I satisfied myself by inquiry that he was not likely to get well immediately and then I sent for another doctor. This man turned out to be one of my original supporters and I think his feelings must have been hurt by my calling in McMeekin. He had also, I could see, been greatly influenced by Lalage. He told me, with insulting directness of speech, that there was nothing the matter with me. I could not remember the names of the diseases which McMeekin said I had or might develop. The nurse, who could have remembered them if she liked, would not. The new doctor, an aggressive, red-faced young man, repeated his statement that I was perfectly well. He emphasized it by refusing to take a fee. My nurse, with evident delight, packed her box and left by the next train. After that there was nothing for me but to go home.

My mother must have been disappointed at the result of the East Connor election. She believed, I fear she still believes, that I am fitted to make laws and would be happy in the work. But she has great tact. She did not, by either word or glance, condole with me over my defeat.

I also possess a little tact, so I did not exult or express any gratification in her presence. We neither of us mentioned the subject of the election. My uncle Thormanby, on the other hand, has no tact at all. He came over to luncheon the day after I arrived home. We had scarcely sat down at table when he began to jeer.

"Well," he said, speaking in his usual hearty full-throated way, "better luck next time."

"I am not sure," I said, with dignified coolness, "that there will be a next time."

"Oh, yes, there will. 'He who fights and runs away will live to fight another day.'"

I did not see how the proverb applied to me.

"Do you mean the influenza?" I said. "That was scarcely my fault. My temperature was 104."

"All the same," said Thormanby, "you didn't exactly stand up to her, did you?"

I understood then that he was thinking about La-lage.

"Nor did O'Donoghue," I said. "And Vittie really was shamming. Titherington told me so."

"Influenza or no influenza, I shouldn't have sat down under the things that girl was saying about you."

"What would you have done?"

"I should have put her in her place pretty quick. I'm sorry I wasn't there."

As a matter of fact Thormanby had taken very good care not to be there. He had washed his hands and put the whole responsibility on the shoulders of Miss Battersby and Miss Pettigrew. I felt it my duty to bring this home to his conscience.

"Why didn't you come?" I asked. "We'd have been very pleased to see you."

"Peers," he replied, "are not allowed to interfere in elections."

This, of course, was a mere subterfuge. I was not inclined to let Thormanby escape.

"You'll have every opportunity," I said, "of putting her in her place without running your head against the British constitution. She means to take an active part in electing the new bishop."

"Nonsense. There's no part for her to take. That's a matter for the synod of the diocese and she won't be allowed into its meetings."

"All the same she'll manage to get in. But of course that won't matter. You'll put her in her place pretty quick."

Thormanby's tone was distinctly less confident when he next spoke.

"Do you happen to know," he asked, "what she means to do?"

"No, I don't."

"Could you possibly find out? She might tell you if you asked her."

"I don't intend to ask her. I have washed my hands of the whole affair."

My mother came into the conversation at this point.

"Lalage hasn't confided in me," she said, "but she has told Miss Battersby——"

"Ah!" I said, "Miss Battersby is so wonderfully sympathetic. Anybody would confide in her."

"She told Miss Battersby," my mother went on, "that she was studying the situation and looking into the law of the matter."

"Let her stick to that," said Thormanby.

"Are Hilda and Selby-Harrison down here?" I asked.

"Hilda is," said my mother. "I don't know about the other. Who is he or she?"

"He," I said, "is the third member of the committee of the Episcopal Election Guild. He's particularly good at drawing up agreements. I expect the Archdeacon will have to sign one. By the way, I suppose he's the proper man to vote for?"

"I'm supporting him," said Thormanby, "so I suppose you will." I do not like being hustled in this way. "I shall study the situation," I said, "before I make up my mind. I am a life member of the Episcopal Election Guild and I must allow myself to be guided to some extent by the decision of the committee."

"Do you mean to tell me," said Thormanby, "that you've given that girl money again?"

"Not again. My original subscription carries me on from one society to another. Selby-Harrison arranged about that."

"I should have thought," said Thormanby sulkily, "that you'd had warnings enough. You will never learn sense even if you live to be a hundred."

I saw the Archdeacon next day. He tackled the subject of my defeat in East Connor without hesitation. He has even less tact than Thormanby.

"I'm sorry for you, my dear boy," he said, wringing my hand, "more sorry than I can tell you. These disappointments are very hard to bear at your age. When you are as old as I am and know how many of them life has in store for all of us, you will not feel them nearly so acutely."

"I'm trying to bear up," I said.

"Your defeat is a public loss. I feel that very strongly. After your diplomatic experience and with your knowledge of foreign affairs your advice would have been invaluable in all questions of imperial policy."

"I'm greatly gratified to hear you say that. I was afraid you thought I had taken to drink."

"My dear boy," said the Archdeacon with pained surprise, "what can have put such an idea into your head?"

"I couldn't help knowing what was in your mind that day in Dublin when I spoke to you about Lalage's Jun. Soph. Ord."

I could see that the Archdeacon was uncomfortable. He had certainly entertained suspicions when we parted in St. Stephen's Green, though he might now pretend to have forgotten them.

"You thought so then," I went on, "though it was quite early in the day."

"Not at all. I happened to be in a hurry. That is all. I knew perfectly well it was only your manner."

"I don't blame you in the least. Anybody might have thought just as you did."

"But I didn't. I knew you were upset at the time. You were anxious about Lalage Beresford. She's a charming girl, with a very good heart, but——"

The Archdeacon hesitated.

"But——" I said, encouraging him to go on.

"Did you hear," he said, anxiously, "that she intends to take part in the episcopal election? A rumour to that effect has reached me."

"I have it on the best authority that she does."

"Tut, tut," said the Archdeacon. "Do you tell me so? Tut, tut. But that is quite impossible and most undesirable, for her own sake most undesirable."

"We're all relying on you to prevent scandal."

"Your uncle, Lord Thormanby——"

"He'll put her in her place. He's promised to do so. And that will be all right as far as it goes. But the question is will she stay there. That's where you come in, Archdeacon. Once she's in her place it will be your business, as Archdeacon, to keep her there."

"I'll speak to her father about it," said the Archdeacon. "Beresford must put his foot down."

"He's going to Brazil. He told me so."

"We can't have that. He must stay here. It's perfectly impossible for him to leave the country at present. I'll see him this evening."

I told my mother that night that I had studied the situation long enough and was fully determined to cast my vote for the Archdeacon.

"He is thoroughly well fitted to be a bishop," I said. "He told me to-day that my knowledge of foreign affairs would be most valuable to the government whenever questions of imperial policy turned up."

My mother seemed a little puzzled.

"What has that got to do with the bishopric?" she asked.

"The remark," I said, "shows me the kind of man the Archdeacon is. No one who was not full of suave dignity and sympathetic diplomacy could have said a thing like that. What more do you want in a bishop?"

"A great deal more," said my mother, who takes these church questions seriously.

"He also undertook," I said, "to keep Lalage in her place once she is put there."

"If he does that——"

"I quite agree with you. If he does that he ought to be a bishop, or a Metropolitan, if not a Patriarch. That's why I'm going to vote for him."



CHAPTER XVIII

My mother appeared to think that I had grown lazy since I recovered from my attack of influenza. She continually pressed me to take exercise and invented a hundred different excuses for getting me out of doors. When I saw that her heart was really set on seeing me walk I did what I could to gratify her. I promised to go over to the rectory after luncheon on the very next fine day. There seemed no prospect of a fine day for at least a month, and so I felt tolerably safe in making the promise. But there is nothing so unreliable as weather, especially Irish weather. I had no sooner made my promise than the clouds began to break. At twelve o'clock it stopped raining. At one the sun was shining with provoking brilliancy. I tried to ignore the change and at luncheon complained bitterly of the cold. My mother, by way of reply, remarked on the cheerful brightness of the sunshine. She did not, in so many words, ask me to redeem my promise, but I knew what was in her mind.

"All right," I said, "I'm going. I shall put on a pair of thick boots. I should prefer driving, but of course——"

"Walking will be much better for you." "That's just what I was going to say, I shall run a certain amount of risk, of course. I may drop down exhausted. I am still very weak; weaker than I look. Or I may get overheated. Or I may get too cold."

My mother, curiously enough, for she was very fond of me, did not seem frightened.

"McMeekin told me," I went on, "that a relapse after influenza is nearly always fatal. However, I have made my will and I fully intend to walk."

I did walk as far as the gate lodge and about a hundred yards beyond it. It was not in any way my fault that I got no farther. I was actually beginning to like walking and should certainly have gone on if Lalage had not stopped me. She and Hilda were in the Canon's pony trap, driving furiously. Lalage held the reins. Hilda clung with both hands to the side of the trap. The pony was galloping hard and foaming at the mouth. I stepped aside when I saw them coming and climbed more than halfway up a large wooden gate which happened to be near me at the time. The road was very muddy and I did not want to be splashed from head to foot. Besides, there was a risk of being run over. When Lalage caught sight of me she pulled up the pony with a jerk.

"We were just going to see you," she said. "It's great luck catching you like this. What's simony?"

I climbed down from the gate, slowly, so as to get time to think. The question surprised me and I was not prepared to give, offhand, a definition of simony.

"I don't know," I said at last, "but I think, in fact I'm nearly sure, that it is some kind of ecclesiastical offence, perhaps a heresy. Were you coming to see me in order to find out?"

"Yes, That's the reason we were in such a terrific hurry."

"Quite so," I said. "I was a little surprised at first to see you galloping, but now I understand."

"Would it," said Lalage, "be simony to cheek an Archdeacon?"

"It might. It very well might. Is that what you've done, Hilda?"

