The Project Gutenberg E-text of Peradventure, by Robert Keable

THE MOTHER OF ALL LIVING
A CITY OF THE DAWN
SIMON CALLED PETER
PILGRIM PAPERS
STANDING BY
ETC.

Recently a very eminent Anglican divine gave us a book which he said embodied "forty years of profound thought." In it he deals to no small extent with the subject of this novel, a novel which, though hiddenly, I wish to dedicate to you.

I want to do so because, perhaps, you alone of all my friends will know how much herein written down is true to the life we both led and both have left. It is odd, I think, as I look back, how little we have seen of each other, and how much: how little, because great tracts of your life and mine have been traversed wholly apart, and we only met, in the beginning, when we had both of us come some distance along the way; but how much, since each time we met and walked a mile or two together, we talked very freely and we found we understood. Now, as like as not, I shall see increasingly less of you, seeing that you have become a Catholic, a religious, and a priest at that. It is little one knows of life and its surprises, but we have shaken hands at the cross-roads anyway. A moment, then, ere you go up the steep hill ahead of you, and a moment ere I take my own road that has I cannot see what level or uphill or down in it,—a moment ere you put my book in your pocket for the sake of the days gone by.

You will appreciate the fact that I should have put my thought into a novel and not into a book of serious theology. Man's thoughts about God are read best in a novel. Yes, on the one hand, they are best set in a transitory frivolous form that booksellers will expose on their stalls labelled with one of those neatly-printed little tickets—you know: "Just the Book for a Long Journey"—to catch the attention of a man off for his holiday or a girl bored with having to return. Yes, they are best set where they can be read in a few hours by the drawing-room fire. For, after all, ten years or forty or four hundred of man's profound thought about God is worth, maybe a little more than the price of a pound of chocolates, maybe a little less than that of a theatre seat. Besides the novel has a coloured wrapper, and they are not yet brave enough or sufficiently wise to wrap up theology in that form.

But on the other hand, my dear Chris, there is no form of writing yet devised quite so true or quite so profound as the novel of human affairs may well be. For, Incarnation or no Incarnation, beyond doubt you cannot separate man and God. We have no medium other than the human brain by which to think of Him, however illumined or deluded that brain may be, and no other measure of His Person than that of human life. Your abstract theologian may decide that He is or is not a Father: it is man's striving soul that knows; and against their presumptive reasoning of the spiritual heaven, I would set half a dozen pages torn from earth.

You will be well aware as you read that these chapters are such pages truly enough. I do not mean that it is not the stuff of fiction that is here, but I do protest that Claxted and Keswick and Port o' Man and Thurloe End and Fordham, yes, and Zanzibar, are true to type, though many readers will scarcely believe me. I can see the critics mocking though the ink is not yet dry upon the page. And if, by chance, one of them should catch a fleeting glimpse of his own face in the glass, he will assuredly throw it up at me that the mirror is distorted. Yet, as Samuel Butler says: "If a bona fide writer thinks a thing wants saying ... the question whether it will do him personally good or harm, or how it will affect this or that friend, never enters his head, or if it does, it is instantly ordered out again."

Allow me then, for this reason, your name within the boards. You will know, however much you disapprove, that there is no malice here. For what would I gain by mockery, old friend, who have already lost friends enough by speaking the truth? It is a pitiable dance this of ours around the altar of Baal, over which, if God be too divine, at least man should be human enough rather to weep than to mock. Yet I believe, as indeed I have written, that sorrow in the human story is but the shadow of a lovelier thing; that the grass grows green, that the flower blows red, that in the wide sea also are things creeping innumerable both small and great beasts, and that every one is good. And God's in His Heaven? Peradventure. At least His Veil is fair.

But—and it is a big "but"—for you in your high vocation and for me in this of mine, for each of us, oddly enough, in his own way, there is a verse from Miss V. H. Friedlaender's A Friendship which I find I cannot easily forget:

When we are grown
We know it is for us
To rend the flowery lies from worlds
Foul with hypocrisy;
To perish stoned and blinded in the desert—
That men unborn may see.

PERADVENTURE

CHAPTER I
LAMBETH COURT

Bring me my Bow of burning gold!
Bring me my Arrows of desire!
Bring me my Spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.
BLAKE: Milton.

Thirsting for love and joy,
Eager to mould and plan,
These were the dreams of a boy....
ARTHUR C. BENSON: Peace and Other Poems.

It must be presumed that some reason underlies the nomenclature of the ways of our more modern towns, but the game of guessing will long remain an entertainment to the curious. True, we think to honour our illustrious dead by calling some business street wholly given over to modern commercialism after one of them, as also we occasionally seek satisfaction by casting forth a name now identified with our equally infamous enemies; but the process by which were named byways and courts that, after all, have not been in existence a lifetime, must remain a puzzle. Thus if, walking down the dreary monotony of Apple Orchard Road, one might conceive that at some time or another it boasted an apple-tree, the most nimble imagination baulks at that blind alley leading from it into an open irregular space entirely surrounded by the meanest houses, entitled Lambeth Court. It, at least, was surely never associated with an Archbishop. The mere sight of his gaiters there would have been the occasion for an hilarious five minutes. And if it was ever part of his property, the least said about that the better.

For all this the Borough of Claxted, now within the boundaries of Greater London, was a highly respectable town. Its citizens were mainly composed of those who go daily to the City round and about the decent hour of nine-thirty for frequently mysterious but none the less remunerative occupations, and of those who supply their households with the necessaries and pleasant superfluities of good living. A class apart, these latter nevertheless shone, in Claxted, with some of the lustre of their betters, and were, indeed, known, when Paul Kestern was young, as Superior Tradespeople. For both, at Claxted, there were miles of trim villas ascending to avenues of detached houses; churches there were, swept and garnished, or empty with an Evangelical Christian emptiness; Municipal buildings, dignified, sufficient, new and clean. There was, in short, an air about the place and its citizens, in those days, almost wholly neatly and simply Conservative. The Borough, moreover, obtained a suffragan bishop about this time, and may thus be said to have been sealed with a just measure of divine approval.

Yet the untroubled broad stream of Claxted's righteous prosperity had its occasional backwater into which there drifted the rubbish which would otherwise have defiled the comfortable colour of waters neither muddy nor translucent. Lambeth Court was one such. Possibly it was overlooked by the Borough Council; possibly it was allowed to remain for some such definite purpose as that it certainly fulfilled. In any case the Court afforded a "problem" for the church in whose parish it lay, and the principles of the Christian Endeavour Society, which set every young Christian immediately to work (thus preventing the leakage which otherwise occurs after the Sunday School age in the South), were offered in it an ample field for exercise. God knows it needed all that the young Christian Endeavourers and their more adult directors strove to give it. Their work was possibly a forlorn hope, but if the Sunshine Committee could not lighten the darkness of the Court, what else, asked Claxted, could? Nothing, it may well be conceded, except rebuilding and replanning to admit light and air. These, however, cost money, and besides the dwellers in Lambeth Court would only have moved themselves elsewhere. The poor, reflected the Claxted councillors, ye have with you always, and went home to dinner.

So far as the Christian Endeavour Society was concerned, it was Paul Kestern who discovered Lambeth Court. He was eighteen at the time and secretary of the Open-Air Committee—a committee, it must be explained perhaps, which did not function in town-planning but in gospel-preaching. One Sunday morning, returning from a children's service in the Mission Hall at the end of Apple Orchard Road, he entered it for the first time. A scholar had said that his elder sister, regular in attendance at the service, was sick, and Paul, enquiring her whereabouts, had learned that she lived "in the Court." Its inhabitants rarely aspired to the "Lambeth" part of their designation, but if the enquirer needed further enlightenment added "Behind the 'South Pole.'" Paul, thus informed, remembered the dim opening under the railway bridge behind the public-house of that name, and said he would "call in" that morning. The urchin looked doubtfully at his teacher's silk hat and frock coat, but ran off after service to acquaint his mother. Paul had followed at leisure.

It is not necessary to give a detailed description of Lambeth Court, but it may be pointed out how the place instantly struck Paul strategically. It was not too far from the Hall, he saw at once, to make the work of carrying the harmonium too heavy; every corner of its area could be reached with a powerful voice; in the very centre stood a lamp-post, and, what was more, that lamp-post stood alone in its glory in the Court. This condition offered two great advantages: first, that of supplying all the light required for the evangelists, and secondly, that of creating those dark shadows beyond beloved by Nicodemus and his like. The railway arch through which one entered and which shut off that end of the place, would, of course, occasionally vibrate with trains—an item on the debit side of the account; but on the other hand the filthy tumbling hovels were enclosed on three sides by hoardings and tall blank warehouse walls which would catch the voice, and their strips of refuse-strewn gardens, separated from each other by broken palings, were just such as would invite the inhabitants to sit and gossip there on summer and early autumn evenings. Paul noted all this in a moment so soon as he was inside the arch. He was a born evangelist.

But to do the boy justice, he noted far more than this. He saw the slatternly woman, with an unspeakable gaping blouse, her hair in curl-papers and her feet in bulging unlaced boots, who came to the door of the first cottage and shouted at a flaxen-haired little toddler of a girl playing with a matchbox in the gutter. The burning words fell on his ears like a scream from hell. "Maud-Hemily, yer bloody little bitch, come in out o' that muck or I'll smack your bottom for yer." He saw the two men by the lamp-post look at him, and he read aright their besotted faces. Neither spoke, but one spat well and truly at the base of the pillar, and that did for speech. He rapped on the door of No. 5, and when Jimmie opened it, he saw the remains of a meal in greasy newspapers on the filthy table, and his nostrils caught the smell of unwashed clothes and Sunday morning's kippers. He tried to avoid the wall as he went up the stairs. And when he was in the little overhead bedroom, whose window never opened and through whose grimy glass one read an advertisement of Reckitt's Blue on the hoarding opposite, and stood by the side of a heap of blankets and sacks on which lay and coughed a child of thirteen in consumption, a cracked article on a chair by her bedside over which she occasionally leaned and expectorated, his heart moved with something of that compassion which had been the outstanding characteristic of the greatest Evangelist the world has ever known.

He was more silent than his wont at the midday dinner. But when Saturday's hot joint, cold on Sundays, had been removed, he looked across the table to the clergyman at its head, and spoke. "Dad," he said, "do you know Lambeth Court?"

"Lambeth?" queried the clergyman. "No. Oh, let me see. Isn't it that place behind the 'South Pole'?"

"Yes. I went in to-day to see Queenie Archer. She's awfully bad again. Dad, it's a ghastly place. I thought I'd speak to the Committee this afternoon and arrange an open-air there."

His mother looked up from helping the pudding and spoke with a trace of anxiety. "Paul, she has consumption. Ought you to visit her, dear? And it's a dreadful place; I don't think the C.E. girls ought to go into it even for an open-air."

Paul moved restlessly. "They'd be all right with us, mother," he said. "Do you think Jesus Christ would have stayed away because it was dirty or because Queenie had consumption? If there's a place in the parish where souls need saving, that place is Lambeth Court."

His mother suppressed a little sigh. The speech was typical of Paul. As a Christian she loved him for it; as a mother she was very proud. But this irresistible logic, which he was so prone to use, however much it belonged to the atmosphere of religion in which she whole-heartedly believed, affrighted her a little. It opened up infinities. She made the rather pathetic appeal which was characteristic of her. "What do you think, father?" she queried.

Mr. Kestern had very kindly eyes, a forehead which would have made for intellectuality if his ever-narrowing outlook on life had given it a chance, and a weak chin hidden by a short-beard and moustache. He smiled at her. "The boy is quite right, dear," he said, "but, Paul, you should not run unnecessary risks, especially now. You might have left the visit to me. I will go to-morrow. As for the open-air, I should think it would be a capital place, but keep the girls by you and don't let them wander alone into the houses with tracts or leaflets. Do you mean to go to-night?"

"No, not to-night, dad. Our pitch is in Laurence Place to-night. I thought perhaps next Sunday."

"Next Sunday is the first in the month, dear," said his mother gently. "Won't it be rather late? You don't usually have open-airs on the first Sunday, do you?"

"I know, mother," said Paul, "but why not? It is better to be a bit late when we go to Lambeth Court. Some of the men may be out of the publics by then. And it always seems to me that Communion Sunday is the best in the month for an open-air. Surely after we've remembered His 'precious Death and Burial' at the Table, that is just the time for us to preach the Cross."

"And 'His glorious Resurrection and Ascension,' Paul," quoted his father softly. "Don't forget that. It's the living Saviour, no dead Christ on a crucifix, that we proclaim."

"I don't know, laddie," said his father, smiling tenderly at him, "but some appear to do so. God guard you from such errors, Paul. Don't be over-confident; Satan can deceive the very elect."

Thus was the mission to Lambeth Court decided upon. Paul had carried his Committee with him, as he always did. Its eldest member, a married bank clerk of a nervous temperament, had indeed echoed something of Mrs. Kestern's fears. He thought that the Court was no place for ladies, and said, frankly, he would not care for his wife to go there. Paul, at the head of the Mission vestry table, played with a pencil, and showed his instinctive leadership again by not answering him. He looked up instead, and caught Edith Thornton's eyes as she sat opposite him. They were eager and indignant, and he nodded ever so slightly. Edith, therefore, had taken up her parable, and the more forcefully since she did not often speak on Committee. "Oh, Mr. Derrick," she exclaimed, "I don't agree with you at all! What about our missionaries' wives? What about the Salvation Army? Do you think any place can be too bad for a Christian if there is one single soul to be saved?" She flushed a little at her own vehemence.

Mr. Derrick coughed, fumbling with his watchchain. He was well aware that the Spirit was at work in Apple Orchard Mission Hall, and he was conscious of being one of the weaker brethren. Paul's very silence daunted him, for he honestly loved the eager Paul. "Let us pray about it," he suggested.

Paul pushed his chair back, and slipped to his knees. Instinctively he always knelt to pray, though the more general custom was to sit. "A few minutes' silent prayer first," he commanded, and, in the slow ticking of the clock, he prayed himself, with utter simplicity and earnestness, for Lambeth Court, for the guidance of the Holy Spirit—and for Mr. Derrick. The result was, of course, a foregone conclusion.

Thus, at intervals, all that golden summer, Lambeth Court heard the Word. True, the signs following were so small that the less zealous Endeavourers openly shook their heads, and even the more ardent of the band would have been tempted to give in. But Paul and Edith were of different mettle. At devotional meetings, Paul spoke of heroic souls who had preached for half a generation in heathen lands and not seen a convert, until, one day, the tide turned in all its power. Most effective was the story of the Moravians who laboured among a certain band of Esquimaux for forty years unblessing and unblessed, and then, discovering that the channels were choked in themselves, cleared them, and saw many mighty works. And in July, indeed, the doubters had received a knock-out blow. Mrs. Reynolds, of No. 11, had been as truly converted as Saul on the road to Damascus, converted by the human instrumentality of Edith and a novel tract in the shape of a small slip of cardboard bearing nothing but a question mark on one side and on the other:

Poor Mrs. Reynolds, one would have thought that her present woes were big enough to discount effectively all future ones. Reynolds hawked, when he had anything to hawk or time to spare from the "South Pole" and regular terms of service for His Majesty. Mrs. Reynolds, herself, drank, when, more rarely than her spouse, she had the wherewithal to obtain drink. Reynolds, who should have accounted himself blessed in the number of olive branches round about his table, illogically cursed whenever he saw them, but added to the tribe as fast as Nature permitted. It was, indeed, when his wife was expecting what turned out to be twins, that Edith came her way. Against orders, she left the circle and gave the woman a chair within her palings whereon she might sit and listen. Mrs. Reynolds, gently intoxicated, was grateful, and asked her visitor to fetch a Bible from within which had remained to the family because it could not be pawned. On the table Edith silently laid the tract. Mrs. Reynolds, returning later, had seen it, and had been (as she said) knocked all of a heap. Why, particularly, by that tract or just then, does not appear, and was not indeed questioned for a moment by the Endeavourers. For converted Mrs. Reynolds honestly and truly had been. Into her dwarfed and darkened life had shone the radiance of a new hope, and from her hardened heart, so strangely broken, had come welling out a vivid and wonderful spring. Regular at services, humble at home, zealous in her work, undaunted by scoffing and blows, Mrs. Reynolds had not only been constrained, nervously and pathetically, to testify publicly in her own Court, but honestly did testify by her life every day of the week. The very publican at the corner, who had a soft spot for Paul by the way, admitted it. "Let the poor devil alone," he would shout at Reynolds cursing his wife and damning the Mission across the bar, "or get out of 'ere. Christ! You're a bloody fool, you are! 'Ere's the Mission give you as good a wife as any man ever 'ad, and you cursin' of 'em. Wouldn't mind if they converted my ole woman, I wouldn't. She might 'old a prayer-meetin' now and agin in the bar-parlour, off-hours, if she'd keep it clean."

But this Sunday in October was to see the end of the effort for the season. In the first place, Paul left that week for his first term at Cambridge, and this was a bigger damper than the Committee cared to allow. In the second, however, it was getting cold in the evenings, and activities took a new direction in the winter. Thus, a little late, after Communion, the band sallied out for the last time. Some fifteen or twenty of them, they gathered round the lamp-post. A couple of young men distributed the hymn-sheets to the loungers in the gardens, with a cheerful smile and a word of friendly greeting, fairly well received, as a matter of fact, by now. Paul mounted his chair under the light. Edith took her seat beneath at the harmonium, for Miss Madeline Ernest, daughter of the Rev. John Ernest, an elderly assistant curate, who usually played, was unwell. The last faint radiance of the day was dying out over the railway bridge, and the stars shone steadily in a clear sky above the hoardings.

The Court greeted the Missioners in various moods. "They've come, Joe," said Mrs. Reynolds to her husband who, for once and for obvious reasons, was at home and sober; "won't yer come out and listen-like a bit? The 'ymns will cheer yer up, and they carn't do yer no 'arm anywise. It's yer larst charnst for the season, Joe."

Hilda Tillings put her hat at a becoming angle in the back kitchen of No. 9 and sallied out into the parlour. Her mother sniffed. "Silly fool," she said, "ter go and suck up ter 'em like that. 'E won't look twice at yer. It'll be a case between 'im and that there Madeline lidy, if yer asks me."

Hilda tossed her head. "Miss Ernest's not come to-night," she said. "I saw out of the top winder. 'Sides, yer don't know wat yer talking of, ma. I like the meeting." And she sallied out.

Two urchins, tearing at top speed under the arch, made for the lamp-post. "'Ere, 'ook it," gasped the first to arrive, sotto voce , to a diminutive imp already there. "I'll bash yer 'ead in for yer if yer don't. This 'ere's my job." And he clutched at the lantern which illuminated the music-book on the required occasions, and kicked his weaker brother on the shin.

"Silence, boys," said Mr. Derrick, in his best manner; "don't fight with that lantern now."

"Orl rite, guv'nor, but it's my job. Don't yer 'member me larst tyme? Yer said I 'eld it steady and yer give me a copper."

"There, there, my lad, give it up. This boy usually holds it. No struggling, please. That's better. You can help with the harmonium afterwards if you like."

(The smaller boy recedes into the background snuffling. Throughout the first part of the meeting he is trying to kick the elder, jar the lantern, or otherwise molest its holder. After the second hymn, Edith intervenes with a penny. The smaller boy exits triumphantly.)

Paul, from his somewhat rickety chair, surveyed the little scene with a definite sense of exultation in his heart. The last trace of nervousness dropped from him with his first half-dozen sentences. He had the voice of an orator, a singularly attractive, arresting voice, that penetrated easily the furthest recesses of the Court and even brought in a few passers-by from the street. The only son, he was, as his parents often told him, the child of prayers, and he was named Paul that he might be an apostle. He would have been a dreadful prig if he had not been so tremendously convinced and in earnest. Radiant on that mission chair beneath the garish lamp-light, he bared his head and lifted his eyes to the heavens above him. Had they opened, with a vision of the returning Christ escorted by the whole angelic host, he would quite honestly not have been surprised; indeed, if anything, he was often surprised that they did not. Christ waited there as surely as he stood beneath to pray and preach. His young enthusiasm, his vital faith, stirred the most commonplace of the little group about him, and no wonder, for he added to it an unconscious and undeveloped but undoubted power. To-night, the last night of the series, the last night, perhaps, for ever there, he drew on all his gifts to the utmost. It was small wonder that such as Hilda came to listen and such as Mrs. Reynolds stayed to pray. There fell even on Theodore Derrick a sense that the Acts of the Apostles might after all be true.

They began by singing "Tell me the old, old story." Before the hymn was half over Paul had his audience under his influence as if they had been little children and he a beloved master, or an orchestra and he the efficient conductor. He laughed at them for not singing. He made them repeat the chorus in parts, women a line, men a line, children a line, and then the last line all together. He made them triumph it to God, and then whisper it to their own hearts. He stayed them altogether impressively, and would not have those sing who could not say whole-heartedly:

Then he prayed. No one there could pray as Paul prayed, and Paul himself might have wondered how long he would be able to pray so. An agnostic rarely interrupted Paul's meetings. There might be no sure knowledge of God, but it was plainly useless to tell that to Paul after you had heard him pray. Also, incidentally, there were few, however rough, who did not feel that it would be a brutal thing to do.

A hymn again—the "Glory Song," by request—and Paul announced his text, his farewell message, their last word to Lambeth Court for many months. It was the kind of text which, in his mouth, took on that irresistible logic that he loved, and which, in his own heart, glowed and beat like the throb of an immense dynamo. "The Cross," so he proclaimed, "is to them that are perishing foolishness, and to them that are being saved the power of God." Telling anecdotes, however commonplace, hammered in his points. It was not the Cross that was on trial; it was his hearers who were then and there being judged by the Cross. Was all this to them foolishness, or was it the power of God? An easy question! Each one knew well enough for himself. And the inevitable followed; indeed, in Paul's eager soul, could not be gainsaid. His hearers to a man were being saved—the speaker's face lit up with the honest joy of it;—or—or— perishing . The whispered word reached the far corners of the Court. It even reached Reynolds. He stirred uneasily, and wished he had more beer.

The boy on the chair announced that they would sing as a last hymn "God be with you till we meet again." The haunting lilt, the genuine poetry and life there is in it, overcame the crude composition, the tortured air which was the best the old harmonium could do, the vulgar surroundings, the banal words. At the third verse, Paul held up his hand. A little hush fell on the whole Court, which deepened as he spoke. Paul had not learnt the tricks that it was possible for him to play with his oratorical power, but it was a naturally clever thing that he did. The tone of his voice wholly changed. All hardness, logic, conquest, argument, had gone from him, and it vibrated with tenderness, was all but broken with honest emotion. He begged, by the pity and gentleness of the Saviour, that they might meet at His feet. They had, he said, all of them, to travel down the long roads of life; none knew where such might lead; would that all their diverse ways might at least lead home—home to the one safe shelter, home to the one sure haven, home to Jesus' feet.

The little band moved off out of the Court, the loungers' eyes looking curiously at Paul. He stopped again and again to shake hands, and, at the Mission Hall, found the instrument, books, chair, and the rest of the paraphernalia already put away. He said good-bye to one and another. Edith held out her hand.

He smiled at her eagerly. "I believe you know I'm glad of the chance," he replied.

She lived some way off and scarcely in his direction, but young Vintner, who usually escorted her home, saw the arrangement, and surrendered her to Paul without a question. Still he wished Miss Ernest had been there; then, of necessity, the vicar's son saw the curate's daughter home. Under those circumstances, he usually secured Edith, who fell to him likewise, more often than not, on school-treats or C.E. excursions or riding back on summer evenings with the Members' Cycling Club. But there was nothing tangible between them, and he was devoted to Paul like all the rest of their circle. So the two leaders went off together.

They said little at first. Their way lay down a long wide well-lit main street with many people about, if few vehicles seeing that it was Sunday evening. There was a sense of triumph in Paul, a sense growing steadily now that the service was over and other less personal influences laid for awhile aside, and he saw the commonplace street as a vista of magic and wonder. They passed a darkened church, all locked at this late hour, which was little thought of in their circle as lacking in evangelical zeal. At a street corner, under a banner with a text upon it, another open-air service from the local Wesleyan chapel was in progress, and a speaker with a harsh voice was thundering torrential salvation. Paul glanced at the girl by his side with a smile. "'Peace be to all them who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity,'" he quoted quietly.

She nodded. "But the Wesleyans are so noisy," she said, "and I don't see why they need have left the Church."

"We shall right all that," said Paul, utterly unconscious of boasting. "The Evangelicals in all the churches must come together. I don't know why there is any delay. They want someone to make a move. When I'm ordained I shall go and preach in Nonconformist chapels and invite them to my church no matter what the Bishop says. 'We must obey God rather than man.'"

The girl looked up at him. "Why does everything you say ring so unanswerably true?" she demanded with a little smile.

"Because you're irresistible. Do you remember last week's prayer meeting? Maud said to me afterwards: 'He'll make us all foreign missionaries.'"

"That's just it," she replied. "When you say 'Why not?' there doesn't seem to be any answer. But my father would find one quickly enough."

They turned off into the first of a network of darker side-streets of villas leading to her road. A sedate suburban air brooded there, and except for a wandering couple and a distant policeman, no one else was in sight or hearing. The night was clear and sweet. A little moon was climbing into the sky. Paul and Edith slowed down instinctively.

Paul did not pursue the complication. Mr. Thornton was a photographer in Edward Street, a highly respectable person, a member of his father's church, but not within the circle of his father's actual friends. The mention of him gave Paul a slight jar about Edith. He knew well enough that if he had been seeing Madeline home, his mother would have been highly delighted, but that she would be slightly uneasy at hearing that he had been with Edith. But he was just discovering Edith. He liked Madeline—she was far too pretty, with her fair hair and big eyes and nicely-tempered lady-like admiration, not to be liked. At the last school-treat—oh well, but he hadn't said anything really. And it was in the return train that very day that he had, so to say, discovered Edith. He had found himself in her carriage, having strayed from that reserved for his father and mother to shepherd some late arrivals, and she had been opposite him the whole way. She was quiet—he had noticed that first; but when he did succeed in drawing her out a little, he had found a very attractive creature. It was hard to say why, but still, as he analysed her, she was frank, gay, and yet unexpectedly deep. And she, too, was pretty. He had seen her home from the station, for the first time, and discovered that his mother was just a little annoyed.

"Do you know," he said now, continuing the subject, "I can't make up my mind what I want exactly. There seems such a lot to do in England, and yet of course I'm pledged to be a foreign missionary."

"Well, what do you think?" he demanded. "It makes me burn to see the deadness and disunion among Christians at home, and yet the heathen, dying daily without Christ—how can one stay in England for a moment longer than is necessary?"

There was a depth of sincerity in the simple words that struck him. It was the kind of thing Madeline would never have said, and would not have meant if she had. He eyed her with a sudden wish to see more of her. "Do you know I go to Cambridge on Tuesday?" he asked.

"It's going to cut me off from things here," he went on. "I shall have to work in the vacs., you know. And I'm tingling to get there. I'll have time to write a bit, and I expect editors will look at stuff that comes from the 'Varsity."

The implied praise pleased him. "Did you?" he cried. "Did you like it? I'm longing to be able to write as well as preach. I want God to have my pen as well as my tongue."

He was extraordinarily touched by her humility. He wanted to take her arm, but he did not like to do so. They turned another corner, and were in her street.

"I'm not sure," she said, with a nervous catch in her voice, "that I can give that."

She did not reply directly. "I wonder what you will be like after a term at Cambridge," she said, inconsequently.

The girl made little stabs with her umbrella at the pavement. "It will," she said. "I wonder if you'll come back the least bit the same. Oh, I know! You'll have new friends and new interests, and you'll think us all just a little cheap. You'll go away in the holidays, abroad very likely, and even our country won't seem the same to you."

Paul was surprised at her vehemence, and he came to a sudden resolution. "Do you know," he said, "I'm going to take a last bike ride to-morrow round Hursley Woods and Allington, just to say good-bye. I meant to go alone, but do you think you could come too? I'd love it. We'd be able to talk, up there in the heather. Will you?"

The girl slowed down still more; they were very near her home. She was so glad that he had asked her that she could hardly speak. "Yes," she said; and then, with a burst of confidence: "Do you think we ought to?"

"Why not?" he queried, frowning. "Well, we'll risk it anyway. Look here, let's meet at the bottom of Coster Lane—say at eleven. Shall we? That will give us two hours, lots of time."

"You won't be late—Edith," he said, calling her, on the impulse, by her Christian name.

She flushed in the kindly dark. "No," she said softly. How could she? she asked herself as she let herself in.

It was half-past ten when Paul climbed the steps of his father's house and rang the bell. The little family had finished supper and were waiting prayers for him. "Where have you been, Paul?" questioned his mother. "It's very late, dear."

"Dear, you ought to take care. Such a lot is expected of your father's son. Did you go in?"

"Well, dear, go and take your boots off while Annie brings the cocoa in. And don't be long, Paul. I don't want you to miss prayers on your last Sunday."

He went out, closing the door. Mrs. Kestern looked across at her husband, stretched out in his arm-chair, tired after a heavy day, and gazing into the glowing coals. "Father, I think you ought to say something to him," she said. "That girl is very attractive, and quite clever enough not to run after him too obviously."

The clergyman stirred. "I don't know, dear," he said. "You know well enough we have never had any trouble of that sort with him, and Paul is not without ballast. God, Who redeemed me from all evil," he added gently, "bless the lad."

In truth Mr. Kestern was both right and wrong. The next morning, departing on his bicycle with a mere statement that he wanted a last ride, Paul was very conscious of doing something he had never done before. He had no sister, and his girl friends were mainly a family of cousins so closely interested in each other, that, although they were friendly enough and admitted him to the family circle on long summer holidays together, he was not really intimate with any one of them. Nor had he wanted any girl in his life. He and his father were great friends, and the two shared pleasures and work with a rare companionship. Paul, with his natural gifts, had thus been drawn into active religious life much earlier than is common, and he was naturally studious, fond of nature and of a literary bent. What with one thing and another, his life was full. With his father he departed on Saturday afternoons for the woods and the ponds, and Sunday was the best day of the week to him despite its strict observance in that Evangelical atmosphere. But nature is not easily defeated. He rode, now, to meet Edith, with a virgin stirring of his pulses.

She was wearing a little fur cap that sat piquantly on her brown hair, and was flushed and eager. Her slim figure, neatly dressed in a brown cloth coat and skirt, pleased him, with the tan stockings and shoes below at which he scarcely dared to glance. As they spun along the dry road together, under the autumnal trees whose brown twisted leaves fluttered to the ground with every breath that crossed the pale blue sky flecked with little white clouds above, she seemed to him a fitting part of the beauty of the world. Near the woods, the sun caught the slim trunks of the silver birches in a spinney there, and their silver contrasted exquisitely with the stretch of dying bracken beyond. A lark cried the ecstasy of living in the untroubled spaces of light and air.

The road climbed steeply to the woods, and they walked to the summit, he pushing her machine. They hesitated at the leafy glade that invited to the undulating heathery expanse of Hursley, but the artist in Paul decided against the temptation. "No," he said, "don't let's go in there. Everyone goes there. Let's coast down to Allington, and turn to the left. I know a lovely place up there where there will be no trace of Saturday afternoon's visitors. What do you say?"

She shot a look at him, and made a grace of submission. "Just as you like," she said.

So they mounted on the crest and were away down the long hill together. Oaks leant over the road at first, but beyond them the tall hedges were lovely with scarlet October hips and haws, masses of trailing Old Man's Beard, and sprays of purple blackberries. To the right the fields stretched away to a far distant ridge scarred with chalk where one might dig for fossils. Ahead clustered the old roofs of Allington, and the little church that stood below estates linked for centuries with Lambeth and Canterbury.

They left their bicycles at the lych-gate and walked into the silent clean-swept place. She followed him in silence, and marvelled inwardly that he seemed to know so much. "That," he said, towards the end of the inspection, "is the coat of arms of Archbishop Whitgift. He was a poor man's son and had no armorial bearings, so he took a cross and inserted five little Maltese crosses for the Five Wounds of Christ, quartering it with the arms of Canterbury. It's very lovely here, isn't it?"

She glanced dubiously at the two candles and the cross on the altar. "It's rather 'high,' don't you think?"

He looked judicially at the simple neat sanctuary. "There is no harm in the things themselves," he said. "After all, they make for a sort of beauty, don't they? It's the Spirit that matters. When I'm ordained, I shall be willing to preach in a coloured stole if I can preach the gospel."

The daring heresy of it secretly astonished her. But it was like Paul, she thought. He stepped into a pew, and moved up to make room for her. "Let us pray a little, shall we?" he said simply.

She knelt by his side, her heart beating violently. In the hush of the place, it sounded so loud to her that she thought he must hear. She dared not look at him, but she knew what he was doing. Kneeling erect, his eyes would be open, seeing and yet not seeing. She felt very humble to be allowed to be there. That in itself was enough just now. She wished they might be there for ever and ever, just they two, and God.

Ten minutes later, in the heart of the deserted woods, he flung himself on the moss at her feet. "I love to lie like this and look right away into the depths of the trees," he said. "If you come alone and lie very still, rabbits come out and squirrels, and you begin to hear a hundred little noises that you never heard before. And I love the tiny insects that crawl up the blades of grass and find a world in a single tuft. Edith, how wonderfully beautiful the world is, isn't it?"

She did not want to speak at all, but he seemed to expect it. "Not everyone can see all that," she said. "But it is like you to feel it. And when you talk, I feel it too. Always, when you talk, you show me wonderful things."

"Do I?" he queried dreamily. "I don't mean to particularly. It's all so plain to me."

In a thicket close at hand, a thrush broke out into song. His praise ended, he flew down to a soft bit of ground and began busily to look for worms. Paul moved his head ever so slightly, and the bird and the boy looked at each other. The thrush eyed him boldly, summed him up with a quick little pipe, and flew away.

He reached out for a broken stick and began to play with it. "Oh, I don't know," he said restlessly. "Perhaps because it's so good to be here. Cambridge is a new world. I want to do great things, of course, but it's leaving things that I can do behind. Suppose I fail? I wish I could be ordained to-morrow and go to the Mission Hall to work at once. Or no, I'd like to go to Africa at once. Do you remember that man who came and spoke for the South American Missionary Society?"

"Well, I carried his bag to the station. He had pleaded for missionaries, and had said that he had been speaking at meetings for six months up and down the country, asking for help, and had not had a single volunteer. He was about to go back alone. So, on the station, I offered to go. I said he should not say again that he had had no offer of service. I was sixteen."

"Oh, the usual things. That I must be trained first. I asked what more was necessary than that one loved Jesus, and had been saved, and wanted to serve."

"Well, I thought he half believed that I was right. But he didn't dare say so, like all the rest of them. I must wait God's time, he said. God's time! He meant man's time."

