"And the coachman told you that he had driven me here?" said Ella.

"Quite so," replied the husband. "But, you see, I had some little hesitation in coming here at half-past ten o'clock to make inquiries about my wife—you might have gone to some place else, you know, in which case I should have looked a trifle foolish; so I though that, on the whole, my best plan would be to drop in upon Mr. Ayrton at the House of Commons and drive here with him when he was coming home for the night. I took it for granted that even so earnest a legislator as Mr. Ayrton allows himself his nights—after twelve, of course—at home. I'm very sorry I startled you, Ella. It shall not occur again."

"What time did you reach home?" inquired Ella casually—so casually that her husband, who had a very discriminating ear, gave a little glance in her direction. She was disengaging a corner of her lace trimming that had become entangled with a large sapphire in a pendant.

"I reached home at nine," he replied.

"At nine?" She spoke the words after him in a little gasp. Then she said, walking across the room to a sofa, "I could not have left many minutes before you arrived. I intended going to the opera."

"That toilet should not have been wasted," said he. "It is exquisite—ravissante!"

"It was an inspiration, your putting it on," said Phyllis. "I wonder if she really had no subtle suggestion from her own heart that you were on your way to her, Mr. Linton," she added, turning to the husband.

"I dare say it was some inward prompting of that mysterious nature, Miss Ayrton," he replied. "A woman's heart is barometric in its nature, it is not? Its sensitiveness is so great that it moves responsive to a suggestion of what is to come. Is a woman's heart prophetic, I wonder?"

"It would be a rank heresy to doubt it, after the example we have had to-night," said Mr. Ayrton. "Yes, a woman's heart is a barometer suggesting what is coming to her, and her toilet is a thermometer indicating the degree of expectancy."

"A charming phrase," said Mr. Linton; "a charming principle, only one that demands some years of close study to be rendered practical. For instance, look at my wife's toilet: it is bridal, and yet we have been married three years."

"Quite so; and that toilet means that you are the luckiest fellow in the world," said Mr. Ayrton.

"I admit the interpretation," said her husband. "I told the hansom to wait for me. He is at the door now. You have had no opera to-night, my dear?"

"You would not expect me to go alone? Phyllis was dining at the Earlscourts'," said the wife.

"You are the soul of discretion, my beloved," said the husband. "Is your stock of phrases equal to a suggestion as to what instrument is the soul of a woman, Ayrton?" he added. "Her heart is a barometer, her toilet a thermometer, and her soul——"

"The soul of a woman is not an instrument, but a flower—a lily," said Mr. Ayrton.

"And my wife wears her soul upon her sleeve," said Mr. Linton, touching the design on the lace that fell from her shoulders.

"But not for daws to peck at—that is the heart," laughed Mr. Ayrton. "Talking of woman's soul, how is Lady Earlscourt?" he added, to his daughter.

"I was so sorry that I was at that stupid dinner," said Phyllis. "I might have enjoyed the music of 'Romeo and Juliet.' But I had engaged myself to Lady Earlscourt a fortnight ago."

"You did not see Lord Earlscourt, at any rate," said her father.

"No; he left us in the evening for Southampton," said Phyllis.

"And, curiously enough, I dined with him at the club," said her father. "Yes, he came in with Herbert Courtland at half-past seven; he had met Courtland and persuaded him to join him in his cruise to Norway. They dined at my table, and by the time we had finished Courtland's man had arrived with his bag. He had sent the man a message from the club to pack. They left by the eight-forty train, and I expect they are well under way by this time."

"That's quite too bad of Courtland," said Mr. Linton. "I wanted to have a talk with him—a rather serious talk."

Ella had listened to Mr. Ayrton's account of that little dinner party at the club with white cheeks—a moment before they had been red—and with her lips tightly closed. Her hands were clenched until the tips of the nails were biting into each of her palms, before he had come to the end of his story—a story of one incident. But when her husband had spoken her hands relaxed. The blaze that had come to her eyes for a second went out without a flicker.

"A serious talk?" she murmured.

"A serious talk—about the mine," replied her husband.

"About the mine," she repeated, and a moment after burst into a laugh that was almost startling in its insincerity. "It is so amusing, this chapter of cross-purposes," she cried. "What a sight it has been! a night of thrilling surprises to all of us! I miss Phyllis by half an hour and my husband misses me by less than half an hour. He comes at express speed from Paris to have a talk, a serious talk, with Mr. Courtland about the mine, and while he is driving from Victoria, Mr. Courtland is driving to the same station with Lord Earlscourt!"

"What a series of fatalities!" said Mr. Ayrton. "But what seemed to me most amusing was the persuasiveness of Earlscourt. He has only to speak half a dozen words to Courtland, and off he goes to Norway at a moment's notice with probably the most uncongenial boat's load that Courtland ever sailed with, and he must have done a good deal in that way in New Guinea waters. Now, why should Courtland take such a turn?"

"Ah, why, indeed!" cried Mrs. Linton. "Yes, that is, as you say, the most amusing part of the whole evening of cross-purposes. Why should he run away just at this time—to-night—to-night?"

"What is there particular about to-night that Courtland's running away should seem doubly erratic?" asked Mr. Linton, after a little pause. He had his eyes fixed coldly upon his wife's face.

She turned to him and laughed quite merrily.

"What is there particular about to-night?" she repeated. "Why, have you not arrived from Paris to-night to have that serious talk with him about the mine? Doesn't it seem to you doubly provoking that he didn't stay until to-morrow or that you didn't arrive yesterday? Why, why, why did he run away to-night before nine?"

"Why before nine?" said her husband.

"Heavens! Was not that the hour when you arrived home? You said so just now," she cried. Then she picked up her wrap. Phyllis had thrown it over a chair when it had lain in a heap on the floor as Cleopatra's wrap may have lain when she was carried into the presence of her lover. "My dear Stephen, don't you think that as it is past nine, and Mr. Courtland is probably some miles out at sea with his head reposing on something hard,—there is nothing soft about a yacht,—we should make a move in the direction of home? It seems pretty clear that you will have no serious talk with him to-night. Alas! my Phyllis, our dream of happiness is over. We are to be separated by the cruelty of man, as usual. Good-night, my dear! Good-night, Mr. Ayrton! Pray forgive us for keeping you out of bed so long; and receive my thanks for restoring my long-lost husband to my arms. Didn't you say that the hansom was waiting, Stephen?"

"I expect the man has been asleep for the last half-hour," said her husband.

"I hope nothing has gone astray with the gold mine," said she. "Hasn't someone made a calculation regarding the accumulation of a shilling hansom fare at compound interest when the driver is kept waiting? It is like the sum about the nails in the horse's shoe. We shall be ruined if we remain here much longer."

"Ah, my dear," said Mr. Ayrton, when he had kissed her hand, and straightened the sable collar of her wrap; "ah, my dear, a husband is a husband."

"Even when he stays away from his wife for three months at a time?" said Ella.

"Not in spite of that, but on account of it," said Mr. Ayrton. "Have you been married all these years without finding that out?"

"Good-night!" said she.



CHAPTER XXII.

HE HAD EXPLAINED TO PHYLLIS ONCE THAT HE THOUGHT OF GOD ONLY AS A PRINCIPLE.

The sound of the hansom wheels died away before the father and daughter exchanged a word. Mr. Ayrton was the first to speak.

"It seems to have been a night of mischance," said he.

"I am very glad that Mr. Linton has returned," said she.

"What? Now, why should you be glad of that very ordinary incident?"

"Why? Oh, papa, I am so fond of her!"

"She may be fond of him, after all."

Mr. Ayrton spoke musingly.

"Of course she is," said Phyllis, with a positiveness that was designed to convince herself that she believed her own statement.

"And he may be fond of her—yes, at times," resumed Mr. Ayrton. "That toilet of hers seems to have been the only happy element in the game of cross-purposes which was played to-night."

"Ah," whispered the girl.

"Yes; it was in inspiration. She could not have expected her husband to-night. What a dress! Even a husband would be compelled to admit its fascination. And she said she meant to wear it at the opera to-night. It was scarcely an opera toilet, was it?"

"Ella's taste is never at fault, papa."

"I suppose not. I wonder if he is capable of appreciating the—the—let us say, the inspiration of that toilet. Is that, I wonder, the sort of dress that a man likes his wife to wear when she welcomes him home after an absence of some months? No matter it was exquisite in every detail. Curious, her coming here and waiting after she had learned that you were out, was it not; from nine o'clock—that fateful hour!—to-night."

"I think she must have felt—lonely," said Phyllis. "She seemed so glad to see me—so relieved. She meant to stay with me all night, poor thing! Oh, why should her husband stay away from her for months at a time? It is quite disgraceful!"

"I think that we had better go to bed," said her father. "If we begin to discuss abstract questions of temperament we may abandon all hope of sleep tonight. We might as well try to fathom Herbert Courtland's reasons for going to yacht with so uncongenial a party as Lord Earlscourt's. Good-night, my dear!"

He kissed her and went upstairs. She did not follow him immediately. She stood in the center of the room, and over her sweet face a puzzled expression crept, as a single breath of wind passes over the smooth surface of a lake on a day when no wind stirs a leaf.

She thought first of Herbert Courtland, which of itself was a curious incident. How did it come that he had yielded so easily to the invitation of Lord Earlscourt to accompany him on his cruise in the yacht Water Nymph? (Lord Earlscourt's imagination in the direction of the nomenclature of his boats as well as his horses was not unlimited.)

But this was just the question which her father had suggested as an example of a subject of profitless discussion. She remembered this, and asked herself if it was likely that she, having at her command fewer data than her father bearing upon this case, should make a better attempt than he made at its solution. Her father had seen Herbert Courtland since he had agreed to go on the cruise, and was therefore in the better position to arrive at a reasonable conclusion in regard to the source of the impulse upon which Mr. Courtland had acted; so much she thought certain. And yet her father had suggested the profitless nature of such an investigation, and her father was certainly right.

