined, or are about to
+join, the Reformers. The next move now lies with the Bishop, and with the
+orthodox majority of the diocese. If we are not mistaken, Mr. Meynell and
+his companions in heresy will very soon find out that the Church has
+still power enough to put down such scandalous rebellions against her
+power and authority as that of the Rector of Upcote, and to purge her
+borders of disloyal and revolutionary priests." Theresa looked up. Her
+face had grown pale. "How _terrible_, father! Did you know they were to
+hold the meeting?"
+
+"I heard something about a debate at this precious club. What does that
+matter? Let them blaspheme in private as they please, it hurts nobody but
+themselves. But a public meeting at the Bishop's very door--and eighteen
+of 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. "If
+there are dry bones on our side, this will put life into them. Those
+fellows have given themselves into our hands!"
+
+He paused in his walk, falling into a profound reverie in which he lost
+all sense of his daughter's presence. She dared not rouse him; and indeed
+the magnitude of the scandal and distress left her speechless. She could
+only think of the Bishop--their frail, saintly Bishop whom every one
+loved. 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 a
+letter from his pocket.
+
+"That is for Maurice. Put in anything you like, but don't miss the
+morning post."
+
+"Do you see the Bishop this morning, father?"
+
+"No--this afternoon. But there will be plenty to do this morning." He
+named two or three heads of the church party in Markborough on whom he
+must call. He must also see his solicitor, and find out whether the
+counsel whom the promoters of the writ against Meynell desired to secure
+had been already retained.
+
+He kissed his daughter absently and departed, settling all his home
+business before he left the house in his usual peremptory manner, leaving
+behind him indeed in the minds of his butler and head gardener, who had
+business with him, a number of small but smarting wraths, which would
+ultimately have to be smoothed away by Theresa.
+
+But when Theresa explored the open envelope he had given her for her
+brother, she found in it a cheque for Ł50, and a letter which seemed to
+Maurice's sister--unselfish and tender as she was--deplorably lacking in
+the scolding it ought to have contained. If only her father had ever
+shown the same affection for Stephen!
+
+Meanwhile as Barron journeyed to Markborough, under the shadow of the
+great Cathedral, quite another voice than his was in possession of the
+episcopal ear. Precisely at eleven o'clock Richard Meynell appeared on
+the doorstep of the Palace, and was at once admitted to the Bishop's
+study.
+
+As he entered the large book-lined room his name was announced in a tone
+which did not catch the Bishop's attention, and Meynell, as he
+hesitatingly advanced, became the spectator of a scene not intended for
+his eyes. On the Bishop's knee sat a little girl of seven or eight. She
+was crying bitterly, and the Bishop had his arms round her and was
+comforting her.
+
+[Illustration: "Meynell, as he hesitatingly advanced, became the
+spectator of a scene not intended for his eyes"]
+
+"There _was_ bogies, grandfather!--there _was!_--and Nannie said I told
+lies--and I didn't tell lies."
+
+"Darling, there aren't bogies anywhere--but I'm sure you didn't tell
+lies. What did you think they were like?"
+
+"Grandfather, they was all black--and they jumped--and wiggled--and
+spitted--o-o-oh!"
+
+And the child went off in another wail, at which moment the Bishop
+perceived 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 his
+little granddaughter that the "bogie" had really been "cook's black cat,"
+generally condemned to the kitchen and blackbeetles, but occasionally let
+loose to roam the upper floors in search of nobler game. The child dried
+her eyes, and listened, gravely weighing his remarks. Her face gradually
+cleared, and when at the end he said slyly, "And even if there were
+bogies, little girls shouldn't throw hairbrushes at their Nannies!" she
+nodded a judicial head, adding plaintively:
+
+"But then Nannies mustn't talk _all_ the time, grandfather! Little girls
+must 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 distance
+caught 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 it
+nicely."
+
+Barbara threw her arm round his neck and hugged him passionately. Then he
+set her down, and she ran happily away, through a door at the farther end
+of the room.
+
+Meynell advanced, and the Bishop came to meet him. Over both faces, as
+they approached each other, there dropped a sudden shadow--a tremor as of
+men who knew themselves on the brink of a tragical collision--decisive
+of many things. And yet they smiled, the presence of the child still
+enwrapping them.
+
+"Excuse these domesticities," said the Bishop, "but there was such woe
+and 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, and
+sat down himself.
+
+Francis Craye, Bishop of Markborough, was physically a person of great
+charm. He was small--not more than five foot seven; but so slenderly and
+perfectly made, so graceful and erect in bearing, that his height, or
+lack of it, never detracted in the smallest degree from his dignity, or
+from the reverence inspired by the innocence and unworldliness of his
+character. A broad brow, overshadowing and overweighting the face,
+combined, with extreme delicacy of feature, a touch of emaciation, and a
+pure rose in the alabaster of the cheeks, to produce the aspect of a most
+human ghost--a ghost which had just tasted the black blood, and recovered
+for an hour all the vivacity of life. The mouth, thin-lipped and mobile
+to excess, was as apt for laughter as for tenderness; the blue eyes were
+frankness and eagerness itself. And when the glance of the spectator
+pursued the Bishop downward, it was to find that his legs, in the
+episcopal gaiters, were no less ethereal than his face; while his silky
+white hair added the last touch of refinement to a personality of spirit
+and fire.
+
+Meynell was the first to speak.
+
+"My lord! let me begin this conversation by once more thanking you--from
+my heart--for all the personal kindness that you have shown me in the
+last 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 all
+that--after the letters I have written you this week--after the meeting
+of yesterday--you should have sent me that telegram last night, saying
+that you wished to see me to-day. That was like you--that touched me
+indeed!" He spoke with visible emotion.
+
+The Bishop looked up.
+
+"There can be no question, Meynell, of any personal enmity between
+yourself and me," he said gravely. "I shall act in the matter entirely as
+the responsibilities of my office dictate--that you know. But I have owed
+you much in the past--much help--much affection. This diocese owes you
+much. I felt I must make one last appeal to you--terrible as the
+situation has grown. You could not have foreseen that meeting of
+yesterday!" 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 many
+years."
+
+There was no answer for a moment. The Bishop sat with clasped hands, his
+legs stretched out before him, his white head bent. At last, without
+moving, he said:
+
+"There are grave times coming on this diocese, Meynell--there are grave
+times coming on the Church!"
+
+"Does any living church escape them?" said Meynell, watching him--with a
+heavy 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 męlée, Strife and Confusion and
+Fate--"red with the blood of men." What can you--and those who were at
+that meeting yesterday--hope to gain by these proceedings? If you could
+succeed, you would break up the Church, the strongest weapon that exists
+in this country against sin and selfishness--and who would be the
+better?"
+
+"Believe me--we sha'n't break it up."
+
+"Certainly you will! Do you imagine that men who are the spiritual sons
+and heirs of Pusey and Liddon are going to sit down quietly in the same
+church with you and the eighteen who started this League yesterday? They
+would sooner die."
+
+Meynell bore the onslaught quietly.
+
+"It depends upon our strength," he said slowly, "and the strength we
+develop, as the fight goes on."
+
+"Not at all!--a monstrous delusion!" The Bishop raised an indignant
+brow. "If you overwhelmed us--if you got the State on your side, as in
+France at the Revolution--you would still have done nothing toward your
+end--nothing whatever! We refuse--we shall always refuse--to be unequally
+yoked with those who deny the fundamental truths of the Faith!"
+
+"My lord, you are so yoked at the present moment," said Meynell
+firmly--the colour had flashed back into his cheeks--"it is the
+foundation of our case that half the educated men and women we gather
+into our churches to-day are--in our belief--Modernists already. Question
+them!--they are with us--not with you. That is to say, they have tacitly
+shaken off the old forms--the Creeds and formularies that bind the
+visible, the legal, church. They do not even think much about them.
+Forgive me if I speak plainly! They are not grieving about the old. Their
+soul--those of them, I mean that have the gift of religion--is
+travailing--dumbly travailing--with the new. Slowly, irresistibly, they
+are evolving for themselves new forms, new creeds, whether they know it
+or not. You--the traditional party--you, the bishops and the orthodox
+majority--can help them, or hinder them. If you deny them organized
+expression and outlet, you prolong the dull friction between them and the
+current Christianity. You waste where you might gather--you quench where
+you might kindle. But there they are--in the same church with you--and
+you 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 his
+own master let each man stand or fall. But you ask us--_us_, the
+appointed guardians of the Faith--the _ecclesia docens_--the historic
+episcopate--to deny and betray the Faith! You ask us to assent formally
+to the effacing of all difference between Faith and Unfaith--you bid us
+tell the world publicly that belief matters nothing--that a man may deny
+all the Divine Facts of Redemption, and still be as good a Christian as
+any one else. History alone might tell you--and I am speaking for the
+moment as a student to a student--that the thing is inconceivable!"
+
+"Unless--_solvitur vivendo_!" said Meynell in a low voice. "What great
+change in the religious life of men has not seemed inconceivable--till it
+happened? Think of the great change that brought this English Church into
+being! Within a couple of generations men had to learn to be baptized,
+and married, and buried, with rites unknown to their fathers--to stand
+alone and cut off from the great whole of Christendom--to which they
+had once belonged--to see the Mass, the cult of Our Lady and the Saints,
+disappear from their lives. What change that any Modernist proposes could
+equal that? But England lived through it!--England emerged!--she
+recovered her equilibrium. Looking back upon it all now, we see--you and
+I agree there--that it was worth while--that the energizing, revealing
+power behind the world was in the confusion and the dislocation; and that
+England gained more than she lost when she made for herself an English
+and a national Church in these islands, out of the shattered débris of
+the Roman System."
+
+He bent forward, and looked intently into the Bishop's face. "What if
+another hour of travail be upon us? And is any birth possible without
+pain?"
+
+"Don't let us argue the Reformation!" said the Bishop, with a new
+sharpness of note. "We should be here all night. But let me at least
+point out to you that the Church kept her Creeds!--the Succession!--the
+four great Councils!--the unbroken unity of essential dogma. But you"--he
+turned with renewed passion on his companion--"what have you done with
+the Creeds? Every word in them steeped in the heart's blood of
+generations!--and you put them aside as a kind of theological
+bric-ŕ-brac that concerns us no more. Meynell!--you have no conception of
+the forces that this movement of yours, if you persist in it, will
+unchain against you! You are like children playing with the lightning!"
+
+Denunciation and warning sat with a curious majesty on the little Bishop
+as he launched these words. It was with a visible effort that Meynell
+braced 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 that
+makes the novelty of the situation. Till now there has never been
+equality enough for war. The heretic has been an excrescence to be cut
+away. Now you will have to make some terms with him! For the ideas behind
+him have invaded your inmost life. They are all about you and around
+you--and when you go out to fight him, you will discover that you are
+half on his side!"
+
+"If that means," said the Bishop impatiently, "that the Church is
+accessible to new ideas--that she is now, as she has always been, a
+learned Church--the Church of Westcott and Lightfoot, of a host of
+younger scholars who are as well acquainted with the ideas and
+contentions of Modernism--as you call it--as any Modernist in Europe--and
+are still the faithful servants and guardians of Christian dogma--why,
+then, you say what is true! We perfectly understand your positions--and
+we reject them."
+
+Through Meynell's expression there passed a gleam--slight and gentle--of
+something like triumph.
+
+"Forgive me!--but I think you have given me my point. Let me recall to
+you the French sayings--'Comprendre, c'est pardonner--Comprendre, c'est
+aimer.' 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--it
+is for that very reason that we regard the field as half won, before the
+battle is even joined."
+
+The Bishop gazed upon him with a thin, dropping lip--an expression of
+suffering in the clear blue eyes.
+
+"That Christians"--he said under his breath--"should divide the forces of
+Christ--with the sin and misery of this world devouring and defiling our
+brethren day by day!"
+
+"What if it be not 'dividing'--but doubling--the forces of Christ!" said
+Meynell, with pale resolution. "All that we ask is the Church should
+recognize existing facts--that organization should shape itself to
+reality. In our eyes, Christendom is divided to-day--or is rapidly
+dividing itself--into two wholly new camps. The division between Catholic
+and Protestant is no longer the supreme division; for the force that is
+rising affects both Protestant and Catholic equally. Each of the new
+divisions has a philosophy and a criticism of its own; each of them has
+an immense hold on human life, though Modernism is only now slowly
+realizing and putting out its power. Two camps!--two systems of
+thought!--both of them _Christian_ thought. Yet one of them, one only,
+_is in possession_ of the churches, the forms, the institutions; the
+other is everywhere knocking at the gates. 'Give us our portion!'--we
+say--'in Christ's name.' But _only our portion!_ We do not dream of
+dispossessing the old--it is the last thing, even, that we desire. But
+for the sake of souls now wandering and desolate, we ask to live side by
+side with the old--in brotherly peace, in equal right--sharing what the
+past has bequeathed! Yes, even the loaves and fishes!--they ought to be
+justly divided out like the rest. But, above all, the powers, the
+opportunities, the trials, the labours of the Christian Church!"
+
+"In other words, so far as the English Church is concerned, you propose
+to reduce us within our own borders to a peddling confusion of sects,
+held together by the mere physical link of our buildings and our
+endowments!" said the Bishop, as he straightened himself in his chair.
+
+He spoke with a stern and contemptuous force which transformed the small
+body and sensitive face. In the old room, the library of the Palace, with
+its rows of calf-bound folios, and its vaulted fifteenth century roof, he
+sat as the embodiment of ancient, inherited things, his gentleness lost
+in that collective, that corporate, pride which has been at once the
+noblest 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?--is
+all well with the Church? How often have I found you here--forgive
+me!--grieving for the loss of souls--the decline of faith--the empty
+churches--the dwindling communicants--the spread of secularist
+literature--the hostility of the workmen! And yet what devotion, what
+zeal, there is in this diocese, beginning with our Bishop. Have we not
+often asked ourselves what such facts could possibly mean--why God seemed
+to have forsaken us?"
+
+"They mean luxury and selfishness--the loss of discipline at home and
+abroad," said the Bishop, with bitter emphasis. "It is hard indeed to
+turn the denial of Christ into an argument against His Gospel!"
+
+Meynell was silent. His heart was burning within him with a passionate
+sense at once of the vast need and hungry unrest so sharply dismissed by
+the Bishop, and of the efficacy of that "new teaching" for which he
+stood. But he ceased to try and convey it by argument. After a few
+moments he began in his ordinary voice to report various developments of
+the Movement in the diocese of which he believed the Bishop to be still
+ignorant.
+
+"We wish to conceal nothing from you," he said at last with emotion; "and
+consistently with the trial of strength that must come, we desire to
+lighten the burden on our Bishop as much as we possibly can. This will be
+a solemn testing of great issues--we on our side are determined to do
+nothing 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 promises
+of your ordination."
+
+"I was a boy then"--said Meynell slowly--"I am a man now. I took those
+vows sincerely, in absolute good faith; and all the changes in me have
+come about, as it seems to me, by the inbreathing of a spirit not my
+own--partly from new knowledge--partly in trying to help my people to
+live--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 certain
+rules and conditions. Now that I break them, must I not resign the
+position dependent on them? Clearly, if it were a question of any
+ordinary society. But the Christian Church is not an ordinary society! It
+is the sum of Christian life!"
+
+The Bishop raised a hand of protest, but without speaking. Meynell
+resumed:
+
+"And that Life makes the Church--moulds it afresh, from age to age. There
+are times--we hold--when the Church very nearly expresses the Life; there
+are others when there are great discordances between the Life, and its
+expression in the Church. We believe that there are such discordances now
+because--once more--of a New Learning. And we believe that to withdraw
+from the struggle to make the Church more fully represent the Life would
+be 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 the
+present--we speak out! We are inconsistent indeed with a past pledge; but
+are we any more inconsistent than the High Churchman who repudiates the
+'blasphemous fables' of the Mass when he signs the Articles, and then
+encourages adoration of the Reserved Sacrament in his church?"
+
+The Bishop made no immediate reply. He was at that moment involved in a
+struggle with an incumbent in Markborough itself who under the very
+shadow of the Cathedral had been celebrating the Assumption of the
+Blessed Virgin in flat disobedience to his diocesan. His mind wandered
+for a minute or two to this case. Then, rousing himself, he said
+abruptly, with a keen look at Meynell:
+
+"I know of course that, in your case, there can be no question of
+clinging to the money of the Church."
+
+Meynell flushed.
+
+"I had not meant to speak of it--but your lordship knows that all I
+receive from my living is given back to church purposes. I support myself
+by what I write. There are others of us who risk much more than I--who
+risk indeed their all!"
+
+"You have done a noble work for your people, Meynell." The Bishop's voice
+was 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 the
+dissenters. Mr. Barron, as you know, is the chief complainant, and there
+are 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 of
+repeating the service of last Sunday?"
+
+"Not at present. But the League will go to work at once on a revised
+service-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--breaches
+of 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 my
+request?"
+
+"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 at
+once to the Court of Arches preferring charges of heretical teaching and
+unauthorized services against yourself and two other clergy. I shall be
+represented by so-and-so." He named the lawyers.
+
+They stood, exchanging a few technical informations of this kind for a
+few 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 God
+that 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 moved
+to the window and stood looking out. Across the green of the quadrangle
+rose the noble mass of the Cathedral. His lips moved in prayer; but all
+the time it was as though he saw beside the visible structure--its
+ordered beauty, its proud and cherished antiquity--a ruined phantom of
+the great church, roofless and fissured, its sacred places open to the
+winds and rains, its pavements broken and desolate.
+
+The imagination grew upon him, and it was only with a great effort that
+he escaped from it.
+
+"My bogies are as foolish as Barbara's," he said to himself with a smile
+as he went back to the daily toil of his letters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Meynell left the Palace shaken and exhausted. He carried in his mind the
+image of his Bishop, and he walked in bitterness of soul. The quick,
+optimistic imagination which had alone made the action of these last
+weeks possible had for the moment deserted him, and he was paying the
+penalty of his temperament.
+
+He turned into the Cathedral, and knelt there some time, conscious less
+of articulate prayer than of the vague influences of the place; the warm
+gray of its shadows, the relief of its mere space and silence, the beauty
+of the creeping sunlight--gules, or, and purple--on the spreading
+pavements. And vaguely--while the Bishop's grief still, as it were,
+smarted within his own heart--there arose the sense that he was the mere
+instrument of a cause; that personal shrinking and compunction were not
+allowed him; that he was the guardian of nascent rights and claims far
+beyond anything affecting his own life. Some such conviction is essential
+to the religious leader--to the enthusiast indeed of any kind; and it was
+not withheld from Richard Meynell.
+
+When he rose and went out, he saw coming toward him a man he knew
+well--Fenton, the Vicar of a church on the outskirts of Markborough,
+famous for its "high" doctrine and services; a young boyish fellow, curly
+haired, in whom the "gayety" that Catholicism, Anglican or Roman,
+prescribes to her most devout children was as conspicuous as an ascetic
+and labourious life. Meynell loved and admired him. At a small clerical
+meeting the two men had once held an argument that had been long
+remembered--Fenton maintaining hotly the doctrine of an intermediate
+and purgatorical state after death, basing it entirely on a vision of
+Saint Perpetua recorded in the Acta of that Saint. Impossible, said the
+fair-haired, frank-eyed priest--who had been one of the best wicket-keeps
+of his day at Winchester--that so solemn a vision, granted to a martyr,
+at the moment almost of death, could be misleading. Purgatory therefore
+must be accepted and believed, even though it might not be expedient to
+proclaim it publicly from an Anglican pulpit. "Since the evening when I
+first read the Acta of SS. Perpetua and Felicitas," said the speaker,
+with an awed sincerity, "I have never doubted for myself, nor have I
+dared to hide from my penitents what is my own opinion."
+
+In reply, Meynell, instead of any general argument, had gently taken the
+very proof offered him--_i.e.,_ the vision--dissecting it, the time in
+which it arose, and the mind in which it occurred, with a historical
+knowledge and a quick and tender penetration which had presently absorbed
+the little company of listeners, till Fenton said abruptly, with a frown
+of perplexity:
+
+"In that way, one might explain anything--the Transfiguration for
+instance--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 been
+associated not long afterward in a heroic attempt to stop some dangerous
+rioting arising out of a strike in one of the larger collieries.
+
+Meynell watched the young figure of Fenton approaching through the bands
+of light and shadow in the great nave. As it came nearer, some instinct
+made him stand still, as though he became the mere spectator of what was
+about to happen. Fenton lifted his head; his eyes met Meynell's, and,
+without the smallest recognition, his gaze fixed on the pavement, he
+passed on toward the east end of the Cathedral.
+
+Meynell straightened himself for a minute's "recollection," and went his
+way. On the pavement outside the western portal he ran into another
+acquaintance--a Canon of the Cathedral--hurrying home to lunch from a
+morning's work in the Cathedral library. Canon France looked up, saw who
+it was, and Meynell, every nerve strained to its keenest, perceived the
+instant change of expression. But there was no ignoring him, though the
+Canon 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. But
+France--a man of sixty-five, with a large Buddha-like face, and a pair of
+remarkably shrewd and humorous black eyes--looked him quickly over from
+top to toe, and hurried on, throwing a "good-bye" over his shoulder. When
+he and Meynell had last met it had been to talk for a friendly hour over
+Monseigneur Duchesne's last book and its bearing on Ultramontane
+pretensions; 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 any
+secret of my opinions."
+
+All the same, as he walked on, he forced himself to acknowledge to the
+full the radical change in the situation. Acts of war suspend the normal
+order; and no combatant has any right to complain.
+
+Then a moment's weariness seized him of the whole train of thought to
+which his days and nights were now committed, and he turned with
+eagerness to look at the streets of Markborough, full of a market-day
+crowd, and of "the great mundane movement." Farmers and labourers were
+walking up and down; oxen and sheep in the temporary pens of the
+market-place were waiting for purchasers; there was a Socialist lecturer
+in one corner, and a Suffragist lady on a wagon in another. The late
+August sun shone upon the ruddy faces and broad backs of men to whom
+certainly it did not seem to be of great importance whether the
+Athanasian Creed were omitted from the devotions of Christian people or
+no. There was a great deal of chaffering going on; a little courting, and
+some cheating. Meynell recognized some of his parishioners, spoke to a
+farmer 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 the
+pits and come to "hire" himself at Markborough.
+
+It was plain to him, however, after a little, that although he might wish
+to forget himself among the crowd, the crowd was on the contrary rather
+sharply aware of the Rector of Upcote. He perceived as he moved slowly up
+the street that he was in fact a marked man. Looks followed him; and the
+men he knew greeted him with a difference.
+
+A little beyond the market-place he turned down a narrow street leading
+to the mother church of the town--an older foundation even than the
+Cathedral. Knocking at the door in the wall, he was admitted to an old
+rectory house, adjacent to the church, and in its low-ceiled dining-room
+he found six of the already famous "eighteen" assembled, among them the
+two other clergy who with himself had been singled out for the first
+testing prosecution. A joint letter was being drawn up for the press.
+
+Meynell was greeted with rejoicing--a quiet rejoicing, as of men occupied
+with grave matters, that precluded any ebullience of talk. With Meynell's
+appearance, the meeting became more formal, and it was proposed to put
+the 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 in
+days when double-firsts were everything, and in a class-list not much
+more modern than Mr. Gladstone's. He was a gentle, scholarly person,
+silent and timid in ordinary life, and his adhesion to the "eighteen" had
+been an astonishment to friends and foes. But he was not to be inveigled
+into 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 jurgia
+finis!_--let there be an age-limit in all things! Put Meynell in. It is
+he that has brought us all into this business."
+
+So, for some hours or more, Meynell and the six grappled with the letter
+that was to convey the challenge of the revolted congregations to the
+general public through the _Times_. It was not an easy matter, and some
+small jealousies and frictions lifted their heads that had been wholly
+lost 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 to
+lead 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 the
+recent flowing back of intellectual forces into the Church which for
+nearly half a century had abandoned her; Petitôt, Swiss by origin, small,
+black-eyed, irrepressible, with a great popularity among the hosiery
+operatives of whom his parish was mainly composed; Derrick, the
+Socialist, of humble origin and starved education, yet possessed
+Of a natural sway over men, given him by a pair of marvellous blue
+eyes, a character of transparent simplicity, a tragic honesty and the
+bitter-sweet gift of the orator; Chesham, a man who had left the army for
+the Church, had been grappling for ten years with a large parish of
+secularist artisans, and was now preaching Modernism with a Franciscan
+fervour and success; and Rollin, who owned a slashing literary style, was
+a passionate Liberal in all fields, had done excellent work in the
+clearing and cleaning of slums, with much loud and unnecessary talk by
+the way, and wrote occasionally for the _Daily Watchman_. Chesham and
+Darwen were Meynell's co-defendants in the suit brought by the Bishop.
+
+Rollin alone seemed out of place in this gathering of men, drawing tense
+breath under a new and almost unbearable responsibility. He was so in
+love with the sensational, notoriety side of the business, so eager to
+pull wires, and square editors, so frankly exultant in the "big row"
+coming on, that Meynell, with the Bishop's face still in his mind, could
+presently hardly endure him. He felt as Renan toward Gavroche. Was it
+worth while to go through so much that Rollin might cut a figure, and
+talk at large about "modern thought?"
+
+However Darwen and Waller, Derrick also, were just as determined as
+Meynell to keep down the frothy self-advertising element in the campaign
+to the minimum that human nature seems unable to do without. So that
+Rollin found himself gradually brought into line, being not a bad fellow,
+but only a common one; and he abandoned with much inward chagrin the
+project of a flaming "interview" for the _Daily Watchman_ on the
+following day.
+
+And indeed, as this handful of men settled down to the consideration of
+the agenda for a large conference to be held in Markborough the following
+week, there might have been discerned in six of them, at least, a temper
+that glorified both them and their enterprise; a temper of seriousness,
+courage, unalterable conviction, with such delicacy of feeling as befits
+men whose own brethren and familiar companions have become their foes.
+They were all pastors in the true sense, and every man of them knew that
+in a few months he would probably have lost his benefice and his
+prospects. Only Treherne was married, and only he and Rollin had private
+means.
+
+Meynell was clearly their leader. Where the hopefulness of the others was
+intermittent his was constant; his knowledge of the English situation
+generally, as well as of the lie of forces in the Markborough district,
+was greater than theirs; and his ability as a writer made him their
+natural 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 had
+so heightened in them the sense of mission, so cheered them with the
+vision of a wide response from the mind of England, that all lesser
+thoughts were sunk, and they parted in quietness and courage.
+
+Meynell left the outskirts of Markborough by the Maudeley road, meaning
+to walk to Upcote by Forkéd Pond and Maudeley Park.
+
+It was now nearly a fortnight since he had seen Mary Elsmere, and for the
+first time, almost, in these days of storm and stress could the mind make
+room for some sore brooding on the fact. He had dined at Maudeley, making
+time with infinite difficulty; Mrs. Elsmere and her daughter were not
+there. He had asked Mrs. Flaxman to tea at the Rectory, and had suggested
+that she should bring her sister and her niece. Mr. and Mrs. Flaxman
+appeared--without companions. Once or twice he had caught sight of Mary
+Elsmere's figure in the distance of Miss Puttenham's garden. Yet he had
+not ventured to intrude upon the two friends. It had seemed to him by
+then it must be her will to avoid him, and he respected it.
+
+As to other misgivings and anxieties, they were many. As Meynell entered
+the Maudeley lane, with the woods of Sandford Abbey on his left, and the
+little trout-stream flashing and looping through the water meadows on his
+right, his mind was often occupied by a conversation between himself and
+Stephen Barron which had taken place the night before. Meynell could not
+but think of it remorsefully.
+
+"And I can explain nothing--to make it easier for the poor old
+fellow--nothing! He thinks if we had allowed the engagement, it would
+all have come right--he would have got a hold upon her, and been able to
+shape 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 indeed
+she has settled her destiny for herself by then, without any reference
+to us. And Stephen shall know--what there is to know!"
+
+As to Hester herself, she seemed to have been keeping the Fox-Wilton
+household in perpetual fear. She went about in her mocking, mysterious
+way, denying that she knew anything about Sir Philip Meryon, or had any
+dealings with him. Yet it was shrewdly suspected that letters had passed
+between them, and Hester's proceedings were so quick-silverish and
+incalculable that it was impossible to keep a constant watch upon her. In
+the wilderness of Maudeley Park, which lay directly between the two
+houses, they might quite well have met--they probably had met. Meynell
+noticed and rebuked in himself a kind of settled pessimism as to Hester's
+conduct and future. "Do what you will," it seemed to say--"do all you
+can--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 private
+trust much older than it, and no less sacred. In the midst of the turmoil
+of these weeks he had been corresponding on Lady Fox-Wilton's behalf with
+a lady in Paris to whom a girl of Hester's age and kind might be safely
+committed for the perfecting of her French and music. It had been
+necessary to warn the lady that in the case of such a pensionnaire as
+Hester the male sex might give trouble; and Hester had not yet signified
+her gracious consent to go.
+
+But she would go--she must go--and either he or Alice Puttenham would
+take her over and install her. Good heavens, if one had only Edith
+Fox-Wilton to depend on in these troubles!
+
+As for Philip Meryon, he was, of course, now and always, a man of vicious
+habits and no scruples. He seemed to be staying at Sandford with the
+usual crew of flashy, disreputable people, and to allow Hester to run any
+risks with regard to him would be simply criminal. Yet with so
+inefficient a watch-dog as Lady Fox-Wilton, who could guarantee anything?
+Alice, of course, thought of nothing else than Hester, night and day. But
+it was part of the pathos of the situation that she had so little
+influence on the child's thoughts and deeds.
+
+Poor, lonely woman! In Alice's sudden friendship for Mary Elsmere, her
+junior by some twelve years, the Rector, with an infinite pity, read the
+confession of a need that had become at last intolerable. For these
+seventeen years he had never known her make an intimate friend, and to
+see her now with this charming, responsive girl was to realize what the
+long hunger for affection must have been. Yet even now, how impossible to
+satisfy it, as other women could satisfy it! What ghosts and shadows
+about the path of friendship!
+
+"A dim and perilous way," his mind went sounding back along the
+intricacies of Alice Puttenham's story. The old problems arose in
+connection with it--problems now of ethics, now of expediency. And
+interfused with them a sense of dull amazement and yet of intolerable
+repetition--in this difficulty which had risen with regard to Hester. The
+owner of Sandford--_and Hester!_ When he had first seen them together, it
+had seemed a thing so sinister that his mind had refused to take it
+seriously. A sharp word to her, a word of warning to her natural
+guardians--and surely all was mended. Philip never stayed more than three
+weeks in the old house; he would very soon be gone, and Hester's fancy
+would turn to something else.
+
+But that the passing shock should become anything more! There rose before
+Meynell's imagination a vision of the two by the river, not in the actual
+brightness of the August afternoon, but bathed, as it were, in angry
+storm-light; behind them, darkness, covering "old, unhappy, far-off
+things." From that tragical gloom it seemed as though their young figures
+had but just emerged, unnaturally clear; and yet the trailing clouds were
+already threatening the wild beauty of the girl.
+
+He blamed himself for lack of foresight. It should have been utterly
+impossible for those two to meet! Meryon generally appeared at Sandford
+three times a year, for various sporting purposes. Hester might easily
+have been sent away during these descents. But the fact was she had grown
+up so rapidly--yesterday a mischievous child, to-day a woman in her first
+bloom--that they had all been taken by surprise. Besides, who could have
+imagined any communication whatever between the Fox-Wilton household and
+the riotous party at Sandford Abbey?
+
+As to the girl herself, Meynell was always conscious of being engaged in
+some long struggle to save and protect his ward against her will. There
+were circumstances connected with Hester that should have stirred in the
+few 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 watch
+over her upbringing; he had brought her to her first communion, and tried
+hard, and quite in vain, to instil into her the wholesome mysticisms of
+the Christian faith; and the more efforts he made, the more sharply was
+he aware of the hard, egotistical core of the girl's nature, of Hester's
+fatal difference from other girls.
+
+And yet, as he thought of her with sadness and perplexity, there came
+across him the memory of Mrs. Elsmere's sudden movement toward Hester;
+how she had drawn the child to her and kissed her--she, so unearthly
+and so spiritual, whose very aspect showed her the bondswoman of Christ.
+
+The remembrance rebuked him, and he fell into fresh plans about the
+child. She must be sent away at once!--and if there were really any sign
+of entanglement he must himself go to Sandford and beard Philip in his
+den. There was knowledge in his possession that might be used to frighten
+the fellow. He thought of his cousin with loathing and contempt.
+
+But--to do him justice--Meryon knew nothing of those facts that gave such
+an intolerable significance to any contact whatever between his
+besmirched 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 had
+been for years the terror of three lives--was she alive still? Ralph
+Fox-Wilton had originally made it well worth her while to go to the
+States. That was in the days when he was prepared to pay anything. Then
+for years she had received an allowance, which, however, Meynell believed
+had stopped sometime before Sir Ralph's death. Meynell remembered that
+the stopping of it had caused some friction between Ralph and his wife.
+Lady Fox-Wilton had wished it continued. But Ralph had obstinately
+refused to pay any more. Nothing had been heard of her, apparently, for a
+long while. But she had still a son and grand-children living in Upcote
+village.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meynell opened the gate leading into the Forkéd Pond enclosure. The pond
+had been made by the damming of part of the trout stream at the point
+where it entered the Maudeley estate, and the diversion of the rest to a
+new channel. The narrow strip of land between the pond and the new
+channel made a little waterlocked kingdom of its own for the cottage,
+which had been originally a fishing hut, built in an Izaak Walton-ish
+mood by one of the owners of Maudeley. But the public footpath through
+the park ran along the farther side of the pond, and the doings of the
+inhabitants of the cottage, thick though the leafage was, could sometimes
+be observed from it.
+
+Involuntarily Meynell's footsteps lingered as the little thatched
+house became visible, its windows set wide to the sounds and scents of
+the September day. There was conveyed to him a sense of its warm
+loneliness in the summer nights, of the stars glimmering upon it through
+the trees, of the owls crying round it. And within--in one of those upper
+rooms--those soft deep eyes, at rest in sleep?--or looking out, perhaps,
+into the breathing glooms of the wood?--the sweet face propped on the
+slender hand.
+
+He felt certain that the inner life of such a personality as Mary Elsmere
+was rich and passionate. Sometimes, in these lonely hours, did she think
+of the man who had told her so much of himself on that, to him, memorable
+walk? Meynell looked back upon the intimate and autobiographical talk
+into which he had been led, with some wonder and a hot cheek. He had
+confessed himself partly to Elsmere's daughter, on a hint of sympathy, as
+to one entitled to such a confidence, so to speak, by inheritance, should
+she desire it; but still more--he owned it--to a delightful woman. It was
+the first time in Meynell's strenuous life, filled to the brim with
+intellectual and speculative effort on the one hand, and with the care
+of his parish on the other, that he had been conscious of any such
+feeling as now possessed him. In his first manhood it had been impossible
+for him to marry, because he had his brothers to educate. And when they
+were safely out in the world the Rector, absorbed in the curing of sick
+bodies and the saving of sick souls, could not dream of spending the
+money thus set free on a household for himself.
+
+He had had his temptations of the flesh, his gusts of inclination, like
+other 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 of
+sight. The sun was sinking in a golden haze, the first prophecy of
+autumnal mists. Broad lights lay here and there upon the water, to be
+lost again in depths of shadow, wherein woods of dream gave back
+the woods that stooped to them from the shore. Everything was so still he
+could hear the fish rising, the run of a squirrel along a branch, the
+passage of a coot through the water.
+
+The very profoundity of nature's peace suddenly showed him to himself. A
+man engaged in a struggle beyond his power!--committed to one of those
+tasks that rend and fever the human spirit even while they ennoble it! He
+had talked boldly to Stephen and the Bishop of "war"--"inevitable" and
+"necessary war." At the same time there was no one who would suffer from
+war more than he. The mere daily practice of Christianity, as a man's
+life-work, is a daily training in sensitiveness, involves a daily
+refining of the nerves. When a man so trained, so refined, takes up the
+public tasks of leadership and organization, in this noisy, hard-hitting
+world, his nature is set at enmity with itself. Meynell did not yet know
+whether the mystic in him would allow the fighter in him to play his
+part.
+
+If the memory of Fenton's cold, unrecognizing eyes and rigid mouth, as
+they passed each other in the silence of the Cathedral, had power to
+cause so deep a stab of pain, how was he to brace himself in the future
+to what must come?--the alienation of friend after friend, the
+condemnation 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 by
+the mind of faith! "_Thou, Thou art being and breath_!--Thine is this
+truth, which, like a living hand, bridles and commands me. Grind my life
+as corn in Thy mill!--but forsake me not! Nay, Thou wilt not, Thou canst
+not forsake me!"
+
+No hope for a man attempting such an enterprise as Meynell's but in this
+simplicity, this passion of self-surrender. Without it no adventure in
+the spiritual fight has ever touched and fired the heart of man. Meynell
+was sternly and simply aware of it.
+
+But how is this temper, this passion, kindled?
+
+The answer flashed. Everywhere the divine ultimate Power mediates itself
+through the earthly elements and forces, speaks through small, childish
+things, incarnates itself in lover, wife, or friend--flashing its mystic
+fire through the web of human relations. It seemed to Meynell, as he
+stood in the evening stillness by the pond, hidden from sight by the
+light brushwood round him, that, absorbed as he had been from his youth
+in the symbolism and passion of the religious life, as other men are
+absorbed in art or science, he had never really understood one of these
+great words by which he imagined himself to live--Love, or Endurance, or
+Sacrifice, or Joy--because he had never known the most sacred, the most
+intimate, things of human life out of which they grow.
+
+And there uprose in him a sudden yearning--a sudden flame of desire--for
+the revealing love of wife and child. As it thrilled through him, he
+seemed to be looking down into the eyes--so frank, so human--of Mary
+Elsmere.
+
+Then while he watched, lost in feeling, yet instinctively listening for
+any movement in the wood, there was a flicker of white among the trees
+opposite. A girl, book in hand, came down to the water's edge, and paused
+there a little, watching the glow of sunset on the water. Meynell
+retreated farther into the wood; but he was still able to see her.
+Presently she sat down, propping herself against a tree, and began to
+read.
+
+Her presence, the grace of her bending neck, informed the silence of the
+woods with life and charm. Meynell watched her a few moments in a trance
+of pleasure. But memory broke in upon the trance and scattered all his
+pleasure. What reasonable hope of winning the daughter of that quiet,
+indomitable woman, who, at their first meeting, had shown him with such
+icy 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's
+life the same tragic conflict, in new form, which had already rent and
+seared it, was madness. He read his dismissal in her quiet avoidance of
+him 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 same
+kind, on such a mother. Meynell bowed his head, and went slowly away. It
+was as though he left youth and all delightfulness behind him, in the
+deepening dusk of the woods.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+While Meynell was passing through the woods of Forkéd Pond a very
+different scene, vitally connected with the Rector and his fortunes, was
+passing a mile away, in a workman's cottage at Upcote Minor.
+
+Barron had spent an agitated day. After his interview with the Bishop, in
+which he was rather angrily conscious that his devotion and his zeal were
+not rewarded with as much gratitude or as complete a confidence on the
+Bishop's part as he might have claimed, he called on Canon France.
+
+To him he talked long and emphatically on the situation, on the excessive
+caution of the Bishop, who had entirely refused to inhibit any one of the
+eighteen, at present, lest there should be popular commotions; on the
+measures that he and his friends were taking, and on the strong feeling
+that he believed to be rising against the Modernists. It was evident that
+he was discontented with the Bishop, and believed himself the only
+saviour of the situation.
+
+Canon France watched him, sunk deep in his armchair, the plump fingers of
+one hand playing with certain charter rolls of the fourteenth century,
+with their seals attached, which lay in a tray beside him. He had just
+brought them over from the Cathedral Library, and was longing to be at
+work 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 his
+impatience. He prophesied a speedy end to a ridiculous movement; wondered
+what on earth would happen to some of the men, who had nothing but their
+livings, and finally said, with a humorous eye, and no malicious
+intention:
+
+"The Romanists have always an easy way of settling these things. They
+find 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. "Of
+course 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 is
+becoming a great puzzle to mankind."
+
+"Apparent goodness," said Barron hotly.
+
+The Canon smiled again. He wished--and this time more intensely--that
+Barron would go, and let him get to his charters.
+
+And in a few minutes Barron did take his departure. As he walked to the
+inn to find his carriage he pondered the problem of the virtuous
+unbeliever. A certain Bampton lecture by a well-known and learned Bishop
+recurred to him, which most frankly and drastically connected "Unbelief"
+with "Sin." Yet somehow the view was not borne out, as in the interests
+of a sound theology it should have been, by experience.
+
+After all, he reached Upcote in good time before dinner, and remembering
+that he had to inflict a well-deserved lecture on the children who had
+been caught injuring trees and stealing wood in his plantations, he
+dismissed the carriage and made his way, before going home, to the
+cottage, which stood just outside the village, on the way from Maudeley
+to the Rectory and the church.
+
+He knocked peremptorily. But no one came. He knocked again, chafing at
+the 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 going
+away, in the belief that the cottage was empty, when there was a rattling
+sound at the front door. It opened, and an old woman stood in the
+doorway.
+
+"You've made a pretty noise," she said grimly, "but there's no one in but
+me."
+
+"I am Mr. Barron," said her visitor, sharply. "And I want to see John
+Broad. My keepers have been complaining to me about his children's
+behaviour 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. He
+did not allow his tenants to take in lodgers.
+
+And the more he examined her the stranger did her aspect seem. She was
+evidently a woman of seventy or upward, and it struck him that she looked
+haggard and ill. Her grayish-white hair hung untidily about a thin, bony
+face; the eyes, hollow and wavering, infected the spectator with their
+own distress; yet the distress was so angry that it rather repelled than
+appealed. Her dress was quite out of keeping with the labourer's cottage
+in which she stood. It was a shabby blue silk, fashionably cut, and set
+off 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 mother
+alive." But as he spoke some vague recollection of Theresa's talk in the
+morning 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've
+been away this eighteen year, come October."
+
+Barron, as she spoke, was struck with her accent, and recalled her
+mention of "the cars."
+
+"Why, you've been in the States," he said.
+
+"That's it--eighteen year." Then suddenly, pressing her hand to her
+forehead, she said angrily: "I don't know what you mean. What do you come
+bothering me for? I don't know who you are--and I don't know nothing
+about 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, and
+her jewellery, above all her sudden appearance on the scene as the mother
+of a man whom he had always supposed to be alone in the world, with three
+motherless, neglected children, puzzled him.
+
+So as one accustomed to keep a sharp eye on the morals and affairs of his
+cottage tenants, he began to question her about herself. She had thrown
+herself confusedly on a chair, and sat with her head thrown back, and her
+eyes half closed--as though in pain. The replies he got from her were
+short and grudging, but he made out from them that she had married a
+second 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 no
+idea as to his own identity was not surprising, for she had left Upcote
+for the States years before his succession to the White House estate.
+But her memory in all directions was confused, and her strange talk made
+him suspect drugs. She had also, it seemed, the usual grievances of the
+unsound mind, and believed herself to be injured and assailed by persons
+to 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 just
+returned to a scene once familiar and trying, with a clouded brain, to
+recover 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 wild
+astonishment.
+
+"That's her!--that's my Miss Alice!"
+
+Barron, following her gesture, perceived through the half-open door two
+figures standing in the road on the farther side of a bit of village
+green. Meynell, who had just emerged from Maudeley Park upon the
+highroad, had met Alice Puttenham on her way to pay an evening visit to
+the Elsmeres, and had stopped to ask a question about some village
+affairs. Miss Puttenham's face was turned toward John Broad's cottage;
+the Rector had his back to it. They were absorbed in what they were
+talking 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 that
+the level light now flooding the village street shone full upon him. Mrs.
+Sabin tottered back from the door, with another stifled cry, and sank
+into her chair. Her eyes seemed to be starting out of her head. "But--but
+they 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 know
+I'm not. But they give me my money for fifteen year--and then they
+stopped giving it--three year ago. I suppose they thought I'd never be
+back 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 and
+fifty pounds--and that was to be the last, they said. So when Mr. Sabin
+died, I said I'd come over and see for myself. But I'm ill--you see--and
+John's a fool--and I must find some one as 'ull tell me what to do. If
+you're a gentleman living here"--she peered into his face--"perhaps
+you'll tell me? Lady Fox-Wilton's left comfortable, I know. Why shouldn't
+she do what's handsome? Perhaps you'll give me a word of advice, sir? But
+you mustn't tell!--not a word to anybody. Perhaps they'll be for putting
+me 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 had
+grown white.
+
+"If you want my advice you must try and tell me plainly what all this
+means," he said, sternly.
+
+She looked at him--with a mad expression flickering between doubt and
+desire.
+
+"Then you must shut the door, sir," she said at last. Yet as he moved to
+do 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 half
+perplexed, half resentful. Then she turned peremptorily to Barron.
+
+"Shut the door!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Half an hour later Barron emerged into the road, from the cottage. He
+walked like a man bewildered. All that was evil in him rejoiced; all that
+was good sorrowed. He felt that God had arisen, and scattered his
+enemies; he also felt a genuine horror and awe in the presence of
+human frailty.
+
+All night long he lay awake, pondering how to deal with the story which
+had been told him; how to clear up its confusions and implications; to
+find some firm foothold in the mad medley of the woman's talk--some
+reasonable scheme of time and place. Much of what she had told him had
+been frankly incoherent; and to press her had only made confusion worse.
+He was tolerably certain that she was suffering from some obscure brain
+trouble. The effort of talking to him had clearly exhausted her; but he
+had not been able to refrain from making her talk. At the end of the half
+hour he had advised her--in some alarm at her ghastly look--to see a
+doctor. 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 John
+Broad's mother, Mrs. Richard Sabin, who had arrived from America only
+forty-eight hours before, had died suddenly in the night. The bursting
+of an unsuspected aneurism in the brain was, according to the doctor
+called in, the cause of death.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+
+
+
+HESTER
+
+
+"Light as the flying seed-balls is their play
+The 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 Sarah
+Fox-Wilton discontentedly.
+
+"Spend twenty guineas on it, my dear, as Lady Edith did on hers, and
+it'll be all right," said a mocking voice.
+
+Sarah frowned. She went on pinning and adjusting a serge skirt in the
+making, which hung on the dummy before her. "Oh, we all know what _you_
+would like to spend on your dress, Hester!" she said angrily, but
+indistinctly, as her mouth was full of pins.
+
+"Because really nice frocks are not to be had any other way," said Hester
+coolly. "You pay for them--and you get them. But as for supposing you can
+copy Lady Edith's frocks for nothing, why, of course you can't, and you
+don'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't
+eat any more toffy!"--and she flung out a mischievous hand and captured a
+box that was lying on the table, before a girl, who was sitting near it
+with 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, till
+Hester suddenly let it go.
+
+"Take it then--and good luck to you! I wouldn't spoil my teeth and my
+complexion as you do--not for tons of sweets. Hullo!"--the speaker sprang
+up--"the rain's over, and it's quite a decent evening. I shall go out for
+a 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 you
+are not to go out alone."
+
+Hester flushed. "Do you think I can't escape you all--if I want to? Of
+course I can. What geese you are! None of you will ever prevent me from
+doing what I want to do. It really would save such a lot of time and
+trouble if you would get that into your heads."
+
+"Where do you mean to go?" said Sarah stolidly, without taking any notice
+of her remark. "Because if you'll go to the village, I can get some
+binding I want."
+
+"I have no intention whatever of going out for your convenience, thank
+you!" said Hester, laughing angrily. "I am going into the garden, and you
+can come or not as you please." She opened the French window as she spoke
+and stepped out.
+
+"Has mamma heard from that Paris woman yet?" asked Lulu, looking after
+Hester, who was now standing on the lawn playing with a terrier-puppy she
+had lately brought home as a gift from a neighbouring farmer--much to
+Lady Fox-Wilton's annoyance. Hester had an absurd way of making friends
+with 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. She
+was a heavily made girl of twenty, with sleepy eyes and a dull
+complexion. She took little exercise, was inordinately fond of sweet
+things, helped her mother a little in the housekeeping, and was
+intimately acquainted with all the gossip of the village. So was Sarah;
+but her tongue was sharper than Lulu's, and her brain quicker. She was
+therefore the unpopular sister; while for Lulu her acquaintances felt
+rather a contemptuous indulgence. Sarah had had various love affairs,
+which had come to nothing, and was regarded as "disappointed" in the
+village. Lulu was not interested in young men, and had never yet been
+observed to take any trouble to capture one. So long as she was allowed
+sufficient sixpenny novels to read, and enough sweet things to eat, she
+was good-humoured enough, and could do kind things on occasion for her
+friends. Sarah was rarely known to do kind things; but as her woman
+friends were much more afraid of her than of Lulu, she was in general
+treated with much more consideration.
+
+Still it could not be said that Lady Fox-Wilton was to be regarded as
+blessed in either of her two elder daughters. And her sons were quite
+frankly a trouble to her. The eldest, Sarah's junior by a year and a
+half, had just left Oxford suddenly and ignominiously, without a degree,
+and was for the most part loafing at home. The youngest, a boy of
+fifteen, was supposed to be delicate, and had been removed from school by
+his mother on that account. He too was at home, and a tutor who lodged in
+the village was understood to be preparing him for the Civil Service. He
+was a pettish and spiteful lad, and between him and Hester existed
+perpetual 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 earliest
+childhood. They all felt instinctively that she despised them and the
+slow, lethargic temperament which was in most of them an inheritance from
+a father cast in one of the typical moulds of British Philistinism. There
+was some insurmountable difference between her and them. In the first
+place, her beauty set her apart from the rest; and, beside her, Sarah's
+sharp profile, and round apple-red cheeks, or Lulu's clumsiness, made,
+as both girls were secretly aware, an even worse impression than they
+need have made. And in the next, there were in her strains of romantic,
+egotistic ability to which nothing in them corresponded. She could
+play, she could draw--brilliantly, spontaneously--up to a certain
+point, when neither Sarah nor Lulu could stumble through a "piece," or
+produce anything capable of giving the smallest satisfaction to their
+drawing-master. She could chatter, on occasion, so that a room full of
+people instinctively listened. And she had read voraciously, especially
+poetry, where they were content with picture-papers and the mildest of
+novels. Hester brought nothing to perfection; but there could be no
+question that in every aspect of life she was constantly making, in
+comparison with her family, a dashing or dazzling effect all the more
+striking because of the unattractive _milieu_ out of which it sprang.
+
+The presence of Lady Fox-Wilton, in particular, was needed to show these
+contrasts at their sharpest.
+
+As Hester still raced about the lawn, with the dog, that lady came round
+the corner of the house, with a shawl over her head, and beckoned to the
+girl 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, and
+arrived laughing and breathless beside the newcomer. Edith Fox-Wilton was
+a 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 blue
+eyes were still appealing, especially when she smiled. But she did not
+smile often, and she had the expression of one perpetually protesting
+against all the agencies--this-worldly or other-worldly--which had the
+control of her existence. Her weak fretfulness depressed all the
+vitalities near her; only Hester resisted.
+
+At the moment, however, her look was not so much fretful as excited. Her
+thin cheeks were much redder than usual; she constantly looked round as
+though expecting or dreading some interruption; and in a hand which shook
+she held a just opened letter.
+
+"What is the matter, mamma?" asked Hester, a sharp challenging note in
+her gay voice. "You look as though something had happened."
+
+"Nothing has happened," said Lady Fox-Wilton hastily. "And I wish you
+wouldn't romp with the puppy in that way, Hester. He's always doing some
+damage to the flowers. I'm going out, and I wished to give you a message
+from the Rector."
+
+"Is that from Uncle Richard?" said Hester, glancing carelessly at the
+letter.
+
+Lady Fox-Wilton crushed it in her hand.
+
+"I told you it was. Why do you ask unnecessary questions? The Rector has
+heard 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 possible
+recommendations. You will enjoy it very much. They can get you the best
+lessons in Paris, they say. They know everybody."
+
+"H'm--" said Hester, reflectively. Then she looked at the speaker. "Do
+you 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 do
+what 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't
+want to."
+
+"You can behave like a naughty, troublesome girl, without any proper
+feeling, of course!--if you choose," said Lady Fox-Wilton warmly. "But I
+trust you will do nothing of the kind. We are your guardians till you are
+twenty-one; and you ought to be guided by us."
+
+"Well, of course I can't be engaged to Stephen, if you say I
+mayn't--because there's Stephen to back you up. But if Queen Victoria
+could be a queen at eighteen, I don't see why _I_ shouldn't be fit at
+eighteen to manage my own wretched affairs! Anyway--I--am--not--going to
+Paris--unless I want to go. So I don't advise you to promise that lady
+just 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-Wilton
+helplessly. "I try to keep you--the Rector tries to keep you--out of
+mischief that any girl ought to be ashamed--of--and--"
+
+"What mischief?" demanded Hester peremptorily. "Don't run into
+generalities, mamma."
+
+"You know very well what mischief I mean!"
+
+"I know that you think I shall be running away some day with Sir Philip
+Meryon!" said the girl, laughing, but with a fierce gleam in her eyes. "I
+have no intention at present of doing anything of the kind. But if
+anything could make me do it, it would be the foolish way in which you
+and the others behave. I don't believe the Rector ever told you to set
+Sarah and Lulu on to dog me wherever I go!"
+
+"He told me you were not to be allowed to meet that man. You won't
+promise me not to meet him--and what can we do? You know what the Rector
+feels. You know that he spent an hour yesterday arguing and pleading with
+you, when he had been up most of the night preparing papers for this
+commission. What's the matter with you, Hester? Are you quite in your
+right senses?"
+
+The girl had clasped her hands behind her back, and stood with one foot
+forward, "on tiptoe for a flight," her young figure and radiant look
+expressing the hot will which possessed her. At the mention of Meynell's
+name 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. He
+does not care twopence about me, and it's mere humbug and hypocrisy all
+his pretending to care."
+
+"And your Aunt Alice--who's always worshipped you? Why, she's just
+miserable about you!"
+
+"She says exactly what you and Uncle Richard tell her to say--she always
+has! Well, I don't know about Paris, mamma--I'll think about it. If you
+and Sarah will just let me be, I'll take Roddy for a stroll, and then
+after tea I'll tell you what I'll do." And, turning, she beckoned to a
+fine collie lazily sunning himself on the drawing-room steps, and he
+sprang 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. "I
+haven't the smallest intention of meeting him. Come, Roddy!"
+
+The eyes of the two met--in those of the older woman, impatience, a kind
+of cold exasperation; in Hester's, defiance. It was a strange look to
+pass 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 Alice
+something if you were going that way."
+
+"Mamma!"
+
+Sarah suddenly emerged from the schoolroom window and ran excitedly
+across the lawn toward her mother. "Have you heard this extraordinary
+story 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 have
+seen that her bright colour precipitately left her.
+
+"Why, what harm was it?" cried Sarah, wondering. "He told me, because it
+seems Mrs. Sabin used to be a servant of ours long ago. Do you remember
+her, 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 off
+some 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 thought
+she was dead. He hadn't heard of her for four years. But she turned
+up on Tuesday--the queerest old woman! She sat there boasting and
+chattering--in a silk dress with gold bracelets!--they thought she was
+going to make all their fortunes. But she must just have been off her
+head, for she died last night in her sleep, and there were only a few
+shillings on her--not enough to bury her. There's to be an inquest this
+evening, they say."
+
+"Don't spend all your time chattering in the village, Sarah," said Lady
+Fox-Wilton severely, as, still with her back toward the girls, she moved
+away in the direction of the drive. "You'll never get your dress done if
+you 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 the
+family. So that she at once resented the remark.
+
+"If she's worrying about anything, she's worrying about you," said Sarah
+tartly, as she went back to the house. "We all know that."
+
+Hester, with her dog beside her, went strolling leisurely through the
+village street, past Miss Puttenham's cottage on the one hand and the
+Rectory gates on the other, making for a footpath that led from the back
+of the village, through fields and woods, on to the Chase.
+
+As she passed beneath the limes that overhung Miss Puttenham's railings
+she perceived some distant figures in the garden. Uncle Richard, with
+mamma and Aunt Alice on either side of him. They were walking up and down
+in close conversation; or, rather, Uncle Richard seemed to be talking
+earnestly, addressing now one lady, now the other.
+
+What a confabulation! No doubt all about her own crimes and
+misdemeanours. 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 into
+the footpath and began to mount toward the borders of the Chase. It was a
+brilliant September afternoon, and the new grass in the shorn hayfields
+was vividly green. In front rose the purple hills of the Chase, while
+to the left, on the far borders of the village, the wheels and chimneys
+of two collieries stood black against a blaze of sun. But the sharp
+emphasis of light and colour, which in general would have set her own
+spirits racing, was for a while lost on Hester. As soon as she was out
+of sight of the village, or any passers-by, her aspect changed. Once or
+twice she caught her breath in what was very like a sob; and there were
+moments when she could only save herself from the disgrace of tears by a
+wild burst of racing with Roddy. It was evident that her brush with Lady
+Fox-Wilton had not left her as callous as she seemed.
+
+Presently the path forsook the open fields and entered a plantation of
+dark and closely woven trees where the track was almost lost in the
+magnificence of the bracken. Beyond this, a short climb of broken slopes,
+and Hester was out on the bare heath, with the moorland wind blowing
+about her.
+
+She sat down on a bank beneath a birch tree, twisted and tortured out of
+shape by the northwesterly gales that swept the heath in winter. All
+round her a pink and purple wilderness, with oases of vivid green and
+swaying grass. Nothing in sight but a keeper's hut, and some grouse butts
+far away; an ugly red building on the horizon, in the very middle of the
+heath, the Markborough isolation hospital; and round the edge of the vast
+undulating plateau in all directions the faint smoke of the colliery
+chimneys. But the colour of the heath was the marvel. The world seemed
+stained in crimson, and in every shade and combination of it. Close at
+hand the reds and pinks were diapered with green and gold as the
+bilberries and the grasses ran in and out of the heather; but on every
+side the crimson spread and billowed to the horizon, covering the hollows
+and hills of the Chase, absorbing all lesser tones into itself. After the
+rain of the morning, the contours of the heath, the distances of the
+plain, were unnaturally clear; and as the sunshine, the high air, the
+freshly moving wind, played upon Hester, her irritation passed away in a
+sensuous delight.
+
+"Why should I let them worry me? I won't! I am here! I am alive! I am
+only eighteen! I am going to manage my life for myself--and get out of
+this 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-heather
+intergrown with bunchberries. And while a whole vague series of thoughts
+and memories passed through her mind she was still vividly conscious of
+the pink bells, the small bright leaves. Sensation in her was
+exceptionally keen, whether for pleasure or pain. She knew it and had
+often coolly asked herself whether it meant that she would wear out--life
+and brain--quicker than other people--burn faster to the socket. So much
+the better if it did.
+
+What was it she really wanted?--what did she mean to do? Proudly, she
+refused 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 did
+not melt her. She knew very well that she had nothing to blame her
+guardian for; that year after year from her childhood up she had repelled
+and resisted him, that her whole relation to him had been one of
+stubbornness and caprice. Well, there were reasons for it; she was not
+going to repent or change.
+
+Of late his conduct with regard to Stephen's proposal had stirred in her
+a kind of rage. It was not that she imagined herself in love with
+Stephen; but she had chosen to be engaged to him; and that any one should
+affect to control her in such a matter, should definitely and decidedly
+cross her will, was intolerable to her wild pride. If Stephen had
+rebelled with her, she might have fallen fiercely in love with him--for a
+month. But he had submitted--though it was tolerably plain what it had
+cost him; and all her careless liking for him, the fruit of years of very
+poorly requited devotion on his part, seemed to have disappeared in a
+night.
+
+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. She
+recalled her interview with Meynell, in which the Rector had roused in
+her a new and deeper antagonism than any she had yet felt toward his
+efforts to control her. It was as though he did not altogether believe in
+his own arguments; as though there were something behind which she could
+not get at. But if there were something behind, she had a right to know
+it. She had a right to know the meaning of her father's extraordinary
+letter to Meynell--the letter attached to his will--in which she had been
+singled out by name as needing the special tutelage of the Rector. So far
+as the Rector's guardianship of the other children was concerned, it was
+almost a nominal thing. Another guardian had been named in the will, Lady
+Fox-Wilton's elder brother, and practically everything that concerned the
+other children was settled by him, in concert with the mother. The Rector
+never interfered, was never indeed consulted, except on purely formal
+matters of business. But for her--for her only--Uncle Richard--as she
+always called her guardian--was to be the master--the tyrant!--close at
+hand. For so Sir Ralph had laid it down, in his testamentary letter--"I
+commend Hester to your special care. And in any difficulties that may
+arise in connection with her, I beg for our old friendship's sake that
+you 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 years
+before, the story of it had got about; and the injustice, as she held, of
+her position under it had sunk deep into the girl's passionate sense, and
+made her infinitely more difficult to manage than she had been before. Of
+course everybody said it was because of her temper; because of the
+constant friction between her and her father; people believed the hateful
+things he used sometimes to say about her.
+
+Nor was it only the guardianship--there was the money too! Provision made
+for all of them by name--and nothing for her! She had made Sarah show her
+a copy of the will--she knew! Nothing indeed for any of them--the girls
+at least--till Lady Fox-Wilton's death, or till they married; but nothing
+for _her_, under any circumstances.
+
+"Well, why should there be?" Sarah had said. "You know you'll have Aunt
+Alice'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 up
+to scorn by your own father!
+
+A flood of bitterness surged in the girl's heart. And then they expected
+her 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 might
+not be engaged to Stephen--for two years at any rate; and yet if she
+amused herself with any one else she was to be packed off to Paris, to
+some house of detention or other, under lock and key.
+
+Her cheeks flamed. When had she first come across Philip Meryon? Only the
+day before that evening when Uncle Richard had found her fishing with
+him. She knew very well that he was badly spoken of; trust Upcote for
+gossip and scandal! Well, so was she!--they were outcasts together.