She disdained further subterfuge. "You have made God real to me," she said, "and if you had gone, you would have had no opportunity to do that."

She wanted to fling herself down beside him, to hide her flushed face in his coat, to shed the tears that would stupidly start behind her eyes for no reason at all, to tell him that she hardly dared to breathe his name, but that, when she prayed, she could think of scarcely anyone else; but she could not. Every instinct in her cried for him—religion, sex, passionate admiration. But she only clenched one little gloved hand tightly and said that she would. A daughter of Claxted could hardly do otherwise.

The minutes slipped by. Paul rolled over on his back and took out his watch. "My word," he exclaimed, "we ought to be going! We shall be late as it is. But what a topping morning it has been. Come on." And he jumped to his feet.

She got up slowly, and he dusted a few dry leaves from her skirt. Straightening himself, he stood looking at her. "I've known you such a little while," he said. "I wonder why?"

"You may not want them. Your mother might not like it. And" (Eve will out, even in an Evangelical) "nor will Miss Ernest."

She lifted her dark eyes to his face. "Will you?" she cried. "Oh I hope you do! I can't help it. It means so much to me. Ask me just sometimes, Paul."

She shook her head. "No," she said decidedly, "not yet, anyway. I can't write good enough letters for one thing, and for another you mustn't waste your time on me."

Paul stood considering her. He had an idea, but he was in truth rather frightened of it. It seemed to be going too far. But his desire won the battle with his caution. "Would you give me a photograph of yourself to take to Cambridge?" he asked.

She smiled radiantly and suddenly. "I've a rubbishy old thing they took on the river at Hampton Court last August," she said, "but my hair was down then."

Paul's letters were not many, and fairly common property at the family breakfast table. He sought for an escape from that. "Will you be at the prayer meeting to-night?" he asked.

"Well, so shall I. In fact, I'm leading it. Write me a little letter and give it me afterwards, will you?"

She nodded. Neither of them were aware of incongruity. Possibly they were right, and there was none.

Paul's bedroom was a big attic at the top of the Vicarage, running the whole width of the house. It was entirely characteristic of him. In one corner was a large home-made cage for a pair of ring-doves, with a space in front for their perambulations, fitted with convenient perches. Under the window was what had been an aquarium, but was now, after many vicissitudes, temporarily doing duty as a vivarium. It was a third full of sand and pebbles and soil, and contained plants and a shallow pool of water, constituting, in its owner's imagination, a section of African forest for three water-tortoises, a family of green tree-frogs, and some half-developed tadpoles. Above a writing-desk was a bookshelf full of cheap editions of the English classics, purchased largely with prize money won by literary efforts in his school magazine. The books are worth reviewing, for his father's well-stocked shelves of Evangelical theology held none such. The great English poets were all there, with Carlyle, Emerson, Lamb, Machiavelli, Locke, Macaulay, and a further miscellaneous host. A smaller bookshelf held MSS. books—three slim volumes of his own verse, one of acrostics suitable for children's addresses, several of sermon notes, another of special hymns, choruses and tunes, and two of essays and short stories which had not seen the light in printer's ink. Paul would have added "as yet." Bound volumes of his school magazine shone resplendent in leather, and were sprinkled interiorly with his verse and prose. There were fencing sticks in a corner, and framed shooting and cadet groups. A cabinet contained glass jars and medicine bottles of chemicals, and a much-prized retort stood above it. The mantelpiece was fairly full with phials of spirit that had a home there, and in which had been preserved an embryo dog-fish, a newt with three legs, a small grass-snake, a treasured scorpion (the gift of an African missionary), and the like. Lastly, over the bed was a text. That, principally of all these treasures, was to go with its owner to Cambridge.

Paul that night sat on his little bed and looked around him. The last minutes of the eve of the great to-morrow had really come at last. He well remembered the hours in this room, during which the things that were now largely accomplished had seemed to him overwhelming obstacles in the race. The open scholarship, the school exhibitions, the Little Go—all these were past. There stretched ahead the Tripos and the Bishop's Examinations, but in imagination these were lesser difficulties than those already surmounted. Linked with them were his other ambitions, his writing, his preaching, and a vista of endless years. Like a traveller who has reached a hill-top, he viewed the peaks ahead.

Paul looked down on the letter in his hand. The ill-formed sprawling handwriting addressed it to P. Kestern, Esq., with several underlinings. He turned it over curiously, not in the least aware that the amazing thing was that this should be the first of its kind for him to handle. Then he broke the envelope and drew out first the photograph.

It had been badly and amateurishly snapped on a sunny day. The shadows were under-exposed, the lights far too strong. It showed part of a punt moored beneath the trees of a river bank, and one girl wholly, another in part, who lay stretched out at the far end. She in part, he decided, was Maud. Edith lay laughing unrestrainedly, one hand above her head gripping an overhanging branch, the other trailing in a black shade that was undoubtedly (from the context, so to speak) water. A plait of her hair lay across her shoulder. She did not look particularly pretty, but she did look jolly. Paul turned the photograph over. On the back he read: "From A. V." The inscription jarred on him. From Albert Vintner. Mentally, he could see Albert, in white flannels, a collar, a made tie, and brown shoes, taking it. A thoroughly good fellow, converted, earnest, but—— Yet he loathed himself for that "but."

He opened the half-sheet of paper that had enwrapped it. He was distinctly curious to see what she would say. He did not guess for a moment how long she had taken to say it.

"Here is the snap" (she had written, without introduction). "I look a lanky thing, and did not know that ('he' erased) it was being taken just then. Do you remember that you had gone on up the river, rowing your father and mother and Mr. and Miss Ernest? I did so wish I had been in your boat! And at tea you pretended I was not to have a cream bun! But it was a jolly day, wasn't it? and if the photo helps you to remember that and think kindly at Cambridge of all of us at Claxted, I am glad for you to have it.

Paul smiled. Then he frowned. He re-read the letter several times and looked again at the photograph. Then he folded the one in the other, and placed them in the inner recess of a new pocket-book. Then he reached for a Bible from which to read his evening Scripture Union portion.

CHAPTER II
CAMBRIDGE

We no sooner get into the second Chamber, which I shall call the Chamber of Maiden-Thought, than we become intoxicated with the light and the atmosphere; we see nothing but pleasant wonders, and think of delaying there for ever in delight. However ... this Chamber of Maiden-Thought becomes gradually darkened, and at the same time, on all sides of it, many doors are set open—but all dark—all leading to dark passages. We see not the balance of good and evil—we are in a mist—we feel the "burden of the Mystery" ...—KEATS: Letters , May, 1818.

I asked for Truth—
My doubts came in
And with their din
They wearied all my youth.
D. M. DOLBEN: Requests.

"Yes, sir; this is the gentleman's keepin' room, sir. A bit small, but cosy and 'omelike, as I allus told pore Mr. Bruce wot was haccidental shot in Scotland last Haugust. I keeps my bit o' brooms and cleanin' things in that cupboard, sir—bedder's room they calls it, though it ain't much of a room. Through that there door is the bedroom, and that might be bigger, that's sartin sure. But I don't know as 'ow it much matters to the young gentlemen, sir. If so be they can lay down in it, and 'as room for a chest o' drawers and a bath on the floor, that's about all has they want. But you'll need to take a bit o' care in the bath, sir, if I may make bold to say so. Mr. Bruce, 'e fair soak 'is blankets now an' agin. Ah, that couch now, sir! Springs be broken, I will say. But then, lor, sir, how the young gentlemen bangs on 'em! They will 'ave their bit o' fun, sir, same as what you did in your day, I daresay. Still it's a bin like that for years, an' p'rhaps a new one would be a good thing. Expensive? Ah yes, sir. Things his dear. Let it stand over a bit, so to say. P'rhaps in 'is second year, with 'is friends an' all a-coming hup, it might be done. That all, sir? Thank you, sir, thank you kindly. Mr. Mavis is 'is gyp, sir, an' 'e'll be about soon I daresay, though 'e's none too fond of work, is Mavis. 'E'll tell you all you wants to know, sir. Good afternoon, sir."

Mrs. Rover departed, and shut the door behind her. Mr. Kestern smiled. "She's a talker, Paul," he said, "but a good sort, I daresay. The race of bedders doesn't seem to have changed since I was up. Well, what do you think of it?"

Paul glanced round again with shining eyes. The little attic room was practically square. On the left as you entered, two high windows in the thick ancient wall, each allowing you to sit there and gaze through its mediæval aperture, looked out over a narrow college garden to the river. Since this staircase was only the second from the main entrance in the First Court, the room's occupant had a view as well down the narrow old-world street which crossed the river here by a bridge and twisted away past overhanging ancient houses. In the near distance rose the spire of St. Lawrence's Church. Chestnuts, bare now, guarded the river-front, and trailed their lower boughs in the leaf-strewn stream.

Between the windows was a fireplace with a bamboo overmantel. Opposite, the right wall met a sloping roof which just allowed a bookcase to stand beneath it and was pierced by two more windows which, however, looked out on to the inner battlemented wall of the First Court, and permitted no more than a glimpse of St. Mary in her turret over the chapel on the farther side. The little room itself was bare save for a square table in its centre; a couch, quite obviously much the worse for wear, against the wall immediately opposite the door; and a couple of chairs. A faded red paper covered the walls. A still more faded red carpet lay on the floor. Yet Paul saw his own room, the goal of years of work; he saw in imagination his little desk already in a corner, his books on the shelves, himself in an arm-chair before a fire with leisure to read, to write, to think. And he saw something else too, which might immediately materialise.

"It's splendid, dad—just what I wanted. I'm glad to be high up; the view's so good. But I'll do one thing right away, first of all. Sit down for a minute, will you?"

He placed on the table a brown paper parcel he had been carrying beneath his arm, and hurriedly tore off the wrapping. A framed text revealed itself. Then, mounting precariously on the couch, he sought and found a nail from which the last occupant had hung some picture, and there he hung his challenge, right in the centre of the wall, exactly opposite the door, placed in such wise that no one could enter without seeing the words. He stepped off and surveyed the effect. A touch made the frame finally level. Their capital letter entwined with spraying daffodils, the multi-coloured words proclaimed plainly an insistent and dogmatic legend: "One is your Master, even Christ."

"That takes possession, dad, somehow. And everyone will know at once Whose I am and Whom I serve."

The short elderly kindly clergyman nodded proudly, but with a little mist before his eyes. "Ay, ay, Paul laddie," he said, "I'm glad you thought of that. But it's easy to hang a text, Paul; it's harder to live up to it. Let us ask the help of the Master, my son, here and now, at the beginning of your college life."

So the two knelt, with the simplicity of children. Outside, listening at the door, Mrs. Rover heard, and expressed herself strongly thereafter to Mr. Mavis. "Left hattic is one o' the pious sort, Mavis," she said. "Put a text hup, 'e 'as. Ought ter be a soft job for you."

But Mavis was in his own way a philosopher, and an observer of life. "Is 'e?" he queried. "Well, I'm glad to hear it. May 'e stay so. But I dunno; I've seen a few o' them pious ones, and they often turns out more mischievous than the other young devils. Seems ter me we ought'er 'ave put new screws in them winder bars."

Arm in arm, father and son went out to do some shopping. Paul, used to hard economy, was highly pleased with his father's generosity. Crockery marked with the arms of St. Mary's was an unexpected joy; two arm-chairs, and only one of them second-hand; a few groceries, cakes and biscuits; two framed prints of Landseer's dogs, to brighten things up, as his father said; even a toasting-fork, a lamp, a side-table, a tablecloth—all these, and a hearthrug, and the room seemed furnished. He unpacked a box, and graced his mantel-shelf with photographs, a presentation clock from the children of the Mission Hall, and a couple of ancient candlesticks, in the form of metal storks upholding hollowed bulrushes, from his bedroom at home. Then it was time for his father to return, and the boy saw him to the station.

Paul wandered back in the dusk: his hands in his pockets turning a final gift of a new sovereign, his mind on fire. He peered curiously in at the gateways of unknown colleges, examined the gay shops, lingered over the bookcases of the numerous booksellers. A bell was ringing in St. Lawrence's steeple as he passed, and he stepped for a minute into the church. It was a dark gloomy place, but a couple of lighted candles on the altar showed him a crucifix and six more tall lights behind. He came out quickly, conscious of a little flush of anger. People of that sort were betraying the Faith.

He mounted the two flights of wooden stairs light-heartedly however, and entered his own room. Mrs. Rover had kindled a fire, and its ruddy glow welcomed him. Then he saw that there was a man standing by the fireplace. He paused, a little bewildered.

"Oh, I say," said the other breezily, "I'm glad you've come in. I thought I'd wait a few minutes. There's nobody up yet you know, except a few of us freshers. I heard about you from the Dean, and I thought I'd call at once. My name's Donaldson. You're going to be a parson, aren't you? And so am I. How do you do?" He held out his hand.

Paul warmed to the cheery greeting. "Topping of you to call," he said. "My name's Kestern." Then he remembered it was on the door, and he felt a fool.

"Yes. Are you busy? My things haven't all come yet, and your room's a damned sight more cheerful than mine."

"Do sit down," said Paul. "Take the new armchair. You're the first person to sit in it."

"They call 'em pews here," rejoined the other, sinking into the seat. He had a pipe in his hand, which he lit. "You smoke?" he queried.

"Well, I do. Always have. I can't read without it. I mean to row if I can, and I don't know how I'll get on when we train. What are you going to do?"

"I'm not sure," said Paul cautiously, not sure either what the other really meant.

"Well, row then. The boat captain's up already. I saw him after lunch. I'll tell him you want to tub, shall I? It'll be sporting if we get in a boat together."

Sitting opposite across the fire, Paul took stock of his companion who did the major part of the talking. Donaldson was a busy personage and an unfamiliar type to Paul. It soon appeared that he held a missionary bursarship from a society which Paul called "high church"; that he was not, however, at all keen on a missionary vocation; that the fact that he was to be a "priest" (as he put it) did not proscribe his pleasures to any great extent; and that he was very sure of himself. Much of his conversation was unintelligible to Paul, but he was friendly, and the boy was more lonely than he knew. They went down to Hall together seemingly the best of friends, but Paul was already aware that he was wading in unfamiliar waters.

His first Hall was responsible for a series of indelible impressions. The lovely old room, lit only by candles in great silver sconces, with its sombre portraits, its stone-flagged floor, its arching roof, made him unutterably proud. The few shy freshers in an oasis of light, emphasised the dignity of the place. This was his Hall. A solitary fellow at the high table read a Latin grace in which Paul understood only the Sacred Name, and that was repeated with what struck him as a familiarity, an indifference, to which he was wholly a stranger. Accustomed to the simplest meals, the dinner (rather unusually good at St. Mary's), and the many waiters seemed grand to him. The comparative ease of his companions, who nevertheless, being all freshers, eyed each other curiously, made him self-conscious to a degree, and Donaldson, more at his ease than anyone, seemed in his eyes to be bold and daring. Next him, on the other side, sat a quiet man sombrely dressed, who, he gathered, had been a day-boy like himself at a lesser public school, and who introduced himself as Strether. He kept in the Second Court. The three came out together, and Strether asked them up to his rooms for coffee.

The clock in the Elizabethan gable above the Hall was striking eleven as he and Donaldson, the ritual of that first coffee ended, came out into the starlight. Below, in the First Court, they stood a moment to say good-night. Lights gleamed in a few windows and a soft radiance of moonshine fell on the armorial bearings in the great oriel of the Hall. The few street noises seemed very remote. There was an air of seclusion, of peace, about the place, and Paul drew in the night air with great breaths. "How unutterably lovely it all is!" he exclaimed.

The other glanced round carelessly. "Yes," he said, "I say, that fellow Strether wants taking in hand."

"Good God, yes. Did you ever see such boots? And his bags! But he's got some money, I should say. Still, one can't be seen with him till he gets something decent to wear."

"Oh so did I. But look here, let's pinch his boots and make him buy some decent brogues."

"Easily enough. Wait till he's out. Come to brekker to-morrow, and arrange a plan of campaign."

"Any time you like. Say nine. There's no chapel and no lekkers yet. Will that do?"

In his room, Paul lit a candle. Then he climbed into one of his window-seats and stared out at the moonlit, slow-moving river, the bare chestnuts, the empty street. "How too lovely," he whispered to himself again, and sat long ere he got down to go to his little bedroom. As he did so, the flickering candlelight showed him his multi-coloured text with its white background. The words stared at him silently, and he repeated them to himself with something already of the air of a stranger.

Paul acclimatised with astonishing rapidity. Within a fortnight his "square" was gloriously "bashed," no one thundered more boisterously up and down the stairs, and few strolled into Hall with more nonchalance. He tubbed daily and promisingly. He was poor, but he was learning to make his own porridge and fry his own breakfast eggs and bacon without an apology to Mrs. Rover. Donaldson and Strether (in brogues now) had taken to foregathering in his rooms as a regular thing. He was known at large to be "pi," but among the freshers he was shaping for a place which would discount that to some extent. A few literary men of his own year had already heard some of his verses and read a short story or two, and the three friends had begun to conceive of "The Literary Lounge," a free and easy club which was to gather from time to time for the encouragement of amateur talent. Cambridge was moulding him far more speedily than even Edith had expected.

The Chapel had been an unforgettable experience. His first Sunday, at the early service, Paul saw a vision of beauty which he had never associated with religion before. The small clean Gothic sanctuary, with its old oak stalls, its fourteenth-century chalice, its air of age and quiet, was a new thing to him. The Dean, with his flaming scarlet hood, "took up" the Eastward position it is true; but his reading was so scholarly, his rendering of the service so reserved, that Paul knew that here was an atmosphere which, if utterly familiar to most of the men, was completely foreign to himself. Fervour, loud congregational singing, intense pietism, all had gone; but in their stead had come a sober solemn figure of austere beauty who was a new interpreter in religion to him. The change entranced even while it repelled him. Robed in his white surplice in his stall, he was aware of a historic past which had scarcely concerned him religiously heretofore, and he was awed into reverence. Back in his own room, it is true he was chiefly conscious of a lack somewhere, a lack which, however, was made up to him by the Cambridge Intercollegiate Christian Union with its prayer meetings and its evening sermon to first year men in St. Saviour's Church. But even these struck a new note. There was an emphasis on the intellectual side of belief. That had been all but entirely absent in Claxted.

His growing friendship with Manning emphasised all this. Manning was a second year man who had rowed in his first year Lents and Mays, and was now coaching the new freshers. Paul had tubbed late one evening, and he and Manning had left the boathouse together. They bicycled back in company, and in the porch of the college, the great man invited Paul in to tea. He would scarcely have dared to refuse.

The other had ground-floor rooms, much finer and bigger than Paul's. They had been redecorated; a baby grand stood in one corner; a revolving bookcase by the fire held a terra-cotta Winged Victory; two or three gilt-framed pictures graced the white-papered walls. "Take a pew," said Manning carelessly, and shouted at the door for the kitchens.

He ordered "oils" and cakes lavishly, and when the buttered buns had duly arrived and tea was well forward, Paul ventured a word of praise.

"Yes. They are rather jolly, aren't they? That's a genuine Corot over there which I bamboozled the governor into letting me bring up. Are you fond of art?"

"Very," said Paul, "but I know so little about it. Literature's more in my line. I'm awfully keen. I say, I wonder if you'd come to 'The Literary Lounge' one night?"

The other smiled. "That's the new freshers' effort, isn't it? Still, I don't mind. What night?"

Paul was hugely delighted, and began to expand. "I'd love to know what you think of some of my things," he said.

"Why not? Not that I think much of Tressor's stuff myself. Of course he can write rattlin' English, and it all flows placidly enough, but there's nothing much in it. It's extraordinary what the public will read. He has huge sales. I know him quite a lot you know. Knew him at Winchester."

"He reads my essays, of course," said Paul, "but I never thought to show a don my verse, let alone a fellow with a reputation like Tressor's."

"Well, he's the man to help you obviously. And he would too. He's a jolly decent sort is Tressor. I spent a week last vac. at his place. He's got some rippin' stuff."

"Has he?" said Paul, eyeing with astonished awe the man who had stayed with a foremost literary lion and actually dared to criticise him.

"Yes, jolly fine. And it's a lovely old house and grounds, under the South Downs. I read quite a lot there, and we had some toppin' motoring and a little rough shooting. He keeps a good cellar, too, which is something these days. By the way, have you tried the college port?"

"No," said Paul shortly. He wondered if he ought to say that he was a teetotaler for life.

"Wise man," said the other. "By the way, there's a company bringing up The Mikado and The Gondoliers this term, a good crowd, I think. I know a girl in it. Gilbert and Sullivan's stuff's great, I think. Don't you?"

"I'm afraid I haven't seen any," said Paul, who had never been to a theatre in his life. He began to wish he had got out of coming to tea, but he need not have done so, for the other seemed curiously unsurprised.

"Haven't you? Then you've a treat in store for you," he said. And he plunged into gossip in which Paul heard great names bandied about—Ibsen, Bernard Shaw, Galsworthy—almost for the first time in conversation. He said Yes and No at intervals; and if he had no contribution of his own to make, he was at least very obviously interested. Manning was attracted by the boy. He told Tressor, later, that Kestern knew nothing and had been nowhere, but that he had possibilities and was at any rate not consciously a prig. As for Paul, there opened before him a new heaven and a new earth. When he had departed, carrying volumes of the Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant , he found it hard to settle down to his books. In half an hour, he was, indeed, repolishing some verses entitled "The Backs in Autumn" with a view to getting Manning to read a fair copy.

At lunch next day, there came a knock on his door. "Come in," he called, expecting the arrival of Donaldson to fetch him for the river.

The door opened, and a stranger entered. "Kestern?" he said enquiringly, standing in the doorway. "How do you do. I must introduce myself—I'm Hartley of Jesus. Possibly you may know my name as I'm on the Committee of the C.I.C.C.U. I meant to call before, for I heard you were up at St. Mary's and you ought to be a great strength to us."

Paul got eagerly to his feet. "Do come in," he said. "Have you had lunch? Oh well, do have some. It's only a scratch affair, but there's enough to go round." (He burrowed in the cupboard for plates and a knife.) "I'm tubbing early, so I have to hurry. Awfully good of you to call. Of course I've heard of you."

The other took a seat at the table. He had frank keen eyes and paused a second for grace. Paul was suddenly aware that he himself had said none. He pushed the cheese towards his guest and began to cut bread.

"I'm glad you're up here," said Hartley. "We haven't a college secretary in St. Mary's and I hope you'll take it on. Then I've been wondering if you'd help me with something on Sunday. I run a children's service at St. Saviour's schools in the mornings, and I'd be awfully grateful if you'd lend me a hand. The Committee want to put your name down too for the open-airs on Parker's Piece. They hold one there every Sunday night, you know."

Paul smiled warmly. The atmosphere of Claxted had come in with the visitor. "I'll be delighted to help," he said, "but you've outlined a pretty tall programme for the first five minutes."

"I was on a Children's Seaside Mission at Eastbourne last August, and met Mr. Ernest. He told me you were coming up. Miss Ernest played for us sometimes. She sang your praises sky-high."

Paul blushed, but it was very pleasant to hear of the home folk this way. They were deep in talk when a clamour of ascending feet sounded on the stairs and Donaldson was heard without shouting breezily: "Kestern! Kestern! Four, you're late! Damn it all, sir" (bursting open the door), "you're late again. Oh—I beg your pardon."

"May I introduce you?" said Paul. "Mr. Hartley of Jesus, Mr. Donaldson of this college."

"How do you do?" said Donaldson, smiling characteristically. "Awfully sorry. Didn't know anyone was here."

"Oh, that's all right," replied Hartley. "I was just going. You are both tubbing, are you? Well, Kestern, Sunday at eleven, eh? Will you give the address?"

"Who's that?" demanded Donaldson. "Pal of yours? He looks a bit of an ass to me."

"Gussie? Waiting below, I expect. He was ordering tea for three at the kitchens when I came up."

The three friends foregathered in the Court, Donaldson chaffing Strether whom he had christened "Gus" by way of a comical allusion to the other's very undandified dress. He himself wore socks and ties that proclaimed themselves, a Norfolk jacket of a light tweed and a fancy waistcoat. As they went, Paul was a little silent. He was wondering whether he liked Donaldson. And if so, why? He was aware that the meeting with Hartley had been significant, that the two would never get on together, that he was proposing to get on with both. It was puzzling....

By Jesus Bridge they chanced to meet a girl. Donaldson smiled at her, after the manner of his kind, and she smiled back at him after the manner of hers. Strether snorted after a fashion of his own. Donaldson took up his parable.

"I say, Kestern, did you see that? Gus, that girl made eyes at you. Yes, by Jove, she's looking back at you. Oh I say, Gussie, this won't do, my boy! It's those new brogues of yours. I've seen her along here before, and I bet she's on the lookout for you. Here, you aren't tubbing; go and pick her up, and tell us all about it at tea."

Donaldson roared with laughter and Paul could not help smiling. Strether loved long words, and it was characteristic of him that he made odd noises. He retorted now, fiercely. "Don't bray like an ass," he said. "Do you want all the street to hear you?"

"Gus, you'll be the death of me! Opprobrious conduct! But did you see her ankles—pretty little ankles and a neat little waist. I must say you've got quite good taste."

"Some hussy of a shop-girl," growled the other. "Disgusting, I call it. Why can't you leave females alone?"

Paul chuckled again. "Come on you two," he said. "Let him alone, Donaldson. We've still to change, and it's past two now."

Next day the intrigue so lightly begun developed. Manning had consented to tea with Paul, and Donaldson, who was there, told him the story with certain emendations natural to him. Manning was highly amused. "Write Strether a letter," he suggested, "pretending that it comes from the girl and asking him to meet her on Jesus Bridge some night. Very likely he'll bite out of sheer funk of what she might do if he does not. You can go and watch. He'll walk up and down snorting. It'd be rather a joke."

"By Jove, we will," cried Donaldson. "It'll be no end of a rag. But look here, he knows our handwriting. Will you write it?"

Paul got up for the materials with some reluctance. "But I like old Strether," he objected. "He may be an ass, but he's a good sort. It mustn't go further."

Paul shook his head, hesitating. But Manning supported him. "You're right, Kestern," he said. "We'll keep the joke to ourselves. You three are pretty thick, and it would be low down to split on a pal."

So the letter was written and posted, and Paul was at breakfast next morning when Strether came in with it. He flung himself into an arm-chair and tossed the note on the table. "Who wrote that?" he demanded savagely, his limbs sprawling all over the place.

Paul, feigning surprise, opened it. "'Elsie Dawson,'" he read, as one bewildered. "Great Scott, Gussie, I shouldn't have thought you'd have had a correspondence with girls! Why, she's the girl we met yesterday! Good Lord—'Will you meet me to-night at 9.30 on Jesus Bridge?' What are you going to do? My aunt, fancy her having the cheek!"

Strether kicked out at a footstool. "I don't know the girl," he exclaimed bitterly.

For the life of him, Paul couldn't help playing up to the game now that the victim had risen so well. He got up and went over to the fire. "But look here," he said seriously, "she's seen you and she's plainly after you. Well, hang it all, man, we don't want her sort hanging about whenever we go down to the river. You'd better meet her once and choke her off. Take Donaldson with you; he'll take her off your hands."

Strether growled, muttered, and kicked out at the footstool again, the while Paul, intensely amused but outwardly serious, gathered at last that he was cursing Donaldson, declining to tell that worthy a thing about the letter, and demanding how the girl could have learnt his name.

He was cut short by the noise on the stair that usually heralded that gentleman's approach. "Give me the letter," said Strether hurriedly, "and don't say anything."

"If you go, come in here afterwards and tell me what happens," replied Paul quickly, tossing it him. The other nodded.

"Has he got it?" demanded Donaldson eagerly, as soon as they were alone at the boathouse that afternoon.

Paul explained, smiling. "You're not to know. I kidded him all right, and I think he's going to-night."

"Lor! what an ass! Well, we'll be there anyway. Wonder if Manning would care to come?"

"Don't ask him," said Paul. "After all Gussie's our pal, and Manning's not our year. I wish he knew nothing about it."

"All right," conceded the other. "But we'll go. We'll go out at nine. It'll need a bit of reconnoitring."

Paul showed admirable strategy by suggesting to Strether that he, Paul, should take Donaldson out of college before the arranged hour for the rendezvous to avoid any awkward questions as to the other getting away from them. In the shadow of a tree, with coat collars turned up, they watched their victim arrive, cross and recross the bridge nervously; advance, obviously fuming, some way into the Common; return; look at his watch; fume some more; stamp about for a quarter of an hour; and finally make off for home. The conspirators returned another way, and Donaldson went to his own room. Paul found Strether in his, awaiting him.

"All this fuss about beastly females," muttered Strether. Then he flung himself back in his chair and half bellowed: "She wasn't there!"

Paul could have screamed. It was irresistibly comic, but he maintained his composure by an effort. "Not there!" he exclaimed. "What do you mean?"

The other explained. Paul suggested that she might have been kept at home. Hadn't he, Strether, left the Bridge a bit too soon? Strether emphatically thought not, and gloom descended upon him. What if she wrote again? What if the porters spotted her hanging around? What if—but further speculation was cut off, the wooden stairs betraying approaching visitors. Manning and Donaldson came in together.

"Hullo, Gus Strether," cried the latter noisily, "where've you been? We've been searching the place for you."

Manning smiled at both of them. "What a bally row you do make, Donaldson," he said. "Can you give us some coffee, Kestern? Look here, I thought those verses of yours the other night jolly good."

The talk drifted into literature, but ten minutes later there was a further knock on the door. "Come in," called Paul.

The door opened, and "old Sam," an under-porter, put in his head. He was an ancient mariner, short, red-faced, with smiling eyes, a genial old boy and popular, since he was ready for anything that included a tip. "Beggin' your pardon, sir," he said to Paul, "but is Mr. Strether 'ere? I couldn't find 'im in 'is rooms."

Strether made a noise of some sort, indicative of his presence, from his chair. His face was a study.

"Oh there you are, sir. 'Xcuse me, but there's a young lady in the porch a-arskin' after you."

Pandemonium. Donaldson attempted to rush out and Strether closed with him. Manning sprang to the lamp, laughing so much that he could hardly hold it. An arm-chair was overturned. Paul caught Donaldson, and Strether freed himself. Sam beamed beneficently on them all and closed the door with a wink as Strether went out.

"Oh my holy aunt," roared Donaldson. "Gussie will be the death of me. Did you see his face? But what's the next move, Manning?"

They waited a long ten minutes, and then went off to Strether's rooms. His oak was sported, and no amount of banging, not even Donaldson's uproarious "Gus Strether! Open, you old blighter. Come on, Gussie! Pull up your socks. Who's your lady friend?" echoing through the night, was of any use.

The three departed together, Donaldson to Manning's rooms for a drink. But Paul refused the invitation. He climbed his stairway, a bit conscious-stricken, and sported his own door. He glanced round the little room, and drew consolation from its remote comfortable air. Then he remembered that it was Saturday night and he had an address for the morrow to prepare. He sighed and sat down to think.

The children's service proved to be a small affair compared with his own at Claxted and requires no further notice, but the open-air meeting on Parker's Piece was a different matter. When Paul at last found himself on a chair beneath the central lamp-post, it was with feelings he had never had before. A big crowd of townsfolk surrounded him, but among them were 'Varsity men, some members of the C.I.C.C.U., but others who were not. Paul realised himself and his position as he had never done in Lambeth Court. He was not merely preaching repentance to obvious and ignorant sinners; he was challenging life and thought which could meet him on equal terms. The sense of it surged through him as he stood there and read the curious faces, yellow in the lamplight, that ringed him round against the foggy gloom behind. Even these town's men were a new audience to him. They had caught something of the criticism, the independence, of the University; and they were also sarcastic, as Mr. Mavis and Mrs. Roper might be, having seen in their day many things. This particular young gentleman's whim was religion, just as another's might be the breaking of windows, or the purchase of a certain kind of picture, or some form of sport, or highly coloured socks. One had to take these phenomena philosophically, thankful if one's own young gentleman had the more harmless crazes.

The sensitive Paul was aware that this was the temper of the greater part of his audience, while the lesser part would be critical, amused, or ragging undergraduates. He faced the crowd uncertainly for a few moments. And then the blinding conviction in which he had been nurtured swept down on him that, after all, these were but sinful souls needing the Saviour, their very complexity but making the more necessary His divine simplicity. Indecision went to the winds. As he wrote home later to his father, he, thereafter, "preached unto them Jesus."

When the circle broke up, a man bore down upon him. Paul saw him, started, hesitated, blushed and would have escaped. But it was too late. "Comin' back now?" queried Manning with a smile. "I was returning from calling on some people who live across the Piece, and saw you. We might as well walk back together and I'll brew some coffee. You'll want it after that effort."

Reassured to some extent, Paul thanked him, exchanged a word or two with Dick Hartley in explanation, and set off with the other. Clear of the crowd, they fell into step. "I congratulate you on your sermon, Kestern," said Manning. "It was a great effort."

Paul thought he detected a note of mockery in the words. He pulled himself together and mustered up all his courage. He must not, he told himself, be ashamed of his Master. "I spoke what I believe with all my heart," he said simply.

The senior man was instantly aware of the other's implied reproach. He slipped his arm into Paul's familiarly. "Exactly," he said. "No one with a grain of sense could doubt that. If you don't mind my saying so, it was a sincere, genuine and remarkable performance. It was, honestly, the best sermon I've heard for a long time."

Paul warmed naturally to the praise. The friendly appreciation cheered and encouraged him. "That's jolly good of you," he exclaimed boyishly. "I thought at first you were pulling my leg."

"Yes, art. Skilful execution. A fine art, too, for your imagination was at work. And I'm inclined to think that you have a great gift of imagination, Kestern. You felt strongly, you saw vividly, and you knew instinctively how to express yourself. In the superlative, that's genius. That's how the great pictures come to be painted, the great books to be written, and the great orations to be made. The interesting thing about you is that one is not yet sure which you will do."

Paul was silent. He was at once elated, bewildered and disappointed. Gradually the humbler feeling predominated. He had never thought of himself as an artist, and as an evangelist he knew instinctively that he had failed with Manning. "The Gospel is not a work of art," he said shortly, and shrewdly.

Paul took his courage in both hands. "You praise the presentation, not the thing," he said. "What is the Gospel to you, Manning?"

The other smiled genially. "Ah well," he said, "if I invite an evangelist to coffee, I suppose I must expect to be asked if I am saved."

"You're wrong there," replied the other quickly. "I do not laugh at it. A man is a fool who does that. It is impossible to deny that Christianity was, and probably is, a great dynamic in the world's affairs. You cannot dismiss St. Paul, Augustine, Francis of Assisi, or even Luther and Wesley or Moody, with a gesture. But I confess that to-night's affair interested me most as an observer of men. You interest me more than your religion. But here we are. Let's talk over coffee."