Only for a single moment did it occur to her that something she had said to Herbert Courtland when he was sitting there, there in that chair beside her, might have had its influence upon him—only for a single moment, however; then she shook her head.

No, no! that supposition was too, too ridiculous to be entertained for a moment. He had, to be sure, shown that he felt deeply the words which she had quoted as they came from Mrs. Haddon; but what could those words have to do with his sudden acceptance of Lord Earlscourt's invitation to go to Norway?

She made up her mind that it was nothing to her what course Herbert Courtland had pursued, consequently the endeavors to fathom his reason for adopting such a course would be wholly profitless. But the question of the singular moods suggested by the conduct and the words of her friend Ella Linton stood on a very different basis. Ella was her dearest friend, and nothing that she had said or done should be dismissed as profitless.

What on earth had Ella meant by appearing in that wonderful costume that night? It was not a toilet for the opera, even on a Melba night; even on a "Romeo and Juliet" night, unless, indeed, the wearer meant to appear on the stage as Juliet, was the thought which occurred to the girl. Her fantastic thought—she thought it was a fantastic thought—made her smile. Unless——

And then another thought came to her which, not being fantastic, banished her smile.

Unless——

She got to her feet—very slowly—and walked very slowly—across the room. She seated herself on the sofa where Ella had sat, and she remained motionless for some minutes. Then she made a motion with one of her hands as if sweeping from before her eyes some flimsy repulsiveness—the web of an unclean thing flashing in the air. In another instant she had buried her face in the pillow that still bore the impress of Ella's face.

"Oh, God—my God, forgive me—forgive me—forgive me!" was her silent, passionate prayer as she lay there sobbing. "How could I ever have such a thought, so terrible a thought. She is my friend—my sister—and she put herself into her husband's arms and kissed him! Oh, God, forgive me!"

That was her prayer for the greater part of the night as she lay in her white bed.

She felt that she had sinned grievously in thought against her friend, when she recalled the way in which her friend had thrown herself into the arms of her husband. That was the one action which the girl felt should entitle Ella Linton to be the subject of no such horrid thought as had been for a shocking instant forced upon her mind, when she reflected upon the strange passion which had tingled through Ella's repetition of the fiery words of Juliet.

She recalled every strange element in the incident of Ella's appearance in the drawing room: the way in which Ella had kissed her and clung to her as a child might have done on finding someone to protect it; she recalled the wild words which Ella had uttered, and, finally, the terrible expression which had appeared on her face as she whispered that reckless answer to Phyllis' question, when she had picked up her wrap and flung it around her just before the sound of footsteps had come to their ears. All that she recalled in connection with that extraordinary visit of Ella's was quite intelligible to her; but the mystery of all was more than neutralized by her recollection of the way Ella had thrown herself into her husband's arms. That action should, she felt, be regarded as the one important factor, as it were, in the solution of the problem of Ella's mood—Ella's series of moods. Nothing else that she had done, nothing that she had said, was worthy of being taken account of, alongside that dominant act of the true wife.

The little whisper which suggested to her that there was a good deal that was mysterious in the incident of her friend's visit she refused to regard as rendering it less obligatory on her—Phyllis—to pray that she might be forgiven that horrid suspicion which, for an instant, had come to her; and so she fell asleep praying to God to forgive her for her sin (in thought) against her friend.

And while Phyllis was praying her prayer, her friend, the True Wife, was praying with her face down upon her pillow, and her bare arms stretched out over the white lace of the bed:

"Forgive me, O God; forgive me! and keep him away from me—forever and ever and ever. Amen."

And while both these prayers were being prayed, Herbert Courtland was sitting on one of the deck stools of the yacht Water Nymph, looking back at the many lights that gleamed in clusters along the southern coast of England, now far astern; for a light breeze was sending the boat along with a creaming, quivering wake. In the bows a youth was making the night hideous through the agency of a banjo and a sham negro melody. Amidships, Lord Earlscourt and two other men were playing, by the light of a lantern slung from the backstay, a game called poker; Lord Earlscourt, at every fresh deal, trying to make the rest understand how greatly the worry of being held responsible, as the patron of the living of St. Chad's, for the eccentricities of his rector, had affected his nerves—a matter upon which his friends assured him, with varied degrees of emphasis, they were in no way interested.

Within a few feet of these congenial shipmates Herbert Courtland sat looking across the shining ripples to the shining lights of the coast; wondering how he came to be on the sea instead of on the shore. Was this indeed the night over which his imagination had gloated for months? Was it indeed possible that this was the very night following the day—Thursday—for which he had engaged himself in accordance with the letter that he still carried in his pocket?

How on earth did it come that he was sitting with his arm over the bulwarks of a yacht instead of——Oh, the thing was a miracle—a miracle! He could think of it in no other light than that of a miracle.

Well, if it were a miracle, it had been the work of God, and God had to be thanked for it. He had explained to Phyllis once that he thought of God only as a Principle—as the Principle which worked in opposition to the principle of nature. That was certainly the God which had been evolved out of modern civilization. The pagan gods had been just the opposite. They had been founded on natural principles. The Hebrew tradition that God had made man in his own image was the reverse of the scheme of the pagan man who had made God after his own image; in the image of man created he God.

But holding the theory that he held—that God was the sometimes successful opponent to the principles of nature (which he called the Devil)—Herbert Courtland felt that this was the very God to whom his thanks were due for the miracle that had been performed on his behalf.

"Thank God—thank God—thank God!" he murmured, looking out over the rippling waters, steel gray in the soft shadow of the summer's night.

But then he held that "thank God" was but a figure of speech.

"Tinky-tink, tinky-tink, tinky-tinky-tinky-tinky-tinky-tinky-tink," went the youth with the banjo in the bows.



CHAPTER XXIII.

ITS MOUTHINGS OF THE PAST HAD BECOME ITS MUMBLINGS OF THE PRESENT.

It was very distressing—very disappointing! The bishop would neither institute proceedings against the rector of St. Chad's nor state plainly if it was his intention to proceed against that clergyman. When some people suggested very delicately—the way ordinary people would suggest anything to a bishop—that it was surely not in sympathy with the organization of the Church for any clergyman to take advantage of his position and his pulpit to cast sometimes ridicule, sometimes abuse, upon certain "scriptural characters"—that was their phrase—who had hitherto always been regarded as sacred, comparatively sacred, the bishop had brought the tips of the fingers of one hand in immediate, or almost immediate, contact with the tips of the fingers of his other hand, and had shaken his head—mournfully, sadly. These signs of acquiescence, trifling though they were, had encouraged the deputation that once waited on his lordship—two military men (retired on the age clause), an officer of engineers (on the active list), a solicitor (retired), and a member of the London County Council (by occupation an ironmonger), to express the direct opinion that the scandal which had been created by the dissemination—the unrebuked dissemination—of the doctrines held by the rector of St. Chad's was affording the friends of Disestablishment an additional argument in favor of their policy of spoliation. At this statement his lordship had nodded his head three times with a gravity that deeply impressed the spokesman of the deputation. He wondered if his lordship had ever before heard that phrase about the furnishing of an additional argument to the friends of Disestablishment. (As a matter of fact his lordship had heard it before.)

After an expression of the deputation's opinion that immediate steps should be taken to make the rector of St. Chad's amenable to the laws of the Church,

His lordship replied.

(It was his facility in making conciliatory replies that had brought about his elevation in the Church):

He referred to (1) his deep appreciation of the sincerity of the deputation; (2) his own sense of responsibility in regard to the feelings of the weaker brethren; (3) his appreciation of the value of the counsel of practical men in many affairs of the Church; (4) the existing position of the Church in regard to the laity; (5) the friendly relations that had always existed between himself personally and the clergy of his extensive diocese; (6) his earnest and prayerful desire that these relations might be strengthened; (7) the insecurity of a house divided against itself; (8) the progress of socialism; (9) the impossibility of socialism commending itself to Englishmen; (10) the recent anarchist outrages; (11) the purity of the Court of her Majesty the Queen; (12) the union of all Christian Churches; (13) the impossibility of such union ever becoming permanent; (14) the value of Holy Scripture in daily life; (15) his firm belief in the achievement of England's greatness by means of the open Bible; (16) the note of pessimism in modern life; (17) the necessity for the Church's combating modern pessimism; (18) the Church's position as a purveyor of healthy literature for the young; (19) his reluctance to take up any more of their valuable time, and (20) his assurance that the remarks of their spokesman would have his earnest and prayerful attention.

The deputation then thanked his lordship and withdrew.

But still the bishop made no move in the matter, and the friends of the Rev. George Holland felt grievously disappointed. They had counted on the bishop's at least writing a letter of remonstrance to the rector of St. Chad's, and upon the publication of the letter, with the rector's reply in the newspapers; but now quite two months had passed since the appearance of "Revised Versions," the bishop had returned from the Engadine, and still there were no indications of his intention to make the Rev. George Holland responsible to the right tribunal—whatever that was—for his doctrines. They counted on his martyrdom within six months; and, consequently, upon his election to a position of distinction in the eyes of his fellow-country-men—or, at least, of his country-women. But the bishop they found to be a poor thing after all. They felt sure that what the people said about his being quite humble in the presence of his wife was not without some foundation; and they thought that, after all, there was a great deal to be said in favor of the celibacy of priests compulsory in the Church of Rome. If the bishops of the Church of England were not very careful, they might be the means of such a going over to Rome as had never previously been witnessed in England.