+Anyway, he was more amusing to walk and talk with than her sisters, or
+the dreadful young men they sometimes gathered about them. Why shouldn't
+she walk and talk with him? As if she couldn't protect herself! As if she
+didn'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-tattle
+of 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 French
+books, which she had read eagerly--at night or in the woods--wherever
+she could be alone and unobserved. Why shouldn't she read them? There was
+one among them--"Julie de Trecoeur," by Octave Feuillet, that still
+seemed running, like a great emotion, through her veins. The tragic
+leap of Julie, as she sets her horse to the cliff and thunders to her
+death, was always in Hester's mind. It was so that she herself would like
+to die, spurning submission and patience, and all the humdrum virtues.
+
+She raised herself, and the dog beside her sprang up and barked. The sun
+was just dropping below a bank of fiery cloud, and a dazzling and garish
+light lay on the red undulations of the heath. As she stood up she
+suddenly perceived the figure of a man about a hundred yards off emerging
+from a gully--a sportsman with his gun over his shoulder. He had
+apparently just parted from the group with whom he had been shooting, who
+were disappearing in another direction.
+
+Philip Meryon! Now she remembered! He and two other men had taken the
+shooting on this side of the Chase. Honestly she had forgotten it;
+honestly her impression was that he had gone to Scotland. But of course
+none of her family would ever believe it. They would insist she had
+simply come out to meet him.
+
+What was she to do? She was in a white serge dress, and with Roddy
+beside her, on that bare heath, she was an object easily recognized.
+Indeed, as she hesitated, she heard a call in the distance, and saw that
+Meryon was waving to her and quickening his pace. Instantly, with a
+leaping pulse, she turned and fled, Roddy beside her, barking his
+loudest. She ran along the rough track of the heath, as though some vague
+wild terror had been breathed into her by the local Pan. She ran fleet
+and light as air--famous as a runner from her childhood. But the man
+behind 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 path
+ran 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-set
+trees, whence the light had already departed, and lain close among the
+fern. 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 through
+the fern. "Now what do you deserve--for running away?"
+
+"A _gentleman_ would not have tried to catch me!" she said haughtily, as
+she 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 the
+vision before him--this angry wood-nymph, half-vanishing like another
+Daphne into the deep fern amid which she stood. But at the same time he
+was puzzled--and checked--by her expression. There was no mere
+provocation in it, no defiance that covers a yielding mind; but, rather,
+an energy of will, a concentrated force, that held at bay a man whose
+will was the mere register of his impulses.
+
+"You forget," said Hester coolly, "that I have Roddy with me." And as she
+spoke the dog couching at her side poked up his slender nose through the
+fern and growled. He did not like Sir Philip.
+
+Meryon looked upon her smiling--his hands on his sides. "Do you mean to
+say that when you ran you did not mean me to follow?"
+
+"On the contrary, if I ran, it was evidently because I wished to get
+away."
+
+"Then you were very ungrateful and unkind; for I have at this moment in
+my pocket a book you asked me to get for you. That's what I get for
+trying 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 I
+managed to borrow it, and there it is." He pointed triumphantly to a
+yellow-paper-bound volume sticking out of his coat pocket. "Of course you
+know George Sand is a sort of old Johnnie now; nobody reads her. But
+that's your affair. Will you have it?" He offered it.
+
+The excitement, the wild flush in the girl's face, had subsided. She
+looked at the book, and at the man holding it out.
+
+"What is it?" She stooped to read the title--"Mauprat." "What's it
+about?"
+
+"Some nonsense about a cad tamed by a sentimental young woman." He
+shrugged his shoulders, "I tried to read it, and couldn't. But they say
+it's one of her best. If you want it, there it is."
+
+She took it reluctantly, and moved on along the downward path, he
+following, 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 shall
+get some more by that man."
+
+"Well, you'd better be careful!" He laughed. "I've got some others, but I
+didn't want to recommend them to you. Lady Fox-Wilton wouldn't exactly
+approve."
+
+"I don't tell mamma what I read." The girl's young voice sounded sharply
+beside him in the warm autumnal dusk. "But if you lent me anything you
+oughtn'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 I
+ought to have lent you 'Julie de Trécoeur' if it comes to that."
+
+"Why not?" Hester turned her great, astonished eyes upon him. "One might
+as 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 in
+Scotland?"
+
+"Because I had to go to London instead. Beastly nuisance! But there was
+some 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 a
+trace in her manner of timidity or tremor. In spite of her flight from
+him he could not flatter himself that he had made any impression on her
+nerves. Whereas her beauty and her provocative way were beginning to tell
+deeply on his own.
+
+"Well, I daresay!" His laugh was as frank as her question. "I'm generally
+in 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 had
+had to write another, that would have been work; and I should probably
+have loathed it."
+
+"That I don't believe," she said, shaking her head. "One can always do
+what succeeds. It's like pouring petrol into the motor."
+
+"So you think I'm only idle because I'm a failure?" he asked her, his
+tone 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 why
+you allow yourself these _franchises_!"
+
+"Because I am interested in you--rather. Why won't the neighbourhood call
+on you--why do you have disreputable people to stay with you? It is all
+so foolish!" she said, with childish and yet passionate emphasis. "You
+needn't do it!"
+
+Meryon had turned rather white.
+
+"When you grow a little older," he said severely, "you will know better
+than to believe all the gossip you hear. I choose the friends that suit
+me--and the life too. My friends are mostly artists and actors--they are
+quite content to be excluded from Upcote society--so am I. I don't gather
+you 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 amiable
+cousin--allows himself to make all kinds of impertinent statements about
+me. Well, you'll understand some day that there's no such bad judge of
+men as a clergyman. When he's not ignorant he's prejudiced--and when he's
+not 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 he
+should be cousins!"
+
+"Well, we do happen to be cousins. And I've no doubt that you would
+like me to resemble him. Unfortunately I can't accommodate you. If I
+am to take a relation for a model, I prefer a very different sort of
+person--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, Hester
+carelessly turned her head to look at a squirrel that had run across the
+glade 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 a
+Frenchman--that's a superb thing. He was the best fencer in England--and
+one of the best shots. He had a beautiful voice--he could write--he could
+do anything he pleased. Of course he got into scrapes--such men do--and
+if Richard ever talked to you about him, of course he'd crab him. All the
+same, if one must be like one's relations--which is, of course, quite
+unnecessary--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 a
+certain Ralph Flood, my grandfather, an old hunting squire, a regular bad
+lot! Oh! I can tell you the family history doesn't give me much chance!
+He came from Lincolnshire originally, having made the county there too
+hot to hold him, and bought the Abbey, which he meant to restore and
+never did. He worried his wife into her grave, and she left him three
+children: Neville, who succeeded his father; and two daughters--Meynell's
+mother, who was a good deal older than Neville and married Colonel
+Meynell, as he was then; and my mother, who was much the youngest, and
+died three years ago. She was Neville's favourite sister, and as he knew
+Richard didn't want the Abbey, he left it to me. A precious white
+elephant--not worth a fiver to anybody. I was only thirteen when Neville
+was drowned--"
+
+"Drowned?"
+
+Meryon explained that Neville Flood had lost his life in a storm on an
+Irish lough; a queer business, which no one had ever quite got to the
+bottom of. Many people had talked of suicide. There was no doubt he was
+in very low spirits just before it happened. He was unhappily married,
+mainly through his own fault. His wife could certainly have got a divorce
+from him if she had applied for it. But very soon after she separated
+from Flood she became a Catholic, and nothing would induce her to divorce
+him. And against her there was never a breath. It was said of course that
+he was in love with some one else, and broken-hearted that his wife
+refused to lend herself to a divorce. But nobody knew anything.
+
+"And, by Jove, I wonder why I'm telling you all these shady tales. You
+oughtn'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 see
+that picture."
+
+"What--of my Uncle Neville?"
+
+Meryon eyed her curiously, as they strolled on through the arched green
+of the woodland. Every now and then there were openings through which
+poured a fiery sun, illuminating Hester's face and form.
+
+"Do you know"--he said at last--"there is an uncommonly queer likeness
+between 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 Uncle
+Richard--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 Neville
+was a deal handsomer than old Richard. However, nobody can account for
+likenesses. If you come to think of it, we are all descended from a small
+number of people. But it has often struck me--" He looked at her again
+attentively. "The setting of the ear--and the upper lip--and the shape
+of the brow--I shall bring you a photograph of the picture."
+
+"What does it matter!" said Hester impatiently. "Besides, I am going away
+directly--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'm
+such an idle dog. I'm nothing of the sort. I've nearly finished a whole
+new play. Only--well, I couldn't talk to you about it--it's not a play
+for _jeunes filles_. But after all I might read you a few scenes. That
+wouldn't do any harm. You're so deuced clever!--your opinion would be
+worth having. I can tell you the managers are all after it! I'm getting
+letters by every post asking for parts. What do you say? Can you meet
+me somewhere? I'll choose some of the best bits. Just name your time!"
+
+Her face had kindled, answering to the vivacity--the peremptoriness--in
+his. 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, wild
+thing!"
+
+"Take care!" Hester sprang away from him as he put out an incautious
+hand. "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 new
+stimulus through jaded nerves. Had he met her in London on equal terms
+with other men he knew instinctively that he would have had but small
+chance with her. It was the circumstances of this quiet country place,
+where young men of Hester's class were the rarest of apparitions, and
+where Philip, flying from his creditors and playing the part of a needy
+Don Juan amid the picturesque dilapidations of the Abbey, was gravelled
+day after day for lack of occupation--it was these surroundings that had
+made the flirtation possible. Well, she was a handsome daredevil little
+minx. It amused him to make love to her, and in spite of his parsonical
+cousin, he should continue to do so. And that the proceeding annoyed
+Richard Meynell made it not less, but more, enticing. Parsons, cousins or
+no, 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 took
+no notice of any one till, just as she was nearing the Cowroast, she saw
+groups 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 an
+evident 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 for
+once she had been out by herself without a keeper. He took no notice of
+her tone, and walked on beside her, his eyes on the ground. Presently she
+wondered whether he had heard her reply at all, he was so evidently
+thinking of something else. In her turn she began to ask questions.
+
+"What's happening in the village? Why are those people coming out of the
+Cowroast?"
+
+"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 her
+head?"
+
+"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, Uncle
+Richard--good night! You go too slow for me."
+
+She walked away with a defiant air, intended to show him that he was in
+her black books. He stood a moment looking after her, compunction and sad
+affection in his kind eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Meanwhile, for Catharine Elsmere and Mary these days of early autumn were
+passing in a profound external quiet which bore but small relation to the
+mental 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. She
+set no limit to her own calls, or to her readiness to be called upon. The
+Flaxman dinner and tennis parties were soon an institution in the
+neighbourhood; and the distinguished persons who gathered at Maudeley for
+the Flaxman week-ends shed a reflected lustre on Upcote itself. But Rose
+Flaxman stoutly protected her widowed sister. Mrs. Elsmere was delicate
+and in need of rest; she was not to be expected to take part in any
+social 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 brought
+steadily closer to her by the mere passage of life. Rose was an artist
+and an optimist. In her youth she had been an eager and exquisite
+musician; in her middle life she was a loving and a happy woman, though
+she too had known a tragic moment in her first youth. Catharine, her
+elder by some years, still maintained, beneath an exquisite refinement,
+the strong north-country characteristics of the Westmoreland family to
+which the sisters belonged. Her father had been an Evangelical scholar
+and 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 married
+life beside a nature so plastic and sensitive as Elsmere's, and of her
+passionate love for her husband, it was the early influences on her
+character 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 a
+slender connection that no one misunderstood with the New Brotherhood,
+the slow effect of his withdrawal from her life made itself inevitably
+felt. She stiffened and narrowed intellectually; while for all sinners
+and sufferers, within the lines of sympathy she gradually traced out
+for herself, she would have willingly given her body to be burned, so
+strong was the Franciscan thirst in her for the self-effacement and
+self-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 extent
+balanced the claims of what many might have thought a devastating and
+depersonalizing charity. Catharine was a tender though an austere mother;
+she became and deserved to become the idol of her daughter. But as Mary
+grew up she was drawn inevitably into her mother's activities; and
+Catharine, in the blindness of her ascetic faith, might have injured the
+whole spring of the girl's youth by the tremendous strain thus put upon
+it by affection on the one hand and pity on the other.
+
+Mercifully, perhaps, for them both, Catharine's nerve and strength
+suddenly gave way; and with them that abnormal exaltation and clearness
+of spiritual vision which had carried her through many sorrowing years.
+She entered upon a barren and darkened path; the Christian joy deserted
+her, and there were hours and days when little more than the Christian
+terrors remained. It was her perception of this which roused such a
+tender and desperate pity in Mary. Her mother's state fell short indeed
+of religious melancholy; but for a time it came within sight of it.
+Catharine dreaded to be found herself a castaway; and the memory of
+Robert's denials of the faith--magnified by her mental state, like trees
+in mist--had now become an ever-haunting misery which tortured her
+unspeakably. Her mind was possessed by the parables of judgment--the
+dividing of the sheep from the goats, the shutting of the door of
+salvation on those who had refused the heavenly offers, and by all those
+sayings of the early Church that make "faith" the only passport to
+eternal safety.
+
+Her saner mind struggled in vain against what was partly a physical
+penalty for defied physical law. And Mary also, her devoted companion,
+whose life depended hour by hour on the aspects and changes of her
+mother, must needs be drawn within the shadow of Catharine's dumb and
+phantom-ridden pain. The pain itself was dumb, because it concerned the
+deepest feelings of a sternly reserved woman. But mingled with the pain
+were other matters--resentments, antagonisms--the expression of which
+often half consciously relieved it. She rose in rebellion against those
+sceptical and deadly forces of the modern world which had swept her
+beloved from the narrow way. She fled them for herself; she feared them
+for Mary, in whom she had very early divined the working of Robert's
+aptitudes and powers.
+
+And now--by ill-fortune--a tired and suffering woman had no sooner found
+refuge and rest in the solitude of Forkéd Pond than, thanks partly to the
+Flaxmans' new friendship for Upcote's revolutionary parson, and partly to
+all the public signs, not to be escaped, of the commotion brewing in the
+diocese, and in England generally, the same agitations, the same troubles
+which had destroyed her happiness and peace of mind in the past, came
+clattering 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 of
+the Bishop; the characters and motives of his opponents; the chances of
+the struggle--and the points on which it turned; even in the little
+solitary house between the waters Catharine could not escape them. The
+Bishop, too, was an old friend; before his promotion he had been the
+incumbent of a London parish in which Catharine had worked. She was no
+sooner settled at Forkéd Pond than he came to see her; and what more
+natural than he should speak of the anxieties weighing upon him to one so
+able to feel for them?
+
+Then!--the first involuntary signs of Mary's interest in, Mary's sympathy
+with, the offender! In Catharine's mind a thousand latent terrors sprang
+at once to life. For a time--some weeks--she had succeeded in checking
+all developments. Invitations were refused; meetings were avoided. But
+gradually the situation changed. Points of contact began inevitably to
+multiply between Mary and the disturber of Christ's peace in Upcote.
+Mary's growing friendship for Alice Puttenham, her chance encounters with
+Meynell there, or in the village, or in the Flaxmans' drawing-room, were
+all distasteful and unwelcome to Catharine Elsmere. At least her Robert
+had sacrificed himself--had done the honest and honourable thing. But
+this man--wounding the Church from within--using the opportunities of the
+Church for the destruction of the Church--who would make excuses for such
+a combatant?
+
+And the more keenly she became aware of the widening gulf between her
+thoughts and Mary's--of Mary's involuntary, instinctive sympathy with the
+enemy--the greater was her alarm.
+
+For the first time in all her strenuous, self-devoted life she would
+sometimes make much of her physical weakness in these summer days, so as
+to keep Mary with her, to prevent her from becoming more closely
+acquainted with Meynell and Meynell's ideas. And in fact this new anxiety
+interfered with her recovery; she had only to let herself be ill, and ill
+most genuinely she was.
+
+Mary understood it all, and submitted. Her mother's fears were indeed
+amply justified! Mary's secret mind was becoming absorbed, from a
+distance, in Meynell's campaign; Meynell's personality, through all
+hindrance and difficulty--nay, perhaps, because of them--was gradually
+seizing upon and mastering her own; and processes of thought that, so
+long as she and her mother were, so to speak, alone in the world
+together, were still immature and potential, grew apace. The woods and
+glades of Maudeley, the village street, the field paths, began to be for
+her places of magic, whence at any moment might spring flowers of joy
+known to her alone. To see him pass at a distance, to come across him in
+a miner's cottage, or in Miss Puttenham's drawing-room--these rare
+occasions were to her the events of the summer weeks. Nevertheless, when
+September arrived, she had long since forbidden herself to hope for
+anything more.
+
+Meanwhile, Rose Flaxman was the only person who ever ventured to feel and
+show the irritation of the natural woman toward her sister's
+idiosyncrasies.
+
+"Do for heaven's sake stop her reading these books!" she said impatiently
+one evening to Mary, when she had taken leave of Catharine, and her niece
+was strolling back with her toward Maudeley.
+
+"What books?"
+
+"Why, lives of bishops and deans and that kind of thing! I never come but
+I find a pile of them beside her. It should be made absolutely illegal to
+write the life of a clergyman! My dear, your mother would be well in a
+week 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 the
+postman just now while I was with her, and I looked at the book she had
+been reading with her mark in it. I should like to have thrown it into
+the pond! Some tiresome canon or other writing to a friend about Eternal
+Punishment. What does he know about it? I should like to ask! I declare I
+hope he may know something more about it some day! There was your mother
+as white as her ruffles, with dark lines under her eyes. I tell you
+clerical intimidation should be made a punishable offence. It's just as
+bad as any other!"
+
+Mary let her run on. She moved silently along the grassy path, her pretty
+head bent, her hands clasped behind her. And presently her aunt resumed:
+"And the strange thing is, my dear, saving your presence--that your
+beloved mother is quite lax in some directions, while she is so strict in
+others. I never can make her pay the smallest attention to the things I
+tell her about Philip Meryon, for instance, that Hugh tells me. 'Poor
+fellow!' she always calls him, as though his abominable ways were like
+the measles--something you couldn't help. And as for that wild minx
+Hester!--she has positively taken a fancy to her. It reminds me of what
+an old priest said to me once in Rome--'Sins, madame!--the only sins that
+matter are those of the intellect!' There!--send me off--before I say any
+more _inconvenances_!"
+
+Mary waved farewell to her vivacious aunt, and walked slowly back to the
+cottage. She was conscious of inner smart and pain; conscious also for
+the first time of a critical mind toward the mother whose will had been
+the 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 last
+aloud--with an impetuous energy; and then, with a swift return upon
+herself--"Mother, _darling_!--mother, who has no one in the world--but
+me!"
+
+As the words escaped her, she came in sight of the cottage, and saw that
+her mother was sitting in her usual place beside the water. Catharine's
+hands were resting on a newspaper they had evidently just put down, and
+she was gazing absently across the lights and shadows, the limpid blues
+and 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 her
+mother's knee was the _Church Guardian_, in which a lively correspondence
+on the subject of Meynell and the Modernist Movement generally was at the
+moment proceeding.
+
+"Yes, I have been reading," said Catharine slowly--"and I have been very
+sad."
+
+"Then I wish you wouldn't read!" cried Mary, kissing her hand. "I should
+like to burn all the newspapers!"
+
+"What good would that do?" said Catharine, trying to smile. "I have been
+reading Bishop Craye's letter to the _Guardian_. Poor Bishop!--what a
+cruel, 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 her
+daughter's.
+
+There was silence for a little, broken by Catharine, speaking with the
+same quiet vehemence:
+
+"I cannot understand how you, Mary, or any one else can defend what this
+man--Mr. Meynell--is doing. If he cannot agree with the Church, let him
+leave 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 and
+opportunities--with everything they want. They are not asked to give
+anything up--nobody thinks of interfering with them--they have all the
+old dear things, the faiths and the practices they love--and that help
+_them_. They are only asked to tolerate other people who want different
+things. Mr. Meynell stands--I suppose--for the people--who are starved,
+whose souls wither, or die, for lack of the only food that could nourish
+them."
+
+"'I am the bread of life,'" said Catharine with an energy that shook her
+slight frame. "The Church has no other food to give. Let those who refuse
+it go outside. There are other bodies, and other means."
+
+"But, mother, this is the _National_ Church!" pleaded Mary, after a
+moment. "The Modernists too say--don't they?--that Christ--or what
+Christ stands for--is the bread of life. Only they understand the
+words--differently from you. And if"--she came closer to her mother, and
+putting her hands on Catharine's knees, she looked up into the elder
+woman's face--"if there were only a few here and there, they could of
+course do nothing; they could only suffer, and be silent. But there are
+so many of them--so many! What is the 'Church' but the living souls that
+make it up? And now thousands of these living souls want to change things
+in the Church. Their consciences are hurt--they can't believe what they
+once believed. What is the justice of driving them out--or leaving them
+starved--forever? They were born in the Church; baptized in the Church!
+They love the old ways, the old buildings, the old traditions. 'Comfort
+our consciences!' they say; 'we will never tyrannize over yours. Give us
+the teaching and the expression we want; you will always have what you
+want! Make room for us--beside you. If your own faith is strong it will
+only be the stronger because you let ours speak and live--because you
+give us our bare rights, as free spirits, in this Church that belongs to
+the whole English people.' Dear mother, you are so just always--so
+loving--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 answered
+slowly.
+
+Mary turned away, shading her eyes with her hand.
+
+"Yes," she said, with shrinking; "at least I know it is what he would
+say."
+
+"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's
+neck.
+
+"I will never hurt you, my beloved! you know I won't."
+
+The two gazed into each other's eyes, questions and answers, unspoken yet
+understood, passing between them. Then Catharine disengaged herself,
+rose, and went away.
+
+During the night that followed Mary slept little. She was engaged in
+trying to loosen and tear away those tendrils of the heart that had begun
+to climb and spread more than she knew. Toward the early dawn it seemed
+to her she heard slight sounds in her mother's room. But immediately
+afterward she fell asleep.
+
+The next day, Mary could not tell what had happened; but it was as
+though, in some inexplicable way, doors had been opened and weights
+lifted; as though fresh winds had been set blowing through the House of
+Life. Her mother seemed shaken and frail; Mary hovered about her with
+ministering tenderness. There were words begun and left unfinished,
+movements and looks that strangely thrilled and bewildered the younger
+woman. She had no key to them; but they seemed to speak of change--of
+something in her mother that had been beaten down, and was still faintly,
+pitifully striving. But she dared say nothing. They read, and wrote
+letters, and strolled as usual; till in the evening, while Mary was
+sitting 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 the
+Reformers' 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 tears
+sprang to her eyes. "I want to go nowhere--to do nothing--that gives you
+pain!"
+
+"I know that," said Catharine quietly. "But I--I should like to
+understand him."
+
+And with a light touch of her hand on Mary's red-gold hair, she went back
+into the house. Mary wandered away by herself into the depths of the
+woods, weeping, she scarcely knew why. But some sure instinct, lost in
+wonder as she was, bade her ask her mother no questions; to let time
+show.
+
+The day of the League meeting came. It happened also to be the date on
+which the Commission of Inquiry into the alleged heresies and
+irregularities of the Rector of Upcote was holding its final meeting at
+Markborough.
+
+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 great
+monastery formerly connected with it had disappeared, except for the
+Library and a vaulted room below it which now made a passageway from the
+Deanery to the north transept.
+
+The Library offered a worthy setting for high themes. The walls were, of
+course, wreathed in the pale golds and dignified browns of old books. A
+light gallery ran round three sides of the room, while a large
+perpendicular window at the farther end contained the armorial bearings
+of various benefactors of the see. Beneath the window was a bookcase
+containing several chained books--a Vulgate, a Saint Augustine, the
+_Summa_ of St. Thomas; precious possessions, and famous in the annals of
+early printing. And wherever there was a space of wall left free,
+pictures or engravings of former bishops and dignitaries connected with
+the Cathedral enforced the message and meaning of the room.
+
+A seemly, even beautiful place--pleasantly scented with old leather, and
+filled on this September afternoon with the sunshine which, on the Chase,
+was at the same moment kindling the heather into a blood-red
+magnificence. Here the light slipped in gently, subdued to the quiet note
+and standard of the old Library.
+
+The Dean was in the Chair. He was a man of seventy who had only just
+become an old man, submitting with difficulty, even with resentment, to
+the weight of his years. He wore a green shade over his eyes, beneath
+which his long sharp nose and pointed chin--in the practical absence of
+the eyes--showed with peculiar emphasis. He was of heavy build, and
+suffered from chronic hoarseness. In his youth he had been a Broad
+churchman and a Liberal, and had then passed, through stages mysterious
+to his oldest friends, into an actively dogmatic and ecclesiastical
+phase. 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 high
+orthodoxy in the Chapter, and an advocate of disestablishment as the only
+means of restoring "Catholic liberty" to the Church.
+
+The Dean's enemies, of whom he had not a few, brought various charges
+against him. It was said that he was a worldling with an undue leaning to
+notabilities. And indeed in every gathering, social or ecclesiastical,
+the track of the Dean's conversation sufficiently indicated the relative
+importance of the persons present. Others declared that during his long
+tenure of a country living he had left the duties of it mainly to a
+curate, and had found it more interesting to live in London, conferring
+with Cabinet Ministers on educational reform; while the women-folk of the
+Chapter pitied his wife, whose subdued or tremulous aspect certainly
+suggested that the Dean's critical and sarcastic temper sharpened itself
+at home for conflicts abroad.
+
+On the Dean's right hand sat Canon Dornal, a man barely forty, who owed
+his canonry to the herculean work he had done for fourteen years in a
+South London parish, work that he would never have relinquished for the
+comparative ease of the Markborough precincts but for a sudden failure in
+health which had pulled him up in mid-career, and obliged him to think of
+his wife and children. He had insisted, however, on combining with his
+canonry a small living in the town, where he could still slave as he
+pleased; and his sermons in the Cathedral were generally held to be, next
+to the personality of the Bishop, all that was noblest in Markborough
+Christianity. His fine head, still instinct with the energy of youth, was
+covered with strong black hair; dark brows shadowed Cornish blue eyes,
+simple, tranquil, almost _naif_, until of a sudden there rushed into them
+the 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. He
+was a man in whom conscience was a gadfly, remorseless and tormenting. He
+was himself overstrained and his influence sometimes produced in others a
+tension on which they looked back with resentment. But he was a saint;
+open, pure, and loving as a child; yet often tempest-driven with new
+ideas, since he possessed at once the imagination that frees a man from
+tradition, and the piety which clings to it.
+
+Beside him sat a University professor, the young holder of an important
+chair, who had the face, the smile, the curly hair of a boy of twenty, or
+appeared to have them, till you came to notice the subtleties of the
+mouth and the crow's-feet which had gathered round the eyes. And the
+paradox of his aspect only repeated the paradox within. His "History and
+the Gospels," recently published, would have earned him excommunication
+under 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 who
+admired and applauded him did not read his books. It was rumoured indeed
+that there were many things in them which were unsound; but the rumour
+only gave additional zest to the speeches in which at Church Congresses
+and elsewhere he flattered clerical prejudice, and encouraged clerical
+ignorance. To him there was no more "amusing" study--using "amusing" in
+the French sense as meaning something that keeps a man intellectually
+happy and awake--than the study of the Gospels. They presented an endless
+series of riddles, and riddles were what he liked. But the scientific
+treatment of these riddles had, according to him, nothing to do with the
+discipline of the Church; and to the discipline of the Church this young
+man, with the old eyes and mouth, was rigorously attached. He was a
+bachelor and a man of means--facts which taken together with his literary
+reputation and his agreeable aspect made him welcome among women; of
+which he was well aware.
+
+The Archdeacon, Doctor Froswick, and the Rural Dean, Mr. Brathay, who
+completed the Commission of Inquiry, were both men of middle age; the
+Archdeacon, fresh-coloured and fussy, a trivial, kindly person of no
+great account; the Rural Dean, broad-shouldered and square-faced, a
+silent, trustworthy man, much beloved in a small circle.
+
+A pile of books, MSS., and letters lay to the Chairman's right hand. On
+the blotting-pad before him was the voluminous written report of the
+commission 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 he
+arrived, and conversation had become general.
+
+"You have seen the leader in the _Oracle_ this morning?" asked the
+Archdeacon, nervously biting his quill. "Perfectly monstrous, I think! I
+shall withdraw my subscription."
+
+"With the _Oracle_," said the Professor, "it will be a mere question of
+success or failure. At present they are inclined to back the rebellion."
+
+"And not much wonder!" put in the Dean's hoarse voice. "The news this
+morning is uncommonly bad. Four more men joined the League here--a whole
+series of League meetings in Yorkshire!--half the important newspapers
+gone over or neutral--and a perfectly scandalous speech from the Bishop
+of Dunchester!"
+
+"I thought we should hear of Dunchester before long," said the Professor,
+with a sarcastic lip. "Anything that annoys his brethren has his constant
+support. But if the Church allows a Socinian to be put over her, she must
+take the consequences!"
+
+"What can the Church do?" said the Dean, shrugging his shoulders. "If we
+had accepted Disestablishment years ago, Dunchester would never have been
+a 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 be
+thrown against Disestablishment. There comes the dividing line between it
+and the past. I say again, we have missed our chance. If the High
+Churchmen had known their own minds--if they had joined hands boldly with
+the Liberation society, and struck off the State fetters--we should at
+least have been left in quiet possession of what remained to us. We
+should 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 endowments
+and our churches?" said Canon Dornal.
+
+The Dean flushed.
+
+"We have been called a nation of shopkeepers," he said vehemently, "but
+nobody has ever called us a nation of thieves."
+
+The Canon was silent. Then his eye caught the bulky MS. report lying
+before the Dean, and he made a restless movement as though the sight of
+it displeased him.
+
+"The demonstrations the papers report this morning are not all on one
+side," said the Rural Dean slowly but cheerfully, as though from a rather
+unsatisfactory 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 outrage
+people's dearest feelings for nothing. The scandal and misery of it! Of
+course we shall put it down--but the Church won't recover for a
+generation. And all that this handful of agitators may advertise
+themselves and their opinions!"
+
+Canon Dornal frowned and fidgeted.
+
+"We must remember," he said, "that--unfortunately--they have the greater
+part of European theology behind them."
+
+"European theology!" cried the Archdeacon. "I suppose you mean German
+theology?"
+
+"The same thing--almost," said the Canon, smiling a little sadly.
+
+"And what on earth does German theology matter to us?" retorted the
+Archdeacon. "Haven't we got theologians of our own? What have the Germans
+ever 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 have
+to give it up. I don't read German," said the Archdeacon, hastily, "but
+that's what I understand from the Church papers."
+
+Silence a moment. The Professor looked at the ceiling, a smile twitching
+the corners of his mouth. The green shade concealed the Dean's
+expression. He also knew no German, but it did not seem necessary to say
+so. Canon Dornal looked uncomfortable.
+
+"Do you see who it was that protected Darwen from the roughs outside his
+church?" he said presently.
+
+Brathay looked up.
+
+"A party of Wesleyans?--class-leaders? Yes, I saw. Oh! Darwen has always
+been on excellent terms with the Dissenters!"
+
+"Meynell too," said the Professor. "That of course is their game. Meynell
+has always gone for the inclusion of the Dissenters."
+
+"Well, it was Arnold's game!" said the Canon, his look kindling. "Don't
+let's forget that. Meynell's dream is not unlike his--to include
+everybody that would be included."
+
+"Except the Unitarians," said the Professor with emphasis--"the deniers
+of the Incarnation. Arnold drew the line there. So must we."
+
+He spoke with a crisp and smiling decision--as of one in authority. All
+kinds of assumptions lay behind his manner. Dornal looked at him with a
+rather troubled and hostile eye. This whole matter of the coming trial
+was to him deeply painful. He would have given anything to avoid it; but
+he did not see how it could be avoided. The extraordinary spread of the
+Movement indeed had made it impossible.
+
+At this moment one of the vergers of the Cathedral entered the room to
+say that Mr. Meynell was waiting below. The Dean directed that he should
+be shown up, and the whole commission dropped their conversational air
+and sat expectant.
+
+Meynell came in, rather hastily, brushing his hair back from his
+forehead. He shook hands with the Dean and the Archdeacon, and bowed
+to the other members of the commission. As he sat down, the Archdeacon,
+who was very sensitive to such things, and was himself a model of
+spick-and-span-ness, noticed that the Rector's coat was frayed, and one
+of the buttons loose. Anne indeed was not a very competent valet of her
+master; and nothing but a certain esthetic element in Meynell preserved
+him from a degree of personal untidiness which might perhaps have been
+excused in a man alternating, hour by hour, between his study-table and
+the humblest practical tasks among his people.
+
+[Illustration: "He shook hands with the Dean"]
+
+The other members of the commission observed him attentively. Perhaps all
+in their different ways and degrees were conscious of change in him: the
+change wrought insensibly in a man by some high pressure of emotion and
+responsibility--the change that makes a man a leader of his fellows,
+consecrates and sets him apart. Canon Dornal watched him with a secret
+sympathy and pity. The Archdeacon said to himself with repugnance that
+Meynell now had the look of a fanatic.
+
+The Dean took a volume from the pile beside him, and opened it at a
+marked page.
+
+"Before concluding our report to the Bishop, Mr. Meynell, we wished to
+have your explanation of an important passage in one of your recent
+sermons; and you have been kind enough to meet us with a view to giving
+us 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 marked
+sentences 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 of
+fact the continuous life of the spirit of Christ in mankind began with
+the death of Jesus of Nazareth. The Resurrection beliefs, so far as we
+can see, were the natural means by which that Life was secured."
+
+"Are we right in supposing, Mr. Meynell," said the Dean, slowly, "that in
+those sentences you meant to convey that the Resurrection narratives of
+the New Testament were not to be taken as historical fact, but merely as
+mythical--or legendary?"
+
+"The passage means, I think, what it says, Mr. Dean."
+
+"It is not, strictly speaking, logically incompatible," said the
+Professor, bending forward with a suave suggestiveness, "with acceptance
+of the statement in the Creed?"
+
+Meynell threw him a slightly perplexed look, and did not reply
+immediately. The Dean sharply interposed.
+
+"Do you in fact accept the statements of the Creed? In that case we might
+report to the Bishop that you felt you had been misinterpreted--and would
+withdraw the sermon complained of, in order to allay the scandal it has
+produced?"
+
+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 the
+speaker'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, must
+be 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 the
+statements in these volumes on this particular subject, much relief would
+be 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 teemed
+with heresy!
+
+But Meynell was for the moment only aware of his questioner. He leaned
+across the table as though addressing him alone.
+
+"To us too--the Resurrection is vital--the transposition of it, I
+mean--from the natural, or physical to the spiritual order."
+
+Dornal did not of course attempt to argue. But as Meynell met the
+sensitive melancholy of his look the Rector remembered that during the
+preceding year Dornal had lost a little son, a delicate, gifted child, to
+whom he had been peculiarly attached. And Meynell's quick imagination
+realized in a moment the haunted imagination of the other--the dear ghost
+that lived there--and the hopes that grouped themselves about it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A long wrestle followed between Meynell and the Professor. But Meynell
+could not be induced to soften or recant anything. He would often say
+indeed with an eager frown, when confronted with some statement of his
+own, "That was badly put! It should be so-and-so." And then would follow
+some vivid correction or expansion, which sometimes left the matter worse
+than before. The hopes of the Archdeacon, for one set of reasons, and of
+Dornal, for another, that some bridge of retreat might be provided by the
+interview, died away. The Dean had never hoped anything, and Mr. Brathay
+sat open-mouthed and aghast, while Meynell's voice and personality drove
+home 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 the
+whole critical onslaught--especially the German onslaught--was a beaten
+and discredited thing? It seemed to him terribly alive!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The library door opened again, and Meynell disappeared--ceremoniously
+escorted to the threshold by the Professor. When that gentleman was
+seated again, the Dean addressed the meeting.
+
+"A most unsatisfactory interview! There is nothing for it, I fear, but to
+send in our report unaltered to the Bishop. I must therefore ask you to
+append your signatures."
+
+All signed, and the meeting broke up.
+
+"Do you know at all when the case is likely to come on?" said Dornal to
+the Dean.
+
+"Hardly before November. The Letters of Request are ready. Then after the
+Arches will come the appeal to the Privy Council. The whole thing may
+take some time."
+
+"You see the wild talk in some of the papers this morning," said the
+Professor, interposing, "about a national appeal to Parliament to 'bring
+the Articles of the Church of England into accordance with modern
+knowledge.' If there is any truth in it, there may be an Armageddon
+before us."
+
+Dornal looked at him with distaste. The speaker's light tone, the note of
+relish in it, as of one delighting in the drama of life, revolted him.
+
+On coming out of the Cathedral Library, Dornal walked across to the
+Cathedral and entered. He found his way to a little chapel of St. Oswald
+on the north side, where he was often wont to sit or kneel for ten
+minutes' quiet in a busy day. As he passed the north transept he saw
+a figure sitting motionless in the shadow, and realized that it was
+Meynell.
+
+The silence of the great Cathedral closed round him. He was conscious of
+nothing but his own personality, and, as it seemed, of Meynell's. They
+two seemed to be alone together in a world outside the living world.
+Dornal could not define it, save that it was a world of reconciled
+enmities and contradictions. The sense of it alternated with a
+disagreeable recollection of the table in the Library and the men sitting
+round it, especially the cherubic face of the Professor; the thought also
+of the long, signed document which reported the "heresy" of Meynell.
+
+He had been quite right to sign it. His soul went out in a passionate
+adhesion to the beliefs on which his own life was built. Yet still the
+strange reconciling sense flowed in and round him, like the washing of a
+pure stream. He was certain that the Eternal Word had been made flesh in
+Jesus of Nazareth, had died and risen, and been exalted; that the Church
+was now the mysterious channel of His risen life. He must, in mere
+obedience and loyalty, do battle for that certainty--guard it as the
+most precious thing in life for those that should come after.
+Nevertheless he was conscious that there was in him none of the righteous
+anger, none of the moral condemnation, that his father or grandfather
+might have felt in the same case. As far as _feeling_ went, nothing
+divided him from Meynell. They two across the commission table--as
+accuser and accused--had recognized, each in the other, the man of faith.
+The same forces played on both, mysteriously linking them, as the same
+sea links the headland which throws back its waves with the harbour which
+receives 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 and
+excitement of the preceding weeks, and these moments of rest in the
+Cathedral were sometimes all that enabled him to go through his day. He
+endeavoured often at such times to keep his mind merely vacant and
+passive, avoiding especially the active religious thoughts which were
+more than brain and heart could continuously bear. "One cannot always
+think of it--one must not!" he would say to himself impatiently. And then
+he would offer himself eagerly to the mere sensuous impressions of the
+Cathedral--its beauty, its cool prismatic spaces, its silences.
+
+He did so to-day, though always conscious beyond the beauty, and the
+healing quiet, of the mysterious presence on which he "propped his
+soul."...
+
+Conscious, too, of a dear human presence, closely interwoven now with his
+sense of things ineffable.
+
+Latterly, as we have seen, he had not been without some scanty
+opportunities 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 the
+village, Mrs. Flaxman was beginning to give him generous help; the parish
+nurse was started. And sometimes when she came to consult, her niece was
+with her, and Meynell, while talking to the aunt either of his people or
+of the progress of the heresy campaign, was always keenly aware of the
+girlish figure beside her--of the quick, shy smile--the voice and its
+tones.
+
+She was with him in spirit--that he knew--passionately knew. But the
+barriers between them were surely insurmountable. Her sympathy with him
+was like some warm, stifled thing--some chafing bird "beating up against
+the wind."
+
+For a time, indeed, he had tried to put love from him, in the name of his
+high enterprise and its claims upon him. But as he sat tranced in the
+silence of the Cathedral that attempt finally gave way. His longing was
+hopeless, but it enriched his life. For it was fused with all that held
+him to his task; all that was divinest and sincerest in himself.
+
+One of the great bells of the Cathedral struck the quarter. His moment of
+communion and of rest broke up. He rose abruptly and left the Cathedral
+for the crowded streets outside, thinking hard as he walked of quite
+other things.
+
+The death of Mrs. Sabin in her son's cottage had been to Meynell like a
+stone flung into some deep shadowed pool--the ripples from it had been
+spreading 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 of
+the Rector within a few hours of its occurrence. His mother had returned
+home, he said, unexpectedly, after many years of wanderings in the
+States; he had not had very much conversation with her, as she had seemed
+ill and tired and "terrible queer" when she arrived. He and his boys had
+given up their room to her for the night, and she had been very late in
+coming 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 and
+unable to talk to him. She would not allow him to call any doctor, and
+had locked herself in her room. In the morning he had forced the door and
+had found her dead. He did not know that she had seen anybody but himself
+and his boys since her arrival.
+
+But she had seen some one else. As the Rector walked along the street he
+had in his pocket a cutting from the Markborough _Post_, containing the
+report of the inquest, from which it appeared--the Rector of course was
+well aware of it--that Mr. Henry Barron of the White House, going to the
+cottage to complain of the conduct of the children in the plantation, had
+found her there, and had talked to her for some time. "I thought her
+excited--and overtired--no doubt by the journey," he had said to the
+Coroner. "I tried to persuade her to let me send in a woman to look after
+her, but she refused."
+
+In Barron's evidence at the inquest, to which Meynell had given close
+attention, there had been no hint whatever as to the nature of his
+conversation with Mrs. Sabin. Nor had there been any need to inquire. The
+medical evidence was quite clear as to the cause of death--advanced brain
+disease, fatally aggravated by the journey.
+
+Immediately after his interview with John Broad the Rector had
+communicated the news of Mrs. Sabin's unexpected arrival and sudden death
+to two other persons in the village. He still thought with infinite
+concern of the effect it had produced on one of them. Since his hurried
+note telling her of Barron's evidence before the Coroner, and of his own
+impressions of it, he had not seen her. But he must not leave her too
+much to herself. A patient and tender pity, as of one on whom the burden
+of a struggling and suffering soul has long been thrown, dictated all his
+thoughts of her. He had himself perceived nothing which need alarm her in
+Barron's appearance at the inquest. Barron's manner to himself had been
+singularly abrupt and cold when they happened to run across each other,
+outside the room in which the inquest was held; but all that was
+sufficiently explained by the position of the heresy suit.
+
+Still anxiously pondering, Meynell passed the last houses in the
+Cathedral Close. The last of all belonged to Canon France, and Meynell
+had no sooner left it behind him than a full and portly figure emerged
+from its front door.
+
+Barron--for it was he--stood a moment looking after the retreating
+Rector. A hunter's eagerness gave sharpening, a grim sharpening, to the
+heavy face; yet there was perplexity mixed with the eagerness. His
+conversation with France had not been very helpful. The Canon's worldly
+wisdom and shrewd contempt for enthusiasts had found their natural food
+in the story which Barron had brought him. His comments had been witty
+and pungent enough. But when it had come to the practical use of the
+story, France had been of little assistance. His advice inclined too much
+to the Melbourne formula--"Can't you let it alone?" He had pointed out
+the risks, difficulties, and uncertainties of the matter with quite
+unnecessary iteration. Of course there were risks and difficulties; but
+was a man of the type of Richard Meynell to be allowed to play the
+hypocrite, as the rapidly emerging leader of a religious movement--a
+movement directed against the unity and apostolicity of the English
+Church--when there were those looking on who were aware of the grave
+suspicions resting on his private life and past history?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+On the same afternoon which saw the last meeting of the Commission of
+Inquiry at Markborough, the windows of Miss Puttenham's cottage in Upcote
+Minor were open to the garden, and the sun stealing into the half
+darkened drawing-room touched all the many signs it contained of a
+woman's refinement and woman's tastes. The room was a little austere. Not
+many books, but those clearly the friends and not the passing
+acquaintance of its mistress; not many pictures, and those rather slight
+suggestions on the dim blue walls than finished performances; a few
+"notes" in colour, or black and white, chosen from one or other of those
+moderns who can in a sensitive line or two convey the beauty or the
+harshness of nature. Over the mantelpiece there was a pencil drawing by
+Domenichino, of the Madonna and Child; a certain ecstatic languor in the
+Madonna, and, in all the lines of form and drapery, an exquisite flow and
+roundness.
+
+The little maidservant brought in the afternoon letters and with them a
+folded newspaper--the Markborough _Post_. A close observer might have
+detected that it had been already opened, and hurriedly refolded in the
+old folds. There was much interest felt in Upcote Minor in the inquest
+held on John Broad's mother; and the kitchen had taken toll before the
+paper reached the drawing-room.
+
+As though the maid's movement downstairs had been immediately perceived
+by a listening ear overhead, there was a quick sound of footsteps. Miss
+Puttenham ran downstairs, took the letters and the newspaper from the
+hands of the girl, and closed the door behind her.
+
+She opened the paper with eagerness, and read the account it gave of the
+Coroner's inquiry held at the Cowroast a week before. The newspaper
+dropped to the ground. She stood a moment, leaning against the
+mantelpiece, every feature in her face expressing the concentration of
+thought which held her; then she dropped into a chair, and raising her
+two hands to her eyes, she pressed the shut lids close, lifting her face
+as though to some unseen misery, while a little sound--infinitely
+piteous--escaped her.
+
+She saw a bedroom in a foreign inn--a vague form in the bed--a woman
+moving about in nurse's dress, the same woman who had just died in John
+Broad's cottage--and her sister Edith sitting by the fire. The door
+leading to the passage is ajar, and she is watching.... Or is it the
+figure 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, movement
+and life, like a rush of mountain air, come into the ugly shaded room. He
+is tall, with a long face, refined and yet violent, instinct with the
+character 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 a
+sound of bitter sobbing, of low words--
+
+Alice Puttenham's hands dropped from her face--and lay outstretched upon
+her 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 beauty
+at thirty-seven than she had been at twenty. And yet from childhood her
+face had been a winning one--with its childish upper lip and its thin
+oval, its delicate brunette colour, and the lovely clearness of its brown
+eyes. In youth its timid sweetness had been constantly touched with
+laughter. Now it shrank from you and appealed to you in one. But the
+departure of youth had but emphasized a certain distinction, a certain
+quality. Laughter was gone, but grace and character remained, imprinted
+also on the fragile body, the beautiful arms and hands. The only marring
+of the general impression came from an effect of restlessness and
+constraint. To live with Alice Puttenham was to conceive her as a
+creature subtly ill at ease, doing her best with a life which was, in
+some hidden way, injured at the core.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She thought herself quite alone this quiet afternoon, and likely to
+remain so. Hester, who had been lunching with her, had gone shopping into
+Markborough with the schoolroom maid, and was afterward to meet Sarah and
+Lulu at a garden party in the Cathedral Close. Lady Fox-Wilton had just
+left her sister's house after a long, querulous, excited visit, the
+latest 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 the
+event had reopened all the old wounds in Edith's mind, revived all the
+old grievances and terrors. Strange that a woman should be capable of one
+supreme act of help and devotion, and should then spend her whole after
+life in resenting it!
+
+"It was you and your story--that shocking thing we had to do for
+you--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'll
+be the good of all we've suffered!"
+
+That was Edith's attitude--the attitude of a small, vindictive soul. It
+never varied year by year; it showed itself both in trifles and on great
+occasions; it hindered all sisterly affection; and it was the explanation
+of her conduct toward Hester--it had indeed made Hester what she was.
+
+Again the same low sound of helpless pain broke from Alice Puttenham's
+lips. The sense of her unloved, solitary state, of all that she had borne
+and must still bear, roused in her anew a flame of memory. Torch-like it
+ran through the past, till she was shaken with anguish and revolt. She
+had 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 the
+present, that she had once had a man at her feet who had been the desired
+and adored of his day; that she had breathed her heart out in the passion
+of youth on his breast; that although he had wronged her, he had suffered
+because of her, had broken his heart for her, and had probably died
+because circumstances denied him the power to save and restore her, and
+he was not of the kind that bears patiently either thwarting from without
+or reproach from within.
+
+For his selfish passion, his weakness and his suffering, and her own
+woman's power to make him suffer; for his death, no less selfish indeed
+than his passion, for it had taken from her the community of the same
+air, and the same earth with him, the sense that somewhere in the world
+his warm life beat with hers, though they might be separated in bodily
+presence forever--for each and all of these things she had loved him. And
+there were still times when, in spite of the years that had passed away,
+and of other and perhaps profounder feelings that had supervened, she
+felt within her again the wild call of her early love, responding to it
+like an unhappy child, in vain appeal against her solitude, her sister's
+unkindness, and the pressure of irrevocable and unforgotten facts.
+
+Suddenly, she turned toward a tall and narrow chest of drawers that stood
+at her left hand. She chose a key from her watch-chain, a small gold key
+that in their childhood had been generally mistaken by her nieces and
+nephews 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. Her
+hand slipped in; she threw a hasty look round her, at the window, the
+garden. Not a sound of anything but the evening wind, which had just
+risen, and was making a smart rustling among the shrubs just outside. Her
+hand, a white, furtive thing, withdrew itself, and in it lay a packet,
+wrapped in some faded, green velvet. Hurriedly--with yet more pauses to
+listen and to look--the wrapping was undone; the case within fell open.
+
+It contained a miniature portrait of a man--French work, by an excellent
+pupil of Meissonier. The detail of it was marvellous; so, in Alice
+Puttenham's view, was the likeness. She remembered when and how it had
+been commissioned--the artist, and his bare studio in a street on the
+island, near Notre Dame; the chestnuts in the Luxembourg garden as
+they walked home; the dust of the falling blossoms, and the children
+playing in the alleys. And through it all, what passionate, guilty
+happiness--what dull sense of things irreparable!--what deliberate
+shutting 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 been
+her laughing name for him--her handsome, melancholy, eloquent _poseur!_
+Like many of his family, he was proud of his French culture, his French
+accent, and his knowledge of French books. The tradition that came
+originally from a French marriage had been kept up from father to son.
+They were not a learned or an industrious race, but their tongue soon
+caught the accent of the boulevards--of the Paris they loved and
+frequented. Her hand lifted the miniature the better to catch the
+slanting light.
+
+As she did so she was freshly struck with a resemblance she had long
+ceased to be conscious of. Familiarity with a living face, as so often
+happens, had destroyed for her its likeness--likeness in difference--to a
+face 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 in
+blue enamel--
+
+"_A ma mie!_"
+
+But before she could see it she must with her cold, quick fingers remove
+the fragment of stained paper that lay upon it like a veil. The half of a
+page of Moličre--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--but
+clingingly, as though it represented her only wealth, amid so much
+poverty. Then her hand, holding it, dropped to her knee again; the other
+hand came to close over it; and her eyes shut. Tears came slowly through
+the lashes.
+
+Amazing!--that that woman should have come back--and died--within a few
+hundred yards, and she, Alice, know nothing! In spite of all Richard's
+persuasions she tortured herself anew with the thought of the interview
+between Judith and Mr. Barron. What could they have talked about--so
+long? Judith was always an excitable, hot-tempered creature. Her silence
+had been heavily and efficiently bought for fifteen years. Then steps
+had been taken--insisted upon--by Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton. His wife and his
+sister-in-law had opposed him in vain. And Ralph had after all triumphed
+in Judith's apparent acquiescence.
+
+Supposing she had now come home, perhaps on a sudden impulse, with a view
+to further blackmail, would not her wisest move be to risk some
+indiscretion, some partial disclosure, so that her renewed silence
+afterward might have the higher price? An hour's _tete-a-tete_ with
+that shrewd, hard-souled man, Henry Barron! Alice Puttenham guessed that
+her own long-established dislike of him as acquaintance and neighbour was
+probably returned with interest; that he classed her now as one of
+"Meynell's lot," and would be only too glad to find himself possessed of
+any secret information that might, through her, annoy and harass Richard
+Meynell, her friend and counsellor.
+
+Was it conceivable that nothing should have been said in that lengthy
+interview as to the causes for Judith's coming home?--or of the reasons
+for her original departure? What else could have accounted for so
+prolonged a conversation between two persons, so different in social
+grade, and absolute strangers to each other?
+
+Richard had told her, indeed, and she saw from the _Post_, that at the
+inquest Barron had apparently accounted for the conversation. "She gave
+me a curious history of her life in the States. I was interested by her
+strange personality--and touched by her physical condition."
+
+Richard was convinced that there was no reasonable cause for alarm. But
+Richard 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, not
+from the springs of the past, but from the deepest sources of the
+present.
+
+_Richard!_
+
+That little villa on the Cap Martin--the steep pathway to it--and Richard
+mounting it, with that pale look, those tattered, sea-stained leaves in
+his hand--and the tragedy that had to be told, in his eyes, and on his
+lips. Could any other human being have upheld her as he did through that
+first year--through the years after? Was it not to him that she owed
+everything that had been recovered from the wreck; the independence and
+freedom of her daily life; protection from her hard brother-in-law, and
+from her sister's reproaches; occupation--hope--the gradual healing of
+intolerable wounds--the gradual awakening of a spiritual being?
+
+Thus--after passion--she had known friendship; its tenderness, its
+disinterested affection and care.
+
+_Tenderness?_ Her hand dashed away some more impetuous tears, then locked
+itself in the other, the tension of the muscles answering to the inward
+effort for self-control. Thank God, she had never asked him for more; had
+often seemed indeed to ask him for much less; had made herself
+irresponsive, difficult, remote. At least she had never lost her dignity
+in his eyes--(ah! in whose eyes but his had she ever possessed it?)--she
+had never forfeited--never risked even--her sacred place in his life, as
+the soul he had helped through dark places, true servant as he was of the
+Master of Pity.
+
+The alarms of the week died away, as this emotion gained upon her. She
+bethought her of certain central and critical years, when, after long
+dependence on him as comrade and friend, suddenly, she knew not how, her
+own pulse had quickened, and the sharpest struggle of her life had come
+upon her. It was the crisis of the mature woman, as compared with that of
+the innocent and ignorant girl; and in the silent mastering of it she
+seemed to have parted with her youth.
+
+But she had never parted with self-control and self-respect. She had
+never persuaded herself that the false was true. She had kept her
+counsel, and her sanity, and the wage of it had not been denied her. She
+had emerged more worthy of his friendship, more capable of rewarding it.
+
+Yes, but with a clear and sad perception of the necessities laid upon
+her--of the sacrifices involved.
+
+He believed her--she knew it--indifferent to the great cause of religious
+change and reform which he had at heart. In these matters, indeed, she
+had quietly, unwaveringly held aloof. There are efforts and endurances
+that can only be maintained--up to a point. Beyond that point resistance
+breaks. The life that is fighting emotion must not run too many risks of
+emotion. At the root of half the religious movements of the world lies
+the appeal of the preacher and the prophet--to women. Because women are
+the creatures and channels of feeling; and feeling is to religion as air
+to life.
+
+But _she_--must starve feeling--not feed and cherish it. Richard's voice
+was too powerful with her already. To hear it dealing with the most
+intimate and touching things of the soul would have tested the resistance
+of her will too sorely. Courage and honour alike told her that she would
+be defeated and undone did she attempt to meet and follow him--openly--in
+the paths of religion. _Entbehren sollst du_--_sollst entbehren!_
+
+So, long before this date, she had chosen her line of action. She took no
+part in the movement, and she rarely set foot in the village church,
+which was close to her gates. Meynell sadly believed her unshakeable--one
+of the natural agnostics or pessimists of the world who cannot be
+comforted through religion.
+
+And meanwhile secretly, ardently, she tracked all the footsteps of his
+thoughts, reading what he read, thinking as far as possible what he
+thought, and revealing nothing.
+
+Except that, lately, she had been indiscreet sometimes in talk with Mary
+Elsmere. Mary had divined her--had expressed her astonishment that her
+friend should declare herself and her sympathies so little; and Alice had
+set up some sort of halting explanation.
+
+But in this nascent friendship it was not Mary alone who had made
+discoveries....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Alice Puttenham sat very still, in the quiet shadowy room, her eyes
+closed, her hands crossed over the miniature, the Markborough paper lying
+on the floor beside her. As the first activity of memory, stirred and
+goaded by an untoward event, lost its poignancy; as she tried in
+obedience 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 never
+absent from Alice Puttenham's consciousness. One face, one problem, more
+or less acutely realized, haunted her life continuously. But this
+afternoon they had, for the moment, receded into the background. Hester
+had been, surely, more reasonable, more affectionate lately. Philip
+Meryon had now left Sandford; a statement to that effect had appeared in
+the _Post_; and Hester had even shown some kindness to poor Stephen. She
+had at last declared her willingness to go to Paris, and the arrangements
+were all made. The crisis in her of angry revolt, provoked apparently by
+the refusal of her guardian to allow her engagement to Stephen, seemed to
+be over.
+
+So that for once Alice Puttenham was free to think and feel for her own
+life and what concerned it. From the events connected with Judith Sabin's
+death--through the long history of Meynell's goodness to her--the mind
+of this lonely woman travelled on, to be filled and arrested by the
+great new fact of the present. She had made a new friend. And at the
+same moment she had found in her--at last--the rival with whom her
+own knowledge of life had threatened her these many years. A rival so
+sweet--so unwitting! Alice had read her. She had scarcely yet read
+herself.
+
+Alice opened her eyes--to the quiet room, and the windy sky
+outside. She was very pale, but there were no tears. "It is not
+renouncing"--she whispered to herself--"for I never possessed. It
+is accepting--loving--giving--all one has to give."
+
+And vaguely there ran through her mind immortal words--"_good
+measure--pressed down, and running over_."
+
+A smile trembled on her lip. She closed her eyes again, lost in one of
+those spiritual passions accessible only to those who know the play and
+heat of the spiritual war. The wind was blowing briskly outside, and from
+the wood-shed in the back garden came a sound of sawing. Miss Puttenham
+did not hear a footstep approaching on the grass outside.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hester paused at the window--smiling. There was wildness--triumph--in her
+look, as though for her this quiet afternoon had seen some undisclosed
+adventure. Her cheek was hotly flushed, her loosened hair made a glory in
+the evening sun. Youth, selfishly pitiless--youth, the supplanter and
+destroyer--stood embodied in the beautiful creature looking down upon
+Alice Puttenham, on the still intensity of the plaintive face, the closed
+eyes, the hands holding the miniature.
+
+Mischievously the girl came closer. She took the stillness before her for
+sleep.
+
+"Auntie! Aunt Alsie!"
+
+With a start, Alice Puttenham sprang up. The miniature dropped from
+her hands to the floor, opening as it fell. Hester looked at it
+astonished--and her hand stooped for it before Miss Puttenham had
+perceived her loss.
+
+"Were you asleep, Aunt Alsie?" she asked, wondering. "I got tired of
+that stupid party--and I--well, I just slipped away"--the clear high
+voice had grown conscious--"and I looked in here, because I left a book
+behind 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 returned
+it. In the act she caught the inscription and her face kindled.
+
+Impetuously throwing herself down beside Miss Puttenham, the girl looked
+up 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, "though
+you 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 your
+things by heart--and now you've been keeping something from me!" The
+girl's tone had changed to one of curious resentment. "You know how you
+scold _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 her
+knee, prevented it.
+
+"Why is it different?" she said, audaciously. "You always say
+you--you--want to be everything to me--and then you hide things from
+me--and I--"
+
+She raised herself, sitting upright on the floor, her hands round her
+knees, 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_ care
+about are the people who _live_--and feel--and do things! There's verse
+in one of your books"--she pointed to a little bookshelf of poets on a
+table 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 loathe
+all the humdrum _bourgeois_ talk--'don't do this--don't do that!' Aunt
+Alsie, 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 came
+with vehemence through the white teeth. "And how can we escape it--we
+women--except through freedom--through asserting ourselves--through love,
+of course? It all comes to love!--love that mamma says one ought not to
+talk about. I wouldn't talk about it, if it only meant what it means to
+Sarah and Lulu--I'd scorn to!"
+
+She stopped--and looked with her blazing and wonderful eyes at her
+companion--her lips parted. Then she suddenly stooped and kissed the cold
+hand trying to withdraw itself from hers.
+
+"Who was he, dear?"--she laid the hand caressingly against her
+cheek--"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 any
+one--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 overtired
+this morning."
+
+And she went feebly toward the door.
+
+Hester looked after her, panting and wounded. Aunt Alsie repel--refuse
+her!--Aunt Alsie!--who had always been her special possession and
+chattel. 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, at
+least, never failed. Hester's clothes were Miss Puttenham's special care;
+it was for Hester that she stitched and embroidered. Hester was to
+inherit her jewels and her money. In all Hester's scrapes it was Aunt
+Alice who stood by her, who had often carried her off bodily out of reach
+of 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, had
+never been specially grateful, or much more amenable to counsels from
+Aunt Alice than from anybody else. The slender, graceful woman, so
+gentle, plaintive and reserved, so easily tyrannized over, had never
+seemed to mean much to her. Yet now, as she stood looking at the door
+through which Miss Puttenham had disappeared, the girl was conscious of a
+profound 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 the
+window and down the steps into the garden.
+
+"If she had told me"--she said to herself, with the childish fury that
+mingled 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 face
+pressed 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 much
+less food than usual, with--all the while--the pressure of a vague
+corrosive terror on nerve and brain. The shock of that miniature in
+Hester's hands had just turned the scale; endurance had given way.
+
+The quick footsteps receded. Yet she could do nothing to arrest them. Her
+mind floated in darkness.
+
+Presently out of the darkness emerged a sound, a touch--a warm hand on
+hers.
+
+"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 not
+hear. 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 to
+lavish on a sufferer. Gradually Alice mastered herself, but more than a
+broken 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 been
+weighing 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. The
+servant whispered, and she returned at once.
+
+"Mr. Meynell is here," she said, hesitating. "You will let me send him
+away?"
+
+Alice Puttenham opened her eyes.
+
+"I can't see him. But please--give him some tea. He'll have walked--from
+Markborough."
+
+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's
+nothing"--she raised herself in the chair--"only bad nights! I'll go to
+bed--that'll be best. Go down--give him tea. And Mrs. Flaxman's going
+with you?"
+
+"No. Mother said she wished to go," said Mary, slowly. "She and I were to
+meet 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 the
+meeting. I--I want you to be there. Good night."