"I didn't," said Hilda.

"You did, just as much as me," said Lalage, "and it was to you he said it, so he evidently meant you. Not that either of us did cheek him really."

"Why didn't you ask your father?" I said. "He's a Canon and he'd be almost sure to know."

"I didn't like to speak to him about it until I knew what it was. It might turn out to be something that I wouldn't care to talk to him about, something—you know the kind of thing I mean."

"Improper?"

"Not quite so bad as that, but the same sort."

"Risque? But surely the Archdeacon wouldn't say anything the least——"

"You never know," said Lalage.

"And if it had been that Hilda would never have done it."

"I didn't," said Hilda.

"Of course if it's nothing worse than ordinary cheek," said Lalage, "I shouldn't have minded talking to father about it in the least. But I don't see how it could be that, for we didn't cheek him. Did we, Hilda?"

"I didn't," said Hilda.

"If there'd been anything of the other sort about it—and it sounds rather like that, doesn't it?"

"Very," I said; "but you can't trust sounds."

"Anyhow, we thought it safer to come to you," said Lalage.

"That was nice of you both."

"I don't see anything nice about it one way or the other," said Lalage. "We simply thought that if it was anything—anything not quite ladylike, you'd be sure to know all about it."

I do not know why Lalage should saddle me with a reputation of this kind. I have never done anything to deserve it. My feelings were hurt.

"As it turns out not to be improper," I said, "there's no use coming to me."

I spoke severely, in cold tones, with great stiffness of manner. Lalage was not in the least snubbed.

"Have you any book in the house that would tell you?" she asked.

"I have a dictionary."

"Stupid of me," said Lalage, "not to have thought of a dictionary, and frightfully stupid of you, Hilda. You ought to have thought of it. You were always fonder of dictionaries than I was. There are two or three of them in the rectory. We might have gone straight there and looked it out. We'll go now."

"If it's a really pressing matter," I said, "you'll save a few minutes by coming back with me. You're fully a quarter of a mile from the rectory this minute."

"Right," said Lalage. "Let down the back of the trap and hop up. We'll drive you."

I let down the seat and then hopped. I hopped quite a long way before I succeeded in getting up. For Lalage started before I was nearly ready and urged the pony to a gallop at once. When we reached the house I sent the unfortunate animal round to the stable yard, with orders that he was to be carefully rubbed down and then walked about until he was cool. Lalage, followed by Hilda and afterward by me, went into the library.

"Now," she said, "trot out your best dictionary."

I collected five, one of them an immense work in four volumes, and laid them in a row on the table.

"Hilda," said Lalage, "look it out."

Hilda chose, the largest dictionary and after a short hesitation picked up the volume labelled "Jab to Sli." She stared at the word without speaking for some time after she found it. Lalage and I looked over her shoulder and, when we saw the definition, stared too. It was Lalage who read it out in the end:

"Simony from Simon Magus, Acts VIII. The crime of buying or selling ecclesiastical preferment or the corrupt presentation of any one to an ecclesiastical benefice for money or reward."

I own that I was puzzled. Lalage is a person of great originality and daring, but I did not see how even she could possibly have committed simony. She and Hilda looked at each other. There was an expression of genuine astonishment on their faces.

"Do you think," said Lalage at last, "that the Archdeacon could by any chance have gone suddenly dotty in the head?"

"He was quite sane the day before yesterday," I said. "I was talking to him."

"Well, then, I don't understand it. Whatever else we did we didn't do that or anything like it. Did we, Hilda?"

"I didn't," said Hilda, who seemed as unwilling as ever to answer for Lalage.

"For one thing," said Lalage, "we hadn't got any ecclesiastical preferments to sell and we hadn't any money to buy them, so we couldn't have simonied even if we'd wanted to. But he certainly said we had. Just tell exactly what he did say, Hilda. It was to you he said it."

Hilda, with a very fair imitation of the Archdeacon's manner, repeated his words:

"'Young lady, are you aware that this is the sin of simony?'"

I took the dictionary in my hand.

"There's a bit more," I said, "that you didn't read. Perhaps there is some secondary meaning in the word. I'll go on: 'By stat: 31 Elizabeth C. Vn. Severe penalties are enacted against this crime. In the church of Scotland simonaical practices——' Well, we're not in Scotland anyhow, so we needn't go into that. I wonder if stat: 31 Elizabeth C. VII runs in this country. Some don't; but it sounds to me rather as if it would. If it does, you're in a nasty fix, Lalage; you and Hilda. Several penalties can hardly mean less than imprisonment with hard labour.

"But we didn't do it," said Lalage.

"The Archdeacon appears to think you did," I said, "both of you, especially Hilda. You must have done something. You'd better tell me exactly what occurred from the beginning of the interview until the end. I'll try and pick out what struck the Archdeacon as simonaical. I don't want to see either of you run in for severe penalties if we can help it. I expect the best thing will be to repent and apologize at once."

"Repent of what?" said Lalage.

"That's what I want to find out. Begin at the beginning now and give me the whole story."

"We drove over this morning," said Lalage, "to see the Archdeacon. I didn't want to go a bit, for the Archdeacon is particularly horrid when he's nice, as he is just at present. But Selby-Harrison said we ought."

"Is Selby-Harrison here?"

"No. He wrote from Dublin. He's been looking up the subject of bishops in the college library so that we'd know exactly what we ought to do."

"He should have looked up simony first thing. I can't forgive Selby-Harrison for letting you in for those severe penalties."

"There wasn't a bit of harm in what he said. It was nearly all out of the Bible and the ancient Fathers of the Church and Councils and things. It couldn't have been simony. You have his letter, haven't you, Hilda? Read it out."

Hilda opened the small bag she always carries and took out the letter. It looked to me a very long one.

"I don't know," I said, "that Selby-Harrison's letter really matters unless you read it out to the Archdeacon."

"We didn't get the chance," said Lalage, "although we meant to."

"Then you needn't read it to me."

"We must. Otherwise you won't know why we went to see the Archdeacon."

"Couldn't you give me in a few words a general idea of the contents of the letter?"

"You do that, Hilda," said Lalage.

"It was nothing," said Hilda, "but a list of the things a bishop ought to be."

"Qualifications for the office," said Lalage.

"And you went over to the Archdeacon to find out whether he came up to the standard. I'm beginning to understand."

"I thought at the time," said Hilda, "that it was rather cheek."

"It was," I said, "but it doesn't seem to me, so far, to amount to actual simony."

"It was a perfectly natural and straightforward thing to do," said Lalage. "How could we possibly support the Archdeacon in the election unless we'd satisfied ourselves that he had the proper qualifications?"

"Anyhow," I said, "whether the Archdeacon mistook it for cheek or not—and I can quite understand that he might—it wasn't simony."

"That's just what bothers us," said Lalage. "Do you think that dictionary of yours could possibly be wrong?"

"It might," I said. "Let's try another."

Hilda tried three others. The wording of their definitions varied, but they were all in substantial agreement with the first.

"There must," I said, "have been something in the questions which you put to the Archdeacon which suggested simony to his mind. What did you ask him?"

"I didn't ask him anything. I intended to but I hadn't time. He was on top of us with his old simony before I opened my mouth."

"You did say one thing," said Hilda.

"Then that must have been it," I said.

"It wasn't in the least simonious," said Lalage. "In fact it wasn't anything at all. It was merely a polite way of beginning the conversation."

"All the same," I said. "It was simony. It must have been, for there was nothing else. What was it?"

"It wasn't of any importance," said Lalage. "I simply said—just in the way you might say you hoped his cold was better without meaning anything in particular—that I supposed if he was elected bishop he'd make father archdeacon."

"Ah!" I said.

"He flew out at that straight away. Rather ridiculous of him, wasn't it? He can't be both bishop and archdeacon, so he needn't try. He must give up the second job to some one or other. I'd have thought he'd have seen that at once."

I referred to the dictionary.

"'Or the corrupt presentation of any one to an eccelesiastical benefice for money or reward.' That's where he has you, Lalage. You were offering to present him——"

"I wasn't. How could I?"

"He thought you were, any how, And the reward in this case evidently was that your father should be made into an archdeacon."

"That's the greatest nonsense I ever heard. It wouldn't be a reward. Father would simply hate it."

"The Archdeacon couldn't be expected to understand that. Having held the office for so long himself he naturally regards it as highly desirable."

"What about the penalties?" said Hilda nervously.

"By far the best thing you can do," I said, "is to grovel profusely. If you both cast ashes on your heads and let the tears run down your cheeks——"

"If the Archdeacon is such a fool as you're trying to make out," said Lalage, "I shall simply write to him and say that nothing on earth would induce me to allow my father to parade the country dressed up in an apron and a pair of tight black gaiters."

"If you say things like that to him," I said, "he'll exact the penalties. See stat: 31 Elizabeth C. VII. You may not mind, but Hilda's mother will."

"Yes," said Hilda, "she'll be frightfully angry."

At this moment my mother came into the library.

"Thank goodness," said Lalage, "we have some one at last who can talk sense."

My mother looked questioningly at me. I offered her an explanation of the position in the smallest possible number of words.

"The Archdeacon," I said, "is going to put Lalage and Hilda into prison for simony."

"He can't," said Lalage, "for we didn't do it."

"They did," I said, "both of them. They offered to present the Archdeacon corruptly to an ecclesiastical benefice for a reward."

"It wasn't a reward."

"Lalage," said my mother, "have you been meddling with this bishopric election?"

"I simply tried," said Lalage, "to find out whether he was properly qualified."

"You did more than that," I said; "you tried to get a reward."

"If you take my advice——" said my mother.