George Holland may have been disappointed, or he may have been pleased at the inactivity of the bishop. He made no sign one way or the other. Of course he was no more than human: he would have regarded a letter of remonstrance from the bishop as a personal compliment; he had certainly expected such a letter, for he had already put together the heads of the reply he would make—and publish—to any official remonstrance that might be offered to him. Still he made no sign. He preached at least one sermon every Sunday morning, and whenever it was known that he would preach, St. Chad's was crowded and the offertory was all that could be desired. The bishop's chaplain no longer held a watching brief in regard in regard to those sermons. He did not think it worth while to do so much, George Holland's friends said, shaking their heads and pursing out their lips. Oh, yes! there could be no doubt that the bishop was a very weak sort of man.

But then suddenly there appeared in the new number of the Zeit Geist Review an article above the signature of George Holland, entitled "The Enemy to Christianity," and in a moment it became pretty plain that George Holland had not in his "Revised Versions," said the last word that he had to say regarding the attitude of the Church of England in respect of the non-church-goers of the day. When people read the article they asked "Who is the Enemy to Christianity referred to by the writer?" and they were forced to conclude that the answer which was made to such an inquiry by the article itself was, "The Church."

He pointed out the infatuation which possessed the heads of the Church of England in expecting to appeal with success to the educated people of the present day, while still declining to move with the course of thought of the people. Already the braying of a trombone out of tune, and the barbarous jingle of a tambourine, had absorbed some hundred thousand of possible church-goers; and though, of course, it was impossible for sensible men and women—the people whom the Church should endeavor to grapple to its soul with hooks of steel—to look, except with amused sadness, at the ludicrous methods and vulgar ineptitude of the Salvation Army, still the Church was making no effort to provide the sensible, thinking, educated people of England with an equivalent as suitable to their requirements as the Salvation Army was to the requirements of the foolish, the hysterical, the unthinking people who played the tambourines and brayed on the tuneless trombones. Thus it is that one man says to another nowadays, when he has got nothing better to talk about, "Are you a man of intelligence, or do you go to church?"

Men of intelligence do not go to church nowadays, Mr. Holland announced in that article of his in the Zeit Geist; many women of intelligence refrain from going, he added, though many beautifully dressed women were still frequent attenders. There was no blinking the fact that the crass stupidity of the Church had made church-going unpopular—almost impossible—with intelligent men and women. The Church insulted the intelligence by trying to reconcile the teachings of Judaism with the teachings of Christianity, when the two were absolutely irreconcilable. It was the crass stupidity of the Church that had caused it—for its self-protection, it fancied—to bitterly oppose every truth that was revealed to man. The Church had tortured and burned at the stake the great men to whom God had revealed the great facts of nature's workings—the motion of the earth and the other planets. But these facts, being Divine Truth, became accepted by the world in spite of the thumb-screws and the fagots—the arguments of the Church against Divine Truth. The list of the Divine Truths which the Church had bitterly opposed was a sickening document. Geography, Geology, Biology—the progress of all had, even within recent years, been bitterly opposed by the Church, and yet the self-constituted arbiters between Truth and falsehood had been compelled to eat their own words—to devour their own denunciations when they found that the Truth was accepted by the intelligence of the people in spite of the anathemas of the Church.

The intelligence of the Church was equal only to the duty of burning witches. It burned them by the thousand, simply because ancient Judaism had a profound belief in the witch and because a blood-thirsty Jewish murderer-monarch had organized a witch hunt.

And yet with such a record against it—a record of the murder of innocent men and women who endeavored to promulgate the Divine Truths of nature—the Church still arrogated to itself the right to lay down a rule of life for intelligent people—a rule of life founded upon that impossible amalgamation of Judaism and Christianity. The science of the Church was not equal to the task of amalgamating two such deadly opponents.

Was it any wonder, then, that church-going had become practically obsolete among intelligent men and women? the writer asked.

He then went on to refer to the nature of the existing services of the Church of England. He dealt only casually with the mockery of the response of the congregation to the reading out of the Fourth Commandment by the priest, when no one in the Church paid the least respect to the Seventh Day. This was additional proof of the absurdity of the attempted amalgamation of Judaism and Christianity. But what he dealt most fully with was the indiscriminate selection of what were very properly termed the "Lessons" from the Hebrew Bible. It was, he said, far from edifying to hear some chapters read out from the lectern without comment; though fortunately the readers were as a rule so imperfectly trained that the most objectionable passages had their potentiality of mischief minimized. He concluded his indictment by a reference to a sermon preached by the average clergyman of the Church of England. This was, usually, he said, either a theological essay founded upon an obsolete system of theology, or a series of platitudes of morality delivered by an unpractical man. The first was an insult to the intelligence of an average man; the second was an insult to the intelligence of an average schoolgirl.

His summing up of the whole case against the Church was as logical as it was trenchant. The Church had surely become, he said, like unto the Giant Pagan in "The Pilgrim's Progress," who, when incapable of doing mischief, sat mumbling at the mouth of his cave on the roadside. The Church had become toothless, decrepit either for evil or for good. Its mouthings of the past had become its mumblings of the present. The cave at the mouth of which this toothless giant sat was very dark; and intelligent people went by with a good-natured and tolerant laugh.

This article was published in the Review on Tuesday. Phyllis read it on the evening of that day. On Wednesday the newspapers were full of this further development of the theories of the writer, and on Thursday afternoon the writer paid a visit to Phyllis.

As he entered the drawing room he found himself face to face with Herbert Courtland, who was in the act of leaving.



CHAPTER XXIV.

SHE WAS A WIFE, AND SHE HAD A LOVER WHO DISAPPOINTED HER.

The prayer of Ella Linton had not been answered. She had prayed, not that her heart wherewith she loved Herbert Courtland might be changed—that she knew would be difficult; not that her love for Herbert Courtland might cease—that she believed to be impossible; but simply that Herbert Courtland might be kept away from her—that she knew to be the most sensible course her scheme of imploration could take.

She was well aware of the fact that God had given her strength to run away from Herbert Courtland, and for that she was sincerely thankful; she did not pause to analyze her feelings, to ask herself if her thanks were due to her reflection upon the circumstance of her husband's return, at the very hour when she had appointed to meet Herbert Courtland; she only felt that God had been good to her in giving her sufficient strength to run away from that appointment. Then it was that she had prayed that he might be kept away from her. Surely God would find it easy to do that, she thought. Surely she might assume that God was on her side, and that he would not leave his work half done.

But when she began to think of the thorough manner in which God does his work she began to wish that she had not prayed quite so earnestly. Supposing that God should think it fit to keep him away from her by sending a blast from heaven to capsize that yacht in the deep sea, what would she think of the fervency of her prayer then?

The terror of her reflection upon the possibility of this occurrence flung her from her bed and sent her pacing, with bare feet and flying lace, the floor of her bedroom in the first pearly light of dawn, just as she had paced the floor of Phyllis' drawing room beneath the glow of the electric lights.

She wished that she had not prayed quite so earnestly that he might be kept apart from her. But one cannot pray hot and cold; she felt that she had no right now to lay down any conditions to Heaven in the matter of keeping Herbert Courtland away from her. She had prayed her prayer; only, if he were drowned before she saw him again, she would never say another prayer.

This feeling that she would be even with Heaven, so to speak, had the effect of soothing her. She threw herself upon her bed once more and was able to fall asleep; she had a considerable amount of confidence in the discrimination of Heaven.

But before she had come down to the breakfast room where her husband was reading a newspaper in the morning, she had thought a good deal upon another matter that disquieted her in some degree. She had been exuberant (she thought) at having had sufficient strength given to her to run away from her lover; but then she had not dwelt upon the rather important circumstance that all the running away had not been on her side. What were the facts as revealed by the narrative of Mr. Ayrton? Why, simply, that while she was putting on that supreme toilet which she had prepared for the delight of the eyes of her lover (feeling herself to be a modern Cleopatra), that lover of hers was sitting on the cushions of a first-class carriage, flying along to Southampton; and while she had been lying among the cushions of her drawing room, waiting tremulously, nervously, ecstatically, for the dreary minutes to crawl on until the clock should chime the hour of nine, he was probably lighting his first pipe aboard the yacht Water Nymph. What did it matter that she had lifted her hot face from her cushions and had fled in wild haste to the arms of Phyllis Ayrton? The fact remained the same; it was he who had run away from her.

That was a terrible reflection. Hitherto she had never felt humiliated. She had not felt that he had insulted her by his kisses; she had given him kiss for kiss. She had but to hold up her finger and he was ready to obey her. But now—what was she to think of him? Had ever man so humiliated woman? She had offered him, not her heart but her soul—had he not told her a few days before that he meant her to give him her soul? and when she had laid heart and soul at his feet—that was how she put it to herself—he had not considered it worth his while to take the priceless gift that she offered to him.

"He will answer to me for that," she said, as she thought over her humiliation, in front of her dressing-glass that morning, while her maid was absent from the room.

Her wish was now not that her prayer had been less earnest, but that it had not been uttered at all. It was necessary for her to meet him again in order that he might explain to her how it came that he had preferred the attractions incidental to a cruise with Lord Earlscourt and his friends to all that she had written to offer him.

And yet when her husband, after having quite finished with his paper, said:

"It's very awkward that Herbert Courtland is not in town."

She merely raised her shoulders an inch, saying:

"I suppose that he has a right to take a holiday now and then. If you didn't telegraph to him from Paris, you cannot complain."

"I felt certain that I should find him here," said the husband.

"Here?" said the wife, raising her eyebrows and casting an offended glance at her husband. "Here?"

He smiled in the face of her offended glance.

"Here—in London, I mean, of course. Heavens, Ella! did you fancy for a moment that I meant——Ah, by the way, you have seen him recently?"

"Oh, yes; quite recently—on Tuesday, I think it was, we met at the Ayrton's dinner party—yes, it was Tuesday. There was some fuss, or attempted fuss, about his adventures in New Guinea, and a question was being asked about the matter in the House of Commons. Mr. Ayrton got rid of some of his superfluous cleverness in putting a counter question—you know the way."

