"Well, I was wondering at service what in the name of all that's unlucky brought that girl down here just now, and I suppose I shall have to find out. But what the deuce does the old man want writing to her? A nice thing if they were to discover the lost Miss Carol and present her to the world as Vane's half-sister, and then the rest of the story came out. What an almighty fool I was to do that. If I'd only known that Enid really would have me—but it's no use grizzling over that. I shall have to find out what that young woman wants down in this part of the world, and why Sir Arthur should be writing to her, that's quite certain."



CHAPTER XV.

Among Garthorne's letters the next morning there chanced to be one from his solicitor in Worcester, and so this made an excellent excuse for him to get away for the day. Enid was going to drive Sir Arthur and Sir Reginald over to the Retreat, so he ordered the dogcart to take him to Kidderminster, whence he took train for Worcester.

He knew enough of Dora's circumstances with regard to her parents to recognise the imprudence of calling upon her without notice, and so he lunched at the Mitre Hotel, and sent a messenger with a note asking her to meet him at three o'clock on the River Walk. The messenger was instructed to wait for an answer if Miss Murray was in.

Miss Murray was in, and when she read the note her first notion was that Garthorne had by some means got an inkling of the truth, or, at the least, had discovered that she was in communication with Sir Arthur Maxwell and wished to know the reason. She made up her mind at once to hold her tongue on both subjects, but at the same time, she felt that it would hardly be wise to refuse to meet him. It must also be admitted that she also was possessed by a pardonable, because feminine, curiosity as to what he wanted with her. She felt, however, that in such a place as Worcester it would be most imprudent for her to meet a man so well known in the County as Reginald Garthorne on one of the public thoroughfares, and so she wrote her answer as follows:—

"DEAR MR. GARTHORNE,

"I have no idea why you should wish to see me, and I do not think that it would be prudent to meet you as you suggest. You know how I am situated here, and so I think it would be best, if you really must speak to me, as you say, for you to come and see me here, not under your own name, of course, as that is much too well known. I would therefore suggest that you should call yourself Mr. Johnson, and I will say that you are a representative of one of the big millinery houses in London, and that you have come to see me on business. I shall wait in for you till three.

"Yours sincerely, "DORA MURRAY."

Garthorne saw the wisdom of this suggestion, and "Mr. Johnson" announced himself at half past two. Dora received him alone in a little back sitting-room, but his reception was not altogether encouraging, for when he held out his hand and said "Good afternoon, Dora!" she flushed a little, and affecting not to see his hand, she said:

"Miss Murray, if you please, Mr. Garthorne, now and for the future. You seem to have forgotten that, for me, at least, Worcester is not London."

He was so completely taken aback by this utterly unexpected speech, as well as by the unwonted tone in which it was spoken, that his outstretched hand dropped to his side somewhat limply, and he felt himself straightening up and staring at her in blank astonishment.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Murray," he said, in a tone which sounded a great deal more awkward than he meant it to do. "Of course, I was quite wrong; I ought not to have forgotten."

"There is no necessity for an apology," she said, more distantly than before. "Will you sit down? You want to see me about something, I suppose?"

"Yes," he said, sitting down and fingering the brim of his hat somewhat nervously. "Yes, that is what I have come over to Worcester for. In fact, I have been wanting to see you for some time. In the first place, I had a rather extraordinary letter from Carol some time ago, sending back some money which I, of course, can't accept, so I've brought it with me to ask you to take it and use it in any way that you think fit."

"You mean, of course, in charity?" said Dora, looking him straight in the eyes. "You wouldn't insult me by meaning it in any other way."

"Oh, no, certainly not," he said, more awkwardly than before, and wondering what on earth had produced this extraordinary change in her manner. "I hope you know me well enough to believe me quite incapable of such a thing."

"If you only knew how well I know you!" thought Dora, "I wonder what you'd think?"

But she said aloud, and rather more kindly than before:

"You must forgive me, Mr. Garthorne, I spoke rather hastily then. I quite see what you mean. It's very good of you, and I'm sure that if Carol were here she would tell me to take the money and use it that way—so I will."

"Thank you very much, Miss Murray," he replied, taking an envelope out of his pocket-book. "There are the notes and postal orders exactly as she sent them to me. And now, may I ask where she is?"

"I can't answer that, Mr. Garthorne, because I don't know. The night that she sent you that money back she made the acquaintance of a very nice fellow who is something more than a millionaire, and since then they've been taking a sort of irregular honeymoon round the world. The last letter I had from her was from Sydney. She seems very jolly and enjoying herself immensely."

"Glad to hear it," said Garthorne, speaking the thing which was not altogether true. "She's a jolly girl, and deserves the best of luck—which she seems to have got. And the millionaire——?"

Dora shook her head, and said quietly but decisively.

"No, Mr. Garthorne, I'm afraid I can't tell you anything about him. It would be a breach of confidence if I did, and so I'm sure you won't ask for it. Do you want to ask me about anything else?"

"Yes," he said, hesitatingly, "I do." There was a little pause, during which they looked at each other, he enquiringly and she absolutely impassive. Then he went on: "Of course, you saw us in the Cathedral yesterday, and I think you know Sir Arthur Maxwell personally. You met him once or twice when he went to call on Carol at Melville Gardens."

"Yes."

Then there was another pause, and, as Garthorne didn't seem able to find anything to say, Dora went on speaking very quietly, but with a curious note of restraint in her voice which puzzled him considerably.

"I do know Sir Arthur, and I tried hard to persuade Carol to do what he wanted her to do, although, all the same, I think I should have done as she did if I had been her. I don't know whether you saw Sir Arthur speak to me in the Cathedral as we were coming out, but he did. I have had a letter from him this morning, and he is coming to see me."

"Of course, you are not going to say anything——"

"No, sir, I am not," said Dora, rising from her chair white to the lips and with an ominous glitter in her eyes. She took up the envelope which Garthorne had laid on the table, and tossed it at him. "You know me for what I am in London, and it seems that you only look upon me as an animal to be hired for the amusement of people like you, not as a woman who still has her notions of honour. That is an insult which I cannot pardon. You behaved well, as things go, to Carol, but you have now shown me that, whatever you are in name and family, you are in yourself an unspeakable cad. You came here thinking that I was going to blackmail you because I happened to know something about you which you would not like your wife to know. If you only knew what I could tell you——"

And then she checked herself, and after a little pause, she pointed to the door and said:

"You have got your money, Mr. Garthorne, and there is the door. You will oblige me by leaving the house as soon as possible."

"But really, Miss Murray——" he began, as he rose, not a little bewildered, from his chair.

"Stop!" she said. "In mercy to yourself and your wife, stop! There is the door; go, and remember that from now we are strangers, and if ever you meet Carol again—no, I won't say that. God grant that you never may see her again, for if you do——"

"Well, and suppose I do, Miss Murray, what then?" he interrupted, with his hand on the handle of the door. He had never heard such words from the lips of either man or woman before, and that personal vanity which is a characteristic even of the worst of men was grievously outraged.

"Never mind what I mean," she said, cutting him short again. "I have said all that I am going to say except this—if ever you meet Carol again, for her sake and yours, for your wife's and your children's when they come, don't see her. Now go!"

There was a something in her voice and in her manner which said even more than her lips had done. Something which not only struck him dumb for the time being, but which also drove home into his soul a conviction that this girl, outcast and social pariah as she was, not only held his fate in her hands, but that she possessed some unknown power over his destiny, that she knew something which, if spoken, might blast the bright promise of his life and overwhelm him in irretrievable ruin.

She had called him a cad, and as his thoughts flew back to that morning in Vane Maxwell's rooms at Oxford, a pang of self-conviction told him that she had spoken justly. He felt, too, that he was hopelessly in the wrong, that by his suggestion he had sorely insulted her, and that in exchange for his insult she had given him mercy. He would have given anything to know the real meaning of her words, and yet he dare not even ask her.

He looked round at her once and saw her, standing rigid and impassive waiting to be relieved of his presence. His thoughts went back a few months to the times when those little dinners of four had been so pleasant, and when this girl, who was now looking at him like an accusing angel, had matched even Carol herself in the gaiety of her conversation and the careless use she made of her mother-wit, and he tried hard to say something which should in some way cover his retreat, but the words wouldn't come, and so he just opened the door and walked out.

Dora heard the street door bang behind him, and then her tensely-strung nerves relaxed. She dropped into an easy chair, clasped her hands over her temples, and whispered:

"Oh dear, oh dear, how is all this going to end, and what would happen if they only knew! And now I've got to see Sir Arthur. Shall I tell him everything or not? No, I daren't, I daren't. It's too awful. Was there ever anything like it in the world before?"

And then her body swayed forward, her elbows dropped on to her knees, her hands clasped her temples tighter, and the next moment she had burst into a passion of tears.