"I will," said Lalage, "and so will Hilda."

That threatening statute of Queen Elizabeth's must have frightened Lalage. I never before knew her so meek.

"Then leave the question of the Archdeacon's qualifications," said my mother, "to those who have to elect him."

"Not to me," I said hurriedly. "I couldn't work through that list of Selby-Harrison's. Try my uncle. Try Lord Thormanby. He'll like it."

"There's one thing——" said Lalage.

"Leave it to the synod," said my mother.

"Or to Lord Thormanby," I said.

"Very well," said Lalage. "I will. But perhaps he won't care to go into it, and if he doesn't I shall have to act myself."

"He will," I said. "He has a perfectly tremendous sense of responsibility."

"And now," said my mother, "come along, all of you, to the drawing-room and have tea."

"Is it all right?" said Hilda anxiously to me as we left the room.

"Quite," I said; "there'll be no prosecution. My mother can do anything she likes with the Archdeacon, just as she does with Lalage. He'll not enforce a single penalty."

"She's wonderful," said Hilda.

I quite agreed. She is. Even Miss Pettigrew could not do as much. It was more by good luck than anything else that she succeeded in luring Lalage away from Ballygore.



CHAPTER XIX

I congratulated my mother that night on her success in dealing with Lalage.

"Your combination," I said, "of tact, firmness, sympathy, and reasonableness was most masterly."

My mother smiled gently. I somehow gathered from her way of smiling that she thought my congratulations premature.

"Surely," I said, "you don't think she'll break out again. She made you a definite promise."

"She'll keep her promise to the letter," said my mother, still smiling in the same way.

"If she does," I said, "she can't do anything very bad."

It turned out—it always does—that my mother was right and I was wrong. The next morning at breakfast a note was handed to me by the footman. He said it had been brought over from Thormanby Park by a groom on horseback. It was marked "Urgent" in red ink.

Thormanby acts at times in a violent and impulsive manner. If I were his uncle, and so qualified by relationship to give him the advice he frequently gives me, I should recommend him to cultivate repose of manner and leisurely dignity of action. He is a peer of this realm, and has, besides, been selected by his fellow peers to represent them in the House of Lords. He ought not to send grooms scouring the country at breakfast time, carrying letters which look, on the outside, as if they announced the discovery of dangerous conspiracies. I said this and more to my mother before opening the envelope, and she seemed to agree with me that the political and social decay of our aristocracy is to some extent to be traced to their excitability and lack of self-control. By way of demonstrating my own calm, I laid the envelope down beside my plate and refrained from opening it until I had finished the kidney I was eating at the time. The letter, when I did read it, turned out to be quite as hysterical as the manner of its arrival. Thormanby summoned me to his presence—there is no other way of describing the style in which he wrote—and ordered me to start immediately.

"I can't imagine what has gone wrong," I said. "Do you think that Miss Battersby can have gone suddenly mad and assaulted one of the girls with a battle axe?"

"It is far more likely that Lalage has done something," said my mother.

"After her promise to you what could she have done?"

"She might have kept it."

I thought this over and got a grip on the meaning by degrees.

"You mean," I said, "that she has appealed to my uncle on some point about the Archdeacon's qualifications."

"Exactly."

"But that wouldn't upset him so much."

"It depends on what the point is."

"She's extraordinarily ingenious," I said. "Perhaps I'd better go over to Thormanby Park and see."

"Finish your breakfast," said my mother. "I'll order the trap for you."

I arrived at Thormanby Park shortly after ten o'clock. The door was opened to me by Miss Battersby. She confessed that she had been watching for me from the window of the morning room which looks out over the drive. She squeezed my hand when greeting me and held it so long that I was sure she was suffering from some acute anxiety. She also spoke breathlessly, in a sort of gasping whisper, as if she had been running hard. She had not, of course, run at all. The gasps were due to excitement and agony.

"I'm so glad you've come," she said. "I knew you would. Lord Thormanby is waiting for you in the library. I do hope you won't say anything to make it worse. You'll try not to, won't you?"

I gathered from this that it, whatever it was, must be very bad already.

"Lalage?" I said.

Miss Battersby nodded solemnly.

"My mother told me it must be that, before I started."

"If you could," said Miss Battersby persuasively, "and if you would——"

"I can and will," I said. "What is it?"

"I don't know. But I can't bear to think of poor little Lalage bearing all the blame."

"I can't well take the blame," I said, "although I'm perfectly willing to do so, unless I can find out what it is she's done."

"I don't know. I wish I did. There was a letter from her this morning to Lord Thormanby, but he didn't show it to me."

"If it's in her handwriting," I said, "there's no use my saying I wrote it. He wouldn't believe me. But if it's typewritten and not signed, I'll say it's mine."

"Oh, I wouldn't ask you to do so much as that. Besides, it wouldn't be true."

"It won't be true in any case," I said, "if I take even part of the blame."

"But you mustn't say what isn't true."

Miss Battersby is unreasonable, though she means well. It is clearly impossible for me to be strictly truthful and at the same time to claim, as my own, misdeeds of which I do not even know the nature. I walked across the hall in the direction of the library door. Miss Battersby followed me with her hand on my arm.

"Do your best for her," she whispered pleadingly.

Thormanby was certainly in a very bad temper. He was sitting at the far side of a large writing table when I entered the room. He did not rise or shake hands with me. He simply pushed a letter across the table toward me with the end of a paper knife. His action gave me the impression that the letter was highly infectious.

"Look at that," he said.

I looked and saw at once that it was in Lalage's handwriting. I was obliged to give up the idea of claiming it as mine.

"Why don't you read it?" said Thormanby.

"I didn't know you wanted me to. Do you?"

"How the deuce are you to know what's in it if you don't read it?"

"It's quite safe, I suppose?"

"Safe? Safe? What do you mean?"

"When I saw you poking at it with that paper knife I thought it might be poisoned."

Thormanby growled and I took up the letter. Lalage has a courteous but perfectly lucid style. I read:

"Dear Lord Thormanby, as a member of the Diocesan Synod you are, I feel sure, quite as anxious as I am that only a really suitable man should be elected bishop. I therefore enclose a carefully drawn list of the necessary and desirable qualifications for that office."

"You have the list?" I said.

"Yes. She sent the thing. She has cheek enough for anything."

"Selby-Harrison drew it up, so if there's anything objectionable in it he's the person you ought to blame, not Lalage."

I felt that I was keeping my promise to Miss Battersby. I had succeeded in implicating another culprit. Not more than half the blame was now Lalage's.

"The sine qua nons," the letter went on, "are marked with red crosses, the desiderata in black."

"I'm glad," I said, "that she got one plural right. By the way, I wonder what the plural of that phrase really is. It can't be sines qua non, and yet sine quibus sounds pedantic."

I said this in the hope of mitigating Thormanby's wrath by turning his thoughts into another channel.

I failed. He merely growled again. I went on reading the letter:

"You will observe at once that the Archdeacon, whom we should all like to have as our new bishop, possesses every requirement for the office except one, number fifteen on the enclosed list, marked for convenience of reference, with a violet asterisk."

"What is the missing sine qua?" I asked. "Don't tell me if it's private."

"It's—it's—damn it all, look for yourself." He flung a typewritten sheet of foolscap at me. I picked my way carefully among the red and black crosses until I came to the violet asterisk.

"No. 15. 'A bishop must be the husband of one wife'—I Tim: III."

"That's rather a poser," I said, "if true. It seems to me to put the Archdeacon out of the running straight off."

"No. It doesn't," said Thormanby. "That's where the girl's infernal insolence comes in."

I read:

"This obstacle, though under the present circumstances an absolute bar, is fortunately remedial."

"I wish Lalage would be more careful," I said, "she ought to have written 'remediable.' However her meaning is quite plain."

"It gets plainer further on," said Thormanby grinning.

This was the first time I had seen him grin since I came into the room. I took it for an encouraging sign.

Lalage's letter went on:

"The suggestion of the obvious remedy, must be made by some one, for the Archdeacon has evidently not thought of it himself. It would come particularly well from you, occupying as you do a leading position in the diocese. Unfortunately the time at our disposal is very short, and it will hardly do to leave the Archdeacon without some practical suggestion for the immediate-remedying of the sad defect. What you will have to offer him is a scheme thoroughly worked out and perfect in every detail. The name of Miss Battersby will probably occur to you at once. I need not remind you of her sweet and lovable disposition. You have been long acquainted with her, and will recognize in her a lady peculiarly well suited to share an episcopal throne."

Thormanby became almost purple in the face as I read out the final sentences of the letter. I saw that he was struggling with some strong emotion and suspected that he wanted very much to laugh. If he did he suppressed the desire manfully. His forehead was actually furrowed with a frown when I had finished. I laid the letter down on the table and tapped it impressively with my forefinger.

"That," I said, "strikes me as a remarkably good suggestion."

Thormanby exploded.

"Of all the damned idiots I've ever met," he said, "you're the worst. Do you mean to say that you expect me to drag Miss Battersby over to the Archdeacon's house and dump her down there in a white satin dress with a wedding ring tied round her neck by a ribbon and a stodgy cake tucked under her arm?"

"I haven't actually worked out all the details," I said. "I am thinking more of the plan in its broad outlines. After all, the Archdeacon isn't married. We can't get over that. If that text of First Timothy is really binding—I don't myself know whether it is or not, but I'm inclined to take Selby-Harrison's word for it that it is. He's in the Divinity School and has been making a special study of the subject. If he's right, there's no use our electing the Archdeacon and then having the Local Government Board coming down on us afterward for appointing an unqualified man. You remember the fuss they made when the Urban District Council took on a cookery instructress who hadn't got her diploma."