"Oh, perfectly well! And that is how you met on Tuesday—if it was Tuesday?"

"Yes; he went to thank Mr. Ayrton, and Mr. Ayrton asked him to dinner. It was a small party, and not very brilliant. Herbert came here with me afterward—for five minutes."

"Ah! To get the taste of the party off his mouth, I suppose? He didn't say anything to you then about being tired of his London season?"

"Not a word. He seemed tired of the dinner party. He yawned."

"And I'm sure that you yawned in sympathy. When a man so far forgets himself as to yawn in the presence of a woman, she never fails to respond with one of more ample circumference. When a woman so far remembers herself as to yawn in the presence of a man, he tries to say something witty."

"Yes, when the woman is not his wife. If she is his wife, he asks her if she doesn't think it's about time she was in bed."

"I dare say you're right; you have observed men—and women, for that matter—much more closely than I have had time to do. It's very awkward that he isn't here. I must bring him back at once."

She felt a little movement at her heart; but she only said:

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you. Why shouldn't he be allowed to enjoy his holiday in peace?"

"It's a matter of business; the mine, I told you."

"What's wrong with the mine that could be set right by his coming back at once? Are you not making enough out of it?"

"We're making quite as much as is good for us out of it. But if we can get a hundred and fifty thousand pounds for a few yards of our claim further east, without damaging the prospects of the mine itself, I don't think we should refuse it—at any rate, I don't think that we should refuse to consider the offer."

"What is a hundred and fifty thousand pounds?" said she.

"I wonder why you dressed yourself as you did last night?" said he.

The suddenness of the words did not cause her to quail as the guilty wife quails—yes, under a properly managed lime-light. She did not even color. But then, of course, she was not a guilty wife.

She lay back on her chair and laughed.

He watched her—not eagerly, but pleasantly, admiringly.

"My dear Stephen, if you could understand why I dressed myself that way you would be able to give me a valuable hint as to where the connection lies between your mine and my toilet—I need such a hint, now, I can assure you."

She was sitting up now looking at him with lovely laughing eyes. (After all, she was no guilty wife.)

"What, you can't see the connection?" he said slowly. "You can sew over your dress about fifty thousand pounds' worth of diamonds, and yet you don't see the connection between the wearing of that dress and the development of a gold mine by your husband?"

"I think I see it now—something of a connection. But I don't want any more diamonds; I don't care if you take all that are sewed about the dress and throw them into the river. That's how I feel this morning."

"I heard some time ago of a woman who had something of your mood upon her one day. She had some excellent diamonds, and in one of her moods, she flung them into the river. She was a wife and she had a lover who disappointed her. The story reads very smoothly in verse."

She laughed.

"I have no lover," she said—was it mournfully? "I have a husband, it is true; but he is not exactly of the type of King Arthur—nor Sir Galahad, for that matter. I hope you found Paris as enjoyable as ever?"

"Quite. I never saw at Paris a more enrapturing toilet than yours of last night. You are, I know, the handsomest woman of my acquaintance, and you looked handsomer than I had ever before seen you in that costume. I wonder why you put it on."

"Didn't someone—was it Phyllis?—suggest that it was an act of inspiration; that I had a secret, mysterious prompting to put it on to achieve the object which—well, which I did achieve."

"Object? What object?"

"To make my husband fall in love with me again."

"Ah! In love there is no again. I wonder where a telegram would find Herbert."

"Don't worry yourself about him. Let him enjoy his holiday."

"Do you fancy he is enjoying himself with Earlscourt and his boon companions? They'll be playing poker from morning till night—certainly from night till morning."

"Why should he go on the cruise if he was not certain to enjoy himself?"

"Ah, that question is too much for me. Think over it yourself and let me know if you come to a solution, my dear."

He rose and left the room before she could make any answer—before she could make an attempt to find out in what direction his thoughts regarding the departure of Herbert Courtland were moving.

She wondered if he had any suspicion in regard to Herbert and herself. He was not a man given to suspicion, or at any rate, given to allowing whatever suspicion he may have felt, to be apparent. He had allowed her to drive and to ride with Herbert Courtland during the four months they had been together, first at Egypt, then at Florence, Vienna, Munich, and Paris, and he could not have but seen that Herbert and she had a good many sympathies in common. Not a word had been breathed, however, of a suspicion that they were more than good friends to each other.

(As a matter of fact, they had not been more than good friends to each other; but then some husbands are given to unworthy suspicions.)

Could it be possible, she asked herself, that some people with nasty minds had suggested to him in Paris that she and Herbert were together a great deal in London, and that he had been led to make this sudden visit, this surprise visit to London, with a view of satisfying himself as to the truth of the nasty reports—the disgraceful calumnies which had reached his ears?

If he had done so, all that could be said was that he had been singularly unfortunate in regard to his visit. "Unfortunate" was the word which was in her mind, though, of course "fortunate" was the word which should have occurred to her. It was certainly a fortunate result of his visit—that tableau in the drawing room of Mr. Ayrton: Ella and her dearest friend standing side by side, hand in hand, as he entered. A surprise visit, it may have been, but assuredly the surprise was a pleasant one for the husband, if he had listened to the voice of calumny.

And then, after pondering upon this with a smiling face, her smile suddenly vanished. She was overwhelmed with the thought of what might have been the result of that surprise visit—yes, if she had not had the strength to run away to the side of Phyllis; yes, if Herbert had not had the weakness to join that party of poker-players aboard the yacht.

She began to wonder what her husband would have done if he had entered the house by the aid of his latch-key, and had found her sitting in that lovely costume by the side of Herbert Courtland? Would he have thought her a guilty woman? Would he have thought Herbert a false friend? Would he have killed her, or would he have killed Herbert? Herbert would, she thought, take a good deal of killing from a man of the caliber of her husband; but what could she have done?

Well, what she did, as the force of that thought crushed her back upon her chair, was to bring her hands together in a passionate clasp, and to cry in a passionate gasp:

"Thank God—thank God—thank God!"

She dined alone with her husband that night, and thought it well to appear in another evening toilet—one that was quite as lovely, though scarcely so striking, as that which her husband had so admired the previous night. He clearly appreciated her efforts to maintain her loveliness in his eyes, and their little dinner was a very pleasant one.

He told her that he had learned that the yacht Water Nymph would put in to Leith before crossing the North Sea, and that he had written to Herbert Courtland at that port to return without delay.

"You did wrong," said she; and she felt that she was speaking the truth.

"I don't think so," he replied. "At any rate, you may rest perfectly certain that Herbert will receive my letter with gratitude."

And Mr. Linton's judgment on this point was not in error. Herbert Courtland received, on the evening of the third day after leaving Southampton, the letter which called him back to London, and he contrived to conceal whatever emotion he may have felt at the prospect of parting from his shipmates. They accompanied him ashore, however—they had worn out six packs of cards already, and were about to buy another dozen or two, to see them safely through the imposing scenery of the Hardanger Fjord.

The next day he was in London, and it was on the evening of that same day that he came face to face with the Rev. George Holland outside Miss Ayrton's drawing room.



CHAPTER XXV.

LIES! LIES! LIES!

"You should have come a little sooner," said Phyllis quite pleasantly. "Mr. Courtland was giving me such an amusing account of his latest voyage. Will you have tea or iced coffee?"

"Tea, if you please," said George Holland, also quite pleasantly. "Has Mr. Courtland been on another voyage of discovery? What has he left himself to discover in the world of waters?"

"I think that what he discovered on his latest voyage was the effect of a banjo on the human mind," laughed Phyllis. "He was aboard Lord Earlscourt's yacht, the Water Nymph. Some other men were there also. One of them had an idea that he could play upon the banjo. He was wrong, Mr. Courtland thinks."

"A good many people are subject to curious notions of the same type. They usually take an optimistic view of the susceptibilities of enjoyment of their neighbors—not that there is any connection between enjoyment and a banjo."

"Mr. Courtland said just now that when Dr. Johnson gave it as his opinion that music was, of all noises, the least disagreeable, the banjo had not been invented."

"That assumes that there is some connection between music and the banjo, and that's going just a little too far, don't you think?"

"I should like to hear Dr. Johnson's criticism of Paderewski."

"His criticism of Signor Piozzi is extant: a fine piece of eighteenth century directness."

"I sometimes long for an hour or two of the eighteenth century. You remember Fanny Burney's reference to the gentleman who thought it preposterous that Reynolds should have increased his price for a portrait to thirty guineas, though he admitted that Reynolds was a good enough sort of man for a painter. I think I should like to have an hour with that man."

"I long for more than that. I should like to have seen David Garrick's reproduction, for the benefit of his schoolfellows, of Dr. Johnson's love passages with his very mature wife. I should also like to have heard the complete story of old Grouse in the gun room."

"Told by Squire Hardcastle, of course?"

"Of course. I question if there was anything very much better aboard the Water Nymph. By the way, Lady Earlscourt invited me to join the yachting party. She did not mention it to her husband, however. She thought that there should be a chaplain aboard. Now, considering that Lord Earlscourt had told me the previous day that he was compelled to take to the sea solely on account of the way people were worrying him about me, I think that I did the right thing when I told her that I should be compelled to stay at home until the appearance of a certain paper of mine in the Zeit Geist Review."

"I'm sure that you did the right thing when you stayed at home."

"And in writing the paper in the Zeit Geist? You have read it?"

"Oh, yes! I have read it."

"You don't like it?"

"How could I like it? You have known me now for sometime. How could you fancy that I should like it—that is, if you thought of me at all in connection with it? I don't myself see why you should think of me at all."

He rose and stood before her. She had risen to take his empty cup from him.

"Don't you know that I think of you always, Phyllis?" he said, in that low tone of his which flowed around the hearts of his hearers, and made their hearts as one with his heart. "Don't you know that I think of you always—that all my hopes are centered in you?"