Tears are a torture to men and a relief to women, so in a few minutes she lifted her head again, the storm was over and she began to look the situation over calmly. The more she thought of it the more certain it seemed that she could do nothing but irretrievable mischief by even hinting to Sir Arthur anything of what she knew. At any rate she decided that until Carol came back she would keep her knowledge absolutely to herself.

Then the train of her thoughts was suddenly broken by the postman's knock at the door. There was a London letter addressed to herself in the familiar handwriting of Mr. Bernard Falcon. As she opened it she experienced a singular mixture of relief and vexation, tinged by a suggestion of shame.

The letter began with an inquiry as to when she was coming back to Town, and ended with an invitation to spend a week end in the round trip from London to Dover, Calais, Boulogne and Folkestone.

She had been nearly a fortnight in Worcester, and, truth to tell, she was getting a little tired of it. Falcon's letter offered her a double relief. It would save her from the ordeal of meeting Sir Arthur, and, combined with the visit of "Mr. Johnson," it would give her a good excuse to her parents for going back to Town at once; so she sat down and wrote two letters, one to Falcon telling him that he could meet her at Paddington the next evening, and the other to Sir Arthur telling him all she knew about Carol, saving only the name of her companion, and regretting that she would not be able to meet him, as she was starting for the Continent that day. For obvious reasons she, of course, said nothing of Garthorne's visit to her.

Sir Arthur was as much disappointed with his letter as Mr. Falcon was pleased by his. Dora left Worcester the day that he received it, and while she was dining with Mr. Falcon at the Globe Restaurant, Sir Arthur was telling Vane and Mark Ernshaw, who had come over to dine and sleep at the Abbey, all that he knew of Miss Carol's latest escapade.

"I'm very, very sorry," said Ernshaw when he had finished. "We've never told you before, Sir Arthur, but I may as well tell you now that, if Miss Vane had not disappeared as mysteriously as she did, Vane was to have introduced me to her, and I was going to marry her if she would have me."

Sir Arthur looked at him in silence for a few moments, and then he took his hand and said:

"I know that is true, Ernshaw, because you have said it; though I would not have believed it from anyone else except Vane. I would willingly give everything that I possess and go back to work to make such a thing possible, but I'm afraid it isn't, and now, of course, it is more impossible than ever. Frankly, I don't believe she'd have you. It sounds a very curious thing to say, but from what I have seen of her, granted even that she fell in love with you, the more she loved you the more absolutely she would refuse to marry you. You know we offered her everything we could. Vane and I both agreed to acknowledge her and have her to live with us, but it was no use. She refused in such a way that she made me long all the more to take her for my own daughter before the world; but there was no mistaking the refusal, and the day after our last interview she clinched it by vanishing, I suppose with this young millionaire who is with her now. It's very terrible, of course, but there it is. It's done, and I'm afraid there's no mending it. Perhaps, after all, it is better for you that it should be so."

"Yes, Ernshaw," said Vane. "It's not a nice thing to say under the circumstances, but I think the governor's right."

"Possibly, but I don't agree with you," he replied. "You know I am what a good many people would call an enthusiast on the subject of this so-called social evil, for which, as I believe, Society itself is almost entirely to blame, and I am quite prepared to put my views into practice."

"Then," said Sir Arthur, smiling gravely, "I think when we get back to Town I'd better introduce you to Miss Murray, who was living with Carol in Melville Gardens, where I first saw her. She was in the Cathedral on Sunday. Her parents live in Worcester, and they believe, poor people, that she has a little millinery business in London. She says she's going on the Continent, I suppose with this friend of hers. But she has given me an address in London where she can be found.

"Now there, Ernshaw," he went on, "there I believe you would find a far better subject for your social experiment, if you are determined to make it, than poor Carol could ever be. I don't know her history, but she is evidently a lady born and educated. She is quite as good-looking as Carol, only an entirely different type, taller, darker, and with deep, mysterious brown eyes which evidently have a soul behind them. At any rate, I'm quite convinced that she would make a much better social missionary's wife than poor Carol would.

"She, I sadly fear, is 'a daughter of delight,' as the French call them, pure and simple. She told me point blank that she preferred her present mode of life to respectability, and that she considered that taking even my money or Vane's, when she had no real claim upon us, was more degrading and would hurt her self-respect a great deal more than doing what she is doing. In other respects she's as good a girl as ever walked, and as honest as the daylight, but I'm afraid there is no hope of social regeneration for her."

"Hope was once found for one a thousand times worse than she!" said Ernshaw quietly. "But as I have seen neither of them yet, no harm can be done by my making the acquaintance of Miss Murray to begin with."

"Very well," said Sir Arthur, not at all sorry to change the subject. "And now, talking about social missionaries, Vane, have you quite made up your mind to carry out this scheme of yours, this crusade against money-making and the pomps and vanities of Society? Do you really mean to show that your own father has been living in sin all these years; that he is not, in fact, a Christian at all, because it is impossible for anyone to be decently well off and a Christian at the same time? A nice sort of thing that, Ernshaw, isn't it?"

"If Vane honestly believes, as he does, that his is the only true definition of a Christian, it is not only his right but his duty to preach it," was the young priest's reply.

"It is my belief," said Vane quietly, "and, God helping me, I will do what I believe to be my duty."

The party at the Abbey broke up a few days after this, and in another week or so Enid and her husband were in the full swing of the great merry-go-round which is called the London season. She was unquestionably the most beautiful of the brides of the year, and she was the undisputed belle of the Drawing Room at which she was presented.

Garthorne was, of course, very proud of her, and received plenty of that second-hand sort of admiration which is accorded alike to the owner of a distinguished race-horse, a prize bull-dog, or a pretty wife.

Under the circumstances, therefore, it was perfectly natural that they should enjoy themselves very thoroughly, and though towards the end Garthorne began to get a little bored, and to think rather longingly of his yacht on the Solent and his grouse moor in Scotland, Enid, with her youth and beauty and perfect constitution, enjoyed every hour and every minute of her waking life. Society had no very distinguished lion to fall down and worship that season, and so, towards the end, things were getting a little slow, and people were thinking seriously of escaping from the heat and dust of London, when the world of wealth and fashion was suddenly thrilled into fresh life by an absolutely new sensation.



CHAPTER XVI.

One Sunday morning, about the middle of June, the large and fashionable congregation which filled the church of St. Chrysostom, South Kensington, a church which will be recognised as one of the very "highest" in London, and which, to use a not altogether unsuitable term, "draws" all the year round by reason of the splendour of its ritual, as well as the simple earnest eloquence of its clergy, was startled by the preaching of such a sermon as no member of it had ever heard before.

The preacher for the morning was announced to be the Rev. Father Vane, a name which meant nothing to more than about half a dozen members of the congregation, but which every man and woman in the church had some cause to remember by the time the service was over.

Father Baldwin, as the vicar of St. Chrysostom's was familiarly known, was a very old friend of Father Philip's, and Vane's appearance as preacher that morning was the result of certain correspondence which had taken place between them, and of several long and earnest conversations which he had had with Vane himself.

The moment that Vane appeared in the pulpit, that strange rustling sound which always betokens an access of sensation in a church, became distinctly audible from the side where the women sat. As he stood there in cassock, cotta and white, gold-embroidered stole, he looked, as many a maid, and matron too, said afterwards, almost too beautiful to be human. Both as boy and man he had always been strikingly handsome, but the long weeks and months of prayer and fasting, and the constant struggle of the soul against the flesh, had refined and spiritualised him. To speak of an everyday man of the world, however good-looking he may be, as beautiful is rather to ridicule him than otherwise, but when such a man as Vane passes through such an ordeal as his had been, the word beauty may be justly used in the sense in which the feminine portion of the congregation of St. Chrysostom's unanimously used it that morning.

There was a hush of expectation as he opened a small Bible lying on the desk in front of him. Then he raised his right hand and made the sign of the Cross.

"In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen!"

The words were not hastily and inaudibly muttered as they too often are by the clergy of the High Anglican persuasion. They rang out as clearly as the notes of a bell through the silence of the crowded church, and the congregation recognised instantly that he possessed, at least, the first qualification of a great preacher.

Then he took up his Bible, and said in a quite ordinary conversational tone:

"It will be well if those who wish to follow what I am about to say will take their Bibles and turn to the fifth chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew."

The opening was as unpromising as it was unconventional, but more than half the congregation obeyed, and when the rustling of leaves had subsided, he began to read the Sermon on the Mount.

When the first thrill of astonishment had passed, it was noticed that, after the first few verses, he ceased to look at the Bible. Every member of the congregation had heard the words over and over again, but they had never heard them as they heard them now. It was nothing like the formal reading of the lessons to which they had been accustomed, and as the clear, pure tones of his voice rang through the church, and, as his eyes and face lighted up with the radiance of an almost divine enthusiasm, there were some in his audience who began to think that he might well have been a re-incarnation of one of those disciples of the Master who heard the words as they came from His lips that day on the Judean hillside.