"That wasn't the Local Government Board. It was the Department of Agriculture. But in any case neither the one nor the other of them has anything in the world to do with bishops."

"Don't you be too sure of that. I expect you'll find they have if you appoint a man who isn't properly qualified, and the law on the subject is perfectly plain."

"Rot! Lots of bishops aren't married. Texts of that sort never mean what they seem to mean."

"What's the good of running risks," I said, "when the remedy is in our own hands? I don't see that the Archdeacon could do better than Miss Battersby. She's wonderfully sympathetic."

"You'd better go and tell him so yourself."

"I would, I'd go like a shot, only most unluckily he's got it into his head that I've taken to drink. He might think, just at first, that I wasn't quite myself if I went to him with a suggestion of that sort."

"There'd be some excuse for him if he did," said Thormanby.

"Whereas, if you, who have always been strictly temperate——"

"I didn't send for you," said Thormanby, "to stand there talking like a born fool. What I want you to do——"

He paused and blew his nose with some violence.

"Yes?" I said.

"Is to go and put a muzzle on that girl of Beresford's."

"If you're offering me a choice," I said, "I'd a great deal rather drag Miss Battersby over to the Archdeacon's house and dump her down there in a wedding ring with a white satin dress tied round her neck by a ribbon. I might manage that, but I'm constitutionally unfitted to deal with Lalage. It was you who said you would put her in her place. I told the Archdeacon he could count on you."

"I'll see Beresford to-day, anyhow."

"Not the least use. He's going to one of the South American republics where there's no extradition."

"I'll speak to your mother about it."

"As a matter of fact," I said, "Lalage is acting strictly in accordance with my mother's instructions in referring this matter to you. Why not try Miss Pettigrew?"

"I will. Who is she?"

"She used to be Lalage's schoolmistress."

"Does she use the cane?"

"This," I said, "is entirely your affair. I've washed my hands of it so I'm not even offering advice, but if I were you I'd be careful about anything in the way of physical violence. Remember that Lalage has Selby-Harrison behind her and he knows the law. You can see for yourself by the way he ferreted out that text of First Timothy that he has the brain of a first-rate solicitor."

I left the room after that. In the hall Miss Battersby waylaid me again.

"Is it all right?" she asked anxiously.

"Not quite. My uncle is writing to Miss Pettigrew."

"She won't come. I'm sure she won't. She told me herself when we were in Ballygore that for the future she intends to watch Lalage's performances from a distance."

"She may make an exception in this case," I said. "If my uncle states it at all fully in his letter it can scarcely fail to make an appeal to her."

Miss Battersby sighed. She was evidently not hopeful.

"Lalage is such a dear girl," she said. "It is a sad pity that she will——"

"She's always trying to do right."

"Always," said Miss Battersby fervently.

"That's why it's generally so difficult for other people."

"The world," said Miss Battersby, "is very hard."

"And desperately wicked. If it were even moderately straightforward and honest Lalage would have been canonized long ago."

"She's a little foolish sometimes."

"All great reformers," I said, "appear foolish to the people of their own generation. It's only afterward that their worth is recognized."

Miss Battersby sighed again. Then she shook hands with me.

"I must go to Lord Thormanby," she said, "He'll want me to write his letters for him."

"He won't want you to write that one to Miss Pettigrew. He has his faults of temper, but he's essentially a gentleman, and he wouldn't dream of asking you to write that particular letter for him. I don't think you need go to him yet. Stay and talk to me about Lalage and the hardness of the world."

"If he doesn't want me," she said, "I ought to settle the flowers."

It really is a pity that Thormanby will not persuade the Archdeacon to marry Miss Battersby. Besides being sweet and lovable, as Lalage pointed out, she has a strong sense of duty which would be quite invaluable in the diocese. Very few people after an agitating morning would go straight off to settle flowers.



CHAPTER XX

I looked at my watch as I got into my trap and found that it was eleven o'clock, not more than two hours since my uncle's letter had been handed to me at the breakfast table. Yet I felt thoroughly tired. No one who has only just recovered from influenza ought to be called upon to face a crisis. At the best of times a crisis of any magnitude is too much for me. When I am weak anything of the sort exhausts me rapidly. It is most unfair that I should be beset with crises as I am. Other men, men who like excitement and unexpected calls for exertion, are condemned to years of unbroken monotony. I, who desire nothing so much as peace, have tumult and turmoil thrust upon me. I drove down the long avenue of Thormanby Park and determined to get home as quickly as possible. There is a greenhouse at the bottom of our garden which at that time was quite unfrequented because something had gone wrong with the heating apparatus and the more delicate plants had been removed from it. I intended to retire to it as soon as I got home with a hammock chair and a novel. I had every hope of being left in peace for an hour or so.

That was my plan. It proved, as all my plans do, unworkable; but, as is always the case, through no fault of my own. At the gate lodge of Thormanby Park I met Lalage. She was riding a bicycle and jumped down as soon as she saw me. I pulled up my pony, of course. Even if Lalage had not jumped down I should have pulled up the pony. Lalage is a sure harbinger of trouble. Crises attend her course through life. Yet I cannot help stopping to talk to her when I get the chance. I suppose I am moved by some obscure instinct which makes me wish to know the worst in store for me as soon as possible.

"I'm darting on," said Lalage, "to secure Pussy Battersby, but I stopped for a moment to tell you to go straight to the rectory."

"You can't get Miss Battersby now. She's settling flowers."

"I must. She's of the utmost importance. I must bring her back with me."

"Has the Archdeacon arrived unexpectedly?"

"No. What on earth put that into your head? Good-bye."

"Wait a minute, Lalage. Take my advice and don't go on. It's not safe. My uncle is threatening you with all sorts of violence. You can guess the sort of temper he's in."

"Gout?"

"No. Your letter."

"My letter? Oh, yes. I'd forgotten that letter for the moment. You mean the one I wrote to him about the Archdeacon's marriage."

"Now you know why you'd better not go near him for a day or two."

"Silly old ass, isn't he, to lose his temper about that? But I can't stop to argue. I must get Pussy Battersby at once. There isn't a moment to spare."

"If the Archdeacon hasn't turned up, what on earth do you want her for?"

"The fact is," said Lalage, "that Hilda's mother is at the rectory."

"I thought she'd arrive some day. You couldn't expect to keep her at bay forever. The wonder is that she didn't come long ago."

"She travelled by the night mail and was rather dishevelled when she arrived, hair a bit tousled, a smut on the end of her nose and a general look of crinklyness about her clothes. Hilda has been in floods of tears and sobbing like a steam engine all morning."

"I don't wonder at all. Any nice-minded girl would. It can't be pleasant for her to see her mother in such a state."

"Don't drivel," said Lalage. "Hilda isn't crying for that. She's not a perfect idiot, whatever you may say."

"I didn't say anything of the sort. I said she was a nice-minded girl."

"Same thing," said Lalage, "and she's not either the one or the other."

"Then why is she crying?"

"Because her mother is taking her home. That's the reason I'm going for Pussy Battersby."

"She'll be a poor substitute for Hilda," I said. "She'll boggle at simony every time."

"What are you talking about now?"

"Miss Battersby. I'm trying to explain that she'll hardly be able to take Hilda's place as the companion of your revels."

"What I'm getting her for," said Lalage severely, "is to restore the confidence of Hilda's mother. She doesn't trust me one bit, silly of her, isn't it? And she's ragged poor father into a condition of incoherence."

"Will Miss Battersby be any use? I should hardly have thought her the sort of person who would deal successfully with a frantic mother."

"She's tremendously respectable," said Lalage, "and Hilda's mother will have absolute confidence in her the moment she sees her. Remember how she agreed to that Portugal trip once she knew Pussy was to be with us, and she hadn't even seen her then. When I trot her out there'll be absolutely no further trouble. Good-bye, I must be darting on."

Lalage put her foot on the pedal and balanced the bicycle.

I stopped her again.

"You said something about my going to the rectory," I said. "What am I to do when I get there?"

"Attend to Hilda's mother of course."

"Do you mean that I'm to take a basin of hot water and a sponge and wash her nose? I couldn't possibly. I don't know her nearly well enough. I'd hardly venture to do such a thing to Hilda herself."

"I wasn't thinking of the smut on her nose," said Lalage. "What I want you to do is to keep her in play till I get back. I sha'n't be long, but it's not possible to start Pussy Battersby off on the first hop. She'll want to titivate a little."

"If you think I'll be any use——"

"Of course you will. You're very nearly as respectable to look at as Pussy Battersby."

"I shall hate to see Hilda crying."

"Then cheer her up. Good-bye for the present."

This time Lalage really did mount the bicycle. I drove on in the direction of the rectory, turning over in my mind various plans for keeping Hilda's mother in play. Some of them were very good plans which I think would have been successful, but I shall never be certain about that because I did not have the chance of putting them to the test.

A mile from the rectory gate I met a car. There was a good deal of luggage piled on the well, and two ladies sat together on one side. I recognized Hilda at once. The other lady I supposed, quite rightly, to be her mother. I ought, I saw afterward, to have made some effort, even at that eleventh hour, to keep her in play. I do not think I could have succeeded, but it was certainly my duty to try. My nerve unfortunately failed and I simply drove past, raising my hat and bowing sorrowfully to Hilda.