+
+And she gently pushed the girl from her, putting up her pale lips to be
+kissed, and asking that the little parlour-maid should be sent to help
+her undress.
+
+Mary went unwillingly. She gave Miss Puttenham's message to the maid, and
+when the girl had gone up to her mistress she lingered a moment at the
+foot of the stairs, her hands lightly clasped on her breast, as though to
+quiet the stir within.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meynell, expecting to see the lady of the house, could not restrain the
+start of surprise and joy with which he turned toward the incomer. He
+took her hand in his--pressing it involuntarily. But it slipped away, and
+Mary explained with her soft composure why she was there alone--that Miss
+Puttenham was suffering from a succession of bad nights and was keeping
+her room--that she sent word the Rector must please rest a little before
+going home, and allow Mary to give him tea.
+
+Meynell sank obediently into a chair by the open window, and Mary
+ministered to him. The lines of his strong worn face relaxed. His look
+returned to her again and again, wistfully, involuntarily; yet not so as
+to cause her embarrassment.
+
+She was dressed in some thin gray stuff that singularly became her; and
+with the gray dress she wore a collar or ruffle of soft white that gave
+it a slight ascetic touch. But the tumbling red-gold of the hair, the
+frank dignity of expression, belonged to no mere cloistered maid.
+
+Meynell heard the news of Miss Puttenham's collapse with a sigh--checked
+at 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 the
+cottage during the preceding week.
+
+Mary reported that she had been in and out as usual, and seemed
+reconciled to the prospect of Paris.
+
+"Are you--is Miss Puttenham sure that she hasn't still been meeting that
+man?"
+
+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 I
+could--but at this time--what use am I?"
+
+The Rector threw himself back wearily in his chair, his hands behind his
+head. Mary was conscious of some deep throb of feeling that must not come
+to words. Even since she had known it the face had grown older--the
+lines deeper--the eyes finer. She stooped forward a little.
+
+"It is hard that you should have this anxiety too. Oh! but I _hope_ there
+is no need!"
+
+He raised himself again with energy.
+
+"There is always need with Hester. Oh! don't suppose I have forgotten
+her! I have written to that fellow, my cousin. I went, indeed, to see him
+the day before yesterday, but the servants at Sandford declared he had
+gone to town, and they were packing up to follow. Lady Fox-Wilton and
+Miss 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 is
+quite kind to me--she tells me when she thinks my frock is hideous--or
+my 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 the
+sofa-cushion."
+
+Meynell shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"She has no bump of respect--never had!" and he began to give a half
+humorous account of the troubles and storms of Hester's bringing up. "I
+often ask myself whether we haven't all--whether I, in particular,
+haven't been a first-class bungler and blundered all through with regard
+to Hester. Did we choose the wrong governesses? They seemed most
+estimable people. Did we thwart her unnecessarily? I can't remember a
+time 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. "But
+he was kind to her--according to his lights; and--he said some very sound
+and 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 upon
+me--just now."
+
+"Just now?"
+
+"Here am I preaching to others," he said slowly, "leading what people
+call a religious movement, and this homely elementary task seems to be
+all going wrong. I don't seem to be able to protect this child confided
+to me."
+
+"Oh, but you will protect her!" cried Mary, "you will! She mayn't seem to
+give way--when you talk to her; but she has said things to me--to my
+mother 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--how
+you've cared for her," said Mary, stammering a little.
+
+"I have done nothing but my plainest, simplest duty. I have made
+innumerable mistakes; and if I fail with her, it's quite clear that I'm
+not fit to teach or lead anybody."
+
+The words were spoken with an impatient emphasis to which Mary did not
+venture a reply. But she could not restrain an expression in her gray
+eyes which was a balm to the harassed combatant beside her.
+
+They said no more of Hester. And presently Mary's hunger for news of
+the Reform Movement could not be hid. It was clear she had been reading
+everything she could on the subject, and feeding upon it in a loneliness,
+and under a constraint, which touched Meynell profoundly. The conflict
+in her between a spiritual heredity--the heredity of her father's
+message--and her tender love for her mother had never been so plain to
+him. Yet he could not feel that he was abetting any disloyalty in
+allowing the conversation. She was mature. Her mind had its own rights!
+
+Mary indeed, unknown to him, was thrilling under a strange and secret
+sense 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, her
+sympathy, 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 the
+campaign; its astonishing developments; the kindling on all sides of the
+dry bones of English religion.
+
+The new--or re-written--Liturgy of the Reform was, it seemed, almost
+completed. From all parts: from the Universities, from cathedral
+cloisters, from quiet country parishes, from the clash of life in the
+great towns, men had emerged as though by magic to bring to the making of
+it their learning and their piety, the stored passion of their hearts.
+And the mere common impulse, the mere release of thoughts and aspirations
+so long repressed, had brought about an extraordinary harmony, a
+victorious selflessness, among the members of the commission charged with
+the task. The work had gone with rapidity, yet with sureness, as in those
+early years of Christianity, which saw so rich and marvellous an upgrowth
+from the old soil of humanity. With surprising ease and spontaneity the
+old had passed over into the new; just as in the first hundred years
+after Christ's death the psalms and hymns and spiritual songs of the
+later Judaism had become, with but slight change, the psalms and hymns of
+Christianity; and a new sacred literature had flowered on the stock of
+the old.
+
+"To-night--here!--we submit the new marriage service and the new burial
+service to the Church Council. And the same thing will be happening, at
+the same moment, in all the churches of the Reform--scattered through
+England."
+
+"How many churches now?" she asked, with a quickened breath.
+
+"Eighteen in July--this week, over a hundred. But before our cases come
+on for trial there will be many more. Every day new congregations come in
+from new dioceses. The beacon fire goes leaping on, from point to point!"
+
+But the emotion which the phrase betrayed was instantly replaced by the
+business tone of the organizer as he went on to describe some of the
+practical developments of the preceding weeks: the founding of a
+newspaper; the collection of propagandist funds; the enrolment of
+teachers 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 hoped
+to see the spread of such a force in the dusty modern world! You remember
+the fairy story of the prince whose heart was bound with iron bands--and
+how one by one, the bands give way? I have seen it like that--in life
+after life."
+
+"And the fighting?"
+
+She had propped her face on her hands, and her eyes, with their eager
+sympathy, their changing lights, rained influence on the man beside her;
+an influence insensibly mingling with and colouring the passion for ideas
+which 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 to
+feel 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 shut
+out, 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 it
+natural you should miscalculate the forces against you? Oh! they are so
+strong! 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 you
+are right. Now let me tell you what the other side are doing. That
+chastens one! There is a conference of Bishops next week; there was one
+a week ago. These are of course thundering resolutions in Convocation.
+The English Church Union has an Albert Hall meeting; it will be
+magnificent. A 'League of the Trinity' has started against us, and will
+soon be campaigning all over England. The orthodox newspapers are all in
+full cry. Meanwhile the Bishops are only waiting for the decision of my
+case--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 Privy
+Council. A hundred cases--that will take time! Meanwhile--from us--a
+monster petition--first to the Bishops for the assembling of a full
+Council of the English Church, then to Parliament for radical changes in
+the 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 the
+conflict before him.
+
+"That," he said quietly, "is nothing to us. We are but soldiers under
+command."
+
+He rose; and, suddenly, she realized with a fluttering heart how empty
+that 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 Council
+consists 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. They
+are my spiritual brothers, or sons--picked men--the leaders of their
+fellows--far better Christians than I. I wish you could see them--and
+hear 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 an
+instant, and then said with gentle emphasis:
+
+"I don' think there will be anything to wound her. At any rate, there
+will 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 be
+going 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 the
+Lakes, in Long Whindale. We came here because mother was ill--and Aunt
+Rose begged us. But--"
+
+"Do you know"--he interrupted her impetuously--"that for six months I've
+had a hunger for just one fortnight up there among the fells?"
+
+"You love them?" Her face bloomed with pleasure. "You know the dear
+mountains?"
+
+He smiled.
+
+"It doesn't do to think of them, does it? You should see the letters on
+my table! But I may have to take a few days' rest, some time. Should I
+find you in Long Whindale--if I dropped down on you--over Goat Scar?"
+
+"Yes--from December till March!" Then she suddenly checked the happiness
+of 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 up
+round them in which every tone and movement had suddenly become
+magnified--significant.
+
+Meynell recovered himself. He held out his hand in farewell, but he had
+scarcely turned away from her, when she made a startled movement toward
+the open window.
+
+"What is that?"
+
+There was a sound of shouting and running in the street outside. A
+crowd seemed to be approaching. Meynell ran out into the garden to
+listen. By this time the noise had grown considerably, and he thought
+he distinguished his own name among the cries.
+
+"Something has happened at the colliery!" he said to Mary, who had
+followed him.
+
+And he hurried toward the gate, bareheaded, just as a gray-haired lady in
+black entered the garden.
+
+"Mother," cried Mary, in amazement.
+
+Catharine Elsmere paused--one moment; she looked from her daughter to
+Meynell. Then she hurried to the Rector.
+
+"You are wanted!" she said, struggling to get her breath. "A terrible
+thing has happened. They think four lives have been lost--some accident
+to the cage--and people blame the man in charge. They've got him shut up
+in the colliery office--and declare they'll kill him. The crowd looks
+dangerous--and there are very few police. I heard you were here--some
+one, the postman, saw you come in--you must stop it. The people will
+listen to you."
+
+Her fine, pale face, framed in her widow's veil, did not so much ask as
+command. He replied by a gesture--then by two or three rapid inquiries.
+Mary--bewildered--saw them for an instant as allies and equals, each
+recognizing the other. Then Meynell ran to the gate, and was at once
+swallowed up in the moving groups which had gathered there, and seemed to
+carry him back with them toward the colliery.
+
+Catharine Elsmere turned to follow--Mary at her side. Mary looked at her
+in 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 they
+hurried on; "their faces were like wild beasts. They have telephoned to
+Cradock for police. If Mr. Meynell can keep them in check for half an
+hour, there may be hope."
+
+They ran on, swept along by the fringe of the crowd till they reached the
+top of a gentle descent at the farther end of the village. At the bottom
+of this hill lay the colliery, with its two huge chimneys, its shed and
+engine houses, its winding machinery, and its heaps of refuse. Within the
+enclosure, from the height where they stood, could be seen a thin line of
+police surrounding a small shed--the pay-office. On the steps of it stood
+the manager, and the Rector, to be recognized by his long coat and his
+bare head, had just joined him. Opposite to the police, and separated
+from the shed by about ten yards and a wooden paling, was a threatening
+and vociferating mob, which stretched densely across the road and up the
+hill on either side; a mob largely composed of women--dishevelled,
+furious women--their white faces gleaming amid the coal-blackened forms
+of the miners.
+
+"They'll have 'im out," said a woman in front of Mary Elsmere. "Oh, my
+God!--they'll have 'im out! It was he caused the death of the boy--yo
+mind 'im--young Jimmy Ragg--a month sen; though the crowner's jury did
+let '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 the
+cage 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 yan
+goes down, as the other cooms up. An' there's catches as yo mun knock
+away to let 'un go down--an' this banksman--ee's a devil!--he niver so
+much as walked across to the other shaft to see--an' theer was the
+catches fast--an' instead o' goin' down, theer was the cage stuck, an'
+the rope uncoilin' itsel', and fallin' off the drum--an' foulin' the
+other rope--An' then all of a suddent, just as them poor fellows wor
+nearin' top--the drum began to work t'other way--run backards, you
+unnerstan?--an' the engineman lost 'is head an' niver thowt to put on
+t'breaks--an'--oh! Lord save us!--whether they was drownt at t'bottom
+i' the sump, or killt afore they got theer--theer's no one knows
+yet--They're getten of 'em up now."
+
+And as she spoke, a great shout which became a groan ran through the
+crowd. Men climbed up the railings at the side of the road that they
+might see better. Women stood on tiptoe. A confused clamour came from
+below, 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 the
+crowd made way. Up the hill they came, a great wail preceding and
+surrounding them; behind them the murmurs of an ungovernable indignation.
+
+As the procession neared them Mary saw a gray-haired woman throw up her
+arm, 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's
+juries?--Let's settle it oursel's!"
+
+Deep murmurs answered her.
+
+"And it's this same Jenkins," said another fierce voice, "as had a sight
+to 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't
+murder 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' if
+them 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 their
+heads, and the women wailing. In front came a piteous group--a young
+half-fainting wife, supported by an older woman, with children clinging
+to her skirts. Catharine went forward, and lifted a baby or two that was
+being dragged along the ground. Mary took up another child, and they both
+joined the procession.
+
+As they did so, there was a shout from below.
+
+Mary, white as her dress, asked an elderly miner beside her, who had
+shown no excitement whatever, to tell her what had happened. He clambered
+up on the bank to look and came back to her.
+
+"They've beaten 'un back, miss," he said in her ear. "They've got the
+surface men to help, and Muster Meynell he's doing his best; if there's
+anybody can hold 'em, he can; but there's terrible few on 'em. It is time
+as the Cradock men came up. They'll be trying fire before long, an' the
+women 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 memory
+of Meynell on the steps--speaking, gesticulating--and the surging crowd
+in front of him.
+
+There was that to do, however, which deadened fear. In the main street
+the procession was met by hurrying doctors and nurses. For those broken
+bodies indeed--young men in their prime--nothing could be done, save to
+straighten 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 no
+office and no sight, however terrible. But she would not permit them to
+Mary, and they were presently separated.
+
+Mary had a trio of sobbing children on her knee, in the living-room of
+one of the cottages, when there was a sudden tramp outside. Everybody in
+Miners' Row, including those who were laying out the dead, ran to the
+windows.
+
+"The police from Cradock!"--fifty of them.
+
+The news passed from mouth to mouth, and even those who had been maddest
+half an hour before felt the relief of it.
+
+Meanwhile detachments of shouting men and women ran clattering at
+intervals through the village streets. Sometimes stragglers from them
+would drop into the cottages alongside--and from their panting talk, what
+had happened below became roughly clear. The police had arrived only just
+in time. The small band defending the office was worn out, the Rector had
+been struck, palings torn down; in another half-hour the rioters would
+have set the place on fire and dragged out the man of whom they were in
+search.
+
+The narrator's story was broken by a howl--
+
+"Here he comes!" And once again, as though by a rush of muddy water, the
+street filled up, and a strong body of police came through it, escorting
+the banksman who had been the cause of the accident. A hatless, hunted
+creature, with white face and loosened limbs, he was hurried along by the
+police, amid a grim silence that had suddenly succeeded to the noise.
+
+Behind came a group of men, officials of the colliery, and to the right
+of them walked the Rector, bareheaded as before, a bandage on the left
+temple. His eyes ran along the cottages, and he presently perceived Mary
+Elsmere standing at an open door, with a child that had cried itself to
+sleep in her arms.
+
+Stepping out of the ranks, he approached her. The people made way for
+him, a few here and there with sullen faces, but in the main with a
+friendly and remorseful eagerness.
+
+"It's all over," he said in Mary's ear. "But it was touch and go. An
+unpopular man--suspected of telling union secrets to the masters last
+year. He was concerned in another accident to a boy--a month ago; they
+all think he was in fault, though the jury exonerated him. And now--a
+piece of abominable carelessness!--manslaughter at least. Oh! he'll catch
+it hot! But we weren't going to have him murdered on our hands. If he
+hadn't got safe into the office, the women alone would have thrown him
+down the shaft. By the way, are you learned in 'first aid'?"
+
+He pointed, smiling, to his temple, and she saw that the wound beneath
+the rough bandage was bleeding afresh.
+
+"It makes me feel a bit faint," he said with annoyance; "and there is so
+much to do!"
+
+"May I see to it?" said her mother's voice behind her. And Catharine, who
+had just descended from an upper room, went quickly to a nurse's wallet
+which had been left on a table in the kitchen, and took thence an
+antiseptic 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 ray
+of strange sweetness stole through the tragedy of the day.
+
+In a very few minutes Meynell rose. They were in the cottage of one of
+the victims. The dead lay overhead, and the cries of wife and mother
+could be heard through the thin flooring.
+
+"Don't go up again!" he said peremptorily to Catharine. "It is too much
+for you."
+
+She looked at him gently.
+
+"They asked me to come back again. It is not too much for me. Please let
+me."
+
+He gave way. Then, as he was following her upstairs, he turned to say to
+Mary:
+
+"Gather some of the people, if you can, outside. I want to give a notice
+when I come down."
+
+He mounted the ladder-stairs leading to the upper room. Violent sounds of
+wailing broke out overhead, and the murmur of his voice could be heard
+between.
+
+Mary quietly sent a few messengers into the street. Then she gathered
+up the sleeping child again in her arms, and sat waiting. In spirit she
+was in the room overhead. The thought of those two--her mother and
+Meynell--beside a bed of death together, pierced her heart.
+
+After what seemed to her an age, she heard her mother's step, and the
+Rector following. Catharine stood again beside her daughter, brushing
+away 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 has
+been 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 hurried
+out to speak to them.
+
+Meanwhile evening had fallen, a late September evening, shot with gold
+and purple. Behind the village the yellow stubbles stretched up to the
+edge of the Chase and drifts of bluish smoke from the colliery chimneys
+hung in the still air.
+
+Meynell, standing on the raised footpath above the crowd, gave notice
+that a special service of mourning would be held in the church that
+evening. The meeting of the Church Council would of course be postponed.
+
+During his few words Mary made her way to the farther edge of the
+gathering, looking over it toward the speaker. Behind him ran the row of
+cottages, and in the doorway opposite she saw her mother, with her arm
+tenderly folded round a sobbing girl, the sister of one of the dead. The
+sudden tranquillity, the sudden pause from tumult and anguish seemed to
+draw a "wind-warm space" round Mary, and she had time, for a moment, to
+think of herself and the strangeness of this tragic day.
+
+How amazing that her mother should be here at all. This meeting of the
+Reformers' League to which she had insisted on coming--as a spectator of
+course, and with the general public--what did it mean? Mary did not yet
+know, long as she had pondered it.
+
+How beautiful was the lined face!--so pale in the golden dusk, in its
+heavy frame of black. Mary could not take her eyes from it. It betrayed
+an 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 swiftest
+and purest; through all the tragedy and the horror some burden seemed to
+have dropped from Catharine's soul. She met her daughter's eyes, and
+smiled.
+
+When Meynell had finished, the crowd silently drifted away, and he
+came back to the Elsmeres. They noticed the village fly coming toward
+them--saw it stop in the roadway.
+
+"I sent for it," Meynell explained rapidly. "You mustn't let your mother
+do any more. Look at her! Please, will you both go to the Rectory? My
+cook will give you tea; I have let her know. Then the fly will take you
+home."
+
+They protested in vain--must indeed submit. Catharine flushed a little at
+being so commanded; but there was no help for it.
+
+"I _would_ like to come and show you my den!" said Meynell, as he put
+them 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 she
+was, she was accustomed to have her way.
+
+They drove into the dark shrubbery that lay between the Rectory and the
+road. At the door of the little house stood Anne in a white cap and clean
+apron. But the white cap sat rather wildly on its owner's head; nor would
+she take any interest in her visitors till she had got from them a fuller
+account of the tumult at the pit than had yet reached her, and assurances
+that Meynell's wound was but slight. But when these were given she
+pounced 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-table
+spread.
+
+She bustled away to bring the tea.
+
+Then exhaustion seized on Catharine. She submitted to be put on the sofa
+after it had been cleared of its pile of books; and Mary sat by her a
+while, holding her hands. Death and the agony of broken hearts
+overshadowed them.
+
+But then the dogs came in, discreet at first, and presently--at scent of
+currant cake--effusively friendly. Mary fed them all, and Catharine
+watched the colour coming back to her face, and the dumb sweetness in the
+gray eyes.
+
+Presently, while her mother still rested, Mary took courage to wander
+round the room, looking at the books, the photographs on the walls, the
+rack of pipes, the carpenter's bench, and the panels of half-finished
+carving. Timidly, yet eagerly, she breathed in the message it seemed
+to bring her from its owner--of strenuous and frugal life. Was that
+half-faded miniature of a soldier his father--and that sweet gray-haired
+woman his mother? Her heart thrilled to each discovery.
+
+Then Anne invaded them, for conversation, and while Catharine, unable to
+hide her fatigue, lay speechless, Anne chattered about her master. Her
+indignation was boundless that any hand could be lifted against him in
+his own parish. "Why he strips himself bare for them, he does!"
+
+And--with Mary unconsciously leading her--out came story after story, in
+the racy Mercian vernacular, illustrating a good man's life, and all
+
+His little nameless unremembered acts
+Of kindness and of love.
+
+As they drove slowly home through the sad village street they perceived
+Henry Barron calling at some of the stricken houses. The squire was
+always punctilious, and his condolences might be counted on. Beside him
+walked a young man with a jaunty step, a bored sallow face, and a long
+moustache which he constantly caressed. Mary supposed him to be the
+squire's second son, "Mr. Maurice," whom nobody liked.
+
+Then the church, looming through the dusk; lights shining through its
+fine perpendicular windows, and the sound of familiar hymns surging out
+into 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 thirsty
+spoke 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 the
+tragic tumult, the human action of the day; let well alone!
+
+And for the first time, as she sat in the darkness, holding her mother's
+hand, 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 that
+afternoon through the extremes of hate and sorrow unpacked their hearts
+in singing and prayer. The hymns rose and fell through the dim red
+sandstone church--symbol of the endless plaint of human life, forever
+clamouring in the ears of Time; and Meynell's address, as he stood on the
+chancel steps, almost among the people, the disfiguring strips of
+plaster on the temple and brow sharply evident between the curly black
+hair and the dark hollows of the eyes, sank deep into grief-stricken
+souls. It was the plain utterance of a man, with the prophetic gift,
+speaking to human beings to whom, through years of checkered life, he had
+given all that a man can give of service and of soul. He stood there as
+the living expression of their conscience, their better mind, conceived
+as the mysterious voice of a Divine power in man; and in the name of that
+Power, and its direct message to the human soul embodied in the tale we
+call Christianity, he bade them repent their bloodthirst, and hope in God
+for their dead. He spoke amid weeping; and from that night forward one
+might have thought his power unshakeable, at least among his own people.
+
+But there were persons in the church who remained untouched by it. In the
+left aisle Hester sat a little apart from her sisters, her hard, curious
+look ranging from the preacher through the crowded benches. She surveyed
+it all as a spectacle, half thrilled, half critical. And at the western
+end of the aisle the squire and his son stood during the greater part of
+the service, showing plainly by their motionless lips and folded arms
+that 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 was
+posted in Markborough, and duly delivered the following morning to an
+address in Upcote Minor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+"What on earth can Henry Barron desire a private interview with me
+about?" said Hugh Flaxman looking up from his letters, as he and
+his wife sat together after breakfast in Mrs. Flaxman's sitting-room.
+
+"I suppose he wants subscriptions for his heresy hunt? The Church party
+seem to be appealing for funds in most of the newspapers."
+
+"I should have thought he knew I am not prepared to support him," said
+Flaxman quietly.
+
+"Where are you, old man?" His wife laid a caressing hand on his
+shoulder--"I don't really quite know."
+
+Flaxman smiled at her.
+
+"You and I are not theologians, are we, darling?" He kissed the hand. "I
+don't find myself prepared to swear to Meynell's precise 'words' any more
+than I was to Robert's. But I am ready to fight to prevent his being
+driven 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 place
+in 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 asked
+to meet him. I really do not think you ought to have asked Meynell."
+
+"There we must agree to differ," said Rose firmly. "Social relations in
+this country must be maintained--in spite of politics--in spite of
+religion--in spite of everything."
+
+"That's all very well--but if you mix people too violently, you make them
+uncomfortable."
+
+"My dear Hugh!--how many drawing-rooms are there?" His wife waved a vague
+hand toward the folding doors on her right, implying the suite of
+Georgian rooms that stretched away beyond them; "one for every _nuance_
+if it comes to that. If they positively won't mix I shall have to
+segregate them. But they will mix." Then she fell into a reverie for a
+moment, adding at the end of it--"I must keep one drawing-room for the
+Rector 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 member
+in a Cabinet headed by a Prime Minister in rapidly failing health; to
+whose place, either by death or retirement it was generally expected that
+Edward Norham would succeed.
+
+"Well, darling, I shall watch your manoeuvres with interest," said
+Flaxman, rising and gathering up his letters--"and, _longo intervallo_, I
+shall 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--and
+Alice Puttenham. How that sister of hers bullies her--horrid little
+woman! _And_ Mr. Barron!"--Flaxman made an exclamation--"and the deaf
+daughter--and the nice elder son--and the unpresentable younger one--in
+fact 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 big
+party. And as for the weekenders, you chose them yourself." She ran
+through the list, while Flaxman vainly protested that he had never in
+their joint existence been allowed to do anything of the kind. "But
+to-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 be
+followed 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 to
+date. Yes--from her observation of the two--she was certain there was a
+good 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 the
+accident--and the Church Council that was put off?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"Catharine made up her mind suddenly to go to that Church Council--after
+not 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--the
+first time she has done it. She arrived in the village just as the
+dreadful thing had happened in the pit. Then of course she and the Rector
+took command. Nobody who knew Catharine would have expected anything
+else. And now she and Mary and the Rector are busy looking after the poor
+survivors. '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 that
+Council for?"
+
+"Perhaps to lift up her voice?"
+
+"No. Catharine isn't that sort. She would have suffered dreadfully--and
+sat still."
+
+And with a thoughtful shake of the head, as though to indicate that the
+veins of meditation opened up by the case were rich and various, Rose
+went slowly away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then Hugh was left to his _Times_, and to speculations on the reasons why
+Henry Barron--a man whom he had never liked and often thwarted--should
+have asked for this interview in a letter marked "private." Flaxman made
+an agreeable figure, as he sat pondering by the fire, while the _Times_
+gradually slipped from his hands to the floor. And he was precisely what
+he looked--an excellent fellow, richly endowed with the world's good
+things, material and moral. He was of spare build, with grizzled hair;
+long-limbed, clean-shaven and gray-eyed. In general society he appeared
+as a person of polished manners, with a gently ironic turn of mind. His
+friends were more numerous and more devoted than is generally the case in
+middle age; and his family were rarely happy out of his company. Certain
+indeed of his early comrades in life were inclined to accuse him of a too
+facile contentment with things as they are, and a rather Philistine
+estimate of the value of machinery. He was absorbed in "business" which
+he did admirably. Not so much of the financial sort, although he was a
+trusted member of important boards. But for all that unpaid multiplicity
+of affairs--magisterial, municipal, social or charitable--which make the
+country gentleman's sphere Hugh Flaxman's appetite was insatiable. He was
+a born chairman of a county council, and a heaven-sent treasurer of a
+hospital.
+
+And no doubt this natural bent, terribly indulged of late years, led
+occasionally to "holding forth"; at least those who took no interest in
+the things which interested Flaxman said so. And his wife, who was much
+more concerned for his social effect than for her own, was often
+nervously on the watch lest it should be true. That her handsome, popular
+Hugh should ever, even for a quarter of an hour, sit heavy on the soul
+even of a youth of eighteen was not to be borne; she pounced on each
+incipient harangue with mingled tact and decision.
+
+But though Flaxman was a man of the world, he was by no means a
+worldling. Tenderly, unflinchingly, with a modest and cheerful devotion,
+he had made himself the stay of his brother-in-law Elsmere's harassed and
+broken life. His supreme and tyrannical common sense had never allowed
+him any delusions as to the ultimate permanence of heroic ventures like
+the New Brotherhood; and as to his private opinions on religious matters
+it is probable that not even his wife knew them. But outside the strong
+affections of his personal life there was at least one enduring passion
+in Flaxman which dignified his character. For liberty of experiment, and
+liberty of conscience, in himself or others, he would gladly have gone to
+the stake. Himself the loyal upholder of an established order, which he
+helped to run decently, he was yet in curious sympathy with many obscure
+revolutionists in many fields. To brutalize a man's conscience seemed to
+him worse than to murder his body. Hence a constant sympathy with
+minorities of all sorts; which no doubt interfered often with his
+practical efficiency. But perhaps it accounted for the number of his
+friends.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"We shall, I presume, be undisturbed?"
+
+The speaker was Henry Barron; and he and Flaxman stood for a moment
+surveying each other after their first greeting.
+
+"Certainly. I have given orders. For an hour if you wish, I am at your
+disposal."
+
+"Oh, we shall not want so long."
+
+Barron seated himself in the chair pointed out to him. His portly
+presence, in some faultlessly new and formal clothes, filled it
+substantially; 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 papers
+from his breast pocket--"but--after much thought--I came to the
+conclusion that there was no one in this neighbourhood I could consult
+upon 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 his
+host.
+
+Flaxman read it. His face changed and worked as he did so. He read it
+twice, turned it over to see if it contained any signature, and returned
+it 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 aggrieved
+parishioners in the Meynell case?"
+
+"He is. But he is by no means personally hostile to Meynell--quite the
+contrary. He brought it to me in much distress, thinking it well that we
+should take counsel upon it, in case other documents of the same kind
+should be going about."
+
+"And you, I imagine, pointed out to him the utter absurdity of the
+charge, 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 turned
+sharply on the speaker.
+
+"You mean to say you believe there is a word of truth in that
+preposterous story?"
+
+"I have good reason, unfortunately, to know that it cannot at once be put
+aside."
+
+Both paused--regarding each other. Then Flaxman said, in a raised accent
+of wonder:
+
+"You think it possible--_conceivable_--that a man of Mr. Meynell's
+character--and transparently blameless life--should have not only been
+guilty of an intrigue of this kind twenty years ago--but should have
+done nothing since to repair it--should actually have settled down to
+live in the same village side by side with the lady whom the letter
+declares to be the mother of his child--without making any attempt to
+marry her--though perfectly free to do so? Why, my dear sir, was there
+ever a more ridiculous, a more incredible tale!"
+
+Flaxman sprang to his feet, and with his hands in his pockets, turned
+upon his visitor, impatient contempt in every feature.
+
+"Wait a moment before you judge," said Barron dryly. "Do you remember a
+case of sudden death in this village a few weeks ago?--a woman who
+returned from America to her son John Broad, a labourer living in one of
+my 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 some
+curious medical evidence?"
+
+Barron nodded assent.
+
+"By the merest chance, I happened to see that woman the night after she
+arrived. I went to the cottage to remonstrate on the behaviour of John
+Broad's boys in my plantation. She was alone in the house, and she came
+to the door. By the merest chance also, while we stood there, Meynell and
+Miss Puttenham passed in the road outside. The woman--Mrs. Sabin--was
+terribly 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. I
+admit that she was scarcely responsible, that she died within a few hours
+of our conversation, of brain disease. But I still do not see--I wish to
+heaven I did!--any way out of what she told me--when one comes to combine
+it with--well, with other things. But whether I should finally have
+decided to make any use of the information I am not sure. But
+unfortunately"--he pointed to the letter still in Flaxman's hand--"that
+shows me that other persons--persons unknown to me--are in possession of
+some, at any rate, of the facts--and therefore that it is now vain to
+hope 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 or
+less. However--we will return presently to the letter. Mrs. Sabin's
+communication to you was of a nature to confirm the statements contained
+in it?"
+
+"Mrs. Sabin declared to me that having herself--independently--become
+aware of certain facts, while she was a servant in Lady Fox-Wilton's
+employment, that lady--no doubt in order to ensure her silence--took
+her abroad with herself and her young sister, Miss Alice, to a place in
+France she had some difficulty in pronouncing--it sounded to me like
+Grenoble; that there Miss Puttenham became the mother of a child, which
+passed thenceforward as the child of Sir Ralph and Lady Fox-Wilton, and
+received the name of Hester. She herself nursed Miss Puttenham, and no
+doctor was admitted. When the child was two months old, she accompanied
+the sisters to a place on the Riviera, where they took a villa. Here
+Sir Ralph Wilton, who was terribly broken and distressed by the whole
+thing, joined them, and he made an arrangement with her by which she
+agreed to go to the States and hold her tongue. She wrote to her people
+in Upcote--she had been a widow for some years--that she had accepted a
+nurse's situation in the States, and Sir Ralph saw her off from Genoa for
+New York. She seems to have married again in the States; and in the
+course of years to have developed some grievance against the Fox-Wiltons
+which ultimately determined her to come home. But all this part of her
+story was so excited and incoherent that I could make nothing of it. Nor
+does it matter very much to the subject--the real subject--we are
+discussing."
+
+Flaxman, who was standing in front of the speaker, intently listening,
+made no immediate reply. His eyes--half absently--considered the man
+before him. In Barron's aspect and tone there was not only the pompous
+self-importance of the man possessed of exclusive and sensational
+information; there were also indications of triumphant trains of
+reasoning 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 the
+ladies at Grenoble--we will say it was Grenoble--received a visitor. Miss
+Puttenham was still in her room. A gentleman arrived, and was admitted to
+see her. Mrs. Sabin was bundled out of the room by Lady Fox-Wilton. But
+it was a small wooden house, and Mrs. Sabin heard a good deal. Miss
+Puttenham was crying and talking excitedly. Mrs. Sabin was certain from
+what, 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 was
+necessary." 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 Lady
+Fox-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--such
+at least was her own story--from the door of her son's cottage, while I
+was with her, she saw Miss Puttenham--and Meynell--standing in the road
+outside."
+
+Flaxman took a turn along the room, and paused.
+
+"You admit that she was ill at the time she spoke to you--and in a
+distracted, incoherent state?"
+
+"Certainly I admit it." Barron drew himself erect, with a slight frown,
+as though tacitly protesting against certain suggestions in Flaxman's
+manner and voice. "But now let us look at another line of evidence. You
+as a newcomer are probably quite unaware of the gossip there has always
+been in this neighbourhood, ever since Sir Ralph Wilton's death, on the
+subject of Sir Ralph's will. That will in a special paragraph committed
+Hester Fox-Wilton to Richard Meynell's guardianship in remarkable terms;
+no provision whatever was made for the girl under Sir Ralph's will, and
+it is notorious that he treated her quite differently from his other
+children. From the moment also of the French journey, Sir Ralph's
+character and temper appeared to change. I have inquired of a good many
+persons as to this; of course with absolute discretion. He was a man of
+narrow Evangelical opinions"--at the word "narrow" Flaxman threw a
+sudden glance at the speaker--"and of strict veracity. My belief is that
+his later life was darkened by the falsehood to which he and his wife
+committed themselves. Finally, let me ask you to look at the young lady
+herself; at the extraordinary difference between her and her supposed
+family; at her extraordinary likeness--to the Rector."
+
+Flaxman raised his eyebrows at the last words, his aspect expressing
+disbelief and disgust even more strongly than before. Barron glanced at
+him, and then, after a moment, resumed in another manner, loftily
+explanatory:
+
+"I need not say that personally I find myself mixed up in such a business
+with the utmost reluctance."
+
+"Naturally," put in Flaxman dryly. "The risks attaching to it are simply
+gigantic."
+
+"I am aware of it. But as I have already pointed out to you, by some
+strange 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 my
+exclusive possession, and how many people are already aware of it and may
+be aware of it we cannot tell. I thought it well to come to you in the
+first instance, because I know that--you have taken some part lately--in
+Meynell'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 quite
+right. Both my wife and I greatly like and respect the Rector." He laid
+stress on the words.
+
+"It was for that very reason--let me repeat--that I came to you. You have
+influence 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 venture
+to suggest is that you should inform him of the stories that are now
+current. It is surely just that he should be informed. And then--we
+have to consider the bearings of this report on the unhappy situation in
+the diocese. How can we prevent its being made use of? It would be
+impossible. You know what the feeling is--you know what people are. In
+Meynell's own interest, and in that of the poor lady whose name is
+involved with his in this scandal, would it not be desirable in every
+way that he should now quietly withdraw from this parish and from
+the public contest in which he is engaged? Any excuse would be
+sufficient--health--overwork--anything. The scandal would then die out of
+itself. There is not one of us--those on Meynell's side, or those against
+him--who would not in such a case do his utmost to stamp it out. But--if
+he persists--both in living here, and in exciting public opinion as he is
+now doing--the story will certainly come out! Nothing can possibly stop
+it."
+
+Barron leant back and folded his arms. Flaxman's eyes sparkled. He felt
+an insane desire to run the substantial gentleman sitting opposite to the
+door and dismiss him with violence. But he restrained himself.
+
+"I am greatly obliged to you for your belief in the power of my good
+offices," he said, with a very frosty smile, "but I am afraid I must ask
+to be excused. Of course if the matter became serious, legal action would
+be taken very promptly."
+
+"How can legal action be taken?" interrupted Barron roughly. "Whatever
+may 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 in
+this village for many years is to be dragged to light--for what? In
+order--excuse my plain speaking--to blackmail Richard Meynell, and to
+force him to desist from the public campaign in which he is now engaged?
+These are hardly measures likely, I think, to commend themselves to some
+of 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 course
+guided by my own judgment and conscience. And I altogether protest
+against the word you have just employed. I came to you, Mr. Flaxman, I
+can honestly say, in the interests of peace!--in the interests of Meynell
+himself."
+
+"But you admit that there is really no evidence worthy of the name
+connecting Meynell with the story at all!" said Flaxman, turning upon
+him. "The crazy impression of a woman dying of brain disease--some gossip
+about 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 a
+rancorous obstinacy at last unveiled. "I believe that the woman's
+identification was a just one--though I admit that the proof is
+difficult. But then perhaps I approach the matter in one way, and you in
+another. A man, Mr. Flaxman, in my belief, does not throw over the faith
+of Christ for nothing! No! Such things are long prepared. Conscience, my
+dear sir, conscience breaks down first. The man becomes a hypocrite in
+his 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 kind
+of monstrosity. He thought of Meynell, of the eager refinement, the clean
+idealism, 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 perceive
+more plainly than he had yet done some of the intricacies of the
+situation.
+
+"I have nothing to do," he said, in a tone that he endeavoured to make
+reasonably calm, "nor has anybody, with generalization of that kind, in a
+case like this. The point is--could Meynell, being what he is, what we
+all know him to be, have not only betrayed a young girl, but have then
+failed to do her the elementary justice of marrying her? And the reply is
+that the thing is incredible!"
+
+"You forget that Meynell was extremely poor, and had his brothers to
+educate--"
+
+Flaxman shrugged his shoulders in laughing contempt.
+
+"Meynell desert the mother of his child--because of poverty--because of
+his brothers' education!--_Meynell_! You have known him some years--I
+only for a few months. But go into the cottages here--talk to the
+people--ask them, not what he believes, but what he _is_--what he has
+been to them. Get one of them, if you can, to credit this absurdity!"
+
+"The Rector's intimate friendship with Miss Puttenham has long been an
+astonishment--sometimes a scandal--to the village!" exclaimed Barron,
+doggedly.
+
+Flaxman stared at him in a blank amazement, then flushed. He took a turn
+up 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 the
+mere conversation were an insult to Meynell, in which he was forced to
+participate.
+
+He took a seat deliberately, and put on his magisterial manner, which,
+however, was much more delicately and unassumingly authoritative than
+that of other men.
+
+"I think we had better clear up our ideas. You bring me a story--a
+painful story--concerning a lady with whom we are both acquainted, which
+may 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 would
+certainly follow the diffusion of it. You invite me to connect with it
+the name of a man for whom I have the deepest respect and admiration; who
+bears an absolutely stainless record; and you threaten to make use of the
+charge in connection with the heresy trials now coming on. Now let me
+give you my advice--for what it may be worth. I should say--as you have
+asked my opinion--have nothing whatever to do with the matter! If anybody
+else brings you anonymous letters, tell them something of the law of
+libel--and something too of the guilt of slander! After all, with a
+little 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 is
+your influence, and not mine, which is important in this matter. You are
+a permanent resident, and I a mere bird of passage. And"--Flaxman's
+countenance kindled--"let me just remind you of this: if you want to
+strengthen Meynell's cause--if you want to win him thousands of new
+adherents--you have only to launch against him a calumny which is sure
+to break down--and will inevitably recoil upon you!"
+
+The two men had risen. Barron's face, handsome in feature, save for some
+thickened lines and the florid tint of the cheeks, had somehow emptied
+itself of expression while Flaxman was speaking.
+
+"Your advice is no doubt excellent," he said quietly, as he buttoned his
+coat, "but it is hardly practical. If there is one anonymous letter,
+there are probably others. If there are letters--there is sure to be
+talk--and talk cannot be stopped. And in time everything gets into the
+newspapers."
+
+Flaxman hesitated a moment. Something warned him not to push matters to
+extremities--to make no breach with Barron--to keep him in play.
+
+"I admit, of course, if this goes beyond a certain point it may be
+necessary to go to Meynell--it may be necessary for Meynell to go to his
+Bishop. But at present, if you _desire_ to suppress the thing, you have
+only to keep your own counsel--and wait. Dawes is a good fellow, and
+will, I am sure, say nothing. I could, if need be, speak to him myself. I
+was 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 to
+suppress it--always supposing that it could be suppressed--my convictions
+being what they are?"
+
+Then--suddenly--it was borne in on Flaxman that in the whole interview
+there had been no genuine desire whatever on Barron's part for advice and
+consultation. He had come determined on a certain course, and the object
+of the visit had been, in truth, merely to convey to one of Meynell's
+supporters a hint of the coming attack, and some intimation of its
+strength. 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," said
+Flaxman, with cold politeness. His manner changed instantly. Peremptorily
+dismissing the subject, he became, on the spot, the mere suave and
+courteous host of an interesting house; he pointed out the pictures and
+the view, and led the way to the hall.
+
+As he took leave, Barron stiffly intimated that he should not himself be
+able to attend Mrs. Flaxman's party that evening; but his daughter and
+sons hoped to have the pleasure of obeying her invitation.
+
+"Delighted to see them," said Flaxman, standing in the doorway, with his
+hands 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 before
+the year's out. My wife was determined to bring him and Meynell together.
+He seems to have the traditional interest in theology without which no
+English premier is complete."
+
+Pursued by this parting shot, Barron retired, and Flaxman went back
+thoughtfully to his wife's sitting-room. Should he tell her? Certainly.
+Her ready wits and quick brain were indispensable in the battle that
+might 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 been
+made to him.
+
+As he approached his wife's door he heard voices. Catharine! He
+remembered that she was to lunch and spend the day with Rose. Now what to
+do! Devoted as he was to his sister-in-law, he was scarcely inclined to
+trust her with the incident of the morning.
+
+But as soon as he opened the door, Rose ran upon him, drew him in and
+closed it. Catharine was sitting on the sofa--with a pale, kindled
+look--a letter in her hand.
+
+"Catharine has had an abominable letter, Hugh!--the most scandalous
+thing!"
+
+Flaxman took it from Catharine's hand, looked it through, and turned it
+over. The same script, a little differently disguised, and practically
+the same letter, as that which had been shown him in the library! But it
+began with a reference to the part which Mrs. Elsmere and her daughter
+had played in the terrible accident of the preceding week, which showed
+that the rogue responsible for it was at least a rogue possessed of some
+local 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 the
+perversity of men.
+
+Flaxman dropped on the sofa beside her.
+
+"You feel with me, that it is a mere clumsy attempt to injure Meynell, in
+the interests of the campaign against him?" he asked her, eagerly.
+
+"I don't know about that," said Catharine slowly--a shining sadness in
+her look. "But I do know that it could only injure those who are trying
+to fight his errors--if it could be supposed that they had stooped to
+such weapons!"
+
+"You dear woman!" cried Flaxman, impulsively, and he raised her hand to
+his lips. Catharine and Rose looked their astonishment. Whereupon he gave
+them the history of the hour he had just passed through.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+But although what one may call the natural freemasonry of the children of
+light had come in to protect Catharine from any touch of that greedy
+credulity which had fastened on Barron; though she and Rose and Hugh
+Flaxman were at one in their contemptuous repudiation of Barron's reading
+of the story, the story itself, so far as it concerned Alice Puttenham
+and Hester, found in all their minds but little resistance.
+
+"It may--it may be true," said Catharine gently. "If so--what she has
+gone through! Poor, poor thing!"
+
+And as she spoke--her thin fingers clasped on her black dress, the
+nun-like veil falling about her shoulders, her aspect had the frank
+simplicity of those who for their Lord's sake have faced the ugly things
+of life.
+
+"What a shame--what an outrage--that any of us here should know a word
+about it!" cried Rose, her small foot beating on the floor, the hot
+colour 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 stopped
+before his wife.
+
+"You must realize, darling, that we may be all walking on the edge of a
+volcano to-night."
+
+"If only Henry Barron were!--and I might be behind to give the last
+little _chiquenade_!" cried Rose.
+
+Flaxman devoutly echoed the wish.
+
+"But the point is--are there any more of these letters out? If so, we may
+hear of others to-night. Then--what to do? Do I make straight for
+Meynell?"
+
+They pondered it.
+
+"Impossible to leave Meynell in ignorance," said Flaxman--"if the thing
+spreads Meynell of course would be perfectly justified--in his ward's
+interests--in denying the whole matter absolutely, true or no. But can
+he?--with Barron in reserve--using the Sabin woman's tale for his own
+purposes?"
+
+Catharine's face, a little sternly set, showed the obscure conflict
+behind.
+
+"He cannot say what is false," she said stiffly. "But he can refuse to
+answer."
+
+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 the
+world--almost."
+
+Catharine made no reply, but her quiet face showed she did not agree with
+him.
+
+"That child Hester!" Rose emerged suddenly from a mental voyage
+of recollection and conjecture. "Now one understands why Lady
+Fox-Wilton--stupid woman!--has never seemed to care a rap for her. It
+must indeed be annoying to have to mother a child so much handsomer than
+your own."
+
+"I think I am very sorry for Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton," said Catharine, after
+a moment.
+
+Rose assented.
+
+"Yes!--just an ordinary dull, pig-headed country gentleman confronted
+with a situation that only occurs in plays to which you don't demean
+yourself by going!--and obliged to tell and act a string of lies, when
+lies happen to be just one of the vices you're not inclined to! And then
+afterward you find yourself let in for living years and years with a bad
+conscience--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 saw
+Miss Fox-Wilton--with Philip Meryon--in Hewlett's spinney this morning. I
+came back from Markborough by a path I had never discovered before--and
+there, sure enough, they were. They heard me on the path, I think, and
+vanished most effectively. The wood is very thick. But I am sure it was
+they--though they were some distance from me."
+
+Rose exclaimed.
+
+"Naughty, _naughty_ child: She has been absolutely forbidden to see
+him, the whole Fox-Wilton family have made themselves into gaolers and
+spies--and she just outwits them all! Poor Alice Puttenham hovers about
+her--trying to distract and amuse her--and has no more influence than a
+fly. 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 to
+him from all over England to come and speak--or consult--or organize--(I
+don'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 till
+this girl is safely off the scene! He means to take her to Paris himself
+on Monday. I only hope he has found a proper sort of Gorgon to leave her
+with!"
+
+Flaxman could not but reflect that the whole relation of Meynell to his
+ward might well give openings to such a scoundrel like the writer of the
+anonymous letters, who was certainly acquainted with local affairs. But
+he did not express this feeling aloud. Meanwhile Catharine, who showed an
+interest in Hester which surprised both him and Rose, began to question
+him on the subject of Philip Meryon. Meryon's mother, it seemed, had been
+an intimate friend of one of Flaxman's sisters, Lady Helen Varley, and
+Flaxman was well acquainted with the young man's most unsatisfactory
+record. He drew a picture of the gradual degeneracy of the handsome lad
+who 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 unluckily
+he has put himself beyond the pale now, one way and another. It is too
+disastrous about this pretty child! What on earth does she see in him?"
+
+"Simply a means of escaping from her home," said Rose--"the situation
+working out! But who knows whether he hasn't got a wife already? Nobody
+should trust this young man farther than they can see him."
+
+"It musn't--it can't be allowed!" said Catharine, with energy. And, as
+she spoke, she seemed to feel again the soft bloom of Hester's young
+cheek against her own, just as when she had drawn the girl to her, in
+that instinctive caress. The deep maternity in Catharine had never yet
+found scope enough in the love of one child.
+
+Then, with a still keener sense of the various difficulties rising along
+Meynell's path, Flaxman and Rose returned to the anxious discussion of
+Barron's move and how to meet it. Catharine listened, saying little; and
+it was presently settled that Flaxman should himself call on Dawes, the
+colliery 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 further
+developments.
+
+"Tell me"--said Rose presently, when Flaxman had left the sisters
+alone--"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 from
+Mary that there _was_ a scandal--of some sort--in circulation, if the
+thing 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 whom
+she had ever been afraid. But at last she took the plunge.
+
+"Catharine!--don't be angry with me--but I think Mary is interested in
+Richard Meynell."
+
+"Why should I be angry?" said Catharine. She had coloured a little, but
+she was perfectly composed. With her gray hair, and her plain widow's
+dress, she threw her sister's charming mondanity into bright relief. But
+beauty--loftily understood--lay with Catharine.
+
+"It _is_ ill luck--his opinions!" cried Rose, laying her hand upon her
+sister's.
+
+"Opinions are not 'luck,'" said Catharine, with a rather cold smile.
+
+"You mean we are responsible for them? Perhaps we are, if we are
+responsible for anything--which I sometimes doubt. But you like
+him--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 please
+don'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 anything
+that would be a grief to you."
+
+Catharine was silent a moment. Then she said in a tone that went to the
+listener's heart:
+
+"Whatever happened--will be God's will."
+
+She sat motionless, her eyes drooped, her features a little drawn and
+pale; her thoughts--Rose knew it--in the past.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Flaxman came back from his interview with Dawes, reporting that nothing
+could have been in better taste or feeling than Dawes's view of the
+matter. As far as the Rector was concerned--and he had told Mr. Barron
+so--the story was ridiculous, the mere blunder of a crazy woman; and, for
+the rest, what had they to do in Upcote with ferreting into other
+people's private affairs? He had locked up the letter in case it might
+some time be necessary to hand it to the police, and didn't intend
+himself to say a word to anybody. If the thing went any further, why of
+course the Rector must be informed. Otherwise silence was best. He had
+given a piece of his mind to Mr. Barron and "didn't want to be mixed up
+in any such business." "As far as I'm concerned, Mr. Flaxman, I'm
+fighting 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 got
+into the hands of a certain Miss Nairn in the village there might be
+trouble."
+
+"Miss Nairn?--Miss Nairn?" The sisters looked at each other. "Oh, I
+know--the lady in black we saw in church the day the revolution began--a
+strange little shrivelled spinster-thing who lives in that house by the
+post-office. She quarrelled mortally with the Rector last year, because
+she ill-treated a little servant girl of hers, and the Rector
+remonstrated."
+
+"Well, she's one of the 'aggrieved.'"
+
+"They seem to be an odd crew! There's the old sea-captain that lives in
+that queer house with the single yew tree and the boarded-up window on
+the edge of the Heath. He's one of them. He used to come to church about
+once a quarter and wrote the Rector interminable letters on the meaning
+of Ezekiel. Then there's the publican--East--who nearly lost his license
+last year--he always put it down to the Rector and vowed he'd be even
+with him. I must say, the church in Upcote seems rather put to it for
+defenders!"
+
+"In Upcote," corrected Flaxman. "That's because of Meynell's personal
+hold. Plenty of 'em--quite immaculate--elsewhere. However, Dawes is a
+perfectly decent, honest man, and grieved to the heart by the Rector's
+performances."
+
+Catharine had waited silently to hear this remark, and then went away to
+write a letter.
+
+"Poor darling! Will she go and call on Dawes--for sympathy?" said
+Flaxman, mischievously to his wife as the door closed.
+
+"Sympathy?" Rose's face grew soft. "It's much as it was with Robert. It
+ought to be so simple--and it is so mixed! Nature of course _ought_ to
+have endowed all unbelievers with the proper horns and tail. And there
+they go--stealing your heart away!--and your daughter's."
+
+The Flaxmans and Catharine--who spent the day with her sister, before the
+evening party--were more and more conscious of oppression as the hours
+went on; as though some moral thunder hung in the air.
+
+Flaxman asked himself again and again--"Ought I to go to Meynell at
+once?" and could not satisfy himself with any answer; while he, his
+wife, and his sister-in-law, being persons of delicacy, were all
+ashamed of finding themselves the possessors, against their will, of
+facts--supposing they were facts--to which they had no right. Meynell's
+ignorance--Alice Puttenham's ignorance--of their knowledge, tormented
+their consciences. And it added to their discomfort that they shared
+their knowledge with such a person as Henry Barron. However, there was no
+help for it.
+
+A mild autumn day drew to its close, with a lingering gold in the west
+and a rising moon. The charming old house, with its faded furniture, and
+its out-at-elbows charm, was lit up softly, with lamps that made a dim
+but friendly shining in its wide spaces. It had never belonged to rich
+people, but always to people of taste. It boasted no Gainsboroughs or
+Romneys; but there were lesser men of the date, possessed of pretty
+talents of their own, painters and pastellists, who had tried their hands
+on the family, of whom they had probably been the personal friends. The
+originals of the portraits on the walls were known neither to history nor
+scandal; but their good, modest faces, their brave red or blue coats,
+their white gowns, and drooping feathers looked winningly out from the
+soft shadows of the rooms. At Maudeley, Rose wore her simplest dresses,
+and was astonished at the lightness of the household expenses. The house
+indeed had never known display, or any other luxury than space; and to
+live in it was to accept its tradition.
+
+The week-enders arrived at tea-time; Mr. Norham with a secretary and a
+valet, much preoccupied, and chewing the fag-end of certain Cabinet
+deliberations in the morning; Flaxman's charming sister, Lady Helen
+Varley, and her husband; his elder brother, Lord Wanless, unmarried, an
+expert on armour, slightly eccentric, but still, in the eyes of all
+intriguing mothers, and to his own annoyance, more than desirable as a
+husband owing to the Wanless collieries and a few other trifles of the
+same kind; the Bishop of Markborough; Canon France and his sister; a
+young poet whose very delicate muse had lodged itself oddly in the frame
+of an athlete; a high official in the Local Government Board, Mr.
+Spearman, whom Rose regarded with distrust as likely to lead Hugh into
+too much talk about workhouses; Lady Helen's two girls just out, as
+dainty and well-dressed, as gayly and innocently sure of themselves
+and their place in life as the "classes" at their best know how to
+produce; and two or three youths, bound for Oxford by the end of
+the week, samples, these last, of a somewhat new type in that old
+University--combining the dash, family, and insolence of the old "tuft"
+or Bullingdon man, with an amazing aptitude for the classics, rare indeed
+among the "tufts" of old. Two out of the three had captured almost every
+distinction that Oxford offers; and all three had been either gated for
+lengthy periods or "sent down," or otherwise trounced by an angry
+college, puzzled by the queer connection between Irelands and Hertfords
+on the one hand and tipsy frolics on the other.
+
+Meynell appeared for dinner--somewhat late. It was only with great
+difficulty that the Flaxmans had prevailed on him to come, for the
+purpose of meeting Mr. Norham. But the party within the church which,
+foreseeing a Modernist defeat in the church courts, was appealing to
+Parliament to take action, was strengthening every week; Meynell's
+Saturday articles in the _Modernist_, the paper founded by the Reformers'
+League, were already providing these parliamentarians with a policy and
+inspiration; and if the Movement were to go on swelling during the
+winter, the government might have to take very serious cognizance of it
+during the spring. Mr. Norham therefore had expressed a wish for some
+conversation with the Modernist leader, who happened to be Rector of
+Upcote; and Meynell, who had by now cut himself adrift from all social
+engagements, had with difficulty saved an evening.
+
+As far as Norham was concerned Meynell would have greatly preferred to
+take the Home Secretary for a Sunday walk on the Chase; but he had begun
+to 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 let
+himself think too much?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So that Rose, as she surveyed her dinner table, could feel that she was
+maintaining the wide social traditions of England, by the mingling of as
+many contraries as possible. But the oil and vinegar were after all
+cunningly mixed, and the dinner went well. The Bishop was separated from
+Meynell by the length of the table, and Norham was carefully protected
+from Mr. Spearman, in his eyes a prince of bores, who was always
+bothering the Home Office.
+
+The Bishop, who was seated beside Rose at one end of the table, noticed
+the black patch on Meynell's temple, and inquired its origin. Rose gave
+him a graphic account both of the accident and the riot. The Bishop
+raised his eyebrows.
+
+"How does he contrive to live the two lives?" he said in a tone slightly
+acid. "If he continues to lead this Movement, he will have to give up
+fighting mobs and running up and down mines."
+
+"What is going to happen to the Movement?" Rose asked him, with her most
+sympathetic smile. Socially and in her own house she was divinely all
+things to all men. But the Bishop was rather suspicious of her.
+
+"What can happen to it but defeat? The only other alternative is the
+break-up of the Church. And for that, thank God, they are not strong
+enough."
+
+"And no compromise is possible?"
+
+"None. In three months Meynell and all his friends will have ceased to
+belong to the English Church. It is very lamentable. I am particularly
+sorry 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 National
+Church? Hasn't she the right and the power?"
+
+But her instincts as hostess stifled her pugnacity. And the little Bishop
+looked so worn and fragile that she had no heart for anything but
+cossetting him. At the same time she noticed--as she had done before on
+other occasions--the curious absence of any ferocity, any smell of
+brimstone, in the air! How different from Robert's day! Then the
+presumption underlying all controversy was of an offended authority
+ranged against an apologetic rebellion. A tone of moral condemnation on
+the one side, a touch of casuistry on the other, confused the issues. And
+now--behind and around the combatants--the clash of equal hosts!--over
+ground strewn with dead assumptions. The conflict might be no less
+strenuous; nay! from a series of isolated struggles it had developed into
+a world-wide battle; but the bitterness between man and man was less.
+
+Yes!--for the nobler spirits--the leaders and generals of each army. But
+what of the rank and file? And at the thought of Barron she laughed at
+herself for supposing that religious rancour and religious slander had
+died out of the world!
+
+"Can we have some talk somewhere?" said Norham languidly, in Meynell's
+ear, as the gentlemen left the dining-room.
+
+"I think Mrs. Flaxman will have arranged something," said Meynell, with a
+smile--detecting the weariness of the political Atlas.
+
+And indeed Rose had all her dispositions made. They found her in the
+drawing-room, amid a bevy of bright gowns and comely faces, illumined by
+the cheerful light of a big wood fire--a circle of shimmering stuffs and
+gems, the blaze sparkling on the pointed slippers, the white necks and
+glossy 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 her
+two _gros bonnets_.
+
+"The green drawing-room!" she murmured in Meynell's ear, and tripped on
+before them, while the incoming crowd of gentlemen, mingling with the
+ladies, served to mask the movement.
+
+Not, however, before the Bishop had perceived the withdrawal of the
+politician 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 that
+delicate face beyond the sentiments proper to the situation?--the public
+situation? As to the personal emotion involved, that, the Canon knew, was
+for the time almost exhausted. The Bishop had suffered much during the
+preceding months--in his affections, his fatherly feeling toward his
+clergy, in his sense of the affront offered to Christ's seamless vesture
+of the Church. But now, France thought, pain had been largely deadened by
+the mere dramatic interest of the prospect ahead, by the anodyne of an
+immense correspondence, and of a vast increase in the business of the
+day, 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 was
+evidently a favourite with them, and with all nice women. Finally he sank
+into an armchair beside Lady Helen Varley, exchanging Mrs. Flaxman's
+cossetting for hers. His small figure was almost lost in the armchair.
+The firelight danced on his slender stockinged legs, on his episcopal
+shoe buckles, on the cross which adorned his episcopal breast, and then
+on the gleaming snow of his hair, above his blue eyes with their slight
+unearthliness, so large and flower-like in his small white face. He
+seemed very much at ease--throwing off all burdens.
+
+No!--the Slander which had begun to fly through the diocese, like an
+arrow by night, had not yet touched the Bishop.
+
+Nor Meynell himself?
+
+Yet France was certain that Barron had not been idle, that he had not
+let it drop. "I advised him to let it drop"--he said uneasily to
+himself--"that was all I could do."
+
+Then he looked round him, at the faces of the women present. He scarcely
+knew any of them. Was she among them--the lady of Barron's tale? He
+thought 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 subject
+of speculation. And Barron could not have confided it to any one in the
+diocese, so discreet--so absolutely discreet--as he.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I gather this Movement of yours is rapidly becoming formidable?" said
+Norham to his companion.
+
+He spoke with the affectation of interest that all politicians in office
+must learn. But there was no heart in it, and Meynell wondered why the
+great man had desired to speak with him at all.
+
+He replied that the growth of the Movement was certainly a startling
+fact.
+
+"It is now clear that we must ultimately go to Parliament. The immediate
+result in the Church courts is of course not in doubt. But our hope lies
+in such demonstrations in the country as may induce Parliament"--he
+paused, laying a quiet emphasis on each word--"to reconsider--and
+resettle--the conditions of membership and office in the English Church."
+
+"Good heavens!" cried Norham, throwing up his hand--"What a prospect! If
+that business once gets into the House of Commons, it'll have everything
+else 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 an
+ecclesiastical debate. You'd think it was in the condition of Sydney
+Smith with a cold--not sure whether there were nine Articles and
+Thirty-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 marked
+prematurely by hard work and hard fighting. His black hair had receded on
+the temples, and was obviously thinning on the crown of the head; he wore
+spectacles, and his shoulders had taken the stoop of office work. But the
+eyes behind the spectacles lost nothing that they desired to see; and the
+general impression was one of bull-dog strength, which could be
+impertinent and aggressive, and could also masque itself in a good humour
+and charm by no means insincere. In his political career, he was on the
+eve 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 to
+glean in many fields, and keep his eye on many chances that his
+colleagues perforce neglected. The Modernist Movement was one of these
+chances. For years he had foreseen great changes ahead in the relations
+of 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 had
+been teasing. As he did so there was a little crash at his elbow and
+something 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 had
+rolled out of it--a gold coin of Velia, with a head of Athene--one of
+the great prizes of the collector.
+
+Norham took it with eagerness. He was a Cambridge man, and a fine
+scholar, 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 the
+table. "But he loves them too. Mrs. Flaxman always has them put out on
+great occasions. It seems to me they ought to have a watcher! They
+are quite priceless, I believe. Such things are soon lost."