He went on verse after verse, never missing a word, and unconsciously emphasising each passage with gestures, slight in themselves, but eloquent and forcible in their exact suitability to the words, and very soon every man and woman in the church was listening to him, not only with rapt attention, but with a growing feeling of uneasiness and apprehension as to what was to follow.

At length he came to the twenty-third verse of the seventh chapter:

"And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity."

There was an emphasis upon the last few words which sent a thrill of emotion, and, in many cases, one of angry expectation, through the crowded congregation. It was one of the wealthiest, and most fashionable in London, but, saving a comparatively few really earnest souls, it was composed for the most part of idlers and loungers, who came to St. Chrysostom's partly because it was one of the most fashionable churches in the West End, partly because it was the proper thing to attend Church on Sunday, and partly because the music, and singing and preaching were all so good, and the elaborate ceremonial was so perfectly performed, that it afforded the means of spending a few hours on Sunday in a very pleasant way.

The young preacher looked at the crowd of well-dressed men and women for a few moments in silence, as though he would give them time to realise the tremendous solemnity of the words they had just heard. There was dead, breathless silence at first, and then came a rustling sound, mingled with one of deep breathing. Then he began again in the same direct, conversational tone in which he had asked them to take their Bibles.

"I am addressing," he said, in a low, clear tone which could be heard as distinctly at the church doors as it could by those immediately under the pulpit, "an audience which is composed of men and women who are, nominally, at least, Christians, and now I am going to ask you, every man and woman of you, to ask your own souls the simple question, whether you really are Christians, or not.

"A good many of you, I daresay, will be a little startled, perhaps some of you may even be offended by the suggestion of such a question. With every regard for your feelings as brother men and sister women, I sincerely hope you will be. My reason for hoping that is very simple. The vast majority of people in Christian countries are Christians simply because they have been born of Christian parents, just as they are Protestants or Catholics because their parents were such before them, and their early training has strongly predisposed their minds to the acceptance—too often the blind acceptance—of a certain set of doctrines which, with all reverence, are by themselves of no more use for the purpose of saving a human soul from eternal damnation than the multiplication table would be. These doctrines, these creeds, are aids to salvation, most potent aids, but they are not essentials, since of themselves they cannot save.

"It is far too often taken for granted that, because a man has been brought up in a Christian family, has been baptised into the Church of Christ, and has later on been admitted into the communion of that Church, that, therefore, he is justified in believing himself to be a Christian. He has, as we of the Church Catholic and Universal fervently believe, been placed in the path which leads to salvation. His vision has been cleared from the mists of error. The Church, in the fulfilment of her holy mission, has caused the white light of heaven to shine upon his eyes. His feet have been set in the strait gate and on the narrow way which leads to eternal life, but not all the priests from Abraham down to our own day, nor all the Churches that ever were founded can do any more. The way must be travelled by the man himself, his own eyes must see the light, his own feet must tread the way, no matter how steep or difficult it may be—or that man has no more right to call himself a Christian than any worshipper of any of the false gods whose reign has vanished from the earth.

"It was for the purpose of bringing this most solemn truth, this most solemn and momentous of all truth home to you that I began by repeating the words which the Greatest of all Preachers pronounced for the guidance of those who should come after Him."

He paused, and took up his Bible again. Meanwhile, a few people, both men and women, whose dress and appearance bore unmistakable signs of worldly wealth, got up and walked out of the church.

Vane watched them go, and as he did so the rest saw a complete change of expression come over his countenance. His eyes grew sombre and sorrowful, his lips tightened, and something like a frown gathered upon his brow. He not only waited in the midst of an almost unnatural silence until they had gone, but he went on waiting for some moments longer as though he would give anyone else an opportunity of leaving the church if they desired to do so. No one stirred. The look which he turned upon them from the pulpit seemed like a spell which held them to their seats. Then his lips opened, and they heard his voice, tinged with an infinite sadness, saying:

"'The young man saith unto him: All these things have I kept from my youth up. What lack I yet?

"'Jesus saith unto him: If thou wouldst be perfect go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me.

"'But when the young man heard that saying he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

"'Then said Jesus unto his disciples: Verily I say unto you that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.'"

Then there came another pause, during which his listeners seemed almost afraid to breathe, so strong was the spell of apprehension and expectancy which he had laid upon them, and he went on:

"You have, everyone of you, heard those words read and spoken scores and hundreds of times. Has it ever struck you that they are words which, if you are a Christian man or woman, you must believe to be the words of God himself, spoken by the lips of Infallible Wisdom, and inspired by that Omniscience which sees you sitting here in this London church as plainly as It saw that other congregation which was assembled that day on the slope of the Mount of Olives, and which reads your hearts at this moment as It read theirs then? If you do not believe that, then it follows that you do not believe in the mission or the teaching of Christ. You do not believe that He spoke the truth when He told the young man that it was not only necessary to keep the commandments, as he had done from his youth up; but that it was also necessary for him to cease to be a rich man, and to distribute his wealth in relieving the necessities of the poor.

"If you believe that Christ is very God of very God, as you say every Sunday of your lives, you cannot escape the obligation which those words put upon you except at the peril of your immortal souls. Remember that it is not by your faiths and beliefs, or by the doctrines you have held that you will be judged when you stand before the Last Tribunal. These are but instruments to be used well or ill, but the final appeal will come to your works. The last question that will be asked of you will not be 'What creed have you believed?' or 'What Church have you belonged to?' but 'What have you done?' and on the answer to that, as recorded in the books of God, will depend your fate for all eternity.

"Remember the words, 'Not everyone that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in Heaven.'

"Remember, too, that when you join in the services of the Church, and when you partake of her Sacraments, you are simply saying 'Lord, Lord'—a very good and righteous thing to say; but of no more use or benefit to your souls than an echo from a blank wall, unless you also do the will of Him who is in Heaven.

"I know that there are many specious sayings invented by those who have reasons of their own for trying to prove that when the Son of God spoke these words He didn't mean what He said; and those who have invented these things are amongst the worst enemies of God and His Church on earth, no matter whether they say these lying words in the drawing-room or from the pulpit. They seek to comfort their consciences and the consciences of such as you by saying that times have changed since these words were uttered; that it would be quite impossible to put a literal interpretation upon them now.

"Now the man who tells his fellow men that, no matter what his position in the world, is a liar and a hypocrite, and, what is worse, he is a maker of hypocrites, for it is my duty to tell you that every man and woman who professes Christianity before the world on Sunday and during the week disobeys the command of Christ as set forth here in His own words, is, consciously or unconsciously, a liar and a hypocrite also.

"Let us see what these sayings look like when tested by ordinary logic, by that faculty of distinguishing the right from the wrong, the true from the false, which is perhaps the greatest of all God's gifts to men.

"'Times have changed since the Son of God delivered the Sermon on the Mount.' That is one of those half-truths which are infinitely worse than a lie. Times have changed. That is to say mortal men and mortal manners have changed; but does that warrant us in believing that the mind and will of the Immutable God have changed too; that what Christ himself declared to be fatal to salvation two thousand years ago, is compatible with salvation now? That what was unlawful then is lawful now—in short, that the Omniscient God, in whose eyes a thousand years are as one day and one day as a thousand years, who read the minds of men then as He reads them now, has altered the decrees of Eternal Justice and changed Eternal Truth into a lie?

"If you believe these people, then you must believe that too. That Christ himself foresaw, as He must have done, that such false teachers as these would arise both in His Church and outside it is clearly proved by His own words:

"'Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name and in Thy name have cast out devils, and in Thy name done many wonderful works?

"'And then I will profess unto them: I never knew you, depart from me ye that work iniquity.'

"Remember that in that day when these words will be spoken hypocrisy and self-deceit will have become impossibilities. It will not be possible then for you to persuade yourselves, as no doubt you do now, that you are good Christians, or that you are Christians at all, because you believe certain doctrines and carry out certain ecclesiastical observances. You will see your own souls naked then, and the eye of Eternal and Immutable Justice will see them too—and unless you have proved that you have obedience as well as faith; that you have not only believed but also obeyed, you will most assuredly hear those words 'I never knew you; depart from me ye that work iniquity!'

"But," he went on again, after another little pause during which some of his audience began to look round at each other with something like fear in their eyes, "do not forget that there is another course open to you. It may be that the things of this world, the conventions of society, the fear of poverty and the love of wealth, have taken such a hold upon you, that, although you dare not even confess it to yourselves, you prefer these things to obedience to the Divine command and all that it may bring.

"You have it in perfectly plain language and on the highest possible authority that you cannot serve God and Mammon. Those are no empty words, they are one of the most solemn pronouncements ever made, and they affect you here and to all eternity. So long as you go on striving to increase your wealth by those means which must nowadays be employed to make money, you are not and you cannot be Christians. Those are harsh words, and yet if they are not true, the words of Christ himself are false. There is no escape from this dilemma, and if you think that devoting one day a week to the nominal service of God and six to the real, practical service of Mammon, you earn the right to call yourselves Christians, that is to say, followers of Christ, you are merely practising a pitiful piece of self-deception which would be ludicrous were its consequences not so solemn.