When the car was out of sight I stopped to consider my position. There was nothing to prevent my returning home at once and settling down, as I had originally planned, in the corner of the deserted greenhouse. My inclination was, of course, to do this, but it occurred to me that it would be a charitable and kindly action to comfort Canon Beresford. He had, so Lalage told me, been reduced to a condition of incoherence by the ragging of Hilda's mother. He was also likely to have been a good deal distressed by the sight of Hilda's tears and the sound of her sobs. He would probably be sorry to lose Hilda. In spite of anything Lalage might say I still believed Hilda to be a nice-minded girl, the sort of girl that any man would like to have staying in his house. For all three reasons the Canon would require sympathy and comfort. I drove on to the rectory.

There I had, once more, to reconsider my position. The Canon was comforting himself. He had, so the maid informed me, gone out fishing. My first impulse was to start for home with a sigh of relief.. Then I remembered that some one would have to explain to Lalage and Miss Battersby that Hilda and her mother had really gone. The Canon would not be able to do this because he had gone out fishing before they left. The maid was obviously a stupid girl. It seemed to be my duty to wait for Lalage and tell her, soothingly, what had happened. I went into the Canon's study and made myself comfortable with a pipe.

At about one o'clock Lalage arrived without Miss Battersby. She made no comment at first on the absence of Hilda's mother. Her mind had evidently been turned away from that subject. She flung herself into a chair, and dragged furiously at the pins which fastened on her hat. When she had worked them loose she threw the hat itself on the floor.

"Great Scott!" she said. "I've had a time of it!"

"I rather thought you would."

"Curious, isn't it? For he can be a perfect pet when he likes. Glad I don't get gout."

"You know perfectly well that it wasn't gout which was the matter with him this time."

"It can't have been all my letter, can it?"

"It was," I said.

"Of course I wasn't going to stand that sort of thing," said Lalage.

"What sort of thing?"

"The way he talked, or, rather, tried to talk. I soon stopped him. That's what makes me so hot. I wish you'd seen poor Pussy's face. I was afraid every minute he'd mention her name and then she would have died of shame. That's just the kind of thing which would make Pussy really ill."

"What did you say to him?"

"I told him that it was his plain duty to put the matter before the Archdeacon and that if he didn't do it I should simply get some one else and then he'd jolly well feel ashamed of himself and be afraid to look any one in the face for weeks and weeks. I didn't mention that Pussy was the future wife, of course. I'm much too fond of her to hurt her feelings."

I should have liked to hear a description of the expression on Miss Battersby's face. I should also have liked to hear what my uncle said in reply to Lalage's remarks, but I felt an anxiety so acute as greatly to dull my curiosity.

"Had you any one particular in your mind," I asked, "when you said that you'd get somebody else to go to the Archdeacon?"

"Of course I had," said Lalage. "You."

"I was just afraid you might be thinking of that."

"You'll do it of course."

"No," I said, "I won't. There are reasons which I gave to my uncle this morning which made it quite impossible for me——"

"You're not thinking of marrying her yourself, are you?"

"Certainly not."

"Then there can't be any real reason——"

"Lalage," I said, "there is. I don't like to mention the subject to you; but the fact is——"

"If it's anything disagreeable I'd much rather not hear it."

"It is, very; though it's not true."

"You appear to me to be getting into a tangle," said Lalage, "so you'd better not go on. If you're afraid of the Archdeacon—and I suppose that is what your excuses will come to in the end—I'll do it myself. After all, you'd most likely have made a mess of it."

I bore the insult meekly. I was anxious, if possible, to persuade Lalage to drop the idea of marrying the Archdeacon to Miss Battersby.

"Remember your promise to my mother," I said.

"I've kept it. I submitted the matter to Lord Thormanby just as I said I would. If he won't act I can't help it."

"The Archdeacon will be frightfully angry."

Lalage sniffed slightly. I could see that the thought of the Archdeacon's wrath did not frighten her. I should have been surprised if it had. After facing Thormanby in the morning the Archdeacon would seem nothing. I adopted another line.

"Are you perfectly certain," I said, "about that text? Don't you think that if it's really in the Bible the Archdeacon would have seen it?"

"He might have overlooked it," said Lalage; "in fact, he must have overlooked it. If he'd come across it he'd have got married at once. Anybody can see that he wants to be a bishop."

This seemed unanswerable. Yet I could not believe that the Archdeacon, who has been a clergyman for many years, could have failed to read the epistle in which the verse occurs. I made another effort.

"Most likely," I said, "that text means something quite different."

"It can't. The words are as plain as possible."

"Have you looked at the original Greek?"

"No, I haven't. What would be the good of doing that? And, besides, I don't know Greek."

"Then you may be sure," I said, "that the original Greek alters the whole thing. I've noticed hundreds of times that when a text seems to be saying anything which doesn't work out in practice the original Greek sets it right."

"I know that," said Lalage. "At least I've often heard it. But it doesn't apply to cases like this. What on earth else could this mean in the original Greek or any other language you like to translate it into? 'A bishop is to be the husband of one wife.' I looked it out myself to make sure that Selby-Harrison had made no mistake."

The text certainly seemed uncompromising. I had talked bravely about the original Greek, but I doubted in my own mind whether even it would offer a loophole of escape for the Archdeacon.

"It may," I said, desperately, "merely mean that a bishop mayn't have two wives."

"Do talk sense," said Lalage. "What would be the point of saying that a bishop mayn't have two? It's hard enough to get a man like the Archdeacon to have one. Besides, if that's what it means, then other people, not bishops, are allowed to have two wives, which is perfectly absurd. It would be bigamy and that's far worse than what the Archdeacon said I'd done. Where's Hilda?"

Lalage's way of dismissing a subject of which she is tired is abrupt but unmistakable. I told her that Hilda and her mother had gone.

"That's a pity," said Lalage. "I should have liked to take Hilda with me this afternoon."

"Are you going to do it so soon?"

"The election is next week," said Lalage, "so we haven't a moment to lose."

"Well," I said, "if you're really going to do it, I shall be greatly obliged if you'll let me know afterward exactly what the Archdeacon says."

"I will if you like," said Lalage, "but there won't be anything to tell you. He'll simply thank me for bringing the point under his notice."

"I'm not a betting man, but if I were I'd wager a pretty large sum that whatever the Archdeacon does he won't thank you."

"Have you any reason to suppose that he has a special objection to Pussy Battersby?"

"None in the world. I'm sure he respects her. We all do."

"Then I don't see what you mean by saying that he won't thank me. He's a tiresome old thing, especially when he tries to be polite, which he's always doing, but he's not by any means a fool where his own interests are concerned. He'll see at once that I'm doing him a kindness."

I found nothing more to say, so I left Lalage. I had at all events, done my best. I drove home.



CHAPTER XXI

I was late for luncheon, very late. My mother had left the dining-room when I got home, but I found her and she readily agreed to leave the letters she was writing and to sit beside me while I ate. It was not, as I discovered, sympathy for my exhaustion and hunger which induced her to do this. She was full of curiosity.

"Well," she said, as I helped myself to some cold pie, "what was it?"

"It was Lalage," I said. "You guessed that before I started."

There was a short pause during which I ate some of the cold pie and found out that it was made, partly at least, of veal. Then my mother asked another question:

"Has she hit on anything unexpected?"

"Quite. She wants Thormanby to insist on the Archdeacon marrying Miss Battersby."

Even my mother was startled. She gave utterance to an exclamation. If she had been a man she would have sworn. I soothed her.

"It's not really a bad scheme," I said, "when you get over the first shock. The Archdeacon, it appears, is bound to marry."

"Why?"

"Timothy says so or seems to say so. Perhaps he didn't really. What is the proper, regularly received interpretation of that text which says that a bishop is to be the husband of one wife?"

"There are several."

"The Archdeacon is sure to know them, I suppose."

"Oh, yes. He's certain to know them."

"He'll want them all this afternoon. Lalage is going to him with that text drawn in her hand. She's also taking Miss Battersby, a wedding ring, a cake, and a white satin dress. I'm speaking figuratively of course."

"I hope so. But however figurative your way of putting it may be, I'm afraid that the Archdeacon won't be pleased."

"So I told Lalage. But she's quite certain that he will. I should say myself that he'd dislike it several degrees more than he did the simony. I often think it's a pity the Archdeacon hasn't any sense of humour."

"No sense of humour would enable him to see that joke."

"Thormanby," I said, "has been employed all morning in writing letters and appealing telegrams to Miss Petti-grew; but even if she comes it will be too late."

"I hope Miss Battersby hasn't been told."

"Not by Lalage. She felt that there would be a certain want of delicacy about mentioning the subject to her before the Archdeacon had spoken."

My mother sighed.

"I'm very fond of Lalage," she said, "but I sometimes wish she was——"

"That's just what Miss Battersby was saying this morning. I quite agree with you both that life would be simpler if she was, but of course she isn't."

"What Lalage wants is some steadying influence."

"Miss Pettigrew," I said, "suggested marriage and babies. I don't think she mentioned the number of babies, but several would be required."

My mother looked at me in much the same curious way that Miss Pettigrew did on the afternoon when she and Canon Beresford visited me in Ballygore. I felt the same unpleasant sense of embarrassment. I finished my glass of claret hurriedly, and without waiting for coffee, which would probably have been cold, left the room.

I went about the house and made a collection of the articles I was likely to want during the afternoon. I got a hammock chair with a leg rest, four cushions, a pipe, a tin of tobacco, three boxes of matches, and a novel called "Sword Play." With these in my arms I staggered across the garden and made for the nook to which I had been looking forward all day. A greenhouse which is not sacrificed to flowers is a very pleasant place at certain seasons of the year. In Spring, for instance, when the sun is shining, I am tempted to go out of doors. But in Spring there are cold winds which drive me in again. In a greenhouse the sun is available and the winds are excluded. If the heating apparatus is out of order, as it fortunately was in the case of my greenhouse, the temperature is warm without stuffiness. I shut the door, pulled a tree fern in a heavy pot out of my way, and then found out by experiment which of the angles of all at which a hammock chair can be set is the most comfortable. Then I placed my four cushions just where I like them, one under my head, one to give support to the small of my back, one under my knees, and one beside my left elbow. I lit my pipe and put the three boxes of matches in different places, so that when I lost one I should, while searching for it, be pretty sure of coming on another.