+
+"Oh!--they are safe enough here," said Norham, returning the coin to its
+place, with another loving look at it. Then, with an effort, he pulled
+himself together,  and with great rapidity began to question his
+companion as to the details and progress of the Movement. All the facts
+up to date, the number of Reformers enrolled since the foundation of the
+League, the League's finances, the astonishing growth of its petition to
+Parliament, the progress of the Movement in the Universities, among the
+ardent and intellectual youth of the day, its spread from week to week
+among the clergy: these things came out steadily and clearly in Meynell's
+replies.
+
+"The League was started in July--it is now October. We have fifty
+thousand enrolled members, all communicants in Modernist churches.
+Meetings and demonstrations are being arranged at this moment all over
+England; and in January or February there will be a formal inauguration
+of the new Liturgy in Dunchester Cathedral."
+
+"Heavens!" said Norham, dropping all signs of languor. "Dunchester will
+venture it?"
+
+Meynell made a sign of assent.
+
+"It is of course possible that the episcopal proceedings against the
+Bishop, which, as you see, have just begun, may have been brought to a
+close, 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 as
+his Bishop! Upon my word, the government has been badly informed or I
+have not kept up. I had no idea--simply no idea--that things had gone so
+far. Markborough of course gives us very different accounts--he and the
+Bishops 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 few
+months, temporarily at least. It will rest with Parliament whether we
+remain so!"
+
+"The Non-Jurors of the twentieth century!" murmured Norham, with a
+half-sceptical intonation.
+
+"Ah, but this _is_ the twentieth century!"--said Meynell smiling. "And in
+our 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 long
+as there are any of us left in our livings, each will come to the help of
+the other."
+
+"But you yourself?"
+
+"I have already made arrangements for a big barn in the village"--said
+Meynell, smiling--"a great tithe-barn of the fifteenth century, a
+magnificent old place, with a forest of wooden arches, and a vault like a
+church. The village will worship there for a while. We shall make it
+beautiful!"
+
+Norham was silent for a moment. He was stupefied by the energy, the
+passion of religious hope in the face beside him. Then the critical
+temper 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 I
+have always thought the ideas of Liberal Christianity a rather beggarly
+set-out--excuse the phrase!"
+
+"There is nothing to excuse!--the phrase fits. 'A reduced
+Christianity'--as opposed to a 'full Christianity'--that is the
+description lately given, I think, by a divinity professor. I don't
+quarrel 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--was
+unwilling in these surroundings to play the prophet, to plunge into the
+central stream of argument. But Norham, the outsider and dilettante, was
+conscious of a kindled mind.
+
+"That is the question to which it always seems to me there is no
+answer," he said easily, leaning back in his chair. "You think you
+can take what you like of a great historical religion and leave the
+rest--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 old
+fundamental notions that still stands, unchallenged? What are we in the
+eyes of modern psychology--but a world of automata--dancing to stimuli
+from outside? What has become of conscience--of the moral law--of Kant's
+imperative--in the minds of writers like these?"
+
+He pointed to two recent novels lying on the table, both of them
+brilliant 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 National
+Church--of the nation, that is, in its spiritual aspect. The question for
+which we are campaigning is as to the terms of membership in that
+society. But terms and conditions there must always be. The 'wild living
+intellect of man' must accept conditions in the Church, as _we_ conceive
+it, 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 the
+church suffers and souls are lost--wantonly, without reason. But there is
+no church--no religion--without some venture, some leap of faith! If you
+can't make any leap at all--any venture--then you remain outside--and you
+think yourself, perhaps, entitled to run amuck--as these men do!" He
+pointed to the books. "But _we_ make the venture!--_we_ accept the great
+hypothesis--of faith."
+
+The sound of voices came dimly to them from the farther rooms. Norham
+pointed toward them.
+
+"What difference then between you--and your Bishop?"
+
+"Simply that in his case--as _we_ say--the hypothesis of faith is
+weighted with a vast mass of stubborn matter that it was never meant to
+carry--bad history, bad criticism, an out-grown philosophy. To make
+it carry it--in our belief--you have to fly in the face of that gradual
+education of the world--education of the mind, education of the
+conscience--which is the chief mark of God in the world. But the
+hypothesis 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 true
+ones. But what the saint means by it, I suppose, in the first instance,
+is that there is in man something mysterious, superhuman--a Life in
+life--which can be indefinitely strengthened, enlightened, purified, till
+it 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 he
+relapses into the animal. Believe it, we say! Live by it!--make the
+venture. _Verificatur vivendo_!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Again the conversation paused. From the distance once more came the merry
+clamour of the farther drawing-room. A din of young folk, chaffing and
+teasing each other--a girl's defiant voice above it--outbursts of
+laughter. Norham, who had in him a touch of dramatic imagination, enjoyed
+the contrast between the gay crowd in the distance and this quiet room
+where he sat face to face with a visionary--surely altogether remote from
+the marrying, money-making, sensuous world. Yet after all the League was
+a big, practical, organized fact.
+
+"What you have expressed--very finely, if I may say so--is of course the
+mystical creed," he replied at last, with suave politeness. "But why call
+it Christianity?"
+
+As he spoke, he was conscious of a certain pride in himself. He felt
+complacently that he understood Meynell and appreciated him; and that
+hardly 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 mankind
+must have tales and symbols."
+
+"And the life of Christ is your symbol?"
+
+"More!--it is our Sacrament--the supreme Sacrament--to which all other
+symbols 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 the
+meeting-place of God and man, as to the Catholic--Roman or Anglican."
+
+"Strange that there should be so many of you!" said Norham, after a
+moment, with an incredulous smile.
+
+"Yes--that has been the discovery of the last six months. But we might
+all 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 became
+presently aware that the parish priest, the visionary, possessed a
+surprising amount of practical and statesman-like ability.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile--a room or two away--in the great bare drawing-room, with
+its faded tapestries, and its warm mixture of lamplight and firelight,
+the evening guests had been arriving. Rose stood at the door of the
+drawing-room, receiving, her husband beside her, Catharine a little way
+behind.
+
+"Oh!" cried Rose suddenly, under her breath, only heard by Hugh--a little
+sound of perturbation.
+
+Outside, in the hall, hardly lit at intervals by oil-lamps, a group could
+be seen advancing; in front Alice Puttenham and Mary, and behind, the
+Fox-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 came
+dreamily forward; and Rose saw her marked out, by the lovely oval of the
+face, its whiteness, its melancholy, from all the moving shapes around
+her. She wore a dress of black gauze over white; a little scarf of old
+lace lay on her shoulders; her still abundant hair was rolled back from
+her high brow and sad eyes. She looked very small and childish--as frail
+as thistledown.
+
+And behind her, Hester's stormy beauty! Rose gave a little gulp. Then she
+found herself pressing a cold hand, and was conscious of sudden relief.
+Miss Puttenham's shy composure was unchanged. She could not have looked
+so--she could not surely have confronted such a gathering of neighbours
+and strangers, if--
+
+No, no! The Slander--Rose, in her turn, saw it under an image, as though
+a dark night-bird hovered over Upcote--had not yet descended on this
+gentle head. With eager kindness, Hugh came forward--and Catharine. They
+found her a place by the fire, where presently the glow seemed to make
+its way to her pale cheeks, and she sat silent and amused, watching the
+triumph of Hester.
+
+For Hester was no sooner in the room than, resenting perhaps the
+decidedly cool reception that Mrs. Flaxman had given her, she at once set
+to work to extinguish all the other young women there. And she had very
+soon succeeded. The Oxford youths, Lord Wanless, the sons of two or three
+neighbouring squires, they were all presently gathered about her, as
+thick as bees on honeycomb, recognizing in her instantly one of those
+beings endowed from their cradle with a double portion of sex-magic, who
+leave such a wild track behind them in the world.
+
+By her chair stood poor Stephen Barron, absorbed in her every look and
+tone. 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, a
+magnificent fellow, radiating health and gayety, who was trying to wear
+her down in one of the word-games of the day. They fought hard and
+breathlessly, everybody listening partly for the amusement of the game,
+partly for the pleasure of watching the good looks of the young creatures
+playing 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. I
+never found anybody near so good as you at it before, except a man I met
+once at Newmarket--Philip Meryon--do you know him? Never saw a fellow so
+good at games. But an awfully queer fish!"
+
+It seemed to the morbid sensitiveness of Rose that there was an
+instantaneous and a thrilling silence. Hester tossed her head; her
+colour, 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 he
+beat you!"
+
+The young man gave a half-laugh, and looked at his friends. Then he
+changed the subject. But Hester got up impatiently from her seat, and
+would not play any more. Rose caught the sudden intentness with which
+Alice 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?" she
+thought rebelliously, as she watched the disagreeable face of Maurice
+Barron, who had been standing in the circle not far from Hester. He had a
+look of bad company which displeased her; and she resented what seemed to
+her an inclination to stare at the pretty women--especially at Hester,
+and Miss Puttenham. Heavens!--if that odious father had betrayed anything
+to such a son! Surely, surely it was inconceivable!
+
+The party was beginning to thin when Meynell, impatient to be quit of his
+Cabinet Minister that he might find Mary Elsmere before it was too late,
+hurried from the green drawing-room, in the wake of Mr. Norham, and
+stumbled against a young man, who in the very imperfect illumination had
+not perceived the second figure behind the Home Secretary.
+
+"Hullo!" said Meynell brusquely, stepping back. "How do you do? Is
+Stephen here?"
+
+Maurice Barron answered in the affirmative--and added, as though from the
+need 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 contempt
+even, that was rare with him. He and Norham passed through the next
+drawing-room, and met various acquaintances at the farther door. Maurice
+Barron stood watching them. The persons invading the room had come
+intending to see the coins. But meeting the Home Secretary they turned
+back with him, and Meynell followed them, eager to disengage himself from
+them. At the door some impulse made him turn and look back. He saw
+Maurice Barron disappearing into the green drawing-room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The night was soft and warm. Catharine and Mary had come prepared to walk
+home, Catharine eagerly resuming, now that her health allowed it, the
+Spartan habits of their normal life. Flaxman was drawn by the beauty of
+the moonlight and the park to offer to escort them to the lower lodge.
+Hester declared that she too would walk, and carelessly accepted
+Stephen's escort. Meynell stepped out from the house with them, and in
+the natural sequence of things he found himself with Mary.
+
+Flaxman and Catharine, who led the way, hardly spoke to each other. They
+walked, 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 fresh
+talk about it. Just behind them they could hear Hester laughing and
+sparring with Stephen; and when Catharine looked back she could see
+Meynell and Mary far away, in the distance of the avenue they were
+following.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The great lime-trees on either side threw long shadows on grass covered
+with the fresh fallen leaf, which gleamed, a pale orange, through the
+dusk. The sky was dappled with white cloud, and the lime-boughs overhead
+broke it into patterns of delight. The sharp scent of the fallen leaves
+was in the air; and the night for all its mildness prophesied winter.
+Meynell seemed to himself to be moving on enchanted ground, beneath
+enchanted trees. The tension of his long talk with Norham, the cares of
+his leadership--the voices of a natural ambition, dropped away. Mary in a
+blue cloak, a white scarf wound about her head, summed up for him the
+pure beauty of nature and the night. For the first time he did not
+attempt to check the thrill in his veins; he began to hope. It was
+impossible to ignore the change in Mrs. Elsmere's attitude toward him. He
+had no idea what had caused it; but he felt it. And he realized also that
+through unseen and inexplicable gradations Mary had come mysteriously
+near to him. He dared not have spoken a word of love to her; but such
+feeling as theirs, however restrained, penetrates speech and gesture, and
+irresistibly makes all things new.
+
+They spoke of the most trivial matters, and hardly noticed what they
+said. He all the time was thinking: "Beyond this tumult there will be
+rest some day--then I may speak. We could live hardly and simply--neither
+of us wants luxury. But _now_ it would be unjust--it would bring too
+great a burden on her--and her poor mother. I must wait! But we shall see
+each other--we shall understand each other!"
+
+Meanwhile she, on her side, would perhaps have given the world to share
+the 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 first
+column.
+
+"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 legacy
+with his father. Since the outbreak of the Reform Movement there had been
+frequent disputes between the father and son, if aggressive attack on the
+one side and silent endurance on the other make a dispute. Barron scorned
+his eldest son, as a faddist and a dreamer; while Stephen could never
+remember the time when his father had not seemed to him the living
+embodiment of prejudice, obstinacy, and caprice. He had always reckoned
+it indeed the crowning proof of Meynell's unworldly optimism that, at the
+moment of his father's accession to the White House estate, there should
+have been a passing friendship between him and the Rector. Yet whenever
+thoughts of this kind presented themselves explicitly to Stephen he tried
+to suppress them. His life, often, was a constant struggle between a
+genuine and irrepressible dislike of his father and a sore sense that no
+Christian priest could permit himself such a feeling.
+
+He made no reply to his father's interjection. But Barron knew very well
+that his son's self-control was no indication of lack of will; quite the
+contrary; and the father was conscious of a growing exasperation as he
+watched the patient compression of the young mouth. He wanted somehow to
+convict and crush Stephen; and he believed that he held the means thereto
+in his hand. He had not been sure before Stephen arrived whether he
+should 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 unforgivable
+offence. What a gentle, malleable fellow he had seemed in his school and
+college days!--how amenable to the father's spiritual tyranny! It was
+Barron's constant excuse to himself for his own rancorous feeling--that
+Meynell had robbed him of his son.
+
+"You probably think it strange"--he resumed harshly--"that I should
+rejoice in what of course is your misfortune--that your people reject
+you; but there are higher interests than those of personal affection
+concerned in this business. We who are defending her must think first of
+the Church!"
+
+"Naturally," said Stephen.
+
+His father looked at him in silence for a moment, at the mild pliant
+figure, the downcast eyes.
+
+"There is, however, one thing for which I have cause--we all have
+cause--to be grateful to Meynell," he said, with emphasis.
+
+Stephen looked up.
+
+"I understand he refused to sanction your engagement to Hester
+Fox-Wilton."
+
+The young man flushed.
+
+"It would be better, I think, father, if we are to talk over these
+matters quietly--which I understood is the reason you asked me to come
+here to-day--that you should avoid a tone toward myself and my affairs
+which can only make frank conversation difficult or impossible between
+us."
+
+"I have no desire to be offensive," said Barron, checking himself with
+difficulty, "and I have only your good in view, though you may not
+believe it. My reason for approving Meynell in the matter is that he was
+aware--and you were not aware"--he fell into the slow phrasing he always
+affected on important occasions--"of facts bearing vitally on your
+proposal; and that in the light of them he acted as any honest man was
+bound to act."
+
+"What do you mean!" cried Stephen, springing to his feet.
+
+"I mean"--the answer was increasingly deliberate--"that Hester
+Fox-Wilton--it is very painful to have to go into these things, but it is
+necessary, I regret to say--is not a Fox-Wilton at all--and has no right
+whatever 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_ Lady
+Fox-Wilton."
+
+Barron had now assumed the habitual attitude--thumbs in his pockets, legs
+slightly apart--that Stephen had associated from his childhood with the
+long bullying, secular and religious, that Barron's family owed to
+Barron'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 you
+look at me in that fashion! Believe me--it is not my fault, but my
+misfortune, that I happen to be acquainted with this very disagreeable
+secret. And I have one thing to say--you must give me your promise that
+you 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 Judith
+Sabin, omitting only those portions of it which connected the story with
+Meynell. It was evident, presently, that Stephen--to the dawning triumph
+of his father--listened with an increasingly troubled mind. And indeed,
+at the first whisper of the story, there had flashed through the young
+man's memory the vision of Meynell arguing and expostulating on that
+July afternoon, when he, Stephen, had spoken so confidingly, so
+unsuspectingly of his love for Hester. He recalled his own amazement, his
+sense of shock and strangeness. What Meynell said on that occasion
+seemed to have so little relation to what Meynell habitually was.
+Meynell, for whom love, in its spiritual aspect, was the salt and
+significance of life, the foundation of all wisdom--Meynell on that
+occasion had seemed to make comparatively nothing of love!--to deny its
+simplest rights--to put it despotically out of count. Stephen, as he had
+long recognized, had been overborne and silenced by Meynell's personality
+rather than by Meynell's arguments--by the disabling force mainly of his
+own devotion to the man who bade him wait and renounce. But in his heart
+he had never quite forgiven, or understood; and for all the subsequent
+trouble about Hester, all his own jealousy and pain, he had not been able
+to prevent himself from blaming Meynell. And now--now!--if this story
+were true--he began to understand. Poor child--poor mother! With the
+marriage of the child, must come--he felt the logic of it--the confession
+of the mother. A woman like Alice Puttenham, a man like Meynell, were not
+likely to give Hester to her lover without telling that lover what he had
+a right to know. Small blame to them if they were not prepared to bring
+about that crisis prematurely, while Hester was still so young! It must
+be 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 his
+father was telling with that heavy tragic touch which the son
+instinctively hated as insincere and theatrical.
+
+"Now then, perhaps,"--Barron wound up--"you will realize why it is I feel
+Meynell has acted considerately, and as any true friend of yours was
+bound to act. He knew--and you were ignorant. Such a marriage could not
+have been for your happiness, and he rightly interposed."
+
+"What difference does it make to Hester herself," cried Stephen
+hotly--"supposing the thing is true? I admit--it may be true," and as he
+spoke a host of small confirmations came thronging into his unwilling
+mind. "But in any case--"
+
+He walked up to his father again.
+
+"What have you done about it, father?" he said, sharply. "I suppose you
+went to Meynell at once."
+
+Barron smiled, with a lift of the eyebrows. He knocked off the end of his
+cigarette, 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 same
+emphasis, "not at all easy."
+
+"What do you mean, father? There seems to be something more behind. If
+there is, considering my feeling for Hester, it seems to me that having
+told me so much you are bound to tell me _all_ you know. Remember--this
+story concerns the girl I love!"
+
+Passion and pain spoke in the young man's voice. His father looked at him
+with 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 the
+view of Judith Sabin was--what the facts seem to point to. But--in any
+case, whether I believe Judith Sabin or no, I should not have said a word
+to you on the subject but for the circumstance that--unfortunately--there
+are other people in the case."
+
+Whereupon--watching his son carefully--Barron repeated the story that he
+had 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 could
+scarcely bring himself to listen at all, after he had once gathered the
+real gist of what his father was saying.
+
+Yet, by this time, the story was much better worth listening to than it
+had been when Barron had first presented it to Flaxman. By dint of much
+brooding, and under the influence of an angry obstinacy which must have
+its prey, Barron had made it a good deal more plausible than it had been
+to begin with, and would no doubt make it more plausible still. He had
+brought in by now a variety of small local observations bearing on the
+relations between the three figures in the drama--Hester, Alice
+Puttenham, Meynell--which Stephen must and did often recognize as true
+and telling. It was true that there was much friction and difference
+between Hester and the Fox-Wilton family; that Alice Puttenham's
+position and personality had always teased the curiosity of the
+neighbourhood; that the terms of Sir Ralph's will were perplexing; and
+that Meynell was Hester's guardian in a special sense, a fact for which
+there was no obvious explanation. It was true also that there emerged at
+times a singular likeness in Hester's beauty--a likeness of expression
+and gesture--to the blunt and powerful aspect of the Rector....
+
+And yet! Did his father believe, for a moment, the preposterous things he
+was saying? The young man sharpened his wits as far as possible for
+Hester's and his friend's sake, and came presently to the conclusion that
+it was one of those violent, intermittent half-beliefs which, in the
+service of hatred and party spirit, can be just as effective and
+dangerous as any other. And when the circumstantial argument passed
+presently into the psychological--even the theological--this became the
+more evident.
+
+For in order to explain to himself and others how Meynell could possibly
+have behaved in a fashion so villainous, Barron had invented by now a
+whole psychological sequence. He was prepared to show in detail how the
+thing 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 practical
+consequences of the intrigue. He certainly could not have kept his living
+had the facts been known. On the one hand his poverty--his brothers to
+educate,--his benefice to be saved. On the other, the natural desire of
+the Fox-Wiltons and of Alice Puttenham to conceal everything that had
+occurred. The sophistries of love would come in--repentance--the desire
+to make a fresh start--to protect the woman he had sacrificed.
+
+And all that might have availed him against sin and temptation--a
+steadfast Christian faith--was already deserting him; must have been
+already undermined. What was there to wonder at?--what was there
+incredible in the story? The human heart was corrupt and desperately
+wicked; and nothing stood between any man, however apparently holy, and
+moral catastrophe but the grace of God.
+
+Stephen bore the long, incredible harangue, as best he could, for
+Meynell's sake. He sat with his face turned away from his father, his
+hand closing and unclosing on his knee, his nerves quivering under the
+exasperation of his father's monstrous premises, and still more monstrous
+deductions. At the end he faced round abruptly.
+
+"I do not wish to offend you, father, but I had better say at once that I
+do not accept, for a single instant, your arguments or your conclusion. I
+am positive that the facts, whatever they may be, are _not_ what you
+suppose 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, I
+must."
+
+Barron's look flashed.
+
+"You gave me your promise"--he said imperiously--"before I told you this
+story--that you would not communicate it without my permission. I
+withhold 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 shall
+choose my own time."
+
+And as he raised his cold eyes upon his son it pleased his spirit of
+intrigue, and of domination through intrigue, that he had already
+received a letter from Flaxman giving precisely opposite advice, and did
+not intend to tell Stephen anything about it. Stephen's impulsive
+candour, however, appealed to him much more than Flaxman's reticence. It
+would indeed be physically and morally impossible for him--anonymous
+letters or no--to lock the scandal much longer within his own breast. It
+had become a living and burning thing, like some wild creature straining
+at a leash.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A little while later Stephen found himself alone. He believed himself to
+have got an undertaking from his father that Meynell should be
+communicated with promptly--perhaps that very evening. But the terms
+of the promise were not very clear; and the young man's mind was full of
+a seething wrath and unhappiness. If the story were true, so far as
+Hester and her unacknowledged mother were concerned--and, as we have
+seen, there was that in his long and intimate knowledge of Hester's
+situation which, as he listened, had suddenly fused and flashed in a most
+unwilling conviction--then, what dire, what pitiful need, on their part,
+of protection and of help! If indeed any friendly consideration for
+him, Stephen, had entered into Meynell's conduct, the young man angrily
+resented the fact.
+
+He paced up and down the library for a time, divided thus between a
+fierce contempt for Meynell's slanderers and a passionate pity for
+Hester.
+
+His father had gone to Markborough. Theresa was, he believed, in the
+garden 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 suddenly
+remembered--Maurice!
+
+He blamed himself for not having remembered earlier that Maurice was at
+home--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 to
+the second-floor bedroom which had always been his brother's.
+
+"Maurice!" He knocked. No answer. But there was a hurried movement
+inside, and something that sounded like the opening of a drawer.
+
+He called again, and tried the door. It was locked. But after further
+shuffling inside, as though some one were handling papers, it was thrown
+open.
+
+"Well, Maurice, I hope I haven't disturbed you in anything very
+important. I thought I must come and have a look at you. Are you all
+right?"
+
+"Come in, old fellow," said Maurice with affected warmth--"I was only
+writing a few letters. No room for anybody downstairs but the pater and
+Theresa, so I have to retreat up here."
+
+"And lock yourself in?" said Stephen, laughing. "Any secrets going?" And
+as he took a seat on the edge of the bed, while Maurice returned to his
+chair, he could not prevent himself from looking with a certain keen
+scrutiny both at the room and his younger brother.
+
+He and Maurice had never been friends. There was a gap of nearly ten
+years between them, and certain radical and profound differences of
+temperament. And these differences nature had expressed, with an entire
+absence of subtlety, in their physique--in the slender fairness and
+wholesomeness 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 note
+of the half-consumed brandy and soda on the table, of the saucer of
+cigarette ends beside it, and the general untidiness and stuffiness of
+the room.
+
+"Not bad," said Maurice, resuming his cigarette.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"An agency--one of these new phonographs--Yankee of course. I manage the
+office. A lot of cads--but I make 'em sit up."
+
+And he launched into boasting of his success in the business--the orders
+he had secured, the economies he had brought about in the office. Stephen
+found himself wondering meanwhile what kind of a business it could be
+that entrusted its affairs to Maurice. But he betrayed no scepticism, and
+the two talked in more or less brotherly fashion for a few minutes, till
+Stephen, with a look at his watch, declared that he must find his horse
+and go.
+
+"I thought you were only coming for the week-end," he said as he moved
+toward the door.
+
+"I got seedy--and took a week off. Besides, I found pater in such a
+stew."
+
+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 know
+is, 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 you
+ever have against him?"
+
+He looked sharply at his brother. The disagreeable idea crossed his mind
+that his father, whose weakness for Maurice he well knew, might have told
+the 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 some
+disagreeable reminiscences of a school holiday when Maurice had been
+discovered drunk in one of the public-houses of the village by the
+Rector, who had firmly dug him out and walked him home. But this and
+other recollections, not dissimilar, soon passed away, under the steady
+assault of thoughts far more compelling....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He took the bridle-path through Maudeley, and was presently aware, in a
+clearing of the wood, of the figure of Meynell in front of him.
+
+The Rector was walking in haste, without his dogs. He was therefore out
+on business, which indeed was implied by the energy of his whole
+movement.
+
+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 of
+gold and orange leaf overhead, of red-brown leaf below, with passages
+here and there where the sun struck through the beech trees, of purest
+lemon-yellow, or intensest green, breathed and murmured round them. A
+light wind sang in the tree-tops, and every now and then the plain broke
+in--purple through the gold; with its dim colliery chimneys, its wreaths
+of smoke, and its paler patches which stood for farms and villages.
+
+Meynell walked by the horse in silence for a while, till, suddenly wiping
+a 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 of
+remorse.
+
+Stephen stared at him in silence.
+
+"Flaxman walked home with me last night--came into the Rectory, and told
+me that--yesterday--he saw Meryon and Hester together--in Hewlett's
+wood--as you know, a lonely place where nobody goes. It was a great blow
+to 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 this
+morning to see her--found the whole household in confusion! Nobody knew
+where Hester was. She had gone out immediately after breakfast, with
+the maid who is supposed to be always with her. Then suddenly--about an
+hour later--one of the boys appeared, having seen this woman at the
+station--and no Hester. The woman, taken by surprise--young Fox-Wilton
+just had a few words with her as the train was moving off--confessed she
+was going into Markborough to meet Hester and come back with her. She
+didn't know where Miss Hester was. She had left her in the village, and
+was to meet her at a shop in Markborough. After that, things began to
+come out. The butler told tales. The maid is clearly an unprincipled
+hussy, and has probably been in Meryon's pay all the time--"
+
+"Where is Hester?--where are you going to?" cried Stephen in impatient
+misery, 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 that
+scoundrel in his own house!"
+
+"It appears she has once or twice declared that, in spite of us all, she
+would go and see his house and his pictures. In my belief, she has done
+it 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, his
+lips 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 he
+could not help the reproach.
+
+"I tried to act for the best," said Meynell, after a moment, his eyes on
+the ground.
+
+Stephen watched his friend uncertainly. Again and again he was on the
+point of crying out--
+
+"Tell me the truth about Hester!"--on the point also of warning and
+informing the man beside him. But he had promised his father. He held his
+tongue with difficulty.
+
+When they reached the spot where Stephen's path diverged from that which
+led 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 ride
+home. 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--a
+melancholy, dilapidated pile; and they struck into a long and neglected
+evergreen avenue leading up to it. At the end of the avenue there was an
+enclosure and a lodge, with some iron gates. A man saw them, and came out
+to 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 along
+the road, letting his horse pasture on its grassy fringe. The lodge
+keeper--sulky and puzzled--watched him a few moments and then went back
+into the house.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Rector paused to reconnoitre as he came in sight of the house. It was
+a strange, desolate, yet most romantic spot. Although, seen from the road
+and the stream, it seemed to stand on an eminence, it was really at the
+bottom of a hill which encircled it on three sides, and what with its own
+dilapidation, its broken fences and gates, the trees which crowded about
+it, and the large green-grown pond in front of it, it produced a dank and
+sinister impression. The centre of the building, which had evidently been
+rebuilt about 1700, to judge from its rose-red brick, its French
+classical lunettes, its pedimented doors and windows, and its fine
+_perron_, was clearly the inhabited portion of the building. The two
+wings of much earlier date, remains of the old Abbey, were falling into
+ruin. In front of one a garage had evidently been recently made, and a
+motor was standing at its door. To the left of the approaching spectator
+was a small deserted church, of the same date as the central portion of
+the Abbey, with twin busts of William and Mary still inhabiting a niche
+above the classical entrance, and marking the triumph of the Protestant
+Succession over the crumbling buildings of the earlier faith. The windows
+of the church were boarded up and a few tottering tombstones surrounded
+it.
+
+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 slimy
+pond 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 man
+in 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 trouble
+you to take my card."
+
+The youth's expression changed. He stood silent and sheepish, while
+Meynell considered a moment, on the steps.
+
+Suddenly a sound of voices from a distance became audible through the
+grudgingly 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 led
+through a curtain-wall to the garden. Meanwhile the house door was
+hastily banged behind him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Uncle Richard!"
+
+Behind the house Meynell came upon the persons he sought. In an overgrown
+formal garden, full of sun, he perceived an old stone bench, under an
+overhanging yew. Upon it sat Hester, bareheaded, the golden masses of her
+hair shining against the blackness of the tree. Roddy mounted guard
+beside her, his nose upon her lap; and on a garden chair in front of her
+lounged Philip Meryon, smoking and chatting. At sight of Meynell they
+both sprang to their feet. Roddy first growled, and then, as soon as he
+recognized 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 the
+rugged figure in the short clerical coat and wide-awake, and of the
+searching look with which he regarded them. Hester nervously began to
+put 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 later
+on. The lies you have instructed your servants to tell are a sufficient
+indication that you are ashamed of your behaviour. This young lady is
+under age. Her mother and I, who are her lawful guardians, forbid her
+acquaintance 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 to
+call upon you to-morrow."
+
+"This time you may really find me fled," laughed Philip, insolently. But
+he had turned white.
+
+Meynell made no reply. He went to Hester, and lifting the girl's silk
+cape, which had fallen off, he put it round her shoulders. He felt them
+trembling. But she looked at him fiercely, put him aside, and ran to
+Meryon.
+
+"Good-bye, Philip, good-bye!--it won't be for long!" And she held out
+her two hands--pleadingly. Meryon took them, and they stared at each
+other--while the Rector was conscious of a flash of dismay.
+
+What if there was now more in the business than mere mischief and
+wantonness? Hester was surprisingly lovely, with this touching, tremulous
+look, so new, and, to the Rector, so intolerable!
+
+"I must ask you to come at once," he said, walking up to her, and the
+girl, with compressed lips, dropped Meryon's hands and obeyed.
+
+Meryon walked beside them to the garden door, very pale, and breathing
+quick.
+
+"You can't separate us"--he said to Meynell--"though of course you'll
+try. 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 desired
+Meryon not to follow them. Philip hesitated, and yielded. He stood in the
+doorway, his hands in his pockets, watching them, a splendid figure, with
+his melodramatic good looks and vivid colour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Hester and Meynell walked down the avenue, side by side. Behind them, the
+lunette window under the roof opened again, and a woman's face, framed in
+black, touzled hair, looked out, grinned and disappeared.
+
+Hester carried her head high, a scornful defiance breathing from the
+flushed cheeks and tightened lips. Meynell made no attempt at
+conversation, till just as they were nearing the lodge he said--"We shall
+find Stephen a little farther on. He was riding, and thought you might
+like his horse to give you a lift home."
+
+"Oh, a _plot_!"--cried Hester, raising her chin still higher--"and
+Stephen in it too! Well, really I shouldn't have thought it was worth
+anybody'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 her
+companion. There was absurdity in her pose, and yet, as Meynell
+uncomfortably recognized, a new touch of something passionate and real.
+
+The Rector made no reply, for they were at the turn of the road and
+behind 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 send
+for 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 features
+emerged with unusual emphasis.
+
+"I think you had better accept," said Meynell gently. As he looked at
+her, he wondered whether she might not faint on their hands with anger
+and excitement. But she controlled herself, and as Stephen brought the
+brown mare alongside, and held out his hand, she put her foot in it, and
+he swung her to the saddle.
+
+"I don't want both of you," she said, passionately. "One warder is
+enough!"
+
+"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 horse
+in motion. Stephen's way lay with them for a hundred yards. He tried to
+make a little indifferent conversation, but neither Meynell nor Hester
+replied. Where the lane they had been following joined the Markborough
+road, he paused to take his leave of them, and as he did so he saw his
+two companions brought together, as it were, into one picture by the
+overcircling shade of the autumnal trees which hung over the road; and he
+suddenly perceived as he had never yet done the strange likeness between
+them. Perplexity, love--despairing and jealous love--a passionate
+championship of the beauty that was being outraged and insulted by the
+common talk and speculation of indifferent and unfriendly mouths; an
+earnest desire to know the truth, and the whole truth, that he might the
+better prove his love, and protect his friend; and a dismal certainty
+through it all that Hester had been finally snatched from him--these
+conflicting feelings very nearly overpowered him. It was all he could do
+to take a calm farewell of them. Hester's eyes under their fierce brows
+followed 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 unconscious
+grace to the quiet movements of the horse, which Meynell was leading.
+Overhead the October day was beginning to darken, and the yellow leaves
+shaken by occasional gusts were drifting mistily down on Hester's hair
+and dress, and on the glossy flanks of the mare.
+
+At last Meynell looked up. There was intense feeling in his face--a deep
+and troubled tenderness.
+
+"Hester!--is there no way in which I can convince you that if you go on
+as you have been doing--deceiving your best friends--and letting this man
+persuade 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 be
+able 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 will
+not believe me--who am his kinsman and have no interest whatever in
+blackening his character--when I tell you that he is a bad man, corrupted
+by low living and self-indulgence, with whom no girl should trust
+herself. The action you have taken to-day, your deliberate defiance of us
+all, make it necessary that I should speak in even plainer terms to you
+than I have done yet; that I should warn you as strongly as I can that by
+allowing this man to make love to you--perhaps to propose a runaway match
+to you--how do I know what villainy he may have been equal to?--you are
+running 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 man
+dieth to himself! It is the affair of all those who love you--of your
+family--of your poor Aunt Alice, who cannot sleep for grieving--"
+
+Hester raised her free hand, and angrily pushed back the masses of fair
+hair that were falling about her face.
+
+"What is the good of talking about 'love,' Uncle Richard?" She spoke with
+a passionate impatience--"You know very well that _nobody_ at home loves
+me. Why should we all be hypocrites? I have got, I tell you, to look
+after _myself_, to plan my life for myself! My mother can't help it if
+she doesn't love me. I don't complain; but I do think it a shame you
+should say she does, when you know--know--_know_--she doesn't! My sisters
+and brothers just dislike me--that's all there is in that! All my life
+I've known it--I've felt it. Why, when I was a baby they never played
+with me--they never made a pet of me--they wouldn't have me in their
+games. My father positively disliked me. Whenever the nurse brought me
+downstairs--he used to call to her to take me up again. Oh, how tired I
+got of the nursery!--I hated it--I hated nurse--I hated all the old
+toys--for I never had any new ones. Do you remember"--she turned on
+him--"that day when I set fire to all the clean clothes--that were airing
+before the fire?"
+
+"Perfectly!" said the Rector, with an involuntary smile that relaxed the
+pale gravity of his face.
+
+"I did it because I hadn't been downstairs for three nights. I might
+have been dead for all anybody cared. Then I was determined they should
+care--and I got hold of the matches. I thought the clothes would burn
+first--and then my starched frock would catch fire--and then--everybody
+would be sorry for me at last. But unfortunately I got frightened, and
+ran up the passage screaming--silly little fool! That might have made an
+end of it--once for all--"
+
+Meynell interrupted--
+
+"And after it," he said, looking her in the eyes--"when the fuss was
+over--I remember seeing you in Aunt Alsie's arms. Have you forgotten how
+she cried over you, and defended you--and begged you off? You were ill
+with terror and excitement; she took you off to the cottage, and nursed
+you till you were well again, and it had all blown over; as she did again
+and again afterward. Have you forgotten _that_--when you say that no one
+loved you?"
+
+He turned upon her with that bright penetrating look, with its touch of
+accusing sarcasm, which had so often given him the mastery over erring
+souls. For Meynell had the pastoral gift almost in perfection; the
+courage, the ethical self-confidence and the instinctive tenderness
+which belong to it. The certitudes of his mind were all ethical; and in
+this region he might have said with Newman that "a thousand difficulties
+cannot make one doubt."
+
+Hester had often yielded, to this power of his in the past, and it was
+evident that she trembled under it now. To hide it she turned upon him
+with fresh anger.
+
+"No, I haven't forgotten it!--and I'm _not_ an ungrateful fiend--though
+of 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 that
+she 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 trust
+me--then she treats me like a child--and shakes me off as if I were just
+a stranger. If she holds me at arm's-length, I am not going to tell her
+all _my_ affairs!"
+
+The rounded bosom under the little black mantle rose and fell
+tumultuously, and angry tears shone in the brown eyes. Meynell had raised
+his 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 was
+some one she had been in love with--I am certain it was--a handsome, dark
+man. And I _begged_ her to tell me--and she just got up and went away. So
+then 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--"some
+griefs we have no right to meddle with. But we can heal them--or make
+them worse. You"--his kind eyes scourged her again--"have been making
+everything worse for Aunt Alsie for a long time past."
+
+Hester shrugged her shoulders passionately, as though to repel the
+charge, but she said nothing. They moved on in silence for a little. In
+Meynell's mind there reigned a medley of feelings--tragic recollections,
+moral questionings, which time had never silenced, perplexity as to the
+present and the future, and with it all, the liveliest and sorest pity
+for the young, childish, violent creature beside him. It was not for
+those who, with whatever motives, had contributed to bring her to that
+state 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 of
+beauty at bay. The sight determined him toward frankness.
+
+"Hester!--I have told you that if you go on flirting with Philip Meryon
+you run the risk of disgrace and misery, because he has no conscience and
+no scruples, and you are ignorant and inexperienced, and have no idea of
+the fire you are playing with. But I think I had better go farther. I am
+going to say what you force me to say to you--young as you are. My strong
+belief is that Philip Meryon is either married already, or so entangled
+that he has no right to ask any decent woman to marry him. I have
+suspected 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 her
+most obstinate voice.
+
+"Very well. Then I must set at once about proving it. The reasons
+which make me believe it are not for your ears." Then his tone
+changed--"Hester!--my child!--you can't be in love with that fellow--that
+false, common fellow!--you can't!"
+
+Hester tightened her lips and would not answer. A rush of distress came
+over 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 would
+comfort you for all the past, and show you what joy really means. Be
+patient, dear Hester--be patient! If you wanted to punish us for not
+making you happy enough, well, you have done it! But don't plunge us all
+into despair--and take a little thought for your old guardian, who seems
+to have the world on his shoulders, and yet can't sleep at nights, for
+worrying about his ward, who won't believe a word he says, and sets all
+his 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 that
+he was but imperfectly able to gauge the conflict of forces in her mind.
+He resumed his pleading with her--tenderly--urgently. And at last she
+gave way, at least apparently. She allowed him to lay a friendly hand on
+hers 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 young
+women! But if you'll say 'I want to be friends, Uncle Richard, and I
+won't deceive you any more,' why, then, you'll make an old fellow
+happy! Will you?"
+
+Slowly she let her cold fingers slip into his warm, protecting palm
+as he smiled upon her. She yielded to the dignity and charm of
+Meynell's character as she had done a thousand times before; but in the
+proud, unhappy look she bent upon him there were new and disquieting
+things--prophecies of the coming womanhood, not to be unravelled. Meynell
+pressed her hand, and put it back upon the reins with a sigh he could not
+restrain.
+
+He began to talk with a forced cheerfulness of their coming journey--of
+the French _milieu_ to which she was going. Hester answered in
+monosyllables, every now and then--he thought--choking back a sob. And
+again and again the discouraging thought struck through him--"Has this
+fellow touched her heart?"--so strong was the impression of an emerging
+soul and a developing personality.
+
+Suddenly through the dispersing trees a light figure came hurriedly
+toward 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 his
+finger on his lips, and she controlled herself. Hester greeted her
+without any sign of emotion; and the three went homeward along the misty
+ways of the park. The sun had been swallowed up by rising fog; all colour
+had been sucked out of the leaves and the heather, even from the golden
+glades of fern. Only Hester's hair, and her white dress as she passed
+along, uplifted, made of her a kind of luminous wraith, and beside her,
+like the supports of an altar-piece, moved the two pensive figures of
+Meynell and Alice.
+
+From a covert of thorn in the park, a youth who had retreated into its
+shelter on their approach watched them with malicious eyes. Another man
+was with him--a sheepish, red-faced person, who peered curiously at the
+little 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, but
+with hours of occupation and correspondence still before him. He had left
+Hester with Alice Puttenham, in a state which Meynell interpreted as at
+once alarming and hopeful; alarming because it suggested that there might
+be an element of passion in what had seemed to be a mere escapade
+dictated by vanity and temper; and hopeful because of the emotion the
+girl had once or twice betrayed, for the first time in the experience
+of any one connected with her. When they entered Alice Puttenham's
+drawing-room, for instance--for Hester had stipulated she was not to be
+taken home--Alice had thrown her arms round her, and Hester had broken
+suddenly into crying, a thing unheard of. Meynell of course had hastily
+disappeared.
+
+Since then the parish had taken its toll. Visits to two or three sick
+people had been paid. The Rector had looked in at the schools, where a
+children's evening was going on, and had told the story of Aladdin with
+riotous success; he had taken off his coat to help in putting up
+decorations for an entertainment in the little Wesleyan meeting-house of
+corrugated iron; the parish nurse had waylaid him with reports, and he
+had dashed into the back parlour of a small embarrassed tradesman, in
+mortal fear of collapse and bankruptcy, with the offer of a loan, sternly
+conditional upon facing the facts, and getting in an auditor. Lady
+Fox-Wilton of course had been seen, and the clamour of her most
+unattractive offspring allayed as much as possible. And now, emerging
+from this tangle of personal claims and small interests, in the silence
+and freedom of the night hours, Meynell was free to give himself once
+more to the intellectual and spiritual passion of the Reform Movement.
+His table was piled with unopened letters; on his desk lay a half-written
+article, and two or three foreign books, the latest products of the
+Modernist Movement abroad. His crowded be-littered room smiled upon him,
+as he shut its door upon the outer world. For within it, he lived more
+truly, more vividly, than anywhere else; and all the more since its
+threadbare carpet had been trodden by Mary Elsmere.
+
+Yet as he settled himself by the fire with his pipe and his letters for
+half an hour's ease before going to his desk, his thoughts were still
+full of Hester. The incurable optimism, the ready faith where his
+affections 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, he
+should be dealt with this time with a proper disregard of either his own
+or his servants' lying. Hester was now to spend some months with a
+charming and cultivated French family. Plenty of occupation, plenty of
+amusement, plenty of appeal to her intelligence. Then, perhaps, travel
+for a couple of years, with Aunt Alice--as much separation as possible,
+anyway, from the Northleigh family and house. Alice was not rich, but she
+could 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 to
+the fore, the crisis must be faced, and the child must know! and it would
+be a cold-blooded lover that would weigh her story against her face.
+
+Comfort himself as he would, however, dream as he would, Meynell's
+conscience was always sore for Hester. Had they done right?--or hideously
+wrong? Had not all their devices been a mere trifling with nature--a mere
+attempt to "bind the courses of Orion," with the inevitable result in
+Hester's unhappy childhood and perverse youth?
+
+The Rector as he pulled at his pipe could still feel the fluttering of
+her slender hand in his. The recollection stirred in him again all the
+intolerable pity, the tragic horror of the past. Poor, poor little girl.
+But she should be happy yet, "with rings on her fingers," and everything
+proper!
+
+Then from this fatherly and tender preoccupation he passed into a more
+intimate and poignant dreaming. Mary!--in the moonlight, under the
+autumn trees, was the vision that held him; varied sometimes by the dream
+of her in that very room, sitting ghostly in the chair beside him, her
+lovely eyes wandering over its confusion of books and papers. He thought
+of her exquisite neatness of dress and delicacy of movement, and smiled
+happily to himself. "How she must have wanted to tidy up!" And he dared
+to think of a day when she would come and take possession of him
+altogether--books, body and soul, and gently order his life....
+
+"Why, you rascals!"--he said, jealously, to the dogs--"she fed you--I
+know she did--she patted and pampered you, eh, didn't she? She likes
+dogs--you may thank your lucky stars she does!"
+
+But they only raised their eager heads, and turned their loving eyes upon
+him, prepared to let loose pandemonium as soon as he showed signs of
+moving.
+
+"Well, you don't expect me to take you out for a walk at ten o'clock at
+night, do you?--idiots!" he hurled at them reprovingly; and after another
+moment of bright-eyed interrogation, disappointment descended, and down
+went their noses on their paws again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His trust in the tender steadfastness of Mary's character made itself
+powerfully felt in these solitary moments. She knew that while these
+strenuous days were on he could allow himself no personal aims. But the
+growing knowledge that he was approved by a soul so pure and so devout
+had both strung up all his powers and calmed the fevers of battle. He
+loved his cause the more because it was ever more clear to him that
+she passionately loved it too. And sensitive and depressed as he often
+was--the penalty of the optimist--her faith in him had doubled his faith
+in himself.
+
+There was a singular pleasure also in the link his love for her had
+forged between himself and Elsmere--the dead leader of an earlier
+generation. "Latitudinarianism is coming in upon us like a flood!"--cried
+the _Church Times_, wringing its hands. In other words, thought Meynell,
+"a New Learning is at last penetrating the minds and consciences of
+men--in the Church, no less than out of it." And Elsmere had been one of
+its martyrs. Meynell thought with emotion of the emaciated form he had
+last seen in the thronged hall of the New Brotherhood. "_Our_ venture is
+possible--because _you_ suffered," he would say to himself, addressing
+not 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 her
+in the flesh, had been to him, through the reports of many friends, a
+kind of legendary presence--the embodiment of the Old Faith. Meynell only
+knew that as far as he was concerned something had happened--something
+which he could not define. She was no longer his enemy; and he blessed
+her humbly in his heart. He thought also, with a curious thankfulness, of
+her strong and immovable convictions. Each thinking mind, as it were,
+carries within it its own Pageant of the Universe, and lights the show
+with its own passion. Not to quench the existing light in any human
+breast--but to kindle and quicken where no light is: to bring forever new
+lamp-bearers into the Lampadephoria of life, and marshal them there in
+their places, on equal terms with the old, neither excluded, nor
+excluding: this, surely this was the ideal of Modernism.
+
+Elsmere's widow might never admit his own claim to equal rights within
+the Christian society. What matter! It seemed to him that in some
+mysterious way she had now recognized the spiritual necessity laid upon
+him to fight for that claim; had admitted him, so to speak, to the rights
+of a belligerent. And that had made all the difference.
+
+He did not know how it had happened. But he was strangely certain that it
+had happened.
+
+But soon the short interval of rest and dream he had allowed himself was
+over. 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 the
+emotion, the stirring of all the dead-bones it has brought about. There
+has been of course a secession; but the church at Patten End amply
+provides for the seceders, and among our own people one seems to realize
+at last something of what the simplicity and sincerity of the first
+Christian feeling must have been! No 'allowances' to make for scandalous
+mistranslations and misquotations--no foolish legends, or unedifying
+tales of barbarous people--no cursing psalms--no old Semitic nonsense
+about God resting on the seventh day, delivered in the solemn sing-song
+which makes it not only nonsense but hypocrisy....
+
+"I have held both a marriage and a funeral this week under the new
+service-book. I think that all persons accustomed to think of what they
+are saying felt the strangest delight and relief in the disappearance of
+the old marriage service. It was like the dropping of a weight to which
+our shoulders had become so accustomed that we hardly realized it till it
+was gone. Instead of pompous and futile absurdity--as in the existing
+exhortation, and homily--beautiful and fitting quotation from the unused
+treasures of the Bible. Instead of the brutal speech, the crudely
+physical outlook of an earlier day, the just reticence and nobler
+perceptions of our own, combined with perfectly plain and tender
+statement as to the founding of the home and the family. Instead of
+besmirching bits of primitive and ugly legend like the solemn
+introduction of Adam's rib into the prayers, a few new prayers of great
+beauty--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 in
+any age of the Christian Church?). Instead of the old 'obey,' for the
+woman, which has had such a definitely debasing effect, as I believe, on
+the position of women, especially in the working classes--a formula, only
+slightly altered, but the same for the man and the woman....
+
+"In short, a seemly, and beautiful, and moving thing, instead of a
+ceremony which in spite of its few fine, even majestic, elements, had
+become 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 its
+arguments which are dead, and confined to its cries of poetry and faith
+which are immortal, made a new and thrilling impression. I confess I
+thought I should have broken my heart over the omission of 'I know that
+my Redeemer liveth'--and yet now that it is gone, there is a sense of
+moral exhilaration in having let it go! One knew all the time that
+whoever wrote the poem of Job neither said what he was made to say in the
+famous passage, nor meant what he was supposed to mean. One was perfectly
+aware, from one's Oxford days, as the choir chanted the great words, that
+they were a flagrant mistranslation of a corrupt and probably
+interpolated passage. And yet the glory of Handel's music, the glamour
+of association overcame one. But now that it is cut ruthlessly away
+from those moments in life when man can least afford any make-believe
+with himself or his fellows--now that music alone declaims and fathers
+it--there is the strangest relief! One feels, as I have said, the joy
+that comes from something difficult and righteous _done_--in spite of
+everything!
+
+"I could go on for hours telling you these very simple and obvious things
+which must be so familiar to you. To me the amazement of this Movement is
+that it has taken so long to come. We have groaned under the oppression
+of what we have now thrown off, so long and so hopelessly; the Revision
+that the High Churchmen made such a bother about a few years ago came to
+so little; that now, to see this thing spreading like a great spring-tide
+over the face of England is marvellous indeed! And when one knows what it
+means--no mere liturgical change, no mere lopping off here and changing
+there, but a transformation of the root ideas of Christianity; a
+transference of its whole proof and evidence from the outward to the
+inward field, and therewith the uprush of a certainty and joy unknown to
+our modern life; one can but bow one's head, as those that hear
+mysterious voices on the wind.
+
+"For so into the temple of man's spirit, age by age, comes the renewing
+Master of man's life--and makes His tabernacle with man. 'Lift up your
+heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, And the King
+of Glory shall come in.'"
+
+Meynell bowed his head upon his hands. The pulse of hope and passion in
+the letter was almost overpowering. It came, he knew, from an elderly
+man, broken by many troubles, and tormented by arthritis, yet a true
+saint, 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 to
+make both clergy and laity sign the Modernist decrees has had a
+prodigious effect all over France--precisely in the opposite sense to
+that 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 single
+intellectual of any eminence--and it is a misfortune for _us_, the
+liberals. We have nothing to fight--we seem to be beating the air.'
+
+"Scherer could not have said this to-day. There are Catholics
+everywhere--in the University, the Ecole Normale, the front ranks of
+literature. But with few exceptions _they are all Modernist_; they have
+thrown overboard the whole _fatras_ of legend and tradition. Christianity
+has become to them a symbolical and spiritual religion; not only
+personally important and efficacious, but of enormous significance from
+the national point of view. But as you know, _we_ do not at present
+aspire to outward or ceremonial changes. We are quite content to leaven
+the meal from within; to uphold the absolute right and necessity of the
+two languages in Christianity--the popular and the scientific, the
+mythological and the mystical. If the Pope could have his way,
+Catholicism would soon be at an end--except as a peasant-cult--in the
+Latin countries. But, thank God, he will not have his way. One hears of a
+Modernist freemasonry among the Italian clergy--of a secret press--an
+enthusiasm, like that of the Carboneria in the forties. So the spirit of
+the Most High blows among the dead clods of the world--and, in a moment
+the harvest is there!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meynell let the paper drop. He began to write, and he wrote without
+stopping with great ease and inspiration for nearly two hours. Then as
+midnight struck, he put down his pen, and gazed into the dying fire. He
+felt as Wordsworth's skater felt on Esthwaite, when, at a sudden pause,
+the mountains and cliffs seemed to whirl past him in a vast headlong
+procession. So it was in Meynell's mind with thoughts and ideas.
+Gradually they calmed and slackened, till at last they passed into an
+abstraction and ecstasy of prayer.
+
+When he rose, the night had grown very cold. He hurriedly put his papers
+in order, before going to bed, and as he did so, he perceived two
+unopened letters which had been overlooked.
+
+One was from Hugh Flaxman, communicating the news of the loss of two
+valuable gold coins from the collection exhibited at the party. "We are
+all in tribulation. I wonder whether you can remember seeing them when
+you were talking there with Norham? One was a gold stater of Velia with a
+head of Athene."...
+
+The other letter was addressed in Henry Barron's handwriting. Meynell
+looked at it in some surprise as he opened it, for there had been no
+communication between him and the White House for a long time.
+
+"I should be glad if you could make it convenient to see me to-morrow
+morning. I wish to speak with you on a personal matter of some
+importance--of which I do not think you should remain in ignorance. Will
+it 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 so
+pertickler. 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 the
+house. But he won't be long, sir."
+
+And Anne, very stiff and on her dignity, relieved one of the two
+armchairs of its habitual burden of books, gave it a dusting with her
+apron, and offered it to the visitor. It was evident that she regarded
+his presence with entire disfavour, but was prepared to treat him with
+prudence for the master's sake. Her devotion to Meynell had made her
+shrewd; she perfectly understood who were his enemies, and who his
+friends.
+
+Barron, with a sharp sense of annoyance that he should be kept waiting,
+merely because a drunken miner happened to be beating his wife, coldly
+accepted her civilities, and took up a copy of the _Times_ which was
+lying on the table. But when Anne had retired, he dropped the newspaper,
+and began with a rather ugly curiosity to examine the room. He walked
+round the walls, looking at the books, raising his eyebrows at the rows
+of paper-bound German volumes, and peering closely into the titles of the
+English ones. Then his attention was caught by a wall-map, in which a
+number of small flags attached to pins were sticking. It was an outline
+map of England, apparently sketched by Meynell himself, as the notes and
+letterings were in his handwriting. It was labelled "Branches of the
+Reform League." All over England the little flags bristled, thicker here,
+and thinner there, but making a goodly show on the whole. Barron's face
+lengthened 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 the
+sheets. Beside it was a copy of Thomas ŕ Kempis, and Father Tyrrell's
+posthumous book, in which a great soul, like a breaking wave, had foamed
+itself away; a volume of Sanday, another of Harnack, into the open cover
+of which the Rector had apparently just pinned an extract from a Church
+paper. Barron involuntarily stooped to read it. It ran:
+
+"This is no time for giving up the Athanasian Creed. The moment when the
+sewage of continental unbelief is pouring into England is not the moment
+for banishing to a museum a screen that was erected to guard the
+sanctuary."
+
+Beneath it, in Meynell's writing:
+
+"A gem, not to be lost! The muddle of the metaphor, the corruption of the
+style, everything is symbolic. In a preceding paragraph the writer makes
+an attack on Harnack, who is described as 'notorious for opposing' the
+doctrines of the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection. That history has a
+right to its say on so-called historical events never seems to have
+occurred to this gentleman; still less that there is a mystical and
+sacred 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 probably
+infinitely greater than Harnack's in dealing historically with the Birth
+Stories. The fact is the whole onus is now on the orthodox side. It is
+not 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 deal
+drastically with a clergyman who could write such things.
+
+A step outside. The sleeping dogs on the doorstep sprang up and noisily
+greeted their master. Meynell shut them out, to their great disgust, and
+came hurriedly toward the study.
+
+Barron, as he saw him in the doorway, drew back with an exclamation. The
+Rector's dress and hair were dishevelled and awry, and his face--pale,
+drawn, and damp with perspiration--showed that he had just come through a
+personal struggle.
+
+"Sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Barron. But that fellow,
+Pinches--you remember?--the new blacksmith--has been drinking for nearly
+a week, and went quite mad this morning. We just prevented him from
+killing his wife, but it was a tough business. I'll go and wash and
+change my coat, if you will allow me."
+
+So he went away, and Barron had a few more minutes in which to meditate
+on the room and its owner. When at last Meynell came back, and settled
+himself in the chair opposite to his visitor, with a quiet "Now I am
+quite at your service," Barron found himself overtaken with a curious and
+unwelcome hesitation. The signs--a slightly strained look, a quickened
+breathing--that Meynell still bore upon him of a physical wrestle,
+combined perhaps with a moral victory, suddenly seemed, even in Barron's
+own eyes, to dwarf what he had to say--to make a poor mean thing out of
+his story. And Meynell's shining eyes, divided between close attention to
+the man before him and some recent and disturbing recollections in which
+Barron had no share, reinforced the impression.
+
+But he recaptured himself quickly. After all, it was at once a charitable
+and a high-judicial part that he had come to play. He gathered his
+dignity 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 friendly
+relations. Meynell made a slight inclination.
+
+"Then I hope you will tell it me as quickly as may be. Does it concern
+yourself, or me? Maurice, I hope, is doing well?"
+
+Barron winced. It seemed to him an offence on the Rector's part that
+Meynell's tone should subtly though quite innocently remind him of days
+when he had been thankful to accept a strong man's help in dealing with
+the escapades of a vicious lad.
+
+"He is doing excellently, thank you--except that his health is not all I
+could wish. My business to-day," he continued, slowly--"concerns a woman,
+formerly of this village, whom I happened by a strange accident to see
+just 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 a
+suddenly heightened colour he struck straight--violently--for the heart
+of the thing.
+
+"She told me a lamentable story--and she was led to tell it me by
+seeing--and identifying--yourself--as you were standing with a lady in
+the 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 you
+wish to consult me about something that Judith Sabin communicated to
+you?"
+
+"I do. But the story she told me turns very closely on her identification
+of yourself; and therefore it does matter," said Barron, with emphasis.
+
+A puzzled look passed again over Meynell's face. But he said nothing. His
+attitude, coldly expectant, demanded the story.
+
+Barron told it--once more. He repeated Judith Sabin's narrative in the
+straightened, rearranged form he had now given to it, postponing,
+however, any further mention of Meynell's relation to it till a last
+dramatic moment.
+
+He did not find his task so easy on this occasion. There was something in
+the personality of the man sitting opposite to him which seemed to make a
+narrative that had passed muster elsewhere sound here a mere vulgar
+impertinence, the wanton intrusion of a common man on things sacredly and
+justly 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 speaker
+arrived at the incident of the Grenoble visitor.
+
+"I naturally find this a very disagreeable task," he said, pausing a
+moment. He got, however, no help from Meynell, who was dumb; and he
+presently resumed--"Judith Sabin saw the gentleman who came distinctly.
+She felt perfectly certain in her own mind as to his relation to Miss
+Puttenham and the child; and she was certain also, when she saw you and
+Miss Puttenham standing in the road, while I was with her that--"
+
+Meynell looked up, slightly frowning, awaiting the conclusion of the
+sentence--
+
+--"that she saw--the same man again!"
+
+Barron's naturally ruddy colour had faded a little; his eyes blinked. He
+drew his coat forward over his knee, and put it back again nervously.
+
+Meynell's face was at first blank, or bewildered. Then a light of
+understanding shot through it. He fell back in his chair with an odd
+smile.
+
+"So _that_--is what you have in your mind?"
+
+Barron coughed a little. He was angrily conscious of an anxiety and
+misgiving he had not expected. He made all the greater effort to recover
+what seemed to him the proper tone.
+
+"It is all most sad--most lamentable. But I had, you perceive, the
+positive statement of a woman who should have known the facts first-hand,
+if any one did. Owing to her physical state, it was impossible to
+cross-examine her, and her sudden death made it impossible to refer her
+to you. I had to consider what I should do--"
+
+"Why should you have done anything--" said Meynell dryly, raising his
+eyes--"but forget as quickly as possible a story you had no means of
+verifying, 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 _prima
+facie_ absurdity, I desire to say nothing offensive to you, but there
+have been many curious circumstances connected with your relation to
+the Fox-Wilton family which have given rise before now to gossip in this
+neighbourhood. I could not but perceive that the story told me threw
+light upon them. The remarkable language of Sir Ralph's will, the
+position of Miss Hester in the Fox-Wilton family, your relation to
+her--and to--to Miss Puttenham."
+
+Meynell's composure became a matter of some difficulty, but he maintained
+it.
+
+"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," said
+Barron, with all the dignity he could bring to bear. "For the unfortunate
+thing is--the thing which obliged me whether I would or no--and you will
+see from the dates that I have hesitated a long time--to bring Judith
+Sabin's statement to your notice--is that she seems to have talked to
+some one else in the neighbourhood before she died, besides myself. Her
+son declares that she saw no one. I have questioned him; of course
+without revealing my object. But she must have done so. And whoever it
+was has begun to write anonymous letters--repeating the story--in full
+detail--_with_ the identification--that I have just given you."
+
+"Anonymous letters?" repeated Meynell, raising himself sharply. "To
+whom?"
+
+"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 to
+you, 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 a
+copy."
+
+"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 presently
+to an abrupt pause in front of his visitor.
+
+"This story then is now all over the village--will soon be all over the
+diocese. Now--what was your object in yourself bringing it to me?"
+
+"I thought it right to inform you--to give you warning--perhaps also to
+suggest to you that a retreat from your present position--"
+
+"I see--you thought it a means of bringing pressure to bear upon me?--you
+propose, in short, that I should throw up the sponge, and resign my
+living?"
+
+"Unless, of course, you can vindicate yourself publicly."
+
+Barron to his annoyance could not keep his hand which held a glove from
+shaking a little. The wrestle between their personalities was rapidly
+growing 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!" Meynell
+repeated, with emphasis.
+
+"In that case--I suggest--it might be better to meet the wishes of your
+Bishop, and so avoid further publicity."
+
+"By resigning my living?"
+
+"Precisely. The scandal would then drop of itself. For Miss Puttenham's
+sake alone you must, I think, desire to stop its development."