"But, as I have said, there is another course open to you, a course which, terrible as it is, is better than the one that you are now following, because it is more honest. Be honest with yourselves and each other, and, what is of more consequence, be honest with God too. A well-known agnostic lecturer once said that no god could afford to damn an honest man, and I am not sure that he was not right; but if the words of Christ were not the empty mouthings of a charlatan or a dreamer, there cannot be the slightest doubt about the fate of the hypocrite. Remember that on the only occasion on which the gentle nature of our Lord was roused to anger he denounced in the most terrible language that human ears have ever heard those whom He called hypocrites, and, therefore, I say to you, at whatever cost, either to your pockets or to your souls, for you can take your choice which, cease to be hypocrites.

"Cease this pitiful pretence which, though it may deceive yourselves, certainly does not deceive Him from whom no secrets are hid. If you cannot forsake the service of Mammon, if you really are so tightly bound by his golden chains to the things of this world that you cannot or will not break loose from the entrancing bondage, then, in the name of honesty, say so, say to yourselves and to your fellow men: 'I cannot do this thing. If I must give up the service of Mammon before I can call myself the servant of God, then I cannot become the servant of God, and I will make a hypocrite and a liar of myself no longer.' Then at least you would be honest and truthful, honest with yourselves and with your brother men and with your sister women and with God. You would, as I believe, and as you are now trying to make yourselves believe, have made the wrong choice, a choice whose consequences must inevitably face you on the other side of the grave, but you would, at least, be able to face the tribunal of Eternal Justice without shame, and, with all reverence I say it, I, as a Christian man, believe that for this reason the infinite mercy of God would find a means of salvation for you.

"Be honest. For God's sake and your own, be honest, even though in becoming so, you cease to be what is commonly called respectable. If you really cannot serve God with a whole soul and without reservation, give up the attempt to serve Him and say so before all men. It would be a terrible thing to do, and yet, awful as such a step would be, it might be the first one towards your ultimate salvation. The angels might weep, but I hardly think that the devils would laugh, for the worst enemy of the Father of Lies is an honest man or woman. The gentle heart of Jesus might bleed for you, but Eternal Justice would respect you and give you your due. Once more, speaking not only as a priest of God, but as your fellow man, let me as man implore you to be honest, and as priest, warn you that the penalty of hypocrisy is eternal damnation. You have no choice in the matter. One or the other you must be, and you cannot possibly be both. Wherefore I tell you that whether you elect to be the servant of God or the servant of Mammon, you must let all men know plainly which you are. If you are reasonable beings you cannot believe in yourselves or in each other, unless you do this. Remember that, however fondly you may be deceiving yourselves, you cannot blind the eyes of Omniscience. It is a hard thing to say, and yet it is only the plain truth given to us by the lips of Christ himself, that you cannot believe in God unless you do the things which He says. Living your present lives you do not do them, and therefore you are not only infidels and atheists living without God, but you are worse—you are hypocrites, and woe unto you!

"I tell you, speaking as solemnly as a priest of God can do in His house and in His presence that I would rather see this and every church in Christendom attended by a score of people—of real Christians whose daily lives throughout the week were really guided and sanctified by obedience to the teachings of the Master, than I would see them crowded with throngs of men and women like you, whose acts from Monday morning to Saturday night consistently belie every word that your lips utter here in the house of God and in the presence of the Holy Trinity.

"No doubt, there is already anger against me in many of your hearts on account of what I have believed it my duty to say to you. I would not willingly incur the hatred of any man or woman, and yet I shall not altogether regret that anger, because it will be proof that my words have reached, not only your ears, but your hearts. I have spoken plainly and without regard to the conventionalities either of the world or of the pulpit, and I have done so because I believe that conventionality is the foe of truth, and therefore the enemy of religion. This, remember, is a subject of such awful solemnity, laden as it is with the eternal fate of every human soul that is baptised into the Church of God, that I have found it my duty to make it plain to you at any cost.

"When you leave this church, send your horses and your carriages away and walk home, for you are deliberately breaking the law of God by using them on the Sabbath, and, remember, that he who breaks one jot or tittle of the law, shall be guilty of the whole, and, instead of going to church parade in the park, you women, to excite the admiration of the men and the envy of other women by the beauty of your dress, or the splendour of your equipage, and you men, to begin the sordid work of to-morrow before you have finished the holy task of to-day, go home and take your bibles into the solitude of your own chamber. Spend the rest of God's day with God Himself. And that you may do this good thing well and truly, and find help to choose that way of life which leadeth to eternal salvation, May the peace of God which passeth all understanding be with you now henceforth and for ever, Amen."

He raised his right hand in benediction, turned towards the altar and made the sign of the Cross, and as he came down the pulpit steps and walked up the chancel to his place, some of those who saw him, said afterwards, that there was a light on his face which they had never seen on a human face before.



CHAPTER XVII.

There was no communion after that service, and so the choir and priests formed for the recessional hymn. Father Baldwin, as the procession formed behind him, came to the front of the chancel and said:

"Instead of the hymn appointed, it will be better if we end the service with number 274."

"Through the night of doubt and sorrow."

The organ pealed out, the congregation rose, and the hymn began. It so happened that as Vane was passing the chairs on which Enid and her husband were sitting with several friends, the last verse but one was reached.

"Onward therefore, pilgrim brothers, Onward, with the Cross our aid! Bear its shame, and fight its battle, Till we rest beneath its shade."

At the words "Bear its shame and fight its battle," she looked up. Her eyes met Vane's for a moment; but there was no look of recognition in them. A sudden dart of pain seemed to shoot into her heart. This man, this prophet-priest, as he seemed to her now, had once been hers, her promised husband. How far away from her, how far above her was he now!

She had listened to the sermon with a double interest, interest in the man as well as in the wonderful words he had just spoken—words so simple in themselves, and yet spoken with such terrible force, a force so terrible that within the space of a few minutes it had shattered all her worldly ideals and destroyed the faith that she had been brought up in, changing her whole outlook upon the world.

She had been educated on the ordinary lines of conventional Christianity, and, until now, she had, like thousands of others, honestly believed herself to be a good Christian woman, just as she believed her mother to be. But, as it happened, there was that within her soul which instantly responded to the truth which she had heard to-day for the first time; and she saw that Vane was right, hopelessly, piteously right.

And then as the procession passed she looked at her husband. He had already sat down, and was getting his hat from under the seat. The procession streamed slowly out of sight into the vestry, and the congregation moved out into the aisles with much soft rustling and swishing of skirts and a subdued, buzzing hum of eager conversation.

As the three streams of well-dressed men and women converged towards the great doorway which led out into the street many began to ask themselves and each other if any one would obey the preacher's exhortation and send their carriages away. The carriages were lined up in the street just as they would be outside a theatre. Some of their owners got in and drove away, making very pointed remarks on the impropriety of bringing such subjects as carriages and horses into sermons and the length that young curates would go now-a-days to obtain notoriety. Others dismissed theirs and went away trying to look unconcerned; while other people stared after them, some smiling and others looking serious.

The Garthornes' victoria, drawn by a pair of beautiful light bays, drew up, and Garthorne put out his hand to help Enid in, but she drew back and said:

"No, thanks, I think I'll walk."

"Oh, nonsense, Enid!" he said impatiently. "Time is getting on, and we must have our turn in the Park. Everybody will be there, and this is about the last Sunday in the season. We haven't over much time either."

"I am not going into the Park, Reginald," she said decidedly. "I am going to walk straight home. You can go and do Church Parade if you like."

"All right, Tomkins, you can go home," he said to the coachman. "Mrs. Garthorne prefers to walk."

The coachman and footman touched their hats, and the victoria drove away.

"Surely to goodness, Enid," said Garthorne almost angrily, as they walked away together, "you are not doing this because Maxwell said it was wrong to use carriages on a Sunday! Good heavens, if we were to translate sermons into everyday life it would be rather a funny world to live in."

"Then what is the use of going to hear them, if they are not to be taken seriously?" she said, looking up quickly at him. "Why should they be preached, or why should we go to church at all?"

"Because it is the proper thing to do, I suppose, and because Society, whose slaves we are, makes it one of the social functions of the week," replied Garthorne, who had as much real religion in his composition as a South African Bushman. "We men go because you women do, and you women go to show others how nicely you can dress, and to see what they have got on."

"My dear Reginald, that is about as true as it is original, and that is not saying very much for it. If we don't go to church for any other reasons than those it is merely mockery and wickedness to go at all. I was very glad to see that a great many people did send their carriages away. Next Sunday I hope they will have the decency to walk."