Paul, in his arm-chair by the fireplace, glanced round the now familiar room with an air of hostility of which his subconscious more than his conscious mind was aware. But he had had tea that day with Hartley, and he definitely compared his friend's room at Jesus with this, for the first time. He had yet to discover that he was sensitive to an "atmosphere," but he was already well on the road to that discovery. Hartley's room was big and rather bare. He was athletic, and the wall-space was almost wholly given up to a number of oars, and a dozen or so plainly-framed groups with a cricket cap hanging from the corner of one. The exceptions were two other photographs, one of the service on the sands at Eastbourne (in which Paul had discovered Madeline) and one of the Cambridge University Missionary Campaigners in some Midland town. The mantelshelf was overcrowded with photographs of men, snapshots of children, and the cards of a variety of chiefly religious societies and activities among which a Bump Supper menu seemed out of place. The electric lights were naked; the window-curtains commonplace; the tea had been homely. The room focussed activities. It had made Paul feel instinctively "keen," as they said at the Christian Union.

Manning, kneeling before the fire, was carefully pouring boiling water into a Turkish coffee-pot of burnished copper. Delicate china coffee-cups stood by a silver cigarette-box on an Indian lacquered table. A diffused light filtered through silken lamp-shades, and two wall-sconces of candles lit the pictures with a faint radiance. The corners and distances of the room were heavy with shadows. Bronze chrysanthemums stood in a tall vase on an otherwise bare overmantel. The chairs the big footstools, the lounge, the carpet—all were soft, rich, heavy. The firelight glinted on the tooled leather bindings of books in a case opposite him. The room made him feel comfortable and introspective. Parker's Piece seemed to belong to a different world.

He pulled himself together, and deliberately continued the conversation. "But it is Christ Who matters, Manning," he said with real bravery.

The other replaced the kettle and set the coffee-pot on the table. He selected a cigarette and lit it over the lamp. Then he settled himself comfortably on the lounge. "Matters?" he queried. "Your technicalities are new to me, Kestern."

But Paul was not going to shirk issues. "Yes," he said, "matters to your soul, for life or death."

"I was not aware that I had put mine up for sale," retorted Manning, "and if it was purchased, on your own showing, some nineteen hundred years before it came into my possession at all, it seems to me that I don't get much of a chance."

"Christ bought you to set you free," said Paul, and he mentally recalled a favourite anecdote of his concerning a travelling Englishman and a freed slave. For the first time, perhaps, he decided not to use it in this connection.

Manning flicked off his cigarette ash with a little gesture. "Look here," he said, "words are words. They serve a purpose, but they are not ends in themselves. St. Paul used Jewish and Rabbinic phraseology, and appealed to his day with metaphors. Thus—it's as old as the hills—if you talk of purchase, you imply a seller. Did Christ buy me from Satan or from Almighty God or from whom? So far as I am aware, the point is not even yet settled. Nor is it meant to be settled. It implies a conception of the universe generally that is outworn. Neither you nor I are ancient Jews. A good deal of water has flowed under the bridges since Habakkuk."

Paul said nothing. In point of fact, he hardly understood. This was all new to him.

"Well, I see God in art and beauty. He has given me a soul that finds Him there, rather than in sacrifice of the fat of rams and the thunder of Sinai. I take it, even you do not regard Him as tied to pitch-pine, corrugated iron and Moody and Sankey's hymns. He is not to me a tribal deity, needing propitiation and ordering the slaughter of women and children, flocks and herds. 'Nothing but the Blood of Jesus,' sounded all right on Parker's Piece and offers an emotional stimulus to uneducated people. But when you come to definitions, the thought of the Old Testament leaves me rather cold. How in the world can blood wash me clean?"

"But you believe in the Bible, surely?" queried Paul, puzzled and honestly grieved.

"My dear fellow, what in the world do you mean by 'believe in'? I believe in Browning. Personally, I believe in the present Government. As a matter of fact, I believe in you."

Paul flushed. "But the Bible is the 'verbally inspired Word of God,'" he ventured to quote.

"Which of the ten-score different versions?" queried Manning calmly. "By the way, have you shown your verses to Tressor yet?"

If his visitor accepted the change of subject, it was because he was, for the moment, clean bowled.

Paul had left a note asking Strether to breakfast, and he rather wondered if, after the previous day's rag, his friend would come. But he came. To mark the occasion, Paul had fish and an omelette sent up from the kitchens, and over these burnt sacrifices he made his apology.

"Look here, Gussie," he said, "I'm sorry that rag ended as it did. I had no idea the others had arranged it with old Sam like that, and I couldn't help Donaldson kicking up all that row on the stairs. That was beastly, I admit. I'm awfully sorry. Hope it won't make any difference to our friendship."

Strether growled in his throat. "Who bagged my boots?" he demanded, with a sense of humour.

Paul laughed. "Let's rag Donaldson somehow," he suggested, "and I'll give them back."

Strether smiled. Then frowned. "Always talking about girls," he muttered. Then, dropping the subject for good and all, "Come to The Mikado this week," he invited.

"Yes," said Paul. "My people are against it. They say the stage is immoral. I don't know...."

"Then so are newspapers," said Strether, "and so's Cambridge too for the matter of that."

"I'll come with you, if you'll come with me to The Mikado . I've never been to a P.M. My people say prayer meetings make religion too emotional."

After all, there were, it seemed, many points of view in the world. Ought he to see none other than his father's? And besides, if this would get Gus Strether to a prayer meeting ...

"I'll go," he said. "I see that it is certainly foolish to condemn a thing you haven't seen."

That night, over his fire in his own beloved room, he got out a secret and personal diary which an evangelical missioner had urged him to keep, and sat thoughtfully over it, pencil in hand. Then he wrote slowly: "Nov. 13. I have decided to go to a theatre, since it is obviously unfair to condemn anything unseen. I wish to be sure of the spirit in which I go and for what I ought to look. Therefore I shall ask myself afterwards three questions, and I write these down now to make certain that I do not forget:

1. If Christ came while I was there, should I mind?
2. Do I see anything bad in this play?
3. Has it helped my Christian life?"

Years later he turned up his old answers, written late on the Wednesday night of the play, and smiled at their amazing and yet serious youthfulness. "1. I should mind Christ's advent while I was in the theatre no more than I should mind His coming while I was laughing over a humorous novel," so ran the first answer.

"2. Honestly, I see nothing bad in the play. It was beautiful, the colour and music bewitching, and the only fault, overmuch foolishness. But in the bar and lounge, one felt that the men about were mostly of the sort who are careless about their souls. Query: But what about a bump supper or a smoking carriage?

"3. No, it has not helped my Christian life, but it has not, so far as I can see, hindered it. Indirectly, it has perhaps helped me, just as exercise, music, poetry and ordinary conversation, may be said to do.

But he was to enjoy himself still more that memorable term. Towards its close, as a scholar, he received an invitation to the big college Feast of St. Mary's, a commemoration to which some distinguished outsider was always invited and which celebrated itself with the aid of a classic menu and some historic music. Neither Strether nor Donaldson were asked, for neither had achieved scholarship fame, and Manning was separated from the fresher by an impassable gulf of table. Paul, in fact, sat between Judson and the wall farthest from the High Table. Judson, cox of his boat, was a genial person, but no particular friend of Paul's, and Judson, moreover, was frankly there to eat and drink. Paul functioned merely automatically in regard to these. It was the splendour, the glamour, that he feasted upon, and his imagination saw to it that neither lacked. Even the sheer beauty of the shining plate, the silver candelabra, the ancient hall and the glittering tables, touched, here and there, with the orange and yellow and green and gold of the piled dessert, was all but forgotten as he read his list of distinguished names, caught the gleam of ribbons across this and that shirt-front, listened to the clever short speeches, delighted in the historic music, shared, timidly, in the ceremonies of toast and loving-cup. He saw a world worth entering. He was intoxicated, though he drank no more than a shy glass of lemonade. If, in the dark shadowed gallery away from the bustling waiters, there lingered understanding spirits, as like as not Paul Kestern was the most entertaining person present.

In the library, the great Tressor singled him out. "Well, Kestern," he said smiling, "what did you think of it all?"

The boy looked at him gravely. "It was all rather wonderful to me, sir," he said.

"It was a good feast, certainly," said the other. "By the way, I fear I can't get away from all this now, but I wanted to say a word to you about those verses of yours. They are very distinctly good, I think. The shortest is the best— The Spent Day . You'll do much better work, but in its own way, it's a perfect poem."

Paul could hardly believe his ears. "It is awfully good of you to read them," he managed to say.

"Oh not at all. I'm delighted. Look here, are you engaged to-morrow? Come to luncheon, will you? You row, don't you? so you'll want to leave early. I won't invite anybody else, and we can discuss them then. Good-night."

The big man, with the heavy eyebrows, slightly bowed shoulders and kindly eyes, smiled, nodded, and passed on. Manning followed him up to Paul. "What did he say?" he asked.

Manning nodded. "I thought as much," he said, smiling. "Remember me, Kestern, when you're a big man. I at any rate put one of your feet on the ladder."

Paul mumbled something, and soon escaped. His fire was out in his room, but it mattered little; he could not sit down to read or think quietly after all this. Up and down he paced, repeating Tressor's words: "In its own way, it's a perfect poem." A perfect poem! And Tressor had said it! Said it after those songs, those speeches; said it in that company.

Then, as the boy passed and repassed, his eye fell on his text. He looked at it critically: the frame and flowers and lettering were so extraordinarily bad. A few weeks ago he had not remarked that. Still, it was the words that mattered. What would the Master have thought of the college feast? Cana of Galilee? Yes, but He would have been but a visitor. Could He have had a real part in it?

Paul swung into a new train of thought. He considered the cost of it all. Why, when he had refused the first cigar, Judson had said he never refused a half-crown smoke. Half a crown for a cigar!—the thing was monstrous to evangelical Paul. The smokes of the dinner alone would have kept a catechist in India for a year! Probably the wines would have paid the annual salary of a white missionary in China. And with every tick of the clock, a heathen soul passed into eternity. How often he had said it! What, then, was he doing among such things? What part had he in such extravagance? "One is your Master, even Christ."

Paul sighed, and reached for his diary. "The feast was wonderful (he wrote), extraordinarily beautiful I thought.... But..." Then he went to bed.

Wonder on wonders. The morning's post brought him a letter from the editor of The Granta , accepting, magnanimously, a short story of an imaginative nature that he had placed in Egypt with the aid of a Baedeker. The editor asked, interestedly, if he had been there. He supposed that Paul must have been, for the descriptions were so vivid.

Paul's porridge grew cold. He sat on with the letter in his hand. Donaldson found him so, calling to go with him to a distant lecture. "Hullo," he said, "not finished brekker? You're late again, four!"

"By Jove, that's topping." Donaldson spoke enviously, staring at him. "But I told you it was jolly good, didn't I?"

"You did," said Paul, "but I say, what do you think Tressor said last night about my verse?"

His friend whistled. "Damn it all, Paul," he said—"by the way, let me call you 'Paul,' may I?—I should chuck all those preaching and praying stunts of yours now."

"Oh well, do as you think best. But it'll spoil you for literature. Didn't Tressor tell you the other day that your essays were too like sermons? And if you get in with Manning and all that set, Hartley and his crowd won't be of any use."

Paul got up slowly and walked to the fire. He stood still awhile, gazing into it. The other fidgeted. "Come on now, anyway," he said. "We shall be late for that lekker."

"Right-o. Good-bye. I'm off," retorted the other, and departed, a little huffed.

Mrs. Roper came in to clear away. "Aren't you a-going to finish your breakfuss, sir?" she asked.

"Off 'is feed," said Mrs. Roper outside to her "help." "'Ad too much at that there feast, I expect. 'Ere, you can 'ave them eggs."

As for Paul, he mounted his bicycle and rode out into the country. A wintry sun lay on the bare woods and stubble fields, and it was all very lovely. Even the close-cropped hedges were beautiful. The fallen beech-leaves were a spread of old gold under the trees by Madingley.

CHAPTER III
CHRISTMAS CAROLS

... Doubt, which, like a ghost,
In the brain's darkness haunted me,
Was thus resolved: Him loved I most,
But her I loved most sensibly.
Lastly, my giddiest hope allow'd
No selfish thought, or earthly smirch;
And forth I went, in peace, and proud
To take my passion into Church;
Grateful and glad to think that all
Such doubts would seem entirely vain
To her whose nature's lighter fall
Made no divorce of heart from brain.
COVENTRY PATMORE: The Angel in the House .

Paul, walking home from Claxted Station down Edward Street and past Mr. Thornton's "Elite Photographic Studio," was puzzled. Some bewildering spell had fallen upon Claxted in a couple of months. The suburban station had a strange respectable air that sat ill on it, and whereas a station may smell of dirt or smoke, it should not smell of stale paint. Edward Street was horribly tidy, and gaped. The Town Hall and its Libraries, once majestic centres of learning and authority, had been cheapened. And the familiar road to his home appeared to have been newly washed and to have shrunk in the process.

His father's house had only escaped the snare by a miracle, and Paul was obsessed by a sense of that miracle. The case of stuffed birds in the hall, the gilt presentation clock in the drawing-room, the old arm-chair in the dining-room, the yards of commentaries and sermons in the study, with the illuminated addresses above them, were miraculously pleasant. For days after his return, he kept looking at them, and marvelling inwardly that they were just the same. The furniture of Manning's and Mr. Tressor's rooms had already made him feel that in his home recollections there must be some mistake. But he knew now, staring about him, that there was not. And he was still quite glad, and a little subdued.

"Oh, Paul," cried his mother, hurrying into the hall to meet him, "how well you're looking! Are you glad to be back?"

"It's the Band of Hope night, dear, don't you remember? He's not back yet. But he said he wouldn't be late for supper. Sit down over there where I can see you, and tell me all about Cambridge."

"Tell me about your children's service and the open air meetings, Paul," said his mother. "Is Mr. Hartley nice? Your father and I are so glad you've made such friends."

Paul thrust "The Literary Lounge," the College Feast, the Theatre, Donaldson, Strether and Manning, into the back of his mind, and told her.

Paul laughed gaily. What a topsy-turvy notion of Cambridge his mother, after all, must have!

His father's key grated in the door and Paul ran out into the hall. The clergyman came in, followed by Mr. Derrick. "Ah, Paul," he said, "it is good to see you home again. Come in, Mr. Derrick. Paul's just back. I'll get you the books at once."

He entered the study, and Mr. Derrick held out his hand. Paul took in the dapper little man, from his spotless tall linen collar to his neat black boots. "How are you?" he said genially. "How goes things?"

"How do you do, Mr. Paul," said Mr. Derrick nervously. "We are all very well, thank you. Have you had a good time at college? How short the terms are! You seem scarcely to have gone away at all."

"Eh?" queried Paul, momentarily astonished. Then he recollected. "Yes," he confessed, "I suppose they do seem short. We read more in the vacs. than in the terms, you know."

"I put Paul down for the evening," said his father, returning. "I rather hope he'll go to church with his mother in the morning. She'd enjoy having him. You know what mothers are, Derrick."

"Yes, yes, to be sure," said the little man quickly. "I should have thought of it. But I expect we shall see a good deal of you, Mr. Paul."

"Yes. Mr. Vintner is secretary of the Missionary Committee in your place. He's coming on well."

"Vintner!" exclaimed Paul. But he was ashamed of his instinctive thought the next moment. "Splendid," he said.

Mr. Derrick nodded. "He gave a most helpful address on Henry Martyn last week.... Thank you, Mr. Kestern. Are those the books? I'll go through them to-night and let you have them on Sunday. I don't suppose it'll take me long. Good-night. Good-night, Mr. Paul."

The clergyman thanked him and saw him out. "Capital fellow," he said, entering the dining-room. "Wait till you're ordained, Paul, and you'll know what such lay help means to a clergyman. Well, dear boy, and how are you? Really I think you've grown. What do you think, mother?"

"I've been admiring his fancy waistcoat," said Mrs. Kestern. "Where did you get it, Paul?"

Paul was soon aware that he was in for a delightful vacation. Not many young men in their circle went to the University, and none at all, naturally, from among "the workers." Paul was, therefore, lionised. It was impossible for him not to be aware of it. He had always been a kind of natural leader, but he was now something more. A glamour sat about him. It was possibly Miss Ernest who made him aware of it first.

She was to play at the Mission Hall that first Sunday night, and Paul called for her to take her down through the dark, slummy streets. She kept him waiting some minutes, and when she came down, she was most unusually resplendent even for her.

"How do you do?" she said, shaking hands and smiling. "Do you know, I hardly dare call you Paul now?"

"Well," he confessed, "it seems a long time to me too. It's curious how quickly Cambridge changes things. I hardly feel the same as I did two months ago."

"Rather. Do you know Mr. Tressor's at our college, and I've shown him my verses. He said—he was awfully nice about them. And The Granta has taken a story of mine."

Paul was a little piqued that she took it so easily, though on reflection he perceived that this was a compliment. "It is impossible not to write at St. Mary's," he said.

"Oh, exquisite. You must see. Do you think you could come up in the summer term? My rooms are small and high up you know, but perfect I think. And the Hall and Chapel thrill me every time I see them. If you could see the moonlight on our First Court!"

Paul laughed. "It's rather quaint," he confessed. "It's really rather like another world. Do you know, I've been to the theatre."

"Oh don't—I can't bear it. You make me so jealous. There you are, leading your own life, and I'm tied down to this. You don't know how things bore me at times."

Paul grew suddenly grave. "I think perhaps I am beginning to," he said, and lapsed into silence.

A lay-reader took the service, and Paul, in cassock and surplice on the platform of the little mission church, had leisure to observe. He had been there a thousand times; very dear memories linked him to it; but not till now had he looked about him critically. The place was an iron building of good size, garishly lit with gas, and at one end was a platform which could be screened off from the body of the hall. The curtains were drawn apart for this service, and Paul from where he sat, stared sideways at the varnished Table within the encircling wood railings; at the text above it; at the harmonium opposite him, with the back of Miss Ernest visible, and the side of her face, under its big hat, when she occasionally glanced at the lay-reader who was taking the prayers and announcing the hymns. Below her sat the choir of working men, and near them a couple of forms of girls who "strengthened" their efforts. Paul scanned their faces surreptitiously with amusement. There, against the wall, was old Miller who invariably started each verse a word ahead of the rest, and got steadily more flat as the hymn continued. Among the girls, he was surprised to see Miss Tillings. He supposed she had been converted in his absence. In the front row was Hodgson, a police-sergeant and a thoroughly good fellow. Next him, McArthur, who played a cornet when he knew the tune. And then the congregation, among them Mrs. Reynolds. If Edith Thornton were present, he could not see her. But he looked.

The lay-reader was occasionally doubtful about his aspirates. He also read an unduly large selection of collects. His voice, too, got on Paul's nerves. He read for the hundredth time the short, staring gilt text above the Table. "Till He Come." Except for the hymn notices, there was nothing else to catch the attention. Oh yes, I.H.S. in a monogram under the text. Paul wondered if the lay-reader knew what the letters meant. He wondered if any of them knew what they meant. Then, as the reader began the prayer for Parliament, if anyone knew what anything meant. Mrs. Reynolds, for example. "That all things may be bordered and settled by their hendeavours, upon the best and surest foundations...." "Amen"—very loudly from old Miller. But he had heard that old Miller was a strong Conservative and concerned with politics in his off hours. Curious; it struck Paul suddenly that "the workers" never seemed to have politics. Oh, at last—Hymn 148.

Afterwards, they were all very kind. He shook hands with the departing congregation, including Hilda Tillings. Hodgson was unfeignedly glad to see him back. But outside, while Paul was smilingly making his way back to the platform by which Madeline was standing drawing on her gloves, the sergeant was rebuffed by old Miller.

"Good sermon, Miller," he said. "He's a fine young chap, and I'm glad he's back."

"Eh, eh, sergeant, but I dunno as I 'olds with all this 'ere book-larning. 'E's got more grammar nor ever, and, seems ter me, less grace."

"Doesn't it all seem rather queer to you now?" asked Madeline, as they walked home.

Paul shrugged his shoulders. "They're rattling good people," he said, enigmatically.

"Yes, of course. By the way, do you remember that the Sale of Work is to be this week. You will help me decorate our stall, won't you, Paul?"

"Rather. Is it this week? I'd forgotten. Do you want all that muslin stuff tacked up again?"

"Yes. But we'll get you a step-ladder this year. The boxes collapsed last time—remember?"

He nodded, amused. "But why don't you try a new idea?" he suggested. "Why always keep to the same old muslin?"

Madeline sighed. "We do always keep to the same old things, don't we? But what could we do? Suggest something."

Paul glanced at her carefully. She walked gracefully, but with her eyes on the pavement. He admired her fair hair and her new hat, her trim figure. After all, why not?

"Bicycle out with me on Friday and get some," he suggested. "There's lots at Hursley."

Her voice was even as ever as she replied. "That would be delightful," she said. "Come in now and ask father, will you? Perhaps he'd come too. And I say, do let me read your verses. I'd like to so much."

She smiled. "Mr. Tressor did not think so," she retorted. "Paul, I wonder if you're going to be a poet."

"Well, you can be both. I expect abroad you would have no end of inspiration. You're not likely to be sent among utter savages. You're more likely to be made the head of some college or another, perhaps in India. You could write too. I should think Calcutta or Delhi, or some place like that, would be heavenly. And you'd go to the mountains in the summer. It makes me envious to think of you. You'll have a glorious life."

"Why? Besides, do you think that's altogether right? God didn't give you your gifts for you to waste them. And they want the other sort of missionary just as much."

"I suppose they do," said Paul. "And if I lived that sort of life, I should marry. One could. I've always doubted if a pioneer missionary ought to marry."

Madeline nodded. "I think you're right. And besides, the wives of that sort of missionary do get so awfully dowdy. I suppose it doesn't matter what you wear among savages, and so they don't care any more about dressing. I'm afraid I could never be so good as all that."

She smiled, but said nothing. He glanced at her shyly. "Summery frocks and Indian Society would suit you," he said.

"I'll come if I possibly can," she said, "and thank you ever so much for asking me. Here we are. Now come in and settle with father about the ivy, will you?"

The Annual Sale of Work was the parochial Feast of Claxted. A distinguished visitor was always invited to open it; the stalls through which one wandered, were so many courses, so to speak; and in the evening, there were always songs, a few speeches, and light refreshments. So far as the Mission Hall of the church was concerned, only the more superior members were expected to put in an appearance, and these chiefly in the evening. Thus Hodgson always came, but not old Miller. The Christian Endeavour arranged little side-show concerts from six o'clock onwards, at half-hour intervals, but even the Endeavourers were not seen in the afternoon. During those sacred hours, the carriages drew up outside the Parish Room in Edward Street, and there descended from them the elite and the wealthy of the congregation. These, entering the half-empty room, caused a ripple of comment to run through the stall-holders proportionate to their importance. "Old Mrs. Wherry," Mrs. Ernest would whisper enthusiastically to Madeline. "Oh, my dear, try to get her here at once. She always spends such a lot, and she's so blind, she can't see what she buys. She just decides to spend so much, I believe, and when it's spent, no one can get another penny out of her. Do fetch her here."

"Madeline, I saw you fastening that ivy with Paul," said Mrs. Ernest, as he went.

"My dear, anyone might have seen. I thought I saw Mrs. Cator watching. And you know what she is likely to say."

"I hope you do," sighed Mrs. Ernest. Her husband was a good man, but without distinction, and truth to tell, she was tired of living on a curate's stipend.

Paul came up with Mrs. Wherry. The old lady had been genuinely glad to see him, and, since her own sons had been at Cambridge, she showed him caustic good humour. "You want me to spend my money here, I suppose, do you? Well, it doesn't much matter to me. Good afternoon, Mrs. Ernest. I see you've adopted a system of pickets. Or is it Miss Ernest? Still everything's fair in love and war, and certainly a Sale of Work is war. What have you? I shall only buy things that I can send elsewhere."

Paul stood chatting with Madeline again while the old lady did her shopping. A little hum of talk covered their conversation, which was broken now and again as someone nodded and spoke to him, or he was sent off by his father on some trivial errand. He was not as bored as usual, but drifted back to the ivy-hung stall fairly regularly. At half past four he suggested tea. "You can go, Madeline," said Mrs. Ernest. "I'll wait a little. Someone must watch the stall."

Formerly it had been hard to get Madeline for tea. Young men, who had recently started going to the City, used to drop in about this time and take her off. There were one or two about now, but she had no eyes for them. He piloted her into a corner, and went to get the tea from the buffet which was presided over by Mrs. Cator herself. She kept him chatting while a fresh pot was made, and he was steering his way back to Madeline with the little tray when he saw Edith.

It was early for her, for she arrived, as a rule, with the rest of the Endeavourers. There she was, however, with her mother in a black dress and a bead bonnet. Mrs. Thornton was well known in the congregation. She aspired to rather a high estate, which was impossible for her, socially, with her husband's shop in Edward Street.

Paul watched Edith bring her in. The girl was quiet and self-possessed, and did not, apparently, see him. She steered her mother to a little table and sat down by her. One of the Miss Cators, acting waitress, went up for the order.

"That terrible day! Do you remember how Mrs. Thornton would have lunch at our table? Look—there she is. I do hope she doesn't see you. She's sure to come over if she does. ''Ow do you do, Mr. Paul, and 'ow do you like Cambridge? We're glad to see you back, I'm sure.'"

Paul sat down deliberately in such a position that he could see Edith. "Don't, Madeline," he said. "She's a thoroughly good sort really, and means well."

"Did I? Then I was wrong. I'm beginning to see that the world is full of queer sorts of people, and that the only real test is their sincerity."

"Well, then, some sincere people are impossible. You know they are. At any rate I'm sincere enough to tell you that I think so."

Ethel Cator came up to them. She was a brunette, tall and thin, and in a cap and apron she looked pretty. She was one of Madeline's friends. "Hullo, Madeline," she said. "How are you two getting on? Have some more tea?"

"My dear, aren't you worn out with this tea business? Can't I give you a hand? It's a slack time at the stall."

"Oh no. It's all right. But it's our busy time, of course. Have some more eclairs. We're running a bit short, but I can get some for you."

"I couldn't. Really, I couldn't. Will you, Paul? I say, Ethel, are you going to the school dance? Grace said yesterday she didn't know what you had decided. Do come, my dear. I've said I'll go, and you must be there. I've positively got a new frock for it."

"Look here," said Paul, laughing, "this is no place for me. I'm off. I'll tell your mother to expect you in half an hour, Madeline. Good-bye. Good-bye, Miss Cator. Your tea's topping. I'll send in everyone I see." And he walked off.

Madeline glanced quickly across the room; Mrs. Thornton and Edith were making their way to the door; Paul caught them up as she watched. She flushed slightly. Ethel Cator slipped into the empty place by her side, and dropped her voice a little. "He's not keen on that girl, surely," she said.

Madeline shrugged her shoulders. "How should I know?" she asked, with an assumption of indifference.

Ethel laughed. "Well, my dear, of course it's not my business, but I thought you saw a good deal of him."

"Has Cambridge changed him? I should have thought he'd have dropped the Mission Hall now."

Ethel's tone was a little contemptuous, and it roused Madeline to the defensive.

"My dear, you don't know Paul," she said coolly. "He doesn't play at religion. He probably wants to speak to Miss Thornton about the Christian Endeavour. It would take more than a term at Cambridge to make Paul throw that over. And I like him for it."

Her friend got up. "I must go," she said. "I didn't mean to be a cat, Madeline. Everybody knows Paul's a born parson, and of course he'll make a good one."

"He wants to go to India," said Madeline, mollified and inconsequent, and not realising that she lied. "He'll be a bishop one day, I expect."

Ethel looked envious, and rewarded her. "India!" she exclaimed, and sat down again for a minute or two. The girls fell to discussing Simla with a suburban imagination.

Mrs. Thornton had asked him "'Ow he liked Cambridge?" and Paul had replied at length. But she had gone off at last, and left him with the tall girl whose brown eyes had been alight with a flicker of amusement the while he had talked to her mother. They were standing near the platform at the top of the room, and a not yet opened "fishpond" with its appurtenances screened them slightly. He was able to look her full in the face now and realise how good she looked, though the little fur hat was slightly out of place there, and her coat a little shabby.

He nodded. "I know. Edith, I've longed to see you again. Why weren't you at the Mission Hall on Sunday?"

She nodded. "I knew you were preaching. Mr. Derrick told us. But I had to stay and help mother with the kiddies."

Paul saw a mental vision of the little rooms over the shop and the three small Thornton children sprawling everywhere. Once or twice he had been in on business for the Society, and he knew it well. Edith in that setting had always puzzled him a little. She did not seem quite to belong to it, and yet she moved about household jobs with a quiet dignity that did not in the least suggest resentment or incongruity.

"When are we going to meet then? I do so want to talk to you. Cambridge is wonderful, Edith. There's heaps to say. I don't know why, but I want to tell you things."

He couldn't know that she had to make a little effort to steady her voice. "Do you, Paul," she said. "That's awfully good of you."

He studied her a minute, thinking rapidly. "Tell me what you're doing this week," he demanded.

"Oh, the usual things. Band of Hope, a committee Thursday, prayer meeting Friday, and Saturday, some cousins of ours are coming over."

Paul reflected. He would have to call for Madeline for the children's service. Afternoon Sunday school—no good, he knew. Evening, his mother would be going down to the Mission Hall. He shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "Monday?" he queried.

"You know you never come," she said laughing. "Have you learned to sing so much better at Cambridge?"

A little thrill of pleasure at her laughter ran through him. "You shall hear," he said. "I shall be there. And when we've finished, I shall see you home."

"I half promised Mr. Vintner," she said, "but perhaps—— There's mother looking for me. I must go."

And Paul, alone, could not get Albert Vintner out of his mind while he discoursed of the University to his father's senior churchwarden.

Mrs. Kestern left before the conclusion of the proceedings, and Paul stood by the table alone, watching his father, Mr. Derrick and a warden make neat piles of silver and gold, enter totals on slips of paper and finally arrive at the exact figure taken. Conversation among the waiting onlookers died down while the final immense calculation was being made, and it was in a solemn silence that at last Mr. Kestern stood erect, beaming and triumphant, to announce that the result exceeded by five pounds, seven and fourpence the previous year's figure, and to say that he thanked all who had in any way assisted at this magnificent result with all his heart. They would now join in singing the Doxology. Madeline went to the piano; "Thank God from whom all blessings flow," they sang. Paul joined in heartily, but a little self-consciously. It was odd, but the familiar words did not come as naturally as they had used to do. Five pounds, seven and fourpence! But his father was a saint, Paul thought, as he looked at him.

Paul, Mr. Kestern and Miss Bishop walked home together, the latter a great friend of the Church. She was angular, tall, a little caustic and an able speaker, and she had a great reputation for knowledge. She felt deeply and expressed herself strongly. Paul liked her immensely.

She led the conversation now, in her clear, incisive, deep voice. It appeared that a newly-appointed neighbouring vicar had accepted the offer of a cross and two candlesticks for the Holy Table in his church. It was known, at last, that he had definitely accepted; it was not known, yet, what would be done about it—whether appeal would be made by some aggrieved members of the congregation against the granting of a faculty, or whether Mr. Kensit would be called in. Miss Bishop was wholly in favour of this latter.

"What is the good of faculties and appeals?" she demanded. "They always confuse the real issue. Kensit knocks the nail on the head anyway. It's not a case of legal or illegal ornaments; it's a case of Rome. Do they take us all for fools? Church after church has begun that way, and ended with Mass and the confessional!"

"Mr. Duncan," observed Mr. Kestern mildly, "is entirely against all that. This is a mistake, of course, but he seems to me a sincere, earnest evangelical at bottom."

"Then what," continued Miss Bishop decisively, "has he to do with a cross and candlesticks? It's all very well, Vicar, but that's the thin end of the wedge. You know it as well as I do. His work is the saving of souls, and that sort of thing never saved a soul yet. Is that not so?"

"I'm afraid you're only too right," admitted Mr. Kestern. "It's a great pity—a great pity."

Paul's mind was busy. He was recalling the chapel at St. Mary's in the early mornings, and the remote, austere, moving little service enacted there on Sundays before a cross and candlesticks. For the life of him he had to say something.

"Miss Bishop," he said, "do you think, nowadays, a cross always leads to Rome? There is one on the Table at St. Mary's."

The boy hesitated. Then he equivocated. "But the cross is the sign of our faith," he said.

"Is it?" Miss Bishop was emphatic. "I do not know that it is—not, at any rate, in the sense people use the phrase. 'Christ is Risen': that's Christianity."

"Then put a cross on the steeple, in the porch, over the pulpit even. Why on the Table? You know as well as I do that the thing is Pre-Reformation, Roman usage."

Mr. Kestern linked his arm in Paul's. "The lad doesn't mean to defend Ritualism," he said kindly. "I know my boy too well. Keep to the Word of God, Paul, and you won't go wrong."

Mr. Kestern pressed his arm. "That will do, Paul," he said. "I want to ask our friend something. The theatre service for the last night of the year is definitely settled, Miss Bishop; will you say a few words?"

Miss Bishop did not at once reply. Then: "I hate the place, Vicar," she said; "you know I do. I don't believe in using it. The whole atmosphere reeks of the devil. Last year I could hardly bring myself to go inside."

She shot a swift glance at him. They were outside her own door now, and the light fell on the kind, gentle face of the man before her. Her sharp face changed a little.

Paul and his father walked on a little in silence. Then the elder sighed. "It's not easy, Paul," he said, "to combine the Master's charity and the Master's zeal."

But as the days sped by, Paul was aware that at every turn he was confronted with a contrast that gradually deepened into something approaching a question. Moving with his father cheerily about the parish; walking the familiar streets with his mother, so absurdly and yet so lovably proud, by his side; stepping again into the round of parochial activities, yet always now, as one who had no permanent place among them; Paul had constantly to check within himself a certain critical outlook that had never been his before. He criticised, too, in more than one direction. There was the incident, for example, of the Christmas decorations at the Mission Hall. Red Turkey twill, as usual, had he and Madeline inserted into the panels of the Commandments and the Lord's Prayer behind the little altar, for a brief while escaping from the domination of their gilt lettering. Ivy tendrils, likewise, had they set twining here and there across them, but, at this orthodox conclusion, Paul had slipped back discontented.

"It still looks bare, Madeline," he said. "Let's put a big vase of white chrysanthemums on the ledge behind."

They made it two vases and surveyed the result. Madeline shrugged her pretty shoulders. "Of course I'm not high," she said, "but I must say I like flowers on the altar—always." And Paul, looking at her, agreed. But he was still his father's son. "If you don't call it an altar," he said, smiling. Madeline smiled back.