I opened my novel. It was about a gentleman of title who in his day was the best swordsman in Europe. He loved a scornful lady with great devotion. I read a hundred pages with dwindling attention and at last found that I had failed to be excited by the story of a prolonged duel fought on the brink of a precipice under the shadow of an ancient castle from the battlements of which the scornful lady was looking down. I was vexed with myself, for I ought to have enjoyed the scene. I turned back and read the whole chapter through a second time. Again I somehow missed the emotion of it. My mind kept wandering from the lunging figures on the edge of the cliff to a vision of Lalage in a dark green dress speeding along the road on her bicycle.

I laid down the novel and set myself the pleasant task of constructing imaginary interviews between Lalage and the Archdeacon. As a rule I enjoy the meanderings of my own imagination, and in this particular case I had provided it with material to work on much more likely to be entertaining than the gambols of the expert swordsman or the scorn of the lady above him. But my imagination failed me. It pictured Lalage well enough. But the Archdeacon, for some reason, would not take shape. I tried again and again with no better success. The image of the Archdeacon got fainter and fainter, until I could no longer visualize even his apron.

At some time, perhaps an hour after I had settled down, I went to sleep. I cannot fix, or make any attempt at fixing, the exact moment at which the conscious effort of my imagination passed into the unconscious romance building of dream. But I know that the Archdeacon totally disappeared, while Lalage, a pleasantly stimulating personality, haunted me. I may have slept for an hour, perhaps for an hour and a half. Looking back on the afternoon, and arranging its chronology to fit between two fixed points of time, I am certain that I did not sleep for more than an hour and a half. It was a few minutes after two o'clock when I sat down to luncheon. I am sure of this, because my mother's eyes sought the clock on the chimney piece when we entered the dining-room together and mine followed them. It was half-past five when I saw her again in the drawing-room. I am equally sure of this because she kissed me three times rather effusively and I was obliged to look at my watch to hide my embarrassment. Between two o'clock and half-past five I lunched, smoked, read, slept, and played a part in certain other events. This makes it tolerably certain that I did not sleep for more than an hour and a half.

I was wakened by a most violent opening of the greenhouse door and a tempestuous rustling of the fronds of the tree fern which I had moved. Then Lalage burst upon me. My first impulse was to struggle out of my chair and offer it to her. She made a motion of excited refusal and I sank back again. I noticed, while she stood before me, that her face was unusually flushed. It seemed to me that she was passing through what McMeekin used to describe as a nerve storm. I leaped to the conclusion that the Archdeacon had not taken kindly to the idea of a marriage with Miss Battersby.

"How did it go off?" I asked.

"Where's your mother?" said Lalage.

"She's not here. You ought to know better than to expect her to be here. Is she the sort of person who'd waste an afternoon in a disused greenhouse? She's probably doing something useful. Did you ask if she was covering pots of marmalade?"

"I've searched everywhere."

"Never mind. She's certain to turn up for tea."

Lalage stamped her foot.

"I want her at once," she said. "I want to talk to her."

"I'm a very poor substitute for my mother, of course; but if you can't find her——"

"I've something to tell her," said Lalage; "something that I simply must tell to somebody."

"I shall be delighted to listen."

Lalage hesitated. She was drumming with her fingers on the edge of an empty flower pot as if she were playing a very rapid fantasia on the piano. This seemed to me a further symptom of nerve storm. I encouraged her to speak, as tactfully as I could.

"Has Miss Battersby," I asked, "rebelled against her destiny?"

Lalage's face suddenly puckered up in a very curious way. I should have supposed that she was on the verge of tears if there existed any record of her ever having shed tears. But no one, not even her most intimate friend ever heard of her crying; so I came to the conclusion that she wanted to laugh. I felt uneasy, for Lalage usually laughs without any preliminary puckerings of her face.

"Perhaps," I said, "you're thinking of the Archdeacon."

"I am," said Lalage.

She spoke with a kind of gulp which in the case of Hilda would certainly have been a premonitory symptom of tears.

"Did he make himself particularly disagreeable?"

Greatly to my relief Lalage laughed. It was an excited, unnatural laugh; and it was not very far from crying. Still it was a laugh.

"No," she said. "He made himself particularly agreeable, too agreeable; at least he tried to."

Then she laughed again and this time the laughing did her good. She became calmer and sat down on the edge of an iron water tank which stood in the corner of the greenhouse. I warned her of the danger of falling in backward. I also offered her one of my cushions to put on the edge of the tank, which looked to me hard. She laughed in reply. My cigarette case was, very fortunately, in my pocket. I fished it out and asked her if she would like to smoke. She took a cigarette and lit it. I could see that it helped to calm her still further.

"Go on with your story," I said.

"Where was I?"

She spoke quite naturally. The laughter and the cigarette, between them, had saved her from the attack which for some time was threatening.

"You hadn't actually begun," I said. "You had only mentioned that the Archdeacon was, or tried to be, unusually, even excessively, agreeable."

"He was writing letters in his study," said Lalage, "when I knocked at the door and walked in on him. I apologized at once for interrupting him."

"You were quite right to do that."

"He said he didn't mind a bit; in fact, liked it. Then he looked like a sheep. You know the sort of way a sheep looks?"

"Woolly?"

"Yes, frightfully, and worse. If I'd had a single grain of sense I should have bolted at once. Anybody might have known what was coming."

"I shouldn't. In fact, even now that I know something came, I can't guess what it was."

"Instead of bolting I brought out that text of Selby-Harrison's. He took it like a lamb."

"Woolly again, only a softer kind of wool."

"No," said Lalage, "just meekly; though of course he went on being woolly."

"There are several authorized interpretations of that text. My mother told me so this afternoon. I suppose the Archdeacon trotted them all out one by one?"

"No. I told you he took it like a lamb. Why won't you try to understand?"

"Anyhow," I said, "his demeanour was most encouraging to you. I suppose you suggested Miss Battersby to him at once?"

"No, I didn't. I couldn't."

Lalage hesitated again. She was not speaking with her usual fluency. I tried to help her out.

"Something in the glare of his eyes stopped you," I said. "I have always heard that the human eye possesses remarkable power."

"There was something in his eye," said Lalage, "but not that."

"It stopped you though, whatever it was."

"No, it didn't. I wish it had. I might have cleared out at once if it had."

"If it wasn't a glare, what was it? I can't imagine a better opportunity for mentioning Miss Battersby."

"He didn't give me time."

"Do you mean to say he pushed you out of the room?"

"No."

"Did he swear? I once heard of an Archdeacon swearing under great provocation."

"No."

"I can't guess any more, Lalage. I really can't. You'll have to tell me what it was."

"He said he'd get married with pleasure."

"But not to Miss Battersby. I'm beginning to see now. Who is the fortunate lady?"

"Me," said Lalage.

"Good heavens, Lalage! You don't mean to say you're going to marry the Archdeacon?"

"You're as bad as he was," said Lalage angrily. "I won't have such horrid things said to me. I don't see why I should be insulted by every one I meet. I wish I hadn't told you. I ought not to have told you. I ought to have gone on looking for your mother until I found her."

I was immensely, unreasonably relieved. The idea of Lalage marrying the Archdeacon had been a severe shock to me.

"The Archdeacon's proposal——" I said. "By the way, you couldn't possibly have been mistaken about it, could you? He really did?"

Lalage blushed hotly.

"He did," she said, "really."

"That just shows," I said, "what a tremendous impression you made on him with Selby-Harrison's text."

"It wasn't the text at all. He said it had been the dearest wish of his heart for years. Can you imagine anything more silly?"

"I see now," I said, "why he always took such an interest in everything you did and went out of his way to try to keep you from getting into mischief. I think better of the Archdeacon than I ever did before."

"He's a horrid old beast.'"

"You can't altogether blame him, though."

"I can.

"You oughtn't to, for you don't know——"

"I do know."

"No, you don't. Not what I mean."

"What do you mean? I don't believe you mean anything."

"You don't know the temptation."

Lalage stared at me.

"I've often felt it myself," I said.

Lalage still stared. She was usually quick witted, but on this occasion she seemed to me to be positively dull. I suppose that the nerve storm through which she had passed had temporarily paralyzed the gray matter of her brain. I made an effort to explain myself.

"You must surely realize," I said, "that the Archdeacon isn't the only man in the world who would like—any man would—in fact every man must, unless he's married already, and in that case he's extremely sorry he can't. I certainly do."

Lalage grew gradually more and more crimson in the face while I spoke. At my last words she started violently, and for an instant I thought she was going to fall into the tank.

"Do be careful," I said. "I don't want to have to dive in after you and drag you, in a state of suspended animation, to the shore."

Lalage recovered both her balance and her self-possession.

"Don't you?" she said, with a peculiar smile.

"No, I don't."

"I should have thought," she said, "that any man would. According to you every man must, unless he is married already, and then he'd be extremely sorry that he couldn't."

"In that sense of the words," I said, "of course I do. Please fall in."

"I daresay that the words don't really mean what they seem to mean," said Lalage. "Lots of those words don't. I must look them out in the original Greek."