"Especially if the British climate, as it probably will, ends up the season with a pouring wet Sunday!" laughed Garthorne. "No, dear, those godly precepts are all very well when you read them in Sunday School books or hear them from the pulpit, and I am sure Vane put them most admirably to-day, although I confess I was slightly surprised to hear a really clever fellow like him preaching such hopelessly impossible nonsense. Of course I don't mean any offence to him—far from it, but really, you know, if theories like those could be put into practice they would simply turn the world upside down."

"I think you might have found a better word than nonsense," she replied a trifle sharply; "but the world of to-day certainly would have to be turned upside down or inside out to make it anything like Christian. That, at least, Vane—I mean Mr. Maxwell—taught us this morning."

"Christian according to the Reverend Vane Maxwell," he said, with the suspicion of a sneer. "Fortunately the Churches have agreed that such a violent operation is not necessary. By the way, though, won't Maxwell get himself into a howling row with the ecclesiastical powers that be! Just imagine the bench of Bishops standing anything like that!"

"Yes," she said quietly, "the preaching of the Sermon on the Mount in a fashionable London church! It does sound very terrible, doesn't it? And yet, after all, I suppose they can't take his orders away from him even for that. I wonder what would happen? It is sure to be in the papers to-morrow, and of course everybody will be talking about it."

"Yes," said Garthorne; "but if Master Vane thinks he is going to play Savanarola to this generation he will find that he has taken on a pretty large order. Are you quite sure you won't take a turn in the Park, even on foot?"

"No, I'd rather not, but don't let me keep you if you would like a stroll. I can get home all right."

"Well, if you don't mind, Enid, I think I will. There are one or two fellows I want to see particularly about something, so bye-bye for the present."

He raised his hat and turned back, and she went on towards the house in Queen's Gate with many strange thoughts in her heart.

Enid and her husband were by no means the only members of the congregation of St. Chrysostom who discussed Vane's sermon on their way home. In fact, whether people walked or rode home, it was the universal topic. Some discussed it with timorous sympathy; others, perhaps with more worldly wisdom, talked of it quietly and cynically as the outburst of a half-fledged clerical enthusiast who would very soon find out that his superiors, on whom he depended for preferment, regarded the doctrines of Christianity as one thing and the practises of the Church as something entirely different.

"He's a clever fellow, a very clever fellow and very earnest," said Lord Canore, who was a patron of several fat livings, to her ladyship and his two daughters as they drove home, "but he'll soon get those rough corners knocked off him. If they are wise they will give him a good living, and then make him a canon as soon as possible. There's nothing like preferment to sober a man down in the Church."

"Yes," sighed Lady Caroline Rosse, the elder daughter, who was getting somewhat passee, and was deeply interested in Church work; "what a beautiful voice he has, and such a wonderful face! Really, he looked almost inspired at times. He would make quite an ideal bishop, and, you know, some quite young men are being made bishops now-a-days."

"Yes," chuckled his lordship, as he lay back against the cushions, "that is the sort of thing I mean. You don't catch bishops preaching the Sermon on the Mount and sub-editing it as they go on."

"My dear Canore," said her ladyship frigidly, "I think we had better change the subject; that last remark of yours was almost blasphemous."

"Never heard such rubbish preached from a respectable pulpit in my life," said Mr. Horace Faustmann, a member of the Stock Exchange, director of several limited companies and a most liberal contributor to the offertories, and all Church effort in the parish of St. Chrysostom, to his wife as they rolled smoothly in their cee-spring, rubber-tyred victoria towards Hyde Park Corner.

"Why, if you can't make plenty of money and still be a Christian, where are subscriptions coming from, and what price the Church endowments? It seems absolutely absurd to me. I wonder what on earth Baldwin was thinking about to let him preach a sermon like that in the smartest church in the West End. If he goes on in that style he will just ruin the show. Anyhow, he gets no more of my money if he is going to insult rich people in the pulpit. Any more of that sort of thing, my dear, and we'll go somewhere else, won't we?"

"I should think so," said the beautiful Mrs. Faustmann. She was the daughter of a poor aristocrat, and had made a very good social and financial bargain. She was one of the smartest women and most successful entertainers in London. There was another man eating his heart out on her account in the Burmese jungle, and sometimes, in her tenderest moment, she gave him a thought and a little sigh—about as much thought and sigh as her engagements permitted.

"Yes, Father Baldwin will really ruin the Church if he allows that sort of thing. Of course all the good people will give it up. In fact, you saw the Steinways, the Northwicks, the Athertons and several more leave the church before he was half way through his harangue, for really you could hardly call it a sermon. All the same, the church will be thronged to-night and next Sunday, because people will go there just for the sensation of the thing, and to see if anything else is going to happen; but poor Father Baldwin will simply be inundated with letters from the best of his people, and I don't think he'll find them very pleasant reading. I am going to write, and, although I respect the dear man very much, I shall tell him exactly what I think."

"Quite right," said her husband, as they turned into the Park. "You give it to him straight. If you don't, I shall drop him a line myself and tell him that if he wants any more of my money, and he has had a good bit, he will have to keep his half-broken clerical colts a bit better in hand; I'm not going to support a church to be insulted in it."

Many other similar conversations were going on just then in the Park, in fact, Vane and his sermon were already being discussed by half fashionable London, so fast does the news of so startling an event travel from lip to lip when a crowd of somewhat blase people, who have nothing in particular to talk about, get together. Most of the comments were quite similar to those just quoted, for Society felt generally by dinner time that night that it had been deliberately insulted, outraged, in fact, through its representatives in the congregation of St. Chrysostom.

Nevertheless the church was packed to its utmost capacity at evening service. It was known that Father Baldwin was to preach, but it was hoped that Vane would take some part in the service, and of course everyone wanted to see him; still, the audience went away disappointed. Vane was far away, helping Ernshaw at his mission in Bethnal Green, and was telling his congregation truths just as uncompromising and perhaps as unpalatable as those he had told to his wealthy and aristocratic hearers in the morning.

Father Baldwin preached, but his sermon was rather a homily on the duties of the rich towards the poor, especially at a time when the rich were about to migrate like gay-plumaged birds of passage to other lands and climes in search of pleasure, leaving behind the millions of their fellow mortals and fellow Christians, whose ceaseless life-struggle left no leisure for the delights which they had come to look upon as the commonplaces of their existence.

He only made one brief allusion to Vane's sermon. He knew perfectly well that these thronging hundreds of people had not come to hear him. He felt, not without sorrow, that quite half of them had come to hear, or at least see, the man whose name was already the talk of fashionable London.

"Some of you," he said, "who are present now heard this morning from this pulpit words which must have sunk deep into the heart of every man and woman who feels an earnest desire to follow in the footsteps of the Master as closely as imperfect human nature will permit you. It is not for me to tell you to what extent those words must be taken literally. They were spoken earnestly and from the inmost depths of the preacher's own soul—may they sink into the inmost depths of yours! They put the most vital interest of human life plainly, nay, uncompromisingly before you; how far you can or will follow them in your daily lives is a matter which rests between yourselves and your Redeemer."

The next morning nearly all the papers contained more or less lengthy reports of a sermon of which half London was already talking. Ernest Reed, a smart young reporter with strong freethought tendencies, who made a Sunday speciality of reporting sermons of all sorts, especially the extreme ones, and who wrote caustically impartial comments on them in the rationalist papers, had instantly grasped the true significance of such a sermon being preached to such a congregation, and, moreover, he had himself been deeply affected by the solemn earnestness with which the momentous words had been spoken.

"A Daniel come to judgment! A parson who believes in his own creed at last!" was his mental comment, as he closed his note-book. "That chap's worth following. I wonder where he is going to preach to-night. I'll find out."

Of course he did find out and followed Vane to Bethnal Green, with the result that he made what is professionally termed "a scoop," since he was the only reporter who was able to give both sermons verbatim. The Daily Chronicle was the only morning paper smart enough to print them word for word in parallel columns under the title:

WEIGHTY WORDS TO RICH AND POOR. The Rev. Vane Maxwell Asks Mayfair and Bethnal Green If they are Christian?

The consequence was, that all London and a very considerable part of England too, stared wonderingly over its breakfast table and asked itself whether there was really anything in these plain, almost homely, and yet terribly pregnant words. Certainly there was no getting away from the pitiless logic of them. If Vane Maxwell was right, England was not a Christian country, save in name, and its citizens were Christians only because they had been baptized into one or other of the churches and so called themselves Christians by a sort of courtesy title. For the moment at least, Christianity assumed a shape as tangible and a meaning almost as serious as party politics. In other words Vane's sermon, even when read in cold print, put the question: Are you really a Christian? so plainly, so uncompromisingly, and so unavoidably to every man or woman calling himself or herself a Christian, that hundreds of thousands of people all over the country, to say nothing of a million or two in London, felt a sudden, and, as it seemed to them, somewhat unaccountable obligation to give an equally plain answer to it. What was the answer to be?

"Yes or no?"