Early Christmas morning, however, his father ordered their removal, and with them sundry woven paper chains and flowers that Sergeant Hodgson, with great enthusiasm, had erected with the aid of old Miller, after Mrs. Kestern and Paul had left the night before. The gaily-coloured paper had indeed been incongruous against the natural flowers, and Mrs. Kestern had exclaimed at it. Her husband had been ruthless likewise. But Paul had criticised their edict.

"Father," he had said, with his direct logic, "ought you to take away old Miller's chains? He thinks them beautiful. They're his offering to our Saviour. Surely God looks at the devotion more than at the thing. And you abolish my flowers too. Surely there's nothing Popish in a vase or two of chrysanthemums!"

Mr. Kestern had been, however, obdurate. "We cannot have paper chains, Paul," he said, "not even to please you. I should have thought you, a budding poet, would have especially disliked them! And as to flowers behind the Table, you know it's not our custom."

Paul, as usual, persisted. "Of course I don't like the paper," he said, "but that's not the point. And if a custom is good, why refuse it because Mohammedans or heathens, let alone Catholics, practice it?"

"Don't argue with your father, my son," begged Mrs. Kestern, timidly. She hated argument. Besides Mr. Kestern was above criticism.

That Christmas night, there was a last carol singing. Dr. Barnardo's Homes had already benefitted heavily as a result of the Endeavourers' efforts, and, truth to tell, the band of young people went singing that evening under the twinkling, frosty sky more because they liked each other's company than for charitable reasons. Mr. Derrick had been outvoted, and, true Christian democrat, he had given in. They went towards a new, wealthy suburb of Claxted, not far from the edge of the country and Hursley Woods, and they sang here and there with great success. At last, as, far off, the Town Hall clock boomed eleven, Mr. Derrick nervously declared for home. It was cold, he said, and he was sure they were all tired. In the deserted street of curtained and mysterious villa windows, the moon glittering on the frosty road, the little knot of young people prepared to go their several ways.

Paul, wrapped to the ears in his overcoat, stood by Edith altogether delightful and attractive in her furs. Albert Vintner was collecting hymn-books. He came up to them and hesitated. "May I see you home, Miss Thornton?" he asked.

The young shop-assistant ignored him. "It's the last night of the carols," he said to Edith.

The girl flushed, ill at ease. Paul realised, suddenly, that they were at a crisis. For a second or two it seemed to him that the small group about them stood still watching, that the very stars listened. Then he made up his mind and descended into the arena.

"Well, Miss Thornton," he said easily, "you must choose between us, it seems. We can hardly both of us see you home. Which is it to be?"

Edith turned to the other and held out her hand. "I practically promised Mr. Kestern before," she said. "Good-night, Mr. Vintner, and thank you for asking me."

The young fellow took her hand with a muttered good-evening, and turned away. Paul felt reproached. "Good-night, Albert," he said, with a ring of friendliness. "I'm sorry I was before you. Another time, perhaps."

Vintner moved off after the others, and Edith and Paul walked a little up the road. Their turning lay on the right, but at the corner Paul hesitated. "It will only take a quarter of an hour longer," he said. "Let's go home by the field-path to Coster Lane. Probably your people won't expect you till midnight."

She nodded without words, and the turn to the left hid them in a minute from the least chance of observation by the others. Before them the road ran straight ahead in the clear night, till the villas thinned, and it became a scarcely-used way, and finally a half-country footpath by a couple of fields. Paul drew her arm through his in silence, and they fell into step together. They had been singing a carol with a haunting refrain about a night of wonder, a night of grace. It rang in his head now, and he could have sung as they walked. Every yard deepened a sense of exaltation in him. This serene Christmas night, he and Edith alone in it, the world wide and wonderful—oh, it was good to live.

The paved footpath became a gravelled walk, and the walk, a mere track. They were on the far edge of the town. Across the stubble, a line of not yet doomed elms stretched delicate bare twigs clear in the moonlight, and the stars swung emmeshed in their net. A half-built house flung a deep shadow across their path, and Paul stopped without warning on its verge. He had realised suddenly that his companion was very silent and he wanted to see her. A little swing of his arm brought the girl face to face with him, and he looked down into her eyes. So he looked a minute, and then very slowly he bent his head, and, still with his eyes on hers, their lips met. At that soft, warm, fragrant, unaccustomed touch, his heart leapt and great waves of emotion surged and tore within him.

The two stood quite still. Paul swallowed once or twice before he could speak. Then: "Edith," he whispered foolishly, and again: "Edith."

Her words recalled the boy to his senses. He took her two hands, and she did not stay him. "Edith," he said exultantly, "you're mine, now, mine! Christmas night, too! Oh, it's wonderful, just wonderful!"

"No?" he queried, bewildered. "What do you mean? You let me kiss you. You love me, Edith, don't you? You must! You couldn't have kissed me like that if you hadn't loved me!"

"Don't, don't, Paul!" she cried again, and bent her head, trying to release her hands.

Something that was almost anger surged up in him. He drew her to him. "What do you mean, Edith?" he demanded. "I love you, do you hear? I see now, I have been loving you for a long time. I love you with all my heart. Don't you love me?"

At that new note in his voice, she faced him bravely. "Paul, dear," she said, "listen. I do love you, God knows I do, but—but—well, your people would hate it if they knew. (Paul made an angry movement, but she checked him.) No, listen. They would say you're too young; that you ought not to think of such things now; that—that—— Oh, you know. Don't make it hard for me. Your mother would hate you to marry a girl like me."

Paul stared into her sad young face in silence for a moment, but his heart sank. Then: "Mother hardly knows you," he said miserably.

Paul knew exactly what she meant. Vividly, he saw it all. His gift of keen imagination aided him. He saw his mother's surprised, pained, worried look; his father's perplexity. But he pushed it from him. "Look here," he began.

"One minute, Paul, dear. Oh, Paul, do listen to me! I know what you're going to say, and I love you for it. Perhaps, one day, I'll let you say it. After all, in the end, that will be for us to decide. But still I ought not to have kissed you. No, really I ought not. You've got your work to do. You don't know what God will call you to. You're so wonderful, Paul, dear—you with all your power of speaking and writing and learning. You don't know how wonderful you are to me, Paul. I don't see why you like me a bit. But I won't stand in your way. You must go on, and find out what God wants you to do, and go and do it. And then, then, perhaps—later on—— Oh, Paul, say something! I—I can't say—any more." The tears stood in her eyes. Her voice choked.

He drew her to him and put one arm round her. She made a little movement to resist, but in doing so, shot a glance at him and at what she saw let him have his way. Then, in the luminous winter dark, he peered down at her, and took her hand, and studied the oval of her face, and her little ears, and the stray hair that escaped from her fur cap. Love at any rate has this in common with true religion, that it awes a man.

"I can't tell you all I feel," he declared at last, speaking very slowly. "Edith, I don't know you yet. You're very, very wonderful, little girl. And you're such heaps bigger than I—that's what I see most clearly. Edith, will you at least let me see you and talk to you? I'm beginning to be worried, and I believe you're just the person I've been wanting to talk to about it all. Will you let me? And will you tell me just what you think? Shall we have it as a secret between us, that you help me like that?"

"You know I will. I think there's nothing I wouldn't do for you, Paul," she said.

They made an odd couple as they walked home together. For a reason he could not have explained, Paul saw so many things clearly—or thought he saw—that Christmas night under the stars. He put into words the growing criticism he was feeling of his father's traditional outlook on life and religion. Explaining things to her, they became clearer to himself. He set before her, one by one, the straws that had been blowing past him on the wind. And he had chosen well, for Edith Thornton understood.

"I don't see why evangelicalism should be all pitch-pine and Moody and Sankey," he grumbled. "I don't see why things good in themselves should be wrong simply because even Roman Catholics do them. I don't love our Lord less because I rather like to see chrysanthemums behind the Holy Table."

"No, of course not. At least—no; I will say no. Not that, at all. But the beauty of things reflects Him somehow. It's easier to worship in an atmosphere of beauty, Edith. Or it is for me. And surely that can't be wrong!"

"But suppose He comes to us with His face so scarred that there is no beauty that we should desire Him?"

Paul frowned a little. "That's not exactly what I mean," he said. "There's no point in our making things ugly."

"No. But—oh, I hardly like to say it to you!—but don't you think, somehow, one rather forgets about all that, seeing Him?"

In silence they reached the bottom of her street, and stood a moment. "Edith," he exclaimed impulsively, "you're heaps better than I. Pray for me, darling, won't you?"

The days sped by. They made a curious kaleidoscope as each morning gave a new twist to life. Paul read most mornings; spent an afternoon and evening or two in town with Strether who lived in South Kensington; and mostly took his share in parochial gaieties and more serious business for the rest of the time. He did not find it in the least dull. He could still sit in a clothes' basket slung on a stout pole between two chairs, and dust four others precariously with the aid of a big stick, amid the tumultuous laughter of a Mothers' Meeting Tea. Or he decorated the Infants' Christmas Tree, distributed sweets at the Sunday School Treat, boxed with boys at the Lads' Brigade, conducted a prayer meeting at the Christian Endeavour, called for Madeline on Sunday mornings and took her in to supper at sundry parties. Except at the latter, he met Edith frequently and revelled in the understanding there was between them. Moreover there was hardly the suspicion of any rift between him and his father.

Yet, once or twice, both Paul and Mr. Kestern were aware that things were not wholly unchanged. And possibly the last night of the old year offers the best example.

The Vicar had taken the Mission Hall Watch Night Service, and his son had gone into the vestry to seek him when it was over. He had entered without knocking as he was used to do, and found his father facing a stained, unshaven, ragged tramp in the little wood and iron room, with its incandescent light, photographs of previous vicars, shelf of hymn and prayer books, and illuminated texts. He apologised, and made to go out.

"Come in, Paul," said his father. "Our brother here is seeking the Lord while He may be found and you can help us both. Sit down a minute, will you."

Paul watched, while his father endeavoured to penetrate the other's bewildered intelligence. The boy saw at once that the fellow was maudlin with drink, but he did not estimate the extent to which "A few more years shall roll," and the hot air of the crowded hall, were also entering into the process of conversion.

"My brother," said his father again, earnestly, "it has all been done for you. You have only to accept. Don't take my word for it; let us see what God says. Listen. (He turned the pages of his Bible impressively as though he did not know the texts by heart; but he was wholly unconscious of posing.) 'Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as wool.... Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.... The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.' And what then? The Apostle sums it up: ' Therefore , being justified by faith, we HAVE PEACE with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.' That is all. Claim God's free, perfect salvation, and you HAVE PEACE with God."

"Aye, aye, mister, but I bain't be no scholard. I've not bin so bad as some blokes I knows on. A glass o' beer now and agin, Gawd Almighty 'E carn't send a bloke to 'ell for that. Can 'E now, mister? I want ter be saved, that's wot hi want. Ter be saved. An' Gawd's truth, I don't know wot'll do fur a doss ternight, Gawd's struth, mister...."

The tears stood in Paul's eyes, as, his face hidden in his hands against the rough wooden bars of his chair, he heard his father wrestle with his God for the man's soul. He never heard his father pray thus without seeing a mental picture from an old Bible of his childhood, wherein Jacob, an ill-drawn figure in a white robe girt up about his waist, twisted back with his shrunken sinew from an angel with an odd distorted face like the one that a crack in the ceiling made with the wall in the candle-light above his bed. Even now, he saw it again. "Lord, we will not let Thee go except Thou bless us. Have mercy upon this poor storm-tossed soul. Give him joy and peace in believing. Let there be joy in the presence of the angels of God this night over one sinner returning."

Out in the sharp air, he took his father's arm. "Daddy, he was half-drunk. Do you think he understood?"

"Nothing is impossible with God, Paul, always remember that. If the Master could save the dying thief, He can save him."

A dozen silent paces, and then: "But, father, suppose he were run over and killed on his way to the lodging house, this night, as he is, do you think he would go straight to heaven?"

"Yes, Paul, I do—by the infinite grace of God. Drunk as he was, I believe he knew what he said when he repeated: 'Just as I am—I come,' after me."

His father's hand tightened on his arm. "Nor I, Paul, nor any man. But do you suppose that God will go back on His pledged and written Word?"

And then, just then, a memory had shot through Paul's mind. "Which of the ten score different versions?" Manning had queried again, coolly.

CHAPTER IV
FATHER VASSALL

God, if there be any God, speaks daily in a new language, by the tongues of men; the thoughts and habits of each fresh generation and each new-coined spirit throw another light upon the universe, and contain another commentary on the printed Bibles; every scruple, every true dissent, every glimpse of something new, is a letter of God's alphabet; and though there is a grave responsibility for all who speak, is there none for those who unrighteously keep silence and conform? Is not that also to conceal and cloak God's counsel?—ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: Lay Morals .

Mr. Tressor had not yet returned from lecturing, the man said in response to Paul's knock, but he had left word that he would not be more than a few minutes late. Would Mr. Kestern come in? Mr. Manning was also coming to luncheon.

As the door of the don's keeping-room closed behind him, Paul looked round eagerly. He walked over to the fireplace and stood on the rug, with his back to the fire as if he owned the place. His eyes roved round the remembered room. There were the bookshelves, with the hid electric lights at the top of them as he knew, in which, during just such a moment of waiting, he had once looked for Mr. Tressor's own works and found none. There were the few odd vivid little pictures—the amateur photograph of Tressor himself with a leaping pack of dogs, the cartoon from Vanity Fair, the water-colour of the old house in the Weald, Loggan's print of the College, an impression of the gorge at Ronda, and a pencil sketch of the Chelsea Embankment. There were the few big comfortable chairs; the little table with its fat cigarette-box, a new book or two, the ivory paper-cutter; the tall firescreen, not used now, of faded tapestry; the window-seat. He glanced through the high wide windows. The bare trees of the Fellows' garden were wet and dismal in a January mist, but seen so, Paul had an odd feeling that they were quiet and dignified. In short, it was the old room, with its air of serene, silent waiting, in which the boy had already seen visions and dreamed dreams.

Mr. Tressor came in, big, slow, kindly. He shook hands with Paul, smiling upon him. "Well, glad to be up again? Been writing more verses in the Vac., eh?"

"No, not much." (Paul hesitated. Then he spoke out.) "You see there's no end to do in a parish, Christmas-time."

The other nodded with a comprehension at which Paul wondered slightly. "I know. School treats, socials and prayer meetings. I admire the people who do them enormously. I suppose you had your full share?"

"Yes," said Paul, and was silent, remembering Edith. It was odd—Tressor and Edith. And he liked both.

Manning entered easily, nodded to Tressor, apologised for being late, and greeted Paul. "Hullo, Paul," he said, "had a good Vac.?"

"We were just talking of his manifold activities," said Tressor, "but I expect luncheon is ready. Let's go in."

Paul felt a little out of it during the meal. The others talked so easily of places, people and things which were foreign to him. Personalities were mentioned of whom you never heard at Claxted. He felt an absurd desire to retaliate in kind and tell of a restaurant lunch with Gipsy Smith after a big meeting in Westminster Chapel and of veteran Mr. Henry Hutchinson's visit to his father. But quite possibly neither Tressor nor Manning had ever heard of the World's Conference of Christian Endeavour or of the Children's Special Service Mission. Also, though he knew what to do at table of course, he was rather on his guard. He was self-conscious when he had to help himself from the dishes with which the man served him. At home, helpings were handed to you.

They went back to the study for coffee, and it was then that Manning remarked disconnectedly to the don: "I hear Father Vassall is coming into residence at the Catholic Church this term."

"No, but I shall go. Catholicism interests me. There's so much more to be said for it than for any other form of religion it seems to me,—and just as much to be said against it."

Tressor laughed, and looked across at Paul. "What do you say to that, Kestern?" he asked.

Paul glanced from one to the other, and flushed slightly. "There seems to me nothing in the world to be said for it," he said bravely.

"There you are, Manning," laughed Tressor kindly. "And I must say I agree with Kestern in the main."

Manning crossed his legs, and lit a cigarette. "Do you?" he said, in his cool, attentive, but cynical way. "I suppose you would. But I shall divide my foes, after the Apostolic manner. You do not believe in dogma; Paul does."

Paul took the plunge. "Well, you believe in our Lord, sir, don't you? And surely the Atonement and the Resurrection stand for dogmas."

Manning and Tressor exchanged a glance. Manning laughed. "'Now the Sadducees say there is no resurrection,'" he quoted.

Paul looked bewildered; the elder don a little grave. "I expect we do not both interpret the story in quite the same way, Kestern," he said.

"But, sir," said Paul earnestly, "what two ways can there be? The whole of Christianity is based on our Lord's Resurrection. 'If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain.'"

Manning settled himself into his chair. "Do go on," he said. "Theology interests me enormously. I told you, Tressor, that Paul here would convert you if he could."

The boy felt uneasy. He did not want to argue and could not bring himself to speak to the don as Manning did, though he was well aware that Tressor would not in the least have resented it. But he felt he must say something, and his evangelical upbringing taught him what to say. "Surely the Bible story is simple enough," he said.

"I confess I do not. What of the discrepancies in the story? What of the late additions to the text? And what, still more, of the atmosphere in which it was written? But I grant you, in a different sense, that the Bible picture is simple enough. Jesus is to me a simple, brave, kindly man whose gospel has never been transcended and whose spirit will never die. If you allow for Eastern imagination and Catholic reductions, it is indeed simple enough."

Paul heard bewildered. He knew, of course, that Higher Critics existed, a strange, disloyal, un-Christian few, mostly to be found in Germany—and left there by sensible people. It ought, perhaps, to be explained that he had taken a scholarship in history and was reading for that Tripos. At Claxted, a theological degree seemed unnecessary. The Gospel was so simple that the Bishop's examination, to be taken in due course, was training all sufficient for a Christian minister. Gipsy Smith, for example, knew little theology.

"But," he stammered, "our Lord was God. He died to save us. If He had not been God, what power could there have been in the Cross? What merit in His Blood?"

A little silence fell on them all. Tressor, after his fashion, was smoking cigarettes in hasty puffs, extinguishing one after another in his ash-tray half burned. Manning stared thoughtfully and a little cynically into the fire. Paul's questions hung in the air, and his listeners' silence answered them.

"All my life," answered Paul resolutely, his embarrassment gone. "I hope to spend it preaching the Gospel. It seems to me there is nothing else worth doing. What good is there in"—(he nearly said "all this," but checked himself in time)—"in learning, comfort, art, music, anything, except as aids to this? What else matters besides this? Sir, surely you see that!"

It was odd that the don should echo Maud Thornton, but he did. "You would make us all foreign missionaries, I suppose," he said.

Only for a moment did Paul hesitate. Then: "Yes," he said simply, "I suppose I would. Not all are called to the same sort of work, of course, but it should be all to that end."

Again his listeners exchanged glances, but this time they could afford to smile. "I fear I should make a poor missionary," said Tressor.

Paul looked at him, distressed. He had not meant to bring the conversation to such a head, but what else could he have said? The don saw his uneasiness, and rose, smiling.

"Well, Kestern," he said, "don't think I mind in the least your saying what you think. Besides you are flattering; I confess no one yet even thought he saw a potential missionary in me. But however tight you sit to your dogmas, I should give ear to the other side also, if I were you. After all, you are up here for that, aren't you? And now I'm walking with the Master this afternoon, and I fear I've got to go. Come again sometime. Look in any evening. If I'm busy, I'll say so. And bring me some more verses. Good-bye."

Paul, on his feet, ventured however one more direct question. "Good-bye, sir," he said, "but it worries me. Do tell me one thing. Do you honestly mean that, as you read your Bible, you do not think Christ dogmatic?"

"Honestly, I do not," said Tressor, and nodded kindly. "Good-bye," he said again.

It was Manning who enlightened Paul on the other's attitude, however, much later in the term. Spring had made an unexpectedly early appearance, and they took a Canader to paddle up the Backs. The sunlight lay soft and lovely on the mellow walls, the slow-moving black river, the willows just breaking into new green, and the trim lawns. Paul as yet, however, had not begun to attempt to find refuge in beauty and to rest his soul upon it. He even surveyed the Spring flowers on the banks of Trinity Fellows' garden with dissatisfaction. Tressor's kindly but obviously unmoved criticism of a rapture of his read to him the night before on the parallel of natural and supernatural resurrection, had occasioned more immediately his present attitude. "I don't understand it at all," he remarked to Manning, digging his paddle ferociously into the water and forcing his companion to lean hard on his in the stern to escape striking the centre arch of Trinity Bridge.

"Well, let us avoid a collision anyway," said Manning good-humouredly. "But look here, Paul, Tressor's position is simple enough. You read the Bible as if it were yesterday's Times ; he doesn't. He considers, first, the difficulty of choosing between the variations in the many texts; then the difficulty of getting back behind fifth-century manuscripts to the original; then the difficulty of knowing how much the original owes to the unscientific mind and Eastern imagination of the writer. Heavens! You read history! Do you not do the same thing with Bede and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and all the rest of the musty stuff? Well, then, in his mind the Christ shrinks to shadowy proportions. He remains possibly the most interesting and arresting figure in history, but that is all. You see, resurrection or no, all those events are nineteen hundred years behind us."

Paul leant back in his canoe and forgot to paddle. "Oh," he said at last, "I see."

The other looked at him curiously. "You're an odd fish, Paul," he said. "What do you see?"

"Tressor reads about Christ, but my father knows Him. He is more real to my father, Manning, than I am."

The curious look died out of Manning's face, but an affectionate ring crept into his voice. "Lord, Paul, you're a rum ass, you know," he said, "but you are rather an interesting one."

Paul was due at Dick Hartley's for tea, and as soon as they had landed, he rushed round to his friend. It was odd, he thought as he went, how one suddenly saw things, by some curious indefinable process, which one had known, one thought, for years. After all, he had preached on the Blind Beggar in St. John's Gospel a score of times one way and another, yet he had never really understood it until this afternoon. He had "known" Christ ever since he could well remember, but somehow it was the Christ of the printed page that he had known. Alive to-day, yes, but not alive in such a way that His living actually solved intellectual doubts. To Paul, the Cambridge streets had suddenly become the streets of a New Jerusalem. From old gables to modern shop-fronts, they had all at once become intimate and tender. He thought, even as he ran, that just as he had come to dwell tenderly on a mental image of Edward Street because Edith lived, moved, and had association there, so now the whole world was transfigured before him. Christ moved in it, and he knew Christ.

He rattled up the wooden stairs to his friend's room and burst in almost without knocking. Dick was reading in an arm-chair and a kettle hissed on the hob. He looked up from his book.

Paul slowed down, shut the door, and came over to the fire, his face shining. "I say, Dick," he said, "do you realise what it means that we know Christ?"

The older man stared, as well he might have done. Then a rather envious expression crept into his face. Wistfulness was scarcely what one thought of in connection with matter-of-fact, athletic, sober-minded Dick Hartley, but it was there at that moment.

"Of course I thought I did," poured out Paul excitedly, walking up and down, "but I begin to think I never have till this afternoon. I see, now, what's the matter with Tressor and Manning and all the rest of them. They think Christ is a story out of a book, Dick. Even I" (all innocent of self-righteous priggishness was Paul), "even I thought of Him only as emotionally alive, so to speak. But He lives, Dick, He lives! We know Him! We aren't worried by criticism or any of their intellectual doubts, because we know Him. Don't you see?"

Dick closed Harnack's Acts of the Apostles and put it on one side. "You have a great gift of faith, Paul," he said.

"Faith! It isn't faith! It's sight, I tell you. Why, man, look here, if Manning were to come gravely to my room to-night and argue that you were a myth, what the blazes do you think I should say? I should laugh in his face! 'Why, I had tea with him this afternoon,' I should say! And it's the same with Jesus. Dick"—the eager voice hushed a little—"we're having tea with Him this afternoon."

Hartley did not laugh. He half glanced round. "Can one act on that altogether?" he queried.

Paul flung out his hand with an eager gesture. "Why not?" he cried. "One should act on it absolutely I think."

Hartley spoke slowly. "Well, but would Christ stay here, read Harnack, take in a newspaper" (his eyes roved the room), "row, get new window-curtains, and—and fall in love?" His gaze rested on a portrait on the mantelpiece.

Paul's hand fell to his side. He, too, glanced round the simple, commonplace, in the opinion of most people severely plain room. Then he dropped into a chair. "You must ask Him," he said slowly.

Dick was altogether more slow, more solid, than Paul. He began to make tea. "It's odd," he said, busy over the cups, "but I'm not sure that I know."

"Ah," said Paul, still triumphant and impetuous, "I asked you if you really knew Him, Dick."

In Hursley Woods that vacation, Paul explained it all to Edith. They were seated side by side on a fallen log, and all around them the fresh blue of the wild hyacinths was unstained as Paradise. They lit the dull day with a radiance of their own. Brown and green and grey blent about them and faded into distance, and he held her hand. The two had just kissed with a solemn virginal innocence. They were glad, but not gay. Francis of Assisi would have wondered at them, had he been there. As it was one of his brethren, a big blackbird with a bright enquiring eye, emphatically did so. It probably struck him that these restrained humans were out of place in such a vivid, tingling, riotous life as that of a wood in spring. He hopped off to look for a worm.

Paul renewed the conversation that the kissing had interrupted. "You see, Edith, dear," he said, "it's so illogical to believe one thing and act another. What are the realities of life? God, and a lost world, and Christ our Saviour. What does anything matter beside them? Both Dick and I feel that everything— everything —ought to be surrendered to Him. Even things good in themselves must go down before the awful necessity of preaching the Gospel. Mind you, I don't speak of learning quite as I did. I see, for example, that if I get a first in my History, it will be of use in the Church. But all the rest—do you see?"

"Look here"—he jumped up eagerly—"I'll give you an illustration. It's a silly one, in a way, but it's all the better for that. It's the commonplace things people won't see. In my rooms, last term, Donaldson and Strether and I—oh, and a man called Hannam—were discussing dress. Donaldson was saying that there was no reason why a Christian shouldn't wear decent socks—clocked, gay things like his own. There was nothing wrong in them, he said. I agreed, but I couldn't help it; I said: 'Would Christ have worn them? Would He have spent an extra shilling on a yellow stripe in His socks when that shilling would send a Testament to China?' Would He? What do you think?"

"Exactly." In his triumph, Paul sobered and sat down. "There's no escape," he said.

Edith leant forward and prodded the soft earth with a stick. "Then you'd wear the oldest clothes and live on just anything and have no home and go about preaching," she said.

"That is not our concern," said Paul gravely. "I do not know and I do not care. But this I do know, if Christians started in to do that, they'd—they'd—well, they'd turn the world upside down. Which is exactly what the world said Paul and Barnabas were doing."

"So it stoned them. You're quite right. It was the Apostles' lives or their own. Heathen Rome saw the issue admirably. Heathen England doesn't. Why not? Because Christians are no longer Apostolic."

The girl turned wide eyes on him. "But oh! Paul," she cried, "think what that means! It would mean giving up everything; it would mean death!"

"'I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me'," quoted Paul gravely.

The girl looked away. The heart of the rich woods grew dim before her. She fumbled for her handkerchief.

Very tenderly the boy put his arm about her. "Edith, darling," he said, "don't think I don't love you. I don't think I've ever loved you more than I do now. But if Christ told us to put our love aside,—for a while, down here perhaps,—could we refuse Him?"

All the woman in her revolted. "I don't know!" she sobbed. "I don't mind giving up everything else. But I could help you."

Paul's own eyes clouded. "Dear, darling Edith," he said, "I know you could. And you would help too. I expect you will. Oh, I hope so—you don't know how much! But we ought to face the full bitterness of the Cross, and then, if God makes it possible, take what He gives us very gratefully. Surely you see that?"

The girl dabbed at her eyes and rolled her handkerchief into a hard ball. Then she looked up at him with a wintry smile. "I shouldn't love you so much if you weren't so awfully right always, Paul," she said.

In his new eagerness, Paul sprang a mine on his father. He went up to town to meet Strether who had taken a couple of tickets for a matinée of Peter Pan , with which play his friend's curious personality was violently intrigued. The artist in Paul revelled in the fairy tale, and deep called to deep before the boy who would not grow up. But his passionate creed would not let him alone.

"It's all very well, Gus Strether," he said, arm in arm in Regent Street, "but do you think a girl ought to dress up like that in boy's clothes? And what good does it do? It's like sitting down to play a round game while the house is on fire!"

Strether grunted. He was between the devil and the deep sea. He loved Peter Pan with a deep love that was all the fonder for being buried so deep in his queer hidden self, but he hated Pauline Chase—at least on the picture postcards. That, then, he passed over. But the other he would not pass. "You row, and eat chocolate biscuits in my rooms while the house is on fire," he retorted.

Strether lengthened his ungainly stride. "Balderdash," he muttered. "If you tried to live at prayer meetings, you'd soon cease to live at all. Go and see Peter Pan while you're waiting to get to work."

Paul stopped in the middle of Regent Street. "I've got it," he cried excitedly. "I'll put a cross up as well—a big, plain, empty cross over my writing-table."

"I don't care if it's Popish or not. It's a symbol of Christ. The shadow of it ought to lie everywhere and touch everything. Come on, let's go and get one now. Mowbray's have them. Come on. There's time before tea."

The odd pair explored the premises of the Margaret Street shop. Secretly, Paul was moved by the beauty of the crucifixes, though his soul was stirred by a host of Madonnas which should have been painted, he said, quoting a Protestant tract, as if the Virgin were a woman of fifty, and were not. Strether lurched around, grunting to himself. He was curious over most things. Paul bought a big plain cross for his rooms, and, on second thoughts, a small silver one for his watchchain.

Miss Bishop happened to be at his home as he unrolled his parcel. She was caustic and cynical. "My experience is that if you wear the cross on your watch-chain, you soon cease to bear it in your heart," she said.

Paul retorted hotly. "Why?" he demanded. "It's that kind of saying that we have got to disprove. Christ is real to me. I want to feel Him at every turn. I want to give up all my life to the Cross. This is only the sign of it, I know, but why should you argue that my wearing of the sign will make the thing itself unreal to me, just because some people wear it and have forgotten its meaning?"

"You don't understand, mother," said Paul. "Is it necessary to put up your portrait in my rooms at Cambridge? Can't I remember you without?"

His mother sighed; that was so like Paul. His father looked troubled. "It's the thin end of the wedge, laddie," he said, "so often. We don't, of course, object to the thing itself; it's only that we hate the religion that has destroyed the truth of Christ while it has decked itself out with crosses. Isn't the Saviour without the symbol enough for you, my boy? The old devil is so cunning, Paul, lad."

Yet one might almost have supposed that Miss Bishop had indeed stirred the devil into action. She would have said that he was positively waiting for cocksure Paul that very first afternoon of the May term. His emissary was a youthful-looking man, rather small, light and quick in movement, fair of complexion, with alert, keen, grey-blue eyes that perpetually brimmed over with humour, although the home of it was low down in them, out of sight. He was decorously dressed in black, but with a rather shabby buttoned frock-coat, for he was careless of appearances, and when he spoke at first to strangers, or if he were unusually moved, there was often a little stammer in his voice. He was, in short, the Rev. Father Vassall, a Popish priest.

Paul found him in Hannam's rooms, Hannam being the new acquaintance of the previous term. He kept in the rooms below Paul, who did not care for him particularly, and had, indeed, done no more than call the first term. But Hannam was a lonely individual, of somewhat eccentric tastes, one of which was for verse. He, therefore, admired Paul and Paul's writings, and latterly the two had seen more of each other. Paul knew, that he was a Catholic, but as one did not exactly associate religion of any sort with Hannam, who, nevertheless, was tolerant of Paul's ardent faith, this fact had not obtruded as one might have expected.

Thus, then, it chanced that Kestern arrived at St. Mary's a day before Manning, and by an earlier train than that of any of his more intimate friends. He was chaffing old Tom about four of the clock in the First Court, and on his way to his rooms knocked by an impulse at Hannam's door.

"Hallo, Kestern," cried Hannam joyfully as he entered, "glad you're up early. Want some tea? Do come in. Let me introduce you—Father Vassall, Mr. Kestern of this college."

Paul found himself shaking hands with the Popish priest. He did it nervously, but with obvious interest. Odd as it may seem, Popish priests were as rare and as strange to Paul as Buddhist monks. The stranger seemed to appreciate the fact. His eyes twinkled. "H-H-Hannam has t-told me a little about you, Mr. K-Kestern," he said.

Paul laughed engagingly, and much more pleasantly than one ought to do with the devil. But then there was an air about this priest that was amazingly boyish, eager and attractive. You felt at once, as it were, his radiant personality. Besides there were no hypocrisies about Father Vassall, and he always came straight to the point. His tone suggested to Paul what he meant.

"And a p-p-poet," stammered the little priest, "which is very much nicer, Mr. Kestern."

"You two ought to have a lot in common," put in Hannam with lazy interest. "Father Vassall was once a Protestant, Kestern, and he is still a poet."

They drew round the fire with their tea. Conversation ranged over their doings in the vacation and the prospects of the term, and Paul learned that Father Vassall had been a wet Bob at Eton and cox of his college crew at the University. Absurdly enough, he had never associated such healthy doings with Papistry. But Father Vassall had been a Protestant then. This amazing fact held Paul's mind. It staggered him to think that Protestants could ever become Catholics. He looked on the priest with amazement and real sorrow. For one thing he could never have known Christ....

Hannam asked Paul if he had been to the theatre; Paul confessed to Peter Pan ; Father Vassall said that above all things he would like to see it.

"What!" cried Paul. Ridiculously, it was his first shock. He had always understood that actors, actresses and Roman Catholics owned the same master and were as thick as thieves, and here was a priest professing to be forbidden by his Church to go to the theatre at all! Father Vassall explained. "But we can go to m-m-music halls," he stammered, his eyes alight with mischief.

"Why," exclaimed the priest eagerly, his stutter all but disappearing in his enthusiasm; "you should come and hear Father Kenelm then, Mr. Kestern. He has been t-thirty years in South America, and is utterly devoted to our Lord and the Church's work out there. He is over here arranging for the publication of the B-Bible in one of the native tongues and is speaking in Cambridge this week."

"The Bible!" cried Paul aghast. "But the Roman Catholic Church does not allow people to read the Bible!"

"Father Kenelm has himself translated, published and distributed some half-million B-Bibles in two or three l-l-languages," retorted the priest.

"But, Father," said Paul, utterly serious, copying Hannam's mode of address and scarcely noticing it in his eagerness, "you can't deny that your Church burnt Bibles openly in St. Paul's Churchyard at the Reformation."

Paul stiffened angrily, though his anger relaxed into bewilderment at the other's laughing face. The priest leant forward.

"Well, I could show you one at the Presbytery. We burnt P-Protestant copies of the Holy Scripture which had been mutilated by the removal of whole books and made worse than valueless by the bias of the translation and the m-marginal notes that had been added."

"Ah," said Paul, relieved, "I see. But that depends on what view you take of the notes."