+
+Meynell flushed hotly. He took another turn up the room--while Barron sat
+silent, looking straight before him.
+
+"I shall not take action"--Meynell resumed--"and I shall not dream of
+retreating from my position here. Judith Sabin's story is untrue. She did
+not see me at Grenoble and I am not the father of Hester Fox-Wilton. As
+to 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 thought
+and will seemed to pass through his face. As Barron rose, he began to
+speak.
+
+"I have no doubt you think yourself justified in taking the line
+you clearly do take in this matter. I can hardly imagine that you
+really believe the story you say you got from Judith Sabin--which you
+took to Flaxman--and have, I suppose, discussed with Dawes. I am
+convinced--forgive me if I speak plainly--that you cannot and do not
+believe anything so preposterous--or at any rate you would not believe it
+in 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 the
+thing has been done again and again. If you cannot defeat a man in fair
+fight, the next best thing is to blacken his character. We see that
+everywhere--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 a
+time. All I can say is, I would rather be the man to suffer from it than
+the man to gain from it!"
+
+Barron took up his hat. "I cannot be surprised that you receive me in
+this manner," he said, with all the steadiness he could muster. "But as
+you cannot deal with this very serious report in the ordinary way, either
+by 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. You
+cannot distrust either the Bishop's discretion, or his good will. If he
+were satisfied, we no doubt should be the same."
+
+Meynell shook his head.
+
+"Not if I know anything of the _odium theologicum!_ Besides, the Miss
+Nairns of this world pay small attention to bishops. By the way--I forgot
+to ask--you can tell me nothing on the subject of the writer of the
+anonymous 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-pocket
+the letter to Dawes, which he had again borrowed from its owner that
+morning. Meynell put it into a drawer of his writing-table without
+looking at it.
+
+The two men moved toward the door.
+
+"As to any appeal to you on behalf of a delicate and helpless
+lady--" said Meynell, betraying emotion for the first time--"that I
+suppose is useless. But when one remembers her deeds of kindness in this
+village, her quiet and irreproachable life amongst us all these years,
+one would have thought that any one bearing the Christian name would have
+come to me as the Rector of this village on one errand only--to consult
+how best to protect her from the spread of a cruel and preposterous
+story! You--I gather--propose to make use of it in the interests of your
+own Church party."
+
+Barron straightened himself, resenting at once what seemed to him the
+intrusion of the pastoral note.
+
+"I am heartily sorry for her"--he said coldly. "Naturally it is the women
+who suffer in these things. But of course you are right--though you put
+the matter from your own point of view--in assuming that I regard this as
+no ordinary scandal. I am not at liberty to treat it as such. The honour
+concerned--is the honour of the Church. To show the intimate connection
+of creed and life may be a painful--it is also an imperative duty!"
+
+He threw back his head with a passion which, as Meynell clearly
+recognized, was not without its touch of dignity.
+
+Meynell stepped back.
+
+"We have talked enough, I think. You will of course take the course that
+seems to you best, and I shall take mine. I bid you good day."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From the study window Meynell watched the disappearing figure of his
+adversary. The day was wet, and the funereal garden outside was dank with
+rain. The half-dead trees had shed such leaves as they had been able to
+put forth, and behind them was a ragged sky of scudding cloud.
+
+In Meynell's soul there was a dull sense of catastrophe. In Barron's
+presence he had borne himself as a wronged man should; but he knew very
+well 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 visualizing
+power showed him the groups in the various bar parlours, discussing the
+Scandal, dividing it up into succulent morsels, serving it up with every
+variety of personal comment, idle or malicious; amplyfying, exaggerating,
+completing. He saw the neat and plausible spinster from whose cruel hands
+he had rescued a little dumb, wild-eyed child, reduced by ill-treatment
+to skin and bone--he saw her gloating over the anonymous letter, putting
+two and two maliciously together, whispering here, denouncing there. He
+seemed to be actually present in the most disreputable public-house of
+the village, a house he had all but succeeded in closing at the preceding
+licensing 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 the
+village, the members of his Parish Council, who would suffer, and stand
+firm. The postponed meeting of the Council, for the acceptance of the new
+Liturgy, was to be held the day after his return from Paris. To them he
+would speak--so far as he could; yes, to them he would speak! Then his
+thought spread to the diocese. Charges of this kind spread with
+extraordinary rapidity. Whoever was writing the anonymous letters had
+probably not confined himself to two or three. Meynell prepared himself
+for 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 he
+read. He had expected something of a vulgarer and rougher type. The
+handwriting was clearly disguised, and there was a certain amount of
+intermittent bad spelling, which might very easily be a disguise also.
+But whoever wrote it was acquainted with the Fox-Wilton family, with
+their 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 elder
+Fox-Wilton girls--it had become a source of gossip in the village. The
+writer of it could not be far away. Was it a man or a woman? Meynell
+examined the handwriting carefully. He had a vague impression that he had
+seen something like it before, but could not remember where or in what
+connection.
+
+He put it back in his drawer, and as he did so his eyes fell upon his
+half-written article for the _Modernist _and on the piles of
+correspondence beside it. A sense of bitter helplessness overcame him, a
+pang not for himself so much as for his cause. He realized the inevitable
+effect of the story in the diocese, weighted, as it would be, with all
+the colourable and suspicious circumstances that could undoubtedly be
+adduced in support of it; its effect also beyond the diocese, through
+the Movement of which he was the life and guiding spirit; through
+England--where his name was rapidly becoming a battle-cry.
+
+And what could he do to meet it? Almost nothing! The story indeed as a
+whole could be sharply and categorically denied, because it involved a
+fundamental 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 formal
+vow of secrecy to any one. He was free to confide in whom he would. But
+all that was tender, pitiful, chivalrous in his soul stood up and
+promised for him, as he stood looking out into the October rain, that for
+no personal--yes!--and for no public advantage--would he trifle with what
+he had regarded for eighteen years as a trust, laid upon him by the dying
+words of a man he had loved, and enforced more and more sharply with time
+by the constant appeal of a woman's life--its dumb pain, the paradox of
+its frail strength, its shrinking courage. That life had depended upon
+him during the worst crisis of its fate as its spiritual guide. He had
+toward Alice Puttenham the feeling of the "director," as the saints have
+understood it; and toward her story something of the responsibility of a
+priest toward a confession. To reveal it in his own interest was simply
+impossible. If the Movement rejected him--it must reject him.
+
+"Not so will I fight for thee, my God!--not so!" he said to himself in
+great anguish of mind.
+
+It was true indeed that at some future time Alice Puttenham's poor secret
+must be told--to a specified person, with her consent, and by the express
+direction of that honest, blundering man, her brother-in-law, whose life,
+sorely against his will, had been burdened with it. But the
+indiscriminate admission of the truth, after the lapse of years, would,
+he believed, simply bring back the old despair, and paralyze what had
+always been a frail vitality. And as to Hester, the sudden divulgence of
+it might easily upset the unstable balance in her of mind and nerve and
+drive 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 had
+already happened? Supposing it had, he might not be able to prevent her
+from doing what would place the part played toward her by himself in its
+true light. She would probably insist upon his taking legal action, and
+allowing her to make her statement in court.
+
+The thought of this was so odious to him that he promptly put it from
+him. He should assume that she knew nothing; though as a practical man he
+was well aware that she could not long remain ignorant; certainly not if
+she continued to live in Upcote. Then, it was a question probably of days
+or hours. Her presence in the cottage, when once the village was in full
+possession of the slander, would be a perpetual provocation. One way or
+another the truth must penetrate to her.
+
+An idea occurred to him. Paris! So far he had insisted on going himself
+with Hester to Paris because of his haunting feeling of responsibility
+toward the girl, and his resolve to see with his own eyes the household
+in which he was placing her. But suppose he made excuses? The burden of
+work upon him was excuse enough for any man. Suppose he sent Alice in his
+stead, and so contrived as to keep her in or near Paris for a while? Then
+Edith Fox-Wilton would of course have the forwarding of her sister's
+correspondence, and might, it seemed to him, take the responsibility of
+intercepting whatever might inform or alarm her.
+
+Not much prospect of doing so indefinitely!--that he plainly saw. But to
+gain time was an immense thing; to prevent her from taking at once
+Quixotic steps. He knew that in health she had never been the same since
+the episode of Judith's return and death. She seemed suddenly to have
+faded and drooped, as though poisoned by some constant terror.
+
+He stood lost in thought a little longer by his writing-table. Then his
+hand felt slowly for a parcel in brown paper that lay there.
+
+He drew it toward him and undid the wrappings. Inside it was a little
+volume of recent poems of which he had spoken to Mary Elsmere on their
+moonlit walk through the park. He had promised to lend her his copy, and
+he meant to have left it at the cottage that afternoon. Now he
+lingeringly removed the brown paper, and walking to the bookcase, he
+replaced the volume.
+
+He sat down to write to Alice Puttenham, and to scribble a note to Lady
+Fox-Wilton asking her to see him as soon as possible. Then Anne forced
+some luncheon on him, and he had barely finished it when a step outside
+made itself heard. He looked up and saw Hugh Flaxman.
+
+"Come in!" said the Rector, opening the front door himself. "You are very
+welcome."
+
+Flaxman grasped--and pressed--the proffered hand, looking at Meynell the
+while with hesitating interrogation. He guessed from the Rector's face
+that 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 had
+pushed a chair toward his guest. "He told me he had shown one of these
+precious 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 may
+thereby--perhaps--be enabled to be of some little use to you. Barron
+knows what I think of him, and of the business."
+
+"Oh! for him it is a weapon--like any other. Though to do him justice
+he might not have used it, but for the other mysterious person in the
+case--the writer of these letters. You know--" he straightened himself
+vehemently--"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 in
+arguing with myself as to whether I should come to you at all. Finally I
+decided you might blame me if I did not. You may not be aware of the
+letter 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--"except
+for a few references to the part Mrs. Elsmere had played in helping the
+families of those poor fellows who were killed in the cage-accident."
+
+"And Miss Elsmere?" said Meynell in a tone that wavered in spite of
+himself. He sat with his head bent and his eyes on the floor.
+
+"Knows, of course, nothing whatever about it," said Flaxman hastily. "Now
+will 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 what
+you wish?"
+
+Meynell assented.
+
+"In the village, I shall deal with it at the Reform meeting on Thursday
+night." 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 some
+conversation with her."
+
+They started together through a dripping world on which the skies had but
+just ceased to rain. On his way through the park Meynell took off his hat
+and walked bareheaded through the mist, evidently feeling it a physical
+relief to let the chill, moist air beat freely on brow and temples.
+Flaxman could not help watching him occasionally--the forehead with its
+deep vertical furrow, the rugged face, stamped and lined everywhere by
+travail of mind and body, and the nobility of the large grizzled head. In
+the voluminous cloak--of an antiquity against which Anne protested in
+vain--which was his favourite garb on wet days, he might have been a
+friar of the early time, bound on a preaching tour. The spiritual,
+evangelic note in the personality became--so Flaxman thought--ever more
+conspicuous. 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 am
+expected."
+
+"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 going
+to threaten."
+
+"With anything to go upon?"
+
+"Yes. I hope at last to be able to get some grip on him; though no doubt
+my chances are not improved since yesterday," said Meynell, with a grim
+shadow of a smile, "supposing that anybody from Upcote has been
+gossipping at Sandford. It does not exactly add to one's moral influence
+to 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 the
+high road, Flaxman accompanying his friend so far. There they parted, and
+Hugh returned slowly to the cottage by the water, Meynell promising to
+join 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 were
+sitting at work. Mary was embroidering a curtain in a flowing Venetian
+pattern--with a handful of withered leaves lying beside her to which she
+occasionally matched her silks. Catharine was knitting. Outside the rain
+was howling through the trees; the windows streamed with it. But within,
+the bright wood-fire threw a pleasant glow over the simple room, and the
+figures of the two ladies. Mary's trim jacket and skirt of prune-coloured
+serge, with its white blouse fitting daintily to throat and wrist, seemed
+by its neatness to emphasize the rebellious masses and the fare colour of
+her hair. She knew that her hair was beautiful, and it gave her a
+pleasure she could not help, though she belonged to that type of
+Englishwoman, not yet nearly so uncommon as modern newspapers and books
+would have us believe, who think as little as they can of personal
+adornment and their own appearance, in the interests of some hidden ideal
+that "haunts them like a passion; of which even the most innocent vanity
+seems to make them unworthy."
+
+In these feelings and instincts she was, of course, her mother's
+daughter. Catharine Elsmere's black dress of some plain woollen stuff
+could 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 the
+spiritual beauty which had always been hers was hers still. One might
+guess that she, too, knew it; that in her efforts to save persons in sin
+or suffering she must have known what it was worth to her; what the gift
+of lovely line and presence is worth to any human being. But if she had
+been made to feel this--passingly, involuntarily--she had certainly
+shrunk from feeling it.
+
+Mary put her embroidery away, made up the fire, and sat down on a stool
+at her mother's feet.
+
+"Darling, how many socks have you knitted since we came here? Enough to
+stock a shop?"
+
+"On the contrary. I have been very idle," laughed Catharine, putting her
+knitting 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 your
+feet in London a day earlier," said Mary, laying her head on Catharine's
+knee. "You needn't grumble. Next week you'll have your fells and your
+becks--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 and
+speaking with energy; "but, oh dear, I wish I could do something for
+her!"
+
+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--a
+day's--happiness--in her life?"
+
+[Illustration: "'I wonder whether she's ever had any real joy--a
+week's--a day's--happiness--in her life?'"]
+
+She said it musingly but intensely. Catharine did not know how to answer
+her. All the day long, and a good deal of the night, she had been
+debating with herself what to do--toward Mary. Mary was no longer a
+child. 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 places
+of London life. The betrayal--which could not be hidden from her--of a
+young servant girl in their employ, the year before, and the fierce
+tenderness with which Mary had thrown herself into the saving of the girl
+and her child, had brought about--Catharine knew it--a great deepening
+and overshadowing of her youth. Catharine had in some ways regretted it
+bitterly; for she belonged to that older generation which believed--and
+were amply justified in believing--that it is well for the young to be
+ignorant, so long as they can be ignorant, of the ugly and tragic things
+of sex. It was not that her Mary seemed to her in the smallest degree
+besmirched by the experience she had passed through; that any bloom had
+been shaken from the flower. Far from it. It was rather that some touch
+of careless joy was gone forever from her child's life; and how that
+may hurt a mother, only those know who have wept in secret hours over the
+first ebbing of youth in a young face.
+
+So that she received Mary's outburst in silence. For she said to herself
+that she could have no right to reveal Alice Puttenham's secret, even to
+Mary. That cruel tongues should at that moment be making free with it
+burnt like a constant smart in Catharine's mind. Was the poor thing
+herself aware of it?--could it be kept from her? If not, Mary must
+know--would know--sooner or later. "But for me to tell her without
+permission"--thought Catharine firmly--"would not be right--or just.
+Besides, I know nothing--directly."
+
+As to the other and profounder difficulty involved, Catharine wavered
+perpetually between two different poles of feeling. The incidents of the
+preceding weeks had made it plain that her resistance to Meynell's
+influence with Mary had strangely and suddenly broken down. Owing to an
+experience of which she had not yet spoken to Mary, her inner will had
+given way. She saw with painful clearness what was coming; she was blind
+to 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 she
+submitted. Her submission had cost her tears often, at night, when
+there was no one to see. And yet it had brought her also a strange
+happiness--like all such yieldings of soul.
+
+But if she had yielded, if there was in her a reluctant practical
+certainty that Mary would some day be Meynell's wife, then her
+conscience, which was that of a woman who had passionately loved her
+husband, began to ask: "Ought she not to be standing by him in this
+trouble? If we keep it all from her, and he suffers and perhaps breaks
+down, when she might have sustained him, will she not reproach us? Should
+I not have bitterly reproached any one who had kept me from helping
+Robert in such a case?"
+
+A state of mind, it will be seen, into which there entered not a trace of
+ordinary calculations. It did not occur to her that Mary might be injured
+in the world's eyes by publicly linking herself with a man under a cloud.
+Catharine, whose temptation to "scruple" in the religious sense was
+constant and tormenting, who recoiled in horror from what to others were
+the merest venial offences, in this connection asked one thing only.
+Where Barron had argued that an unbeliever must necessarily have a carnal
+mind, Catharine had simply assured herself at once by an unfailing
+instinct that the mind was noble and the temper pure. In those matters
+she was not to be deceived; she knew.
+
+That being so, and if her own passionate objections to the marriage were
+to be put aside, then she could only judge for Mary as she would judge
+for herself. _Not_ to love--_not_ to comfort--could there be--for
+Love--any greater wound, any greater privation? She shrank, in a kind of
+terror, from inflicting it on Mary--Mary, unconscious and unknowing.
+
+... The soft chatter of the fire, the plashing of the rain, filled the
+room with the atmosphere of reverie. Catharine's thoughts passed from her
+obligations toward Mary to grapple anxiously with those she might be
+under toward Meynell himself. The mere possession of the anonymous
+letter--and Flaxman had not given her leave to destroy it--weighed upon
+her conscience. It seemed to her she ought not to possess it; and she had
+been only half convinced by Flaxman's arguments for delay. She was
+rapidly coming to the belief that it should have been handed instantly to
+the Rector.
+
+A step outside.
+
+"Uncle Hugh!" said Mary, springing up. "I'll go and see if there are any
+scones for tea!" And she vanished into the kitchen, while Catharine
+admitted her brother-in-law.
+
+"Meynell is to join me here in an hour or so," he said, as he followed
+her into the little sitting-room. Catharine closed the door, and looked
+at 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 to
+you, 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 were
+wrong to delay."
+
+"He told me nothing--and I asked nothing. But, of course, what the
+situation 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. At
+any ordinary time that would be enough. But now--with all the hot feeling
+there is on the other subject--and the natural desire to discredit
+him--" Flaxman shrugged his shoulders despondently. "Rose's maid--you
+know the dear old thing she is--came to her last night, in utter distress
+about the talk in the village. There was a journalist here, a reporter
+from one of the papers that have been opposing Meynell most actively--"
+
+"They are quite right to oppose him," interrupted Catharine quickly. Her
+face 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 a
+woman--walking fast toward the cottage along the narrow grass causeway
+that ran between the two ponds. On either side of the woman the autumn
+trees swayed and bent under the rising storm, and every now and then a
+mist of scudding leaves almost effaced her. She seemed to be breathlessly
+struggling with the wind as she sped onward, and in her whole aspect
+there was an indescribable forlornness and terror.
+
+Catharine peered into the rain....
+
+"Hugh!"--She turned swiftly to her brother-in-law--"There is some one
+coming to see me. Will you go?"--she pointed to the garden door on the
+farther side of the drawing-room--"and will you take Mary? Go round to
+the back. You know the old summer-house at the end of the wood-walk. We
+have often sheltered there from rain. Or there's the keeper's cottage a
+little 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 he
+too saw the advancing form. In an instant he had disappeared by the
+garden door. Catharine went into the hall, opened the door of the kitchen
+and beckoned to Mary, who was standing there with their little maid.
+"Don't come back just yet, darling!" she said in her ear--"Get your
+things on, and go with Uncle Hugh. I want to be alone."
+
+Mary stepped back bewildered, and Catharine shut her in. Then she went
+back 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 the
+cloak off."
+
+And as she drew off the soaked waterproof, Catharine felt the trembling
+of 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 on
+Catharine. Every feature in the delicate oval face was pinched and drawn.
+The struggle with wild weather had drained the lips and the cheeks of
+colour, and her brown hair under her serge cap fell limply about her
+small ears and neck. She was an image not so much of grief as of some
+unendurable 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 it
+so strange of me to come to you in this way. But I am in trouble--such
+great trouble--and I don't know what to do. Then I thought I'd come to
+you. You--you always seem to me so kind--you won't despise--or repulse
+me--I know you won't!"
+
+Her voice sank to a whisper. Catharine took the two icy hands in her warm
+grasp.
+
+"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's
+friend--when I'd no right. I'm not what you think. I--I have a
+secret--or--I had. And now it's discovered--and I don't know what I shall
+do--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 spoke
+in 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 cold
+hands, she pressed it to her lips.
+
+But Alice suddenly raised herself.
+
+"You knew!"--she said--"You knew!" And her eyes, full of fear, stared
+into Catharine's. Then as Catharine did not speak immediately she went on
+with growing agitation, "You've heard--what everybody's saying? Oh! I
+don'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 a
+nightmare. For I felt certain she'd come home because she was angry with
+us--and that she'd said something--before she died. Then nothing
+happened--and I've tried to think--lately--it was all right. But last
+night--"
+
+She paused for self-control. Catharine was alarmed by her state--by its
+anguish, its excitement. It required an effort of her whole being before
+the 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 nursed
+me sometimes--when I've been ill. She loves me--she's good to me. And she
+came to tell me what people were saying in the village--how there were
+letters going round, about me--and Hester--how everybody knew--and they
+were talking in the public-houses. She thought I ought to know--she
+cried--and wanted me to deny it. And of course I denied it--I was fierce
+to 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 said
+people were saying--that the Rector--that Mr. Meynell--was Hester's
+father--and Judith Sabin had told Mr. Barron so before her death. And
+they 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 were
+many people who were angry--who didn't believe a word--but this woman who
+told me was astonished that so many _did_ believe.... So then I thought
+all 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 I
+should bring disgrace on them in the end--and her life had been a burden
+to 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 say
+nothing--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 she
+pressed the damp hair back from her face, and began to pace the
+room--unconsciously--still talking.
+
+"I asked her what was to happen about Richard--about the Rector. I said
+he 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 sin
+had spoilt her life--and Ralph's. They had done all they could--and now
+the publicity--if I insisted--would disgrace them all--and ruin the
+girls' chances of marrying, and I don't know what besides. But if I held
+my tongue--we could go away for a time--it would be forgotten, and nobody
+out of Upcote need ever hear of it. People would never believe such a
+thing of Richard Meynell. Of course he would deny it--and of course his
+word 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 were
+her whole strength to pour it--slowly, deliberately--into the words that
+followed:
+
+"But I--will run no risk of ruining Richard Meynell! As for me--what does
+it matter what happens to me! And darling Hester!--we could keep it from
+her--we would! She and I could live abroad. And I don't see how it could
+disgrace Edith and the girls--people would only say she and Ralph had
+been very good to me. But Richard Meynell!--with these trials coming
+on--and all the excitement about him--there'll be ever so many who would
+be wild to believe it! They won't care how absurd it is--they'll want
+to _crush_ him! And he--he'll _never_ say a word for himself--to
+explain--never! Because he couldn't without telling all my story. And
+that--do you suppose Richard Meynell would ever do _that_?--to any poor
+human 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 her
+in doubt--trouble--amazement. And then, her pure sense divined
+something--dimly--of what the full history of this soul had been; and her
+heart melted. She put out her hands and drew the speaker down again into
+the seat beside her.
+
+"I think you'll have to let him decide that for you. He's a strong
+man--and a wise man. He'll judge what's right. And I ought to warn you
+that 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 Catharine
+reluctantly.
+
+Alice shrank and trembled. "It's terrible!"--her voice was scarcely to be
+heard. "Who is it hates me so?--or Richard?"
+
+There was silence a moment. And in the pause the stress and tumult of
+nature without, the beating of the wind, and the plashing of the rain,
+seemed to be rushing headlong through the little room. But neither
+Catharine nor Alice was aware of it, except in so far as it played
+obscurely on Alice's tortured nerves, fevering and goading them the more.
+Catharine's gaze was bent on her companion; her mind was full of projects
+of help, which were also prayers; moments in that ceaseless dialogue with
+a Greater than itself, which makes the life of the Christian. And it was
+as though, by some secret influence, her prayers worked on Alice; for
+presently she turned in order that she might look straight into the face
+beside 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 you
+don't know about Neville--no one does now. People seem all to have
+forgotten him. But he came into his property here--the Abbey--the old
+Abbey--just when I was growing up. I saw him here first--but only once or
+twice. Then we met in Scotland. I was staying at a house near his
+shooting. And we fell in love. Oh, I knew he was married!--I can never
+say that I didn't know, even at the beginning. But his wife was so cruel
+to him--he was very, very unhappy. She couldn't understand him--or make
+allowances for him--she despised him, and wouldn't live with him. He was
+miserable--and so was I. My father and mother were dead! I had to live
+with Ralph and Edith; and they always made me feel that I was in their
+way. 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 do
+everything. I was staying with some old cousins in Rossshire, who used to
+ask me now and then. There were no young people in the house. My cousins
+were quite kind to me, but I spent a great deal of time alone--and
+Neville 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 me
+books--and read to me. He was sorry for me--and at last--he loved me! And
+we never looked ahead. Then--in one week--everything happened together. I
+had to go home. He talked of going to Sandford, and implored me still to
+meet him. And I thought how Ralph and Edith would watch us, and spy upon
+us, and I implored him never to go to Sandford when I was at Upcote. We
+must meet at other places. And he agreed. Then the day came for me to go
+south. I travelled by myself--and he rode twenty miles to a junction
+station and joined me. Then we travelled all day together."
+
+Her voice failed her. She pressed her thin hands together under the onset
+of memory, and that old conquered anguish which in spite of all the life
+that had been lived since still smouldered amid the roots of being.
+
+"I may tell you?" she said at last, with a piteous look. Catharine bent
+over her.
+
+"Anything that will help you. Only remember I don't ask or expect you to
+say 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 thought
+we could never meet again--it seemed as though we were both--with every
+station we passed--coming nearer to something like death--something worse
+than death. Then--before we got to Euston--I couldn't bear it--I--I gave
+way. We sent a telegram from Euston to Edith that I was going to stay
+with 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 I
+went home. In a few weeks Edith guessed--and so did Judith Sabin, who was
+Edith's maid. Edith made me tell her everything. She and Ralph were
+nearly beside themselves. They were very strict in those days; Ralph was
+a great Evangelical, and used to speak at the May meetings. All his party
+looked up to him so--and consulted him. It was a fearful blow to him. But
+Edith thought of what to do--and she made him agree. We went abroad, she
+and I--with Judith. It was given out that Edith was delicate, and must
+have a year away. We stopped about in little mountain places--and Hester
+was born at Grenoble. And then for the last and only time, they let
+Neville 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 an
+accident--but it wasn't. He had hoped and hoped to get his wife to
+divorce him--and make amends. And when Mrs. Flood's--his wife's--final
+letter came--she was a Catholic and nothing would induce her--he just
+took his boat out in a storm, and never came back--"
+
+The story lost itself in a long sobbing sigh that came from the depths of
+life. When she spoke again it was with more strength:
+
+"But he had written the night before to Richard--Richard Meynell. You
+know he was the Rector's uncle, though he was only seven years older? I
+had 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 Richard
+was still at college, and Neville was in the Guards. They used to talk of
+religion and philosophy. Neville was a great reader always--and they
+became great friends. So on his last night he wrote to Richard, telling
+him everything, and asking him to be kind to me--and Hester. And
+Richard--who had just been appointed to the living here--came out to
+the Riviera, and brought me the letter--and the little book that was in
+his pocket--when they found him. So you see ..."
+
+She spoke with fluttering colour and voice, as though to find words at
+all were a matter of infinite difficulty:
+
+"You see that was how Richard came to take an interest in us--in Hester
+and me--how he came to be the friend too of Ralph and Edith. Poor
+Ralph!--Ralph was often hard to me, but he meant kindly--he would never
+have 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 have
+had any peace--any comfort in life again--but for Richard. He found
+somebody to live with me abroad for those first years, and then, when I
+came back to Upcote, he made Ralph and Edith consent to my living in that
+little house by myself--with my chaperon. He would have preferred--indeed
+he urged it--that I should go on living abroad. But there was
+Hester!--and I knew by that time that none of them had the least bit of
+love for her!--she was a burden to them all. I couldn't leave her to
+them--I _couldn't!_... Oh! they were terrible, those years!" And again
+she caught Catharine's hands and held them tight. "You see, I was so
+young--not much over twenty--and nobody suspected anything. Nobody in the
+world 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 preached
+to me--but by his life. I couldn't have lived at all--but for him. And
+now you see--you see--how I am paying him back!"
+
+And again, as the rush of emotion came upon her, she threw herself into a
+wild pleading, as though the gray-haired woman beside her were thwarting
+and opposing her.
+
+"How can I let my story--my wretched story--ruin his life--and all his
+work? I can't--I can't! I came to you because you won't look at it as
+Edith does. You'll think of what's right--right to others. Last night I
+thought one must die of--misery. I suppose people would call it shame. It
+seemed to me I heard what they were all saying in the village--how they
+were gloating over it--after all these years. It seemed to strip one of
+all self-respect--all decency. And to-day I don't care about that! I care
+only that Richard shouldn't suffer because of what he did for me--and
+because of me. Oh! do help me, do advise me! Your look--your manner--have
+often made me want to come and tell you"--her voice was broken now with
+stifled sobs--"like a child--a child. Dear Mrs. Elsmere!--what ought I to
+do?"
+
+And she raised imploring eyes to the face beside her, so finely worn with
+living 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 would
+tell you that. She is your first--your sacredest duty."
+
+Alice Puttenham shivered as though something in Catharine's tender voice
+reproached her.
+
+"Oh, I know--my poor Hester! My life has set hers all wrong. Wouldn't
+it have been better to face it all from the beginning--to tell the
+truth--wouldn't it?" She asked it piteously.
+
+"It might have been. But the other way was chosen; and now to undo
+it--publicly--affects not you only, but Hester. It mayn't be possible--it
+mayn't be right."
+
+"I must!--I must!" said Alice impetuously, and rising to her feet she
+began to pace the room again with wild steps, her hands behind her, her
+slender form drawn tensely to its height.
+
+At that moment Catharine became aware of some one standing in the porch
+just 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 murmured
+conversation passed between the two persons in the little hall. Then
+Catharine came in again, followed by Meynell, who closed the door, and
+stood looking sadly at the pale woman confronting him.
+
+"So they haven't spared even you?" he said at last, in a voice bitterly
+subdued. "But don't be too unhappy. It wants courage and wisdom on our
+part. But it will all pass away."
+
+He quietly pushed a chair toward Alice, and then took off his dripping
+cloak, carried it into the passage outside, and returned.
+
+"Don't go, Mrs. Elsmere," he said, as he perceived Catharine's
+uncertainty. "Stay and help us, if you will."
+
+Catharine submitted. She took her accustomed seat by the fire; Alice, or
+the ghost of Alice, sat opposite to her, in Mary's chair, surrounded by
+Mary's embroidery things; and Meynell was between them.
+
+He looked from one to the other, and there was something in his aspect
+which restrained Alice's agitation, and answered at once to some high
+expectation in Catharine.
+
+"I know, Mrs. Elsmere, that you have received one of the anonymous
+letters that are being circulated in this neighbourhood, and I presume
+also--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 must
+be 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 helped
+her 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 state
+of life and mind. She imagines herself to be in love with my cousin
+Philip Meryon, a worthless man, without an ounce of conscience where
+women are concerned, who, in my strong belief, is already married
+under 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. I
+have convinced him at last--this morning--that I mean to bring this home
+to him. But that does not dispose of the thing--finally. Hester is in
+danger--in danger from herself. She is at war with her family--with the
+world. She believes nobody loves her--that she is and always has been a
+pariah at home--and with her temperament she is in a mood for desperate
+things. Tell her now that she is illegitimate--let your sister Edith go
+talking to her about 'disgrace'--and there is no saying what will happen.
+She will say--and think--that she has no responsibilities, and may do
+what she pleases. There is no saying what she might do. We might have a
+tragedy that none of us could prevent."
+
+Alice lifted her head.
+
+"I could go away with her," she said, imploringly. "I could watch over
+her 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 to
+return to give evidence."
+
+"Yes--for a short time. But that could be managed. She should never see
+the English papers--I could promise that."
+
+"And what is to prevent Philip Meryon telling her? At present he is
+entirely ignorant of her parentage. I have convinced myself of that this
+morning. 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 off
+to-night. We must, of course, always take the risk of his knowing, and of
+his 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 do
+not 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 tell
+her?"
+
+Alice did not reply. She sat wringing her delicate hands in a silent
+desperation; while Catharine opposite was lost in the bewilderment of the
+situation--the insistence of the woman, the refusal of the man.
+
+"My advice is this"--continued Meynell, still addressing Alice--"that you
+should take her to Paris tomorrow in my stead, and should stay near her
+for some months. Lady Fox-Wilton--whom I have just seen--she overtook me
+driving on the Markborough road half an hour ago, and we had some
+conversation--talks of taking a house at Tours for a year--an excellent
+thing--for them all. We don't want her on the spot any longer--we don't
+want any of them!" said the Rector, dismissing the Fox-Wilton family with
+an emphatic gesture which probably represented what he had gone through
+in the interview with Edith. ... "In that way the thing will soon die
+down. There will be nobody here--nobody within reach--for the scoundrel
+who is writing these letters to attack--except, of course, myself--and
+I 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 believed
+them. 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 is
+very important--very true. But for me personally"--she looked round the
+room with wandering eyes; then found a sudden passionate gesture,
+pressing back the hair from her brow with both hands--"for me
+personally--to tell the truth--to face the truth--would be
+relief--infinite relief! It would kill the fear in which I have lived all
+these years--kill it forever. It would be better for all of us if we had
+told the truth--from the beginning. And as for Hester--she must know--you
+say yourself she must know before long--when she is of age--when she
+marries--"
+
+Meynell's face took an unconscious hardness.
+
+"Forgive me!--the matter must be left to me. The only person who could
+reasonably take legal action would be myself--and I shall not take it. I
+beg you, be advised by me." He bent forward again. "My dear friend!"--and
+now he spoke with emotion--"in your generous consideration for me you do
+not know what you are proposing--what an action in the courts would mean,
+especially at this moment. Think of the party spirit that would be
+brought into it--the venom--the prejudice--the base insinuations.
+No!--believe me--that is out of the question--for your sake--and
+Hester's."
+
+"And your work--your influence?"
+
+"If they suffer--they must suffer. But do not imagine that I shall not
+defend myself--and you--you above all--from calumny and lies. Of course I
+shall--in my own way."
+
+There was silence--a dismal silence. At the end of it Meynell stretched
+out 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." Then
+he 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 Miss
+Puttenham 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 to
+Alice.
+
+"Go to him--go to him at once!" she said with a sob she could not
+repress.
+
+Another silence. Then Meynell walked to the window and looked at the
+weather.
+
+"It is not raining so fast," he said in his cheerful voice. "Oughtn't you
+to be going home--getting ready and arranging with Hester? It's an awful
+business going abroad."
+
+Alice rose silently. Catharine went into the kitchen to fetch the
+waterproof 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. It
+seems to burn one's heart--the coarse and horrible things that are being
+said--"
+
+He frowned and fidgeted--till the thought within forced its way:
+
+"Christ was hated. Yet directly the least touch of it comes to us, we
+rebel--we cry out against God."
+
+"It is because we are so weak--we are not Christ!" She covered her face
+with 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 in
+Thee_!'" He fell--murmuring--into lines that had evidently been in his
+thoughts, smiling upon her.
+
+Then Catharine returned. Alice was warmly wrapped up, and Catharine took
+her 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 to
+which 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 was
+standing 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--with
+regard to my daughter?"
+
+He turned--pale with amazement.
+
+And so began what one may call--perhaps--the most romantic action of a
+noble life!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+When Catharine returned to the little sitting-room, in which the darkness
+of a rainy October evening was already declaring itself, she came shaken
+by many emotions in which only one thing was clear--that the man before
+her 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 the
+threatened scandal a means of freeing Mary from an undesirable
+attachment. But just as in her married life, her heart had not been able
+to stand against her husband while her mind condemned him, so now. While
+in theory, and toward people with whom she never came in contact, she had
+grown even more bitter and intransigent since Robert's death than she had
+been in her youth, she had all the time been living the daily life of
+service and compassion which--unknown to herself--had been the real
+saving and determining force. Impulses of love, impulses of sacrifice
+toward the miserable, the vile, and the helpless--day by day she had felt
+them, day by day she had obeyed them. And thus all the arteries, so to
+speak, of the spiritual life had remained soft and pliant--that life
+itself in her was still young. It was there in truth that her
+Christianity lay; while she imagined it to lie in the assent to certain
+historical and dogmatic statements. And so strong was this inward and
+vital faith--so strengthened in fact by mere living--that when she was
+faced with this second crisis in her life, brought actually to close
+grips with it, that faith, against all that might have been expected,
+carried her through the difficult place with even greater sureness than
+at first. She suffered indeed. It seemed to her all through that she was
+endangering Mary, and condoning a betrayal of her Lord. And yet she could
+not act upon this belief. She must needs act--with pain often, and yet
+with mysterious moments of certainty and joy, on quite another faith, the
+faith which has expressed itself in the perennial cry of Christianity:
+"Little children, love one another!" And therein lay the difference
+between her and Barron.
+
+It was therefore in this mixed--and yet single--mood that she came back
+to Meynell, and asked him--quietly--the strange question: "What shall I
+do--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. He
+stared at her in bewilderment, at first pale, and then in a sudden heat
+and 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 you
+cannot, for good reasons, involving other persons, prosecute those
+responsible for it in the usual way. And if she comes across any signs of
+it, or its effects, she is to trust your wisdom in dealing with it--and
+not 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 her
+gravely.
+
+"Or--will you say it yourself?"
+
+He started.
+
+"Mrs. Elsmere!"--he spoke with quick emotion--"You are wonderfully good
+to me." He scanned her with an unsteady face--then made an agitated step
+toward her. "It almost makes me think--you permit me--"
+
+"No--no," said Catharine, hurriedly, drawing back. "But if you would like
+to 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 a
+question; it will be her business to know nothing of the matter--in
+itself. But she will be able to show you her confidence, and to feel that
+we have treated her as a woman--not a child."'
+
+Meynell drew a deep breath. He took Catharine's hand and pressed it. She
+felt with a thrill--which was half bitterness--that it was already a
+son'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 to
+speak of it--to intrude myself and my affairs on her notice at all at
+this moment...." He looked at his companion almost sternly. "Is it not
+clear that I ought not? I meant to have brought her a book to-day. I have
+not brought it. I have been even glad--thankful--to think you were going
+away, although--" But again he checked the personal note. "The truth is I
+could not endure that through me--through anything connected with me--she
+might be driven upon facts and sorrows--ugly facts that would distress
+her, and sorrows for which she is too young. It seemed to me indeed I
+might 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 smallest
+degree to presume upon her--and your--kindness to me. Above all"--his
+voice shook--"I could not come forward--I could not speak to her--as at
+another time I might have spoken. I could not run the smallest risk--of
+her name being coupled with mine--when my character was being seriously
+called in question. It would not have been right for her; it would not
+have been seemly for myself. So what was there--but silence? And yet I
+felt--that through this silence--we should somehow trust each other!"
+
+He paused a moment, looking down upon his companion. Catharine was
+sitting by the fire near a small table on which her elbow rested, her
+face propped on her hand. There was something in the ascetic refinement,
+the grave sweetness of her aspect, that played upon him with a tonic and
+consoling force. He remembered the frozen reception she had given him at
+their first meeting; and the melting of her heart toward him seemed a
+wonderful thing. And then came the delicious thought--"Would she so treat
+him, 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 communication
+with him, to show any kindness toward him, till this cloud had wholly
+cleared away, and the sky was clear again. He became almost angry as he
+urged this; so excited, indeed, and incoherent that a charming smile
+stole into Catharine's gray eyes.
+
+"I understand quite what you feel," she said as she rose, "and why you
+feel it. But I am not bound to follow your advice--or to agree with
+you--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 a
+little--"but it seems to me right--I have been _led_--else why was
+it 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 more
+mystical Christian experience. She hurried on:
+
+"When two people--two people like you and Mary--feel such a deep
+interest in each other--surely it is God's sign." Then, suddenly, the
+tears 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 was
+great.
+
+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 her
+hand, and turned aside to gather up some letters on the table.
+
+A sound of footsteps could be heard outside. Catharine moved to the
+window.
+
+"It is Mary," she said quietly. "Will you wait a little while I meet
+her?" And without giving him time to reply, she left the room.
+
+He walked up and down, not without some humorous bewilderment in spite of
+his emotion. The saints, it seemed, are persons of determination! But,
+after a minute, he thought of nothing, realized nothing, save that Mary
+was in the little house again, and that one of those low voices he could
+just hear, as a murmur in the distance, through the thin walls of the
+cottage, was hers.
+
+The door opened softly, and she came in. Though she had taken off her
+hat, she still wore her blue cloak of Irish frieze, which fell round her
+slender figure in long folds. Her face was rosy with rain and wind; the
+same wind and rain which had stamped such a gray fatigue on Alice
+Puttenham's cheeks. Amid the dusk, the fire-light touched her hair and
+her ungloved hand. She was a vision of youth and soft life; and her
+composure, her slight, shy smile, would alone have made her beautiful.
+
+Their hands met as she gently greeted him. But there was that in his look
+which disturbed her gentleness--which deepened her colour. She hurried to
+speak.
+
+"I am so glad that mother made you stay--just that I might tell
+you." Then her breath began to hasten. "Mother says you are--or may
+be--unjustly attacked--that you don't think it right to defend yourself
+publicly--and those who follow you, and admire you, may be hurt and
+troubled. I wanted to say--and mother approves--that whoever is hurt and
+troubled, I can never be--except for you. Besides, I shall know and ask
+nothing. You may be sure of that. And people will not dare to speak to
+me."
+
+She stood proudly erect.
+
+Meynell was silent for a moment. Then, by a sudden movement, he stooped
+and 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, dropped
+them, 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 it
+may be a hard fight. But whatever happens, you are going to Westmoreland
+immediately. That is my great comfort."
+
+"Is it?" She laughed unsteadily.
+
+He too smiled. There was intoxication he could not resist--in her
+presence--and in what it implied.
+
+"It is the best possible thing that could be done. Then--whatever
+happens--I shall not be compromising my friends. For a while--there must
+be no communication between them and me."
+
+"Oh, yes!" she said, involuntarily clasping her hands. "Friends may
+write."
+
+"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 are
+preaching--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 the
+mountains 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 and
+tremulous joy, she began to question him about the meetings and
+engagements ahead. But he would not be drawn into any talk about them. It
+was no doubt quite possible--though not, he thought, probable--that he
+might soon be ostracized from them all. But upon this he would not dwell,
+and though her understanding of the whole position was far too vague
+to warn her from these questions, she soon perceived that he was
+unwilling to answer them as usual. Silence indeed fell between them; but
+it was a silence of emotion. She had thrown off her cloak, and sat
+looking 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 at
+her feet. As they realized each other's nearness indeed, in the quiet of
+the dim room, it was with a magic sense of transformation. Outside the
+autumn storm was still beating--symbol of the moral storm which
+threatened them. Yet within were trust and passionate gratitude and
+tender hope, intertwined, all of them, with the sacred impulse of the
+woman toward the man, and of the man toward the woman. Each moment as it
+passed built up one of those watersheds of life from which henceforward
+the rivers flow broadening to undreamt-of seas.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Catharine returned, Meynell was hat in hand for departure. There was
+no more expression of feeling or reference to grave affairs. They stood a
+few moments chatting about ordinary things. Incidentally Hugh Flaxman's
+loss of the two gold coins was mentioned. Meynell inquired when they were
+first missed.
+
+"That very evening," said Mary. "Rose always puts them away herself. She
+missed the two little cases at once. One was a coin of Velia, with a head
+of Athene--"
+
+"I remember it perfectly," said Meynell. "It dropped on the floor when I
+was talking to Norham--and I picked it up--with another, if I remember
+right--a Hermes!"
+
+Mary replied that the Hermes too was missing--that both were exceedingly
+rare; and that in the spring a buyer for the Louvre had offered Hugh four
+hundred pounds for the two.
+
+"They feel most unhappy and uncomfortable about it. None of the servants
+seems to have gone into that room during the party. Rose put all the
+coins on the table herself. She remembers saying good-bye to Canon France
+and his sister in the drawing-room--and two or three others--and
+immediately afterward she went into the green drawing-room to lock up the
+coins. 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--the
+Bishop!--Canon Dornal!"
+
+They both laughed. Then Meynell's face set sharply. A sudden recollection
+shot through his mind. He beheld the figure of a sallow, dark-haired
+young man slipping--alone--through the doorway of the green drawing-room.
+And this image in the mind touched and fired others, like a spark running
+through dead leaves....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he had gone, Catharine turned to Mary, and Mary, running, wound her
+arms close round her mother, and lay her head on Catharine's breast.
+
+"You angel!--you darling!" she said, and raising her mother's hand she
+kissed it passionately.
+
+Catharine's eyes filled with tears, and her heart with mingled joy and
+revolt. Then, quickly, she asked herself as she stood there in her
+child's embrace whether she should speak of a certain event--certain
+experience--which had, in truth, though Mary knew nothing of it, vitally
+affected 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 breaking
+down of an opposition and a hostility which might in time have poisoned
+all their relations to each other.
+
+But when Mary had gone away to change her damp clothes, the visionary
+experience of which Catharine could not tell came back upon her; and
+again she felt the thrill--the touch of bodiless ecstasy.
+
+It had been in the early morning, when all such things befall. For then
+the mind is not yet recaptured by life and no longer held by sleep. There
+is in it a pure expectancy, open to strange influences: influences from
+memory and the under-soul. It visualizes easily, and dream and fact are
+one.
+
+In this state Catharine woke on a September morning and felt beside her a
+presence that held her breathless. The half-remembered images and
+thoughts 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 dialogue
+began 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 the
+dancing shadows of the autumn leaves were all present to her. She poured
+out the sorrow, the anxiety--about Mary--that pressed so heavy on her
+heart, and the tender voice answered, now consoling, now rebuking.
+
+"And we forbade him, because he followed not us ... Forbid him
+not--_forbid him not_!"--seemed to go echoing through the quiet air.
+
+The words sank deep into her sense--she heard herself sobbing--and
+the 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 of
+the mingled ideas and passions on which her life was founded, piercing
+through the intellectualism of her dogmatic belief. But though she would
+have patiently accepted any scientific explanation, she believed in her
+heart that Robert had spoken to her, bidding her renounce her repugnance
+to Mary's friendship with Meynell--to Mary's love for Meynell.
+
+She came down the morning after with a strange, dull sense of change
+and disaster. But the currents of her mind and will had set firmly in a
+fresh direction. It was almost mechanically--under a strong sense of
+guidance--that she had made her hesitating proposal to Mary to go with
+her to the Upcote meeting. Mary's look of utter astonishment had sent new
+waves of disturbance and compunction through the mother's mind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But if these things could not be told--even to Mary--there were other
+revelations 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 embrace
+of her mother, she went away upstairs, only pausing at the door of the
+sitting-room to ask when they should start for the cottage.
+
+Upstairs Mary sat for long in the dark, thinking.... Through her
+uncurtained windows she watched the obscure dying away of the storm, the
+calming of the trees, and the gradual clearing of the night sky. Between
+the upfurling clouds the stars began to show; tumult passed into a great
+tranquillity; and a breath of frost began to steal through the woods, and
+over the water....
+
+Catharine too passed an hour of reflection--and of yearning over the
+unhappy. Naturally, to Mary, her lips had been sealed on that deepest
+secret of all, which she had divined for a moment in Alice. She had
+clearly perceived what was or had been the weakness of the woman,
+together with the loyal unconsciousness and integrity of the man. And
+having perceived it, not only pity but the strain in Catharine of plain
+simplicity 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 to
+help her. She began however to understand what might be the full meaning
+of Alice's last injunction--and her eyes grew wet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mother and daughter started about eight o'clock for the cottage. They had
+a lantern with them, but they hardly needed it, for through the
+tranquillized air a new moon shone palely, and the frost made way.
+Catharine walked rejoicing apparently in renewed strength and recovered
+powers of exertion. Some mining, crippling influence seemed to have been
+removed from her since her dream. And yet, even at this time, she was not
+without premonitions--physical premonitions--as to the future--faint
+signal-voices that the obscure life of the body can often communicate to
+the spirit.
+
+They found the cottage all in light and movement. Servants were flying
+about; boxes were in the hall; Hester had come over to spend the night at
+the cottage that she and "Aunt Alice" might start by an early train.
+
+Alice came out to meet her visitors in the little hall. Catharine slipped
+into the drawing-room. Alice and Mary held each other enwrapped in one of
+those moments of life that have no outward expression but dimmed eyes
+and fluttering breath.
+
+"Is it all done? Can't I help?" said Mary at last, scarcely knowing what
+she said, as Alice released her.
+
+"No, dear, it's all done--except our books. Come up with me while I pack
+them."
+
+And they vanished upstairs, hand in hand.
+
+Meanwhile Hester in her most reckless mood was alternately flouting and
+caressing Catharine Elsmere. She was not in the least afraid of
+Catharine, and it was that perhaps which had originally drawn Catharine's
+heart to her. Elsmere's widow was accustomed to feel herself avoided by
+young people who discussed a wild literature, and appeared to be without
+awe toward God, or reverence toward man. Yet all the time, through her
+often bewildered reprobation of them, she hungered for their affection,
+and knew that she carried in herself treasures of love to give--though no
+doubt, on terms.
+
+But Hester had always divined these treasures, and was, besides, as a
+rule, far too arrogant and self-centred to restrain herself in anything
+she wished to say or do for fear of hurting or shocking her elders.
+
+At this moment she had declared herself tired out with packing, and
+was lounging in an armchair in the little drawing-room. A Japanese
+dressing-gown of some pale pink stuff sprayed with almond blossom floated
+about her, disclosing a skimpy silk petticoat and a slender foot from
+which she had kicked its shoe. Her pearly arms and neck were almost bare;
+her hair tumbled on her shoulders; her eyes shone with excitement
+provoked by a dozen hidden and conflicting thoughts. In her beauty, her
+ardent and provocative youth, she seemed to be bursting out of the little
+room, 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 and
+talk."
+
+And she put out an impatient hand, and drew the stately Catharine toward
+a chair beside her.
+
+"You ought to be in bed," said Catharine, retaining her hand. The girl's
+ignorance of all that others knew affected her strangely--produced a
+great softness and compunction.
+
+"I shouldn't sleep. I wonder when I shall get a decent amount of sleep
+again!" said Hester, pressing back the hair from her cheeks. Then she
+turned sharply on her visitor:
+
+"Of course you know, Mrs. Elsmere, that I am simply being sent away--in
+disgrace."
+
+"I know"--Catharine smiled, though her tone was grave--"that those who
+love 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 the
+same it's true. They're sending me away because they don't know what
+I'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, not
+without severity. "They are never at rest about you. My dear--they only
+wish your good."
+
+Hester laughed. She threw out a careless hand and laid it on Catharine's
+knee.
+
+"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 do
+like you so. But you can't know anything, can you, about girls--like
+me?"
+
+And looking up from where she lay deep in the armchair, she turned
+half-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--with
+girls."
+
+"Oh--poor girls? Girls in factories--girls that wear fringes, and sham
+pearl beads, and six ostrich feathers in their hats on Sundays? No, I
+don't think I'm like them. If I were they, I shouldn't care about
+feathers or the sham pearls. I should be more likely to try and steal
+some real ones! No, but I mean really girls like me--rich girls, though
+of course I'm not rich--but you understand? Do you know any girls who
+gamble and paint--their faces I mean--and let men lend them money, and
+pay for their dresses?"
+
+Hester sat up defiantly, looking at her companion.
+
+"No, I don't know any of that kind," said Catharine quietly. "I'm
+old-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 suppose
+I 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 Catharine
+sharply.
+
+Hester's look was enigmatic.
+
+"Well, I never did it. But I knew a girl in London--very pretty--and as
+mad as you like. She was an orphan and her relatives didn't care twopence
+about her. She got into debt, and a horrid old man offered to lend her a
+couple of hundred pounds if she'd give him a kiss. She said no, and then
+she told an older woman who was supposed to look after her. And what do
+you suppose she said?"
+
+Catharine was silent.
+
+"'Well, you _are_ a little fool!' That was all she got for her pains. Men
+are villains--_I_ think! But they're exciting!" And Hester clasped her
+hands 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's
+chair, she took the girl in her arms.
+
+"Hester, dear!--if you want a friend--whenever you want a friend--come to
+me! 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 Hester
+lightly 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 kinds
+of 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 in
+her 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 the
+miniature.
+
+"How can I love her when she won't trust me?" she cried again, with
+stormy breath.
+
+Catharine's heart melted within her.
+
+"But you _must_ love her, Hester! Why, she has watched over you all your
+life. 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 a
+veiled future, unable, by no fault of her own, to distinguish her lovers
+from 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 for
+you"--she bent forward like a queen, and lightly kissed Catharine on the
+cheek--"I daresay I'll remember what you've said--you're a great, great
+dear! It was luck for Mary to have got you for a mother. But I'm all
+right--I'm all right!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the Elsmeres were gone, Hester still sat on alone in the
+drawing-room. The lamp had burnt dim, and the little room was cold.
+
+Presently she slipped her hand into the white bodice she wore. A letter
+lay there, and her fingers caressed it. "I don't know whether I love him
+or not--perhaps I do, and perhaps I don't. I don't know whether I believe
+Uncle Richard--or this letter. But--I'm going to find out! I'm not going
+to be stopped from finding out."
+
+And as she lay there, she was conscious of bonds she was half determined
+to escape, half willing to bear; of a fluttering excitement and dread.
+Step by step, and with a childish bravado, she had come within the
+influences of sex; and her fate was upon her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+Meanwhile, amid this sensitive intermingling of the thoughts and feelings
+of women, there arose the sudden tumult and scandal of the new elements
+which had thrust themselves into what was already known to the religious
+world throughout England as "the Meynell case." During November and
+December that case came to include two wholly different things: the
+ecclesiastical suit in the Court of Arches, which, owing to a series of
+delays and to the illness of the Dean of the Court, was not to be heard
+in all probability before February, and the personal charges brought
+against the incumbent of Upcote Minor.
+
+These fresh charges were formally launched by Henry Barron, the chief
+promoter also, as we know, of the ecclesiastical suit, in a letter
+written by him to Bishop Craye, on the very night when Alice Puttenham
+revealed her secret to Catharine Elsmere. But before we trace the effect
+of the letter, let us look for a moment at the general position of the
+Movement when this second phase of Meynell's connection with it began.
+
+At that time the pending suits against the Modernist leaders--for there
+were now five instituted by different bishops, as test cases, in
+different parts of England--were already the subject of the keenest
+expectation and debate not only in church circles, but amid sections of
+the nation which generally trouble themselves very little about clerical
+or religious disputes. New births of time were felt to be involved in the
+legal struggle; passionate hopes and equally passionate fears hung upon
+it. There were old men in quiet country parsonages who, when they read
+the _Modernist_ and followed the accounts of the Movement, were inclined
+to say to themselves with secret joy and humility that other men were
+entering into their labours, and the fields were at last whitening to
+harvest; while others, like Newman of old, had "fierce thoughts toward
+the Liberals," talked and spoke of Meynell and the whole band of
+Modernist clergy as traitors with whom no parley could be kept, and were
+ready to break up the Church at twenty-four hours' notice rather than sit
+down at the same table of the Lord with heretics and Socinians.
+
+Between these two groups of men, each equally confident and clear, though
+by no means equally talkative, there was a middle region that contained
+many anxious minds and some of the wisest heads in England. If, at the
+time of Norham's visit to Maudeley, Bishop Craye of Markborough, and many
+other bishops with him, were still certain that the Movement would be
+promptly and easily put down, so far at least as its organic effect on
+the Church of England was concerned, yet, as November and December wore
+on, anxieties deepened, and confidence began to waver. The passion of the
+Movement was beginning to run through England, as it seemed to many, like
+the flame of an explosion through a dusty mine. What amazed and terrified
+the bishops was the revelation of pent-up energies, rebellions, ideals,
+not only among their own flocks, but in quarters, and among men and
+women, hitherto ruled out of religious affairs by general consent. They
+pondered the crowds which had begun to throng the Modernist churches, the
+extraordinary growth of the Modernist press, and the figures reported day
+by day as to the petition to be presented to Parliament in February.
+There was no orthodox person in authority who was not still determined on
+an unconditional victory; but it was admitted that the skies were
+darkening.
+
+The effect of the Movement on the Dissenters--on that half of religious
+England which stands outside the National Church, where "grace" takes the
+place of authority, and bishops are held to be superfluities incompatible
+with the pure milk of the Word--was in many respects remarkable. The
+majority of the Wesleyan Methodists had thrown themselves strongly on
+to the side of the orthodox party in the Church; but among the
+Congregationalists and Presbyterians there was visible a great ferment of
+opinion and a great cleavage of sympathy; while, among the Primitive
+Methodists, a body founded on the straitest tenets of Bible worship, yet
+interwoven, none the less, with the working class life of England and
+Wales, and bringing day by day the majesty and power of religion to bear
+upon the acts and consciences of plain, poor, struggling men, there was
+visible a strong and definite current of acquiescence in Modernist ideas,
+which was inexplicable, till one came to know that among Meynell's
+friends at Upcote there were two or three Primitive local preachers who
+had 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 persons
+standing on tiptoe before an opening glory. In their isolated and often
+mistaken struggle they had felt themselves for generations stricken with
+chill and barrenness; their blood now began to feel the glow of new
+kinships, the passion of large horizons. So, along the banks of some
+slender and much hindered stream, there come blown from the nearing sea
+prophetic scents and murmurs, and one may dream that the pent water knows
+at last the whence and whither of its life.
+
+But the strangest spectacle of all perhaps was presented by the orthodox
+camp. For, in proportion as the Modernist attack developed, was the
+revival of faith among those hostile to it, or unready for it. For the
+first time in their lives, religion became interesting--thrilling
+even--to thousands of persons for whom it had long lost all real savour.
+Fierce question and answer, the hot cut and thrust of argument, the
+passion 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 a
+new life, and express itself in a new language. These were times when men
+on all sides felt that stretching and straining of faculty which ushers
+in the days of spiritual or poetic creation; times when the most
+confident Modernist of them all knew well that he, no more than any one
+else, could make any guess worth having as to the ultimate future.
+
+Of all this rapid and amazing development the personality and the
+writings of Richard Meynell had in few months become the chief popular
+symbol. There were some who thought that he was likely to take much
+the same place in the Modernist Movement of the twentieth century as
+Newman had taken in the Oxford Movement of the nineteenth; and men were
+beginning to look for the weekly article in the _Modernist_ with the
+same emotion of a passionate hero-worship on the one hand, and of angry
+repulsion on the other, with which the Oxford of the thirties had been
+wont to look for each succeeding "Tract," or for Newman's weekly sermon
+at St. Mary's. To Newman's high subtleties of brain, to Newman's magic of
+style, Richard Meynell could not pretend. But he had two advantages over
+the great leader of the past: he was the disciple of a new learning which
+was inaccessible to Newman; and he was on fire with social compassions
+and enthusiasms to which Newman, the great Newman, was always
+pathetically a stranger. In these two respects Meynell was the
+representative of his own generation; while the influences flowing from
+his personal character and life were such that thousands who had never
+seen him loved and trusted him wholly. Men who had again and again
+watched great causes break down for want of the incommunicable something
+which humanity exacts from its leaders felt with a quiet and confident
+gladness that in Meynell they had got the man they wanted, the
+efficacious, indispensable man.
+
+And now--suddenly--incredible things began to be said. It was actually
+maintained that the leader round whom such feelings had gathered had
+been, since his ordination, the betrayer of a young and innocent
+girl, belonging to a well-known family; that although it had been in his
+power for twenty years to marry the lady he had wronged, he had never
+attempted to do so, but had rather, during all that time, actively
+connived at the fraud by which his illegitimate child had passed as the
+daughter of Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton; while over the whole period he had kept
+up 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 of
+the prosecutors in the ecclesiastical suit, had obtained unexpected and
+startling confirmation of these extraordinary facts from the confession
+of a woman who had been present at the birth of the child and had
+identified the Rector of Upcote as the father. Then, very soon,
+paragraphs of a veiled sort began to appear in some of the less
+responsible newspapers. The circulation of the anonymous letters began
+to be known; and the reader of a Modernist essay at an Oxford meeting
+caused universal consternation by telling an indiscreet friend, who
+presently spread it abroad, that Barron had already written to the Bishop
+of Markborough, placing in his hands a mass of supporting evidence
+relating to "this most lamentable business."
+
+At first Meynell's friends throughout the country regarded these rumours
+as a mere device of the evil one. Similar things they said, and with
+truth, are constantly charged against heretics who cannot be put down.
+Slander is the first weapon of religious hatred. Meynell, they
+triumphantly answered, will put the anonymous letters in the hands of the
+police, and proceed against Henry Barron. And they who have taken up such
+a 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 did
+the anonymous letters reappear from time to time, untracked and
+unpunished, but reports of a meeting held at Upcote itself began to
+spread--a meeting where Meynell had been definitely and publicly
+challenged 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 and
+responsible 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 hot
+political argument with his little granddaughter Barbara.
+
+"All Tories are wicked," said Barbara, who had a Radical father, "except
+grandpapa, and he, mummy says, is weally a Riberal."
+
+With which she had leaped into the arms of her nurse, and was carried off
+gurgling, while the Bishop threatened her from afar.
+
+Then, with a sigh of impatience, as he recognized the signature on the
+envelope, he resigned himself to Barron's letter. When he had done it,
+sitting by the table in his library, he threw it from him with
+indignation, called for his coat, and hurried across his garden to the
+Cathedral for matins. After service, as with a troubled countenance he
+was emerging from the transept door, he saw Dornal in the Close and
+beckoned to him.
+
+"Come into the library for ten minutes. I very much want to speak to
+you."
+
+The Bishop led the way, and as soon as the door was shut he turned
+eagerly on his companion:
+
+"Do you know anything of these abominable stories that are being spread
+about Richard Meynell?"
+
+Dornal looked at him sadly.
+
+"They are all over Markborough--and there is actually a copy of one of
+the anonymous letters--with dashes for the names--in the _Post_ to-day?"