After this our conversation became greatly confused. It had been slightly confused before. The reference to the original Greek completed the process. It seems to me, looking back on it now, that we sat there, Lalage on the edge of the water tank, I in my hammock chair, and flung illusive phrases and half finished sentences at each other, getting hot by turns, and sometimes both together. At last Lalage left me, quite as abruptly as she had come. I did not know what to make of the situation. There had been nothing but conversation between us. I always understood that under certain circumstances there is more than conversation, sometimes a great deal more. I picked up "Sword Play," which lay on the ground beside me. It was the only authority to hand at the moment. I turned to the last chapter and found that the fencing professor and the haughty lady had not stopped short at conversation. When the lady finally unbent she did so in a very thorough way and things had passed between her and the gentleman which it made me hotter than ever to read about. I had not stirred from my chair nor Lalage from the edge of the tank while we talked. I was greatly perplexed. It was quite plain the history of the swordsman and his lady was not the only one which made me sure of this—that my love-making had not run the normal course. In every single record of such doings which I had ever read a stage had been reached at which the feelings of the performers had been expressed in action rather than in words. Lalage and I had not got beyond words, therefore I doubted whether I had really been love-making. I had certainly got no definite statement from Lalage. She had not murmured anything in low, sweet tones; nor had she allowed her head to droop forward upon my breast in a manner eloquent of complete surrender. I was far from blaming her for this omission. My hammock chair was adjusted at such an angle that unless she had actually stood on her head I do not see how she could have laid it against my breast, and if she had done that her attitude would have been far from eloquent, besides being most uncomfortable for me. Still the fact remained that I had not got by word or attitude any clear indication from Lalage that my love-making, supposing that I had been love-making, was agreeable to her.

Nor could I flatter myself that Lalage was any better off than I was. I had fully intended to make myself quite clear. The Archdeacon's example had nerved me. I distinctly remembered the sensation of determining that this one crisis at least should be brought to a definite issue, but I was not at all sure that I had succeeded. The gentleman of title whose exploits filled the three hundred pages of "Sword Play" said: "I love you and have always loved you more than life"; and though he spoke in a voice which was hoarse with passion, his meaning must have been perfectly plain. I had not said, nor could I imagine that I ever should say, anything half so heroic. Had I said anything at all or was Lalage as perplexed as I was? This question troubled me, unnecessarily; for, as it turned out afterward, Lalage was not at all perplexed.



CHAPTER XXII

My mind concentrated on one question: Was I to consider myself as engaged to be married to Lalage? The phrase, with its flavour of vulgarity, set my teeth on edge; but no other way of expression occurred to me and I was too deeply anxious to spend time in pursuit of elegancies. It was absurd that I could not answer my question. A man ought to know whether he has or has not committed himself to a proposal of marriage. The Archdeacon, I felt perfectly certain, knew what he had done. And I ought to know whether Lalage had accepted or rejected the proposal. The Archdeacon can have had few if any doubts when Lalage left him. I made up my mind at last to lay the case before my mother. I determined to repeat to her, as nearly as possible, verbatim, the whole conversation which had taken place in the greenhouse. I knew that I should feel foolish while making these confidences. I should, indeed, appear positively ridiculous when I asked my mother to settle the question which troubled me. But my mother is extraordinarily sympathetic and, in any case, it was better to suffer as a fool than to continue to be the prey of perplexity. I sighed a little when I recollected that my mother had a keen sense of the ridiculous and that my dilemma was very likely indeed to appeal to it.

I found my mother in the drawing-room with the remains of afternoon tea still spread on a small table before her. I had just time to notice that two people had been drinking tea and that the second cup, balanced precariously on the arm of a chair, was half full. Then my mother crossed the room rapidly and kissed me three times. She may have done such a thing before. I think it likely that she did when I was a baby. She certainly never kissed me more than once at a time since I was old enough to remember what she did.

"I'm so delighted," she said, "so very delighted. I can't tell you how glad I am."

This remark, taken in connection with the kisses which preceded it, could only have one meaning. I realized at once that I actually was going to marry Lalage. I was not exactly surprised, but the news was so very important that I felt it right to make absolutely certain of its truth.

"You're quite sure, I suppose?" I said.

"Lalage has been here with me. She has only just gone."

"Then we may regard it as settled."

"You silly boy! Haven't you been settling it for the last hour?"

"That's exactly what I want to know. Have I? I mean to say, have we?"

"Lalage seems to think you have."

"That's all right then. She'd be sure to know."

"How can you talk like that when you've arranged everything down to the minutest details?"

This startled me. I felt it necessary to ask for more information.

"Would you mind recapitulating the details? I'm a little confused about them."

"You're to wait till the Archdeacon is actually bishop," said my mother, "and then he's to marry you."

"Is that your plan or Lalage's?"

"Lalage's, of course. I suppose it's yours too."

"I'm sorry," I said, "to find that Lalage is so vindictive. I hoped that she'd have been more ready to forgive and forget."

"I know what you're thinking about, because Lalage told me. She doesn't mean to be vindictive in the least. She seemed to think——"

"Surely not that the Archdeacon will like it?"

"Hardly that; but that under the circumstances his feelings would be hurt if any one else was asked to perform the ceremony."

"After all," I said, "there's still Miss Battersby. He can't complain."

"She's to be a bridesmaid. So is Hilda, of course."

"Selby-Harrison shall be best man," I said.

"Oh!" said my mother, "I gathered from Lalage that you were to ask——"

"I know she doesn't want me to get into touch with Selby-Harrison. I've been trying to make his acquaintance for years and she keeps on concealing him. But this time I'm determined. I'll have Selby-Harrison or no one."

"I gathered from Lalage that she'd prefer——"

"Very well," I said, "I'll have two best men. I don't see why I shouldn't. Who's the other?"

"Lalage mentioned a Mr. Tithers."

"Titherington is his name," I said, "and if I have him I don't see how I can very well leave out Vittie, O'Donoghue, and McMeekin. I don't know how you feel about the matter, but I rather object to being made a public show of with five best men."

"I'm so delighted about it," said my mother, "that I don't mind if you go on talking nonsense about it all the evening. Lalage will be exactly the wife you want. She'll shake you up out of your lazy ways and make something of you in the end."

"Has she settled that?"

"No. She and I are to have a long talk about that, sometime, soon."

I was about to protest, when the door opened and Miss Battersby staggered breathlessly into the room. She was highly flushed and evidently greatly excited. She made straight for me. I thought she was going to kiss me, I still think that she meant to. I pushed my mother forward and got into a corner behind the tea table. Miss Battersby worked off the worst of her emotion on my mother. She must have kissed her eighteen or twenty times. After that she did not want to do more than to shake hands with me.

"Lalage has just told me," she said, "and I'm so glad. I happened to be at the rectory when she came home. She had been looking for me in the morning, and as soon as I could I went over to her."

"Has she telegraphed to Miss Pettigrew?" I asked.

"Not that I know of," said Miss Battersby; "in fact, I'm sure she hasn't."

"Then I'll do it myself. I don't see why Lalage should be the only one to break the news. I'd send a wire to Hilda too if I knew her surname; but I've never been able to find that out. I wish she'd marry Selby-Harrison. Then I'd know how to address her when I want to telegraph or write to her."

"Won't you stay for dinner?" said my mother to Miss Battersby. "We can send you home afterward."

"Oh, no. The car is waiting for me at the rectory. I told the man to put up. Lord Thormanby——"

"You might break it to him," I said.

"He'll be greatly delighted," said Miss Battersby.

"No, he won't," I said. "At least I shall be very much surprised if he is. He told me this morning that I was to go and muzzle Lalage."

"He didn't mean it," said Miss Battersby.

"Besides," said my mother, "you will."

I reflected on this. My mother and Miss Pettigrew are intimate friends. They must have talked over La-lage's future together many times. I knew what Miss Pettigrew's views were and I suspect that my mother was in full agreement with them. Owing to the emotional strain to which I had been subjected I may have been in a hypersensitive condition. I seemed to detect in my mother's confident prophecy an allusion to Miss Pettigrew's plans. Women, even women like my mother, are greatly wanting in delicacy. I was so much afraid of her saying something more on the subject that I bade Miss Battersby good-bye, hurriedly, and left the room.

After dinner my mother again took up the subject of my engagement.

"You'll have to go over and see Canon Beresford early to-morrow morning," she said.

"Of course. But I know what he'll say to me."

"I'm sure he'll be as pleased as I am," said iny mother.

"He won't say so."

My mother looked questioningly at me. I answered her.

"He'll quote that line of Horace," I said, "about a placens uxor, but it won't be true."

"What does that mean?"

"A placid wife," I said, "a gentle, quiet, peaceable sort of wife, who sits beside the fire and knits, purring gently. When he has finished that quotation he'll blow his nose and give me the piece out of Epictetus about the 'price of tranquillity.' He'll mean by that, that sorry as he is to lose Lalage, the future will hold some compensating joys. He won't be obliged to dart off at a moment's notice to Wick, or Brazil, or Borneo. The Canon is, after all, a thoroughly selfish man. He won't care a bit about something being made of me by Lalage, and if I try to explain my position to him he'll go out fishing at once."



CHAPTER XXIII

The fuss which preceded our wedding was very considerable indeed. Presents abounded. Even in my house, which is a large one, they got greatly in the way. There was, for instance, a large picture sent by Titherington. I do not think he had any malicious intention. He probably gave an order to a dealer without any details of the kind of work of art to be supplied. It turned out be a finely coloured photographic reproduction of a picture which had been very popular a few years before, called "The Ministering Angel." It represented a hospital nurse in the act of exulting over her patient. It reminded me so unpleasantly of my time in Ballygore that I gave orders to have it set up with its face to the wall in a passage. There I used to trip over it nearly every day. Canon Beresford's position was worse than mine, for his house was smaller and Lalage's presents were both numerous and larger than those sent to me.