"Excuse me," retorted the other, "it does not. We burnt annotated and mis-translated portions of the Scriptures, not the Holy Bible. Those are indisputable historical f-facts. The annotation cannot be denied and the mis-translation is proved even by your own Revised Version. And as for motive, may I ask what you would advise a heathen convert of yours to do who was given a Bible containing notes which taught T-Transubstantiation and M-m-mariolatry?"

Paul glanced from one to the other. "I do," he said frankly. "But, Father, you interest me enormously." (He hesitated.) "May I speak frankly?"

The priest nodded, with a little quick gesture, his eyes searching the other's face.

"Well, you don't speak of Christ and—and so on, one little bit as I expected a Roman Catholic to speak. Missionaries too—I hardly knew you had any. And—well, aren't they nearly always political? Aren't Catholic conversions nearly always forced?"

The priest no longer smiled. He looked away into the fire. "Do you suppose it was force," he queried solemnly, "which made South American Indians dig up their buried treasures valued at two hundred and fifty thousand pounds to give to Father Kenelm for the conversion of P-Protestant England?"

There was magic in Father Vassall, and Paul's imagination saw a story in which, had the boot been on the other foot, he would have gloried.

A little silence fell on the conversation. Suddenly: "What about the Inquisition?" he queried.

"Then you ought to know that the Spanish Inquisition was political and national, not Catholic. You ought to know that some of the most disreputable Popes protected such people as the Jews from the fury of fanatics. You ought to know that the long-suffering of the average Bishop in heresy trials was amazing. Read Gairdner. But waive all that. See here, would you hang a murderer?"

"Then if you honestly b-believed that the teaching of heresy was the murdering of innocent souls, and if you had the power, what would you do to heretics?"

"As to actual penalties, the age did not see or feel as ours does. Torture was English law, remember, and boiling alive or pressing to death or breaking on the wheel ordinary legal p-punishments."

"Perhaps," said Paul, "but such things were the punishments of crime. Mary burnt Protestants for religion."

"Elizabeth r-racked and hung and disembowelled more Catholics than Mary Protestants," retorted Father Vassall. "Besides, ten times, no, thirty times as many suffered for Catholicism under Henry VIII. and Edward VI. than for Protestantism all the way through English history."

Paul looked hopelessly round the little room. He saw himself, as it were, hemmed in and overwhelmed by inexorable fact. Besides, it was all so unexpected. Did Claxted know nothing of these as of other things? Why, indeed, had he himself never seen them in this light?

"P-Protestantism," went on Father Vassall, "taught that it belonged to every man to pick and choose for himself among doctrines, and it therefore had no m-manner of reason for what it did. Calvin's burning of Servetus at Geneva really outrages d-d-decency. And the P-Pilgrim Fathers burnt more witches in a year in New England than the Catholic Church heretics in pre-Reformation England in a c-century."

Paul drew a long breath. "I—I must think," he said confusedly. "I had no idea there was anything on your side." He moved restlessly. "But tell me one thing, don't you teach that all Protestants go to hell?"

But the priest did not. He glanced up sharply. "Don't you evangelicals teach," he demanded with the quickness of a rapier thrust, "that all unbelievers go to hell?"

Paul's face was a study. Father Vassall chuckled youthfully as he looked at him. Then his own face changed and his eyes grew tender. "I'm s-sorry," he said, stammering again. "That wasn't q-quite fair. But we do not teach that, and I think you do. No; when you get to P-Purgatory, I'll say to St. Peter: 'Let K-Kestern in; he's a g-g-good boy!'"

He stood up and reached for his hat and stick. "Are you going home?" asked Paul. "Might I walk a little way with you?"

They were an odd pair as they walked together through the streets. Paul was a good deal taller than his companion, and very serious. The little priest was gay again, and chattered about odd subjects and Cambridge topics. When a don nodded to Vassall, it struck the undergraduate as something he had scarcely realised, that his new acquaintance had a great and growing reputation. But not until they were at the door of the Catholic church could Paul speak his mind.

"I must g-go in here now," said Father Vassall. "I've got to hear the confessions of a lot of nuns much holier than I should be if I lived for a c-century."

Later on, Paul realised what an amazing light that threw upon the Sacrament of Penance, but just at present he was too much occupied to consider it. "Father," he said abruptly, "will you forgive me if I ask you one thing? It isn't a usual thing, I know, and it's awfully personal, but I can't help it."

The elder looked into the flushed, serious face of the undergraduater and kept his eyes upon him.

"Do you believe in the reality of Christ, here and now, on earth? Could you say you know Him?"

"Then may I call and see you some time?" asked the boy, with a little catch in his throat.

Paul's new friendship soon became the dominant interest of the term for him. Even the prospects of the May eight in which he rowed were less prominent in his mind. His father's letters vigorously denouncing any intercourse with a Papist at all, only aroused his hostility. Of what use was he, if by this time he was not able to defend evangelical religion? Besides, he had rapidly become whole-heartedly aware that there was no sort of question that Father Vassall loved Christ with a sincerity not exceeded by that of his own father. Paul grew ever more certain of that. He wrote as much to Mr. Kestern, but Mr. Kestern would not admit the other's sincerity at all. At best, the priest was a deluded, scheming fanatic out to trap his son. The home letters grew passionate; Paul the more bewildered. Authority and experience were at their first serious conflict within him, though he never phrased it so. Instead he opened his heart to the priest, who was enormously more charitable to the boy's father than Mr. Kestern was to him. And Paul read books, and talked to Dick.

Possibly he reached a spiritual climax as early as that bright midsummer day that the two of them took on the Upper River. They had started in a Canader, and got as far as Haslingfield. They had stripped among the gold of buttercups, and plunged down into the cool, clear water where the mazy reeds twisted this way and that in the slow current. They had lunched, and bathed again, and lying side by side in the sun on the grass, had fixed up in common a good deal of the coming Long Vacation. Then, settling into the canoe, they had drifted slowly down-stream, Dick on his back lazily dipping a paddle now and again to avoid an obstacle, and Paul reading. Now the latter tossed the book down, and spoke.

"I'm not an ass, or at least not over this. Besides I don't mean that all they say and do is right. Some things obviously can't be. I shall never be a Catholic. But there is no way out of the difficulty about authority."

"No? Well, chuck me over that toffee, and for goodness sake don't say so at Port o' Man."

"But I say, Dick," said Paul earnestly, "do listen. It's worrying me no end. You can't answer the dilemma, either."

Paul stared at him. "But why not?" he demanded. "Your attitude amazes me, and oddly enough, you are not unlike my father. But anyway that attitude's plainly wrong. There must be a way out. The fellow who says: 'I'm an evangelical, and I won't discuss the question or hear another side,' must be wrong."

"Listen. The very first time I called on Father Vassall, he had me. He was frightfully kind; he understood about our Lord being real as next to nobody seems to do, and he was entirely sympathetic about the Cross just dominating everything. In fact, he was evangelical over it. He admitted he was. He said Catholics were at one with evangelicals on that point, and that their Religious Orders were composed of people who simply lived the Gospel life. But let's waive that. He went on to ask me how, despite all that, I knew what our Lord had meant by His words.

"He said: 'Granted.' (Notice there's nothing of Manning or Tressor about him, belittling the Bible.) 'But' (he went on) 'let's be definite. Take a text: This is My Body —what does it mean?'

"He said: 'How do you know? At any rate for fifteen hundred years nobody thought so.'

"And then he said: 'That's what Luther said, and taught Consubstantiation. That's what Calvin said and denied it. That's what Wesley said and taught the Real Presence, but not Consubstantiation or Transubstantiation. That's what Spurgeon said and denied all three. And that's what General Booth said and dispensed with sacraments altogether. If you care to shut yourself up with your Bible and pray, you will probably arrive at some further opinion. There are about three hundred and sixty-five Protestant sects, and there is no reason why there should not be three hundred and sixty-six.'"

"None at all," said Dick; "and I say, sit steady, or you'll upset this bally canoe."

"But look here, Dick—hang it all, be serious. He's right. The Bible, being nineteen hundred years old and a written book, is open to scores of different interpretations. Mere praying obviously does not prevent such differences of opinion; it almost seems to increase them. And consequently, if there is not some one authoritative voice to interpret, we might as well not have the Bible at all. Or, like Tressor, we must chuck dogma overboard. Either way our position goes."

"Well, so, if you will have it, we've got to find some better reason than our view of the Bible for condemning the Catholic Church. We've got to find some further basis for our position."

Dick sat up and fell to paddling. Paul watched him anxiously. After a while, his companion began to whistle, and at that Paul could stand it no more. "Dick," he cried, "do you mean to say you don't see it at all?"

Dick Hartley trailed his paddle behind him and laughed a little. "Look here, Paul," he said, "you're too logical. Religion is not a primary textbook. You and I know and love Christ, and we know that Roman Catholicism is not His Gospel. The thing is so obvious that it isn't worth discussion. Chuck it, then. Pitch that book overboard and say your prayers." And he recommenced to paddle.

Paul flushed beneath his summer tan. He leant back and stared up through the weave of leaves and twigs above them, and when he spoke, he was deliberate and cool. "Dick," he said, "Christ is the truth, and your attitude to truth seems to me simple blasphemy."

Paul's letters were full of the burning subject, and he wrote at length to his father and to Edith. His father was both incredulous and indignant at the boy's attitude, and his replies threw his son into despair. The elder man would admit nothing at all. He declined to argue; he refused even to consider what seemed to Paul reasonable historical evidence. Rome was the great Babylon, the Scarlet Woman, Anti-Christ; it had lied, tricked, tortured and sold its Master all down the centuries. "I would sooner see a son of mine dead," wrote Mr. Kestern, "than a Roman Catholic."

Paul, in an agony of doubts and fears, lived a tempestuous life. To Edith he unburdened at length, and she, though utterly bewildered at these new things, was at least sympathetic and understanding. The burden of her cry was: "How can it be, dear?" but with the undercurrent—"You must face it"; "your father is wrong to denounce your honesty"; but "Don't be rash or act in a hurry." To her, then, the boy turned as to a new anchorage.

Donaldson and Strether saw the conflict only superficially; Manning more truly, but as a cynic. Thus one riotous night of a meeting of the new Literary Society, Paul had had something of an ovation. His little room—its text still on the wall and the cross over the writing bureau in the corner—was beginning to reflect the growth of his artistic sense. Landseer's pictures had gone, and in their place hung some engravings, rescued from old books dug out of the boxes in Charing Cross Road, in neat ebony frames. A "Falkland" graced one side of the mantelshelf, and quite a good "Melanchthon" by Holl the other. The room was lit with candles, and tobacco smoke drifted thickly, since a childish rule of the society enforced smoking out of churchwardens. Paul, as president, had been overruled, and now always smoked one pipe. On this particular occasion, he was smoking a second in great exultation, having just read his last and lengthiest poetical effort to a really appreciative audience. Not without significance, it dealt with an Indian legend of the search for the white bird of truth.

"By Jove, damned good," burst out Donaldson. "Paul, you've the makings of a real poet. What do you think, Manning?"

Manning lit a cigarette, cigarettes being allowed after the solemn preliminaries. "You won't like it, Kestern," he said, "but here it is. Burn that. Get rid of it. It's been good practice, and I should judge it's not at all bad, but don't sit tight to it. Anything good in it will stick and come out again; the second and third rate had better go up in smoke."

"Oh, cheese it all, Manning! Show it to Tressor and get it pushed into some magazine"; and chorus of assent from the members backed Donaldson up.

Strether disengaged his long form from the chair he occupied, and passed it. "More coffee?" he grunted at Paul.

Paul was watching Manning closely. Then, suddenly: "You are right," he said, and with a swift movement tore the thing in halves.

Manning finished his cake, and stood up. He looked round amusedly, stretching himself. "I reckon that finishes the sitting anyway," he said. "Come over to my rooms a little later, Kestern, will you? Good-night, you people."

The company dispersed, all save Strether, who sat on imperturbably, his eyes on the ceiling. He refused to smoke, and had returned to dull suits and heavy boots, with an occasional concession to society in the shape of a tie or waistcoat. Paul, having seen the last down the stairs, and exchanged a fusillade of sugar with the departing Donaldson, re-entered the room. He shut the door and looked round dispiritedly. A candle was guttering on the bureau; heavy smoke hung in the air; dirty plates and cups littered the table; one picture was awry. He walked to the window and opened it wide, to let in the clear night air. Stars shone serenely aloft and mirrored themselves in the still river.

"Another letter from my pater to-day, Gussie," he said at last, turning back to the fire. "He'll not see, or understand."

"It's so odd," went on Paul wearily. "In some ways, he's the gentlest and most lovable of men. He's full of the love of God. He is a hundred times better than I shall ever be. But over this, he's mad, rabid. He seems to picture Father Vassall as a mixture of Torquemada and Judas Iscariot. If only I could get them to meet...."

"Going to the joss-house again, Sunday?" Strether had his own picturesque and blasphemous slang.

"I'll come with you. It's more amusing than the 'Ciccu' or chapel. Is there a wander round with candles this week?"

"Gussie, you're incorrigible. But, heavens, what a tangle it all is! Does this look like the room of a Christian? Look at it!" Paul made a sweeping gesture.

Strether pushed back heavily from the fire. "Beastly cheap cake this evening, anyway."

"Oh, nothing much. At least, that's not right; it is much to me. Manning, it's awful. It's my father's attitude towards Catholicism."

"Complain in verse," said Manning, handing him a Swinburne, "and read that. 'E'en the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea.' Leave the wise to wrangle. Your line is going to be literature, my son."

CHAPTER V
VACATION

The sticks break, the stones crumble,
The eternal altars tilt and tumble,
Sanctions and tales dislimn like mist
About the amazed evangelist.
He stands unshook from age to youth
Upon one pin-point of the truth.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

Paul lay very still in the heather. An occasional bee buzzed past his face, and, high aloft, a towering hawk regarded him severely, until, satisfied that he was alive, it gave its wings an imperceptible tilt and glided swiftly away. The sun drew out the sweet scents from flowers and bracken, and a small wind brought up, now and again, a whiff of the sea.

Far below, Port o' Man nestled peacefully in its bay. A sort of toy town even in reality, from this height it appeared to the watcher as if modelled by a child in coloured clays, so remote and still and small it was. It looked no more than a thin moon of buildings between the fields and the sea. No sound came up so far, but now and again there was a sparkle on the edge of the brown rocks when the surf ran up a shade higher than usual, and in the wide expanse of sea itself, green and blue changed the one with the other perpetually. Moreover Paul's sharp eyes could detect a vivid spot of scarlet on the sands that was never still either. He knew it to be the banner of the Children's Special Service Mission, flapping in the wind.

He ought, of course, to have been there, and when he had announced to Mr. Stuart, the leader, his intention of playing truant for one whole, golden morning, he had been received with frowns. But that had not daunted Paul. It took a good deal more than a Mr. Stuart, in fact, to daunt him. And so he had risen before the sun and taken his stick and his breakfast, and departed for a long, solitary climb up South Barrule. Dick Hartley had offered to come as well, but Paul had refused. In the first place he wanted to be alone; in the second, he really did not want Dick of all people, however much he loved him, just then; and thirdly, he had still a sense of missionary responsibility, and he declined to deplete the staff for a single day by another worker.

Nevertheless, he was there himself on that day because he was rapidly reaching a frame of mind which would probably make the C.S.S.M., and many other evangelical activities, finally impossible. Mr. Stuart, for example—he reflected on Mr. Stuart. He was a nice, big, old gentleman whom parents liked. He had no visible vices of any sort. He liked a really big dinner in the midday on Sunday. He played cricket on the sands with a kindly smile and the aptitude of a rhinoceros. He told impossible school stories fifty years old when preaching on the sands, and the moral of them all was the same—the necessity for a clean heart. As for his own heart, he was quite sure that it was clean. He was Church of England, but he had only one definite theological belief—Salvation was by Faith Alone without Works. But he had one strong negation—he believed that Confirmation was unbiblical and wrong. And, instructively enough, it was over Confirmation that Paul was beginning to jib.

Possibly it is necessary, at this point, to say something as to the methods and devices of a C.S.S.M. There may yet be the uninitiated. In the first place, then, a staff of voluntary workers, female and male, is drawn together during a summer month at some popular seaside resort, which should, if possible, have sands rather than a beach, and be to some extent "select." This latter is partly due to the fact that the Mission aims more especially at the children of the better classes, but also because, whereas the C.S.S.M. can compete with the more ordinary nigger-minstrel troupe and itinerant show, nowadays these things are done, at the bigger holiday places, upon so lavish and Satanic a scale, that the funds of the Mission are scarcely large enough to provide adequate equipment for honest competition with them. However, if the staff be wisely chosen—a blue or two, or at least some men in recognised blazers, are necessary, as well as ladies with good voices—much may be done. On an ordinary day, after a prayer meeting, this staff proceeds to the sands. Some members wander up and down the seashore distributing attractive cards of invitation to children, and engaging parents in amiable conversation where possible. The others, chiefly the masculine section, throw off coats, and with hearty enthusiasm commence to build a pulpit. Some roving children will inevitably be persuaded to help, and the crowd grows as the pulpit is decorated with seaweed, flowers, shells, and stones, with a suitable text outlined upon it. "JESUS only," or "God is Love"; but occasionally the unusual is worth trying—"Ephphatha" or "Two Sparrows" or "Five Smooth Stones." And finally the banner is hoisted and the service merrily begins.

Choruses with variations play a large part—"Let the sunshine in," "Let the sunshine out," "Let the sunshine all round about"; "Step by step with Jesus"; "We are building day by day" (and there are actions in that); but the Scriptures are read to sword drill ("The Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword"), and the addresses are short and breezy. The notices always take a long while. Walks for the girls, games for the boys, sports for both—excursions, picnics, competitions; cheery exhortations to "Watch for the Banner," or "Come to the House"; and lastly, special services for boys and girls indoors in the evenings. These latter are the ultimate hook. At them, many a man and woman has accepted Christ in youth with real sincerity and determination.

Paul threw himself heart and soul into all this. He did a great part in making religion seem to the holiday-makers what it was truly and happily to himself, the central joy and inspiration of life. If any were inclined to think that attendance at a mission might be a poor way of spending a holiday, they had only to watch Paul for a while. He was in love with Christ, and he was indifferent to the world's opinion that it might be indecent to show it as brazenly as a pair of Cockney lovers on the top of a motor-bus. In which conclusion both Paul and the lovers are undoubtedly and altogether right.

And yet Paul was troubled. Mr. Stuart's bland piety was new to him; the workers' robust ignorance had him by the throat; above all the scorning of a ceremony (he would not have said a sacrament) which he had come to feel had behind it the authority of an Institution that he was finding increasingly necessary to the interpretation of the Bible, while it might be a small thing in itself, worried him. And it worried him the more because nobody else—not even Dick—was worried; while behind everything, lay the ever-deepening shadow of his father's refusal to see one particle of evidence or necessity for the Church.

But still another influence had laid fingers on Paul's life, although he knew it not yet. He had come out that morning definitely to seek something, definitely to rest himself on something. Paul had always loved nature; he had always "been one" (as his mother would have said) for a country walk; and he had written verses to chestnut-trees in May and beech-trees in Autumn. Yet for all that, the beauty of the world had ever been a secondary thing—something you enjoyed because you were satisfied. But that morning he had come to it because he was not satisfied. And he lay now, almost immovable, introspective, peering at the tiny heather-bells, taking definite note of a fragment of moss, seeing with delight the veins of colour in the small stones. Things were beautiful, he told himself, beautiful in themselves; also they were unfathomable; and the joy of them was a caress to his troubled spirit.

Presently he sighed, and rolled over on his back, staring up and away into the vast, distant blue, watching, as the minutes sped, a pin-point of white come out of nothing, gather, build itself with others, form a tiny cloud, and trail off across the sparkling sea. Paul felt himself incredibly small; saw himself, definitely, less than nothing, for the first time in his life. And was content.

When he entered the dining-room of the "House," the others were already at lunch. The Mission party were housed in a typical, tall flat-chested house on the front, of the kind that one finds inevitably along all the shores of Britain, houses of apparently one period, as if the English middle-class had found the sea simultaneously in a generation. That, indeed, did happen. The room itself was threadbare. Everything in it from the furniture to the wall-paper, was thin, and aped solidity. The very linen on the table knew that it was cheap. Only where a scarlet fuchsia flamed in an earthen pot on the window-ledge, was there depth.

Mr. and Mrs. Stuart, and the ladies, were not lodged there. The men of the party had it as much to themselves as the admiring followers of Henderson (who had played cricket for his county) and Leather, a Church Missionary Society Islington missionary from India, would allow them. But besides these two, and Dick, and a lad of seventeen whom Henderson tutored, a stranger was at lunch that day. Dick introduced him.

"Hullo, Paul," he said, "you're not so late as you might be. Let me introduce you to Mr. Childers."

The newcomer rose easily, and held out his hand. He was fair, slight, a little bowed, and perhaps forty. But it was hard to say his age. He took Paul's hand firmly, and met his glance with a curiously remote frankness.

"Mr. Childers is a storybook uncle from foreign parts, Paul," said Dick. "Aileen Childers introduced me this morning, and I persuaded him to come in to lunch. He is just back from India."

Paul, not in the least understanding why, was suddenly aware that there was hostility in the room, but it did not come from the stranger. He glanced round. Leather, who had finished his cold mutton, had pushed his plate back slightly after his manner, and was looking puzzled and a little annoyed.

"To escape the nephews and nieces," said Childers smiling, "and to meet Mr. Leather."

"How jolly," said Paul eagerly, taking his seat. "What part of India were you in?" He was always eager to hear of heathen lands.

"I've travelled pretty extensively," returned the other, "but recently I've been living in Bombay for some months."

Something in his tone caught Paul's attention again. He looked more closely at the visitor. "Were you doing missionary work?" he asked.

Childers shook his head. "No," he said; "indeed, on the contrary, I went to learn."

"No. The fact is, Mr. Kestern, I learnt it from Indian students, and I was out in India studying Indian religious mysticism."

"Oh!" said Paul, and glanced swiftly again at Leather. He understood at last. Little as he knew of the subject (though he had heard Father Vassall speak of it), he knew that a man who studied Indian mysticism, and the Rev. Herbert Leather, C.M.S., Benares, would not have much in common. Leather could play most games and preach a "downright" Gospel sermon, but the Apostles were the only mystics in whom he believed and he would not have called them by that title. Even less than Dick was he metaphysical, and even more than Paul at his worst was he dogmatic.

He spoke now. "As a matter of fact we are having a bit of an argument, Kestern," he said. "Mr. Childers seems to believe in Hinduism."

The other shrugged his shoulders. There was something of contempt in the gesture, and the stranger seemed to read a challenge there.

"I did say that we often did the Brahmin less than justice, and that the Yogi adept had usually true spirituality," he said.

"Do you mean the fellows who sit on spikes and swing from hooks on festivals?" enquired Dick, bewildered.

The other laughed a little, pleasantly. "That is not all they do, and, put like that, it certainly sounds foolish, but still those who are genuine among them, do sometimes show the complete power of spirit over matter in that way," he replied.

Childers' eyes flamed suddenly, and as suddenly the light in them died down. He kept his temper perfectly. "I do not think so," he said with serene control.

"But you do not mean that they have any power which Christians have not got, surely?" queried Paul.

"I do indeed," said Childers, "if you mean by Christians the average followers of Christ."

Paul stared into the other's face. There was something so subdued and yet so powerful about it, that he was very deeply interested. "Will you explain a little?" he asked. "We don't hear of these things from that point of view."

"Well, Mr. Kestern, I do not know that there is much to explain. After all, prayer and fasting have a prominent place in all forms of Christian thought, have they not? And by prayer and fasting these men so subdue the body that the spirit in them can live almost independently of bodily aids, and even of itself affect material things."

"We should probably differ in our definition of false," returned Childers courteously.

"But look here,"—the missionary leant over the table—"do you mean you've ever seen them do anything that was not a clever conjuring trick?"

Leather threw himself back. "You can do the same yourself, I suppose," he sneered.

The elder man glanced from one to the other, and then back again to Paul. He hesitated. "I would rather not," he said. "One ought not to play tricks."

Childers tightened his lips, and once again fire flashed in his eyes. "Oh, I say," cried Dick, and stopped. A little silence fell on them. The situation was distinctly strained.

It was odd, Paul thought afterwards, how time seemed to stand still. The little storm had come up so suddenly, and the commonplace meal and room had so swiftly taken on a new aspect. Leather was insufferably rude. It struck Paul that here, again, was the harsh dogmatic attitude that would not even allow that there could be anything else to see or to believe. He felt suddenly that he must end it. "Mr. Childers," he said, "if you could show us what you mean we should be very glad."

The eyes of the two met once more across the table, and Childers made up his mind. "I dislike this sort of thing," he said, "but perhaps sometimes it may be of value. Has Mr. Leather a pin?"

Leather got up and took one from a painted satin pincushion that hung on the wall by the fire. They were all so supremely grave that no one saw the humour of it, especially the visitor, who would have seen none in any case.

Childers pushed his chair back a few feet from the table. "Mr. Kestern," he said, "would you clear a place on the table? I would rather touch nothing myself. And then perhaps Mr. Leather would set the pin there. Let it lie on the cloth, please."

Bewildered, Paul obeyed. The others drew in eagerly. No one knew what was to be attempted, but all were eager to see. Even Leather showed keen interest.

Paul pushed back the potatoes and a tablespoon, and swept a few crumbs to one side. Leather dropped the pin into the cleared space, threw himself back into his chair, and thrust his hands into his pockets. Dick leant his elbows on the table and stared at their visitor.

"Now," said Childers, "would you mind keeping quiet? I will not ask you to keep your eyes wholly on the pin, or you will say you have been hypnotised or something of that sort, but please watch it and me, and do not speak."

In the tense quiet that followed, Paul threw a look at his companions. Dick was puzzled, Leather sceptical and attempting indifference, Henderson and his pupil a-quiver with equal curiosity. Only Childers sat on serene, his eyes on the commonplace pin that lay so still on the table. From without, the sea's murmur came softly in. There was a patch of sunlight on the white cloth. The pin lay clearly in the very centre of it. It lay quite still, naturally, and shone in the light.

For then, as they watched, as the clock ticked the minutes loudly on the mantelshelf, as the boy beside him breathed hard, and Paul himself clasped and unclasped his hands, the tiny shining thing stirred, trembled, flickered as it were, made spasmodic movements, and finally rose, trembling, to stand on its point. Paul swallowed in his throat, and Leather cried out. "It's a trick," he exclaimed sharply. The pin fell back silently.

"Oh no, how could it be?" said Childers quietly. "I am not so good a conjurer as all that."

Leather stood up. "I am playing cricket at three," he said abruptly. "I fear I must go. I—I beg your pardon if I was—was rude, Mr. Childers. But—but——"

"That is quite all right. Perhaps I should not have said what I did. But there is nothing really strange in what you have seen, Mr. Leather. I hope I have not put you off your game."

All that afternoon, Paul and the visitor sat by the sea on the sand and talked together. The elder man was a quiet, serious, thoughtful person who made no attempt whatever to destroy any of his young companion's beliefs, and really very little to instruct him. But Paul was inexorable. His inchoate eyes fastened on the other, he heard of auras and astral bodies and familiar spirits with an ever-deepening amazement. It was not that the things themselves made much of a contribution to his mind; he was not, perhaps, ready for them; but it was Childers himself, especially in contrast to Mr. Stuart, Leather, Henderson, Dick, who affected him profoundly. It was his first contact with a true but alien spirituality, his first lesson in comparative religion. He saw at once how closely a scheme of things that allowed for transition planes of spiritual life, the interweaving of the material and spiritual, and the help of unseen beings, fitted in with Catholicism. Here, from another source, came confirmation of his new surmises. And above all, here was lacking that ignorant, dogmatic temper of evangelicalism, indifferent to beauty and living, with which he was finding himself increasingly at odds.

Towards the end of the afternoon, he ventured the supreme question which had been on his lips for long, but which he was more than half-afraid to speak.

"He was strikingly adept," said Childers, "and has advanced far beyond us. But we shall see Him at some distant time, if we continue steadily to progress."

"You feel the influence of His Spirit, for all spiritual living has left its impress which those who follow after may enjoy along the road."

"He is very far above us," replied Childers. "It is scarcely a question of God."

Paul leapt to his feet. "Ah, what!" he cried. "I see that that's the question. But I will not believe that God is far, Mr. Childers; He is near, very near, in the Person of His Son."

After a moment, Childers, too, got up. He had decided not to speak. He linked his arm in the other's affectionately. "Let us go," he said.

The month drew to its close; fair success attended the Mission; and one day Dick and Paul said good-bye to the rest, and to a smiling, cheering crowd of children on the station platform, setting off in the toy train which steamed importantly by the fuchsia-hedges and the old tin mines, to Douglas and civilisation. They were off to Keswick, for the great Convention. Paul had long wanted to go, and was all eagerness for it. His companion had been several times before, and, as always, was the more steady and self-contained. At Liverpool they stayed a night with friends, and were walking through the little Westmoreland town the following evening.

The streets were fairly full. Clergymen in semi-clerical dress—black coat and grey trousers, or vice versa—and moustaches abounded, but still more, young earnest men in grey flannels and bright smiling young women. Little parties moved up and down the street, frequently singing or humming hymns. Fragments of hymn-tunes drifted out of open windows, and a party leisurely rowing shorewards, were singing well in unison. Paul began himself to sing. "'Oh that will be Glory for me,'" he hummed, his head high, scenting the pine-woods.

"Well, then, make it in company where it's drowned, and not alone," said Dick, grinning at him.

Next morning Paul did sing in company. The friends stayed at a house taken regularly for the period of the Convention by an elderly lady, and charitably filled with missionaries, ordinands, and young clergymen. She called them all her "boys," and they took it in turns to conduct family prayers. Moreover they went with her in a body wherever she went, and, truth to tell, she was rather proud of them. One carried her umbrella, another her Bible, a third her hymn-book, and so on. This year two of them were coloured. Thus went Paul and Dick to the big tent for the first morning's meeting.

It was packed with several thousand people drawn from a large variety of Protestant denominations, and the speakers were a Church of England bishop, a Baptist layman, and a Methodist missionary. An Adventist led in prayer, or at least Paul gathered that he was an Adventist from the intimate information he volunteered in the course of it, as to the details and date of the Second Coming of Christ. The vast congregation adopted many attitudes for prayer, but, chiefly, that of the half-bend; the chairman announced that he trusted the utmost unity and harmony would prevail throughout the several meetings; it was understood that the subject of the Sacraments and such-like controversies was to be avoided; and a motto in red and white burgeoned immense over the platform: "ALL ONE in Christ Jesus."

Throughout the week, Paul followed the usual course of a member of the Convention. He bought a new hymn-book of "The Hymns of Consecration and Faith," and a new Bible, a "Baxter," whose leaves were also neatly cut away in index form to facilitate the finding of the more minor Minor Prophets. He also bought a small text framed in straws for his mother, but, the exultation of the moment which had prompted the purchase having worked off, gave it away next day. He went to Friar's Crag by moonlight, and sang (in company) "There'll be no shadows," and "When the mists have rolled away." On the Sunday he went to outdoor meetings. There was an official Convention open-air, but the market-place was quite full of other open-airs, conducted by people whose ideas were not sufficiently expressed in the central one; and there was also to be seen a somewhat dirty, very ragged and unkempt prophet who had come all the way from the South on foot to denounce modern Christianity in the cause of Humanitarian Deism, and whose rabid sincerity attracted Paul. Finally he went (out of curiosity) to a meeting for men only addressed by a prominent evangelical lady whose subject was "The Personal Devil," and to a series of meetings in which a new baptism of the Spirit was being taught, the idea of the pastor who conducted them being that if one only claimed the promise, one would become full—the emphasis lay there—full of the Holy Spirit. These meetings continued sometimes until midnight and were occasionally noteworthy for the Gift of Tongues. But as there were not found any who could interpret, the authorities, remembering St. Paul, rather cold-shouldered them.

Two days before the friends were to leave, as they were coming from a service in the tent, they ran straight into Edith Thornton. Paul gave a shout of surprise and ran forward eagerly. "You here!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, Mr. Kestern," cried the elder girl, "we wondered if we should see you! We heard that you were coming on to Keswick after Port o' Man, but it was only just the other day that we got the chance of coming ourselves."

"But how topping to see you," said Paul, delighted, shaking hands. "I say, do let me introduce my friend. Mr. Hartley; Miss Thornton, Miss Edith Thornton. Where are you staying?"

"Saturday. We might have met before, only really there are so many girls in the house, and the Matron arranges a full programme for us each day. Where are you staying, Mr. Hartley?"

Paul turned more directly to Edith, who had scarcely spoken. "What luck!" he exclaimed, his eyes sparkling.

Edith glanced cautiously at her sister, who was talking now animatedly to Dick. "Paul, isn't it?" she said. "And I do want to see you so much."

She laughed. "You can't, you know. Unless you come and be introduced to Matron and she invites you. And that she won't do unless you please her immensely—which I fear is not likely."

"Well, if you must know, because you won't behave. You give yourself away too openly. Girls, staying at the Y.W.C.A. in Keswick Week, are supposed to—to—to——"

"When? I know—to-morrow morning, early. We'll cut the prayer meeting for once, and go and walk by the lake."

And so, on that last day, Paul and Edith wandered off in the early morning by the road that leads along the lake, and exchanged impressions. It was a cold summer that year in the North, and there was a drifting mist over the water which the sun had not yet dispersed. High above it, the great hills lifted themselves, and there was a sound of tinkling water on the air, for it had rained heavily the night before and the little rills were full. The sky, too, was alive with soft lights of grey and white and blue. Where the road bends out of sight of the last houses, Paul took the hand that swung by the girl's side, and, remote and virginal, they walked together hand in hand.

"Well, Paul dear," she said, "tell me everything." And Paul tried to tell her....

"And Keswick," he said at last, "only sums it all up. You can't escape from it, Edith. People believe all sorts of different things even here. 'All one in Christ'—but they aren't. And how can they be, unless there is some voice to interpret Him to us?"

"You say that," said Paul, "but why? Because you've a distorted notion of the Church of Rome. Look here, Edith, we won't go into it now, but I tell you that everything I was told about Rome, turns out to be wrong. The more I see, the more I hear, the more I think, the more reasonable it is."

"But you can't, can't, can't, give up all you've believed and taught about Jesus."

"Dear, one isn't asked to give up anything. Father Vassall believes in Him just as much as you or I or my father. Indeed, he believes more, Edith. I feel that in this place. These people say they believe in Him, but they don't think out what they mean. He is God, Edith, truly, really, altogether God. And if the Baby in the cradle could be God, why shouldn't the Sacrament be Jesus? Why shouldn't he choose that veil as He chose the other? And see what it would mean! There He would be, for our worship, our service, really, bodily, spiritually too. As He was in Bethlehem, He would be the same there for ever. And there is His Church speaking for Him, guarding Him."