+
+"I never hear these things!" said the Bishop, with an impatience which
+was meant, half for a scandal-mongering world, and half for himself. "But
+Barron has written me a perfectly incredible letter to-day. He seems to
+be the head and front of the whole business. I don't like Barron, and I
+don't like his letters!"
+
+And throwing one slender leg over the other, while the tips of his long
+fingers met in a characteristic gesture, the little Bishop stared into
+the fire before him with an expression of mingled trouble and disgust.
+
+Dornal, clearly, was no less unhappy. Drawing his chair close to the
+Bishop's he described the manner in which the story had reached himself.
+When he came to the curious facts concerning the diffusion and variety of
+the 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 person
+only--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 knowledge
+of his mother's history--comes this crop of extraordinary letters,
+showing, you tell me, an intimate acquaintance with the neighbourhood
+and the parties concerned. And yet Barron--the only person Mrs. Sabin
+saw--knows nothing of them! They are a mystery to him. But, my dear
+Dornal, how _can_ they be?" The Bishop faced round with energy on his
+companion. "He must at least have talked incautiously before some one!"
+
+Dornal agreed, but could put forward no suggestion of his own. He sat
+drooping by the Bishop's fire, his aspect expressing the deep distress he
+did not shape in words. That very distress, however, was what made his
+company so congenial to the much perturbed Bishop, who felt, moreover, a
+warmer 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 relations
+as 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 my
+fatherly help just as freely as ever, if he chose to ask for it. But I
+don't know whether to send for him. I don't think I can send for him. The
+fact is--one feels the whole thing an outrage!"
+
+Dornal looked up.
+
+"That's the word!" he said gratefully. Then he added--hesitating--"I
+ought perhaps to tell you that I have written to Meynell--I wrote when
+the first report of the thing reached me. And I am sure that he can have
+no possible objection to my showing you his reply!" He put his hand into
+his pocket.
+
+"By all means, my dear Dornal!" cried the Bishop with a brightening
+countenance. "We are both his friends, in spite of all that has happened
+and 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 kindness
+and delicacy. But even to you I can only say what I say to other
+questioners of a very different sort. The story to which you refer is
+untrue. But owing to peculiar circumstances it is impossible for me to
+defend myself in the ordinary way, and my lips are sealed with regard to
+it. I stand upon my character as known to my neighbours and the diocese
+for nearly twenty years. If that is not enough, I cannot help it.
+
+"Thank you always for the goodness and gentleness of your letter. I wish
+with all my heart I could give you more satisfaction."
+
+The two men looked at each other, the same conjectures passing through
+both minds.
+
+"I hear the Fox-Wiltons and Miss Puttenham have all gone abroad," said
+the Bishop thoughtfully. "Poor things! I begin to see a glimmer. It seems
+to me that Meynell has been the repository of some story he feels he
+cannot honourably divulge. And then you tell me the letters show the
+handiwork of some one intimately acquainted with the local circumstances,
+who seems to have watched Meynell's daily life. It is of course possible
+that he may have been imprudent with regard to this poor lady. Let us
+assume that he knew her story and advised her. He may not have been
+sufficiently careful. Further, there is that striking and unfortunate
+likeness 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 and
+Meynell in the same room. It is difficult to say in what it consists, but
+it 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 will
+make all the difference to the atmosphere in which it is conducted. One
+can imagine how certain persons are already gloating over it--what use
+they will make of it--how they will magnify and embroider everything. And
+such an odious story! It is the degradation of a great issue!"
+
+The little Bishop frowned. As he sat there in the dignity of his
+great library, so scrupulously refined and correct in every detail of
+dress, yet without a touch of foppery, the gleam of the cross on his
+breast answering the silver of the hair and the frank purity of the
+eyes, it was evident that he felt a passionate impatience--half moral,
+half esthetic--toward these new elements of the Meynell case. It was
+the fastidious impatience of a man for whom personal gossip and scandal
+ranked among the forbidden indulgences of life. "Things, not persons!"
+had been the time-honoured rule for conversation at the Palace
+table--persons, that is, of the present day. In those happy persons who
+had already passed into biography and history, in their peccadilloes no
+less than their virtues, the Bishop's interest was boundless. The
+distinction tended to make him a little super- or infra-human; but it
+enhanced the fragrance and delicacy of his personality.
+
+Dornal was no less free from any stain of mean or scandalous gossip than
+the Bishop, but his knowledge of the human heart was far deeper, his
+sympathy 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 Council
+meeting--which of course will be also one of their campaign meetings--the
+day after to-morrow. Barron declares that he means to challenge Meynell
+publicly to vindicate his character. Can I do anything?"
+
+Dornal did not see anything could be done. The parish was already in open
+rebellion.
+
+"It is a miserable, miserable business!" said the Bishop unhappily. "How
+can 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 has
+neither written to me, nor consulted me, I will wait a little. We must
+watch--we must watch. Meanwhile, my dear fellow!"--he laid his hand
+on Dornal's shoulder--"let us think how to stop the talk! It will spoil
+everything. Those who are fighting with us must understand there are
+weapons we cannot stoop to use!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As Dornal left the Palace, on his way past the Cathedral, he met young
+Fenton, the High Churchman who some months earlier had refused to
+recognize Meynell after the first Modernist meeting in Markborough.
+Fenton was walking slowly and reading the local newspaper--the
+same which contained the anonymous letter. His thin, finely modelled
+face, which in a few years would resemble the Houdon statue of St. Bruno,
+expressed an eager excitement that was not unlike jubilation. Dornal was
+practically certain that he was reading the paragraph that concerned
+Meynell, and certain also that it gave him pleasure. He hurriedly
+passed over to the other side of the street, that Fenton might not accost
+him.
+
+Afterward, he spent the evening, partly in writing urgently in Meynell's
+defence to certain of his own personal friends in the diocese, and partly
+in composing an anti-Modernist address, full of a sincere and earnest
+eloquence, to be delivered the following week at a meeting of the Church
+party in Cambridge.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile Cyril Fenton had also spent the evening in writing. He kept an
+elaborate journal of his own spiritual state; or rather he had begun to
+keep it about six months before this date, at the moment when the
+emergence of the Modernist Movement had detached him from his nascent
+friendship with Meynell, and had thrown him back, terrified, on a more
+resolute opposition than ever to the novelties and presumptions of free
+inquiry. The danger of reading anything, unawares, that might cause him
+even a moment's uneasiness had led to his gradually cutting himself off
+entirely from modern newspapers and modern books, in which, indeed, he
+had never taken any very compelling interest. His table was covered by
+various English and French editions of the Fathers--of St. Cyprian in
+particular, for whom he had a cult. On the bare walls of his study
+were various pictures of saints, a statuette of the Virgin, and another
+of St. Joseph, both of them feebly elegant in the Munich manner. Through
+his own fresh youthfulness, once so winning and wholesome, something
+pinched and cloistered had begun to thrust itself. His natural sweetness
+of temper was rapidly becoming sinful in his own eyes, his natural love
+of 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 up
+his mind to go to bed earlier than usual, lest he should be thereby
+pampering the flesh. He was thoroughly dissatisfied with his own
+spiritual condition during the day, and had just made ample confession
+thereof in the pages of his diary. A few entries from that document will
+show the tone of a mind morbid for lack of exercise:
+
+"D. came to see me this morning. We discussed war a good deal. In
+general, of course, I am opposed to war, but when I think of this ghastly
+plague of heresy which is sweeping away so many souls at the present
+moment, I feel sometimes that the only war into which I could enter
+with spirit would be a civil war.... In a great deal of my talk with D. I
+posed abominably. I talked of shooting and yachting as though I knew all
+about them. I can't be content that people should think me 'out' of
+anything, or a dull fool. It was the same with my talk to S. about church
+music. I talked most arrogantly; and in reality I know hardly anything
+about it.
+
+"As to my vow of simplicity in food, I must keep my attention more on the
+alert. Yet to-day I have not done so badly; some cold ends of herring at
+breakfast, and a morsel of mackerel at lunch are the only things I have
+to reproach myself with; the only lapses from the strict rule of
+simplicity. But the quantity was deplorable--no moderation--not even a
+real attempt at it. Whenever I am disgusted with myself for having eaten
+too much at dinner, I constantly fail to draw the proper inference--that
+I should eat less at tea....
+
+"I feel that this scandal about poor Meynell is probably providential. It
+must and will weaken the Modernist party enormously. To thank God for
+such a thing sounds horrible, but after all, have we any right to be more
+squeamish than Holy Writ? 'Let God arise and let His enemies be
+scattered.' The warnings and menaces of what are called the Imprecatory
+Psalms show us plainly that His enemies must be ours."
+
+He closed his book, and came to shiver over the very inadequate fire
+which was all he allowed himself. Every shilling that he could put aside
+was being saved in order to provide his church with a new set of altar
+furniture. The congregation of the church was indeed fast ebbing
+away, and his heart was full of bitterness on the subject. But how could
+a true priest abate any fraction of either his Church principles, or his
+sound doctrine, to appease persons who were not and could not be judges
+of what was necessary to their own spiritual health?
+
+As he warmed his thin hands, his bodily discomfort increased his
+religious despondency. Then, of a sudden, his eyes fell upon the portrait
+of 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 letter
+all fun and baby-talk, and fantastic drawings, in the course of which
+Tommy grew up, developed moustaches, and became a British Grenadier.
+
+When he had finished it and put it up, he lay back laughing to himself, a
+different being.
+
+But the gleam was only momentary. A recurring sense of chill and physical
+oppression dispersed it. Presently he rose heavily, glanced at his open
+diary, reread the last page with a sigh, and closed it. Then, as it was
+nearly midnight, he retreated upstairs to his bare and icy bedroom, where
+half-an-hour's attempt to meditate completed the numbness of body and
+mind, 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 House
+of the village a few days after the Bishop's conversation with Canon
+Dornal. It was an evening long remembered by those who shared in it.
+The figure of Meynell instinct with a kind of fierce patience; the face
+rugged 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 new
+tones and shades of feeling--on those who believed in him the effect
+of these slight but significant changes in the man they loved was
+electrical.
+
+And five-sixths of those present believed in him, loved him, and were
+hotly indignant at the scandals which had arisen. They were, some of
+them, the élite of the mining population, men whom he had known
+and taught from childhood; there were many officials from the
+surrounding collieries; there was a miners' agent, who was also one of
+the well-known local preachers of the district; there were half a dozen
+women--the schoolmistress, the wife of the manager of the coöperative
+store, and three or four wives of colliers--women to whom other women in
+childbirth, or the girl who had gone astray, or the motherless child,
+might appeal without rebuff, who were in fact the Rector's agents
+in any humanizing effort.
+
+All these persons had come to the meeting eagerly expecting to hear from
+the Rector's own lips the steps he proposed to take for the putting down
+of the slanders circulating in the diocese, and the punishment of their
+authors. In the rear of the Council--who had been themselves elected by
+the whole parish--there were two or three rows of seats occupied by other
+inhabitants of the village, who made an audience. In the front row sat
+the strange spinster, Miss Nairn, a thin, sharp nosed woman of fifty, in
+rusty black clothes, holding her head high; not far from her the dubious
+publican who had been Maurice Barron's companion on a certain walk some
+days before. There too were Hugh and Rose Flaxman. And just as the
+proceedings were about to begin, Henry Barron opened the heavy door, hat
+in hand, came in with a firm step, and took a seat at the back, while a
+thrill of excitement went through the room.
+
+It was an ancient room, near the church, and built like it, of red
+sandstone. It had been once the tiny grammar school of the village.
+Meynell had restored and adapted it, keeping still its old features--the
+low ceiling heavily beamed with oak, and the row of desks inscribed with
+the scholars' names of three centuries. Against the background of its
+white walls he stood thrown out in strong relief by the oil lamp on the
+table in front of him, his eyes travelling over the rows of familiar
+faces.
+
+He spoke first of the new Liturgy of which copies had been placed on the
+seats. He reminded them they were all--or nearly all--comrades with him
+in the great Modernist venture; that they had given him the help of their
+approval and support at every step, and were now rebels with him against
+the authorities of the day. He pointed to his approaching trial, and the
+probability--nay the certainty--of his deprivation. He asked them to be
+steadfast 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. The
+audience looked in suppressed excitement from one to the other.
+
+"I regret," said the Rector, courteously, "that we cannot hear Mr. Barron
+at this moment. He is not a member of the Church Council. When the
+proceedings 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 the
+two dissentients was Dawes, the colliery manager, a sincere and
+consistent evangelical of the Simeon School, who made a short speech in
+support of his vote, dwelling in a voice which shook on the troubles
+coming on the parish.
+
+"We may get another Rector," he said as he sat down. "We shall never get
+another Richard Meynell." A deep murmur of acquiescence ran through the
+room.
+
+Meynell rose again from his seat.
+
+"Our business is over. We now become an open meeting. Mr. Barron, I
+believe, wishes to speak."
+
+The room was, at this point, densely crowded and every face turned toward
+the tall and portly form rising from the back. In the flickering
+lamplight it could be seen that the face usually so ruddy and full was
+blanched by determination and passion.
+
+"My friends and neighbours!" said Barron, "it is with sorrow and grief
+that I rise to say the few words that I intend to say. On the audacity
+and 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 just
+been led--misled--into an act of heresy and rebellion by the man who
+should be your pastor in the Faith, who is responsible to God for your
+souls. _Why_ have you been misled?--_why_ do you follow him?" He flung
+out his hand toward Meynell.
+
+"Because you admire and respect him--because you believe him a good
+man--a man of honest and pure life. And I am here to tell you, or rather
+to remind you, for indeed you all know it--that your Rector lies at this
+moment under a painful and disgraceful charge; that this charge has been
+circulated--in a discreditable way--a way for which I have no defence and
+of which I know nothing--throughout this diocese, and indeed throughout
+England; that your fair fame, as well as his are concerned; and,
+nevertheless, he refuses to take the only steps which can clear his
+character, and repay you for the devotion you have shown him! I call upon
+you, sir!"--the speaker bent forward, pointing impressively to the
+chairman of the meeting and emphasizing every word--"to take those steps
+at 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 done
+do not continue, in the face of the congregation you have deceived and
+led astray, to assume the tone of hypocritical authority in which you
+have just spoken! You have no moral right to any authority among us; you
+never had any such right; and in Christian eyes your infidel teaching has
+led to its natural results. At any rate, I trust that now, at last, even
+these your friends and dupes will see the absolute necessity, before
+many weeks are over, of either _forcing_ you to resign your living, or
+_forcing_ you to take the only means open to honest men of protecting
+their character!"
+
+He resumed his seat. The audience sat petrified a moment. Then Hugh
+Flaxman sprang to his feet, and two or three others, the local preacher
+among them. But Meynell had also risen.
+
+"Please, Mr. Flaxman--my friends--!"
+
+He waved a quiet hand toward those who had risen, and they unwillingly
+gave way. Then the Rector looked round the room for a few silent
+instants. He was very white, but when he spoke it was with complete
+composure.
+
+"I expected something of this kind to happen, and whether it had happened
+or no I should have spoken to you on this matter before we separated. I
+know--you all know--to what Mr. Barron refers--that he is speaking of the
+anonymous letters concerning myself and others which have been circulated
+in this neighbourhood. He calls upon me, I understand, to take legal
+action with regard both to them and to the reports which he has himself
+circulated, by word of mouth, and probably by letter. Now I want you
+plainly to understand"--he bent forward, his hands on the table before
+him, 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 my
+character among you all these years. This only I will say to you, my
+friends and my parishioners: The abominable story told in these
+letters--the story which Mr. Barron believes, or tries to make himself
+believe--is untrue. But I will say no more than that--to you, or any one
+else. And if you are to make legal action on my part a test of whether
+you 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 I
+must go mine. There will be still work for me to do; and God knows our
+hearts--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 you
+should wish to discuss it. But I shall not discuss it with you. I shall
+withdraw. Mr. Dawes--will you take the chair?"
+
+He beckoned to the colliery manager, who automatically obeyed him. The
+room broke into a hubbub, men and women pressing round Meynell as he made
+his way to the door. But he put them aside, gently and cheerfully.
+
+"Decide it for yourselves!" he said with his familiar smile. "It is your
+right."
+
+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 the
+Church 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 of
+Dawes, and at last secured silence by a passionate speech in defence of
+Meynell and in denunciation of the men who in order to ruin him
+ecclesiastically were spreading these vile tales about him "and a poor
+lady that has done many a good turn to the folk of this village, and
+nothing said about it too!"
+
+"Don't you, sir"--he said, addressing Barron with a threatening
+finger--"don't you come here, telling us what to think about the man
+we've known for twenty years in this parish! The people that don't know
+Richard Meynell may believe these things if they please--it'll be the
+worse for them! But we've seen this man comforting and uplifting our old
+people in their last hours--we've seen him teaching our children--and
+giving just a kind funny word now an' again to keep a boy or a girl
+straight--aye, an' he did it too--they knew he had his eye on 'em! We've
+seen him go down these pits, when only a handful would risk their lives
+with him, to help them as was perhaps past hope. We've seen him skin
+himself to the bone that other men might have plenty--we've heard him
+Sunday after Sunday. We _know_ him!" The speaker brought one massive hand
+down on the other with an emphasis that shook the room. "Don't you go
+talking to us! If Richard Meynell won't go to law with you and the likes
+of you, sir, he's got his reasons, and his good ones, I'll be bound. And
+don't you, my friends"--he turned to the room--"don't you be turned back
+from this furrow you've begun to plough. You stick to your man! If you
+don't, you're fools, aye, and ungrateful fools too! You know well enough
+that Albert Beswick isn't a parson's man! You know that I don't hold with
+Mr. Meynell in many of his views. There's his views about 'election,' and
+the like o' that--quite wrong, in my 'umble opinion. But what does that
+matter? You know that I never set foot in Upcote Church till three years
+ago--that bishops and ceremonies are nought to me--that I came to God, as
+many of you did, by the Bible class and the penitent form. But I declare
+to you that Richard Meynell, and the men with him, are _out for a big
+thing!_ They're out for breaking down barriers and letting in light.
+They're out for bringing Christian men together and letting them worship
+freely in the old churches that our fathers built. They're out for giving
+men and women new thoughts about God and Christ, and for letting them put
+them into new words, if they want to. Well, I say again, it's _a big
+thing_! And Satan's out, too, for stopping it! Don't you make any mistake
+about it! This bad business--of these libels that are about--is one of
+the obstacles in our race he'll trip us up on, if he can. Now I put it to
+you--let us clear it out o' the way this very night, as far as we're
+concerned! Let us send the Rector such a vote of confidence from this
+meeting as'll show him fast enough where he stands in Upcote--aye, and
+show others too! And as for these vile letters that are going round--I'd
+give my right hand to know the man who wrote them!--and the story that
+you, sir"--he pointed again to Barron--"say you took from poor Judith
+Sabin when her mind was clouded and she near her end--why, it's base
+minds that harbour base thoughts about their betters! He shall be no
+friend of mine--that I know--that spreads these tales. Friends and
+neighbours, let us keep our tongues from them--and our children's
+tongues! Let us show that we can trust a man that deserves our trust. Let
+us stand by a good man that's stood by us; and let us pray God to show
+the right!"
+
+The greater part of the audience, sincerely moved, rose to their feet and
+cheered. Barron endeavoured to reply, but was scarcely listened to. The
+publican East sat twirling his hat in his hands, sarcastic smiles going
+out and in upon his fat cheeks, his furtive eyes every now and then
+consulting the tall spinster who sat beside him, grimly immovable, her
+spectacled eyes fixed apparently on the lamp above the platform.
+
+Flaxman wished to speak, but was deterred by the reflection that as a
+newcomer in the district he had scarcely a valid right to interfere. He
+and Rose stayed till the vote of confidence had been passed by a large
+majority--though not so large as that which had accepted the new
+Liturgy--after which they drove home rather depressed and ill at ease.
+For in truth the plague of anonymous letters was rather increasing than
+abating. Flaxman had had news that day of the arrival of two more among
+their own country-house acquaintance of the neighbourhood. He sat down,
+in obedience to a letter from Dornal, to write a doleful report of the
+meeting to the Bishop.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meynell received the vote of confidence very calmly, and wrote a short
+note of thanks to Beswick. Then for some weeks, while the discussion of
+his 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. He
+prepared his defence for the Court of Arches; he wrote for the
+_Modernist_; and he gave as much mind as he could possibly spare to the
+unravelling of Philip Meryon's history.
+
+In this matter, however, he made but very slow and disappointing
+progress. He became more and more convinced, and his solicitor with him,
+that there had been a Scotch marriage some eighteen months before this
+date between Meryon and the sister of a farmer in the Lothians, with whom
+he had come in contact during a fishing tenancy. But what appeared in the
+course of investigation was that the woman concerned and all her kindred
+were now just as anxious--aided by the ambiguities of the Scotch marriage
+law--to cover up and conceal the affair as was Meryon himself. She could
+not be got to put forward any claim; her family would say nothing; and
+the few witnesses hitherto available were tending to disappear. No doubt
+Philip was at work corrupting them; and the supposed wife was evidently
+quite willing, if not eager, to abet him.
+
+Every week he heard from Mary, letters which, written within bounds fully
+understood by them both and never transgressed, revealed to him the
+tremulous tenderness and purity of the heart he knew--though he would not
+confess it to himself--he had conquered. These letters became to him the
+stay 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 was
+determined not to know the details of his struggle; and nothing helped
+him more than the absolute trust of her ignorance.
+
+He heard also constantly from Alice Puttenham. She, too, poor soul--but
+how differently!--was protecting herself as best she could from an odious
+knowledge.
+
+"Edith writes to me, full of terrible things that are being said in
+England; but as I can do nothing, and must do nothing according to you, I
+do not read her letters. She sends me a local newspaper sometimes, scored
+with her marks and signs that are like shrieks of horror, and I put it in
+the fire. What I suffer I will keep to myself. Perhaps the worst part of
+every 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 in
+spirits or buoyancy.
+
+"She is very well and wonderfully beautiful; at present she is having
+lessons 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 how
+the quiet family she is with clucks after her in perpetual anxiety, and
+how cavalierly she treats them. I think she is fairly happy; she never
+mentions Meryon's name; but I often have a strange sense that she is
+looking 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 it
+matters 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 of
+what is going on in England--and she says she adores Paris."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One night in December Meynell came in late from a carpentering class of
+village boys. The usual pile of letters and books awaited him, and he
+began upon them reluctantly. As he read them, and put them aside, one
+by one, his face gradually changed and darkened. He recalled a saying of
+Amiel's about the French word "consideration"--what it means to a man to
+have enjoyed unvarying and growing "consideration" from his world; and
+then, suddenly, to be threatened with the loss of it. Life and
+consciousness 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 Central
+Modernist Committee. For some months it had been a settled thing that
+Meynell should preach the sermon in Dunchester Cathedral on the great
+occasion in January when the new Liturgy of the Reform was to be
+inaugurated with all possible solemnity in one of England's most famous
+churches.
+
+His correspondent wrote to suggest that after all the sermon would be
+more fitly entrusted to the Modernist Bishop of Dunchester himself. "He
+has worked hard, and risked much for us. I may say that inquiries have
+been thrown out, and we find he is willing."
+
+No apology--perfunctory regrets--and very little explanation! Meynell
+understood.
+
+He put the letter away, conscious of a keenly smarting mind. It was now
+clear to him that he had made a grave misreckoning; humiliating, perhaps
+irreparable. He had counted, with a certain confident simplicity, on
+the power of his mere word, backed by his character and reputation, to
+put the thing down; and they were not strong enough. Barron's influence
+seemed to him immense and increasing. A proud and sensitive man forced
+himself to envisage the possibility of an eventual overthrow.
+
+He opened a drawer in order to put away the letter. The drawer was very
+full, and in the difficulty of getting it out he pulled it too far and
+its contents fell to the floor. He stooped to pick them up--perceived
+first the anonymous letter that Barron had handed to him, the letter
+addressed to Dawes; and then, beneath it, a long envelope deep in
+dust--labelled "M.B.--Keep for three years." He took up both letter and
+envelope 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 long
+envelope and broke the seal. Inside was a document headed, "A
+Confession." And at the foot of it appeared a signature--"Maurice
+Barron."
+
+Meynell put the two things together--the "confession" and the anonymous
+letter. Very soon he began to compare word with word and stroke with
+stroke, gradually penetrating the disguise of the later handwriting.
+At the end of the process he understood the vague recollection which had
+disturbed him when he first saw the letter.
+
+He stood motionless a little, expressions chasing each other across his
+face. Then he locked up both letters, reached a hand for his pipe, called
+a good night to Anne, who was going upstairs to bed, and with his dogs
+about him fell into a long meditation, while the night wore on.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+It was in the week before Christmas that Professor Vetch--the same
+Professor who had been one of the Bishop's Commission of Inquiry in
+Richard Meynell's case--knocked one afternoon at Canon France's door to
+ask for a cup of tea. He had come down to give a lecture to the Church
+Club which had been recently started in Markborough in opposition to the
+Reformers' Club; but his acceptance of the invitation had been a good
+deal determined by his very keen desire to probe the later extraordinary
+developments of the Meynell affair on the spot.
+
+France was in his low-ceiled study, occupied as usual with drawers full
+of documents of various kinds; most of them mediaeval deeds and charters
+which he was calendaring for the Cathedral Library. His table and the
+floor were littered by them; a stack of the Rolls publications was on his
+right hand; a Dugdale's "Monasticon" lay open at a little distance; and
+curled upon a newspaper beside it lay a gray kitten. The kitten had that
+morning upset an inkstand over three sheets of the Canon's laborious
+handwriting. At the time he had indeed dropped her angrily by the scruff
+of the neck into a wastepaper basket to repent of her sins; but here she
+was 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, who
+lived with him, was aware. Twenty years before--just after his
+appointment to the canonry--he had married a young and--in the opinion of
+his family--flighty wife, who had lived a year and then died. She had
+passed like a spring flower; and after a year or two all that was
+remembered about her was that she had chosen the drawing-room paper,
+which was rather garishly pink, like her own cheeks. In the course of
+time the paper had become so discoloured and patchy that Miss France was
+ashamed of it. For years her brother turned a deaf ear to her remarks on
+the subject. At last he allowed her to repaper the room. But she
+presently discovered that close to the seat he generally occupied in the
+drawing-room of an evening there was a large hole in the new paper made
+by the rubbing and scraping of the Canon's fingers as he sat at tea.
+Through it the original pink reappeared. More than once Miss France
+caught her brother looking contentedly at his work of mischief. But she
+dared not speak of it to him, nor do anything to repair the damage.
+
+As France perceived the identity of the visitor whom his old manservant
+was showing into the study, a slight shade of annoyance passed over his
+face. But he received the Professor civilly, cleared a chair of books in
+order 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 of
+Meynell, and he therefore dallied a little with matters of Biblical
+criticism. France, however, took no interest whatever in them; and even
+an adroit description of a paper recently read by the speaker himself
+at an Oxford meeting failed to kindle a spark. Vetch found himself driven
+upon the real object of his visit.
+
+He desired to know--understanding that the Canon was an old friend of
+Henry 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 in
+the 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 have
+come to the conclusion," he added dryly, "that Barron is not a person of
+delicacy."
+
+The Professor, rather taken aback, argued on Barron's behalf. Would
+it have been seemly or right for a man--a Churchman of Barron's
+prominence--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 eyes
+that shone so vividly above his large hanging cheeks. "Meynell says the
+story is untrue."
+
+"Ah! but let him prove it!" cried the Professor, his young-old face
+flushing. "He has made a wanton attack upon the Church; he cannot
+possibly expect any quarter from us. We are not in the least bound to
+hold 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, let
+Meynell take the usual steps. If he takes them successfully, we shall all
+rejoice. But his character has been made, so to speak, one of the pieces
+in 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 was
+beginning to be tarred with the Modernist brush. No!--impossible. For
+that 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, of
+course, is that there is some truth in the story, but that Meynell is not
+the hero. And he doesn't see his way to clear himself by dishing other
+people."
+
+"I see." The obstinacy in the smooth voice rasped France. "If so, most
+unlucky for him! But then let him resign his living, and go quietly into
+obscurity. He owes it to his own side. For them the whole thing is
+disaster. He _must_ either clear himself or go."
+
+"Oh, give him a little time!" said France sharply, "give him a little
+time." Then, with a change of tone--"The anonymous letters, of course,
+are the really interesting things in the case. Perhaps you have a theory
+about 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 that
+they grow increasingly dramatic and detailed. Evidently some clever
+fellow--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, who
+was for deserting his knee, and with the other he drew toward him the
+folio 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, thinking
+with 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 left
+hand. 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, and
+disgusted with himself.
+
+"Why haven't I given Meynell a helping hand? Why did I talk like that to
+Barron when he first began this business? And why have I let him come
+here as he has done since--without telling him what I really thought
+of him?"
+
+He fell for some minutes into an abyss of thought; thought which seemed
+to range not so much over the circumstances connected with Meynell as
+over 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 bitter
+decision, and laying down his pipe he went back to his papers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Almost at the same moment the Bishop was interviewing Henry Barron in the
+little book-lined room beyond the main library, which he kept for the
+business he most disliked. He never put the distinction into words, but
+when 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, very
+much on his defence, he sat _tęte-ŕ-tęte_ with the Bishop. He had
+recognized from the beginning that nothing of what he had done was really
+welcome or acceptable to Bishop Craye. While he, on his side, felt
+himself a benefactor to the Church in general, and to the Bishop of
+Markborough in particular, instinctively he knew that the Bishop's taste
+ungratefully disapproved of him; and the knowledge contributed an extra
+shade of pomposity to his manner.
+
+He had just given a sketch of the church meeting at Upcote, and of the
+situation in the village up to date. The Bishop sat absently patting his
+thin knees, and evidently very much concerned.
+
+"A most unpleasant--a most painful scene. I confess, Mr. Barron, I think
+it 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 into
+the open. For his own sake--for the parish's--the situation must be
+brought to an end, in some way. The indecency of it at present is
+intolerable."
+
+"You forget. The trial is only a few weeks off. Meynell will certainly be
+deprived."
+
+"No doubt. But then there is the Privy Council Appeal. And even when he
+is deprived, Meynell does not mean to leave the village. He has made all
+his 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 he
+clears himself of this business this diocese at least will have none of
+him!"
+
+"Why, the great majority of the people adore him!" cried the Bishop. "And
+meanwhile I understand the other poor things are already driven away.
+They tell me the Fox-Wiltons' house is to let, and Miss Puttenham gone to
+Paris 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 same
+time that all these persons have been in a conspiracy together to impose
+a falsehood on their neighbours; and that for many years we have been
+admitting Miss Puttenham to our house and our friendship--to the
+companionship of our daughters--in complete ignorance of her character."
+
+"Oh, poor thing! poor thing!" said the Bishop hastily. "The thought
+of her haunts me. She must know what is going on--or a great deal of
+it--though indeed I hope she doesn't--I hope with all my heart she
+doesn't! Well, now, Mr. Barron--you have written me long letters--and I
+trust that you will allow me a little close inquiry into some of these
+matters."
+
+"The closer the better, my lord."
+
+"You have not as yet come to any opinion whatever as to the authorship of
+these letters?"
+
+Barron looked troubled.
+
+"I am entirely at a loss," he said, emphatically. "Once or twice I have
+thought myself on the track. There is that man East, whose license
+Meynell opposed--"
+
+"One of the 'aggrieved parishioners'," said the Bishop, raising his hands
+and eyebrows.
+
+"You regret, my lord, that we should be mixed up with such a person? So
+do I. But with a whole parish in a conspiracy to support the law-breaking
+that was going on, what could we do? However, that is not now the point.
+I have suspected East. I have questioned him. He showed extraordinary
+levity, and was--to myself personally--what I can only call insolent. But
+he swore to me that he had not written the letters; and indeed I am
+convinced that he could not have written them. He is almost an
+illiterate--can barely read and write. I still suspect him. But if he is
+in 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 Broad
+is a very simple fellow--has no enmity against Meynell, quite the
+contrary. He vows that he never knew why his mother went abroad with Lady
+Fox-Wilton, or why she went to America; and though she talked a lot of
+what he calls 'queer stuff' in the few hours he had with her before my
+visit, he couldn't make head or tail of a good deal of it, and didn't
+trouble his head about it. And after my visit, he found her incoherent
+and delirious. Moreover, he declared to me solemnly that he knew nothing
+about the letters; and I certainly have no means of bringing it home to
+him."
+
+The Bishop's blue eyes were sharply fixed upon the speaker. But on the
+whole Barron's manner in these remarks had favourably impressed his
+companion.
+
+"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 your
+own conversation--of course quite unconsciously on your part--has not
+given hints to some person, some unscrupulous third person, an enemy of
+Meynell's, who has been making use of information he may have got from
+you to write these letters? Forgive the inquiry--but you will realize how
+very important it is--for Church interests--that the suit against Meynell
+in the Church Courts should not be in any way mixed up with this wretched
+and discreditable business of the anonymous letters!"
+
+Barron flushed a little.
+
+"I have of course spoken of the matter in my own family," he said
+proudly. "I have already told you, my lord, that I confided the whole
+thing to my son Stephen very early in the day."
+
+The Bishop smiled.
+
+"We may dismiss Stephen I think--the soul of honour and devoted to
+Meynell. Can you remember no one else?"
+
+Barron endeavoured to show no resentment at these inquiries. But it was
+clear that they galled.
+
+"The only other members of my household are my daughter Theresa, and
+occasionally, 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 that
+recently all the letters have been typewritten?"
+
+"All but two--the letter to Dawes, and a letter which I believe was
+received by Mrs. Elsmere. I gave the Dawes letter to Meynell at his
+request."
+
+"Having failed to identify the handwriting?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+Yet, even as he spoke, for the first time, a sudden misgiving, like the
+pinch of an insect, brushed Barron's consciousness. He had not, as a
+matter of fact, examined the Dawes letter very carefully, having been, as
+he now clearly remembered, in a state of considerable mental excitement
+during the whole time it was in his possession and thinking much more of
+the effect of the first crop of letters on the situation, than of the
+details of the Dawes letter itself. But he did remember, now that the
+Bishop pressed him, that when he first looked at the letter he had been
+conscious of a momentary sense of likeness to a handwriting he knew; to
+Maurice's handwriting, in fact. But he had repelled the suggestion as
+absurd in the first instance, and after a momentary start, he angrily
+repelled it now.
+
+The Bishop emerged from a brown study.
+
+"It is a most mysterious thing! Have you been able to verify the
+postmarks?"
+
+"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 little
+reminder. 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 put
+the Church's interest first."
+
+Something in the Bishop suddenly and sharply drew away from the man
+beside him. He held himself with a cold dignity.
+
+"For myself, personally--I tell you frankly--I cannot bring myself to
+believe a word of this story, so far as it concerns Meynell. I believe
+there is a terrible mistake at the bottom of it, and I prefer to trust
+twenty years of noble living rather than the tale of a poor distraught
+creature like Judith Sabin. At the same time, of course, I recognize
+that you have a right to your opinions, as I have to mine. But, my dear
+sir"--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 all
+that tells for him! Don't--you will allow me this friendly word--don't
+land yourself in a great, perhaps a life-long self-reproach!"
+
+There was a note of sternness in the speaker's voice; but the small
+parchment face and the eyes of china-blue shone, as though kindled from
+within by the pure and generous spirit of the man.
+
+"My lord, I have said my say." Barron had also risen, and stood towering
+over 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 see
+you? 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; "no
+doubt because of our already strained relations."
+
+On Barron's lips there dawned something which could hardly be called a
+smile--or triumphant; but the Bishop caught it. In another minute the
+door had closed upon his visitor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Barron walked away through the Close, his mind seething with anger and
+resentment. He felt that he had been treated as an embarrassment rather
+than an ally; and he vowed to himself that the Bishop's whole attitude
+had been grudging and unfriendly.
+
+As he passed on to the broad stone pavement that bordered the south
+transept he became aware of a man coming toward him. Raising his eyes he
+saw that it was Meynell.
+
+There was no way of avoiding the encounter. As the two men passed Barron
+made a mechanical sign of recognition. Meynell lifted his head and looked
+at him full. It was a strange look, intent and piercing, charged with the
+personality of the man behind it.
+
+Barron passed on, quivering. He felt that he hated Meynell. The disguise
+of a public motive dropped away; and he knew that he hated him
+personally.
+
+At the same time the sudden slight misgiving he had been conscious of in
+the 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 expression
+mingled with the vague uneasiness he tried in vain to put from him.
+
+Meynell walked home by Forkéd Pond to Maudeley. He lingered a little in
+the leafless woods round the cottage, now shut up, and he chose the
+longer path that he might actually pass the very window near which Mary
+had stood when she spoke those softly broken words--words from a woman's
+soul--which his memory had by heart. And his pulse leapt at the scarcely
+admitted thought that perhaps--now--in a few weeks he might be walking
+the 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 the
+library, where Rose, though bubbling over with question and conjecture,
+self-denyingly refrained from joining them. The consultation of the two
+men lasted about an hour, and when Flaxman rejoined his wife, he came
+alone.
+
+"Gone?" said Rose, with a disappointed look. "Oh! I did want to shake his
+hand!"
+
+Flaxman's gesture was unsympathetic.
+
+"It is not the time for that yet. This business has gone deep with him. I
+don't exactly know what he will do. But he has made me promise various
+things."
+
+"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 may
+crush Lady St. Morice."
+
+Lady St. Morice was the wife of the Lord Lieutenant, and had at a recent
+dinner party, in Rose's presence, hotly asserted her belief in the
+charges brought against the Rector of Upcote. She possessed a private
+chapel adorned with pre-Raphaelite frescoes, and was the sister of one of
+the chief leaders of the High Orthodox party in convocation.
+
+"She doesn't often speak to the likes of me," said Rose; "which of course
+is a great advantage for the likes of me. But next time I shall speak to
+her--which will be so good for her. My dear Hugh, don't let Meynell be
+too magnanimous--I can't stand it."
+
+Flaxman laughed, but rather absently. It was evident that he was still
+under the strong impression of the conversation he had just passed
+through.
+
+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 the
+Christmas business of a large parish. His mind was full of agitation, and
+when midnight struck, ushering in Christmas Eve, he was still undecided
+as to his precise course.
+
+Among the letters of the day lying scattered beside him on the floor
+there was yet further evidence of the power of Barron's campaign. There
+were warm expressions indeed of sympathy and indignation to be found
+among them, but on the whole Meynell realized that his own side's belief
+in him was showing some signs of distress, while the attack upon him was
+increasing in violence. His silence even to his most intimate friends,
+even to his Bishop; the disappearance from England of the other persons
+named in the scandal; the constant elaborations and embellishments of the
+story as it passed from mouth to mouth--these things were telling against
+him steadily and disastrously.
+
+As he hung over the fire, he anxiously reconsidered his conduct toward
+the Bishop, while Catharine's phrase--"He, too, has his rights!" lingered
+in 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 Bishop
+in possession of the whole story? The Bishop's bare denial would have
+been added to his; nothing more. There could have been no explanation,
+public or private; nothing to persuade those who did not wish to be
+persuaded.
+
+His thought wandered hither and thither. From the dim regions of the past
+there emerged a letter....
+
+"My dear old Meynell, the thing is to be covered up. Ralph will
+acknowledge the child, and all precautions are to be taken. I think
+what 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 way
+out--which will be the best for her too in the end, poor darling. My
+wife's letter a week ago destroyed my last hope. I am going out
+to-night--and I shall not come back. Stand by her, Richard. I think this
+kind of lie on which we are all embarked is wrong (not that you had
+anything to do with it!) But it is society which is wrong and imposes it
+on us. Anyway, the choice is made, and now you must support and protect
+her--and the child--for my sake. For I know you love me, dear boy--little
+as I deserve it. It is part of your general gift of loving, which has
+always seemed to me so strange. However--whatever I was made for, you
+were made to help the unhappy. So I have the less scruple in sending you
+this last word. She will want your help. The child's lot in that
+household 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, I
+hope, will marry. And when the child marries, you may--nay, I think you
+must--tell the husband. I have written this to Ralph. But for all the
+rest of the world, the truth is now wiped out. The child is no longer
+mine--Alice was never my love--and I am going to the last sleep. My
+sister Fanny Meryon knows something; enough to make her miserable; but no
+names or details. Well!--good-bye. In your company alone have I ever
+seemed 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--but
+forgive me!--my very dear Richard! Here comes the boat; and there is a
+splendid sea rising."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There, in a locked drawer, not far from him, lay this letter. Meynell's
+thought plunged back into the past; into its passionate feeling, its
+burning pity, its powerless affection. He recalled his young hero-worship
+for his brilliant kinsman; the hour when he had identified the battered
+form on the shore of the Donegal Lough; the sight of Alice's young
+anguish; 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 from
+which his own soul had learnt so much.
+
+Pure and sacred recollections!--mingled often with the moral or
+intellectual 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 the
+name of Christ--in the name of the Church!
+
+To-morrow! He rose, with a face set like iron, and went back to his table
+to 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 her
+sitting-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 of
+Maurice, troubled her sorely. It was only that morning Mr. Barron had
+become aware that Maurice had lost his employment, and was again adrift
+in the world. Theresa had known it for a week or two, but had not been
+allowed to tell. And she tried not to remember how often of late her
+brother had applied to her for money.
+
+Going back to her accounts with a sigh, she missed a necessary receipt
+and went into the dining-room to look for it. While she was there the
+front door bell rang and was answered, unheard by her. Thus it fell out
+that as she came back into the hall she found herself face to face with
+Richard Meynell.
+
+She stood paralyzed with astonishment. He bowed to her gravely and passed
+on. Something in his look seemed to her to spell calamity. She went back
+to her room, and sat there dumb and trembling, dreading what she might
+see 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 each
+other as the door closed.
+
+Barron spoke first.
+
+"You will, I trust, let me know, Mr. Meynell, without delay to what I owe
+this unexpected visit. I was of course quite ready to meet your desire
+for 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 suddenly
+he raised them.
+
+"Mr. Barron, what I have come to say will be a shock to you. I have
+discovered the author of the anonymous letters which have now for nearly
+three months been defiling this parish and diocese."
+
+Barron's sudden movement showed the effect of the words. But he held
+himself well in hand.
+
+"I congratulate you," he said coldly. "It is what we have all been trying
+to discover."
+
+"But the discovery will be painful to you. For the author of these
+letters, 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 to
+insult my family and myself! It would have been better to write. And you
+may be very sure that if you cannot punish your slanderers we can--and
+will!"
+
+His attitude expressed a quivering fury. Meynell took a packet from his
+breast-pocket and quietly laid it on the table beside him.
+
+"In this envelope you will find a document--a confession of a piece of
+wrongdoing on Maurice's part of which I believe you have never been
+informed. His poor sister concealed it--and paid for it. Do you remember,
+three years ago, the letting loose of some valuable young horses from
+Farmer Grange's stables--the hue and cry after them--and the difficulty
+there was in recapturing them on the Chase?"
+
+Barron stared at the speaker--speechless.
+
+"You remember that a certain young fellow was accused--James Aston--one
+of my Sunday school teachers--who had proposed to Grange's daughter,
+and had been sent about his business by the father? Aston was in fact
+just about to be run in by the police, when a clue came to my hands. I
+followed it up. Then I found out that the ringleader in the whole affair
+had been your son Maurice. If you remember, he was then at home, hanging
+about the village, and he had had a quarrel with Grange--I forget about
+what. He wrote an anonymous post-card accusing Aston. However, I got on
+the track; and finally I made him give me a written confession--to
+protect Aston. Heavy compensation was paid to Grange--by your
+daughter--and the thing was hushed up. I was always doubtful whether I
+ought not to have come to you. But it was not long after the death of
+your wife. I was very sorry for you all--and Maurice pleaded hard. I did
+not even tell Stephen; but I kept the confession. I came upon it a night
+or two ago, in the drawer where I had also placed the letter to Dawes
+which I got from you. Suddenly, the likeness in the handwritings struck
+me; and I made a very careful comparison."
+
+He opened the packet, and took out the two papers, which he offered to
+Barron.
+
+"I think, if you will compare the marked passages, you will see at least
+a striking resemblance."
+
+With a shaking hand Barron refused the papers.
+
+"I have no doubt, sir, you can manufacture any evidence you please!--but
+I 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 same
+composure. "I think you had better listen ... A passage in one of the
+recent letters gave me a hint--an idea. I went straight to East the
+publican, and taxed him with being the accomplice of the writer. I
+blustered a little--he thought I had more evidence than I had--and at
+last I got the whole thing out of him. The first letter was written"--the
+speaker raised his finger, articulating each word with slow precision,
+"by your son Maurice, and posted by East, the day after the cage-accident
+at the Victoria pit; and they have pursued the same division of labour
+ever since. East confesses he was induced to do it by the wish to revenge
+himself on me for the attack on his license; and Maurice occasionally
+gave him a little money. I have all the dates of the letters, and a
+statement of where they were posted. If necessary, East will give
+evidence."
+
+A silence. Barron had resumed his seat, and was automatically lifting a
+small book which lay on a table near him and letting it fall, while
+Meynell was speaking. When Meynell paused, he said thickly--
+
+"A plausible tale no doubt--and a very convenient one for you. But allow
+me to point out, it rests entirely on East's word. Very likely he wrote
+the letters himself, and is attempting to make Maurice the scapegoat."
+
+"Where do you suppose he could have got his information from?" said
+Meynell, looking up. "There is no suggestion that _he_ saw Judith Sabin
+before her death."
+
+Barron's face worked, while Meynell watched him implacably. At last he
+said:
+
+"How should I know? The same question applies to Maurice."
+
+"Not at all. There the case is absolutely clear. Maurice got his
+information from you."
+
+"A gratuitous statement, sir!--which you cannot prove."
+
+"From you"--repeated Meynell. "And from certain spying operations that he
+and East undertook together. Do you deny that you told Maurice all that
+Judith Sabin told you--together with her identification of myself?"
+
+The room seemed to wait for Barron's reply. He made none. He burst out
+instead--
+
+"What possible motive could Maurice have had for such an action? The
+thing 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 need
+to say how. I tried to prevent him from publicly disgracing himself
+and you; and I did prevent him. He saw in this business an easy revenge
+on a sanctimonious parson who had interfered with his pleasures."
+
+Barron had risen and was pacing the room with unsteady steps. Meynell
+still watched him, with the same glitter in the eye. Meynell's whole
+nature indeed, at the moment, had gathered itself into one avenging
+force; he was at once sword and smiter. The man before him seemed to him
+embodied cruelty and hypocrisy; he felt neither pity nor compunction. And
+presently he said abruptly--
+
+"But I am afraid I have much more serious matter to lay before you than
+this 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 to
+refuse it, as he had refused the others. But Meynell insisted.
+
+"Believe me, you had better read it. It is a letter from Mr. Flaxman to
+myself, and it concerns a grave charge against your son. I bring you a
+chance 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 same
+impassive "possessed" state.
+
+Suddenly, Barron put his hand over his face, and a groan he could not
+repress broke from him. He turned his back and stood bending over the
+letter.
+
+At the same instant a shiver ran through Meynell, like the return to life
+of some arrested energy, some paralyzed power. The shock of that sound of
+suffering had found him iron; it left him flesh. The spiritual habit of a
+lifetime 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 at
+least--if you will. I have arranged that with Flaxman. It was my seeing
+him 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 you
+see, certain dealers' shops were watched by a private detective. Maurice
+appeared--sold the Hermes coin--was traced to his lodgings and
+identified. So far the thing has not gone beyond private inquiry; for the
+dealer will do what Flaxman wants him to do. But Maurice still has the
+more famous of the two coins; and if he attempts to sell that, after the
+notices to the police, there may be an exposure any day. You must go up
+to London as soon as you can--"
+
+"I will go to-night," said Barron, in a tone scarcely to be heard. He
+stood with his hands on his sides, staring out upon the wintry garden
+outside, just as a gardener's boy laden with holly and ivy for the
+customary 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 and
+ruddy face for any tragic expression made it the more tragic.
+
+"I propose to write to the Bishop at once. Do you desire a public
+statement?"
+
+"There must be a public statement," said Meynell gravely. "The thing has
+gone 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 the
+open page. "I don't want you to sign that by _force majeure_. Dismiss--if
+you can--any thought of any hold I may have upon you, because of
+Maurice'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 any
+compulsion--to accept my word as an honest man that I am absolutely
+innocent of the charge you have brought against me."
+
+Barron, who was sitting before his writing-table, buried his face in his
+hands 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 of
+emotion--"And I may also count upon your doing henceforth what you can to
+protect that poor lady, Miss Puttenham, and her kinsfolk, from the
+consequences of this long persecution?"
+
+Barron made a sign of assent. Meynell left him to read and sign the
+public apology and retraction, which Flaxman had mainly drawn up; while
+the Rector himself took up a Bradshaw lying on the table, and walked to
+the window to consult it.
+
+"You will catch the 1.40," he said, as Barron rose from the
+writing-table. "Let me advise you to get him out of the country for a
+time."
+
+Barron said nothing. He came heavily toward the window, and the two men
+stood looking at each other, overtaken both of them by a mounting wave of
+consciousness. The events, passions, emotions of the preceding months
+pressed into memory, and beat against the silence. But it was Meynell who
+turned pale.
+
+"What a pity--to spoil the fight!" he said in a low voice. "It would have
+been 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 toward
+the door:
+
+"Remember--Flaxman holds his hand entirely. The situation is with you."
+Then, after a moment's hesitation, he added simply, almost shyly--"God
+help you! Won't you consult your daughter?"
+
+Barron made no answer. The door opened and shut.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV
+
+
+
+
+MEYNELL AND MARY
+
+
+".... but Life ere long
+Came on me in the public ways and bent
+Eyes 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 of
+hoar-frost the sun was shining brightly on the terrace, and on the
+panorama it commands. A pleasant light lay on the charming houses that
+front the skirts of the forest, on the blue-gray windings of the Seine,
+on the groves of leafless poplars interwoven with its course, on the
+plain 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 road
+leading from it to the town were deserted; and it was easy to see from
+the aspect of the famous hotel at the corner of the terrace that,
+although not closed, it despaired of visitors. Only a trio of French
+officers 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 was
+briskly pacing up and down that section of the terrace which abuts on the
+hotel.
+
+The young man was Philip Meryon. His dark tweed suit and fur waistcoat
+disclosed a figure once singularly agile and slender, on which
+self-indulgence was now beginning to tell. Nevertheless, as the _bonne_
+passed him she duly noted and admired his pictorial good looks, opining
+at the same time that he was not French. Why was he there? She decided in
+her own mind that he was there for an assignation, by which she meant, of
+course, a meeting with a married woman; and she smiled the incorrigible
+French smile.
+
+Assignation or no, she would have seen, had she looked closer, that the
+young man in question was in no merely beatific or expectant frame of
+mind. Meryon's look was a look both of excitement--as of one under the
+influence 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 to
+any 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 careless
+letter enclosing the payment of a debt, and written by a young actor, who
+had formed part of one of the bohemian parties at the Abbey, during the
+summer, and had now been playing for a week in the Markborough theatre,
+had given Meryon the clue to the many vague conjectures or perplexities
+which had already crossed his mind with regard to Hester's origin and
+history.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Your sanctified cousin, Richard Meynell" [wrote the young man] "seems
+after all to be made of the common clay. There are strange stories going
+the round about him here; especially in a crop of anonymous letters of
+which the author can't be found. I send you a local newspaper which has
+dared to print one of them with dashes for the names. The landlord of the
+inn told me how to fill them up, and you will see I have done it. The
+beauteous maiden herself has vanished from the scene--as no doubt you
+know. 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 print
+these things, you may perhaps be interested in what I enclose. Alack, my
+dear Philip, for the saints! They seem not so very different from you and
+me."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The eagerness with which Philip had read the newspaper cutting enclosed
+in the letter was only equalled by the eagerness with which afterward he
+fell to meditating upon it; pursuing and ferreting out the truth, through
+a maze of personal recollection and inference.
+
+Richard!--nonsense! He laughed, from a full throat. Not for one moment
+was Philip misled by Judith Sabin's mistake. He was a man of great
+natural shrewdness, blunted no doubt by riotous living; but there was
+enough of it left, aided by his recent forced contacts with his cousin
+Richard all turning on the subject of Hester, to keep him straight. So
+that without any demur at all he rejected the story as it stood.
+
+But then, what was the fact behind it? Impossible that Judith Sabin's
+story should be all delusion! For whom did she mistake Richard?
+
+Suddenly, as he sat brooding and smoking, a vision of Hester flashed upon
+him as she had stood laughing and pouting, beneath the full length
+picture of Neville Flood, which hung in the big hall of the Abbey. He had
+pointed it out to her on their way through the house--where she had
+peremptorily 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 be
+offended! He was the handsome man of his day."
+
+Of course! The truth jumped to the eyes, now that one was put in the way
+of seeing it. And on this decisive recollection there had followed a rush
+of others, no less pertinent: things said by his dead mother about the
+brother whom she had loved and bitterly regretted. So the wronged lady
+whom 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 Upcote
+woods. Hester had pointed her out, finger on lip, as they stood hiding in
+a thicket of fern; a pretty woman still. His mother had never mentioned a
+name; probably she had never known it; but to the love-affair she had
+always attributed some share in her brother's death.
+
+From point to point he tracked it, the poor secret, till he had run it
+down. By degrees everything fitted in; he was confident that he had
+guessed the truth.
+
+Then, abruptly, he turned to look at its bearing on his own designs and
+fortunes.
+
+He supposed himself to be in love with Hester. At any rate he was
+violently conscious of that hawk-like instinct of pursuit which he was
+accustomed to call love. Hester's mad and childish imprudences, which the
+cooler self in Meryon was quite ready to recognize as such, had made the
+hawking a singularly easy task so far. Meynell, of course, had put up
+difficulties; with regard to this Scotch business it had been necessary
+to lie pretty hard, and to bribe some humble folk in order to get round
+him. But Hester, by the double fact that she was at once so far removed
+from the mere _ingénue_, and so incredibly ready to risk herself, out of
+sheer ignorance of life, both challenged and tempted the man whom a
+disastrous fate had brought across her path, to such a point that he had
+long since lost control of himself, and parted with any scruples of
+conscience he might possess.
+
+At the same time he was by no means sure of her. He realized his
+increasing power over her; he also realized the wild, independent streak
+in her. Some day--any day--the capricious, wilful nature might tire,
+might change. The prey might escape, and the hawk go empty home. No
+dallying too long! Let him decide what to risk--and risk it.
+
+Meantime that confounded cousin of his was hard at work, through some
+very capable lawyers, and unless the instructions he--Philip--had
+conveyed to the woman in Scotland, who, thank goodness, was no less
+anxious to be rid of him than he to be rid of her, were very shrewdly
+and exactly carried out, facts might in the end reach Hester which would
+give even her recklessness pause. He knew that so far Meynell had been
+baffled; he knew that he carried about with him evidence that, for the
+present, could be brought to bear on Hester with effect; but things were
+by no means safe.
+
+For his own affairs, they were desperate. As he stood there, he was
+nothing more in fact than the common needy adventurer, possessed,
+however, of greater daring, and the _dčbris_ of much greater pretensions,
+than most such persons. His financial resources were practically at an
+end, and he had come to look upon a clandestine marriage with Hester as
+the best means of replenishing them. The Fox-Wilton family passed for
+rich; and the notion that they must and would be ready to come forward
+with money, when once the thing was irrevocable, counted for much in the
+muddy plans of which his mind was full. His own idea was to go to South
+America--to Buenos Ayres, where money was to be made, and where he had
+some acquaintance. In that way he would shake off his creditors, and the
+Scotch woman together; and Meynell would know better than to interfere.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Suddenly a light figure came fluttering round the corner of the road
+leading 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 her
+presence, in addition to his more sordid preoccupation. Her wild,
+provocative beauty seemed to light up the whole wintry scene; and the few
+passers-by, each and all, stopped to stare at her. Hester laughed aloud
+when she saw Meryon; and with her usual recklessness held up her umbrella
+for signal. It pleased her that two _rapins_ in large black ties and
+steeple hats paid her an insolent attention as they passed her; and she
+stopped to pinch the cheek of a chubby child that had planted itself
+straight in her path.
+
+"Am I late?" she said, as they met. "I only just caught the train. Oh! I
+am 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 something
+like order. The loveliness of the young curving form, of the pretty
+hands, of the golden brown hair, struck full on Meryon's turbid sense.
+
+They turned toward the hotel, and were presently seated in a corner of
+its glazed gallery, with all the wide, prospect of plain and river spread
+beneath them. Hester was in the highest spirits, and as she sat waiting
+for the first _plat_, chattering, and nibbling at her roll, her black
+felt hat with its plume of cock feathers falling back from the brilliance
+of her face, she once more attracted all the attention available; from
+the two savants who, after a morning in the Chateau, were lunching at a
+farther table; from an American family of all ages reduced to silence
+by sheer wonder and contemplation; from the waiters, and, not least, from
+the hotel dog, wagging his tail mutely at her knee.
+
+Philip felt himself an envied person. He was, indeed, vain of his
+companion; but certain tyrannical instincts asserted themselves once or
+twice. When, or if, she became his possession, he would try and moderate
+some of this chatter and noise.
+
+For the present he occupied himself with playing to her lead, glancing
+every now and then mentally, with a secret start, at the information he
+had possessed about her since the morning.
+
+She described to him, with a number of new tricks of gesture caught from
+her French class-mates, how she had that morning outwitted all her
+guardians, who supposed that she had gone to Versailles with one of the
+senior members of the class she was attending at the Conservatoire, a
+young teacher, "_trčs sage_," with whom she had been allowed once or
+twice to go to museums and galleries. To accomplish it had required an
+elaborate series of deceptions, which Hester had carried through,
+apparently, without a qualm. Except that at the end of her story there
+was a passing reference to Aunt Alice--"poor darling!"--"who would have a
+fit if she knew."
+
+Philip, coffee-cup in hand, half smiling, looked at her meantime through
+his partially closed lids. Richard, indeed! She was Neville all through,
+the Neville of the picture, except for the colour of the hair, and the
+soft 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 her
+share over the table, with a peremptory gesture.
+
+Meryon took it with a smile and a shrug, and she, throwing away the
+cigarette she had been defiantly smoking, rose from the table.
+
+"Now then, what shall we do? Oh! no museums! I am being educated to
+death! Let us go for a walk in the forest; and then I must catch my
+train, or the world will go mad."
+
+So they walked briskly into the forest, and were soon sufficiently deep
+among its leaf-strewn paths, to be secure from all observation. Two hours
+remained of wintry sunlight before they must turn back toward the
+station.
+
+Hester walked along swinging a small silk bag in which she carried her
+handkerchief and purse. Suddenly, in a narrow path girt by some tall
+hollies and withered oaks, she let it fall. Both stooped for it, their
+hands 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 stood
+still 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 wonder
+whether you do!"
+
+And flushed and panting, she leant against a tree, looking at him with a
+strange expression, in which melancholy mingled with resentment; passing
+slowly into something else--that soft and shaken look, that yearning of
+one longing and yet fearing to be loved, which had struck dismay into
+Meynell 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 me
+again!"
+
+He refrained. But catching her hand, and leaning against the trunk beside
+her, he poured into her ear protestations and flattery; the ordinary
+language of such a man at such a moment. Hester listened to it with a
+kind of eagerness. Sometimes, with a slight frown, as though ear and mind
+waited, intently, for something that did not come.
+
+"I wonder how many people you have said the same things to before!" she
+said suddenly, looking searchingly into his face. "What have you got to
+tell me about that Scotch girl?"
+
+"Richard's Scotch girl?"--he laughed, throwing his handsome head back
+against the tree--"whom Richard supposes me to have married? Well, I had
+a great flirtation with her, I admit, two years ago, and it is sometimes
+rather difficult in Scotland to know whether you are married or no. You
+know of course that all that's necessary is to declare yourselves man and
+wife before witnesses? However--perhaps you would like to see a letter
+from the lady herself on the subject?"
+
+"You had it ready?" she said, doubtfully.
+
+"Well, considering that Richard has been threatening me for months, not
+only with the loss of you, but with all sorts of pains and penalties
+besides, 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 to
+be my injured wife!"
+
+He placed an envelope in her hands.
+
+Hester opened it with a touch of scornful reluctance. It contained a
+categorical denial and repudiation of the supposed marriage.
+
+"Has Uncle Richard seen it?" she asked coldly, as she gave it back to
+him.
+
+"Certainly he has, by now." He took another envelope from his pocket. "I
+won't bother you with anything more--the thing is really too absurd!--but
+here, if you want it, is a letter from the girl's brother. Brothers are
+generally supposed to keep a sharp lookout on their sisters, aren't they?
+Well, this brother declares that Meynell's inquiries have come to
+nothing, absolutely nothing, in the neighbourhood--except that they have
+made people very angry. He has got no evidence--simply because there is
+none to get! I imagine, indeed, that by now he has dropped the whole
+business. And certainly it is high time he did; or I shall have to be
+taking action on my own account before long!"
+
+He looked down upon her, as she stood beside him, trying to make out her
+expression.
+
+"Hester!" he broke out, "don't let's talk about this any more--it's
+damned nonsense! Let's talk about ourselves. Hester!--darling!--I want
+to make you happy!--I want to carry you away. Hester, will you marry me
+at 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 we
+could 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 Italian
+Riviera--in a little bay all orange and lemon and blue sea. We'd
+honeymoon there; and when we were tired of honeymooning--though how could
+any one tire of honeymooning, with you, you darling!--we'd go to South
+America. I have an opening at Buenos Ayres which promises to make me a
+rich 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 and
+ride and explore--we'd have a glorious life!"
+
+He had caught her hands again, and stood towering over her, intoxicated
+with his own tinsel phrases; almost sincere; a splendid physical
+presence, save for the slight thickening of face and form, the looseness
+of the lips, the absence of all freshness in the eyes.
+
+But Hester, after a first moment of dreamy excitement, drew herself
+decidedly away.