"I am so sorry if that is the case, Mr. Holland," said she. "I don't want to give you pain, but I must tell you again what I told you long ago: you have passed completely out of my life. If you had not done so before, the publication of that article in the Zeit Geist would force me to tell you that you had done so now. To me my religion has always been a living thing; my Bible has been my guide. You trampled upon the one some months ago, you have trampled on the other now. You shocked me, Mr. Holland."

"I have always loved you, Phyllis. I think I love you better than I ever did, if that were possible," said he. "I am overwhelmed with grief at the thought of the barrier which your fancy has built up between us."

"Fancy?"

"Your fancy, dear child. I feel that the barrier which you fancy is now between us is unworthy of you."

"What? Do you mean to say that you think that my detestation—my—my horror of your sneers at the Bible, which I believe to be the Word of God—of the contempt you have heaped upon the Church which I believe to be God's agent on earth for the salvation of men's souls—do you think that my detestation of these is a mere girlish fancy?"

"I don't think that, Phyllis. What I think is, that if you had ever loved me you would be ready to stand by my side now—to be guided by me in a matter which I have made the study of my life."

"In such matters as these—the value or the worthlessness of the Bible; the value or the worthlessness of the Church—I require no guide, Mr. Holland. I do not need to go to a priest to ask if it is wrong to steal, to covet another's goods, to honor my father——Oh, I cannot discuss what is so very obvious. The Bible I regard as precious; you think that you are in a position to edit it as if it were an ordinary book. The Church I regard as the Temple of God upon the earth; you think that it exists only to be sneered at? and yet you talk of fanciful barriers between us!"

"I consider it the greatest privilege of a man on earth to be a minister of the Church of Christ."

"Why, then, do you take every opportunity of pointing to it as the greatest enemy to Christianity?"

"The Church of to-day represents some results of the great Reformation. That Reformation was due to the intelligence of those men who perceived that it had become the enemy to freedom; the enemy to the development of thought; the enemy to the aspirations of a great nation. The nation rejoiced in the freedom of thought of which the great charter was the Reformation. But during the hundreds of years that have elapsed since that Reformation, some enormous changes have been brought about in the daily life of the people of this great nation. The people are being educated, and the Church must sooner or later face the fact that as education spreads church-going decreases. Why is that, I ask you?"

"Because men are growing more wicked every day."

"But they are not. Crime is steadily decreasing as education is spreading, and yet people will not go to church. They will go to lectures, to bands of music, to political demonstrations, but they will not go to church. The reason they will not go is because they know that they will hear within the church the arguments of men whose minds are stunted by a narrow theological course against every discovery of science or result of investigation. You know how the best minds in the Church ridiculed the discoveries of geology, of biology, ending, of course, by reluctantly accepting the teachings of the men whom they reviled."

"You said all that in your paper, Mr. Holland, and yet I tell you that I abhor your paper—that I shuddered when I read what you wrote about the Bible. The words that are in the Bible have given to millions of poor souls a consolation that science could never bring to them."

"And those consoling words are what I would read to the people every day of the week, not the words which may have a certain historical signification, but which breathe a very different spirit from the spirit of Christianity. Phyllis, it is to be the aim of my life to help on the great work of making the Church once more the Church of the people—of making it in reality the exponent of Christianity and Judaism. That is my aim, and I want you to be my helper in this work."

"And I tell you that I shall oppose you by all the means in my power, paltry though my power may be."

Her eyes were flashing and she made a little automatic motion with her hands, as if sweeping something away from before her. He had become pale and there was a light in his eyes. He felt angry at this girl who had shown herself ready to argue with him,—in her girlish fashion, of course,—and who, after listening to his incontrovertible arguments, fell back resolutely upon a platitude, and considered that she had got the better of him.

She had got the better of him, too; that was the worst of it; his object in going to her, in arguing with her, was to induce her to promise to marry him, and he had failed.

It was on this account he was angry. He might have had a certain consciousness of succeeding as a theologian, but he had undoubtedly failed as a lover. He was angry. He was as little accustomed as other clergymen to be withstood by a girl.

"I am disappointed in you," said he. "I fancied that when I—when I——" It was in his mind to say that he had selected her out of a large number of candidates to be his helpmeet, but he pulled himself up in time, and the pause that he made seemed purely emotional. "When I loved you and got your promise to love me in return, you would share with me all the glory, the persecution, the work incidental to this crusade on behalf of the truth, but now——Ah! you can never have loved me."

"Perhaps you are right, indeed," said she meekly. She was ready to cede him this point if he set any store by it.

"Take care," said he, with some measure of sternness. "Take care, if you fancy you love another man, that he may be worthy of you."

"I do not love another man, Mr. Holland," said she gently; scarcely regretfully.

"Do you not?" said he, with equal gentleness. "Then I will hope."

"You will do very wrong."

"You cannot say that without loving someone else. I would not like to hear of your loving such a man as Herbert Courtland."

She started at that piece of impertinence, and then, without the slightest further warning, she felt her body blaze from head to foot. She was speechless with indignation.

"Perhaps I should have said a word of warning to you before." He had now assumed the calm dignity of a clergyman who knows what is due to himself. "I am not one to place credence in vulgar gossip; I thought that your father, perhaps, might have given you a hint. Mrs. Linton is undoubtedly a very silly woman. God forbid that I should ever hear rumor play with your name as I have heard it deal with hers."

His assumption of the clergyman's solemn dignity did not make his remark less impertinent, considering that Ella Linton was her dearest friend. And yet people were in the habit of giving George Holland praise for his tact. Such persons had never seen him angry, wounded, and anxious to wound.

There was a pause after he had spoken his tactless words. It was broken by a thrice-repeated cry from Phyllis.

"Lies! Lies! Lies!" she cried, facing him, the light of scorn in her eyes. "I tell you that you have listened to lies; you, a clergyman, have listened to lying gossip, and have repeated that lying gossip to me. You have listened like a wicked man, and you should be ashamed of your behavior, of your words, your wicked words. If Ella Linton were wicked, you would be responsible for it in the sight of God. You, a clergyman, whose duty it is to help the weak ones, to give counsel to those who stand on the brink of danger; you speak your own condemnation if you speak Ella Linton's. You have spent your time not in that practical work of the Church—that work which is done silently by those of her priests who are desirous of doing their duty; you have spent your time, not in this work, but in theorizing, in inventing vain sophistries to put in a book, and so cause people to talk about you; whether they talk well or ill of you, you care not so long as they talk; you have been doing this to gratify your own vanity, instead of doing your duty as a clergyman on behalf of the souls which have been intrusted to your keeping. Go away—go away! I am ashamed of you; I am ashamed of myself that I was ever foolish enough to allow my name to be associated with yours even for a single day. I shall never, never again enter the church where you preach. Go away! Go away!"

He stood before her with his hands by his sides as a man suddenly paralyzed might stand. He had never recovered from the shock produced by her crying of the word "lies! lies! lies!" He was dazed. He was barely conscious of the injustice which she was doing him, for he felt that he was not actuated by vanity, but sincerity in all that he had hitherto preached and written regarding the Church. Still he had not the power to interrupt her in her accusation; he had not the power to tell her that she was falsely accusing him.

When her impassioned denunciation of him had come to an end, and she stood with flaming face, one outstretched hand pointing to the door, he recovered himself—partially; and curiously enough, his first thought was that he had never seen a more beautiful girl in a more graceful attitude. She had insulted him grossly; she had behaved as none of the daughters of Philistia would behave in regard to him—him, a clergyman of the Church of England; but he forgot her insults, her injustice, and his only thought was that she was surely the most beautiful woman in the world.

"I am amazed!" he found words to say at last. "I am amazed! I felt certain that you at least would do me justice. I thought—"

"I will not listen to you," she cried. "Every word you utter increases my self-contempt at having heard you say so much as you have said. Go away, please. No, I will go—I will go."

And she did go.

He found himself standing in the middle of an empty room.

Never before had he been so treated by man or woman; and the worst of the matter was that he had an uneasy feeling that he had deserved the scorn which she had heaped upon him. He knew perfectly well that he had no right to speak to her as he had spoken regarding her friend, Ella Linton. Rumor—what right had he to suggest to her, as he had certainly done, that the evil rumors regarding her friend were believed by him at least?

Yes, he felt that she had treated him as he deserved; and when he tried to get up a case for himself, so to speak, by dwelling upon the injustice which she had done him in saying that he had been actuated by vanity, whereas he knew that he had been sincere, he completely failed.

But his greatest humiliation was due to a consciousness of his own want of tact. Any man may forget himself so far as to lose his temper upon occasions; but no man need hope to get on in the world who so far forgets himself as to allow other people to perceive that he has lost his temper.

What was he to do?

What was left for him to do but to leave the house with as little delay as possible?

He went down the stairs, and a footman opened the hall door for him. He felt a good deal better in the open air. Even the large drawing room which he had left was beginning to feel stuffy. (He was a singularly sensitive man.)

On reaching the rectory he found two letters waiting for him. One from the bishop requesting an early interview with him. The other was almost identical but it was signed "Stephen Linton."



CHAPTER XXVI.

DID HE SAY SOMETHING MORE ABOUT RUTH?

Herbert Courtland had found his way to her drawing room on the afternoon of his return to London; and it was upon this circumstance rather than upon her own unusual behavior in the presence of George Holland that Phyllis was dwelling so soon as she had recovered from her tearful outburst on her bed. (She had, of course, run into her bedroom and thrown herself upon the bed the moment that she had left the presence of the man whom she had once promised to marry.) She had wept in the sheer excitement of the scene in which she had played the part of leading lady; it had been a very exciting scene, and it had overwhelmed her; she had not accustomed herself to the use of such vehement language as she had found necessary to employ in order to adequately deal with Mr. Holland and that was how it came about that she was overwhelmed.