Paul made a characteristic gesture. "'He that heareth you, heareth Me,'" he quoted. "And the first Council—'It seems good to the Holy Ghost, and to us.' Think of the arrogance of that! And St. Paul—'The Church, the Pillar (that is the Upholder), and the Ground (that is the Basis) of the Faith.' The Church, not the Bible. And: 'We have the Spirit of God.'"

"I know. But 'by their fruits ye shall know them.' Have we unity? And who was teaching Mr. Irving's particular gospel of the fulness of the Spirit, a hundred, no, ten years ago? Whereas the Catholic Church——"

He broke off, and loosed her hand. They stood on the fragrant, peaty soil, strewn with brown pine needles, under the crags above the lake, and the further rocks were just breaking through the mist. A faint sound of early singing floated over to them. They listened.

Let me come closer to Thee, Jesus,
Yes, closer day by day;
Let me lean harder on Thee, Jesus,
Yes, harder all the way.

"It's true. It's a kind of omen. Edith, do you know I see a sort of vision nowadays. I see Jesus, planning, choosing, endowing His little band, and making them His Church. 'As the Father hath sent Me, even so send I you.' I see that same Church growing all down the years, always misunderstood, always persecuted, always other-worldly at bottom, and always teaching the same one faith. Its voice, His voice; its power, His power; its heart, His heart. And I seem to see Jesus beckoning me there."

"I have prayed, dear, and as I pray—oh, Edith, I don't know! But nothing stops my seeing. It just gets clearer. Everything fits. Little things sort of seem to come my way. If it's wrong, surely our Lord Whom I do love, Edith, and Whom I have tried to serve, won't let me go wrong."

"I know. Dad says it's the Devil. Exactly. 'They called the Master of the House Beelzebub, and how much more they of His Household?' Everything fits."

"Darling, I do pray. But what can I do? Mother says: 'Cling to the Book—Don't let go the Word,' but the Word itself seems to me to point that way. I can't help it; it does. I don't want to be a Roman Catholic. I'd hate to be. But, Edith, oh Edith, Edith, why is there no answer when one prays?"

He caught her hands. "Oh, darling, do. I'm so tired of begging and crying for light. I seem always to have to be the leader, and I do so want to be led."

The girl's eyes filled with swift tears. "Paul, darling," she whispered.... "Well, I will."

They knelt in the shadow of the pines, unashamed, and in the air there was a tremble of a sound—the ripple of the tiny wavelets on the beach beneath, and the sough of the pines above. They knelt hand in hand, like two children; and after a moment or two she prayed aloud, in a hushed whisper.

"Oh God" (she said), "Thou canst see us. Thou art here. Do, do, show Paul—show us both, what is right and true, and what we ought to do. Don't let us be led astray from Thee. Don't let us be frightened of following Thee. Just let us—let us draw closer to Thee and lean harder on Thee, all the way. For Jesus Christ's sake."

Sobs choked her Amen, and Paul, his eyes wet, put his arm about her. So clasped they knelt. And the little waves rippled on the shore and the wind soughed in the pines above.

They walked home soberly. At the entrance to the town, Edith put another question. "Paul," she said, "tell me, haven't you liked Keswick?"

"Well, I've loved it so much that I've almost hated it. Our friends are so sincere, so good, and I seem to know it all so well. It's my home , but I'm beginning to feel myself a stranger among my own people."

The girl swallowed that stupid lump that would keep rising in her throat. "Dear," she said, "will you promise me one thing?"

They were at her corner, and the boy looked into her grave face. "I won't," he said. "I promise. I owe it too much. But, Edith, one thing I won't promise. I won't promise that, if I ever see it to be false, I won't fight it with every weapon on which I can lay hand."

And she dropped her eyes from his, forlorn, for she saw that it was not in him to say more.

Paul went to Ripon, and Dick, saying good-bye for some time, to the South. He was to be ordained in September, and had to interview his prospective Vicar, somewhere in North London. Paul was staying with Judson for a few days, that Judson whom he had hardly known at the college feast, but who had come rather more intimately into his life of late.

Judson was a Congregationalist, and his father was a minister of the denomination in Ripon. He himself was a short, bullet-headed sort of person, whom Paul usually thought of as a bullet. At any rate, there did not seem to be much room for emotionalism or sentiment in his make-up, and he had a bullet-like way of boring into things. He had bored straight into Paul. Blunt, definite, ready, he had liked Paul, and had started to call and to demand to be called upon. His rooms reflected in a negative way his personality. Being poor, they remained poorly furnished, but even on tuppence-halfpenny they might have been less hard. On either side of the mantelpiece were two humorous coloured plates out of Printers' Pie . Paul thought they symbolised the man. How anyone could look at the same two jokes for ever, one on each side of the mantel-piece, used to strike him as an incredible mystery. He thought at first that it meant that Judson had no soul at all.

It was when he discovered his mistake that he began to like the man. For Judson had a soul. He went regularly, without any advertisement of it, to a Congregational chapel. He addressed Congregational meetings in villages at considerable inconvenience and quite unobtrusively. He and Paul alone at St. Mary's had the sin of public preaching to their charge. And Paul was beginning to find out that he alone neither mocked at nor disregarded his own religious struggles. Judson surveyed the Catholic Church with a shrewd eye. He left Paul to make enquiries, but he took them seriously. In his rooms he wore carpet slippers and a blazer, and smoked an ugly pipe, but, feet on his mantelpiece and hands in his pockets, he was prepared to admit that there were many points of view.

Hearing, then, that Paul was going to the Isle of Man and Keswick, he had persuaded him to come for a few days to Ripon on his way South. It was inconvenient that, at the time, a Congregational conference was taking place in Ripon, but as money for train fares was a consideration to both friends, Paul's visit was not delayed. He himself was glad, as a matter of fact, that the conference was sitting. Congregationalism was not immediately on his road, but he thought he would turn off to see a little of it as he passed.

Three ministers were staying in the house, and the friends were out of it most days. They made sundry excursions, and lunched away. That first afternoon, Paul was taken to his friend's father's chapel. He was shown affectionately round. Judson opened the door of the roomy, clean, pitch-pine vestry with an air, and took obvious pride in a new pulpit of considerable dimensions. He explained the heating apparatus with the same sponsorial solicitude that a priest takes when he shows a visitor a new altar. He opened and played the new American organ. He exhibited, in short, an unhushed genial interest in and affection for a series of what already seemed to Paul incredibly ugly and unattractive things. For Paul had never admired his own mission hall. He had never even thought of admiration, or the reverse, in connection with it. It had stood for use, not for ornament. But Judson evidently saw in his chapel beautiful and holy ground. He did not take off his shoes, because he was not a ritualist and that was not his way, but he liked the heating apparatus to shine brightly and to burn the best coal.

It was much the same in the Minster. There had been a time when Paul had thought all cathedrals "high" and tending to Popery. Now he saw in Ripon a lovely thing misused and defaced. The choir was full of cane chairs, rank on rank, for it alone was chiefly used. They stood in platoons on the wide, dignified steps leading up to the altar, steps the stone of whose very approach was all but entirely concealed by an expensive red Turkey carpet, presented, they were impressively informed, by a lesser Royalty, when staying with the Bishop who had been popular at Court. The altar frontal had the appearance of red plush, with a multi-coloured Maltese cross worked upon it, flanked by lilies. It had cost seventy-five pounds sixteen shillings. They were told so. Also the two shades of red were locked in a violent argument.

They saw the high, oak-roofed Lady Chapel, which was lined with never-opened books, called a library, and used for a choir vestry. The light streamed through its lovely window upon dog-eared piles of Tallis's chant-books. And in the North Transept, they stood in front of an immense and decorated Georgian memorial for which pillars had been broken and carvings cut away, a memorial which was approached still by ancient altar steps, and on the top of which reposed a Georgian figure in coloured stone who reclined upon his side, one elbow propping up his bewigged head, and one hand, with lace at the wrist, frozen for ever in a timeless pat upon a bulging stomach.

Judson saw pleasant humanity in the effigy, the verger magnificence, Paul an artistic and religious abomination of desolation, and they all three ascribed their own feelings to the all-seeing deity. The sunlight continued to dapple the stone which ever way it was.

They went, also, to Fountains Abbey. Judson expressed contempt for the decadent English aristocracy, excited thereto by some subtle influence arising from the well-cut, trim lawns, and much admired the view of a classical temple which is to be seen through a well-placed gap. He admired it to the extent of a pipe upon the spot. Within the ruin, Paul sat on a fallen stone, and fell on silence. Returning from a tour of inspection, Judson surveyed him with amusement.

"Are you brooding upon a sonnet, Kestern?" he enquired, feeling for his matches again.

"Well, those blessed monks of yours did themselves proud, anyway," continued his companion. Puff-puff. "Wonder if we could get up a picnic here."

"Generations," said Paul. "When they first came, they starved in the forest on berries while they ploughed and planted lands, and lived in daub and wattle huts. Slowly, piece by piece, they raised all that, to the honour and glory of God. The place was a prayer in stone."

"They knew how to choose a site," remarked the practical Judson. "Wonder if it could be repaired?"

Paul kicked a stone savagely from his path. "I'm sick of being called a rum ass by everyone," he said. "I see nothing rum or asinine in what I said."

"Nor am I," retorted Paul gloomily, "and anyhow what I said had nothing to do with poetry."

"Well, let's get lunch at that place by the gate. The poetry in a ham sandwich is what I want at present."

That night, over and after a "high" Yorkshire tea, Paul was able to study Congregational ministers. A round dozen of them sat in Mr. Judson's study beneath a large engraving of the late Mr. Spurgeon in the act of preaching from the pulpit of his Tabernacle. Paul was interested in their apparently infinite variety. There was the type he knew well in the Church of England Claxted circles, the sincere, lovable, earnest, bearded sort who do not smoke and are rather silent in a general conversation. There was the hearty, bluff, unclerical sort, who do smoke and who talk a good deal and tell humorous anecdotes. One such related with great good humour how he had been knocked up one rainy night in mistake for a High Church parson, and asked to bicycle five miles to baptize a dying baby a few hours old. A young man in a corner, in a Roman collar and a frock coat, asked if he went.

"Go? Not I! D'you suppose I'd go out on a cold night to sprinkle half a dozen drops of water over a baby? I told the fellow I was sorry, but that if he was wise, he'd go home to bed, as I proposed to go. And I shut the window before he answered."

Two or three laughed, Paul could not see why. "That's like you, Joe," said Mr. Judson.

"More fool you then," retorted Joe, apparently living up to his reputation for bluff good humour.

"I do not think so," said the young man. "The ceremony may mean a great deal to the mother, and the Church ought to be human enough to cater for all. That kind of attitude gives people a wrong impression of Nonconformity."

"Not so wrong as the impression you'd give," put in a third missionary hotly. "The Church of Christ cannot cater for sacerdotalism."

"What did you think of the Moderator's address?" asked Mr. Judson of the company in general, a little too quickly, Paul thought. But he thought also that he had seen yet another type in ministerial Congregationalism.

Rolling Londonwards, watching the speeding fields and the quiet sleepy Midland villages, Paul turned over the kaleidoscope of his vacation and realised that he was approaching a return to Claxted with something like dismay. Dismay, however, did not last long. He was determining at all costs to preach something of the new spirit that was in him, and to show Lambeth Court and Apple Orchard Road that with broader sympathies and a more theological outlook could also march all the zeal and fervour of evangelicalism. The train slowed down for Leicester. A figure of outstanding dress and height detached itself from the little throng of waiting passengers, and selected his compartment. The newcomer carried an attaché case, a leather package of odd and awkward size, a suitcase, and a box of lantern slides, and he was moreover encumbered with a travelling rug, a silk hat, an overcoat, and a stick. Paul assisted with these, and the stranger sat down opposite him. Paul's eyes took in his gaitered legs and his silk apron, and rested even more enquiringly on his purple stock. It was his first personal meeting with a bishop. They two were alone in the carriage.

"Thanks," said the Bishop. "I'm sorry to be hung about with things like this, but I don't seem able to dispense with any of them."

He sounded quite human, and even friendly. Paul wondered who he was and if he ought to introduce "my lord" at once into the conversation. However he blackballed the idea. "I know," he said. "I always seem to accumulate heaps of things myself."

"Well," said the other, a twinkle in his eye, "it's a nuisance, you know, being a bishop, and especially a bishop from abroad, home on leave. You've got to fit in so much. There's lecturing and passing proofs and preaching, and a bishop has to carry so many things around with him."

"Does he?" said Paul, smiling and meeting the other's mood, "I fear I don't know what he wants. But—er—may we introduce ourselves—er—my lord?"

The big, clean-shaven, young-looking prelate chuckled pleasantly. "Certainly," he said. "I'm the Bishop of Mozambique, and as I'm only a colonial, you needn't call me 'my lord,' you know, unless you like."

Paul looked at him with increased interest. Of course; he ought to have recognised him. He was an extreme High Church bishop, not unknown to controversial fame. "I'm Paul Kestern, of St. Mary's," he said.

The other laughed outright. "We'll agree to differ, and get on famously," he said. "And where do you come from just now, Mr. Kestern?"

Paul determined in a moment to be quite frank. "A Children's Special Service Mission in the Isle of Man, the Keswick Convention, and the Congregationalist Congress in Ripon," he said, very gravely.

"Good," said the other. "From which I gather you are a Nonconformist candidate for the ministry."

"Wrong," said Paul. "I'm Church of England, or I think I am still. And I'm going to be a missionary, or"—and suddenly for the first time he saw, clearly, the gulf that might be ahead—"I pray God that I am."

The Bishop's smile died away, but his tone was none the less kindly when he spoke after a few minutes' quiet scrutiny of the other's face. Then: "Mr. Kestern," he said, "I take it, if you won't think me rude, that you are going through the mill like the rest of us have had to do."

And Paul, impulsively, nodded, and in a few minutes was opening his heart, while the miles slipped fast away and the train rushed as easily as destiny along its railed road.

"You can't be a Roman Catholic," said the Bishop decisively when Paul had finished.

" Vox corporis, vox capitis ," retorted Paul; "and if the Church has no head, no ultimate authority, how can it speak?"

"The Church has ultimate authority. It resides in the whole college of bishops dispersed throughout the world. The Papal power is a growth due to various human circumstances, and in its final definition is contrary to the true Catholic faith."

"Surely that's what every heretic has said of every definition. That's what was said when every creed came to be formulated in order to safeguard the faith against the increasing theorising of men. That's what the Congregationalists say about the Sacraments."

"But the test lies in the acceptance of the new statement by the whole Catholic body."

Paul nodded eagerly. "And for four hundred years at least the whole Catholic body accepted Pope Leo's definition of the Papacy, which is good enough to justify it, and, sir, has the whole Church accepted your theory? Have even the English bishops accepted it? Are you not almost alone on the bench in your views?"

"Well, but judge for yourself. Read your Bible and pray. Is there a Pope in the Holy Scriptures? Wasn't the First Council of Jerusalem a meeting of the college of bishops?"

"And that," retorted Paul, "is what they said at Keswick. 'Read your Bible and pray.' Only, let alone the Pope, most of them don't see even a bishop at Jerusalem!"

The big man took it in good part. "Someone has been prompting you, young man," he said kindly.

"Well, don't judge Roman Catholicism by its appearance in England. It's at its best here. It wears Sunday clothes. Priests don't keep mistresses in England, and the worship of the saints is not quite the idolatry it is in Italy."

"Concubinage is a regular thing in Spain," went on the other suavely. "In France they're very dubious about the Pope. In England, below the surface, they are as disunited pretty nearly as we are. In South America, the people would have more religion if they were still heathen."

Paul recalled, in a swift flood of memory, his meeting with Father Kenelm at Cambridge. He recalled his stories of immense adoring crowds, of persecution willingly endured, of heroic self-sacrifices for the propagation of the faith. Still more he remembered how the father, eagerly talking to him, had seemed to take it for granted that he was a Catholic; and how he, feeling that he must be honest, had said he was not; and how instantly, across the crowded drawing-room, without a trace of nervousness or any sense of indecorum, the sudden stab of the poignant question had flashed—"Oh, but Mr. Kestern, surely you love our Lord?" Would such a man condone immorality?

The boy's face hardened. "There was an Iscariot among the Apostles, Bishop," he said.

The train began to slow down, and the Bishop stirred to gather his traps. "My lord," said Paul, curt in his ardour, "you merely propound a dilemma. Either the Holy Ghost has kept silence as to the essential central authority of the Church till He showed it to Anglo-Catholics seventy years ago, the devil triumphing meanwhile, or—or——"

CHAPTER VI
MOUNT CARMEL

Then Job answered and said: "Oh that I knew where I might find Him."—JOB xxiii.

There is no proof of God's existence, and you must first of all believe in it if you want to prove it. Where does he show himself? What does he save? What tortures of the heart, what disasters does he turn aside from all and each in the ruin of hearts? Where have we known or handled or embraced anything but his name? God's absence surrounds infinitely and even actually each kneeling suppliant, athirst for some humble personal miracle, and each seeker who bends over his papers as he watches for proofs like a creator; it surrounds the pitiful antagonism of all religions, armed against each other, enormous and bloody. God's absence rises like the sky over the agonising conflicts between good and evil, over the trembling heedfulness of the upright, over the immensity—still haunting me—of the cemeteries of agony, the charnal-heaps of innocent soldiers, the heavy cries of the shipwrecked. Absence! Absence! In the hundred thousand years that life has tried to delay death, there has been nothing on earth more fruitless than man's cries to divinity, nothing which gives so perfect an idea of silence.—HENRI BARBUSSE: Light (translated by Fitzwater Wray).

In Mr. Kestern's study the curtains were close drawn and no gas had been lit. They were heavy crimson curtains, thick and old-fashioned, and they hung motionless, completely screening the windows. A fire flickered fitfully in the grate, with so little light that the army of dancing invading shadows rushed even more and more tempestuously and overwhelmingly forward towards it. They leapt over the sombre-backed books in their close rows on the shelves around the room, flicking a letter tooled in gold here and there as they passed. In the corners they already ruled supreme. High upon the walls they hung, like gathered clouds. Only immediately before the grate, where the big secretaire stood with its roll-top lid pushed back, was their kingdom not yet.

The little light showed the open desk, its half-filled and neatly-labelled pigeon-holes, its inkstand, blotter and loose papers. Left and right of the centre, the big drawers were all shut, save one, that gaped half-open. The heavy piece seemed almost as it were to brood over that drawer. It was seldom open. It held Paul's old school reports and essays and some ancient sermon notes, chiefly things he did not guess were still in existence. A few of them, disordered, lay half in, half out, tossed down there by a quick movement. One lay on the floor, white in the gloom, as it had fallen from the reader's hand.

The reader himself had slipped from his seat. The revolving chair in which he had been sitting, was pushed slightly back, and he himself was kneeling, head forward, face hid in his hands. Mr. Kestern often prayed there thus, busy at his sermons, and there was a footstool below the desk for him to kneel upon. But he was not kneeling on it now. His was no premeditated praying. He had dropped the manuscript, turned the gas hastily out, and fallen forward there, in one swift motion, some half-hour or more ago. The fire had thus begun to die, but he paid no heed. His head, with its hair already more nearly white than grey, had scarcely moved in his hands for all that time.

Yet if the man's bowed shoulders were all but motionless, the rapid agonised thoughts lanced this way and that without ceasing through his tortured soul. Now they were flying back down the years, revealing, like lightning flashes, other great moments in the drama of his son: the moment he had knelt praying—good God, how he had prayed!—and waiting for the news of the birth in the room above; the moment when he, and his wife with him this time, had knelt and wrestled with God in an agony for the life of the lad upon whom the consulting doctors were even then pronouncing a final decision. In each case, there had been steps at last outside announcing what had seemed and what he had acclaimed to be a veritable miracle. But now—ah! now....

"'Father, if it be possible...' 'The Lord, Who hath redeemed us from all evil, bless the lad...' 'Lord of All power and might...' 'Master...'"—it was in broken phrases that he prayed. It was, indeed, a prayer not truly of words at all. Mr. Kestern, stricken as he had never dreamed he could be stricken, flung his racked and aching soul at the feet of his God.

And it was all so still: the silent dance of the shadows, the silent existing of the heavy curtains and old-fashioned furniture, the silent, broken man. It was still outside in the suburban street, dank and unlovely in the dull December evening. It was still high up where the lowering clouds, heavy with snow that year, hid the moon. And God on His throne sat still.

"Oh, my God, spare me this thing.... Thou knowest.... Let not Satan triumph over me.... The boy is Thine—given, dedicated, bought;—save Thou my son, my only son. Yet not my will, but Thine be done.... Ah, but it cannot be Thy will—this deceit, this lie! O God of Truth, open his eyes that he may see wondrous things out of Thy Word...."

Knives, lances—each broken sentence was one such. And truly Mr. Kestern would have counted his heart's blood a light offering if thereby he might have saved his son. His heart's blood! He was offering even more as he knelt there now. His faith and love were breaking his soul upon the wheel, and not one blow would he spare himself.

And within, without, above, silences, interwoven silences, a veil—inscrutable.

The handle of the door turned, futilely since the door was locked. Mr. Kestern rose slowly, and opened it. Mrs. Kestern came in. "Father!" she exclaimed. "Your fire's nearly out! And no gas? Whatever— Oh, father dear, what is it? How long have you been here alone? Why didn't you call me in? Let me light the gas for you."

She walked over and lit the yellow jet, turning again to the man who stood, silent and motionless, by the table. Her eyes took in the drawn face, the haggard brow, even the signs of a man's difficult tears. She moved swiftly to him. "Father!" she cried again, "what is it? Has anything happened to Paul?" One hand reached up to his shoulder and the other was pressed hard on her heart.

"No, no, Clara," said the man. "He's written, that's all. In advance of his coming, I suppose, so as to prepare us. You had better read what he says."

His wife detected the bitter, hopeless pain that underlay the words. Her glance, too, read aright the open drawer and the disordered papers. Mechanically she reached out for the letter. "He's still our boy," she cried, inconsequently.

The old Puritan straightened himself. "A son of mine a Roman Catholic!" he cried. "What is my sin that God should bring this upon me? Would God he had died first!"

"Father!—no!—oh, don't say that! I can't bear it, I can't bear it. Oh, God help us, God help us——" She sank heavily into a chair, her body shaken with sobs.

Mr. Kestern moved over, and laid his hand on her shoulder. It was an utterly pathetic gesture that he made, as if, whatever her grief, they were both of them powerless before it. "He's not taken the step yet," he said as one catching at a straw. Then, bitterly, "Or he says not. He wishes to consult us first. But you can read that his mind is made up. They have trapped my boy."

"It's quite short," said Mr. Kestern heavily, as he recrossed the room and seated himself in his chair, and then, with that new bitterness, "short and sweet. You can read between the lines.

"'I know that what I am going to say will give you terrible pain, and believe me, it is only after hours of real agony in prayer for light that I have come to something of a decision. Not by the way that I have really come to a decision at all, for I shall take no step, now or at any time, without consulting you first. Please, please, believe that. But I feel I must tell you definitely that it seems to me very likely that I shall make my submission to the Church of Rome.' ('Make his submission!'—do you notice that? Submit to the Devil! Our Paul!) 'I do not love our Lord one whit less than I ever did; indeed I think I love Him more. It is because I love Him that I shall take this step, if I feel it to be finally right. If I go, I shall go because it seems to me to be His Will and that the Catholic Church is His one True Church. I know you will find it all but impossible to understand, but, dear father, for God's sake believe me when I say that I believe I go to Him because He is the Truth and because I believe that that is His Truth.'"

"'Truth!' That tissue of lies and Devil's deceits! Oh, the power of the old Enemy! I would never have believed it possible of our boy, the son of our prayers, our Paul. But no son of mine——"

"Father, father, don't! For my sake, stop. He won't go—he can't go. You will be able to talk to him. He knows the Word of God too well to be led so awfully astray. Don't get angry, dearest, don't, I beg you. It—it'll pass, this trial. It breaks my heart to see you look like that."

"My heart is broken already, I think, Clara. 'His one true Church!' If anyone had told me that Paul, Paul——"

"Father, let's pray. God will help us. He won't allow the Devil to take our boy. Let's pray, and trust Him, dearest. He's never failed us yet. Do you remember when Paul was so ill——"

That night, too, as if the odd development of life wished to make a secret jest of it, Edith Thornton made her great resolve. She put on her coat and hat, made an excuse about some Christmas shopping, and went out into the foggy air. The shop-fronts were gay and tempting, but she had no eyes for them to-night. Edward Street was full of hurrying foot passengers, intent on their own business, but cheerful with the good-will of the season when they blundered into each other or dropped their parcels. She steered through them scarcely aware that they were there. Her own eyes, if any had looked into them, would have revealed a tension of spirit and a high purpose which accounted for all that. Deep down in her, unreasoning and unreasonably, she knew that she was about no light adventure. Yet it was all so absurdly simple and commonplace.

In Wellington Road the stripped trees dripped gloomily in the dark. Little sharp pats of falling moisture were distinctly audible on the carpet of dead leaves that strewed the long old-fashioned gardens on either side. This street, but little used, was almost deserted, and the lamps gleamed at rare intervals. Edith lived, as it were, from lamp-post to lamp-post. She bade her unwilling feet reach that next one, and that next, and that next; and so she passed.

Within St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church lights shone gaily. The building, of no great size, laid no claim to architectural glory and harboured no air of mystery or double-dealing. But Edith's heart beat fiercely as she went up the path. In the porch, she stared at the untidy notice-board stuck with black-edged funeral cards requesting prayers for the dead, at the poster of a New Year whist drive, and at the stoup of holy water. This Christ's Church! But even as she looked, her simple mind swiftly adjusted values. Paul's letters, and her own secret reading, had taught her to do so. She understood how one might, for example, come to believe in prayers for the dead, and how, if so, there would be nothing against printed reminders, and how, if so, such reminders would naturally be placed in the church and might, equally naturally, get a little dirty. Holy water too; well, it was in the Old Testament, more or less, and its saving logic adumbrated in the New. But the whist drive was a stickler. Would the Apostles have tolerated cards? ... But she would go through with her visit of enquiry now.

She pushed open the door and looked in. Then, with a quick little gesture, entered, and let it swing to behind her. And there she stood, looking curiously round the place, with that unreasoning fear taking ever more steadily possession of her heart.

The altar was lit with many candles. She stared at it almost literally with a sort of horror, as if it were a monstrous thing. The statues about, the odd pictures, the praying people here and there, even the entry of a man into a confessional and the fleeting glimpse of the head and shoulders of the priest, were small things. That altar stood to her for everything. Authority, logic, history—what were they to a girl? Oh, well, these had a place, perhaps; she liked to hear Paul speak of them; she assented to what he had to say; but one thing more than any other had gripped her, how or why she knew not, in all this strange talk of this incredible religion. The Baby in the Manger, the Sacrament on the altar—suppose that were true? And she had come to see; come up out of Galilee of the Gentiles to Jerusalem that is from above; come up from afar like the Wise Kings. Where is He that is born King of the Jews? she asked, trembling, in her heart. Here! What, among those candles, under that strange canopy—He?

So she stood hesitating. An old woman, bent, clean, made a deep curtsey in the aisle and came noisily down to the door. As she passed Edith, she looked up, surveyed her for a moment, and smiled. "A happy Christmas, honey," she said. "Go forward, and sit down. Himself is waiting you."

Edith smiled an answer, mechanically. She did not question the odd saying. Neither then nor later did she doubt that the thing was a miracle. She went forward. "Himself is waiting you," she repeated wonderingly. It was as if a deep musical bell had pealed within her, and a whole sweet carillon broken out. "Himself is waiting you, Himself is waiting you, Himself is waiting you," rang the merry bells. She actually flushed a little. She sat down in a pew and stared at the altar.

Amid a host of confused unknown objects which shone and blended the one in the other, she perceived a kind of box. It had curtains, she saw, and they were drawn. Why drawn? Her eyes wandered upwards. She perceived that from the four corners sprang metals which met above after an interval and upheld a cross. The little gold, shining thing held her for a moment. Then she looked into the space beneath. Candlelight gleamed, sparkled, leapt, on a brilliant, glittering something not unlike a vase filled with scintillating flowers. In the very heart of the flowers gleamed a living white. She stared at it. And then, suddenly, all untaught, she knew.

"Himself is waiting you; Himself is waiting you; Himself is waiting you"—lower and even lower, a faint whisper of music, the little peal rang on. But she did not believe ... Yet for centuries on centuries, Paul had said, men had thought ... Martyrs had died ... Saints had seen.... He? Well, a Baby.... Like her last-arrived sister, tiny, puckered, remote, dear. He? Suppose that that small white circle was a little window, through which her soul could pass; could pass and pass; to His embrace, His tone, His heart.... Slowly, very slowly, Edith Thornton, who envied dear, eager, clever Paul since he had so much to give, slipped forward en her knees, and closed her eyes.

And then, in the fragrant, gleaming silence of her mind, there arose a little fear. She watched it come. It was very small at first, like a man's hand. Only it grew and grew, till it filled all her gaze and thundered in her soul's ear. Wave on wave it thundered, thundered and broke, this overwhelming mastery of fear. And she knew quite well why she was afraid. Her soul had passed through the little door, but it was lonely there. "Paul, Paul, dear, dear Paul!" she cried, striving so hard to see him. "Paul!"—the echoes went wandering down the corridors of her soul, and came reverberating back to her. She was alone—alone. And the light died, and the music died, and she was very sore afraid.

And then He came. Walking through the dark He came, seeking her. She saw Him, only there was no sight. The very scent of His robes was sweet, only there was no smell. He spoke, too; clearer than the noise of the water-floods that drowned her, louder than the great winds roaring through the lashed Hursley pines, she heard Him, only there was no sound. And she knew what He said, only there was no thought. "It is I," He said, "I, I; be not afraid."

She gripped the feet of Him, and marvelled as she did so that they should tread her down so ruthlessly, so immeasurably happy. And she cried up to Him—"Paul, Paul! Oh, Master, give me Paul! Don't take Paul away! I can't live without Paul!"

She sobbed; she choked with sobs. "Paul!" she tried to cry, "Oh Master, dear dear Master, give me Paul—Paul!" And the sound, that was no sound, echoed away and away and out on great mountain places, vast and bare. The White Feet slowly died between her hands. She looked up. "It is I," He whispered, bending over her. She looked right into His eyes, down, down, down. She had not thought death could be so unutterably sweet.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. "Can I do anything for you?" said a man's voice. "Please excuse me asking, only you seemed in trouble."

She felt ashamed because her face was wet with tears. Also she did not know what to say. Long afterwards, she realised that what she had said was a second miracle. "Father, please," she said, like a child, "I want to—to come in."

Paul himself that night, whose soul's welfare was already so great a trouble to so may diverse persons, was, almost for the first time, not thinking of religion at all. To his lips the gods were early lifting the immortal chalice in whose draught lies utter bitterness. That which had been to him a kind of visionary thing, a holy grail floating on light between heaven and earth, had taken form between his hands. He had, indeed, hoped for something one day of the sort, but not that the laurel leaves should be plucked for his head before he had even taken his degree. True, they were as yet in shadow rather than in substance, but others were seeing that crowning shadow even more than he.

He was by this time in his last year, in the first autumn term of it, and that very term a firm of publishers had accepted his first book of poems. Tressor's name had brought it within the range of practical politics, but since then one or two critics had read the boy's verse and offered the usual qualified praise. But in the qualifications ran a sincere note. It had impressed the publishers. They had consented to publish at their own expense, and had even offered a royalty after a sale which they had estimated at the outside possible probability. For Paul's first cheque bugles should blow—in fairyland.

But then Paul was already in fairyland. Manning had suggested that the success of "The Literary Lounge" warranted an annual dinner, and Donaldson had added the corollary that this triumph of the club's first president ought to be celebrated in town. The idea suggested, it had seemed obvious and inevitable. Term over, Paul had gone down to Manning's home in Oxfordshire for a fortnight or so, and now both had come up together for the celebration. Paul was Manning's guest at the Balmoral for the night, and a private dining-room had been engaged at an hotel on the river side of the Strand. Finally, that there should be no lack of glory, Tressor himself was the guest of the evening.

The evening Manning and Paul arrived there was a wonderful sunset, as if the heaven itself would fling an earnest of the boy's success across the world. From the Strand, the great golden glow seemed to burn behind the Admiralty Arch, far off, behind the Park and the great Palace. The spire of St. Martin's and the incredible globe on the top of the Coliseum caught its radiance, and, looking east, the whole façade of the busy street shone with that unimaginable radiance. The great central column of the Square burgeoned black and monstrous against it. Whitehall was an avenue of glory washed with fairy gold.

Yet it was things undistinguished and unbeautiful in themselves that gave the best effects. Slipping through back streets to Leicester Square, the two friends were now and again brought to a complete stop. Between the great bulk of a towering house utterly blocked in with shadow and some tawdry outpost of a spreading theatre splashed with advertisement, they would see a patch of sky twisted into writhen cloud, royal, amber, impenetrable. Some Titan, striding through the heavenlies, had flung his Bacchic scarf from him. Stained with the purple of his feast, it fell across the world, an orange symbol of drunken ecstasy.

The other's face remained immobile. It was odd to see how that splendour shone on his hair and eyes, odd, Paul thought, because his friend's face was hard, and no less hard for that caress. "Surely you must think so!" he exclaimed.

"'I am all that has been and that is and that shall be, and no mortal has ever raised my veil,'" quoted Manning.

Paul looked up and away. "We cannot even touch it," he said suddenly. "I've never thought of that."

A suggestion of the after-glow still hung suspended in the sky as he bathed and dressed. He ran his blind up to see it as he stood in his shirt-sleeves before the glass. But even the poet in him could not be holden by such beauty to-night. The earth was too real beneath his feet. It was so wonderful that he, Paul Kestern, should be standing dressing there. Memories came and went like meteors through his mind. He remembered his first sonnet. He remembered how, for the first time, in the harsh atmosphere of a school class-room and through the, to him, uncertain medium of a Latin poet, the first glimpse of fairy lands forlorn had come to him, and the magic casement opened. A new master had found them plodding wearily through Horace and had, by an impulse, stayed the halting construe of—of—(yes, it was old Lammick; he thought he had forgotten Lammick!)—of Lammick, to render the thing himself. As he spoke, it was plain that he had forgotten the boys, and so far as Paul was concerned, he had very soon forgotten the master. Only he saw the old Roman singing woven words of music about unutterable things.