It certainly was a very serious matter to millions who had never thought of asking the question for themselves, and whose pastors and spiritual masters had mostly contented themselves with lecturing and teaching in soul-soothing, instead of soul-searching, words.

They, good folk, had really never troubled themselves very much about the matter. They had their business affairs to attend to, their wives and families to keep out of the workhouse or to maintain in comfort or luxury, as the case might be, and a good many of them had certain social duties to perform; and so they had got into the way of letting the churches and chapels, the bishops, priests, deacons and so forth, look after these things.

They were paid to do so. That was rather an ugly thought. At least, it seemed to be so, after reading the words of Jesus Christ, and His servant Vane Maxwell; but still it was a fact; and some of them were very highly paid. They were living in charming houses and had very comfortable investments in companies which made money anyhow, so long as they made it. Others were wretchedly paid, it was true, mostly half-starved and inevitably in debt; but still, neither of these facts affected the main question, which, of course, was the personal one: Are you—rich man or poor man—you who read these words, a Christian? Are you, as the preacher had asked in those five terrible words, honest before God and man?

Then to the scores and hundreds of thousands of people who read this, came, in a whispering terror, the further question:

"Do you think you can cheat God, even if you are cheating yourself and other people like you—the God Whom you have been taught to believe in as knowing all things, the God to whom all secrets are known?"

It was a distinctly ugly question to answer, and more Bibles were searched throughout the United Kingdom than had been for many a long year past; but no searcher found any answer that satisfied his own soul, if he had one, save the one that was given from the Mount of Olives:

"Ye cannot serve God and Mammon."

As the young preacher had said, there was no compromise. There was certainly the alternative of being honest one way or the other; but that sort of honesty had a very appalling prospect to the respectable British citizen, especially those, who, in any way, resembled the young man who came to Christ and asked Him what he should do to be saved. It was, in short, a case of becoming comparative paupers, and only having the bare necessaries of life, or keeping what they had, and saying honestly to themselves, the world, and God:

"I can't be a Christian at that price, and so, instead of remaining a Christian humbug, I will be an honest atheist."

A very terrible dilemma, certainly, and yet, if the Gospels were true, and if the Son of God had really preached the Sermon on the Mount, it was one from which there was no escape but this. It was a plain matter of belief or disbelief, honesty or dishonesty, and, if they believed in God, dishonesty was impossible, save under the penalty of eternal damnation.



CHAPTER XVIII.

That day the clergy-house of St. Chrysostom was, of course, deluged with newspapers and cuttings, and the flood continued for two or three days, during which Vane, unconscious or careless of the fact that he was already the clerical lion of London, and, perhaps, the most discussed man for the time being in England and the sister kingdoms, was working hard helping his friend, Ernshaw, to organize an entirely unsectarian twentieth century crusade throughout the poorer districts of London. He seldom read newspapers, for he preferred the living fact to the written word, and, besides, such work as his left little time for reading. He had seen his name on the placards of the morning and evening papers, and he had bought some which he had not found time to do more than glance over.

He was, of course, glad that his sermon had attracted so much attention, but he knew enough of newspapers and their readers not to hope for too much on this account, and so he was not a little surprised when Father Baldwin said to him on his return to the clergy-house on the Friday evening:

"Well, Maxwell! glad to see you back, although you have brought a nice hornet's nest about our ears, and started something like a social and religious earthquake in Kensington and the adjacent lands of Mayfair and Belgravia, to say nothing of a distinct fluttering in what I may, perhaps, without irreverence call the upper and more spacious dove-cotes of the Church."

"Have I really?" said Vane, quietly, "I didn't know I had, but if I have done so, I am very glad. It was exactly what I intended to do, though I confess I had little hope of doing so. What is the matter? I hope I haven't got you into any unpleasantness, Father Baldwin."

"It doesn't very much matter if you have," replied the older priest, leaning back in his chair and looking at him keenly from under his thick, iron-grey eyebrows. "You only said what has been in the hearts and souls of a good many of us for a long time, but it was given to you to say it and, let us hope, also the inspiration to say it in the proper way."

"Please God!" said Vane. "And now what have I done; I mean as regards yourself and St. Chrysostom?"

"To begin with," replied Father Baldwin, "about half the wealthiest members of the congregation, men and women, but mostly men, have written to say that if they are to be publicly insulted from the pulpit, and told that they are liars and hypocrites, and not Christians, save in name, they will leave the church and withdraw all their subscriptions—which, of course, from quite a worldly point of view, would be somewhat a serious matter for the church."

"That simply proves that they are not Christians," said Vane, "and the church is better without their money. They practically confess that they never have been giving their money honestly for the service of God, but merely for self-advertisement or as a social obligation. It would be no loss to us, and little gain to anybody else they gave it to."

"Yes, I believe you are right," replied Father Baldwin. "It seems rather a hard thing to say, but people who would leave a church because the Sermon on the Mount was preached from its pulpit, must be a strange sort of Christians."

"They are not Christians at all!" exclaimed Vane, with a burst of righteous wrath, "they are the bane and curse of Christianity, and have been ever since Constantine made it official and fashionable. They are responsible for every corruption that has crept into the Church, for every blot that defiles the purity of the Creed. They are not Christians, and they never have been, for they cannot be what they are and followers of Christ at the same time. They and the wealthy clergy of all the churches are responsible for the unfaith, tacit and avowed, of what we are pleased to call the lower classes; the classes who compose the majority of Christ's Congregation; and they are responsible for all the cynicism of the open and active enemies of our faith. It is they who make it possible for the infidel and the atheist to point the finger of scorn at us and say, 'See how these Christians love to do the Will of their Master.'"

"I fully appreciate everything you say, Maxwell," replied Father Baldwin, with some little hesitation in his tone; for, although he was as good a Christian as ever gave up everything to serve his Master, and as earnest a priest as ever stood before the altar, yet he was getting on in years and found it hard to break away from the traditions amidst which he had grown up, and which he had accepted as a young man with little or no inquiry. "At the same time, I must candidly admit that I was a trifle startled by your absolutely uncompromising rendering of our Lord's words. Did you really intend that they should be taken literally?"

"It is not what I intended, Father Baldwin," replied Vane, rising from his seat and beginning to walk up and down the plainly furnished, book-lined common-room, "the question is what He intended, and surely no Christian in his senses could believe for a moment that our Lord intended to quibble with words and to play with double meanings. If He did not mean what He said, and intend those who followed Him to do what He said, what becomes of our faith? If that is not so, surely there is nothing left for us but to give up the doctrine of the Trinity altogether, and go back to the old Hebrew creed—which certainly did not forbid the accumulation of riches."

"May I come in?" said Sir Arthur Maxwell's voice through the open door, "they told me you were here, Vane. Good evening, Father Baldwin. Well, this is a nice sort of commotion that this son of mine has been kicking up. Do you know, Sir," he went on, turning to Vane, "that you have suddenly made yourself one of the most famous, or, perhaps, I should say notorious, persons in London by that sermon of yours? It was very fine I admit, and most desperately to the point, but I suppose you know that all the world and the newspapers are asking where does that point point to?"

"That is just what I was asking your son, Sir Arthur," said Father Baldwin. "Granted that he is right in his contention that the Sermon on the Mount is to be taken literally, it means nothing short of a religious as well as a social revolution."

"That is exactly what the papers and everybody are saying," said Sir Arthur. "In fact, people are beginning to look at one another and ask some very awkward questions. For instance, here am I, that boy's father, I am not a rich man, but I have worked hard and my old age is comfortably provided for, and when I die what I have would naturally go to Vane, who, on his own showing, couldn't have it; in fact, as you know, he has given up about a thousand a year as it is that he had from my brother Alfred."

"You will not get much sympathy from Father Baldwin on that score, father," laughed Vane, "you know he gave up nearly twice as much."

"There is nothing in that," said Father Baldwin, hastily, as though he would stop them saying any more, "that is a point on which I entirely agree with you. When a man has money of his own, and devotes himself to the service of the Church, he should devote his money to it also. As a Christian and a priest he can have no lawful use for it, save in the work of the Church."

"Unless he happens to be married and have a family," said Sir Arthur. "What ought he to do then, Father Baldwin?"

"In that case, Sir Arthur," he replied, "I think he would do better to keep out of the ministry and devote himself honestly to the affairs of his own household. You remember, of course, what the Apostle Paul tells us, that the man who neglects those is worse than an infidel. Of course, it is not a good translation, and it reads very badly now that infidel has come to mean one who does not believe in creeds. It should, of course, read unfaithful, I mean, unfaithful to the solemn responsibilities he has taken upon himself; and, although I may be wrong, I find it difficult to see how a man can faithfully discharge those obligations and those of a priest of the Church, but that opens a very wide question, and there is a very great deal to be said on both sides of it."