But so soon as she had partially recovered from her excitement, and had dried her eyes, she began to think of the visit which had been paid to her, not by George Holland, but by Herbert Courtland. She dwelt, moreover, less upon his amusing account of the cruise of the Water Nymph than upon the words which he had said to her in regard to his last visit. She had expressed her surprise at seeing him. Had he not gone on a yachting cruise to Norway? Surely five days was under rather than over the space of time necessary to thoroughly enjoy the fine scenery of the fjords.

He had then laughed and said that he had received a letter at Leith making his immediate return absolutely necessary.

"How disappointed you must have felt!" she suggested, with something like a smile upon her face.

His smile was broader as he said:

"Well, I'm not so sure that my disappointment was such as would tend to make me take a gloomy view of life for an indefinite time. Lord Earlscourt is a very good sort of fellow; but——"

"Yes; I quite agree with you," said she, still smiling. "Knowing what follows that 'but' in everyone's mind, we all thought it rather strange on your part to start on that cruise. And so suddenly you seemed to make up your mind, too. You never hinted to me that afternoon that you were anxious to see Norway under the personal conductorship of Lord Earlscourt."

"It would have been impossible for me to give you such a hint," said he. "I had no idea myself that I wanted greatly to go to Norway, until I met Earlscourt."

"So we gathered from what papa told us when he came in about midnight, bringing Mr. Linton with him," said Phyllis. "Ella had come across to me before nine, to ask me to go with her to 'Romeo and Juliet' at Covent Garden, forgetting that I was dining with Lady Earlscourt."

"But you had not returned from the dinner party at nine," he suggested. She had certainly succeeded in arousing his interest, even in such ordinary details as those she was describing.

"Of course not; but Ella waited for me; I suppose she did not want to return to her lonely house. She seemed so glad when I came in that she made up her mind to stay with me all night."

"Oh! But she didn't stay with you?"

"Of course not, when her husband appeared. It was so funny—so startling."

"So funny—so startling! Yes, it must have been—funny."

"Ella was wearing such a lovely frock—covered with diamonds. I wish that you had seen her."

"Ah!"

"I never saw anything so lovely. I told her that it was a bridal toilet."

"A bridal toilet?"

"We thought it such a pity that it should be wasted. She didn't go to the opera, of course."

"And it was wasted—wasted?"

"Oh, no! When her husband came in with papa, about midnight, we laughed and said that her dressing herself in that way was an inspiration; that something told her that he was returning."

"Probably a telegram from Paris had told her; that was the source of her inspiration."

"Oh, no! what was so funny about the matter was that Mr. Linton's servant bungled sending the telegram, so that Ella knew nothing of his coming."

"Great Heavens!"

"You have not seen Ella since your return?"

"No; I have been with her husband on business all day, however."

"And of course he would not have occasion to refer to so casual an incident as his wife's wearing a new toilet."

"Of course not. The word inspiration has no place in a commercial vocabulary, Miss Ayrton."

"But it is a good word elsewhere, Mr. Courtland.

"Yes, it has its meaning. You think that it may be safely applied to the wearing of an effective toilet. I wonder if you would think of applying it to the words you said to me on the last evening I was here?"

It was in a very low tone, and after a long pause, that she said:

"I hope if what I told you Mrs. Haddon said was an inspiration, it was a good one. I felt that I must tell you, Mr. Courtland, though I fear that I gave you some pain—great pain. I know what it is to be reminded of an irreparable loss."

"Pain—pain?" said he. Then he raised his eyes to hers. "I wonder if you will ever know what effect your words had upon me, Miss Ayrton?" he added. "I don't suppose that you will ever know; but I tell you that it would be impossible for me ever to cease to think of you as my good angel."

She flushed slightly, very slightly, before saying:

"How odd that Ella should call me her good angel, too, on that same night!"

"And she spoke the truth, if ever truth was spoken," he cried.

Her face was very serious as she said:

"Of course I don't understand anything of this, Mr. Courtland."

"No," he said; "it would be impossible for you to understand anything of it. It would be impossible for you to understand how I feel toward you—how I have felt toward you since you spoke those words in this room; those words that came to me as the light from heaven came to Saul of Tarsus; words of salvation. Believe me, I shall never forget them."

"I am so glad," said she. "I am glad, though, as I say, I understand nothing."

Then there had been a long interval of silence before she had asked him something further regarding the yachting party.

And now she was lying on her bed trying to recall every word that he had spoken, and with a dread over her that what he had said would bear out that terrible suspicion which she had prayed to God to forgive her for entertaining on that night when Ella had gone home with her husband.

No rumor had reached her ears regarding the closeness of the intimacy existing between Mr. Courtland and Mrs. Linton; and thus it was that when that suspicion had come upon her, after Ella had left her, she felt that she was guilty of something akin to a crime—a horrible breach of friendship, only to be expiated by tears and prayers.

That terrible thought had been borne upon her as a suggestion to account for much that she could not understand in the words and the behavior of Ella during that remarkable evening; and, in spite of her remorse and her prayers, she could not rid herself of it. It left its impression upon her mind, upon her heart. Hitherto she had only heard about the way an unlawful passion sweeps over two people, causing them to fling to the winds all considerations of home, of husband, of religion, of honor; and she felt it to be very terrible to be brought face to face with such a power; it seemed to her as terrible as to be brought face to face with that personal Satan in whom she believed.

It only required such a hint as that which had come from George Holland to set her smoldering suspicion—suspicion of a suspicion—in a flame. It had flamed up before him in those words which she had spoken to him. If Ella were guilty, he, George Holland, was to be held responsible for her guilt.

But Ella was not guilty; Herbert Courtland was not guilty.

"No, no, no!" she cried, in the solitude of her chamber. "She did not talk as a guilty woman would talk; and he—he went straight out of the room where I had told him what Mrs. Haddon said about his mother, his sister—straight aboard the yacht; and she——"

All at once the truth flashed upon her; the truth—she felt that it was the truth; and both of them were guiltless. It was for Herbert Courtland that Ella had put on that lovely dress; but she was guiltless, he was guiltless. (Curiously enough, she felt quite as happy in the thought that he was guiltless.) Yes, Ella had come to her wearing that dress instead of waiting for him, and he——Ah, she now knew what he had meant when he had called her his good angel. She had saved him.

She flung herself on her knees in a passion of thanksgiving to God for having made her the means of saving a soul from hell—yes, for the time being.

And then she began to think what she should do in order that that soul should be saved forever.

It was time for her to dress for dinner before she had finished working out that great question, possibly the greatest question that ever engrossed the attention of a young woman: how to save the soul of a man, not temporarily, but eternally.

And all the time that she was in her room alone she had not a single thought regarding the scene through which she had passed with the Rev. George Holland. She had utterly forgotten him and his wickedness—his vain sophistries. She had forgotten all that he had said to her—his monstrous calumny leveled against her dearest friend; she even forgot her unjust treatment of George Holland and her rudeness—her unparalleled rudeness toward him. She was thinking over something very much more important. What was a question of mere etiquette compared to the question of saving a man's soul alive?

But when she dined opposite to her father it was to the visit of George Holland she referred rather than to the visit of Herbert Courtland.

"What had George Holland got to say that was calculated to interest you?" her father inquired. The peaches were on the table and the servant had, of course, left the room.

"He had nothing to say of interest to me," she replied.

"Nothing, except, of course, that his respectful aspiration to marry you——" suggested Mr. Ayrton.

"You need not put the 'except' before that, my papa," said she.

"And yet I have for some years been under the impression that even when a man whom she recoils from marrying talks to a young woman about his aspirations in the direction of marriage, she is more interested than she would be when the man whom she wishes to marry talks on some other topic."

"At any rate, George Holland didn't interest me so long as he talked of his aspirations. Then he talked of—well, of something else, and I'm afraid that I was rude to him. I don't think that he will come here again. I know that I shall never go to St. Chad's again."

"Heavens above! This is a pretty story to tell a father. How were you rude to him? I should like to have a story of your rudeness, merely to hold up against you for a future emergency."

"I pointed to the door in the attitude of the heroine of one of the old plays, and when he didn't leave at once, I left the room."

"You mean to say that you left him standing in the middle of the room while you went away?"

"I told you that I was rude."

"Rude, yes; but it's one thing to omit to leave cards upon a hostess, and quite another to stare her in the face when she bows to you in the street. It's one thing to omit sending a man a piece of your bridescake, and quite another to knock off his hat in the street. Rude, oh, my dear Phyllis!"

"If you knew what he said about—about someone whom I love—if you knew how angry I was, you would not say that I acted so atrociously, after all."

"Oh! Did he say something more about Ruth?"

"He said too much—far too much; I cannot tell you. If any other man said so much I would treat him in the same way. You must not ask me anything further, please."

"Rude and unrepentant, shocking and not ashamed. This is terrible. But perhaps it's better that you should be rude when you're young and beautiful; later on, when you're no longer young, it will not be permitted in you. I'll question you no further. Only how about Sunday?"

"I have promised Ella to go with her party to The Mooring for a week."

"That will get over the matter of the church, but only for one Sunday. How about the next Sundays—until the prorogation? Now, don't say the obvious 'sufficient unto the Sunday is the sermon thereof.'"

"I certainly will not. I have done forever with St. Chad's, unless the bishop interferes and we get a new rector."

"Then that's settled. And so we can drink our coffee in the drawing room with easy minds. Rude! Great Heavens!"



CHAPTER XXVII.

THAT'S WHY WOMEN DO NOT MAKE GOOD PHILOSOPHERS.