I also suffered great inconvenience from the paperers and painters who came down from Dublin in large numbers and pervaded my favourite rooms. It was my mother who invited them. She said that the house was in a disgraceful condition. Lalage took the keenest interest in these men and their work. She used to come over every morning and harangue them vehemently.

This was some consolation to me for the paperers and painters certainly did not like it. I used to enjoy hearing what they said to each after Lalage had finished with them. Before and after she dealt with the men she used to consult with my mother about clothes. Miss Battersby was admitted to these council meetings. I never was. Patterns of materials arrived from the most distant shops. Some came direct to my mother. I used to see them piled up behind the letters on the breakfast table. Others came to Miss Battersby, who brought them over in the Thormanby's pony trap. Still more were addressed to Lalage at the rectory. I used to send for these in the morning and it was while she waited for them that Laiage gave the paperers and painters her opinion of their incompetence.

It seemed to me quite impossible that any one, during those frenzied six weeks, could have thought calmly on any serious subject. But Lalage is a very wonderful young woman and my mother is able to retain her self-possession under the most trying circumstances. They managed somehow to snatch an hour or two for that long talk about my future of which my mother had spoken to me. I do not know whether Miss Battersby's advice was asked. Mine certainly was not. Nor was I told at the time the result of the deliberations. That leaked out long afterward, when the wedding was over and we had returned home to settle down, I scarcely hoped, in peace. I suspected, of course, that I should be made to do something, and I was agreeably surprised that no form of labour was directly imposed on me for some time. Lalage, acting no doubt on my mother's advice, decided to shepherd rather than goad me along the way on which it was decided that I should go.

She began by saying in a casual way, one night after dinner, that she did not think I had any real taste for political life. I agreed with her heartily. Then she and my mother smiled at each other in a way which made me certain that they had some other career for me in mind. Shortly afterward they took to talking a great deal about books, especially at meal times, and several literary papers appeared regularly on my study table. I came to the conclusion that they wished me to become a patron of literature, perhaps to collect a library or to invite poets to spend their holidays with us. I was quite willing to fall in with this plan, but I determined, privately, only to become acquainted with poets of a peaceable kind who wrote pastorals or elegies and went out for long, solitary walks to commune with nature. In my eagerness to please Lalage I went so far as to write to Selby-Harrison, asking him to make out for me a list of the leading poets of the meditative and mystical schools. I also gave an order to a bookseller for all the books of original poetry published during that autumn. The number of volumes I received surprised me. I used to exhibit them with great pride to my mother and Lalage. I once offered to read out extracts from them in the evening.

"The bent of your genius," said Lalage, "is evidently literary."

My mother backed her up of course.

"It is," I said, "and always was. It's a great pity that it wasn't found out sooner. Think of the time I wasted in Portugal and of that wretched episode in East Connor. However, there's no use going back on past mistakes."

"They weren't altogether mistakes," said Lalage. "We couldn't have known that you were literary until we found out that you weren't any good at anything else."

"That view of literature," I said, "as the last refuge of the incompetent, is quite unworthy of you, Lalage. Recollect that you once edited a magazine yourself. You should have more respect for the profession of letters."

"Don't argue," said Lalage. "All we say is that if you can't do anything else you must be able to write."

Then the truth began to become clear to me. My dream of a life of cultured ease, spent, with intervals for recreation, in the society of gentle poets, faded.

"Do you mean," I said, "that I'm to——?"

"Certainly," said Lalage.

"To write a book?" I said desperately.

"That's the reason," said Lalage, "why I refurnished your study and bought that perfectly sweet Dutch marquetry bureau and hung up the picture of Milton dictating 'Paradise Lost' to his two daughters."

I have hated that picture since the day it first appeared in in my study. I only agreed to letting it in because I knew the alternative was Titherington's hospital nurse. The Dutch bureau, if it is Dutch, is most uncomfortable to write at. There was no use, however, wrangling about details. I brought forward the one strong objection to the plan which occurred to me at the moment.

"Has my uncle been consulted?" I asked. "From what I know of Thormanby I should say he's not at all likely to agree to my spending my life in writing poetry."

"His idea," said my mother, "is that you should bring out a comprehensive work on the economic condition of Ireland in the twentieth century."

"He thinks," Lalage added, "that when you do go into Parliament it will be a great advantage to you to be a recognized authority on something, even if it's only Irish economics."

I knew, of course, that I should have to give in to a certain extent in the end; but I was not prepared to fall in with Thormanby's absurd suggestion.

"Very well," I said, "I shall write a book. I shall write my reminiscences."

"Reminiscences," said Lalage, "are rather rot as a rule."

"The bent of my genius," I said, "is entirely reminiscent."

Rather to my surprise Lalage accepted the reminiscences as a tolerable substitute for the economic treatise. I suppose she did not really care what I wrote so long as I wrote something.

"Very well," she said. "We'll give you six months."

I had, I am bound to say, a very pleasant and undisturbed life during the six months allowed me by Lalage. I did my writing, for the most part, in the morning, working at the Dutch marquetry bureau from ten o'clock until shortly after noon. I soon came to find a great deal of pleasure in my work. The only thing which ever put me out of temper was the picture of Milton dictating to two plump young women who had taken off their bodices in order to write with more freedom. If there are any peevish or ill-humoured passages in my book they are to be attributed entirely to the influence of that picture, chiefly to the tousled look of the younger daughter. The fact that her father was blind was no excuse for her neglecting to do her hair when she got up in the morning.

I have secured, by the help of Selby-Harrison, a publisher for the book. He insists on bringing it out as a novel and refuses to allow it to be called "Memories of My Early Life," the title I chose. "Lalage's Lovers," the name under which it appears in his list of forthcoming fiction, seems to me misleading. It suggests a sentimental narrative and will, I fear, give rise to some disappointment. However, I suppose that the book may sell better if we pretend that it is not true. But in Ireland, at least, this device will be vain. The things with which I deal were not done in a corner. There are many bishops who still smart from Lalage's attack on them, and Titherington, at all events, is not likely to forget last year's epidemic of influenza. I shall, indeed, be very glad if the publisher's ruse succeeds and the public generally believes that I have invented the whole story. Now that the moment of publication comes near and I am engaged in adding a few final sentences to the last chapter I am beginning to feel nervous and uncomfortable. There may be a good deal of trouble and annoyance when the book comes out.

I have set down nothing except the truth and this ought to please Lalage; but I am not at all sure that it will. I have noticed that of late she has shown signs of disliking any mention of the Anti-Tommy-Rot Gazette or the campaign of the Association for the Suppression of Public Lying in East Connor. She pulled me up very abruptly yesterday when I asked her what Hilda's surname really is. I wanted it in order to make my book as complete as possible. Lalage seemed to think that I intended to annoy her by talking over past events.

"I wish," she said, "that you wouldn't always try to make yourself out a fool. You've known Hilda intimately since she was quite a girl."

That, of course, was my difficulty all along. I have known Hilda too intimately. If our friendship had been more formal or had begun more formally, I should, at first at all events, have called her "Miss" something instead of simply "Hilda." Then I should not be in my present awkward position.

I am also doubtful about Thormanby's reception of the book. He ought to be pleased, for he appears in my pages as a bluff, straightforward nobleman, devoted to the public good and full of sound common-sense though slightly choleric. This is exactly what he is; but I have noticed that people are not always pleased with faithful portraits of themselves.

The case of the Archdeacon, now bishop, is more serious. He has not yet married Miss Battersby, although Lalage has done her best to throw them together and the advantages of the match become every day more obvious. It is just possible that the publication of my reminiscences may create an awkwardness—a constraint of manner on the part of the bishop, a modest shrinking in Miss Battersby, which will tend to put off the final settlement of the affair. I ventured to hint to Lalage that it might be well to bring the business to a head, if possible, before my book is published. Lalage expressed considerable surprise.

"What on earth has your book got to do with their marriage?" she said.

I saw no good in anticipating what is likely to be an evil day by offering a premature explanation.

"Nothing," I said, "nothing at all."

"Then why do you want to have them married before the book comes out?"

"I don't," I said. "I merely want them to be engaged. My idea is to give them the book as a wedding present, nicely bound in calf of course."

"Poor Pussy," said Lalage; "I intend to give her something better than that."

Lalage has not read my book. It was a bargain from the very first that neither she nor my mother should ask to see the manuscript. She cannot know, therefore, whether it will be better or worse than the silver teapot which I expect she has in mind for Miss Battersby's wedding present.

Another thing which troubles me is the future of Selby-Harrison. It has been arranged, chiefly by Lalage, that the bishop, who used to be Archdeacon, is to ordain Selby-Harrison as curate assistant to Canon Beresford. There are incidents in the career of Selby-Harrison of which no bishop can be expected to approve. His part in Lalage's various crusades has not hitherto been forced upon the attention of the public. My book will, I fear, make it plain that he was an active power in the various reforming societies which caused so much annoyance to many people. If I could, I would leave Selby-Harrison out of the book altogether, but to do so would render unintelligible the whole sequence of events which resulted from the discovery of that text in First Timothy. Besides, it would scarcely be fair to deprive the young man of the credit he certainly deserves for the masterly way in which he drew up the agreements which Titherington and I signed.

All this causes me to hesitate, even now at the eleventh hour, about publishing the book at all. One consideration, however, decides me to go on and face the consequences, whatever they may be. This is not the kind of book which will encourage Thormanby to drive me into Parliament. That plan, at all events, will be dropped when my reminiscences appear.

THE END