And he saw himself going up for his scholarship exam. He had painstakingly read Macaulay's essays in the train for style. He remembered putting his old Waterbury on the desk before him so that each question might have fifteen minutes. He remembered—oh, he remembered the look of the commons on his first breakfast table, a ploughed field the first time he walked to Coton, the stained glass in the Round Church East window seen from the Union writing-room, villas in the Cherry Hinton Road, a print on David's stall in the market-place, rain on Garret Hostel Bridge, Clare Avenue one very early morning. Then he saw, suddenly, grotesquely stretched bodies and legs, sprawled fervently by praying men in the Henry Martyn Hall. He heard one of them speak: "O God, make all slack men keen ." Paul chuckled to himself, because he loved it so.

Then he wished vividly and acutely that he had finally rewritten that line in the proof of his book. It was about brown withered ivy on the trunk of a pine in Hursley Woods. There was a little curl of brown hair too that slipped always under Edith's ear. He would give her the first copy himself, if he had to go to Claxted personally and especially to do it. He would give it her in Hursley Woods. No he wouldn't; he would give it her in Lambeth Court. He would take her for a walk. They would go past the "South Pole." They would walk up to the lamp-post, and he would hand her the book. "That's yours," he would say, "all of it. And I still want to preach in Lambeth Court though I did write it. Now what do you say?"

Manning put his head in. "Great Scott, Paul," he said, "what's all the noise about?"

Paul flushed guiltily. Then he laughed. "I can't help it, Manning," he said. "I feel too bucked for words. I know I'm quite mad, but I can't help it."

And it was jolly threading the busy Christmas streets in a taxi, arriving at the hotel door, having a man in uniform open it for you so importantly, hearing the girl in the office tell the page to take the gentlemen to the Literary Lounge dining-room, and the finding of it full of men awaiting them. There was Donaldson, explosive but genial, warmed with excitement already. "Hullo, Kestern! Damned glad to see you again. I say, I congratulate you, you know, but didn't I always say you'd do it?" And Strether, looking big and ungainly in his black clothes that never fitted particularly, but smiling grimly. "Felicitations, Kestern, and all that sort of thing." ("By Gad, Gussie, felicitations! Keep that for your speech, old horse. What's that? Always making a row? Ha, ha, ha—that's damned good! Good old Gussie!")

Tressor put Paul at his ease. He was so big and smiling; he talked so easily; it was all so natural to him. He was on Paul's right, of course, and Paul could look past him, down the table, at them all, Manning at the other end, glancing up now and again, with a reassuring nod. Judson, by the way, was there, for he had insisted on admission to the club and had turned out the coolest critic of them all. Paul smiled to see how he enjoyed himself; and he drank his unaccustomed wine and leaned back in his chair at last, when he had made his speech, with all self-consciousness gone from him.

But it was hard to sit still and listen to Tressor. The chief guest of the evening rose to respond to the toast in his slightly heavy way, but he smiled down the disordered table and met the eyes turned to him as if he were no more than an undergraduate himself. He talked of the college and of literature, as he was in duty bound to do; he introduced an anecdote or two; at last he turned slightly to Paul. Well, at any rate, they had reason to hope great things from the president. He might perhaps say there that from the first he had detected in the verses the president had been good enough to show him, the true mark, the real spirit of a poet. He was very grateful for the part he had been able to play in advising and reading, but it was genuine recognition that had led to the acceptance for publication of the book which they all expected so eagerly. It was a first book, and a youthful book, but he was not exaggerating when he said that he looked forward to the day when they would all be proud of having been among the first to recognise the author's undoubted genius and greet his first appearance in print. He anticipated that, in the days to come, they would remember this night with real pride. He thanked the club for having invited him to share in that. They had been good enough to say that they were honoured by his presence, but he assured them that he felt honoured to be there.

They toasted him. They toasted Paul. They toasted each other. Excitement, the toasts, the ring of friendly faces, the hot room, his own achievement—all these things intoxicated Paul. Tressor left. Donaldson proposed a music hall; Paul hardly realised that he agreed. In Leicester Square, people smiled as they tumbled out of their taxis, and the lights were blurred. Paul scarcely knew where he was till he found himself in the stalls.

Then came the gradual awakening. They were too near the footlights for one thing. The orchestra blared and crashed at them, and the solemn, tired faces of the men behind the fiddles began to obsess Paul. They laughed at no jokes, these fellows. They had heard them all a score of times before. There was no honest laughter on the stage, and Donaldson, next him, lolled about and held his sides at a painted travesty of humour. When a turn allowed, these performers crept out by a small black hole and returned presently wiping their lips. Of course, it was, it had to be, a business, but Paul saw it all through innocent eyes. Essential glory had glowed upon him from the sky; genuine tributes had blessed him on Tressor's lips; this began to shape itself as a horrible thing.

The great curtain went up and down inexorably. In the dazzling glow of the searchlights a couple of dancers pirouetted before him, painted, half-naked. His own face flushed; he glanced guiltily round. "By Gad, look at that girl's thighs," whispered Donaldson. Strether was bolt upright, cynical, his lips pursing in a way he had. The light glowed red, shadowed. In and out of the shadows, while the music rose and fell, those white legs twinkled and danced. Now back, now out again. A twirl of short skirts, and in a cascade of white, one throws herself backward in a man's arms. Paul seemed to meet her eyes as she looked out across the footlights, with the powder and rouge on her cheeks and her bosom all but bared. Thunder of applause; smiles, bows, a hand-in-hand appearance in the naked light of the great hall; Donaldson half on his feet, staring; even Judson clapping vigorously.

The other looked at him closely. "I'll come too," he said, and rose. "I don't want to see any more."

"No, no," said Paul, vehemently, "I'd rather go alone. Do you mind, Manning? I'm all right, only I'd like to walk back."

"Oh, I say, damn it all, you can't go, Paul. 'Tisn't done, my dear chap. Eyes in the boat, four! Sit still, sir."

"Shut up," whispered Paul savagely. "Everybody can hear you. Let me get out of this."

The loungers in the promenade looked at him curiously. A girl nudged against him; "Get me a drink, dear," she said in a low tone, and even half-rested a hand upon his arm. A feeling of all but physical sickness nauseated the boy. In the cloak-room, he thought that the attendant leered at him. In the street he dared not look at the folk lingering and passing below the steps.

Swiftly, drinking great draughts of the night air, he set off home. It was drizzling slightly, but he did not notice it. Staring straight ahead, he found himself hardly able to think, only dimly aware of street-lamps and great, black, velvet spaces. He was plainly not to be accosted in Piccadilly. In Knightsbridge, the streets emptier, he began to feel released. But not till he was in his own room at the hotel, and had thrown off his coat and bathed his face and sunk by his bed with his head in his hands, was he able to formulate his thoughts.

Then they came, in a torrential flood. He, Paul Kestern, called of God, destined for the ministry, even now at odds in his own inmost heart and with his best-beloved parents for the truth of Christ, had been drunk and had gone to a music hall. He was all superlatives and saw no door of escape for his soul. But to do him justice, it was not his own soul that he worried about. He scarcely thought of himself. He had indeed been thinking of himself most of the evening, but now he thought of his Master. "One is your Master, even Christ." His tortured conscience painted vividly to him the scene upon which he had dwelt often enough—the open courtyard; the fire in the corner, where the light leaped and danced on wall and gate; the sudden opening of a door; the buzz of voices, cries, torch-lights; the coward Apostle starting to his feet, while the guard felt for spears and came to attention; the passing of a young erect Figure with set face, Whose cheek was already reddened with a blow; and the turning of the head, so that the eyes of prisoner and betrayer met on an instant. He, Paul, had forgotten his Master. He, Paul, had denied his Master. He, Paul, had been shown the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and had fallen at the feet of the tempter.

Paul, then, tried to pierce the darkness and see. He did not sit by the fire and wait; he was up, in his soul, and out, searching for Him. In broken sentences, he was crying his confession, renewing his pledges, seeking for pardon. But it was to-night as though for long he sought in vain. "Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow," he prayed, and Manning's voice came echoing back: "How in the world can blood wash me clean?" He turned to stray phrases of the old hymns: "While others Thou art saving, do not pass me by," and Mr. Stuart presented himself before him, suave, smiling, and with the ghost of a voice: "Well, dear boys, have you given your hearts to Jesus? Is there one here who has not?"

He writhed upon the rack. He hated himself for all that he would not allow himself to think. Somehow Father Vassall crept into his mind, sitting in his old arm-chair at the presbytery in his ancient cassock, smoking a cigarette, looking at him with kindly eyes through the smoke. "Concubinage is a regular thing in Spain," said a clear, scholarly voice, with just that suspicion of veiled triumph in it that had goaded the boy to madness in the train.

"She has g-g-gentle fingers that nevertheless d-d-draw men to God." Father Vassall had quoted the words once, with his little stammer that somehow did away with all suspicion of effeminacy. The specks of light ceased to dance before Paul's closed eyes. It was as if he was in a very wide room. He grew still. His mind settled down to the great question. Did God really will that men should come to Him that way? What if he took a step forward? "Faith is a step in the dark." In the dark? But this was light! That glare over the footlights, that searching limelight, that had been darkness. In an audible whisper, his face hidden in his hands upon his bed, Paul made his experiment.

"Hail Mary" (he whispered) "full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus." Well, but that was merely a confession of faith that he might have made at any time. There was more. Should he dare it?

"Holy Mary"—it was like a solemn oath—"Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and in the hour of our death. Amen."

Silence, above, about, beneath. A veil of silence. But there was peace in the silence, surely, surely, the peace of God.

A few hours before, at Claxted, Madeline Ernest had been sitting alone by the fire, putting a few finishing touches to a blouse. It was a Christmas present for Ethel Cator, and it had to be finished that night. That was the worst of making Christmas presents. In a way it was rather fun, but before you had finished, the days had nearly always all but run out and you had to go on working when you were tired. Madeline was tired, but she wished she could afford to buy presents. Also to buy a few more things for herself—some silk stockings, for example; she put her head on one side to consider that. She looked very pretty as she did so. The lamplight shone on her fair abundant hair and her white skin. Big eyes, too, she had, and lovely lashes. It was a pity there was nobody more appreciative than the old purring tabby by the fire to see her.

She dabbed with her needle once or twice, and lifted the shining stuff. Through her pretty head a current of thoughts was flowing inconsequently. Then the door opened, and Mrs. Ernest came in.

Mrs. Ernest was short, comfortably stout, a little bent. She had been pretty, and she was growing grey. She was almost always tired, and with good reason. Mr. Ernest was not even a Vicar, and, truth to tell, she had ceased to hope that he ever would be.

"Yes, mother. I must finish this. Ethel always sends me something and I must remember her."

"He's written a book of poems and it's going to be published early next year. Mrs. Kestern told me this afternoon."

"Mother! You don't say so. How splendid!" The girl flushed with genuine pleasure and excitement.

Mrs. Ernest sat down in an arm-chair, and reached for her work-basket. She opened it with a little sigh. There were always socks or stockings in it, and no more than her daughter did she like mending them. She threaded her needle, and fitted the wooden heel into a sock. "Father had a talk with Mr. Kestern this morning," she said, vaguely.

Madeline straightened out her work. "Yes?" she queried, critically, as if to the blouse.

"Well, what about it? I like things a bit higher than father and Mr. Kestern myself."

"I know. You are so musical. I wish Tom didn't wear out his socks quite so fast. But Paul's getting very High Church."

"Yes, very. Of course your father would not wish you to know anything. Mr. Kestern told him privately. He's very worried about it."

"Well, I'm sure it would be too dreadful for the Kesterns if Paul became a Roman Catholic."

"Madeline! It would. I'm sure Roman Catholicism is very dreadful—there's the confessional. Though I must say it's worse for a woman than a man. And the Pope too. But that's the point. Suppose Paul became a priest. They'll get him if they can. Jesuits always try for clever young men."

"I know. But——" (There was a little pause.) "Madeline, does he see much of that girl, Edith Thornton?"

The girl put down her work and looked into the fire. She was silent. "Oh, I don't know," she exclaimed suddenly.

"Well, dear, I've thought once or twice he looked at her rather as if he liked her. I'm sure I don't know what he can see in her. But of course if he's a priest, he won't be able to marry at all."

"Well, my dear, I think it would be terrible for the Kesterns, Paul doing so well and all. Just too terrible. I am sure all their friends ought to try and prevent it. And if he becomes an author too, he's not likely to be a missionary after all. He ought to be a great preacher one day, and if he writes as well, I suppose it would help a great deal."

"Yes, I suppose it would." The girl propped her head on her hands, and stared into the flames.

For once, the girl got up at once and went over to her mother. Mrs. Ernest put her arms round her, and smoothed back her hair. She sighed. "I do hope you'll be happy," she said. "I'm sure I don't want anything except the best for my girl."

"No, dear, I won't. Only—— Dear girl, I expect Paul is very easily led. That Father Vassall now. And a good woman can have such an influence on a man, Madeline."

"Your father and I have prayed for you ever since you were a wee girl, darling, that you might marry the right man. Good-night, dear child."

"Yes. Take those cards round to the Kesterns in the afternoon, will you. If you see him, tell him how pleased we are about the book."

Madeline undressed slowly. Then she slipped on her dressing-gown and knelt by her bed. She habitually said the prayers that she had said since she was a little girl, and she said them now. But she said them a little more slowly than usual, and when she had finished, she did not jump at once between the sheets as she usually did. She knelt on, thinking.

She did not want to be a clergyman's wife anywhere really, in England or abroad. Yet she couldn't tell God that. But she did want to be a successful author's wife, only she could not tell God that either. She had never even told God properly about Paul, partly because she had never known quite what to tell. Now, however, she was realising just what it would mean to her if he became a Roman Catholic priest, utterly preposterous as it seemed. Besides, in her heart of hearts, it did not seem quite so preposterous as she had said. Paul was like that. Also, he was rather nice. Such a boy. Much to good for that Edith Thornton, only that also you couldn't tell God.

And then, quite suddenly, she did begin to tell God things. She really prayed. She said she was sorry for lots of things and that she would give them up. She prayed not to be always wanting nice clothes, and she prayed to have more faith. It was an expression, and she used it as such. For more grace too, she prayed, not really knowing what grace might be. And she meant that also. But her soul, not very big, at the best, truly immolated itself, and she did the very utmost she could with it. And when she had leaped upon the altar as well as she was able, and had gashed herself with great horrid knives of renunciation, she preferred her request. "Make Paul love me, O God," she whispered, "and make me love him very, very much."

So, then, at last, the pall of deep night settled down on half the world. Even Donaldson got to bed somehow. Manning, like Paul, walked back under the stars, whistling gently to himself in the more empty stretches. The dancer who had looked at Paul across the footlights slept, and the girl who had asked for a drink. Yet dancing and drinking and praying never cease altogether, nor does the voiceless cry of the world ever cease to echo through the silences.

CHAPTER VII
THURLOE END

The wild duck, stringing through the sky,
Are south away.
Their green necks glitter as they fly,
The lake is grey.
So still, so lone, the fowler never heeds.
The wind goes rustle, rustle, through the reeds.

Not thus, not thus are the wild souls of men.
No peace for those
Who step beyond the blindness of the pen
To where the skies unclose.
From them the spitting mob, the cross, the crown of thorns,
The bull gone mad, the Saviour on his horns.
JOHN MASEFIELD: Good Friday .

"Yes, sir. Been waiting 'arf an hower, sir. Trains that late. We've five mile to drive, sir, so if you'll get in...."

Paul deposited his suitcase in the dog-cart and climbed on to the seat alongside the driver. He was in the heart of the Midlands, and the lamps on the little country station were already being dimmed to save the Company's oil, since the next and last train of the day was not due for several hours. Outside the station enclosure, lights behind the red blinds of an inn threw a glow on the hard road, and from a cottage window or two came here and there a flicker; but these passed, they were speedily out into the open country. Trees loomed up against frosty stars; but for the most part high hedges hid even the fields on either side the narrow lane. A small moon, low on the horizon, swung up and down over them like a child's toy. The beast between the shafts kept up a steady trot, though now and again the steam of his exertion rose mistily in the radiance of the poor lamps of the dog-cart as he ploughed uphill at a walk. By his side, Paul's driver soon relapsed into the monotonous silence of the country. Paul himself, muffled up on his high seat, swaying a little with the motion, had time to think.

He was actually on his way to stay with Father Vassall, and he was aware that he was in doubt as to the issue of his journey. The last Christmas vacation and the ensuing Lent term had goaded him to the act. Christmas had been almost impossible at home, and the Lent term had shown him, every day more clearly, that he could not profess evangelical Anglicanism as a minister and a missionary. Claxted had stung him into that conclusion on every side. The atmosphere of the Mission Hall, sincere, earnest, zealous as it was, left him gasping now as a fish out of water. He had stood on its platform and not known what to say. The illogical inconclusiveness of the old attitude stared at him so starkly that he could no longer repeat the old shibboleths. The sermon in which one expounded a text as if the phrases of it and the entire context had dropped, verbally complete, like the image of the great goddess Diana, from the skies, and then exhorted, in words made as vivid and as practical as possible, to the vague sensationalism of "Come to Jesus" or "Accept Salvation," was now beyond him. The thing, left thus in the air, had become meaningless to him, and his very sincerity forbad his preaching anything in which he did not wholeheartedly believe. The Church and Sacraments, the old truths set in a practical system, these seemed necessary to the Gospel salvation. Yet a more thoughtful worker or two had already been offended by the vague and tentative phrasing in which he tried to hint at it.

Or again, though this he tried to suppress, the gorge of the poet in him would rise now against Moody and Sankey or Torrey and Alexander. Metre and rhyme had come to be things that he could not help subconsciously analysing, but it does not do to analyse mission hymn-books. Nor can one make a really successful evangelist if one is affected almost to desperation by a cornet out of tune, or tracts for distribution that are neither English nor common sense.

Lastly, the home atmosphere was electric with disagreement. He was out of tune with it all. There seemed no longer anything to talk about at table. Mr. Kestern was not interested in literature and art; with his politics Paul, feeling after Socialism, was in violent collision; the parish was no longer his world; and even into talk of the Second Coming of Christ would creep the voice of criticism, or into the Islington Conference the question of Rome. It was, of course, a common-place tragedy, but that did not make it the less tragic. The man had stood still, and the boy had gone on. Also, at the fork roads, he had taken the unfamiliar turn.

Full of it all, then, he was coming to stay with Father Vassall. He had determined to do that this once at least. He must talk things out with his friend. But should they come to a conclusion, and if so to what conclusion and with what results, that was the question.

Paul peered eagerly ahead. He could make out a dark, vague outline, and a wall on the left. "Wo-up, beauty," cried his driver to the horse. They came to a standstill before a big iron gate between tall red-brick gate-posts.

Paul climbed stiffly down, and swung his bag out. He found himself on a flagged path that ran up to a door set in a shallow portico in the front of a long, low, mellow Queen Anne house. It was not too dark to see a solid cornice and parapet. "The bell's on the right, sir," said the voice at the gate. "I'll drive on round to the stable."

Paul pulled the wrought-iron bell-pull, and somewhere in the black recesses a bell jangled. He heard a door open and the sound of feet. "All right, Bridget," called a familiar voice; "I'll let him in." A door opened somewhere. A faint glimmer of moving light shone through the glass panes and drew nearer. The front door swung open. Paul blinked in the light.

The priest stood with a lantern in his left hand. He wore his cassock, and was muffled in a cloak, with a black skull-cap on his head. His merry smiling face was turned up to Paul, clean shaven, youthful looking, the hair a little tumbled.

"Good evening, Father," said Paul. "Sorry I'm late. I've been longing to get here."

"H-how are you?" exploded the priest. "C-come in. It's splendid, your c-coming."

Paul passed in. He had the odd thought that it was all part of a dream. The passage was stone-flagged and the hall beautifully bare. An oak bench ran along one wall. There were a few carvings and weapons and curios about. A sombre print or two hung opposite: St. Francis Xavier in a high biretta, and an Entombment. The figure in black putting up the latch by the light of the lantern was mediæval and fantastic. Yet it was all real, and it was real that he, Paul Kestern, was there at last, in the house of a Catholic priest.

"Come in," said Father Vassall again. "You must be cold. Come and get warm before supper. There's a t-t-topping fire in the p-parlour."

He led the way, bustling forward with a swish of cassock, welcoming, kind. Paul entered the long low library, hung with panels of green cloth, and took in its satisfactory furnishing at a glance. The room rested quietly, waiting for him. With a swift mental comparison, he saw himself arriving at Claxted instead. Then he, too, laughed eagerly, and moved forward to the big open Tudor fireplace.

A log burned there brightly, the "royal flames" leaping in the iron grate behind a high screen. A deep green-brocaded arm-chair stood back in an ingle, a litter of papers on the rug near by, a shaded candle in a tall twisted candlestick throwing a pool of light down upon them. Above the fireplace stood unfamiliar incongruous objects: a white skull-cap that had been Pius IX.'s, in a glass-fronted box, and a black Madonna hung with beads. There was an unframed water-colour too, and a pencil sketch. From the rug, he turned to survey the room. Its bare wood floor reached out into the shadows, save where a goat-skin caught the light. Bookcases with white shelves stood out from the walls. On a stand in a window recess were tall lilies growing in a pot. The marble head of Bernard of Clairvaux, wrapt in contemplation, stood on a bracket; he could just see the aquiline nose, and downcast eyes. There was a solid narrow oak table with a chest below. In a corner there was a hanging lamp, burning dimly, so that one could see to move over there. It glinted on a grand piano. A comfortable chintz-covered chair or two stood about.

His host pulled forward an arm-chair whose elbows ended in carved griffin-heads. "Sit down," he reiterated, "and toast yourself. It is jolly to see you here. How's C-Cambridge?"

Paul drew a deep breath and seated himself. "Fine," he said. "I suppose it exists, by the way," he went on, with a laugh. "We went up four in the Lents. I say, this is just heavenly."

"Are you very busy, Father? We miss you awfully at Cambridge. When's the next book to appear?"

"I'm so b-b-busy I don't know what to do. Preaching nearly every Sunday, and lectures. I've got to l-lecture to Anglicans on M-Mysticism in t-town on Monday. Oh, I say, they are coming in. Two conversions last week, both c-clergymen and such good fellows. And it's such fun here. There's heaps to do yet. You shall see to-morrow."

He nodded, wrapping his hands in his cloak and laughing merrily. "Of course, when I came I built a chapel. It's an old barn, much older than the house, thirteenth century they say. It must have been a chapel before, I think; it feels like it. Well, all the village talked, of course. P-Popish treason and p-plot! Bridget told me, and Tim; all the servants are Catholic you know. But I wouldn't let anyone see it, for I'm not here regularly enough to start a new church like that. Perhaps we'll have another priest one day, and a Mission. Of course, if they enquire, that's another story. So, last week when several of them came to Tim and got him to ask me to have a service on Sunday evening, I did. It was full; p-packed. The Wesleyan local preacher came too. We had B-Benediction. Oh, you ought to have been here, my dear. They all sang 'Star of the Sea' b-b-beautifully!"

It was so like Father Vassall, Paul thought. He was as eager as a boy, and the Faith was a glorious kind of adventure with him. There was no checking his enthusiasm. In his company Paul always felt as if he were living in the times of the Apostles when Christians were a little persecuted, defiant, daring band, but the Cross and the Resurrection things of but yesterday. And although he always had a sense that the world of thought and action in which the priest lived was utterly remote from the world of the average man, still he had come to see that there was nothing of the poseur in his friend. He did not pose as a mediævalist; he simply was one. And he did not adapt his religion to the world; he adapted his world to his religion.

It was on that platform that the two met so readily. Paul was utterly accustomed to that point of view. Only at Claxted there was a different religion.

So now, at once, the little priest shot his swift question quite simply. "And how is it with you?" he asked. "Have you decided to l-l-let yourself g-go?" Not so differently does a Salvationist ask a sinner at the penitent form if he is saved.

Paul moved uneasily. "Don't, Father," he said; "don't ask me that yet. I can't say. I'm pulled all ways. Whenever I sit down to think, a great tangle grows and weaves in my mind till I'm in despair at ever deciding anything."

Father Vassall nodded. "I know," he said. "So it was with me. You're on the r-rack. Every n-nerve gives you pain. You've thought enough. You know enough really. If you went on reading and talking and arguing till d-d-doomsday, you'd get no c-clearer. You must turn simply to our Lord and do His W-Will."

The priest watched him in silence. Then he rose and felt for a cigarette. "You do know it," he said. "What you don't know is whether you dare do it."

"My father says I'm too young to make such a decision. He wanted me to go and see Prebendary——"

Father Vassall interrupted him. "See no one," he said. "Don't see me if you like. Go away alone and ask our Lord, in the light of what He has shown you. Oh, my dear! It's as plain as the n-n-nose on your f-f-face!"

"You began, as a boy, by turning to our Lord with all the love of which your heart was capable. You vowed to be His lover. And He weighed you, looked you through and through, and accepted you. Step by step He led you on. He showed you new things about Himself as you were ready to bear them. He trusted you. He never left you. And now at last, He has shown you Himself in His Church. You know He's there. I believe, in your heart of hearts, you have faith. And you hang back because you are afraid. You ought to be a Catholic. You ought to be a religious, a R-Redemptorist, I think. You're stamped and marked out for it. There! I've never said as much to anyone. God help you."

He ended abruptly, utterly earnest, and stared at the fire, stretching a hand out to it.

"I shall break my father's heart. How can I?" cried Paul, all the bitter agony of days at home and hours of prayer, sweeping down upon him.

The priest made a gesture. "Excuses. You know that too. 'He that loveth father or mother more than Me...' And would you break His heart?"

"Of course it's cruel. Wasn't the Cross cruel? Do you think Christianity is a d-drawing-room g-game? It's fire. It's a sword. It's death or life. Good Lord, what else has it been from the first martyr to the last, yesterday? And you k-k-know it."

"It's n-n-not," stuttered the priest instantly. "Our Lord never offers anyone a heavier cross than he can b-b-bear."

The passion of the declaration silenced Paul. But only for a few seconds. Then the full force of what it would mean to his people overcame him.

"You don't know my father," he half whispered. "He says he would rather see me dead. Oh, he says terrible things! Father, he will see nothing, nothing. And he always harps on the strain of my past religious experiences. I deny them, he says, if I become a Catholic."

"You do no such thing. What does he himself think, for example, happened at your Communions? He thinks Christ came to you spiritually and fed your s-s-soul with His S-Spirit. And so He did. The Church doesn't deny that. The Church says you will receive something within her that outside they do not even pretend to give. You are not asked to deny one whit of the past. And you know that too."

Paul sprang to his feet. "With you, it looks inevitable. You hypnotise me into believing. But there are heaps of things to be said. I do see the need for authority; I do understand the reasonableness of the whole philosophy—from the Incarnation to relics and indulgences—it's reasonable enough, it's logical; but is it true? Is Peter true? Is the Church what you say? Come to that, is the Gospel story itself true? Is it? Is it? Oh, my God, I would give everything to know!"

He stood there, hands flung out, his whole soul in his face. And as his tense voice ceased, the silence of the room hemmed them in.

Slowly Father Vassall got, too, to his feet. They faced each other across the rug, and the black Madonna, hung with dripping beads, thrust her Son out before them.

He nodded. "You see, you have the soul of a r-religious and that's no t-t-trifle. And there you dare to stand, asking if the story of B-Bethlehem and C-Calvary is true!"

The priest crossed the room, and came back from a little search on the table with a paper in his hand. All the merriment had died out of his face; it looked years older, wan. "I w-want you to p-promise me something," he said, stammering much again in his emotion.

Paul leant back against the mantelpiece, wearily. "What, Father?" he asked; "I'll do anything I can."

"You c-c-can do this, ea-easily. Don't let's argue any more all the time you're here. Don't read books, except the N-N-New T-T-Testament. And promise me to pray this every day in the chapel before the S-Sacrament with all your heart."

Paul took the half-sheet of notepaper, written in the clear print of the priest's hand. He read it through once, and then he read it through again, only, this time, the letters were a little blurred. Then he looked up at his friend.

"Father," he said, "I can't help it. I know this, whatever anyone says. You bring our Lord to me as no one and nothing else has ever done."

Father Vassall laughed meaningly. "Come to supper," he said gaily. "It's p-p-pork and b-b-beans. But I can give you a glass of Sp-Sp-Spanish B-B-Burgundy!"

In the chapel that night Paul prayed his prayer for the first time. The priest walked in before him and showed him to his chair and a prayer-desk with a courtly little gesture. The three servants sat behind. A candle was already lit for Paul, and one burned also for the priest in his corner. There was a white sanctuary lamp before the altar, and a red one on the left. Otherwise there was no light.

Prayers began with Scripture reading. Father Vassall had announced the fact with his odd air of almost playing with the thing. "We read the B-B-Bible every night," he had said. "Do you m-m-mind? We read for t-t-ten m-m-minutes!"

So now he sat back in his chair and composed himself to listen and to look. The priest opposite, a little black hunched-up figure, half turned on one side to allow the candlelight to fall on his book, had announced: "The Acts of the Holy Apostles" and begun in a matter-of-fact, rather rapid tone, to read. As when he preached, so when he read, he did not stammer, being shortly utterly engrossed in his subject. He read on, chapter after chapter, without break or division. Paul grew interested in the manner of it. The narrative rolled out before him as a whole, a simple, nervous, obvious story which singularly held even the attention of a listener who could have gone on, pretty well, wherever the reader had cared to stop. But after a while the boy allowed his eyes to rove. This story of Peter's doings—odd, how Peter dominated the early chapters—did not somehow seem out of place here. He began to apprise the details of the building and its furniture.

It was plainly a barn. It had a barn roof of ancient unstained timber, and a stone floor. The windows were irregular, uncurtained; he saw his little moon again, steady now, shining through the bare casement, just touching rough beams that spanned the irregular rectangle as a rood-screen. In the centre rose a cross with flanking figures. They were rudely carved, by the priest himself, but there was death in the white nude body of the Christ and passionate life in the upturned head of the Mary. John stood acquiescent; Paul wondered at his attitude. It hid him; perhaps there was conflict in his heart. Perhaps he understood. Perhaps, if one understood, conflict died down to peace.

The thin supports of the rood dropped down through the shadows to the floor. A little figure stood half-way up one of them. Oh, and in the corner, between the far support and the wall, stood another statue. Paul stared at it. Something writhed in the candlelight. Then he saw that it should do so. St. Michael trod down the dragon there.

Paul looked through the rood to the altar. High hangings ran up into the canopy, but it and they were lost in the shadows. In the centre, a cartoon was appliquéd upon them; a Madonna and Child; it was just visible. There were four candlesticks, silver; the candles were burned low in them. A silver figure hung on an ebony cross—or it looked like ebony. The tabernacle was a blur of white silk. A white cloth glimmered there; and below, under the altar, a row of painted carven shields. Paul could not distinguish more, but he knew them. He had seen Father Vassall at work upon them in his study at Cambridge. They emblazoned symbols of the Passion.

Then he began to concentrate on the gloom to the left, where the red light burned. The shadows were all confused and blurred. There were irregular outlines, streaks, shadowy lines. He puzzled out a small altar, with tiny candlesticks and a biggish case upon it, that shone fitfully. The lines radiated from the case, stuck through it, behind it, as though they were a bundle of spears. Spears! It was a spear; he could see, now, a gleam on the blade. Another was headed with a bunched object. And then he knew.

A small ladder, a sponge on a reed, a spear, a shorter stick dripping with the knotted cords of a scourge; these he could see now. And he knew too what the reliquary held.

If it was true, that little heavily guarded splinter within had once been stained with the Blood, the real, literal Blood, about which he had so often preached and sung. Just such thongs as those had bit into the reddening flesh, curled and twisted and hissed on white thighs and shoulders that shrank to the utmost limit of the cords in the human writhe and agony of Christ.... "But Peter and the Apostles answering, said" (the reader read on): "We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers hath raised up Jesus, whom you put to death, hanging Him upon a tree. Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be Prince and Saviour, to give repentance to Israel and remission of sins. And we are witnesses of these things: and the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to all that obey Him."

Paul stared out before him motionless, with set lips. Before him, plain, far far too plain against the dim wall, the twisting whips rose and fell.

"'In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen,'" said Father Vassall, and there was a little shuffling as they all knelt down.

Acts of Faith, Hope, Charity and Contrition; the Creed; Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be; odd-Englished prayers for night protection; more shuffling; now Paul and the priest were alone. It grew utterly still. Paul fumbled for his slip of paper and drew it out. The rustling dominated the whole chapel; it even seemed to stir the shadows that shifted always, silently, in the candlelight. He spread the paper on the desk before him. Slowly he prayed each sentence.

O Lord JESUS Christ, Who art the Way, the Truth and the Life,
Without Whom no man cometh to the Father,
No man is free,
And no man lives eternally,
Unite me wholly to Thyself that I may walk in light and truly live.

But Thy Way must be the Way of Sorrows,
Thy Truth sharper than scourges,
And Thy Life a losing of my own....

Give me therefore Grace—or rather Thyself, the Fount of Grace;
Carry me, for I cannot walk alone;
Enlighten me, for I am all darkness;
Live in me, for I cannot live except in Thee.

Let me count all things loss but Thee, since Thou didst count all
things loss except my love.
For me Thou didst leave the joys of heaven;
For me Thou wast born in cold and nakedness;
For me Thou didst bear the contempt of Thy creatures and
hadst not where to lay Thy head;
For me Thou didst die daily in the souls of those that
rejected Thee, and in the souls of them that loved Thee;
die therefore in mine that Thou mayst live and I in
Thee;
For me Thou didst suffer Thy Mother to be pierced with
swords, Who wast Thyself pierced with nails; pierce me
then too, and nail me to Thy Cross.

I offer myself wholly and without reserve to Thee Who didst count
nothing greater than my love:
My flesh is weak, as Thou knowest Who didst bear it,
But my spirit is willing, though sorrowful as Thine even
unto death.

Unite me then, body and soul with Thy Divinity;
My sins to Thy Redemption;
My weakness to Thy Strength;
My abyss of nothingness to Thy Plenitude.

I give myself to Thee, stained, shrinking and afraid;
Give Thyself to me, O my crucified God, and make me Thine.
Dear JESUS! Be to me not a Judge, but a Saviour!

He cried it again, and again. Tears blinded him. He choked them back. It was so still that he could not break the silence even with a sob.

The Truce of God held. It held so truly that for a brief succession of days Paul banished the major part of his doubts and haunting fears in the vivid atmosphere of Thurloe End. They did not sleep; they fled. He was not quiescent, but rather overwhelmingly alive. He drank a largely new and intoxicating drink.