She had prayed to God that he might be kept away from her; but immediately afterward, as has already been stated, when she began to think over the situation of the hour, she came to the conclusion that she had been a little too precipitate in her petition. She felt that she would like to ask him how it had come about that he had played that contemptible part. Such a contemptible part! Was it on record, she wondered, that any man had ever played that contemptible part? To run away! And she had designed and worn that wonderful toilet; such a toilet as Helen might have worn (she thought); such a toilet as Cleopatra might have worn (she fancied); such a toilet as—as Sarah Bernhardt (she was certain) would wear when impersonating a woman who had lost her soul for the love of a man. Oh, had ever woman been so humiliated! She thought of the way Sarah Bernhardt would act the part of one of those women if her lover had run away from her outstretched arms,—and such a toilet,—only it was not on record that the lover of any one of them had ever run away. The lovers had been only too faithful; they had remained to be hacked to pieces with a mediaeval knife sparkling with jewels, or to swallow some curious poison out of a Byzantine goblet. She would have a word or two to say to Herbert Courtland when he returned. She would create the part of the woman whose lover has humiliated her.

This was her thought until her husband told her that he had sent that letter to Herbert Courtland, and he would most likely dine with them on the evening of his return.

Then it was it occurred to her that Herbert Courtland might by some curious mischance—mischances occurred in many of Sarah Bernhardt's plays—have come to hear that she had paid that rather singular visit to Phyllis Ayrton, just at the hour that she had named in that letter which she had written to him. What difference did that make in regard to his unparalleled flight? He was actually aboard the yacht Water Nymph before she had rung for her brougham to take her to Phyllis'. He had been the first to fly.

Then she began to think, as she had thought once before, of her husband's sudden return,—the return of a husband at the exact hour named in the letter to a lover was by no means an unknown incident in a play of Sarah Bernhardt's,—and before she had continued upon this course of thought for many minutes, she had come to the conclusion that she would not be too hard on Herbert Courtland.

She was not too hard on him.

He had an interview with Mr. Linton at the city offices of the great Taragonda Creek Mine. (The mine had, as has already been stated, been discovered by Herbert Courtland during his early explorations in Australia, and he had acquired out of his somewhat slender resources—he had been poor in those days—about a square mile of the wretched country where it was situated, and had then communicated his discovery to Stephen Linton, who understood the science and arts necessary for utilizing such a discovery, the result being that in two years everyone connected with the Taragonda Mine was rich. The sweepings of the crushing rooms were worth twenty thousand pounds a year: and Herbert Courtland had spent about ten thousand pounds—a fourth of his year's income—in the quest of the meteor-bird to make a feather fan for Ella Linton.) And when the business for which he had been summoned to London had been set en train, he had paid a visit to his publishers. (They wondered could he give them a novel on New Guinea. If he introduced plenty of dialect and it was sufficiently unintelligible it might thrust the kail yard out of the market; but the novel must be in dialect, they assured him.) After promising to give the matter his attention, he paid his visit to Phyllis, and then went to his rooms to dress; for when Stephen Linton had said:

"Of course you'll dine with us to-night: I told Ella you would come."

He had said, "Thanks; I shall be very pleased."

"Come early; eight sharp," Mr. Linton had added.

And thus it was that at five minutes to eight o'clock Herbert found himself face to face alone with the woman whom he had so grossly humiliated.

Perhaps she was hard on him after all: she addressed him as Mr. Courtland. She felt that she, at any rate, had returned to the straight path of duty when she had done that. (It was Herbert Courtland who had talked to Phyllis of the modern philosopher—a political philosopher or a philosophical politician—who, writing against compromise, became the leading exponent of that science, and had hoped to solve the question of a Deity by using a small g in spelling God. On the same principle Ella had called Herbert "Mr. Courtland.")

He felt uneasy. Was he ashamed of himself, she wondered?

"Stephen will be down in a moment, Mr. Courtland," she said.

He was glad to hear it.

"How warm it has been all day!" she added. "I thought of you toiling away over figures in the city, when you might have been breathing the lovely air of the sea. It was too bad of Stephen to bring you back."

"I assure you I was glad to get his letter at Leith," said he. "I was thinking for the two days previous how I could best concoct a telegram to myself at Leith in order that I might have some excuse for running away."

"That is assuming that running away needs some excuse," said she.

There was a considerable pause before he said, in a low tone:

"Ella, Ella, I know everything—that night. We were saved."

At this moment Mr. Linton entered the room. He was, after all, not late, he said: it wanted a minute still of being eight o'clock. He had just been at the telephone to receive a reply regarding a box at Covent Garden. In the earlier part of the day none had been vacant, he had been told; but the people at the box office promised to telephone to him if any became vacant in the course of the afternoon. He had just come from the telephone, and had secured a good enough box on the first tier. He hoped that Ella would not mind "Carmen"; there was to be a new Carmen.

Ella assured him that she could not fail to be interested in any Carmen, new or old. It was so good of him to take all that trouble for her, knowing how devoted she was to opera. She hoped that Herbert—she called him Herbert in the presence of her husband—was in a Carmen mood.

"I'm always in a mood to study anything that's unreservedly savage," said he.

"There's not much reservation about our little friend Carmen," said Mr. Linton. "She tells you her philosophy in her first moment before you."

He hummed the habanera.

"There you are: Misteroso e l'amore—that's the philosophy of your pretty savage, Herbert."

"Yes," said Herbert; "it's that philosophy which consists in an absence of philosophy—not the worst kind, either, it seems to me. It's the philosophy of impulse."

"I thought that the aim of all philosophy was to check every impulse," said Ella.

"So it is; that's why women do not make good philosophers," said her husband.

"Or, for that matter, good mothers of philosophers," said Herbert.

"That's rather a hard saying, isn't it?" said the other man.

"No," said his wife; "it's as transparent as air."

"London air in November?" suggested her husband.

"He means that there's no such thing."

"As air in London in November? I'm with him there."

"He means that there's no such thing as a good philosopher."

"Then I hope he has an appetite for dinner. The man without philosophy usually has."

The butler had just announced dinner.

There was not much talk among them of philosophy so long as the footmen were floating round them like mighty tropical birds. They talked of the House of Commons instead. A new measure was to be introduced the next night: something that threatened beer and satisfied no party; not even the teetotalers—only the wives of the teetotalers. Then they had a few words regarding George Holland's article in the Zeit Geist. Mr. Linton seemed to some extent interested in the contentions of the rector of St. Chad's; and Herbert agreed with him when he expressed the opinion that the two greatest problems that the Church had to face were: How to get people with intelligence to go to church, and what to do with them when they were there.

In an hour they were in their box at Covent Garden listening to the sensuous music of "Carmen," and comparing the sauciness of the charming little devil who sang the habanera, with the piquancy of the last Carmen but three, and with the refinement of the one who had made so great a success at Munich. They agreed that the savagery of the newest was very fascinating,—Stephen Linton called it womanly,—but they thought they should like to hear her in the third act before pronouncing a definite opinion regarding her capacity.

Then the husband left the box to talk to some people who were seated opposite.

"You know everything?" she said.

"Everything," said Herbert. "Can you ever forgive me?"

"For running away? Oh, Bertie, you cannot have heard all."

"For forcing you to write me that letter—can you ever forgive me?"

"Oh, the letter? Oh, Bertie, we were both wrong—terribly wrong. But we were saved."

"Yes, we were saved. Thank God—thank God!"

"That was my first cry, Bertie, when I felt that I was safe—that we both had been saved: Thank God! It seemed as if a miracle had been done to save us."

"So it was—a miracle."

"I spent the night praying that you might be kept away from me, Bertie—away for ever and ever. I felt that I was miserably weak; I felt that I could not trust myself; but now that you are here beside me again I feel strong. Oh, Bertie, we know ourselves better now than we did a week ago—is it only a week ago? It seems months—years—a lifetime!"

"Yes, I think that we know each other better now, Ella. That night aboard the yacht all the history of the past six months seemed to come before me. I saw what a wretch I had been, and I was overwhelmed with self-contempt."

"It was all my fault, dear Bertie. I was foolish—vain—a mere woman! Do not say that I did not take pride in what I called, in my secret moments, my conquest. Oh, Bertie! I had sunk into the depths. And then that letter! But we were saved, and I feel that we have been saved forevermore. I feel strong by your side now. And you, I know, feel strong, Bertie?"

"I have awakened from my dream, Ella. You called her your good angel too. Surely it was my good angel that sent me to her that evening!"

Ella was staring at him. He said that he knew everything. It appeared that she was the one who was not in the fortunate position of knowing all.

She stared.

"Phyllis Ayrton—you were with her?"

"For half an hour. She was unconscious of the effect her words had upon me,—the words of another woman,—leading me back to the side of those who have gone forever. I listened to her, and then it was that I awoke. She did not know. How could she tell that the light of heaven was breaking in upon a soul that was on the brink of hell? She saved me."

"She told me nothing of that." There was a curious eagerness in her voice. "She told me nothing. Oh, how could she tell me anything? She knew nothing of it herself. She looked on you as an ordinary visitor. She told you that I fled to her. Oh, Bertie, Bertie! those hours that I passed—the terrible conflict. But when I felt her arms about me I knew that I was safe. Then Stephen entered. I thought that we were lost—you and I; that he had returned to find you waiting. I don't know if he had a suspicion. At any rate we were saved, and by her—dear Phyllis. Oh, will she ever know, I wonder, what it is to be a woman? Bertie, she is my dearest friend—I told you so. I thought of her and you—long ago. Oh, why should you not think of her now that you have awakened and are capable of thought—the thought of a sane man?"

He sat with an elbow resting on the front of the opera box, his head upon his hand. He was not looking at her, but beyond her. He seemed to be lost in thought.

Was he considering that curious doctrine which she had propounded, that if a man really loves a woman he will marry her dearest friend? He made no reply to her. The point required a good deal of thought, apparently.

"You hear me, Bertie—dear Bertie?" she said.

He only nodded.