+
+"No, no!--I can't be such a wretch--I can't! Mamma and Aunt Alice would
+break 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 know
+each 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 you
+let me alone--if you don't tease me--I--I'll marry you. But let's do it
+openly. It's amusing to get one's own way, even by lies, up to a certain
+point. They wouldn't let me see you, or get to know you, and I was
+determined 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's
+opposition, exaggerating the legal powers of guardians, declaring
+vehemently that it was now or never. Hester grew very white as they
+wandered on through the forest, but she did not yield. Some last scruple
+of conscience, perhaps--some fluttering fear, possessed her.
+
+So that in the end Philip was pushed to the villainy that even he would
+have 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--you
+don't know what a position you're in. I want to save you from it. I
+would 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 afternoon
+sun, now dropping fast to westward, slipped through the slender oaks, on
+which the red leaves still danced, touched the girl's hair and shone into
+her beautiful eyes. She stood there so young, so unconscious; a victim,
+on the threshold of doom. Philip, who was no more a monster than other
+men who do monstrous things, felt a sharp stab of compunction; and then,
+rushed headlong at the crime he had practically resolved on before they
+met.
+
+He told her in a few agitated words the whole--and the true--story of her
+birth. He described the return of Judith Sabin to Upcote Minor, and the
+narrative she had given to Henry Barron, without however a word of
+Meynell in the case, so far at least as the original events were
+concerned. For he was convinced that he knew better, and that there was
+no object in prolonging an absurd misunderstanding. His version of the
+affair was that Judith in a fit of excitement had revealed Hester's
+parentage to Henry Barron; that Barron out of enmity toward Meynell,
+Hester's guardian, and by way of getting a hold upon him, had not kept
+the matter to himself, but had either written or instigated anonymous
+letters which had spread such excitement in the neighbourhood that Lady
+Fox-Wilton had now let her house, and practically left Upcote for good.
+The story had become the common talk of the Markborough district; and all
+that 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 absence
+and silence; and on the other to keep the facts from Hester herself as
+long as possible.
+
+The girl had listened to him with wide, startled eyes. Occasionally a
+sound broke from her--a gasp--an exclamation--and when he paused, pursued
+by almost a murderer's sense of guilt, he saw her totter. In an instant
+he had his arm round her, and for once there was both real passion and
+real pity in the excited words he poured into her ears.
+
+"Hester, dearest!--don't cry, don't be miserable, my own beautiful
+Hester! I am a beast to have told you, but it is because I am not only
+your lover, but your cousin--your own flesh and blood. Trust yourself
+to 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 damned
+scandal-mongers that what they say is nothing to us--that we don't care a
+fig 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 push
+it; but it did not fail to occur, at least once, to a mind steeped in
+third-rate drama, what a "strong" dramatic scene might be drawn from the
+whole situation.
+
+Hester heard him for a few minutes, in evident stupefaction; then with a
+recovery 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 her
+mind--prepared indeed, through years, by all the perplexities and
+rebellions of her girlhood--betraying itself in her quivering face, and
+lips. Suddenly, she dropped upon a fallen log beside the path, hiding her
+face in her hands, struggling again with the sheer faintness of the
+shock. And Philip, kneeling in the dry leaves beside her, completed his
+work, 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 many
+complaints she had made to him of her sense of isolation within her
+supposed family; of the strange provisions of Sir Ralph's will; of the
+arrangement which had made her Meynell's ward in a special sense.
+
+"Why, of course, that was so natural! You remember I suggested to you
+once that Richard probably judged Neville from the same Puritanical
+standpoint that he judged me? Well, I was a fool to talk like that. I
+remember now perfectly what my mother used to say. They were of different
+generations, but they were tremendous friends; and there was only a few
+years between them. I am certain it was by Neville's wish that Richard
+became your guardian." He laughed, in some embarrassment. "He couldn't
+exactly foresee that another member of the family would want to cut in. I
+love you--I adore you! Let's give all these people the slip. Hester, my
+pretty, pretty darling--look at me! I'll show you what life means--what
+love means!"
+
+And doubly tempted by her abasement, her bewildered pain, he tried again
+to 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 Aunt
+Alsie"--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 believe
+it!"
+
+She sprang to her feet. Then, as she stood confronting his silence, the
+whole episode of that bygone September afternoon--the miniature--Aunt
+Alice's silence and tears--rushed back on memory. She trembled, and
+the 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 without
+speaking, she refusing his aid. And all the time swiftly,
+inexorably, memory and inference were at work, dragging to light the
+deposit--obscure, or troubling, or contradictory--left in her by the
+facts and feelings of her childhood and youth.
+
+She had told him with emphasis at luncheon that he was not to be allowed
+to accompany her home; that she would go back to Paris by herself. But
+when, at the St. Germains station, Meryon jumped into the empty railway
+carriage beside her, she said nothing to prevent him. She sat in the
+darkest corner of the carriage, her arms hanging beside her, her eyes
+fixed on objects of which she saw nothing. Her pride in herself, her
+ideal of herself, which is to every young creature like the protective
+sheath to the flower, was stricken to the core. She thought of Sarah and
+Lulu, whom she had all her life despised and ridiculed. But they had a
+right to their name and place in the world!--and she was their nameless
+inferior, the child taken in out of pity, accepted on sufferance. She
+thought of the gossip now rushing like a mud-laden stream through every
+Upcote or Markborough drawing-room. All the persons whom she had snubbed
+or flouted were concerning themselves maliciously with her and her
+affairs--were pitying "poor Hester Fox-Wilton."
+
+Her heart seemed to dry and harden within her. The strange thought of her
+real mother--her suffering, patient, devoted mother--did not move her. It
+was bound up with all that trampled on and humiliated her.
+
+And, moreover, strange and piteous fact, realized by them both! this
+sudden sense of fall and degradation had in some mysterious way altered
+her whole relation to the man who had brought it upon her. His evil power
+over her had increased. He felt instinctively that he need not in future
+be so much on his guard. His manner toward her became freer. She had
+never yet returned him the kisses which, as on this day, she had
+sometimes allowed him to snatch. But before they reached Paris she had
+kissed him; she had sought his hands with hers; and she had promised to
+meet him again.
+
+While these lamentable influences and events were thus sweeping Hester's
+life toward the abyss, mocking all the sacrifices and the efforts that
+had been made to save her, the publication of Barron's apology had opened
+yet another stage in "the Meynell case."
+
+As drafted by Flaxman, it was certainly comprehensive enough. For
+himself, Meynell would have been content with much less; but in dealing
+with Barron, he was the avenger of wrongs not his own, both public and
+private; and when his own first passion of requital had passed away,
+killed in him by the anguish of his enemy, he still let Flaxman decide
+for him. And Flaxman, the mildest and most placable of men, showed
+himself here inexorable, and would allow no softening of terms. So that
+Barron "unreservedly withdrew" and "publicly apologized" "for those false
+and calumnious charges, which to my great regret, and on erroneous
+information, I have been led to bring against the character and conduct
+of 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 they
+were written by a member of my family on information derived from me.
+I apologize for and repudiate the false and slanderous statements these
+letters contain, and those also included in letters I myself have written
+to various persons. I agree that a copy of this statement shall be sent
+to the Bishop of Markborough, and to each parish clergyman in the diocese
+of Markborough; as also that it shall be published in such newspapers as
+the solicitors of the Rev. Richard Meynell may determine."
+
+The document appeared first on a Saturday, in all the local papers, and
+was greedily read and discussed by the crowds that throng into
+Markborough on market day, who again carried back the news to the
+villages of the diocese. It was also published on the same day in
+the _Modernist_ and in the leading religious papers. Its effect on
+opinion was rapid and profound. The Bishop telegraphed--"Thank God. Come
+and see me." France fidgeted a whole morning among his papers, began two
+or three letters to Meynell, and finally decided that he could write
+nothing adequate that would not also be hypocritical. Dornal wrote a
+little note that Meynell put away among those records that are the
+milestones of life. From all the leading Modernists, during January,
+came a rush of correspondence and congratulations, in all possible notes
+and tones of indignant triumph; and many leaders on the other side wrote
+with generous emotion and relief. Only in the extreme camp of the extreme
+Right there was, of course, silence and chagrin. Compared to the eternal
+interests of the Church, what does one man's character matter?
+
+The old Bishop of Dunchester, a kind of English Döllinger, the learned
+leader of a learned party, and ready in the last years of life to risk
+what would have tasked the nerves and courage of a man in the prime of
+physical and mental power, wrote:
+
+"MY DEAR RICHARD MEYNELL: Against my better judgment, I was persuaded
+that you might have been imprudent. I now know that you have only been
+heroic. Forgive me--forgive us all. Nothing will induce me to preach the
+sermon 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 off
+Meynell to Maudeley, that she might "help him write his letters," and
+watch for a week or two over a man wearied and overtaxed. It was by her
+means also that the reaction in public opinion spread far beyond Meynell
+himself. It is true that even men and women of good will looked at each
+other in bewilderment, after the publication of the apology, and asked
+each other under their breaths--"Then is there no story!--and was Judith
+Sabin's whole narrative a delusion?" But with whatever might be true in
+that narrative no public interest was now bound up; and discussion grew
+first shamefaced, and then dropped. The tendency strengthened indeed to
+regard the whole matter as the invention of a half-crazy and dying woman,
+possessed of some grudge against the Fox-Wilton family. Many surmised
+that some tragic fact lay at the root of the tale, since those concerned
+had not chosen to bring the slanderer to account. But what had once been
+mere matter for malicious or idle curiosity was now handled with
+compunction and good feeling. People began to be very sorry for the
+Fox-Wiltons, very sorry for "poor Miss Puttenham." Cards were left, and
+friendly inquiries were made; and amid the general wave of scepticism and
+regret, the local society showed itself as sentimental, and as futile as
+usual.
+
+Meanwhile poor Theresa had been seen driving to the station with red
+eyes; and her father, it was ascertained, had been absent from home since
+the day before the publication of the apology. It was very commonly
+guessed that the "member of my family" responsible for the letters was
+the unsatisfactory younger son; and many persons, especially in Church
+circles, were secretly sorry for Barron, while everybody possessed of any
+heart at all was sorry for his elder son Stephen.
+
+Stephen indeed was one of Meynell's chief anxieties during these
+intermediate hours, when a strong man took a few days' breathing space
+between the effort that had been, and the effort that was to be. The
+young man would come over, day by day, with the same crushed, patient
+look, now bringing news to Meynell which they talked over where none
+might overhear, and now craving news from Paris in return. As to
+Stephen's own report, Barron, it seemed, had made all arrangements
+to send Maurice to a firm of English merchants trading at Riga. The head
+of the firm was under an old financial obligation to Henry Barron, and
+Stephen had no doubt that his father had made it heavily worth their
+while to give his brother this fresh chance of an honest life. There
+had been, Stephen believed, some terrible scenes between the father and
+son, and Stephen neither felt nor professed to feel any hope for the
+future. Barron intended himself to accompany Maurice to Riga and settle
+him there. Afterward he talked of a journey to the Cape. Meanwhile the
+White House was shut up, and poor Theresa had come to join Stephen in the
+little vicarage whence the course of events in the coming year would
+certainly drive him out.
+
+So much for the news he gave. As to the news he hungered for, Meynell had
+but crumbs to give him. To neither Stephen nor any one else could Alice
+Puttenham's letters be disclosed. Meynell's lips were sealed upon her
+story now as they had ever been; and, however shrewdly he might guess at
+Stephen's guesses, he said nothing, and Stephen asked nothing on the
+subject.
+
+As to Hester, he was told that she was well, though often moody and
+excitable, that she seemed already to have tired of the lessons and
+occupations she had taken up with such prodigious energy at the beginning
+of her stay, and that she had made violent friends with a young teacher
+from the École Normale, a refined, intelligent woman, in every way fit to
+be her companion, with whom on holidays she sometimes made long
+excursions out of Paris.
+
+But to Meynell, poor Alice Puttenham poured out all the bitterness of her
+heart:
+
+"It seems to me that the little hold I had over her, and the small
+affection she had for me when we arrived here, are both now less than
+they were. During the last week especially (the letter was dated the
+fourteenth of January) I have been at my wits' end how to amuse or please
+her. She resents being watched and managed more than ever. One feels
+there is a tumult in her soul to which we have no access. Her teachers
+complain of her temper and her caprice. And yet she dazzles and
+fascinates as much as ever. I suspect she doesn't sleep--she has a worn
+look quite unnatural at her age--but it makes her furious to be asked.
+Sometimes, indeed, she seems to melt toward me; the sombre look passes
+away, and she is melancholy and soft, with tears in her eyes now and
+then, which I dare not notice.
+
+"Oh, my dear friend, I am grateful for all you tell me of the changed
+situation at Markborough. But after all the thing is done--there can be
+no undoing it. The lies mingled with the truth have been put down.
+Perhaps people are ready now to let the truth itself slip back with
+the lies into the darkness. But how can we--Edith and I--and Hester--ever
+live the old life again? The old shelter, the old peace, are gone. We are
+wanderers and pilgrims henceforward!
+
+"As far as I know, Hester is still in complete ignorance of all that has
+happened. I have told her that Edith finds Tours so economical that she
+prefers to stay abroad for a couple of years, and to let the Upcote
+house. And I have said also that when she herself is tired of Paris, I
+am ready to take her to Germany, and then to Italy. She laughed, as
+though 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 that
+she has seen no English newspaper that could have given her a clue. As to
+Philip Meryon, as I have told you before, I often feel a vague
+uneasiness; 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 the
+whole world would change for me. But even what I once possessed these
+last few months seem to have taken from me!"
+
+"The thing is done!--there can be no undoing it." That was the sore
+burden of all Meynell's thoughts, awakening in him, at times, the "bitter
+craving to strike heavy blows" at he knew not what. What, indeed, could
+ever undo the indecency, the cruelty, the ugly revelations of these
+three months? The grossness of the common public, the weakness of
+friends, the solemn follies to which men are driven by hate or bigotry:
+these things might well have roused the angry laughter that lives in all
+quick and honest souls. But the satiric mood, when it appeared, soon
+vanished. He remembered the saying of Meredith concerning the spectacle
+of Bossuet over the dead body of Moličre--"at which the dark angels may,
+but men do not, laugh."
+
+This bitterness might have festered within him, but for the blessedness
+of Mary Elsmere's letters. She had seen the apology; she knew nothing of
+its causes. But she betrayed a joy that was almost too proud to know
+itself as joy; since what doubt could there ever have been but that right
+and nobleness would prevail? Catharine wrote the warmest and kindest of
+letters. 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 her
+trust take any shape he would. And though she knew nothing, she seemed by
+some divine instinct to understand also the pain that overshadowed the
+triumph; to be ready to sit silent with him before the irreparable. Day
+by day, as he read these letters, his heart burned within him; and Rose
+noted the growing restlessness. But he had heavy arrears of parish
+business upon him, of correspondence, of literary work. He struggled on,
+the powers of mind and body flagging, till one night, when he had been
+nearly a week at Maudeley, Rose came to him one evening, and said with a
+smile 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 you
+stay?"
+
+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 he
+quietly 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 the
+following day, Meynell spent half an hour with his Bishop in the
+episcopal library.
+
+It was a strange meeting. When Bishop Craye first caught sight of the
+entering figure, he hurried forward, and as the door closed upon the
+footman, he seized Meynell's hand in both his own.
+
+"I see what you have gone through," he said, with emotion; "and you would
+not 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 the
+world. They fell upon the anonymous letters, a comparatively safe topic,
+and the relation of Barron to them. Naturally Meynell gave the Bishop no
+hint whatever of the graver matter which had finally compelled Barron's
+surrender. He described his comparison of the Dawes letters with "a
+document in the young man's handwriting which I happened to have in my
+possession," 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 the
+Bishop. "I hope you have sometimes given a thought to the men on our side
+compelled 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 say
+a profound and affectionate admiration, which contrasted curiously with
+the public position in which they stood to each other. It was now very
+generally recognized, and especially in Markborough and its diocese, that
+Meynell had borne himself with extraordinary dignity and patience under
+the ordeal through which he had passed. And the Bishop--whose guess had
+so nearly hit the truth, who had been persuaded that in the whole matter
+Meynell was but the victim of some trust, some duty, which honour and
+conscience would not let him betray in order to save himself--the Bishop
+was but the more poignantly of this opinion now that he had the man
+before him. The weeks of suffering, the long storm of detraction, had
+left their mark; and it was not a light one. The high-hearted little
+Bishop felt himself in some way guilty, obscurely and representatively,
+if not directly.
+
+Yet, at the same time, when the personal matter dropped away, and they
+passed, as they soon did, to a perfectly calm discussion of the action in
+the Court of Arches which was to begin within a week, nothing could be
+clearer or more irrevocable than the differences, ecclesiastical and
+intellectual, which divided these two men, who in matters of personal
+feeling were so sensitively responsive the one to the other.
+
+Meynell dwelt on the points of law raised in the pleadings, on the
+bearing of previous cases--the _Essays and Reviews_ case above all--upon
+the suit. The antecedents of the counsel employed on both sides, the
+idiosyncrasies of the judge, the probable length of the trial; their talk
+ranged round these matters, without ever striking deeper. It was assumed
+between them that the expulsion of the Modernist clergy was only a
+question of months--possibly weeks. Once indeed Meynell referred slightly
+to the agitation in the country, to the growing snowball of the petition
+to Parliament, to the now certain introduction of a Bill "To promote an
+amended constitution for the Church of England." The Bishop's eyebrows
+went up, his lip twitched. It was the scorn of a spiritual aristocracy
+threatened by the populace.
+
+But in general they talked with extraordinary frankness and mutual good
+feeling; and they grasped hands more than cordially at the end. They
+might have been two generals, meeting before a battle, under the white
+flag.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Still the same mild January weather; with unseasonable shoots putting
+forth, and forebodings on the part of all garden-lovers, as fresh and
+resentful as though such forebodings, with their fulfilments, were not
+the natural portion of all English gardeners.
+
+In the Westmoreland dales, the month was rainier than elsewhere, but if
+possible, milder. Yellow buds were already foolishly breaking on the
+gorse, and weak primroses, as though afraid to venture, and yet
+venturing, were to be found in the depths of many woods.
+
+Meynell had slept at Whindale. In the morning a trap conveyed him and his
+bag to the farmhouse at the head of the valley; and the winter sun had
+only just scattered the mists from the dale when, stick in hand, he found
+himself on the road to Mrs. Elsmere's little house, Burwood.
+
+With every step his jaded spirits rose. He was a passionate lover of
+mountains, with that modern spirit which finds in them man's best refuge
+from modernness. The damp fragrance of the mossy banks and bare hedges;
+the racing freshness of the stream, and the little eddies of foam blown
+from it by the wind; the small gray sheep in the fields; the crags
+overhead dyed deep in withered heather; the stone farmhouses with their
+touch of cheerful white on door and window; all the exquisite detail of
+grass, and twig and stone; and overhead the slowly passing clouds in the
+wide sweep of the dale--these things to him were spiritual revival, they
+dressed and prepared him for that great hour to which dimly, yet through
+all his pulses, he felt he was going.
+
+The little house sent up a straight column of blue smoke into the quiet
+air. Its upper windows were open; the sun was on its lichened porch, and
+on the silver stem of the birch tree which rose from the mossy grass
+beside it.
+
+He did not need to knock. Mary was in the open doorway, her face all
+light and rose colour; and in the shadows of the passage behind her stood
+Catharine. When with the touch of Mary's hand still warm in his, Meynell
+turned to greet her mother, he was seized, even through the quiet emotion
+which held them all, by an impression of change. Some energy of physical
+life 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 left
+them alone in the little sitting-room.
+
+"You allow it?" said Meynell, hardly knowing what he said, and still
+retaining her hand.
+
+Catharine smiled.
+
+"Mary is her own mistress." Then she added, with a deep, involuntary
+sigh: "Whatever she says to you, she knows she has her mother's
+blessing."
+
+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. Mingled
+sweetness and bitterness filled her mind. She pictured to herself for an
+instant what it would have been if she had been giving Mary to a
+Christian pastor of the stamp of her own father, "sound in the faith," a
+"believer," entering upon what had always seemed to her from her
+childhood the ideal and exalted life of the Christian ministry. As things
+were, 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 the
+National Church; without any of the dignity--that dignity which had been
+her husband's--of voluntary renunciation. And Mary would become his wife
+only to share in his rebellion, his defiance, and his exile.
+
+She crossed her hands tightly upon her breast as though she were
+imprinting these sad facts upon her consciousness, learning to face them,
+to bear them with patience. And yet--in some surprising way--they did not
+hurt her as sharply as they would once have done. Trembling--almost in
+terror--she asked herself whether her own faith was weakening. And amid
+the intensity of aspiration and love with which her mind threw itself on
+the 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 she
+sat now following Meynell and Mary in thought along the valley, and now
+listening vaguely to the murmur of the fire or the stream outside, there
+came upon her a first gentle premonition--as though a whisper, from far
+away--of the solitude of death.
+
+Lines from the _Christian Year_, the book on which her girlhood had been
+nourished, 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 wintry
+warmth. The soft sound of Mary's dress beside him; the eyes she turned
+upon him when she spoke, so frank and sweet, yet for her lover, so full
+of mystery; the lines of her young form, compact of health and grace; the
+sound of her voice, the turn of her head--everything about her filled him
+with a tumult of feeling not altogether blissful, though joy was
+uppermost. For now that the great moment was come, now that he trembled
+on the verge of a happiness he had every reason to think was his, he was
+a prey to many strange qualms and tremors. In the first place he was
+suddenly 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 a
+sense of guilt. These six months of strenuous battle and leadership,
+these new responsibilities, and the fierce call which had been made on
+every gift and power, ending in the dumb, proud struggle, the growing
+humiliation of the preceding weeks, had left him ripened indeed,
+magnified indeed, as a personality; but it was as though down the
+shadowed vista of life he saw his youth, as "Another self," a
+Doppelgänger, disappearing forever.
+
+While she!--before _her_ were all the years of glamour, of happy
+instinctive action, when a man or woman is worth just what they dream,
+when dream and act flow together. Could he give her anything worth her
+having in exchange for this sheer youth of hers? He saw before him a long
+and dusty struggle; the dust of it choking, often, the purest sources of
+feeling. Cares about money; cares about health; the certain enmity of
+many good men; the bitterness that waits on all controversial success or
+failure: 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 he
+had suffered. As the Bishop had perceived, it was written on his aspect.
+But her timidity as yet prevented her from taking the initiative with
+him, as later she would learn to do. She felt for him at this stage
+partly the woman's love, partly the deep and passionate loyalty of the
+disciple. And it was possibly this very loyalty in her from which Meynell
+shrank. He felt toward himself and his role, in the struggle to which he
+was committed, a half despairing, half impatient irony, which saved him
+from anything like a prophetic pose. Some other fellow would do it so
+much better! But meanwhile it had to be done.
+
+So that, charged as was the atmosphere between them, it was some time
+before 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 first
+masked and hesitating. They talked a little--perfunctorily--about the
+dale and its folk, and Mary fell without difficulty now and then into the
+broad Westmoreland speech, which delighted Meynell's ear, and brought the
+laugh back to his eyes. Then, abruptly, he told her that the campaign of
+slander was over, and that the battle, instead of "infinite mess and
+dislocation," was now to be a straight and clean one. He said nothing of
+Barron; but he spoke tenderly of the Bishop, and Mary's eyes swam a
+little.
+
+She on her part dared to speak of Alice and Hester. And very soon it was
+quietly recognized between these two that Alice's story was known to
+Mary; and, for the first time in his life, Meynell spoke with free
+emotion and self-criticism of the task which Neville Flood had laid
+upon him. Had there been in Mary some natural dread of the moment when
+she must first hear the full story of his relation to Alice? If so, it
+was soon dispelled. He could not have told the story more simply; but its
+beauty shone out. Only, she was startled, even terrified, by certain
+glimpses 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 he
+could 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 was
+strangely--morbidly--dependent upon the fate of Hester. If he was able to
+save 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 any
+man's leader, and should feel himself the Jonah of any cause. There was a
+certain mystical passion in it, the strong superstition of a man in whom
+a great natural sensitiveness led often and readily to despondency; as
+though he "asked for a sign."
+
+They passed the noisy little river by the stepping-stones and then
+climbed a shoulder of fell between Long Whindale and the next valley.
+Descending a sunny mountainside, they crossed some water meadows, and
+mounted 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 a
+flat-topped rock commanding all the spectacle of flood and fell. Mary
+guided him there; and then stood silent and flushed, conscious that she
+herself had brought the supreme moment to its birth. The same perception
+rushed upon Meynell. He looked into her eyes, smiling and masterful, all
+his 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 hand
+and caught hers. She found herself trembling, and looking down into his
+upturned face.
+
+"Mary!--Mary _darling_!--is it mine?"
+
+The question was just whispered, and she whispered her reply. They were
+alone in a lovely wilderness of fell and stream. Only a shepherd walked
+with his flock in a field half a mile away, and across the valley a
+ploughman drove his horses.
+
+At the murmur in his ear, Meynell, this time, put up both hands, and drew
+her 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 an
+old 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 the
+colour 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 hair
+from 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, and
+drew her within the shelter of his cloak, looking down upon her with
+infinite tenderness.
+
+"You don't know what you're undertaking," he said, his eyes moist, his
+lips smiling. "I am an old bachelor, and my ways are detestable! Can you
+ever 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 very
+uncomfortable. Can you really stand it--and me?"
+
+"Shall we have a roof over our heads at all?" asked Mary, but so dizzily
+happy that she knew but vaguely what she said.
+
+"I have already bespoken a cottage. They are going to make me Editor of
+the _Modernist_. We shall have bread and butter, dearest, but not much
+more."
+
+"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 a
+money-box. Then when we want something really amusing--a cathedral--or
+a yacht--we'll take it out."
+
+So they laughed together, he all the while holding her close crushed
+against him, and she deafened almost by the warm beating of a man's heart
+beneath her cheek.
+
+And presently silence came, a silence in which one of the rare ecstasies
+of life came upon them and snatched them to the third heaven. From the
+fold of the hill in which they sat, sheltered both by the fell itself,
+and by the encircling hollies, they overlooked a branching dale, half
+veiled, and half revealed by sunny cloud. Above the western fells they
+had just crossed, hung towers and domes of white cumulus, beneath which a
+pearly sunshine slipped through upon the broad fell-side, making of it
+one wide sunlit pleasance, dyed in the red and orange of the withered
+fern, and dotted with black holly and juniper. Round the head of the dale
+the curtain of cloud hung thicker, save where one superb crag tore it
+asunder, falling sheer into the green gentleness of the fields. In the
+silence, all the voices of nature spoke; the rising wind, which flung
+itself against the hill-slopes at their feet; the insistent flow of the
+river, descending from the reservoirs far away; and the sharp chatter of
+the little beck leaping at their side from stone to stone. Passionately,
+in Meynell's heart the "buried life" awoke, which only love can free from
+the 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, then
+there is no key, and no man need preach any more. Only, my Amor has been
+till now a stern God! He has in his hands!--I know it!--all the noblest
+rewards and ecstasies of life; but so far, I have seen him wring them out
+of horror, or pain. The most heavenly things I have ever seen have been
+the things of suffering. I think of a poor fellow dying in the pit and
+trying to give me his last message to his wife; of a mother fading out of
+life, still clasping her babes, with hands twisted almost out of human
+shape by hard work; or a little lad--" his voice dropped--"only last
+week!--who saved his worthless brother's life by giving him warning of
+some escaping trucks, and was crushed himself. 'I couldn't help it,
+sir!'--_apologizing_ to me and the foreman, as we knelt by him!--'I knew
+Jim had the drink in him.' In all these visions, Love was divine--but
+awful! And here!--_here_!--I see his wings outspread upon that
+mountain-side; he comes clothed, not in agony, but in this golden
+peace--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 thought
+of a great man, which seizes upon us dull lesser creatures, and seems to
+give us, for a time at least, new eyes and ears, as though, like
+Melampus, we had caught the hidden language of the world! It rests
+on the notion of the endless creativeness and freedom of life. It is the
+negation of all fate, all predestination. _Nothing_ foreknown, nothing
+predestined! No _necessity_--no _anangké_--darling!--either in the world
+process, or the mind of God, that you and I should sit here to-day, heart
+to heart! It was left for our wills to do, our hearts to conceive, God
+lending us the world, so to speak, to work on! All our past cutting
+into--carving out--this present; all our past alive in the present; as
+all this present shall be alive in the future. There is no 'iron law' for
+life and will, beloved--they create, they are the masters, they are
+forever new. All the same!"--his tone changed--"I believe firmly that
+this 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; her
+hair had escaped its bounds, and must be rigorously put to rights. She
+sat there flushed and bareheaded, her hands working; while Meynell's
+eyes 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 on
+the word, without moving however. "Mary!--next to you I love your
+mother!"
+
+Mary's sweet face darkened a little; she buried it in her hands. Meynell
+drew them tenderly away.
+
+"All that affection can do to soften the differences between us, shall be
+done," he said, with his whole heart. "I believe too that the sense of
+them 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 the
+conflict which had always haunted and scorched it, between love and
+religion; first in the case of her husband, and then in that of her
+daughter. "But oh! how could I--how could I help it?" was the cry of
+Mary's own conscience and personality.
+
+She turned with painful eagerness to Meynell. "How did you think
+her?--how does she strike you?"
+
+"Physically?" He chose his words. "She is so beautiful! But--sometimes--I
+think she looks frail."
+
+The tears sprang to Mary's eyes. She quickly threw herself upon his
+misgiving, and tried to argue it away, both in herself and him. She dwelt
+upon her mother's improvement in sleep and appetite, her cheerfulness,
+her increased power of walking; she was insistent, almost resentful, her
+white brow furrowed with pain, even while her hand lay warm in Meynell's.
+He must needs comfort her; must needs disavow his own impression. After
+all, what value had such an impression beside the judgment of her daily
+and hourly watchfulness?--the favourable opinion too, so she insisted, of
+their local doctor.
+
+As they walked home, he startled her by saying that he should only have
+three 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, and
+that 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 be
+made the opportunity for something like a demonstration; and that he
+shrank from the thought of it.
+
+She perceived, indeed, a certain general flagging of the merely combative
+forces in him, not without dismay. Such moments of recoil are natural to
+such men--half saints, half organizers. The immediate effect of her
+perception of it was to call out something heroic and passionate in
+herself. She was very sweet, and very young; there were eighteen years
+between them; and yet in these very first hours of their engagement, he
+felt her to be not only rest, but inspiration; not only sympathy, but
+strength.
+
+When they neared the little ivy-covered house, on their return home, Mary
+broke from him. Her step on the gravel was heard by Catharine. She came
+quickly to the door and stood awaiting them. Mary ran forward and threw
+herself into the tender arms that drew her into the shadows of the
+passage.
+
+"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 tender
+mockery.
+
+"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 him
+claim 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, he
+and Mary walked incessantly among them, exploring those first hours of
+love, when every tone and touch is charged, for lovers, with the whole
+meaning of the world. And in the evenings he sat between the two women in
+the little cottage room, reading aloud Catharine's favourite poets; or in
+the familiar talk, now gay now grave, of their new intimacy, disclosing
+himself ever more fully, and rooting himself ever more firmly in their
+hearts. His sudden alarm as to Catharine's health passed away, and Mary's
+new terror with it. Scarcely a word was said of the troubles ahead. But
+it 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 seeing
+Oedipus Rex played by Mounet Sully at the Comédie Française. In this
+half-sophisticated girl, the famous performance, traditional now through
+two generations of playgoers, had clearly produced an emotion whereof the
+expression in her letter greatly disquieted Catharine Elsmere. She felt
+too--a little grimly--the humour of its address to herself.
+
+"Tell me how to answer it, please," she said, handing it to Meynell with
+a twitching lip. "It is a language I don't understand! And why did they
+take her to such a play?"
+
+Meynell shared her disquiet. For the Greek conception of a remorseless
+fate, as it is forever shaped and embodied in the tale of Oedipus, had
+led Hester apparently to a good deal of subsequent browsing in the
+literature--the magazine articles at any rate--of French determinism; and
+she rattled through some of her discoveries in this reckless letter:
+
+"You talked to me so nicely, dear Mrs. Elsmere, that last evening at
+Upcote. 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?--and
+yet--you see!
+
+"'_Apollo, friends, Apollo it was, that brought all these my woes, my
+sore, sore woes!--to pass_.'
+
+"Dear Mrs. Elsmere!--you can't think what a good doctrine it is after
+all--how it steadies one! What chance have we against these blundering
+gods?
+
+"Nothing one can do makes any difference. It is, really very consoling if
+you come to think of it; and it's no sort of good being angry with
+Apollo!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Part nonsense, part bravado," said Catharine, raising clear eyes, with
+half 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 run
+over to see them."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meynell and Mary travelled to town together, and Mary was duly deposited
+for a few days with some Kensington cousins.
+
+On the night of their arrival--a Saturday--Meynell, not without some
+hesitation, made an appearance at the Reformers' Club, which had been
+recently organized as a London centre for the Movement, in Albemarle
+Street.
+
+It was no sooner known that he was in the building than a flutter ran
+through the well-filled rooms. That very morning an article in the
+_Modernist_ signed R. M. had sounded a note of war, so free, lofty, and
+determined, 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 to
+defend himself; and the attention of the country would be fixed upon the
+duel between him and the great orthodox counsel, Sir Wilfrid Marsh.
+
+Men gathered quickly round him. Most of the six clergy who, with him, had
+launched the first Modernist Manifesto, were present, in expectation of
+the sermon on the morrow, and the trial of the following week. Chesham
+and Darwen, his co-defendants in the Arches suit, with whom he had been
+in constant correspondence throughout the winter, came to discuss a few
+last points and understandings; Treherne, the dear old scholar in whose
+house they had met to draw up the Manifesto, under the shadow of the
+Cathedral, 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 Modernist
+Sacraments among the slums of a great midland town.
+
+And in the voices that spoke to him, and the eyes that met his, Meynell
+could not but realize a wide and warm sympathy, an eagerness to make
+amends--sometimes a half confessed compunction for a passing doubt.
+
+He stood among them, haggard and worn, but steeped in a content and
+gratitude that had more sources than they knew. And under the kindling of
+their faith and their affection, his own hesitations passed away; his
+will 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 representing
+science, literature, politics, the best of English thought and English
+social endeavour, was but the outward and visible sign of things inward
+and spiritual.
+
+"_Can these dry bones live_?"
+
+As Meynell gave out the text, there were many who remembered the picture
+of Oxford hanging in Newman's study at Edgbaston, and those same words
+written below it.
+
+"_Can these dry bones live_?"--So Newman had asked in despair, of his
+beloved University, and of English religion, in the early years after he
+had deserted Anglicanism for Rome. And now, more than half a century
+afterward, the leader of a later religious movement asked the same
+question on the eve of another contest which would either regenerate or
+destroy the English Church. The impulse given by Newman and the
+Tractarians had spent itself, though not without enormous and permanent
+results within the life of the nation; and now it was the turn of that
+Liberal reaction and recoil which had effaced Newman's work in Oxford,
+yet had been itself wandering for years without a spiritual home. During
+those years it had found its way through innumerable channels of the
+national life as a fertilizing and redeeming force. It had transformed
+education, law, science and history. Yet its own soul had hungered. And
+now, thanks to that inner necessity which governs the spiritual progress
+of men, the great Liberal Movement, enriched with a thousand conquests,
+was sweeping back into the spiritual field; demanding its just share in
+the National Church; and laying its treasures at the feet of a Christ,
+unveiled, illuminated, by its own labour, by the concentrated and
+passionate effort of a century of human intelligence.
+
+Starting from this conception--the full citizen-right within the Church
+of both Liberal and High Churchman--the first part of Meynell's sermon
+became a moving appeal for religious freedom; freedom of development
+and "variation," within organized Christianity itself. Simpler Creeds,
+modernized tests, alternative forms, a "unity of the spirit in the bond
+of peace,"--with these ideas the Modernist preacher built up the vision
+of a Reformed Church, co-extensive with the nation, resting on a
+democratic government, yet tenderly jealous of its ancient ceremonies, so
+long as each man might interpret them "as he was able," and they were no
+longer made a source of tyranny and exclusion.
+
+Then, from the orthodox opponent in whose eyes the Modernist faith was a
+mere beggarly remnant, Meynell turned to the sceptic for whom it was only
+a modified superstition. An eloquent prelude, dealing with the
+preconceptions, the modern philosophy and psychology which lie at the
+root of religious thought to-day--and the rest of the sermon flowed on
+into what all Christian eloquence must ultimately be, the simple
+"preaching of Christ."
+
+Amid the hush of the crowded church Meynell preached the Christ of our
+day--just as Paul of Tarsus preached the Christ of a Hellenized Judaism
+to the earliest converts; as St. Francis, in the Umbrian hills preached
+the Lord of Poverty and Love; as the Methodist preachers among the
+villages of the eighteenth century preached the democratic individualism
+of the New Testament to the English nascent democracy.
+
+In each case the form of the preaching depended on the knowledge and the
+thought-world of the preacher. So with Meynell's Christ.
+
+Not the phantom of a Hellenistic metaphysic; not the Redeemer and Judge
+of a misunderstood Judaism; not the mere ethical prophet of a German
+professorial theology; but the King of a spiritual kingdom, receiving
+allegiance, and asking love, from the free consciences of men; repeating
+forever in the ears of those in whom a Divine influence has prepared the
+way, the melting and constraining message: "This do in remembrance of
+me."
+
+"'Of me--and of all the just, all the righteous, all the innocent, of all
+the ages, in me--pleading through me--symbolized in me! Are you for
+Man--or for the Beast that lurks in man? Are you for Chastity--or
+Lust? 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 longer
+a man made God, a God made man. Those categories of thought, for us,
+are past. But neither is he merely the crucified Galilean, the
+Messianic prophet of the first century. For by a mysterious and unique
+destiny--unique at least in degree--that life and death have become
+Spirit and Idea. The Power behind the veil, the Spirit from whom issues
+the world, has made of them a lyre, enchanted and immortal, through which
+He breathes His music into men. The setting of the melody varies with the
+generations, but the melody remains. And as we listen to it to-day,
+expressed through the harmonies of that thought which is ourselves--blood
+of 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 God
+who was 'in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.'
+
+"Of that God, all life is in some sense, the sacramental expression. But
+in the course of ages some sacraments and symbols of the divine are
+approved and verified beyond others--immeasurably beyond others. This is
+what has happened--and so far as we can see by the special will and
+purpose of God--with the death-unto-life--with the Cross of Christ....
+
+"The symbol of the Cross is concerned with our personal and profoundest
+being. But the symbol of the Kingdom is social, collective--the power of
+every reformer, every servant of men....
+
+"Many thinkers," said the preacher, in his concluding passage, while all
+eyes were fixed on the head sprinkled with gray, and the strong humanity
+of the face--"many men, in all ages and civilizations have dreamed of a
+City of God, a Kingdom of Righteousness, an Ideal State, and a Divine
+Ruler. Jesus alone has made of that dream, history; has forced it upon,
+and stamped it into history. The Messianic dream of Judaism--though
+wrought of nobler tissue--it's not unlike similar dreams in other
+religions; but in this it is unique, that it gave Jesus of Nazareth his
+opportunity, and that from it has sprung the Christian Church. Jesus
+accepted 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 death
+transformed a world. He died indeed, overwhelmed; with the pathetic cry
+of utter defeat upon his lips. And the leading races of mankind have
+knelt ever since to the mighty spirit who dared not only to conceive
+and found the Kingdom of God, but to think of himself as its Spiritual
+King--by sheer divine right of service, of suffering, and of death! Only
+through tribulation and woe--through the _peirasmos_ or sore trial of the
+world--according to Messianic belief, could the Kingdom be realized, and
+Messiah revealed. It was the marvellous conception of Jesus, inspired by
+the ancient poetry and prophecy of his nation, that he might, as the
+Suffering Servant, concentrate in himself the suffering due from his
+race, and from the world, and by his death bring about--violently, "by
+force"--the outpouring of the Spirit, the Resurrection, and the dawn of
+the heavenly Kingdom. He went up to Jerusalem to die; he provoked his
+death; he died. And from the Resurrection visions which followed
+naturally on such a life and death, inspired by such conceptions, and
+breathing them with such power into the souls of other men, arose the
+Christian 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 us
+any more.
+
+"But its spirit is immortal. The vision of a kingdom of Heaven--a polity
+of the soul, within, or superseding the earthly polity--once interfused
+with man's thought and life, has proved to be imperishable, a thing that
+cannot die.
+
+"Only it must be realized afresh from age to age; embodied afresh in the
+conceptions and the language of successive generations.
+
+"And these developing embodiments and epiphanies of the kingdom can only
+be brought into being by the method of Christ--that is to say, by
+'_violence_'.
+
+"Again and again has the kingdom 'suffered violence'--has been brought
+fragmentarily into the world '_by force_'--by the only irresistible
+force--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 the
+whole thought of Christ. When the work of preparation is over, still men
+must brace themselves, as their Master did, to the last stroke of
+'violence'--to a final effort of resolute, and, if need be, revolutionary
+action--to the 'violence' that brings ideas to birth and shapes them into
+deeds.
+
+"It was to 'violence' of this sacred sort that the Christian Church owed
+its beginning; and it is this same 'violence' that must, as the
+generations rise and fall, constantly maintain it among men. To cut away
+the old at need and graft in the new, requires the high courage and the
+resolute hand of faith. Only so can the Christian Life renew itself; only
+so 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 walked
+with his eyes on the ground, smiling to himself.
+
+"A little persecution!" he said, rubbing his hands, as he looked up--"and
+how it would go!"
+
+"Well--the persecution begins this week--in the Court of Arches."
+
+"Persecution--nonsense! You mean 'propaganda.' I understand Meynell's
+defence will proceed on totally new lines. He means to argue each point
+on its merits?"
+
+"Yes. The Voysey judgment gave him his cue. You will remember, Voysey was
+attacked by the Lord Chancellor of the day--old Lord Hatherley--as a
+'private clergyman,' who 'of his own mere will, not founding himself upon
+any critical inquiry, but simply upon his own taste and judgment'
+maintained certain heresies. Now Meynell, I imagine, will give his judges
+enough 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 you
+maintain that a system which insists upon a man's beliefs at forty-four
+being identical with his beliefs at twenty-four is not condemned _ipso
+facto_!"
+
+"Oh I know what you say!--I know what you say!" cried Norham
+good-humouredly. "We shall all be saying it in Parliament presently--Good
+heavens! Well, I shall look into the court to-morrow, if I can possibly
+find an hour, and hear Meynell fire away."
+
+"As Home Secretary, you may get in!"--laughed Flaxman--"on no other
+terms. 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 took
+precedence, and were to be followed by half a dozen others--test
+cases--from different parts of England. But on the Markborough suits
+everything turned. The Modernist defendants everywhere had practically
+resolved on the same line of defence; on the same appeal from the mind of
+the sixteenth century to the mind of the twentieth; from creeds and
+formularies 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 a
+large, clean-shaven face, a domed head and smooth straight hair, still
+jetty black. He wore a look of quiet assurance and was clearly a man
+of all the virtues; possessing a portly wife and a tribe of daughters.
+
+His speech was marked in all its earlier sections by a studied liberality
+and moderation. "I am not going to appeal, sir, for that judgment in the
+promoters' favour which I confidently claim, on any bigoted or
+obscurantist lines. The Church of England is a learned Church; she is
+also a Church of wide liberties."
+
+No slavish submission to the letter of the Articles on the Liturgy was
+now demanded of any man. Subscription had been relaxed; the final
+judgment in the _Essays and Reviews_ case had given a latitude in the
+interpretation of Scripture, of which, as many recent books showed, the
+clergy--"I refer now to men of unquestioned orthodoxy"--had taken
+reasonable advantage; prayer-book revision "within the limits of the
+faith," if constantly retarded by the divisions of the faithful, was
+still probable; both High Churchmen and Broad Churchmen--here an aside
+dropped out, "so far as Broad Churchmen still exist!"--are necessary to
+the Church.
+
+But there are limits. "Critical inquiry, sir, if you will--reasonable
+liberty, within the limits of our formularies and a man's ordination
+vow--by all means!
+
+"But certain things are _vital_! With certain fundamental beliefs let no
+one suppose that either the bishops, or convocation, or these Church
+courts, or Parliament, or what the defendants are pleased to call the
+nation" [one must imagine the fine gesture of a sweeping hand] "can
+meddle." The _animus imponentis_ is not that of the Edwardian or
+Elizabethan legislation, it is not that of the Bishops! it is that of the
+Christian Church itself!--handing down the _deposition fidei_ from the
+earliest to the latest times.
+
+"_The Creeds, sir, are vital_! Put aside Homilies, Articles, the
+judgments and precedents of the Church Courts--all these are, in this
+struggle, beside the mark. _Concentrate on the Creeds_! Let us examine
+what the defendants in these suits have made of the Creeds of
+Christendom."
+
+The evidence was plain. Regarded as historical statement, the defendants
+had 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, that
+formal creeds were mere "landmarks in the Church's life,"
+crystallizations of thought, that were no sooner formed than they became
+subject to the play, both dissolvent and regenerating, of the Christian
+consciousness.
+
+"And so you come to that inconceivable entity, a Church without a
+creed--a mere chaos of private opinion, where each man is a law unto
+himself."
+
+On this theme, Sir Wilfrid--who was a man of singularly strong private
+opinions, of all kinds and on all subjects--spoke for a whole day; from
+the 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, what
+authority--if any--there is in the English Church; or what limits--if
+any--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 Wilfrid
+carefully avoided saying--'We have the Scriptures.'"
+
+"Perhaps," said Dornal despondently.
+
+"And as to the Creeds," the other resumed, after another pause--"Do you
+think that one per cent of the Christians that you and I know believe in
+the Descent into Hell, or the Resurrection of the Body?"
+
+Dornal made no reply.
+
+Cyril Fenton also walked home with a young priest just ordained. Both
+were extremely dissatisfied with the later portions of Sir Wilfrid's
+speech, which had seemed to them tainted in several passages with
+Erastian complacency toward the State. Parliament especially, and a
+possible intervention of Parliament, ought never to have been so much as
+mentioned--even for denunciation--in an ecclesiastical court.
+
+"_Parliament!"_ cried Fenton, coming to a sudden stop beside the water in
+St. James' Park, his eyes afire, "What is Parliament but the lay synod of
+the 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 the
+audience day after day; with the Bishop of S----, lank and long-jawed,
+with reddish hair turning to gray, a deprecating manner in society, but
+in the pulpit a second Warburton for truculence and fire; the Bishop of
+D----, beloved, ugly, short-sighted, the purest and humblest soul alive;
+learned, mystical, poetical, in much sympathy with the Modernists, yet
+deterred by the dread of civil war within the Church, a master of the Old
+Latin Versions, and too apt to address schoolgirls on the charms of
+textual criticism; the Bishop of F----, courtly, peevish and distrusted;
+the Dean of Markborough, with the green shade over his eyes, and fretful
+complaint on his lips of the "infection" generated by every Modernist
+incumbent; and near him, Professor Vetch, with yet another divinity
+professor 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 case
+for the prosecution closed thunderously in a fierce onslaught on the
+ethics of the Modernist position, and on the personal honesty and
+veracity of each and every Modernist holding office in the Anglican
+Church, claiming sentences of immediate deprivation against the
+defendants, of their vicarages and incumbencies, and of all profits and
+benefits derived therefrom "unless within a week from this day they (the
+defendants) should expressly and unreservedly retract the several
+errors in which they have so offended."
+
+The court broke up in a clamour of excitement and discussion, with crowds
+of country parishioners standing outside to greet the three incriminated
+priests as they came out.
+
+The following morning Meynell rose. And for one brilliant week, his
+defence of the Modernist position held the attention of England.
+
+On the fourth or fifth day of his speech, the white-haired Bishop of
+Dunchester, against whom proceedings had just been taken in the
+Archbishop's Court, said to his son:
+
+"Herbert, just before I was born there were two great religious leaders
+in England--Newman and Arnold of Rugby. Arnold died prematurely, at
+the height of bodily and spiritual vigour; Newman lived to the age of
+eighty-nine, and to be a Cardinal of the Roman Church. His Anglican
+influence, continued, modified, distributed by the High Church movement,
+has lasted till now. To-day we have been listening again, as it were, to
+the voice of Arnold, the great leader whom the Liberals lost in '42,
+Arnold was a devoutly orthodox believer, snatched from life in the very
+birth-hour of that New Learning of which we claim to be the children. But
+a church of free men, coextensive with the nation, gathering into one
+fold every English man, woman and child, that was Arnold's dream, just as
+it is Meynell's.... And yet though the voice, the large heart, the
+fearless mind, and the broad sympathies were Arnold's, some of the
+governing ideas were Newman's. As I listened, I seemed"--the old man's
+look glowed suddenly--"to see the two great leaders, the two foes of a
+century 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 be
+addressing his judges, he was in truth speaking quite as consciously to a
+sweet woman's face in a far corner of the crowded hall. Mary went into
+the long wrestle with him, as it were, and lived through every moment of
+it at his side. Then in the evening there were half hours of utter
+silence, when he would sit with her hands in his, just gathering strength
+for the morrow.
+
+Six days of Meynell's speech were over. On the seventh the Court opened
+amid the buzz of excitement and alarm. The chief defendant in the suit
+was not present, and had sent--so counsel whispered to each other--a
+hurried note to the judge to the effect that he should be absent
+through the whole remainder of the trial owing to "urgent private
+business."
+
+In a few more hours it was known that Meynell had left England, and men
+on 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 the
+smallest trace. But she believes she is with Meryon. I go to Paris
+to-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 afternoon
+lay heavy on Long Whindale. A strong and bitter wind from the north blew
+down the valley with occasional spits and snatches of snow, not enough as
+yet 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 a
+shepherd on the path leading over the pass to Marly Head could scarcely
+hold himself upright against them. Tempestuous sounds filled all the
+upper and the lower air. From the high ridges came deep reverberating
+notes, a roaring in the wind; while the trees along the stream sent forth
+a shriller voice, as they whistled and creaked and tossed in the eddying
+gusts. Cold gray clouds were beating from the north, hanging now over the
+cliffs on the western side, now over the bare screes and steep slopes of
+the northern and eastern walls. Gray or inky black, the sharp edges of
+the rocks cut into the gloomy sky; while on the floor of the valley,
+blanched grass and winding stream seemed alike to fly scourged before the
+persecuting wind.
+
+A trap--Westmoreland calls it a car--a kind of box on wheels, was
+approaching the head of the dale from the direction of Whinborough. It
+stopped at the foot of the steep and narrow lane leading to Burwood, and
+a young lady got out.
+
+"You're sure that's Burwood?" she said, pointing to the house partially
+visible 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 had
+brought from Whinborough station. She was quite a young girl he guessed,
+and a handsome one. But there seemed to be something queer about her. She
+looked so tumbled and tired.
+
+Hester Fox-Wilton took out her purse, and paid him with an uncertain
+hand, one or more of the shillings falling on the road, where the driver
+and she groped for them. Then she raised the small bag she had brought
+with her in the car, and turned away.
+
+"Good day to yer, miss," said the man as he mounted the box. She made no
+reply. After he had turned his horse and started on the return journey to
+Whinborough, he looked back once or twice. But the high walls of the lane
+hid the lady from him.
+
+Hester, however, did not go very far up the lane. She sank down very soon
+on 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-like
+place, even on this bitter afternoon. In one of the windows was a glow of
+firelight; white muslin curtains everywhere gave it a dainty, refined
+look; and it stood picturesquely within the shelter of its trees, and of
+the yew hedge which encircled the garden.
+
+Yet Hester shivered as she looked at it. She was very imperfectly clothed
+for such an afternoon, in a serge jacket and skirt supplemented by a
+small fur collarette, which she drew closer round her neck from time to
+time, as though in a vain effort to get warm. But she was not conscious
+of doing so, nor of the cold as cold. All her bodily sensations were
+miserable and uncomfortable. But she was only actively aware of the
+thoughts racing through her mind.
+
+There they were, within a stone's throw of her--Mary and Mrs. Elsmere--in
+the warm, cosy little house, without an idea that she, Hester, the
+wretched, disgraced Hester, was sitting in the lane so close to them. And
+yet they were perhaps thinking of her--they must have often thought about
+her in the last fortnight. Mrs. Elsmere must of course have been sorry.
+Good people were always sorry when such things happened. And Mary?--who
+was eight years older--_older!_ than this girl of eighteen who sat there,
+sickened by life, conscious of a dead wall of catastrophe drawn between
+her and the future.
+
+Should she go to them? Should she open their door and say--"Here I
+am!--Horrible things have happened. No decent person will ever know me or
+speak 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 the
+inward sight the vision of Catharine Elsmere's face--its purity, its
+calm, its motherliness. For a moment it drew, it touched, it gave
+courage. And then the terrible sense of things irreparable, grim matters
+of fact not to be dreamed or thought away, rushed in and swept the
+clinging, 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 perhaps
+they'll cry--they'll pray with me, and I can't stand that! Why did I ever
+come? Where on earth shall I go?"
+
+And she looked round her in petulant despair, angry with herself for
+having done this foolish thing, angry with the loneliness and barrenness
+of 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 and
+stung 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 with
+cold.
+
+"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 and
+left. Which way? The thought of the long dreary road back to Whinborough
+repelled her. She turned toward the head of the valley. Perhaps she might
+find a house which would take her in. The driver had said there was a
+farm which let lodgings in the summer. She had money--some pounds at any
+rate; that was all right. And she was not hungry. She had arrived at a
+junction station five miles from Whinborough by a night train. At six
+o'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 station
+hotel, and she had engaged a room and ordered a fire. There she had
+thrown herself down without undressing on the bed, and had slept heavily
+for four or five hours. Then she had had some breakfast, and had taken
+a midday train to Whinborough, and a trap to Long Whindale.
+
+She had travelled straight from Nice without stopping. She would not let
+herself think now as she hurried along the lonely road what it was she
+had fled from, what it was that had befallen. The slightest glimpse into
+this past made her begin to sob, she put it away from her with all her
+strength. But she had had, of course, to decide where she should go, with
+whom she should take refuge.
+
+Not with Uncle Richard, whom she had deceived and defied. Not with "Aunt
+Alice." No sooner did the vision of that delicate withered face, that
+slender form come before her, than it brought with it terrible fancies.
+Her conduct had probably killed "Aunt Alice." She did not want to think
+about 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--things
+that no one supposed she had heard--that Mrs. Elsmere had given years of
+her life, and sacrificed her health, to "rescue" work. The rescue of
+girls 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 had
+thirsted for. They had brought her all the way from Nice to this northern
+valley--this bleak, forbidding country. She shivered again from head to
+foot, as she made her way painfully against the wind.
+
+Yet now she was flying even from Catharine Elsmere; even from those
+tender eyes that haunted her.
+
+The road turned toward a bridge, and on the other side of the bridge
+degenerated into a rough and stony bridle path, giving access to two gray
+farms beneath the western fell. On the near side of the bridge the
+road became a cart-track leading to the far end of the dale.
+
+Hester paused irresolute on the bridge, and looked back toward Burwood. A
+light appeared in what was no doubt the sitting-room window. A lamp
+perhaps that, in view of the premature darkening of the afternoon by the
+heavy storm-clouds from the north, a servant had just brought in. Hester
+watched it in a kind of panic, foreseeing the moment when the curtains
+would be drawn and the light shut out from her. She thought of the little
+room within, the warm firelight, Mary with her beautiful hair--and Mrs.
+Elsmere. They were perhaps working and reading--as though that were all
+there were to do and think about in the world! No, no! after all they
+couldn't be very peaceful--or very cheerful. Mary was engaged to Uncle
+Richard now; and Uncle Richard must be pretty miserable.
+
+The exhausted girl nearly turned back toward that light. Then a hand came
+quietly and shut it out. The curtains were drawn. Nothing now to be seen
+of the little house but its dim outlines in the oncoming twilight, the
+smoke blown about its roof, and a faint gleam from a side-window, perhaps
+the kitchen.
+
+Suddenly, a thought, a wild, attacking thought, leapt out upon her, and
+held 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 confused
+in one mad flux of misery. Was it _possible_ that they too could be
+Here--Uncle Richard, and "Aunt Alice?" She had said something about Mrs.
+Elsmere in her telegram--she could not recollect what. That had been
+meant to comfort them, and yet to keep them away, to make them leave
+her to her own plans. But supposing, instead, its effect had been to
+bring them here at once, in pursuit of her?
+
+She hurried forward, sobbing dry sobs of terror as though she already
+heard their steps behind her. What was she afraid of? Simply their
+love!--simply their sorrow! She had broken their hearts; and what could
+she say to them?
+
+The recollection of all her cruelty to "Aunt Alice" in Paris--her
+neglect, her scorn, her secret, unjust anger with those who had kept from
+her the facts of her birth--seemed to rise up between her and all ideas
+of hope and help. Oh, of course they would be kind to her!--they would
+forgive her--but--but she couldn't bear it! Impatience with the very
+scene of wailing and forgiveness she foresaw, as of something utterly
+futile and vain, swept through the quivering nerves.
+
+"And it can never be undone!" she said to herself roughly, as though she
+were throwing the words in some one's face. "It can never, _never_ be
+undone! What's the good of talking?"
+
+So the only alternative was to wander a while longer into these clouds
+and storms that were beginning to beat down from the pass through the
+darkness of the valley; to try and think things out; to find some shelter
+for the night; then to go away again--somewhere. She was conscious now of
+a first driving of sleet in her face; but it only lasted for a few
+minutes. Then it ceased; and a strange gleam swept over the valley--a
+livid storm-light from the west, which blanched all the withered grass
+beside her, and seemed to shoot along the course of the stream as she
+toiled up the rocky path beside it.
+
+What a country, what a sky! Her young body was conscious of an angry
+revolt against it, against the northern cold and dreariness; her body,
+which still kept as it were the physical memory of sun, and blue sea, and
+orange trees, of the shadow of olives on a thin grass, of the scent of
+orange blossom on the broken twigs that some one was putting into her
+hand.
+
+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-haired
+man, was seated on a rock, staff in hand, watching his dog collect the
+sheep from the rocky slope on which they were scattered.
+
+At sight of Hester, the old man started and stared. Her fair hair
+escaping in many directions from the control of combs and hairpins, and
+the pale lovely face in the midst of it, shone in the stormy gleam that
+filled 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 of
+a living being brought a kind of comfort.
+
+"It's going to snow--" she said, as she stood beside him, surprised by
+the sound of her own voice amid the roar of the wind.
+
+"Aye--it's onding o' snaw--" said the shepherd, his shrewd blue eyes
+travelling 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, a
+stone's throw away. The gate of it was open, and the dog was gradually
+chasing the sheep within it.
+
+"I doan't like leavin' 'em on t' fells this bitter weather. I'm afraid
+for t' ewes. It's too cauld for 'em. They'll be for droppin' their lambs
+too soon if this wind goes on. It juist taks t' strength out on 'em, doos
+the wind."
+
+"Do you think it's going to snow a great deal?"
+
+The old man looked round at the clouds and the mountains; at the
+powdering of snow that had already whitened the heights.
+
+"It'll be more'n a bit!" he said cautiously. "I dessay we'll have to be
+gettin' 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 ter
+happen ter foak as want the doctor?"
+
+"Did you ever know people lost on these hills?" asked the girl, looking
+into the blackness ahead of them. Her shrill, slight voice rang out in
+sharp 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's
+betther 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 coom
+February. 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 ahead
+into 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 was
+my son, gooin afther th' lambs i' the snaw, as found him. He heard
+summat--a voice like a lile child cryin'--an he scratted aboot, an
+dragged 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 a
+figure 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 came
+back, followed by his dog, to the place where she stood, listlessly
+watching.
+
+"Doan't yo go too far on t' fells, missy. It's coomin' on to snaw, an
+it'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 as
+knaws 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 enoof
+you 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 that
+what the lady did was none of his business, and turned back toward one of
+the farms across the bridge. Who was she? She was a strange sort of body
+to be walking by herself up the head of Long Whindale. He supposed she
+came from Burwood--there was no other house where a lady like that could
+be staying. But it was a bit queer anyhow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hester walked on. She turned a craggy corner beyond which she was
+out of sight of any one on the lower stretches of the road. The struggle
+with the wind, the roar of water in her ears, had produced in her a kind
+of trance-like state. She walked mechanically, half deafened, half
+blinded, measuring her force against the wind, conscious every now and
+then of gusts of snow in her face, of the deepening gloom overhead
+climbing up and up the rocky path. But, as in that fatal moment when she
+had paused in the Burwood lane, her mind was not more than vaguely
+conscious of her immediate surroundings. It had become the prey of
+swarming recollections--captured by sudden agonies, unavailing,
+horror-stricken revolts.
+
+At last, out of breath, and almost swooning, she sank down under the
+shelter of a rock, and became in a moment aware that white mists were
+swirling and hurrying all about her, and that only just behind her, and
+just above her, was the path clear. Without knowing it, she had
+climbed and climbed till she was very near the top of the pass. She
+looked down into a witch's cauldron of mist and vapour, already thickened
+with snow, and up into an impenetrable sky, as it seemed, close upon her
+head, from which the white flakes were beginning to fall, steadily and
+fast.
+
+She was a little frightened, but not much. After all, she had only to
+rest and retrace her steps. The watch at her wrist told her it was not
+much past four; and it was February. It would be daylight till half-past
+five, unless the storm put out the daylight. A little rest--just a little
+rest! But she began to feel ill and faint, and so bitterly, bitterly
+cold. The sense of physical illness, conquering the vague overwhelming
+anguish of heart and mind, began to give her back some clearness of
+brain.
+
+Who was she?--why was she there? She was Hester Fox-Wilton--no! Hester
+Meryon, who had escaped from a man who had called himself, for a few days
+at least, her husband; a man whom in scarcely more than a week she had
+come to loathe and fear; whose nature and character had revealed to her
+infamies of which she had never dreamed; who had claimed to be her
+master, and use her as he pleased, and from whom she had escaped by
+night, 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 his
+mocking ones--and the helpless sense of indignity and wrong--and of her
+own utter and criminal folly.