"There I quite agree with you," said Sir Arthur, "you know, of course, better than I do, that there are hundreds of hard-worked parsons in this country—especially in poor parishes—who can't afford curates, who simply couldn't get on without their wives, and I know one or two myself who say that their wives are worth a couple of curates. I'm fairly certain that in most poor country parishes the parson's wife is the good angel of the place."

"There is not the slightest doubt about it," replied Father Baldwin, "I have seen quite enough of church work to convince me of that, and this is, of course, the very strongest argument, and a very convincing one, too, in a certain degree, against the celibacy of the clergy. But, still, Sir Arthur," he went on, with a change of tone, "I suppose you didn't come here to discuss theology and church matters. Of course, you want to see your son. My study is quite at your service, if you want to have a talk."

"Thanks, very much, Father," said Sir Arthur, "what I really came for was to ask Vane to come round and have a bit of dinner with me. I have a good many things to talk over with him, and I have a guest or two coming whom I am anxious for him to meet. What do you say, Vane, can you come?"

"Of course I can, dad," replied Vane. "I am taking a holiday till Sunday, and I couldn't spend it much better than at the old place. On Sunday I am going to deliver two lectures at the Hall of Science, Old Street, the head-quarters of the National Secular Society."

"The what, Maxwell?" exclaimed Father Baldwin, with a note of something more than astonishment in his voice, "the Hall of Science—why, that was Bradlaugh's place—the head-centre of London infidelity."

"Excuse me, Father," said Vane, gravely, "do you not think that is a word we are accustomed to use too vaguely? Is it quite fair or logical to call these people infidels? Are they not rather faithful to their convictions, however wrong they may be? Surely we must, at least, give them the credit of believing in their disbelief. Last night I heard an informal confession—one of the strangest, perhaps, that a priest ever heard—from a young fellow, of about twenty-two, who reported my sermon here, and then followed me to Bethnal Green and sent in both accounts to the papers.

"He is well educated, very clever, and the son of a clergyman. He is also what people call an infidel, and yet he made a confession of faith to me that would have melted the soul of a financier, if he had one. After that I shall never hear these people called infidels without a protest. And, besides, is it not a good thing that a priest of God should speak the truth that is in him in the temple of the unbelievers? How many of our churches would permit one of their lecturers to speak from the pulpit, or even from the platform of one of our schoolrooms."

"You are quite right, Maxwell," said Father Baldwin, "I used the word unthinkingly, therefore conventionally. I am very glad you are going, but I am afraid if your friends advertise it at all, half Kensington and Mayfair will be off to Old Street, and crowd them out of their own place. As I tell you, they didn't like what you said, but for all that, they are dying to hear what you are going to say next."

"Exactly," said Sir Arthur, "that is the worst of becoming suddenly notorious, Vane. You have made yourself, in a most righteous manner, the talk of London, and London will follow you now wherever you go. However, that can't be helped, it is one of the penalties of fame, and now if you have nothing more to say to Father Baldwin, you might put on your hat, and come, I have got a hansom at the door."



CHAPTER XIX.

On the way from the Clergy-House to Warwick Gardens Vane tried more than once to get his father to tell him something about the evening's entertainment which he had invited him for, but Sir Arthur only laughed, albeit somewhat seriously, and said:

"My dear boy, I am not going to let you spoil a pleasant little surprise. I don't say that it will be altogether a pleasant one, yet I know that it will not be an entirely unpleasant one. To a certain extent, as you will find afterwards, it is one of the many results of that precious sermon of yours, and, as certain things had to be done, I thought they would be better done at home than elsewhere."

And in reply to Vane's second attempt his father said simply:

"No, Vane, this is a surprise party, as they say in the States, and I am not going to give the names of my guests away. You really must possess your soul in patience for the present. Meanwhile tell me what Father Baldwin thinks of the position you have taken up?"

"You mean, of course, about this new heresy of mine?" replied Vane with a laugh—"a heresy, by the way, which is as old as Christianity. Well, dad, to tell you the truth I think the dear old Father is a little bit frightened, but he is too strong a man to go back from the position, and too good a Christian to want to do so. He sees that I am right, or, I should say of course, that this is after all the only possible doctrine and belief for a Christian. He gave me permission to preach that sermon from his pulpit, but I don't think he quite realised, as a matter of fact I didn't myself, what an effect it would have, and perhaps the consequences have worried him a little; but he is perfectly staunch, and so are Moran and Webley."

"And so, I suppose," replied Sir Arthur, "St. Chrysostom's will not be a pleasant Sunday morning and evening resort for rich people any longer. That is, perhaps, a somewhat flippant way of putting it, but of course you know what I mean."

"Yes, I quite see what you mean, dad," said Vane rather more seriously. "I don't think it will be, but I do think that before very long we shall have a better congregation of Christians than we have ever had before, people who, I mean, will have lost their delusions about fashionable Christianity—just as if there could be such a thing!—and who come to hear the Word of God as it is, and not as most people would like it to be. By the way, have you heard that the Canon, I mean Canon Thornton-Moore, of Worcester, a man that I met at dinner at the Abbey, has accepted the presentation of All Saints, Densmore Square? It is supposed to be a little higher even than St. Chrysostom, and if possible the congregation is even more disgustingly rich and fashionable and everything that is not Christian."

"I must say, Vane, that you have all the uncompromising severity of the true enthusiast, and the way in which you include your old father with these hopeless sinners is really almost unfilial. I think I can tell you this much, that to-night you are going to meet a very much greater sinner than I am, a sinner to the extent of millions, and yet, from what I have learned of him on the best possible authority, as honest a man, as good-hearted a fellow, as ever fought the world single-handed and beat it."

"Just as you did, dad," said Vane in a tone which reminded his father of the old days. "I suppose there is nothing to be said of the other two persons of the Infernal Trinity."

"Not at present," said Sir Arthur, with a sudden change in his voice which made Vane look round at him. His face had changed with his tone. He was leaning with his arms on the door of the cab, staring up at the sky over the roofs of the houses. Vane noticed a little twitching of the lip under the long grey moustache, and thought it well to hold his peace.

Fortunately, perhaps, for both, the cab at that moment swung round out of the main road into Warwick Gardens. Vane looked at the familiar corner at which he had stopped that other hansom cab on that memorable Boat Race night and got out, after Carol had denied him the kiss he asked for, to meet his father on the pavement. Sir Arthur remembered it too, and he had good reasons to, for he said as the cab swung round:

"Vane, when my lease is up I am going to leave this place. I never can pass that corner without thinking of what no man ought to be obliged to think of."

"I know what you mean, dad," cried Vane. "It was horrible enough, or at least it might have been and yet it wasn't, and because it wasn't——"

"Well, at any rate," interrupted Sir Arthur as the cab pulled up, "let us thank God that it wasn't."

As they got out another cab drove up just behind theirs, and somewhat to his astonishment Vane saw Ernshaw get out.

"My dear Ernshaw," he said, as they shook hands, "isn't this great extravagance?"

"Only a shilling's worth," laughed Ernshaw in reply, "and I think justifiable; a little kiddy was knocked down in Addison Road there by a butcher's cart, and I picked her up and took her to the hospital in Hammersmith Road, and this good fellow won't charge me more than a shilling for both journeys, although it is out of the radius."

"Oh, he won't, won't he?" said Sir Arthur, putting his hand into his pocket and pulling out a couple of half-crowns.

"You take that, my man, not for yourself if you won't have it, but for your wife and your children if you have got any; you can't say no for them."

"No, sir, thankee, I won't say no to them," said the cabby, taking the half-crowns and touching his hat. "It's the best fare I've earned to-day. Good-night, sir, and thank you, sir. Come up, old girl."

The whip flicked, and the old mare went round to begin another of those endless journeys through London streets which horses, if they reason at all, must find so utterly incomprehensible and aimless.

"Is this the beginning of the surprises, dad?" said Vane, as the two cabs drove away. "This is certainly one of the last places in London that I should have expected to meet Ernshaw in, after seeing him up to his neck in work at Bethnal Green yesterday. It must have been a pretty strong attraction, Ernshaw, that got you as far west as this."

"My dear Maxwell," said Ernshaw, "surely the worst of us are entitled to a holiday now and then. Why, even Father Philip goes to Norway for a fortnight every year, to say nothing of an occasional run up to Town now and then, and he confessed to me not very long ago that he enjoys no earthly pleasure better than a good 'Varsity match at Lord's."

"There is nothing better," said Sir Arthur, "except a good Indian polo match. Well, come in. I have just got time for a wash and a change before our other guests arrive. You clerics don't want a change, so you can have a wash and a cigarette if you want one in the Den."

As the door opened Koda Bux came along the hall and made his salaam; his grave, deep eyes made no sign as he recognised Vane in his clerical garb; he only salaamed again and welcomed Vane back to the house of his father and his mother. That was Koda Bux's way of putting it in his Indian fashion. He would have put it otherwise if he had known what such a welcome meant to him.