She remembered that, upon a previous occasion, when she had made the same suggestion to him, he had put it aside as unworthy of comment—unworthy of a moment's thought. How could it be possible for him, loving her as he did, to admit the possibility of another's attractiveness in his eyes? The idea had seemed ludicrous to him.

But now he made no such protest. He seemed to consider her suggestion and to think it—well, worthy of consideration; and this should have been very pleasing to her; for did it not mean that she had gained her point?

"You will think over it, Bertie?" she said. Her voice was now scarcely so full of eagerness as it had been before. Was that because she did not want to weary him by her persistence? Even the suggestion to a man that he should love a certain woman should, she knew, be made with tact.

"I have been thinking over it," he said at last; but only after a long pause.

"Oh, I am so glad!"

And she actually believed that she was glad.

"I thought about her aboard the yacht."

"Did you? I fancied that you would think of——But I am so glad!"

"I thought of her as my good angel. Those words which she said to me—"

"She has been your good angel, and I—"

"Ella, Ella, she has been our good angel—you said so."

"And don't you think that I meant it? Some women—she is one of them—are born to lead men upward; others——Ah, there, it is on the stage: Carmen, the enchantress, Michaela, the good angel. But I am so glad! She is coming to stay with us up the river; you must be with us too. You cannot possibly know her yet. But a week by her side—you will, I know, come to perceive what she is—the sweetest—the most perfect!"

Still he made no reply. He was looking earnestly at the conductor, who was pulling his musicians together for the second act.

"You will come to us, Bertie?" she whispered.

He shook his head.

"I dare not promise," said he. "I feel just now like a man who is still dazed, on being suddenly awakened. I have not yet begun to see things as they are. I am not sure of myself. I will let you know later on."

Then the conductor tapped his desk, and those of the audience who had left their places returned. Stephen Linton slipped into his chair; his wife took up her lorgnette as the first jingle of the tambourines was heard, and the curtain rose upon the picturesque tawdriness of the company assembled at the Senor Lois Pastia's place of entertainment.

Ella gave all her attention to the opera—to that tragedy of the weakness of the flesh, albeit the spirit may be willing to listen to good. Alas! that the flesh should be so full of color and charm and seduction, while the spirit is pale, colorless, and set to music in a minor key!

Carmen flashed about the stage under the brilliant lights, looking like a lovely purple butterfly—a lovely purple oriole endowed with the double glory of plumage and song, and men whose hearts beat in unison with the heart-beats of that sensuous music through which she expressed herself, loved her; watched her with ravished eyes; heard her with ravished ears—yes, as men love such women; until the senses recover from the intoxication of her eyes and her limbs and her voice. And in the third act the sweet Michaela came on with her song of the delight of purity, and peace, and home. She sang it charmingly, everyone allowed, and hoped that Carmen would sing as well in the last act as she had sung in the others.

Ella Linton kept her eyes fixed upon the stage to the very end of all.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE CHURCH IS NOT NEUROTIC.

When George Holland received his two letters and read them he laid them side by side and asked himself what each of them meant.

Well, he could make a pretty good guess as to what the bishop's meant. The bishop meant business. But what did Mr. Linton want with him? Mr. Linton was a business man, perhaps he meant business too. Business men occasionally mean business; they more frequently only pretend to do so, in order to put off their guard the men they are trying to get the better of.

He would have an interview with the bishop; so much was certain; and that interview was bound to be a difficult one—for the bishop. It was with some degree of pride that he anticipated the conflict. He would withdraw nothing that he had written. Let all the forces of the earth be leagued against him, he would abate not a jot—not a jot. (By the forces of the earth he meant the Bench of Bishops, which was scarcely doing justice to the bishops—or to the forces of the earth.)

Yes, they might deprive him of his living, but that would make no difference to him. Not a jot—not a jot! They might persecute him to the death. He would be faithful unto death to the truths he had endeavored to spread abroad. He felt that they were truths.

But that other letter, which also asked for an interview at his earliest convenience the next day, was rather more puzzling to George Holland. He had never had any but the most casual acquaintance with Mr. Linton—such an acquaintance as one has with one's host at a house where one has occasionally dined. He had dined at Mr. Linton's house more than once; but then he had been seated in such proximity to Mrs. Linton as necessitated his remoteness from Mr. Linton. Therefore he had never had a chance of becoming intimate with that gentleman. Why, then, should that gentleman desire an early interview with him?

It was certainly curious that within a few minutes of his having referred to Mrs. Linton, in the presence of Phyllis Ayrton, in a way that had had a very unhappy result so far as he was concerned, he should receive a letter from Mrs. Linton's husband asking for an early interview.

He seated himself in his study chair and began to think what the writer of that letter might have to say to him.

He had not to ask himself if it was possible that Mr. Linton might have a word or two to say to him, respecting the word or two which he, George Holland, had just said about Mrs. Linton; for George knew very well that, though during the previous week or two he had heard some persons speaking lightly of Mrs. Linton, coupling her name with the name of Herbert Courtland, yet he had never had occasion to couple their names together except during the previous half hour, so that it could not be Mr. Linton's intention to take him to task, so to speak, for his indiscretion—his slander, Phyllis might be disposed to term it.

Upon that point he was entirely satisfied. But he was not certain that Mr. Linton did not want to consult him on some matter having more or less direct bearing upon the coupling together of the names of Mrs. Linton and Mr. Courtland. People even in town are fond of consulting clergymen upon curious personal matters—matters upon which a lawyer or a doctor should rather be consulted. He himself had never encouraged such confidences. What did he keep curates for? His curates had saved him many a long hour of talk with inconsequent men and illogical women who had come to him with their stories. What were to him the stories of men whose wives were giving them trouble? What were to him the stories of wives who had difficulties with their housemaids or who could not keep their boys from reading pirate literature? His curates managed the domestic department of his church for him. They could give any earnest inquirer at a moment's notice the addresses of several civil-spoken women (elderly) who went out as mother's helps by the day. They were very useful young men and professed to like this work. He would not do them the injustice to believe that they spoke the truth in that particular way.

He could not fancy for what purpose Mr. Linton wished to see him. But he made up his mind that, if Mr. Linton was anxious that his wife should be remonstrated with, he, George Holland, would decline to accept the duty of remonstrating with her. He was wise enough to know that he did not know very much about womankind; but he knew too much to suppose that there is any more thankless employment than remonstrating with an extremely pretty woman on any subject, but particularly on the subject of a very distinguished man to whom she considers herself bound by ties of the truest friendship.

But then there came upon him with the force of a great shock the recollection of what Phyllis had said to him on this very point:

"If Ella Linton were wicked, you should be held responsible for it in the sight of God."

Those were her words, and those words cut asunder the last strand of whatever tie there had been between him and Phyllis.

His duty as a clergyman intrusted with the care of the souls of the people, he had neglected that, she declared with startling vehemence. He had been actuated by vanity in publishing his book—his article in the Zeit Geist Review—she had said so; but there she had been wrong. He felt that she had done him a great injustice in that particular statement, and he tried to make his sense of this injustice take the place of the uneasy feeling of which he was conscious, when he thought over her other words. He knew that he was not actuated by vanity in adopting the bold course that was represented by his writings. He honestly believed that his efforts were calculated to work a great reform in the Church. If not in the Church, outside it.

But his duty in regard to the souls of the people——Oh! it was the merest sophistry to assume that such responsibility on the part of a clergyman is susceptible of being particularized. It should, he felt, be touched upon, if at all, in a very general way. Did that young woman expect that he should preach a sermon to suit the special case of every individual soul intrusted (according to her absurd theory) to his keeping?

The idea was preposterous; it could not be seriously considered for a moment. She had allowed herself to be carried away by her affection for her friend to make accusations against him, in which even she herself would not persist in her quieter moments.

He found it quite easy to prove that Phyllis had been in the wrong and that he was in the right; but this fact did not prevent an intermittent recurrence during the evening of that feeling of uneasiness, as those words of the girl, "If Ella Linton were wicked, you would be held responsible for it in the sight of God," buzzed in his ears.

"Would she have me become an ordinary clergyman of the Church of England?" he cried indignantly, as he switched on the light in his bedroom shortly before midnight—for the rushlight in the cell of the modern man of God is supplied at a strength of so many volts. "Would she have me become the model country parson, preaching to the squire and other yokels on Sunday, and chatting about their souls to wheezy Granfer this, and Gammer that?" He had read the works of Mr. Thomas Hardy. "Does she suppose that I was made for such a life as that? Poor Phyllis! When will she awake from this dream of hers?"

Did he fancy that he loved her still? or was the pain that he felt, when he reflected that he had lost her, the result of his wounded vanity—the result of his feeling that people would say he had not had sufficient skill, with all his cleverness, to retain the love of the girl who had promised to be his wife?

Before going to bed he had written replies to the two letters. The bishop had suggested an early hour for their interview—he had named eleven o'clock as convenient to himself, if it would also suit Mr. Holland. Two o'clock was the hour suggested by Mr. Linton, if that hour would not interfere with the other engagements of Mr. Holland; so he had written agreements to the suggestions of both his correspondents.

At eleven o'clock exactly he drove through the gates of the Palace of the bishop, and with no faltering hand pulled the bell. (So, he reflected for an instant,—only an instant,—Luther had gone, somewhere or other, he forgot at the moment what was the exact locality; but the occasion had been a momentous one in the history of the Church.)

He was cordially greeted by the bishop, who said:

"How do you do, Holland? I took it for granted that you were an early riser—that's why I ventured to name eleven."

"No hour could suit me better to-day," said George, accepting the seat—he perceived at once that it was a genuine Chippendale chair upholstered in old red morocco—to which his lordship made a motion with his hand. He did not, however, seat himself until the bishop had occupied, which he did very comfortably, the corresponding chair at the side of the study desk.