+
+And through her memory there ran in an ugly dance those things, those
+monstrous things, he had said to her about the Scotch woman. It was not
+at all absolutely sure that she, Hester, was his wife. He had shown her
+those letters at St. Germains, of course, to reassure her; and the
+letters were perfectly genuine letters, written by the people they
+professed to be written by. Still Scotch marriage law was a damned
+business--one never knew. He _hoped_ it was all right; but if she did
+hate him as poisonously as she said, if she did really want to get rid of
+him, he might perhaps be able to assist her.
+
+Had he after all tricked and ruined her? Yet as her consciousness framed
+the question in the conventional phrases familiar to her through
+newspapers and novels, she hardly knew what they meant, this child of
+eighteen, who in three short weeks had been thrust through the fire of an
+experience on which she had never had time to reflect. Flattered vanity,
+and excitement, leading up almost from the first day to instinctive and
+fierce revolt--intervals of acquiescence, of wild determination to be
+happy, drowned in fresh rebellions of soul and sense--through these
+alternations the hours had rushed on, culminating in her furtive and
+sudden escape from the man of whom she was now in mad fear--her blind
+flight for "home."
+
+The _commonness_ of her case, the absence of any romantic or poetic
+element in it--it was that which galled, which degraded her in her own
+eyes. Only three weeks since she had felt that entire and arrogant belief
+in herself, in her power over her own life and Philip's, on which she now
+looked back as merely ludicrous!--inexplicable in a girl of the most
+ordinary intelligence. What power had girls over men?--such men as Philip
+Meryon?
+
+Her vanity was bleeding to death--and her life with it. Since the
+revelation of her birth, she seemed to have been blindly struggling to
+regain her own footing in the world--the kind of footing she was
+determined to have. Power and excitement; _not_ to be pitied, but to be
+followed, wooed, adored; not to be forced on the second and third bests
+of the world, but to have the "chief seat," the daintest morsel, the
+_beau rôle_ always--had not this been her instinctive, unvarying demand
+on life? And now? If she were indeed married, she was tied to a man who
+neither loved her, nor could bring her any position in the world; who was
+penniless, and had only entrapped her that he might thereby get some
+money out of her relations; who, living or dead, would be a disgrace to
+her, standing irrevocably between her and any kind of honour or
+importance in society.
+
+And if he had deceived her, and she were not his wife--she would be free
+indeed; but what would her freedom matter to her? What decent man would
+ever 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 could
+have laughed at her own thoughts; and yet at the same time it was so
+ghastly true! No need now to invent a half-sincere chatter about "Fate."
+She felt herself in miserable truth the mere feeble mouse wherewith the
+great 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 followed
+her, the lip that trembled when she said an unkind or wanton thing; she
+heard again the phrases of Uncle Richard's weekly letters, humorous,
+tender phrases, with here and there an occasional note of austerity, or
+warning.
+
+Oh yes--she had done it--she had ruined herself.
+
+She felt the tears running over her cheeks, mingling with the snow as it
+pelted 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 put
+out her own, groping helplessly--and rose to her feet.
+
+But the darkness was now much advanced, and the great snowstorm of the
+night had begun. She could not see the path below her at all, and only
+some twenty yards of its course above her. In the whirling gloom and in
+the fury of the wind, although she turned to descend the path, her
+courage suddenly failed her. She remembered a stream she had crossed
+on a little footbridge with a rail; could she ever see to recross it
+again?--above the greedy tumult of the water? Peering upward it seemed to
+her that she saw something like walls in front of her--perhaps another
+sheepfold? That would give her shelter for a little, and perhaps the snow
+would stop--perhaps it was only a shower. She struggled on, and up, and
+found indeed some fragments of walls, beside the path, one of the many
+abandoned places among the Westmoreland fells that testify to the closer
+settlement of the dales in earlier centuries.
+
+And just as she clambered within them, the clouds sweeping along the
+fell-side lifted and parted for the last time, and she caught a glimpse
+of a wide, featureless world, the desolate top of the fells, void of
+shelter or landmark, save that straight across it, from gloom to gloom,
+there ran a straight white thing--a ghostly and forsaken track. The Roman
+road, no doubt, of which the shepherd had spoken. And a vision sprang
+into 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 to
+perceive 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 of
+the shelter she had found, taking, as she supposed, the path toward the
+valley. But blinded with snow and mist, she lost it almost at once. She
+stumbled on over broken and rocky ground, wishing to descend, yet keeping
+instinctively upward, and hearing on her right from time to time, as
+though from depths of chaos, the wild voices of the valley, the wind
+tearing the cliffs, the rushing of the stream. Soon all was darkness; she
+knew that she had lost herself; and was alone with rock and storm. Still
+she moved; but nerve and strength ebbed; and at last there came a step
+into infinity--a sharp pain--and the flame of consciousness went out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+The February afternoon in Long Whindale, shortened by the first heavy
+snowstorm of the winter, passed quickly into darkness. Down through all
+the windings of the valley the snow showers swept from the north,
+becoming, as the wind dropped a little toward night, a steady continuous
+fall, which in four or five hours had already formed drifts of some depth
+in exposed places.
+
+Toward six o'clock, the small farmer living across the lane from Burwood
+became anxious about some sheep which had been left in a high "intak" on
+the fell. He was a thriftless, procrastinating fellow, and when the
+storm came on about four o'clock had been taking his tea in a warm
+ingle-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 enough
+from the stone walls of the "intak," and that all was well. But a couple
+of hours later the persistence of the snowfall, together with his wife's
+reproaches, goaded him into action. He went out with his son and
+lanterns, intending to ask the old shepherd at the Bridge Farm to help
+them in their expedition to find and fold the sheep.
+
+Meanwhile, in the little sitting-room at Burwood Catherine Elsmere and
+Mary 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's
+needlework often dropped unheeded from her fingers; and the pages of
+Mary's book remained unturned. The postman who brought letters up the
+dale in the morning, and took letters back to Whinborough at night, had
+just passed by in his little cart, hooded and cloaked against the storm,
+and hoping to reach Whinborough before the drifts in the roads had made
+travelling too difficult. Mary had put into his hands a letter addressed
+to the Rev. Richard Meynell, Hotel Richelieu, Paris. And beside her on
+the table lay a couple of sheets of foreign notepaper, covered closely
+with Meynell's not very legible handwriting.
+
+Catharine also had some open letters on her lap. Presently she turned to
+Mary.
+
+"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't
+think Richard will be misunderstood again."
+
+"No. The Bishop says that mysterious as it all is, nobody blames him for
+being absent. They trust him. But this time, it seems, he _did_ write to
+the Bishop--just a few words."
+
+"Yes, I know. I am glad." But as she spoke, the pale severity of the
+girl's look belied the word she used. During the fortnight of Meynell's
+absence, while he and Alice Puttenham in the south of France had been
+following every possible clue in a vain search for Hester, and the Arches
+trial had been necessarily left entirely to the management of Meynell's
+counsel, and to the resources of his co-defendants, Darwen and Chesham,
+Mary had suffered much. To see his own brilliant vindication of himself
+and his followers, in the face of religious England, snuffed out and
+extinguished in a moment by the call of this private duty had been
+hard!--all the more seeing that the catastrophe had been brought about by
+misconduct so wanton, so flagrant, as Hester's. There had sprung up in
+Mary's mind, indeed, a _saeva indignatio,_ not for herself, but for
+Richard, first and foremost, and next for his cause. Dark as she knew
+Meynell's forebodings and beliefs to be, anxiety for Hester must
+sometimes 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 aside
+the 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 be
+temporarily blinded by the rush of wind and snow through the opening.
+
+"A telegram!" she exclaimed, in wonder. "Please come in and wait. Isn't
+it very bad?"
+
+"I hope I'll be able to get back!" laughed the young man who had brought
+it. "The roads are drifting up fast. It was noa good bicycling. I got 'em
+to 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 into
+the sitting-room.
+
+"Mother!--Richard and Miss Puttenham will be here to-night. They have
+heard of Hester."
+
+In stupefaction they read the telegram, which had had been sent from
+Crewe:
+
+"Received news of Hester on arrival Paris yesterday. She has left M. Says
+she has gone to find your mother. Keep her. We arrive to-night
+Whinborough 7.10."
+
+"It is now seven," said Catharine, looking at her watch. "But
+where--where is she?"
+
+Hurriedly they called their little parlour-maid into the room and
+questioned her with closed doors. No--she knew nothing of any visitor.
+Nobody had called; nobody, so far as she knew, had passed by, except the
+ordinary neighbours. Once in the afternoon, indeed, she had thought she
+heard a carriage pass the bottom of the lane, but on looking out from the
+kitchen she had seen nothing of it.
+
+Out of this slender fact, the only further information that could be
+extracted was a note of time. It was, the girl thought, about four
+o'clock when she heard the carriage pass.
+
+"But it couldn't have passed," Catharine objected, "or you would have
+seen it go up the valley."
+
+The girl assented, for the kitchen window commanded the road up to the
+bridge. Then the carriage, if she had really heard it, must have come to
+the 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; and
+thankful for something to do, Catharine and Mary, with minds full of
+conjecture and distress, set about preparing two rooms for their guests.
+
+"Will they ever get here?" Mary murmured to herself, when at last the two
+rooms lay neat and ready, with a warm fire in each, and she could allow
+herself to open the front door again, an inch or two, and look out into
+the weather. Nothing to be seen but the whirling snow-flakes. The horrid
+fancy seized her that Hester had really been in that carriage and had
+turned back at their very door. So that again Richard, arriving weary and
+heart-stricken, would be disappointed. Mary's bitterness grew.
+
+But all that could be done was to listen to every sound without, in the
+hope of catching something else than the roaring of the wind, and to give
+the rein to speculation and dismay.
+
+Catharine sat waiting, in her chair, the tears welling silently. It
+touched her profoundly that Hester, in her sudden despair, should have
+thought of coming to her; though apparently it was a project she had not
+carried 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 and
+hope in the arms of an all-pitying God. Catharine knew much more of
+Meryon's history and antecedents--from Meynell--than did Mary. She was
+convinced that the marriage, if there had been a marriage, had been a
+bogus one, and that the disgrace was irreparable. But in her stern,
+rich nature, now that the culprit had turned from her sin, there was not
+a thought of condemnation; only a yearning pity, an infinite tenderness.
+
+At last toward nine o'clock there were steps on the garden path. Mary
+flew to the door. In the porch there stood the old shepherd from the
+Bridge Farm. His hat, beard, and shoulders were heavy with snow, and his
+face 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 his
+sheep in. Varra careless of him to ha' left it so long!--aw mine wor safe
+i't' fold by fower o'clock. An' I thowt, miss, as I'd mak bold, afore
+goin' back to t' farm, to coom an' ast yo, if t' yoong leddy got safe
+hoam 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' Bridge
+Farm, an' it wor noan weather for a stranger, miss, yo unnerstan', to be
+oot 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 Catharine
+had already sprung to her feet in terror. There they questioned him.
+Yes--they had been expecting a lady. When had he seen her?--the young
+lady he spoke of? What was she like? In what direction had she gone? He
+answered their questions as clearly as he could, his own honest face
+growing 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 tired
+out! 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 small
+dressing-bag of green leather and on it appeared the initials--"H. F.-W."
+
+They looked at each other speechless. The old man hastened to explain
+that on opening the gate which led to the house from the lane his foot
+had stumbled against something on the path. By the light of his lantern
+he had seen it was a bag of some sort, had picked it up and brought it
+in.
+
+"She _was_ in the carriage!" said Mary, under her breath, "and must have
+just pushed this inside the gate before--"
+
+Before she went to her death? Was that what would have to be added? For
+there was horror in both their minds. The mountains at the head of Long
+Whindale run up to no great height, but there are plenty of crags on them
+with a sheer drop of anything from fifty to a hundred feet. Ten or twenty
+feet would be quite enough to disable an exhausted girl. Five hours since
+she 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 and
+voices--vying with the storm. Mary ran into the hall. Two figures
+appeared in the porch in the light of the lamp as she held it up, with a
+third behind them, carrying luggage. In front stood Meynell, and an
+apparently fainting woman, clinging to and supported by his arm.
+
+"Help me with this lady, please!" said Meynell, peremptorily, not
+recognizing who it was holding the light. "This last little climb has
+been 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 all
+his face relaxed in a sudden, irrepressible joy. "But she would come."
+Then, in a lower voice--"Is Hester here?" Mary shook her head, and
+something in her eyes warned him of fresh calamity. He stooped suddenly
+to look at Alice, and perceived that she was quite unconscious. He and
+Mary, between them, raised her and carried her into the sitting-room.
+Then, while Mary ministered to her, Meynell grasped Catharine's
+hand--with the brusque question--
+
+"What has happened?"
+
+Catharine beckoned to old David, the shepherd, and she, with David and
+Meynell, went across, out of hearing, into the tiny dining-room of the
+cottage. Meanwhile the horses and man who had brought the travellers from
+Whinborough had to be put up for the night, for the man would not venture
+the return journey.
+
+Meynell had soon heard what there was to tell. He himself was gray with
+fatigue 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 farmer
+across the lane, his own master, the young tenant of the Bridge Farm, and
+the cowman from the same farm.
+
+"And the Lord knaws I'd goa wi you myself, sir"--said the fine-featured
+old man, a touch of trouble in his blue eyes--"for I feel soomhow as
+though there were a bit o' my fault in it. But we've had a heavy job on
+t' fells awready, an I should be noa good to you."
+
+He went over to the neighbouring farm, to recruit some young men, and
+presently returned with them, the driver, also, from Whinborough, a
+stalwart 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, looking
+down upon the just reviving Alice.
+
+"She's been a plucky woman," he said, with emotion; "but she's about at
+the end of her tether." And in a few brief sentences he described the
+agitated pursuit of the last fortnight; the rapid journeys, prompted now
+by this clue, now by that; the alternate hopes and despairs; with no real
+information of any kind, till Hester's telegram, sent originally to
+Upcote and reforwarded, had reached Meynell in Paris, just as they had
+returned thither for a fresh consultation with the police at
+headquarters.
+
+As the sound of men's feet in the kitchen broke in upon the hurried
+narrative, 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 real
+clue 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 the
+porch, holding the lamp high for the departure of the rescuers. There
+were five men with lanterns, ropes, and poles, laden, besides, with
+blankets, and everything else that Catharine's practical sense could
+suggest. 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 the
+wind showed some signs of abating.
+
+"They'll find it easier goin', past t' bridge, than it would ha' been an
+hour since," said old David to Mary, pitying the white anxiety of her
+face. She thanked him with a smile, and then while he marched ahead, she
+put 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 the
+lights wavered, and presently, standing at the kitchen window, Catharine
+and Mary could watch them dancing up the dale, now visible, now
+vanishing. It must be at least, and at best, two or three hours before
+the party reappeared; it might be much more. They turned from useless
+speculation to give all their thoughts to Alice Puttenham.
+
+Too exhausted to speak or think, she was passive in their hands. She was
+soon in bed, in a deep sleep, and Mary, having induced her mother to lie
+down in the sitting-room, and having made up fires throughout the
+house, sent the servants to bed, and herself began her watch in Alice
+Puttenham's room.
+
+Dreary and long, the night passed away. Once or twice through the waning
+storm Mary heard the deep bell of the little church, tolling the hours;
+once or twice she went hurriedly downstairs thinking there were steps
+in the garden, only to meet her mother in the hall, on the same bootless
+errand. At last, worn with thinking and praying, she fell fitfully
+asleep, and woke to find moonlight shining through the white blind in
+Alice Puttenham's room. She drew aside the blind and saw with a shock of
+surprise that the storm was over; the valley lay pure white under a
+waning 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 to
+seek.
+
+Suddenly--out of the dark bosom of the valley, lights emerged. Mary
+sprang to her feet. Yes! it was they--it was Richard returning.
+
+One look at the bed, where the delicate pinched face still lay high on
+the pillows, drenched in a sleep which was almost a swoon, and Mary stole
+out of the room.
+
+There was time to complete their preparations and renew the fires. When
+Catharine softly unlatched the front door, everything was ready--warm
+blankets, hot milk, hot water bottles. But now they hardly dared
+speak to each other; dread kept them dumb. Nearer and nearer came the
+sound of feet and lowered voices. Soon they could hear the swing of the
+gate 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 say
+in his haggard look before he spoke.
+
+"We found her a long way up the pass. She has had a bad fall--but she is
+alive. 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 the
+Whinborough lad who had brought them from, the station--"will take one of
+his horses and go for the doctor. We shall get him here in a couple of
+hours."
+
+Silently they brought her in, the stalwart, kindly men, they mounted the
+cottage stairs, and on Mary' bed they laid her down.
+
+O crushed and wounded youth! The face, drawn and fixed in pain, was
+marble-cold and marble-white; the delicate mire-stained hands hung
+helpless. Masses of drenched hair fell about the neck and bosom; and
+there was a wound on the temple which had been bandaged, but was now
+bleeding afresh. Catharine bent over her in an anguish, feeling for pulse
+and heart. Meynell, whispering, pointed out that the right leg was broken
+below the knee. He himself had put it in some rough splints, made out of
+the poles the shepherds were carrying.
+
+Both Catharine and Mary had ambulance training, and, helped by their two
+maids, they did all they could. They cut away the soaked clothes. They
+applied warmth in every possible form; they got down some spoonfuls of
+warm milk and brandy, dreading always to hear the first sounds of
+consciousness 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 doctor
+will be coming directly."
+
+His tone was tender as a woman's. His ghostly face, disfigured by
+exhaustion, showed him absorbed in pity. Mary, standing near, longed to
+kneel down by him, and weep; but there was an austere sense that not even
+she 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, watching
+her, sometimes whispering to her.
+
+At last she said, "I couldn't face you all. I'm dying." She moved her
+right hand restlessly. "Give me something for this pain--I--I can't stand
+it."
+
+"Dear Hester--can you bear it a little longer? We will do all we can. We
+have 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 very
+unhappy?"
+
+"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 of
+naughtiness 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 she
+understood his silence, for she feebly moved her uninjured hand toward
+him; 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 was
+borne in upon him that he _must_ tell her--if she was to die; that in the
+last strait, Alice's arms must be about her. But the doctor must decide.
+
+Presently, she was a little easier. The warm stimulant dulled the
+consciousness which came in gusts.
+
+Once or twice, as she recognized the faces near her, there was a touch of
+life, 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 into
+unconsciousness Meynell reported something of the search. They had found
+her a long distance from the path, at the foot of a steep and rocky
+scree, some twenty or thirty feet high, down which she must have slipped
+headlong. There she had lain for some eight hours in the storm before
+they found her. She neither moved nor spoke when they discovered her, nor
+had 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 at
+first not without hope. She _might_ live; if there were no internal
+injuries of importance. The next few hours would show. He sent his motor
+back to Whinborough Cottage Hospital for a couple of nurses, and
+prepared, himself, to stay the greater part of the day. He had just gone
+downstairs 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 to
+see my mother."
+
+Catharine stooped toward her, in an agitation she found it difficult to
+conceal.
+
+"Dear Hester!--we are sending a telegram as soon as the post-office is
+open to Lady Fox-Wilton."
+
+Hester moved her hand impatiently.
+
+"She's not my mother, and I'm glad. Where is--_my mother_?" She laid a
+strange, deep emphasis on the word, opening her eyes wide and
+threateningly. Catharine understood at once that, in some undiscovered
+way, she knew what they had all been striving to keep from her. It was no
+time 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, who
+gave a reluctant consent, lest more harm should come of refusing the
+interview than of granting it. And as Catharine ran up again to Mary's
+room she had time to reflect, with self-reproach, on the strange
+completeness with which she at any rate had forgotten that frail
+ineffectual woman asleep in Mary's room from the moment of Hester's
+arrival till now.
+
+But Mary had not forgotten her. When Catharine opened the door, it was to
+see a thin, phantom-like figure, standing fully dressed, and leaning on
+Mary's arm. Catharine went up to her with tears, and kissed her, holding
+her hands close.
+
+"Hester asks for you--for her mother--her real mother. She knows."
+
+"_She knows_?" Alice stood paralyzed a moment, gazing at Catharine. Then
+the colour rushed back into her face. "I am coming--I am coming--at
+once," 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--would
+stand by the door--I would call in a moment--if--"
+
+They agreed. She went with tottering steps across the landing. On the
+threshold, Catharine paused; Mary remained a little behind. Alice went in
+and shut the door.
+
+The blinds in Hester's room were up, and the snow-covered fells rising
+steeply above the house filled it with a wintry, reflected light; a
+dreary light, that a large fire could not dispel. On the white bed
+lay Hester, breathing quickly and shallowly; bright colour now in
+each sunken cheek. The doctor himself had cut off a great part of her
+hair--her glorious hair. The rest fell now in damp golden curls about her
+slender neck, beneath the cap-like bandage which hid the forehead and
+temples 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 restrain
+the 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 as
+scarcely to be heard--and then again--"_Mother_!"
+
+Alice sank down beside her with a sob, and without a word they gazed into
+each other's eyes. Slowly Hester's filled with tears. But Alice's were
+dry. In her face there was as much ecstasy as anguish. It was the first
+look that Hester's _soul_ had ever given her. All the past was in it; and
+that 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 that
+made me go with him."
+
+But she did not say it. And while Alice's mind, rushing miserably over
+the past, was trying to piece together some image of what had happened,
+Hester began to talk intermittently about the preceding weeks. Alice
+tried 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 her
+own responsibility.
+
+"I needn't have gone--but I would go. There was a devil in me--that
+wanted to know. Now I know--too much. I'm glad it's over. This life isn't
+worth while--not for me."
+
+So, from these lips of eighteen, came the voice of the world's old
+despairs!
+
+Presently she asked peremptorily for Meynell, and he came to her.
+
+"Uncle Richard, I want to be sure"--she spoke strongly and in her natural
+voice--"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. We
+signed registers and things. Then--when we quarrelled--Philip said--he
+wasn't certain about that woman--in Scotland. You might be right. Tell me
+the truth, please. Am I--his wife?"
+
+And as the words dropped faintly, the anxiety in her beautiful
+death-stricken eyes was strange and startling to see. Through all her
+recklessness, her defiance of authority and custom, could be seen at last
+the strength of inherited, implanted things; the instinct of a race, a
+family, 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. My
+inquiries all broke down. There was no Scotch marriage."
+
+Hester said nothing for a little; but the look of relief was clear. Alice
+on the farther side of the bed dropped her face in her hands. Was it not
+only forty-eight hours since, in Paris, Meynell had told her that he had
+received conclusive evidence of the Scotch marriage, and that Hester was
+merely Philip's victim, not his wife? Passionately her heart thanked him
+for the falsehood. She saw clearly that Hester's mortal wounds were not
+all bodily. She was dying partly of self-contempt, self-judgment.
+Meynell's strong words--his "noble lie"--had lifted, as it were, a
+fraction of the moral weight that was destroying her; had made a space--a
+freedom, in which the spirit could move.
+
+So much Alice saw; blind meanwhile to the tragic irony of this piteous
+stress 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 the
+nurses came at midday, however, the pulse had already begun to fail. They
+could do nothing; and though within call, they left her mainly to those
+who loved her.
+
+In the early afternoon she asked suddenly for the Communion, and Meynell
+administered it. The three women who were watching her received it with
+her. In Catharine's mind, as Meynell's hands brought her the sacred bread
+and wine, all thought of religious difference between herself and him had
+vanished, 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 was
+only 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 more
+strength--"beyond? How strange that--I shall know before you! Uncle
+Richard--I'm--I'm sorry!"
+
+At that the difficult tears blinded him, and he could not reply. But she
+was beyond tears, concentrating all the last effort of the mind on the
+sheer maintenance of life. Presently she added:
+
+"I don't hate--even Philip now. I--I forget him. Mother!" And again she
+clung 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. But
+now 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 poor
+mother!"
+
+So the hours wore on. Science was clever and merciful and eased her pain.
+Love encompassed her, and when the wintry light failed, her faintly
+beating 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 that
+trance of silence in which they had all been standing round the dead. He
+yielded to her; he was ready to see the doctor and to submit to the
+absolute rest enjoined. But already there was something in his aspect
+which 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 her
+love was close upon her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+On the day following Hester's death an inquest was held in the
+dining-room at Burwood. Meynell and old David, the shepherd, stood out
+chief 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 Miss
+Hester 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 am
+told, owing to illness--were her guardians?"
+
+Meynell assented. He stood to the right of the Coroner, leaning heavily
+on the chair before him. The doctor who had been called in to Hester sat
+beside him, and wondered professionally whether the witness would get
+through.
+
+"I understand also," the Coroner resumed, "that Miss Fox-Wilton had left
+the 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, in
+company I believe with Miss Fox-Wilton's aunt, Miss Alice Puttenham. Miss
+Puttenham, 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 precarious
+state, in consequence of grief and shock, and I should greatly fear the
+results 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, of
+Hester's disappearance from the family with whom she was boarding, of the
+anxiety of her relations, and the search that he and Miss Puttenham had
+made.
+
+His conscience was often troubled. Vaguely, his mind was pronouncing
+itself all the while--"It is time now the truth were known. It is better
+it should be known." Hester's death had changed the whole situation. But
+he could himself take no step whatever toward disclosure. And he knew
+that it was doubtful whether he should or could have advised Alice to
+take any.
+
+The inquiry went on, the Coroner avoiding the subject of Hester's French
+escapade as much as possible. After all there need be--there was--no
+question of suicide; only some explanation had to be suggested of the
+dressing-bag left within the garden gate, and of the girl's reckless
+climb into the fells, against old David's advice, on such an afternoon.
+
+Presently, in the midst of David's evidence, describing his meeting with
+Hester by the bridge, the handle of the dining-room door turned. The door
+opened a little way and then shut again. Another minute or two passed,
+and then the door opened again timidly as though some one were hesitating
+outside. The Coroner annoyed, beckoned to a constable standing behind the
+witnesses. But before he could reach it, a lady had slowly pushed it
+open, and entered the room.
+
+It was Alice Puttenham.
+
+The Coroner looked up, and the doctor rose in astonishment. Alice
+advanced 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 beyond
+all touch of beauty--and the childish overhanging lip quivered as she
+tried to speak; but no words came.
+
+"Miss Puttenham, I presume?" said the Coroner. "We were told, madam, that
+you 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 the
+effort, she should give her evidence as soon as possible, and should give
+it sitting."
+
+A murmur of assent ran round the table. Over the weather-beaten
+Westmoreland faces had passed a sudden wave of animation.
+
+Alice took her seat, and the oath. Meynell sitting opposite to her
+covered his face with his hands. He foresaw what she was about to do, and
+his heart went out to her.
+
+Everybody at the table bent forward to listen. The two shorthand writers
+lifted 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 to
+hear anything she might have to say.
+
+Alice fixed her eyes on the old man, as though she would thereby shut out
+all 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 the
+daughter of the late Sir Ralph and Lady Fox-Wilton?"
+
+"She was their adopted daughter. Her father was Mr. Neville Flood, and
+I--am her mother. Mr. Flood, of Sandford Abbey, died nearly twenty years
+ago. He and I were never married. My sister and brother-in-law adopted
+the child. She passed always as theirs, and when Sir Ralph died, he
+appointed--Mr. Meynell--and my sister her guardians. Mr. Meynell
+has 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 uncovered
+his eyes and tried to meet hers, so as to give her encouragement.
+
+She resumed--
+
+"Last August the nurse who attended me--in my confinement--came
+home to Upcote. She made a statement to a gentleman there--a false
+statement--and then she died. I wished then to make the truth public--but
+Mr. Meynell--as Hester's guardian--and for her sake, as well as mine--did
+not wish it. She knew nothing--then; and he was afraid of its effect upon
+her. I followed his advice, and took her abroad, in order to protect her
+from a bad man who was pursuing her. We did all we could--but we were not
+able to protect her. They were married without my knowing--and she went
+away with him. Then he--this man--told her--or perhaps he had done it
+before, I don't know--who she was. I can only guess how he knew; but he
+is Mr. Flood's nephew. My poor child soon found out what kind of man he
+was. She tried to escape from him. And because Mrs. Elsmere had been
+always 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 away
+again--in despair--when she actually got here. But her death was a pure
+accident--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 she
+was dying--she told me she knew--I was her mother. And now--that she is
+dead--"
+
+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 mine
+now--my child--forever--only mine!"
+
+She broke off incoherently, bowing her head upon her hands, her slight
+shoulders 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. Meynell
+whispered to her.
+
+The Coroner spoke, drawing his handkerchief hastily across his eyes.
+
+"The Court is very grateful to you, Miss Puttenham, for this frank and
+brave statement. We tender you our best thanks. There is no need for us
+to detain you longer."
+
+She rose, and Meynell led her from the room. Outside was a nurse to whom
+he 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 a
+fitful and frosty sunshine. The rocks and screes with their steep beds of
+withered heather made dark scrawls and scratches on the white; the smoke
+from the farmhouses rose bluish against the snowy wall of fell; and the
+river, amid the silence of the muffled roads and paths, seemed the only
+audible thing in the valley.
+
+In the tiny churchyard the new-made grave had been filled in with frozen
+earth, and on the sods lay flowers piled there by Rose Flaxman's kind and
+busy hands. She and Hugh had arrived from the south that morning.
+
+Another visitor had come from the south, also to lay flowers on that
+wintry grave. Stephen Barron's dumb pain was bitter to see. The silence
+of spiritual and physical exhaustion in which Meynell had been wrapped
+since the morning of the inquest was first penetrated and broken up by
+the sight of Stephen's anguish. And in the attempt to comfort the
+younger, the elder man laid hold on some returning power for himself.
+
+But he had been hardly hit; and the depth of the wound showed itself
+strangely--in a kind of fear of love itself, a fear of Mary! Meynell's
+attitude toward her during these days was almost one of shrinking. The
+atmosphere between them was electrical; charged with things unspoken, and
+a conflict that must be faced.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The day after Hester's funeral the newspapers were full of the sentence
+delivered on the preceding day, in the Arches Court, on Meynell and his
+co-defendants. A telegram from Darwen the evening before had conveyed
+the news to Meynell himself.
+
+The sentence of deprivation _ab officio et beneficio_ in the Church of
+England, on the ground of heretical opinion and unauthorized services,
+had been expressed by the Dean of Arches in a tone and phraseology of
+considerable vehemence. According to him the proceedings of the
+Modernists were "as contrary to morality as to law," and he marvelled how
+"honest men" could consent to occupy the position of Meynell and his
+friends.
+
+Notice of appeal to the Privy Council was at once given by the Modernist
+counsel, 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 Rose
+and Mary were sitting. Rose, reading his face, disappeared, and he put
+the letter into Mary's hands.
+
+It was addressed to the Bishop of Dunchester. The great gathering in
+Dunchester Cathedral, after several postponements to match the delays in
+the 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 of
+its history; the period of open revolt, of hot and ardent conflict.
+
+The letter which Mary was invited to read was short. It simply asked that
+the writer should be relieved from a task he felt he could not adequately
+carry out. He desired to lay it down, not for his own sake, but for the
+sake of the cause. "I am not the man, and this is not my job. This
+conviction has been borne in upon me during the last few weeks with an
+amazing clearness. I will only say that it seems to represent a
+command--a prohibition--laid upon me, which I cannot ignore. There are of
+course tragic happenings and circumstances connected with it, my dear
+lord, on which I will not dwell. The effect of them at present on my mind
+is that I wish to retire from a public and prominent part in our great
+Movement; at any rate for a time. I shall carry through the Privy Council
+appeal; but except for that intend to refuse all public appearance. When
+the sentence is confirmed, as of course it will be, it will be best for
+me to confine myself to thinking and writing in solitude and behind the
+scenes. 'Those also serve who only stand and wait.' The quotation is
+hackneyed, but it must serve. Through thought and self-proving, I believe
+that in the end I shall help you best. I am not the fighter I thought
+I was; the fighter that I ought to be to keep the position that has been
+so generously given me. Forgive me for a while if I go into the
+wilderness--a rather absurd phrase, however, as you will agree, when
+I tell you that I am soon to marry a woman whom I love with my whole
+heart. But it applies to my connection with the Modernist Movement, and
+to my position as a leader. My old friends and colleagues--many of them
+at least--will, I fear, blame the step I am taking. It will seem to them
+a mere piece of flinching and cowardice. But each man's soul is in his
+own keeping; and he alone can judge his own powers."
+
+The letter then became a quiet discussion of the best man to be chosen in
+the writer's stead, and passed on into a review of the general situation
+created by the sentence of the Court of Arches.
+
+But of these later pages of the letter Mary realized nothing. She sat
+with it in her hands, after she had read the passage which has been
+quoted, 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 rocky
+slope, 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 her
+again with a note of humility, of sad appeal, that struck most poignantly
+on the woman's heart--"but I cannot resist it. What use can I be to any
+human being as guide, or prophet, or counsellor--if I was so little use
+to her? Is there not a kind of hypocrisy--a dismal hypocrisy--in my
+claim to teach--or inspire--great multitudes of people--when this one
+child--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 for
+the public, the impersonal note. She set against the tragic appeal of the
+dead the equally tragic appeal of the living. She had in her mind the
+memory of that London church, with the strained upturned faces, the
+"hungry sheep"--girls among them, perhaps, in peril like Hester, men
+assailed by the same vile impulses that had made a brute of Philip
+Meryon. During the preceding months Mary's whole personality had
+developed with great rapidity, after a somewhat taciturn and slowly
+ripening youth. The need, enforced upon her by love itself, of asserting
+herself even against the mother she adored; the shadow of Meynell's cloud
+upon her, and her suffering under it, during the weeks of slander; and
+now this rending tragedy at her doors--had tempered anew the naturally
+high heart, and firm will. At this critical moment, she saved Meynell
+from a fatal step by the capacity she showed of loving his cause, only
+next to himself. And, indeed, Meynell was made wholesomely doubtful once
+or twice whether it were not in truth his cause she loved in him. For
+the sweet breakdowns of love which were always at her lips she banished
+by a mighty effort, till she should have won or lost. Thus throughout she
+showed herself her mother's daughter--with her father's thoughts.
+
+It was long, however, before she succeeded in making any real impression
+upon him. All she could obtain at first was delay, and that Catharine
+should be informed.
+
+As soon as that had been done, the position became once more curiously
+complex. Here was a woman to whom the whole Modernist Movement was
+anathema, driven finally into argument for the purpose of compelling
+the Modernist leader, the contriver and general of Modernist victory, to
+remain 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 mere
+feeling, however sharp, however legitimate. You had undertaken the
+thing, and it must, at all costs, be carried through. That was the
+dominant habit of her mind; and there were persons connected with her on
+whom the rigidity of it had at times worked harshly.
+
+On this occasion it was no doubt interfered with--(the Spirit of Comedy
+would have found a certain high satisfaction in the dilemma)--by the fact
+that Meynell's persistence in the course he had entered upon must be,
+in her eyes, and _sub specie religionis_, a persistence in heresy and
+unbelief. What decided it ultimately, however, was that she was not only
+an orthodox believer, but a person of great common sense--and Mary's
+mother.
+
+Her natural argument was that after the tragic events which had occurred,
+and the public reports of them which had appeared, Meynell's abrupt
+withdrawal from public life would once more unsettle and confuse the
+public mind. If there had been any change in his opinions--
+
+"Oh! do not imagine"--she turned a suddenly glowing face upon him--"I
+should be trying to dissuade you, if that were your reason. No!--it is
+for personal and private reasons you shrink from the responsibility
+of leadership. And that being so, what must the world say--the ignorant
+world 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 dear
+friend--I am not thinking of you at all. I leave you out of count; I am
+thinking of Alice--and--Mary!"
+
+Catharine unconsciously straightened herself, a touch of something
+resentful--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 has
+happened gone to soften people's hearts? to make them repent doubly of
+their scandal, and their false witness? Every one knows the truth
+now--every one who cares; and every one understands. But now--after the
+effort poor Alice has made--after all that she and you have suffered--you
+insist on turning fresh doubt and suspicion on yourself, your motives,
+your past history. Can't you see how people may gossip about it--how they
+may interpret it? You have no right to do it, my dear Richard!--no right
+whatever. Your 'good report' belongs not only to yourself--but--to Mary!"
+
+Catharine's breath had quickened; her hand shook upon her knee. Meynell
+rose from his seat, paced the room and came back to her.
+
+"I have tried to explain to Mary"--he said, desperately--"that I should
+feel myself a hypocrite and pretender in playing the part of a spiritual
+leader--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, sweet
+timidity--"that you felt you had tried to do for Hester what only
+grace--what only a living Redeemer--could do for her--"
+
+She broke off. But at last, as Meynell, her junior by fifteen years--her
+son almost--looked down into her face--her frail, aging, illumined
+face--there was something in the passion of her faith which challenged
+and roused his own; which for the moment, at any rate, and for the first
+time since the crisis had arisen revived in him the "fighter" he had
+tried to shed.
+
+"The fault was not in the thing preached," he said, with a groan; "or so
+it seems to me--but in the preacher. The preacher--was unequal to the
+message."
+
+Catharine was silent. And after a little more pacing he said in a more
+ordinary 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 ever
+known--what you and I knew?"
+
+His eyes, full of trouble, propitiated her. He took her hand and kissed
+it.
+
+"Bear with me, dear mother! I don't see my way, but Mary--is to me--my
+life. At any rate, I won't do in a hurry what you disapprove."
+
+Thus a little further delay was gained. The struggle lasted indeed
+another couple of days, and the aspect of both Meynell and Mary showed
+deep marks of it by the end. Throughout it Mary made little or no appeal
+to the mere womanly arts. And perhaps it was the repression of them that
+cost her most.
+
+On the third day of discussion, while the letter still lay unposted in
+Meynell's writing-case, he went wandering by himself up the valley. The
+weather was soft again, and breathing spring. The streams ran free; the
+buds were swelling on the sycamores; and except on the topmost crags the
+snow had disappeared from the fells. Harsh and austere the valley was
+still; the winter's grip would be slow to yield; but the turn of the year
+had come.
+
+That morning a rush of correspondence forwarded from Upcote had brought
+matters to a crisis. On the days immediately following the publication of
+the evidence given at the inquest on Hester the outside world had made no
+sign. All England knew now why Richard Meynell had disappeared from the
+Arches Trial, only to become again the prey of an enormous publicity, as
+one 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 few
+days the England interested in Richard Meynell simply held its breath
+and let him be.
+
+But he belonged to the public; and after just the brief respite that
+decency and sympathy imposed, the public fell upon him. The Arches
+verdict had been given; the appeal to the Privy Council had been lodged.
+With every month of the struggle indeed, as the Modernist attack had
+grown more determined, and its support more widespread, so the orthodox
+defence had gathered force and vehemence. Yet through the length and
+breadth of the country the Modernist petition to Parliament was now
+kindling such a fire as no resistance could put out. Debate in the House
+of Commons on the Modernist proposals for Church Reform would begin after
+Easter. Already every member of the House was being bombarded from both
+sides by his constituents. Such a heat of religious feeling, such a
+passion of religious hope and fear, had not been seen in England for
+generations.
+
+And meanwhile Meynell, whose action had first released the great forces
+now at work, who as a leader was now doubly revered, doubly honoured by
+those who clamoured to be led by him, still felt himself utterly
+unable to face the struggle. Heart and brain were the prey of a deadly
+discouragement; the will could make no effort; his confidence in himself
+was lamed and helpless. Not even the growing strength and intensity of
+his 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 he
+walked, some words of Newman possessed him; breathed into his ear through
+all the wind and water voices of the valley:
+
+_Thou_ to wax fierce
+In the cause of the Lord
+To threat and to pierce
+With the heavenly sword!
+Anger and Zeal
+And the Joy of the brave
+Who bade _thee_ to feel--
+
+Dejectedly, he made his way along the fatal path; he found the ruin where
+Hester had sheltered; he gradually identified the route which the rescue
+party had taken along the side of the fell; and the precipitous scree
+where they had found her. The freshly disturbed earth and stones still
+showed plainly where she had fallen, and where he and the shepherds had
+stood, 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 load
+of responsibility crushed him; and he could not resign himself to such a
+fate for such a human being. Before him, on the chill background of the
+tells, 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 disowned
+of God--prophesy to his brethren?....
+
+Thus there descended upon him the darkest hour of his history. It was
+simply a struggle for existence on the part of all those powers of the
+soul that make for action, against the forces that make for death and
+inertia.
+
+It lasted long; and it ended in the slow and difficult triumph, the final
+ascendency of the "Yeas" of Life over the "Nays," which in truth his
+character secured. He won the difficult fight not as a philosopher, but
+as a Christian; impelled, chastened, brought into line again, by purely
+Christian memories and Christian ideas. The thought of Christ healed
+him--gradually gave him courage to bear an agony of self-criticism,
+self-reproach, that was none the less overwhelming because his calmer
+mind, looking on, knew it to be irrational. There was no prayer to
+Christ, no "Christe eleison" on his rips. But there was a solemn kneeling
+by the Cross; a solemn opening of the mind to the cleansing and
+strengthening forces that flow from that life and death which are
+Christendom's central possession; the symbol through which, now
+understood in this way, now in that, the Eternal speaks to the Christian
+soul.
+
+So, amid "the cheerful silence of the fells," a good man, heavily, took
+back his task. From this wreck of affection, this ruin of hope, he must
+go forth to preach love and hope to other men; from the depths of his
+grief 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 personal
+complacency; smarting under the conviction of personal weakness and
+defeat; tormented still, as he would ever be, by all the "might have
+beens" of Hester's story, he was conscious of the "supersensual
+moment," the inrush of Divine strength, which at some time or other
+rewards 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 planting
+snowdrops. He helped her, and then they descended to the main road
+together. Looking at his face, she hardly dared, close as his hand clung
+to hers, to break the silence.
+
+It was dusk, and there was no one in sight. In the shelter of a group of
+trees, 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 should
+have 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 ruling
+her beloved was odious. Yet as they walked on hand in hand, the modern
+in Mary prevailed, and she must needs accept the equal rights of a love
+which is also life's supreme friendship.
+
+A few more days Meynell spent in the quiet of the valley, recovering, as
+best he could, and through a struggle constantly renewed, some normal
+steadiness of mood and nerve; dealing with an immense correspondence;
+and writing the Dunchester sermon; while Stephen Barron, who had already
+resigned his own living, was looking after the Upcote Church and parish.
+Meanwhile Alice Puttenham lay upstairs in one of the little white rooms
+of 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 "this
+shocking business which had disgraced us all." But Catharine at Alice's
+entreaty had merely appealed to the indisputable fact that the tiny house
+was already more than full. There was no danger, and they had a good
+trained nurse.
+
+Once or twice it was, in these days, that again a few passing terrors ran
+through Mary's mind, on the subject of her mother. The fragility which
+had struck Meynell's unaccustomed eye when he first arrived in the valley
+forced itself now at times, though only at times, on her reluctant sense.
+There were nights when, without any definite reason, she could not sleep
+for anxiety. And then again the shadow entirely passed away. Catharine
+laughed at her; and when the moment came for Mary to follow Meynell to
+the Dunchester meeting, it was impossible even for her anxious love to
+persuade itself that there was good reason for her to stay away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before Meynell departed southward there was a long conversation between
+him 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's
+birth and of her tragic death. The beauty of Meynell's relation to the
+mother and child was plainly to be seen through a very reticent
+narrative; and to the tale of those hours in Long Whindale no man of
+heart like the little Bishop could have listened unmoved. At the end, the
+two men clasped hands in silence; and the Bishop looked wistfully at the
+priest that he and the diocese were so soon to lose.
+
+For the rest, as before, they met as equals, curiously congenial to each
+other, in spite of the battle in front. The Bishop's certainty of victory
+was once more emphatically shown by the friendly ease with which he still
+received his rebellious incumbent. Any agreeable outsider of whatever
+creed--Renan or Loisy or Tyrrell--might have been thus welcomed at the
+Palace. It was true that till the appeal was decided Meynell remained
+formally Rector of Upcote Minor. The church and the parish were still in
+his hands; and the Bishop pointedly made no reference to either. But a
+very few weeks now would see Meynell's successor installed, and the
+parish reduced to order.
+
+Such at least was the Bishop's confidence, and in the position in which
+he found himself--with seven Modernist evictions pending in his diocese,
+and many more than seven recalcitrant parishes to deal with, he was not
+the man to make needless friction.
+
+In Meynell's view, indeed, the Bishop's confidence was excessive; and the
+triumph of the orthodox majority in the Church, if indeed it were to
+triumph, was neither so near, nor likely to be so complete, as the Bishop
+believed. He had not yet been able to resume all the threads of
+leadership, but he was clear that there had been no ebbing whatever of
+the Modernist tide. On the contrary, it seemed to him that the function
+at Dunchester might yet ring through England, and startle even such
+an 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 on
+Sunday; and the loyalty of the parish to their Rector, their answer
+to the Arches judgment, was shown in the passion, the loving intelligence
+with which every portion of the beautiful Modernist service was followed
+by an audience of working men and women gathered both from Upcote
+itself and from the villages round, who knew very well--and gloried in
+the fact--that from their midst had started the flame now running through
+the country. Many of them had been trained by Methodism, and were now
+returning to the Church that Wesley had been so loath to leave. "The
+Rector's changed summat," said men to each other, puzzled by that
+aspect--that unconscious aspect--of spiritual dignity that falls like
+a robe of honour, as life goes on, about the Knights of the Spirit. But
+they knew, at least, from their newspapers, how and when that beautiful
+girl who had grown up from a child in their midst had perished; they
+remembered the winter months of calumny and persecution; and their rough,
+kind hearts went out to the man who was so soon, against their will and
+their protest, to be driven out from the church where for twenty years he
+had preached to his people a Christ they could follow, and a God they
+could adore.
+
+The week passed, and the Dunchester meeting was at hand. Meynell was to
+spend the night before the great service with the old Bishop, against
+whom--together with the whole of his Chapter--Privy Council action
+was now pending. Mary was to be the guest of one of the Canons in the
+famous Close.
+
+Meynell arrived to find the beautiful old town in commotion. As a protest
+against the Modernist demonstration, all the students from a famous
+Theological College in a neighbouring diocese under a High Church bishop
+had 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 be
+appointed to a Canonry of St. Paul's. The streets were full of rival
+crowds, jostling each other. Three hundred Modernist clergy were staying
+in or near the town; the old Cathedral city stared at them amazed; and
+from all parts had come, besides, the lay followers of the new Movement
+thronging to a day which represented for them the first fruits of a
+harvest, whereof not they perhaps but their children would see the full
+reaping.
+
+On the evening before the function Meynell went into the Cathedral with
+Mary just as the lengthening March afternoon was beginning to wane. They
+stepped through the western doors set open to the breeze and the sunshine
+into a building all opal and ebony, faintly flooded with rose from the
+sky without; a building of infinite height and majesty, where clustered
+columns of black marble, incredibly light, upheld the richness of the
+bossed roof, where every wall was broidered history, where every step was
+on "the ruined sides of Kings," and the gathered fragments of ancient
+glass, jewels themselves, let through a jewelled light upon the creamy
+stone.
+
+For the first time, since Hester's death, Meynell's sad face broke into
+joy. The glorious church appeared to him as the visible attestation of
+the 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 the
+nave, conscious of a strange tumult in the pulse, as though the great
+building with its immemorial history were half lending itself to, half
+resisting, the emotion that filled them. In the choir a practice was
+going on. Some thirty young clergy were going through the responses and
+canticles of the new service-book, with an elder man, also in clerical
+dress, directing them. At the entrance of the southern choir aisle stood
+the senior verger of the Cathedral in his black gown--open-mouthed and
+motionless, listening to the strange sounds.
+
+Meynell and Mary knelt for a moment of impassioned prayer, and then sat
+down to listen. Through the fast darkening church, chanted by half the
+choir, there stole those words of noblest poetry:
+
+"_A new commandment_--_a new commandment--I give unto you_ ..." To be
+answered by the voices on the other side--"_That ye love--ye love one
+another_!"
+
+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 the
+springing 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 the
+evening light, "and we two--and those men singing there--shall be
+outcasts and wanderers, perhaps for a time, perhaps while we live.
+But to-day--and to-morrow--we are still children in the house of our
+fathers--sons, not slaves!--speaking the free speech of our own day in
+these 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 walked
+silently through the Close, toward the Palace, pursued by the rise and
+fall of the music from within.
+
+The great service was over, with its bold adaptation of the religious
+language of the past, the language which is wrought into the being of
+Christendom, to the needs and the knowledge of the present. And now
+Meynell had risen, and was speaking to that thronged nave, crowded
+by men and women of many types and many distinctions, with that mingling
+of passion and simplicity which underlies success in all the poetic
+arts, and, first and foremost, the art of religious oratory. The
+sermon was to be known in after years by the name of "The Two
+Christianities"--and became one of the chief landmarks, or, rather,
+rallying cries of the Modernist cause. Only some fragments of it can be
+suggested here; one passage, above all, that Mary's brooding memory will
+keep close and warm to her life's end:
+
+"...Why are we here, my friends? For what purpose is this great
+demonstration, this moving rite in, which we have joined this day?
+One-sixth at least of this congregation stands here under a sentence of
+ecclesiastical death. A few weeks perhaps, and this mighty church will
+know its white-haired Bishop no more. Bishop and Chapter will have been
+driven out; and we, the rank and file, whose only desire is to cling to
+the Church in which we were baptized and bred, will find ourselves exiles
+and 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 in
+the National Church, till force drive us out. Why? Because there is
+something infinitely greater at stake than any reproach that can be
+hurled at us on the ground of broken pledges--pledges made too early,
+given in ignorance and good faith, and broken now, solemnly, in the face
+of God and this people--for a greater good. What does our personal
+consistency--which, mind you, is a very different thing from personal
+honesty!--matter? We are as sensitive as any man who attacks us on the
+point of personal honour. But we are constrained of God; we bear in our
+hands the cause of our brethren, the cause of half the nation; and we can
+no other. Ask yourselves what we have to gain by it. Nay! With expulsion
+and exile in sight--with years perhaps of the wilderness before us--we
+stand here for the liberties of Christ's Church!--its liberties of growth
+and life....
+
+"My friends, what is the life either of intellect or spirit but the
+response of man to the communication of God? Age by age, man's
+consciousness cuts deeper into the vast mystery that surrounds us;
+absorbs, transmutes, translates ever more of truth, into conceptions he
+can 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 this
+ever-living and growing advance, so religion--man's ideas of God and his
+own soul.
+
+"Within the last hundred years man's knowledge of the physical world has
+broadened beyond the utmost dreams of our fathers. But of far greater
+importance to man is his knowledge of himself. There, too, the century
+of which we are now the heirs has lifted the veil--for us first among
+living men--from secrets hitherto unknown. HISTORY has come into being.
+
+"What is history? Simply the power--depending upon a thousand laborious
+processes--of constructing a magic lens within the mind which allows us
+to look deep into the past, to see its life and colour and movement
+again, as no generation but our own has yet been able to see it. We hold
+our breath sometimes, as for a brief moment perhaps we catch its very
+gesture, its very habit as it lived, the very tone of its voices. It has
+been a new and marvellous gift of our God to us; and it has transformed
+or is transforming Christianity.
+
+"Like science, this new discipline of the human mind is divine and
+authoritative. It lessens the distance between our human thought and the
+thought of God, because, in the familiar phrase, it enables us to "think,
+in some sort, His thoughts after Him." Like science it marches slowly on
+its way; through many mistakes; through hypothesis and rectification;
+through daring vision and laborious proof; to an ever-broadening
+certainty. History has taken hold of the Christian tradition. History has
+worked upon it with an amazing tenderness, and patience, and reverence.
+And at the end of a hundred years what do we see?--that half of
+Christendom, at least, which we in this church represent?
+
+"We see a Christ stripped of Jewish legend, and Greek speculation, and
+medieval scholasticism; moving simply and divinely among the ways of His
+Jewish world, a man among men. We can watch, dimly indeed by comparison
+with our living scrutiny of living men, but still more clearly than any
+generation of Christendom since the disappearance of the first has been
+able to watch, the rise of His thoughts, the nature of His environment,
+the sequence of His acts, the original significance, the immediate
+interpretation, the subsequent influence of His death. We know much more
+of 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 with
+its working through two thousand years upon the world.
+
+"_There,_ for the Modernist, lies revelation!--in the unfolding of the
+Christian idea, through the successive stages of human thought and
+imagination, it has traversed, down to the burst of revelation in the
+present day. Yet we are only now at the beginning of an immense
+development. The content of the Christian idea of love--love,
+self-renouncing, self-fulfilling--is infinite, inexhaustible, like that
+of beauty, or of truth. Why? At this moment, I am only concerned to give
+you the Christian answer, which is the answer of a reasonable faith.
+Because, like the streams springing forever from 'the pure founts of
+Cephisus,' to nourish the swelling plains below, these governing ideas of
+our life--tested by life, confirmed by life--have their source in the
+very being of God, sharers in His Eternity, His Ever-Fruitfulness....
+
+"But even so, you have not exhausted the wealth of Christianity; For to
+the potency of the Christian idea is added the magic of an incomparable
+embodiment in human life. The story of Jesus bears the idea which it
+enshrines eternally through the world. It is to the idea as the vessel of
+the Grail.
+
+"... Do these conceptions make us love our Master less? Ask your
+own hearts? There must be many in this crowded church that have
+known sorrow--intolerable anguish and disappointment--gnawing
+self-reproach--during the past year, or months, or weeks; many that have
+watched sufferings which no philosophic optimism can explain, and
+catastrophes that leave men dumb. Some among them will have been
+driven back upon their faith--driven to the foot of the Cross. Through
+all intellectual difference, has not the natural language of their
+fathers been also their language? Is there anything in their changed
+opinions 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--that
+does--divide _us_--whose consciences dare not refuse it--from the
+immortal triumph of that death? In our sharpest straits, are we not
+comforted and cleansed and sustained by the same thoughts, the same
+visions that have always sustained and comforted the Christian? No!--the
+sons of tradition and dogma have no monopoly in the exaltation, the
+living passion of the Cross! We, too, watching that steadfastness grow
+steadfast; bowed before that innocent suffering, grow patient; drinking
+in the wonder of that faith, amid utter defeat, learn to submit and go
+forward. 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 still
+our sore hearts before our God."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Quietly and low, in tones that shook here and there, the words had fallen
+upon the spell-bound church.
+
+Mary covered her eyes. But they saw only the more intently the vision of
+Hester maimed and dying; and the face of Meynell bending over her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then from this intimity, this sacredness of feeling, the speaker
+passed gradually and finally into the challenge, the ringing yet
+brotherly challenge, it was in truth his mission to deliver. The note of
+battle--honourable, inevitable battle--pealed through the church, and
+when it ceased the immense congregation rose, possessed by one heat of
+emotion, and choir and multitude broke into the magnificent Modernist
+hymn, "Christus Rex"--written by the Bishop of the See, and already
+familiar throughout England.
+
+The service was over. Out streamed the great congregation. The Close was
+crowded to see them come. Lines of theological students were drawn up
+there, fresh-faced boys in round collars and long black coats, who, as
+the main body of the Modernist clergy approached, began defiantly to
+chant the Creed. Meynell, with the old yet stately Bishop leaning on his
+arm, passed them with a friendly, quiet look. He caught sight for a
+moment of the tall form of Fenton, standing at their rear--the long face
+ascetically white, and sternly fixed.
+
+He left the Bishop at the gates of the Palace, and went back quickly for
+Mary. Suddenly he ran into an advancing figure and found his hand grasped
+by 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 and
+clouded.
+
+"And there was one man there--not a Modernist--who grieved, like a
+Modernist, over the future!"
+
+"Ah, the future!" said Meynell, throwing his head back. "That is not for
+you or me--not for the bishops, nor for that body which we call the
+Church--that is for _England_ to settle."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But another meeting remained.
+
+At the parting with Dornal, Meynell turned a corner and saw in front of
+him, walking alone, a portly gentleman, with a broad and substantial
+back. A start ran through him. After a moment's hesitation, he began to
+quicken 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 quite
+unconscious of the fact that a passing group of clergy opposite were
+staring across the street in amazement at the juxtaposition of the two
+men, 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 to
+inquire after Maurice? I hope your mind is more at ease about him."
+
+"He is doing well--for the moment." Another pause--broken by Barron, who
+said hurriedly in a different voice--"I got from him the whole story of
+the 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 would
+have meant."
+
+"No doubt," said Meynell, struck with pity, as he looked at the sunken
+face of the speaker. "And anyway--bygones are bygones. I hope your
+daughter 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 orthodox
+party had no room in its ranks, at that moment, for Henry Barron; and it
+was not hard to imagine what exclusion and ostracism must mean to
+such a temper. But the generous compunctions in his own mind could find
+no practical expression; and after a few more words they parted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next morning, while every newspaper in the country was eagerly discussing
+the events at Dunchester, Catharine, in the solitude of Long Whindale,
+and with a full two hours yet to wait for the carrier who brought the
+papers from Whinborough, was pondering letters from Rose and Mary written
+from Dunchester on the preceding afternoon. Her prayer-book lay beside
+her. Before the post arrived she had been reading by herself the Psalms
+and Lessons, according to the old-fashioned custom of her youth.
+
+The sweetness of Mary's attempt to bring out everything in the Modernist
+demonstration that might be bearable or even consoling to Catharine, and
+to 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 the
+Palace; and though there were many people waiting to see him, he is
+writing to you now; and so am I. Through it all, he feels so near to
+you--and to my father; so truly your son, your most loving son....
+
+"Dearest--I am troubled to hear from Alice this morning that yesterday
+you were tired and even went to lie down. I know my too Spartan mother
+doesn't do that without ten times as much reason as other people. Oh! do
+take care of yourself, my precious one. To-morrow, I fly back to you with
+all my news. And you will meet me with that love of yours which has
+never failed me, as it never failed my father. It will take Richard and
+me a life time to repay it. But we'll try! ... Dear love to my poor
+Alice. 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 come
+out of it finely, though I must say he looks at times more like a ghost
+than a man. From the Church point of view, dear, you were wise not to
+come, for your feelings must have been sadly mixed, and you might have
+been compelled to take Privy Council proceedings against yourself. I need
+not say that Hugh and I felt an ungodly delight in it--in the crowd and
+the 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 in
+the throng of foolish youths from the Theological College who seemed to
+think they settled everything by singing the Creed at us. (What a pity
+you can't enjoy the latest description of the Athanasian Creed! It is by
+a Quaker. He compares it to 'the guesses of a ten-year old child at the
+contents of his father's library.' Hugh thinks it good--but I don't
+expect 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 Modernists
+will be all camping in tents, it seems, by the wayside. Very touching and
+very exciting. But I am getting too sleepy to think about it. Dear
+Cathie--I run on--but I love you. Please keep well. Good-bye."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Catharine laid the letter down, still smiling against her will over some
+of its chatter, and unconsciously made happy by the affection that
+breathed from its pages no less than from Mary's.
+
+Yet certainly she was very tired. She became sharply conscious of her
+physical 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 very
+dear to Catharine, partly for her own sake, and partly because to be in
+bitter need and helplessness was to be sure of Catharine's tenderness.
+Very possibly they two, when Mary married, might make their home
+together. And Catharine promised herself to bring calm at least and
+loving help to one who had suffered so much.
+
+The window was half open to the first mild day of March; beside it stood
+a 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 through
+the black buds of the ash-trees, and in the distance a sheep-dog could be
+heard barking on the fells. So quiet it was--the spring sunshine--and so
+sweet. Back into Catharine's mind there flowed the memory of her own
+love-story in the valley; her hand trembled again in the hand of her
+lover.
+
+Then with a sudden onset her mortal hour came upon her. She tried to
+move, to call, and could not. There was no time for any pain of parting.
+For one remaining moment of consciousness there ran through the brain
+the images, affections, adorations of her life. Swift, incredibly swift,
+the vision of an opening glory--a heavenly throng!... Then the tired
+eyelids fell, the head lay heavily on the cushion behind it, and in the
+little room the song of the robin and the murmur of the stream flowed
+on--unheard.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Case of Richard Meynell, by Mrs. Humphry Ward
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CASE OF RICHARD MEYNELL ***
+
+This file should be named 8rmey10.txt or 8rmey10.zip
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8rmey11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8rmey10a.txt
+
+Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland,
+Mary Meehan and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
+even years after the official publication date.
+
+Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.
+
+Most people start at our Web sites at:
+http://gutenberg.net or
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
+Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
+eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
+
+
+Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
+can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
+also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
+indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
+announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
+ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03
+
+Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
+
+Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
+as it appears in our Newsletters.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
+files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
+We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
+If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
+will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
+
+Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):
+
+eBooks Year Month
+
+    1  1971 July
+   10  1991 January
+  100  1994 January
+ 1000  1997 August
+ 1500  1998 October
+ 2000  1999 December
+ 2500  2000 December
+ 3000  2001 November
+ 4000  2001 October/November
+ 6000  2002 December*
+ 9000  2003 November*
+10000  2004 January*
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
+to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
+and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
+Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
+Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
+Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
+Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
+Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
+Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
+Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
+
+We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
+that have responded.
+
+As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
+will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
+Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
+
+In answer to various questions we have received on this:
+
+We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
+request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
+you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
+just ask.
+
+While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
+not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
+donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
+donate.
+
+International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
+how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
+deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
+ways.
+
+Donations by check or money order may be sent to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655-4109
+
+Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
+method other than by check or money order.
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
+the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
+[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
+tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
+requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
+made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+You can get up to date donation information online at:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
+you can always email directly to:
+
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
+
+We would prefer to send you information by email.
+
+
+**The Legal Small Print**
+
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
+you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
+is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
+through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
+Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
+under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
+any commercial products without permission.
+
+To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
+receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
+all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from. If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
+and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
+with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
+legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
+following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
+[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
+or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word
+     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
+     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
+     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
+     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
+     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
+     let us know your plans and to work out the details.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
+public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
+in machine readable form.
+
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
+public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
+Money should be paid to the:
+"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
+software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
+when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
+Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
+used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
+they hardware or software or any other related product without
+express permission.]
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*
+
diff --git a/old/8rmey10.zip b/old/8rmey10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..16b5a01
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/8rmey10.zip