"This is the place of the debacle," said Vane to Ernshaw when they met in the Den after they had had their wash; "there's the hearthrug—yes, and there's the same spirit-case. It is a curious thing, Ernshaw, but since then, or rather, since that other ghastly collapse at Oxford, I've lectured in club rooms reeking with alcohol; I've gone with you as you know where everyone was sodden with the gin and stank of it, and even into bars where you could smell nothing but liquor and unwashed humanity, and yet that intoxication has never come back to me."

"Of course not," said Ernshaw; "you have prayed and fought since then, and as you have won your battles your prayers have been answered."

"Yes," said Vane, "I hope you are right; in fact, I am sure you are. I don't suppose a sniff at that whiskey decanter would affect me any more than a few drops of eau de cologne on my handkerchief."

As he said this he went towards the spirit-case on the little old oak sideboard and took out the whiskey decanter.

"Take care, Vane!" said Ernshaw. "I hope you are not forgetting the old doctrine of association. Remember what you were saying just now about this room. There is a sense, you know, in which places are really haunted."

"My dear Ernshaw, I believe you are even more ideal than I am," laughed Vane, as he took the stopper out and raised the decanter to his nostrils. As he did so the front door bell tinkled, and the hand of a practised footman played a brief fantasia on the knocker. In the middle of an inhalation Vane stopped and put the bottle down; but even as he did so the mysterious force of association against which Ernshaw had warned him had begun to work upon his imagination. The familiar room, with its pictures and furniture and simple ornaments, the feel of the cut-glass decanter, which was the same one that he had held in his hand that fatal night, the smell of the whiskey—all these elements were rapidly combining in those few moments to produce an effect partly mental and partly physical which might have more than justified Ernshaw's sudden fear.

"Ah, there are the mysterious guests, I suppose!" he said, putting the decanter back into the case. "I suppose you don't happen to know who they really are, Ernshaw?"

"My dear fellow, if I did I shouldn't tell you," was the distinctly non-committal reply. "I think it will be very much more interesting for you to find out yourself."

By this time Koda Bux, in his capacity of major-domo and general factotum to Sir Arthur, had opened the door, and at the same moment Sir Arthur himself came downstairs. Vane heard him say:

"Good evening, ladies; I am sorry that I have no hostess to receive you, but Mrs. Saunders, who helps Koda Bux to take care of me, will take you upstairs."

Then there was a low murmur of a woman's voice, a rustle of skirts up the stairs, and Sir Arthur went on:

"Now, Mr. Rayburn, if you will come with me I will show you where to put your hat and coat and have a rinse if you like."

"Thanks, Sir Arthur," replied a voice which was strange to Vane.

"And who might Mr. Rayburn be?" he said to Ernshaw. "I didn't know the governor knew anyone of that name. Still, from the sound of his voice he is a gentleman, and, I should say, a man."

"I think when you meet him you will find him both," said Ernshaw.

"Ah," laughed Vane, "I think I caught you out there. So you are in this conspiracy of mystery, are you? Now, look here, Ernshaw, what is it all about?"

"Guilty, but shan't tell," replied his friend. "Now here comes Sir Arthur; perhaps he will tell."

"Vane," said Sir Arthur as the door opened, "this is Mr. Cecil Rayburn, and I want you to be very good friends; you will soon find out why."

Vane looked up and saw a man apparently a year or two older than himself, about the same height and build, but harder and stronger, and possessing that peculiar erectness of carriage and alertness of movement that is owned only by those who have worked or fought, or done both, in the outlands of the earth. But a glance at his face confirmed Vane in the opinion he had formed when he heard his voice; he was undeniably both a gentleman and a man. He held out his hand and said:

"Good evening, Mr. Rayburn. Of course a friend of my father's has to be my friend also."

To his astonishment Cecil Rayburn made no movement to take his hand; on the contrary he drew back half a pace and said with a note of something like nervousness in his voice—a note which sounded strangely in the speech of a man who had never known what fear was:

"Thank you, Mr. Maxwell; I hope we shall be friends, but I am afraid I can't shake hands with you yet—I mean, I shouldn't like you to regret it afterwards."

Before Vane had found any words to shape a reply, Sir Arthur said:

"Mr. Ernshaw, suppose we go into the drawing-room to receive the ladies, and leave these two to have it out. We shan't have dinner for half an hour, and I think they will manage to understand each other before then."



CHAPTER XX.

"Well, Mr. Rayburn," said Vane, "this is a rather curious sort of introduction, but I see that you are—I mean that I am quite satisfied that you must have some very good reason for refusing to shake hands with me. You are the first man who has ever done so, and as you have come here as my father's guest, I may presume that it is not a personal objection."

Vane could not help speaking formally; there was a strangeness about the situation which forced him to do so.

"That would be impossible, Mr. Maxwell," replied the other, in a low, hesitating tone. "I knew that I should meet you here when I accepted Sir Arthur's invitation; in fact, we—I mean I came here on purpose to meet you, and, to shorten matters, the reason why your father has left us alone, is that I have a very serious and I am afraid a very difficult confession to make to you."

"A confession!" said Vane, drawing himself up and looking Rayburn straight in the eyes. "Do you wish me to hear it as a man, or a priest, because if I am to hear it as a priest, it would be better kept for a more suitable time and place?"

"I want you to hear it both as man and priest," replied Rayburn, returning his look with perfect steadiness, "and I want you to hear it—and, in fact, unless we are to go away at once, you must hear it now."

"Very well," said Vane, a dim suspicion of the truth beginning to steal into his soul, "it is a little mysterious to me, but I daresay we shall soon understand each other."

He paused for a moment, and then, with a visible effort which made Rayburn love and honour him from that moment forth, he went on:

"And perhaps it would simplify matters for both of us if you began by telling me who we are?"

"Your sister, or rather your half-sister," Rayburn began falteringly, and then stopped.

He saw Vane wince and heard his teeth come together with a snap, and he saw his hands clench up into fists and his face pale, already turned ashen grey white that denotes utter bloodlessness. It was the face of a corpse with living eyes that looked at him with an expression which could not be translated into human words. Rayburn had looked death in the face many a time and laughed at it, but he didn't laugh now. As he said afterwards, he would have given anything to be a couple of miles away from Vane just then. He didn't speak because he had nothing to say, his thoughts would not be translated into language, and so there was nothing for it but to wait for Vane to speak.

For a few moments more the two men faced each other in silence, yet each reading the other's thoughts as accurately as though they had been talking with perfect frankness. Then Vane spoke in a slow, hard, grating voice which none of the congregation of St. Chrysostom would have recognised as that of the eloquent preacher of the Sermon on the Mount, to which Rayburn, who had heard that sermon, listened with a shock, which, as he told Carol later, sent a shiver through him from head to foot.

"Yes, Mr. Rayburn, I think I understand more fully now. My sister Carol—she has come here with you to-night, and I suppose I am right in thinking that you were to some extent responsible, quite innocently no doubt, for her disappearance about a year ago. Is that so?"

"Yes," said Rayburn, "that's so, and that's why I wouldn't shake hands with you. I did take her away. She has been round the world with me, travelling with me as my wife, and she isn't my wife, and—well, that is about all there is."

"And why isn't she your wife?" exclaimed Vane, with an unreasoning burst of anger. Then, after a little pause, he went on in a tone that was almost humble.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Rayburn, that was a foolish thing to say, as most things said in haste and anger are. You only did what any other man with no ties and plenty of money would have done under the circumstances. Forgive me! Only the hand of Providence itself saved me from committing, without knowledge, an infinitely greater sin than yours. I suppose Carol has told you how I met her and what happened, and, of course, my father has told you about my getting out of the cab that night at the top of the Gardens? No, no, I have nothing to forgive, nothing to say except, as Carol's brother, to ask you why you have brought her here? That, at least, I think I am entitled to ask."

"Maxwell," replied Rayburn, pulling himself together as a man might do after being badly beaten in a fight, "I have been in a good many bad places in my lifetime, but this has been about the worst, and I'd a damned sight sooner—I beg your pardon, you know what I mean—I would very much rather been talking to a South American Dago with a pistol at my head, than having this talk with you, but it's got to be done.

"You know, I suppose, or at any rate your father knows, how I met Carol and how we fixed it up to go away together. I admit, without any reserve, that I did take her just as any man like myself, who had had a pretty hard time for a few years and had come back with a ridiculous superfluity of money, would have taken such a girl under such circumstances; that is brutal, but at any rate, it is honest. Well, we went round the world together, and it was only a fortnight ago—we've been back three weeks now—that I found out who she was."

"Not from her?" exclaimed Vane, with almost pitiful eagerness.

"No," replied Rayburn, "she would have died first. Over and over again I tried to get her to tell me who and what she was, because of course it was perfectly easy to see—well, you know what I mean—but she wouldn't. It was the one confidence that she never gave me; in fact, when I was trying to insist upon it, she told me if I opened the subject again, she would leave me there and then, whatever happened to her."