It must be remembered for what, exactly, Claxted stood. Quite apart from the rights or wrongs of religion, there was a life in Claxted that was a sheer antithesis to this. It was an antithesis in small things as well as in big, in utterly unreasonable and stupid things as well as in vital ones. Thus, at Claxted, one never, at dinner or supper, sat down to boiled beans and bacon; if one had, it would not have been regarded as an adventure; moreover one never did sit down without potatoes. It is extraordinarily easy to make a mock of it, but there was a hid parable there. Food was food at Claxted; at Thurloe End it was a sacrament, and a merry sacrament of life. Nor was it less life because to Father Vassall it was Catholic life. Thus Father Vassall even ate fish and maigre soup on Fridays, and enjoyed disliking it. Most mornings there chanced to be early spring sunshine, and breakfast was served out of doors. Breakfast out of doors at Claxted would have seemed to verge on the profane, almost on the immoral. Tea, out of doors, in midsummer, yes; prepared for, with guests. At Thurloe End they ran in hastily for a little tea because they were so busy gardening, and the lights were not long. At Claxted wine was a mocker; at Thurloe End, the cask of Spanish Burgundy having just arrived, they bottled it with zest and solemnity.

At Claxted, again, the rooms were elect to their various ends. The drawing-room was for callers, tea and Sunday afternoons. The study was for sermons. The dining-room was the room in which one dined; in which Mr. Kestern rested for an hour after dinner; in which, after supper, all duly remained, with books or work, till prayers and bed. Moreover, there was routine order at Claxted, a pleasant, simple, kindly routine, but routine. A Puritan routine, too, it was of course. It had never struck Paul before, but no one laughed much at Claxted. The family was anything but solemn; possibly, temperamentally, it was inclined to be grave; but, then, on the other hand, it never, never rioted . Oh, except at a Christmas party, at hide and seek and blind man's buff. And now that one was grown up, one did not play such games.

On the other hand, at Thurloe, humour raced unrestrainedly. The morning's post brought laughter (and tears) with it always. The day's work was a perpetual surprise. Father Vassall would announce his intention of doing something with as solemn a determination as Mr. Kestern would have given to a month's holiday. "I shall wr-wr-write on the v-v-verandah all the morning," he would announce firmly. Or: "I shall r-r-read in the p-p-parlour for t-t-two hours." Sometimes he would go to his room, and not reappear till luncheon. Sometimes he would return to the chapel after breakfast for just as long. In the evenings, before the fire, he would read what he had written during the day, or Paul would read to him. Or they would make tapestry, or wood-carve, or Father Vassall would play the piano; or sit still, occasionally talking, but much more often sitting silently, while peace dripped slowly in on Paul's soul. One never did nothing at Claxted. He himself, in the mornings, usually strolled round till some corner seemed inevitable for a letter, a book, or a poem, or the little table in his bedroom beckoned inexorably to work. In a sentence, the day arranged itself; perhaps better, it presented itself arranged; at Claxted, as it was in the beginning, so it was, and ever would be.

Then again, at Thurloe End, the house was invested with a personality. Paul used to wander around at first, making friends. The rooms stood back, gravely, but with a smile hidden in them. The furniture belonged to the house, and had been selected by it, he felt, with care. It had chosen unvarnished oak, for the most part, because its tall, clear windows were looking up always to the light, and old oak is wise about light, taking its measure and passing the rest on enriched. Its chairs, forms, tables, bookcases, were like open hands, holding much graciousness. Moreover it was gravely proud of itself, and not ashamed of its wide walls and the pools of its floors. Where it held out a picture or a print, it did so with a curious restraint, yet with a kind of courtesy. It wore pictures like a beautiful woman wears jewels.

At Claxted there was no house at all. There was a middle-class home. Everything that the family had ever possessed, for three generations, was collected in it. The Kesterns said about a new possession that it would "go" there or there, and new possessions constantly poured in—testimonials, seasonable gifts, kindly presents from workers after summer holidays, another antimacassar after the Sale of Work, photographs, texts, missionary curios. Things overflowed on to each other: an occasional table on a rug; a crochet mat on a table; a pot on the crochet mat; a fern in the pot; a cover about them both; a picture above the fern; framed photographs below the picture; as like as not, in the end, a small basket under the table. Small baskets were always so useful for putting odds and ends in. And all the furniture and carpets and mats and pictures, jostled each other, and cried to heaven that here was no continuing city. Which, of course, is quite true, for we seek one to come.

Clocks were all over the house at Claxted; at Thurloe End there was one over the stable that struck the hours with much solemnity. Moreover it had its own views as to correct time-telling which, as Father Vassall said, was wholly right, since t-t-time was r-r-relative.

Paul told himself that religion had nothing to do with all this; that there were Catholic middle-class homes, and Protestant houses. He was not such a fool as not to know, too, that his own temperament liked the one and disliked the other, but was not necessarily right or wrong because of that. Yet after all we are all of us concerned with things as we meet them, and religion and philosophy, speaking in generalities, do shape people's houses, occupations and dress. Here, then, came the Greeks bringing gifts, generous gifts for which he felt he had been searching, at one time blindly, lately more definitely, all his days. If the gifts were of God, they would leave little room for doubt.

The days of truce, however, were not without event. The pair of them did portentous things. Up the centre of the garden ran an ancient overgrown hedge, tangled, vast; and through it, with axe and saw, they cut a leafy tunnel. In old flannel trousers, and shirts without collars, they laboured in the sweat of their brows, and cut their hands and scratched their faces and lost their way and despaired of finishing and finally attained. Just before sunset they emerged one warm delirious day, the scent of rising sap overflowing from the broken twigs and boughs about them, a mellow light on the wall across a small green ahead. Father Vassall cut the last impeding growth away, as was fit, but Paul dragged it behind. They stepped out together. The little priest looked about him with triumph, excitement and discovery on his face. So Bilboa hailed the Pacific, and Pizarro climbed the Andes. And so, also, Father Vassall had some such thought as they.

"A cross, just here, in the middle of that green," he cried. "One will b-burrow through the tunnel, and find the c-cross at the end!"

And then, suddenly, the merriment died out of his face, and the two looked at each other.

"Yes," cried Father Vassall, animation again. "I know of two s-saplings which will just do."

Paul turned back. "N-N-No!" spluttered his friend; "n-n-not through the tunnel now!"

Or, intermittently, they laboured at a rockery. The priest had been engaged upon it, but he took a dislike to the job soon after Paul's arrival. One day, after half an hour's work, he flung down his spade. Paul grounded a loaded wheelbarrow, and laughed.

"I will not have a r-r-rockery in my garden," said the priest, "not a made rockery anyway. I knew it was a bad idea."

One evening Paul related at length the incidents of the Port o' Man mission, and particularly that of Mr. Childers. Father Vassall heard him gravely. At the close he asked: "Do you know David Etheridge?"

"We'll go and see him to-morrow. Shall we? You'll like him. He lives about two miles off."

"He's a Catholic. He was a Spiritualist. He became converted because it was the d-d-devil."

They went, then, luncheon being over, the priest in his rusty country ulster, a little bent, preoccupied, grave; Paul swinging along in a tweed jacket eagerly. The few passers-by saluted the priest, and a clergyman on a bicycle looked at Paul intently. "He's the V-V-Vicar," said Father Vassall, bubbling with laughter. "He's a g-g-good man; I like him; but I expect he'd like to r-r-rescue you!"

David Etheridge lived in a small cottage, and he was pottering about the garden when they arrived. Paul had received no description of him and had no reason to expect one thing more than another, but the ex-Spiritualist's short, rather tubby figure and round, smiling, pink face, tickled him. He looked the last man in the world to have met with the devil. Anyway he seemed to have come well out of the encounter.

He greeted the priest eagerly, and was introduced to Paul without explanations. First he must show them round the garden. He had bulbs in the grass, and others hidden cunningly among tree-roots, and these he discovered with triumph. New green had been made, he declared, since yesterday, and in one spot there were six tiny thrusting points, when the brown leaves were raked away with discerning fingers, where at the last visit there had been but five. They bent lingeringly over them. "Wonderful, wonderful," cried Etheridge, in a subdued ecstasy. "I don't care how many times one sees them, they're wonderful!"

Paul looked from the face of the priest to that of his friend. There was genuine awe written on them both. It was odd, he thought, the outlook of everyone down here. He himself loved the beauty of that new determined virginal life, but these two saw more. They saw holy things.

Back in the cottage at tea, Paul's visit was frankly expounded. "I b-brought K-K-Kestern to see you, Etheridge," said Father Vassall, "because he's met a clairvoyant and seen a m-m-miracle. He's impressed, naturally. And the fellow talked to him no end. I want him to hear your side of the c-case."

"No," said Paul, "and that's what seems to me particularly interesting. It was in a very ordinary house at a very ordinary luncheon, and in the presence of four or five men who, as certainly as anything is certain, were neither accomplices nor credulous nor open to hypnotic influence. And it happened in broad daylight in about two minutes, while we all sat round and watched."

"What happened?" queried Mr. Etheridge, with a serious air that did not go so strangely with his face as a stranger would suppose.

"A pin, an ordinary pin, wobbled on a white tablecloth and stood on end, all by itself."

Paul, looking at him, loved him suddenly with a great passionate movement towards his childlike sincerity and profound faith. "Yes, Father," he said as gravely, "wobbled."

"Do you mind telling me all about it?" put in their host. "You've really begun at the wrong end of the stick, you know, Mr. Kestern."

And Paul told him. He told him everything, including the clairvoyant's statement that God was very far off.

When he had finished, David Etheridge nodded. "That would be it," he said. "So much of truth, so much of plausibility, a little release of power, and the grain of error that would, without God, crack even Peter's rock."

"It's simple, Father. He was perfectly right. It is no miracle, really, as he himself said. There is psychic power. It is as real a thing as that of my muscles, perhaps in a sense more real because more fundamental. All ultimate power may be psychic. And what he did with a pin, all the mystic saints have done, when necessary, again and again. Only they have done so under God and at His direction. Maybe God Himself, incarnate, only made use of some such hidden human power of His creation, when He walked the waves."

"Then Childers was right?" asked Paul, glancing at the priest however. Etheridge seemed to be contradicting the verdict of his friend.

"Right, and from our standpoint wrong too, Mr. Kestern. So far as his explanation of the pin went, he was right, but he was in the wrong since he was playing with a power only to be exercised along the lines revealed; and he was deluded by Satan when he spoke as he did of God."

"I don't understand," said Paul, bewildered. "Childers was a man of prayer and of great reverence. He spoke very kindly even of Catholicism."

Paul studied his face intently. He was looking out of the cottage window at the broad high-road, his features very set and grave, and with a strange mask of pain lying upon their cheery commonplace exterior that was not good to see.

He seemed to become aware of the other's examination, and turned to him. "It is like this," he said. "God has marked out the spiritual way. He has hedged and protected it. Souls may go safely there very, very far, even here, towards the celestial city. But if they stray off that path for any reason, why, Mr. Kestern, in the woods and hollows lurk enemies that let none escape."

"How do you know?" burst out Paul, vehemently. "Does the Church definitely say so?"

Etheridge nodded towards the priest, with a faint smile that only lingered a second however. "That's a question for his reverence," he said, "but I can offer you an authority, if you like."

"Well, Mr. Kestern, there was a young man who knew nothing of that divine road save that, by Providence, his feet were placed upon it at his baptism. But he was enticed aside. He was shown a seemingly fair and direct path to the same bourne. He followed it. At first all went well. To be precise, he, too, obtained something of the powers of which you have seen a sample. He became adept at seeking escape in trance. The pencil wrote for him automatically, and wrote good and wise things. He made the practice of these things his life, and finally they dominated him. He became all but their slave."

"Well, first, the character of the messages changed a little. His friends in the gnosis warned him of mischievous spirits, even of bad ones, but he was not to be afraid. He would not be afraid. For a while the good returned—and riveted his chains more firmly. Then the shadow crept in again. He was told of a new morality, led on to seek relief in stimulants, encouraged to voyage far and often in trance. At last only there, in trance, was there full escape. He loathed himself, but his waking life was beset with devils, prurient curiosity, perverted sensuality, a desire to inflict pain. He struggled, but in vain. But in the trance-sleep he was free."

A motor car hummed up the hill and buzzed over the crest. Etheridge "waited till the sound died away. Neither of his listeners moved.

"And then one day, Mr. Kestern," went on the narrator at last evenly, "having gone over in trance, he found his return barred. He could see his own body on the couch and he longed to re-enter it. But he could not. A Watcher stood on the Threshold. For an eternity there seemed no possibility of return."

"Yes. Beyond telling. Do you loathe anything? Have you ever felt Fear? Do you shrink from corruption, its scent and sight? You cannot imagine all those incarnate, but it was that."

"The grace of God, which is beyond telling, at the moment, and, under Him, Father Vassall afterwards. He may tell you if he please."

Paul glanced at the priest. But he shook his head. "I t-t-told you it was the d-d-devil," he said.

"Father Vassall, perhaps, can hardly speak of it, Mr. Kestern. He fought for my soul. He held me all one night, and a crucifix in my hands, while Satan shook my body, my bed, the very room, but could not prevail."

Paul broke it. He sighed. "Forgive me," he said, "but what is one to believe? You explain one thing by an unknown force; why not so explain this? And—I don't mean to be rude, Mr. Etheridge—I suppose we all have a side to our character which, supposing it were for any reason developed and released, might do terrible things."

The ex-Spiritualist bowed slightly. "You are quite right," he said tranquilly. "That is one explanation. You can explain the Gospels and the Incarnation and Lourdes and—and Spiritualism that way. Men even explain man. If there were no explanation possible, there would be no need of faith."

Father Vassall made a quick gesture. "' Si scires donum Dei ,'" he said. "Don't t-t-tempt God, Kestern."

Etheridge rose as if he had not heard. "Let us walk in the garden a little," he said, "and breathe clean air."

That evening, Father Vassall varied the order of night prayers somewhat. He crossed over the chapel to Paul, after the Scripture reading, and put a little manual in his hand. It was not wholly unfamiliar to the boy, but for the first time the real significance of the Office of Compline dawned on him. He saw the long dark corridors leading from chapel, the silent shut-off monastic cells, the peasant on his lonely road home, the soldier on sentry guard while the camp slept. He saw that the night had been alive to such, and that their faith had made these prayers for a shield. And he was not sorry for that shield himself that night.

Grant us, O Lord, a quiet night and a perfect end.
Your adversary the devil, goeth about as a roaring lion seeking
whom he may devour.
Thou shalt not be afraid for the Terror by night,
For He shall give His angels charge over thee.
Visit this house, we beseech Thee, O Lord. Drive far from it
all snares of the enemy. Let Thy holy angels dwell therein....

All his imagination astir, Paul listened, in his secret heart, for the drift of pinions. Nor, then, did he wonder that he failed to hear them; he only marvelled a little at the impenetrability of clay-shuttered doors.

Thus, then, came Paul Kestern to his last night at Thurloe End. Judge ye, who may. This, at least, was the manner of it.

The Father had read aloud The Holy Grail , and Paul The Hound of Heaven . He had himself chosen it; he had no one to blame for that.

Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest (he read),
I am He Whom thou seekest;
Thou drivest Love from thee, Who drivest Me.

He shut the book. The little priest was nursing his knees against the tall fender, and the boy looked from him to the candlelight on the white of the uncanonised saint's hat on the mantelshelf. It rather fascinated him, that round skull-cap. It was a child's trick to put it there, the little white satiny thing in its glass-fronted box—a child's trick, lovable. He looked at the priest again. The other stirred.

"My dear," he said, stammering badly, "you g-g-go to-m-m-morrow. And we've kept the tr-truce."

The priest spoke again. "I don't know," he said. "I can't stick my fingers into your soul. I d-d-don't want to. Only God's been good to you, you know. And—and He's a j-j-jealous God."

"Oh, I don't know," burst out the boy. "Father, I don't know. There's so much for and against. And I've prayed and prayed and prayed, and—and God hides Himself."

"He's given you all the l-l-light you need. He's shown you! He's sent His Son and appointed His Church and p-p-put it b-b-bang in your p-path. What else do you want? Do you want a special r-r-revelation?"

His voice broke a little. Father Vassall dropped his knees and jumped up, catching his robe about him. His eyes shone, though his face was grave. "L-look here," he said. "Here's a bit of paper. I'll put here all the things that make for the Church, unless you feel honestly, in your own mind, that the balance of evidence on a point puts it on the other side. Now."

Emotions in Catholic Church. Emotions at Claxted, Keswick,
etc.
Reason?
History?
Which Works?
Scripture?
Tradition?
Catholic Idea?
Consistency?
Gospel of the Poor?
Beauty?
Common sense?
Miracles?
Peter?

(After the first, Paul had objected: "But Christianity may not be reasonable at all." "T-t-that hardly makes for Anglicanism," retorted Father Vassall. "Is it , the Via Media, reasonable?" And Paul had been silent thereafter.)

"It is, only this." (He added, last on the list—Peter.) "Now, here you are. To-morrow, after breakfast, go into the chapel, put this before you, and pray. Pray. PRAY. Hear? I'll say no more, now or ever. You're alone, you know, you must be.... If it's 'yes,' after that, come and tell me, and I'll get the faculties and receive you. If it's 'no,' then don't say anything. Just 'good-bye.' And G-God bless you, anyway."

He had his way. The boy went almost silently to bed, heard Mass, ate breakfast quietly, went into the chapel, and knelt down. He propped his papers before him. He chose to kneel before the red lamp.

images buzzed through his head, and voices. "I'd rather see a son of mine dead," said Mr. Kestern. "God is very far off," said Childers. "He was deluded by Satan," said David Etheridge. "Oh, don't break your father's heart, Paul," cried his mother. "Concubinage is a regular thing in Spain," said the Bishop of Mozambique. "Christ is the most arresting figure in history," said Manning coolly. "He's a j-j-jealous God," said Father Vassall.

Paul shut his eyes. He was so tired. He turned deliberately away and thought of Edith. He remembered Hursley Woods, and the little brown cap, and the brown leaves, and the blue sky. A thrush, too, that looked at them out of beady eyes. And here he was, in a Popish chapel, Father Vassall's chapel.

He looked up. In the clear morning light, the chapel was all so plain. In front of him, as plain as plain, was a sponge on reed, a spear, a ladder, a scourge. He noticed that they were a little dusty. The glass reliquary reminded him of wax flowers under a glass case belonging to his great-aunt Sophie; no, it did not remind him of the flowers, it was just the case, with its plush fringe, that it brought ridiculously to his mind. But inside the case was that small splinter the priest had described, a fragment splintered from Calvary with its sweat and turmoil and blood.

It had been, of course, like that figure on the rood. He had hung dead. Dead. Drained of blood. Dead.

Dead? A little to the right the white tabernacle veil hung in the folds to which Father Vassall had adjusted it this morning. And behind lay the mystery. If only he KNEW.

And then, suddenly, he saw it all as clearly as the day through the chapel window: his broken home, his mother's tears, Edith lost to him, his ambition to write poetry blocked out, and instead, instead—that silver Cup behind the white curtain thrust into his hand. A half-remembered line shot into his head:

If it were true, surely God would show him. If He were a Father, surely, surely...

That, then, was the manner in which Paul Kestern grew afraid. The utter silence of the chapel grew on him, bore down on him, wave on wave. Was it not time for the trap? Oh, but they would call him. Meantime, why wouldn't God speak? Just a word, a flicker of a curtain.... It was all so still. Not even a wind. The silence listened, that was the awful thing; it listened for him to pray. And if he prayed—oh, if he prayed, he would break down like a baby, and surrender, and he would never really have known.

But he shut his eyes; he groped into the blackness; he pressed against the silence; he knew he was alone, all alone; he knew if he could have fled, he would have done so, but that he could not move. He must fight it out alone, endure alone; and though that awful silence terrorised his very thought, he must still try to think....

He got up, and stumbled out. "Thank you so much, Father," he said. There was utter terror in his soul, but that was what he said. He saw the other's face, tender and grave, and his quaint black gown, and the bare hall, and the little flagged path, and the iron gate, and the trap. Oh, he was glad to see the trap. He mustn't be afraid; it was absurd; he could walk out. "Really I've loved being here," he heard himself saying.

He balanced himself as the horse started forward, and then turned and waved. The little priest waved too. They swung round the turn.

Paul looked at the clouds, moving serenely across the sky. He peered into the bare twigs of an oak. Some palm was in bloom, soft, yellow, feathery.

"London, single," he said through the wicket at the booking office. It was real, that funny little window, and odd, how absurd the man looked, peering at him! A couple of turns up the platform, a good asphalted platform, with staring advertisements, rather jolly—about pens, Easter in Normandy, Nestle's Milk. And there was the train at last, swinging merrily round the corner, noisy, fussy, real .

Third class, smoker, empty, that would do. Paul flung himself into a far corner. "Thank God," he said to himself, "thank God ."

A tall dark girl walked up the train. She looked in at Paul's window. He didn't see her, but she saw him, hesitated a moment, and decided, after all, she wouldn't travel to town with him. If perhaps, the next compartment was empty, she would prefer that. It was. She got in and shut the door. She had a newspaper and a novel to read, but she settled herself to stare out of the window instead. The country was so unimaginably lovely.

CHAPTER VIII
JUDGMENTS

I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the heart's affections, and the truth of Imagination. What the Imagination seizes as Beauty must be Truth.... The Imagination may be compared to Adam's dream;—he awoke and found it truth.—KEATS: Letters , November 22, 1817.

He was seated at his desk in his study, pen in hand, a pile of correspondence before him, and Paul, who had not been able to remain still for five minutes since he had heard the news, was leaning at the moment against the open window opposite. June had come in full-throated. The trees in the Fellows' Garden were thick with green, and the roses in the parterres flamed in the sun. Everything flamed in such a sunlight as had never been before, nor, in its own way, would be again. Miracles of that sort are not so uncommon in life as might be thought, but each one stands by itself. So to-day Paul was inwardly if only half-consciously marvelling at the world, seeing that it was transfigured before him.

The don, watching him thoughtfully, was well aware of it. His own experiences of a quarter of a century before, rose like a kindly ghost before him. He knew in what a turmoil of suspense the boy must have wakened, but yet how a kind of dear regret had lingered with him at breakfast, the last breakfast of the true undergraduate stage, the stage in which the future is all possibility, the die still unread even if cast. He guessed how he and his friends had talked about everything and thought only about one thing; how they had strolled round to the Senate House; how a glamour had been there upon the ugly unimposing dull building that he, the don, knew so well; how anxiety had spurred the spirits of the men in the gallery; how the first names had been greeted with relieved cheers. And he knew how Paul had heard his own in the First Class Honours List of the History Tripos with a sense, first, of utter unreality, and then of triumph that had given him for a fleeting hour the carriage of a god.

Paul had come into King's Parade with his friends a new man. A light had fallen on his ways, and at first, as always, he had been blissfully ignorant of the bitter that lurks in all earth's sweets. He had been ignorant for about as long as it took him to walk to the post office. There, when Donaldson had said that there was no good his sending a telegram, he had seen real envy in the eyes of a friend, and when the clerk had read the flimsy paper without the flicker of an eyebrow, had realised that the world is mighty big and cares nothing. Ah well, Paul had thought as he hastened back to college, that made no difference to the fact that he, Paul Kestern, had got a First, which nothing could ever destroy and which would remain a title to respect among all sorts and conditions of men. Differ with him as men might and would, he had entered set and recognised lists and ridden a triumphant course.

And Tressor was genuinely pleased that the boy had come bursting in to him, scarcely waiting to knock, greeting him with the eyes of a grateful friend. "I've got it," he had cried, "I've got it, Tressor! A First after all! Thanks to you more than to anyone. I can hardly believe it's true."

Paul had walked about the study to tell his news. "Donaldson got a third, Strether a second. I wish Gussie had got a first. I say, my father will be pleased. How many? Oh there were only five given, out of a hundred and thirty, I think. You know I never could have written a decent line if it hadn't been for you. As it was I thought that Special Period would dish me. I say—does it sound beastly?—I'm most glad of all for one thing. Whatever I become, no one will ever be able to say that if I'd known a little history I'd have been different!"

And so on, disjointedly, as the sense of it soaked in, and thoughts rose in his mind like bright bubbles—rose and burst. Tressor understood it all. And he liked the way the boy peered at a picture, picked up a paper-knife and examined it as if it were something rare, looked out at the roses, shot a questioning glance at him, and so on. All these things were so many signposts to the eager mind. Tressor felt again his own keen interest as to what that mind would do. And so he had at last asked his question. "Well," he had said, "and what's the next move?"

"Ah!" said Paul, and leant up against the open window-frame all at once, very still.

Tressor turned the statement over. Then he understood. "Two years before you can be ordained," he said.

Paul's restlessness fell on him again, like a mantle. He straightened himself, thrust his hands into his pockets, looked round, and flung himself into a chair. "I suppose I've known it all the term," he said, "but I've never realised it till now."

Tressor laid down his pen and leaned back. He was frankly curious. The term had been so busy for both of them that this was the first vital conversation, although, at odd intervals, he had thought a good deal about the boy. Thus he knew of the visit to Thurloe End, but not of any details. He knew of conflicts, not of decisions, if there had been any.

"Yes," said Paul, "it has. I know one thing. I cannot be ordained in the Church of England unless my mind changes a great deal between this and then."

"That is odd to me," said Tressor meditatively. "That is one of the things I could do."

"Yes. The Anglican ministry stands for an orderly, decent, restrained religious profession, but it does not commit the priest to dogmatic extravagance."

"I see," said Paul. "The Church of England appeals to you on those grounds exactly which make it impossible for me, at least as yet."

"Quite so. But the Apostle had a word to say on that to the Church of Laodicea."

Tressor frowned slightly. He disliked Paul in that mood. "Surely you see now," he said, "that you cannot determine the universe by a single text."

Paul threw his leg over the arm of his chair. "That is precisely what I do see," he said. "I'm one immense note of interrogation."

The don smiled. "That's admirable, anyway, and that, I suppose, blocks Rome. I'm unfeignedly glad. I confess I saw you go to Thurloe End with some fear. You're impressionable, and Father Vassall has a magnetic personality."

A shadow gathered in Paul's face, gathered and deepened. "But I played the coward there," he said.

"I'd like to." Paul was emphatic. Also the thing was very vivid to him and had lost nothing in retrospection. His hearer saw the situation as he unfolded it, saw it almost as vividly as Paul had seen it, but his wonder grew almost more quickly than his interest. He found himself scarcely listening, impatient of the final details. "So you see," concluded Paul, "I was afraid to pray. I knew that if I gave way an inch I should give way altogether. And in the end, I—I fled." There was death in his voice.

"Well," retorted Tressor, "I congratulate you with all my heart. Honestly, Paul, I did not think you had so much in you. Really, you interest me enormously."

"Of course. The whole thing was consummate staged emotionalism. And you came through it, and Vassall's overwhelming hypnotic personality, by the sheer force of your own will. No, honestly, I never dreamed you had it in you. I am most extraordinarily glad."

Paul returned his leg to a normal position. He stared at the speaker for appreciable seconds without a word. Then he laughed. "Well," he said, "well—— And of course you may be right."

"I should say there can be no room for doubt.... But, if that's Rome, why not the Church of England? Orders and a fellowship—writing, lecturing, preaching. It would suit you admirably."

"It would not," retorted Paul decisively. "I should never be content. Besides, what should I preach? For what should I stand? I cannot see the Bible without the Gospel, and I can preach, in Christ's name, nothing but that."

Paul jumped up. He prowled about restlessly. Suddenly he made a couple of gestures, one to the well-lined shelves, the other to the garden. "That and that," he said.

"Oh, I say, I'm sorry," cried Paul. "But—but—can't you see? Doubtless it's sheer presumption, but evangelicalism seems to me utterly divorced from reason and knowledge. It has no logical basis at all. Rome may be wrong, but it's logical. It's a conceivable theory. Evangelical Protestantism just won't do .... Look here, the Church might be infallible, divine. It's just possible. I don't know ... but it's possible . But the Bible is not infallible—we know that—and what is more, it would be useless if it were without an explicit interpretation. That's certain, final."

Tressor glanced at his correspondence. He ought to attend to it, but, on the other hand, an idea was forming in his mind. The more he thought of it, the more he liked it. The letters might wait. He got up and moved over towards the bookshelves. Paul, behind him, went on abstractedly.

"And then there's the other reason. That seems to me less honourable, less convincing, but—I can't help it—it's overpowering. Put it like this. Could I possibly put on the scarlet jersey of the Salvation Army and follow the band? Could I? Well, I couldn't. That—that's an insult to—to beauty, a blasphemy against—against—oh, I don't know—against a summer's day, I think. And an evangelical ministry means a red jersey, you know—or something like it. The Mission Hall, for example; the Religious Tract Society.... I say, am I a—a damned fool?"

Tressor had taken a little book off the shelves, and was half mechanically turning the leaves. Immature, of course, weak in places, but—— He put it back.

"Eh?" he queried, smiling. "A red jersey? No, I rather agree. But the morning's going. Where are you lunching? Have some with me?"

"Right. Give me half an hour for these letters. And at luncheon I'll tell you what's come into my head." He smiled, affectionately.

"Thanks," said Paul, getting up. Then he remembered his First again, overwhelmingly. "I think I'll just go and see," he said boyishly, "whether there are any telegrams for me."

Paul walked across the Second Court whistling. In the screens he met Strether. "There's only one other first," growled his friend. "Judson. Shows what egregious asses the examiners were."

Paul hit him in the ribs. "Where is he?" he demanded. "I must go and congratulate him."

"He's in the garden, reading telegrams. I believe there are some for you. It's a sickening sight, but I'll come with you if you like."

Paul took his arm and they marched off. "I'm sorry you didn't get one, Gussie," he said. "You deserved it."

The other snorted. "Rot," he grunted. "Never stood a look in. Lucky to get a second. But I always thought you'd score."

Between the First Court and the river, under the chestnuts, were a couple of deck-chairs and a rug. Judson in flannels sprawled there, with Hannam, Donaldson and one or two others. Somebody tossed Paul half a dozen orange envelopes. He threw himself down, and tore them open. Mr. Kestern wired that he and Mrs. Kestern were coming up to-morrow. Then an uncle had wired, and a grandfather. Mr. Ernest also. There was one from school, and that intrigued Paul. It was jolly to think that the Head and the rest of them had been expecting the occasion, thinking of it, caring. Pleasant, too, that he had conferred honour on the school. He stared out at the shining river, and saw the old hall, the cut and mutilated forms, the honour boards, the dais, the rows of shuffling schoolboys, and himself amongst them. Announcements were made after prayers. To-morrow, probably, then, the Head would say precisely: "I am sure the school will be glad to learn that Paul Kestern, who went up to St. Mary's, Cambridge, in ... has ..." The school would cheer, sensing a possible half-holiday in connection therewith. Well, he'd look in next month, towards the end of July, and then—— It was really rather pleasant.

He reached for the last telegram, speculating idly who had sent it. He could not know that Mr. Kestern had told the news to every possible person in the street as he himself went to the post office. "I'm so glad—Edith," he read.

He read it again and again. He glanced up covertly at the others. Then he folded the thin paper, slipped it back in its envelope, stretched himself out at full length and stared up into the blue sky. Fragments of conversation from the men about him drifted in and out of his mind, and now and again he had to respond to a remark addressed point-blank to him. He was still pleasantly aware of achievement and pride that must be hid. But he was wrestling all the while with an enigma.

He had seen the girl once only after his visit to Thurloe End, during the brief week-end of the vacation that he had spent at home. They had walked deviously home from Sunday evening service, and he had poured out his heart to her. He had been full of the contrast between Claxted and Thurloe End, as well as the growing impossibility he was experiencing in these occasional returns to service in the evangelical atmosphere. There had been reaction, too, in his outlook after the relief of escape from Father Vassall, and what with one thing and another he had been meditating—he spoke to her as if he were meditating—a return and a surrender. And she had astounded him: she had utterly refrained from suggesting that he should not do so. Indeed she had done more; she had brought to bear upon the problem the mind of, as it were, a Claxted Catholic, though, since nothing had as yet come of it, she had said nothing of her visit to St. Patrick's.

The witchery of Thurloe End had been meaningless to her. Claxted was still to her dear and simple. She saw nothing whatever to alter in her own home or in his. Barns, and shrines, and carven shields, merely bewildered her. He had felt, as he talked, that so far as externals went, she would have preferred the incandescent lights in rows, the red drugget and the pitch-pine of the Mission Hall. Perfectly simply, then, she had said:

He could feel now her fingers on his arm, clutching a little more tightly. "Don't, Paul," she had said. "It seems to me quite plain. Jesus doesn't hide Himself. He speaks plainly enough in our hearts, and you—you 'know His voice.'"

He had stared hard at her in the light of a street lamp as they passed: the firm little face rather sedate; the precise, neat dress; her gloved hand; the little hymn and prayer book she carried which he had given her, surreptitiously. Intuitively he saw that she belonged to Claxted; yes, though he knew that he had modified her views not a little, Claxted was bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh. Life was amazingly simple to her. She might question the form in which the things of religion reached her—the authority of Christ, His presence in the Sacrament; she might become High Church in practice; but nothing in Claxted rubbed her up the wrong way. And he saw suddenly just what it meant that her home was in Edward Street and her father a photographer. She was unobtrusive, trim, conventional. He had wanted to seize her almost roughly, shake her, drag her out, and he had not been able to do it at all because she would not have understood the first syllable of explanation. Come to that, did he? Perhaps, that very day, he had come to see more plainly the point. The scarlet jersey—well, it was just a scarlet jersey to Edith Thornton. You put it on, if Christ said so. Why not?

Lying there then, in the flush of success, blue shining sky above, clear shining river hard by, her words in his pocket, no, in his heart, Paul nevertheless saw a shadow athwart the sky. He had known long that an impermeable curtain was slowly dropping between him and his people; he had known that their very voices sounded odd—familiar, arrestingly familiar, but as those who speak another tongue; and he had known that the change lay in him and not in them. There were notes in the past that no longer struck response, that reached him muffled, through the curtain. And he saw plainly enough that Edith belonged to that side.

There was a shadow then even on this bright day. He loved her so. One moment, was it quite that? Was it not rather that he wanted to love her so much, wanted that they should speak and walk together, and knew they could not? Inexorably, hate it as he might, the irresistible tides were sweeping them apart. He was being moved on and out, protest as he would and did. Yet he could not protest altogether as he would, for his very heart was shaken. There was a "war in his members"—the old, old phrase rose unbidden in his mind. And, serene and far as that blue sky, God seemed to be.

Thus a thoughtful Paul went in to luncheon, yet wholly unaware of the new flood that was even then gathering to its height and was about to overmaster him. For a while the two talked inconsequently, on small things. Then, when the coffee was on the table, Tressor reopened the conversation of the morning.

"No. But I suppose I shall teach for a year or two, if possible do some private coaching. I must earn money; I shall have to say no definitely to the theological college next year, not this."

"Well, of course, wherever I am I shall write. I can't help it. But could I make a living with my pen? I don't suppose so, and I can't ask my father for money. And even if I could, I doubt awfully if I could do occasional journalism."

Tressor shook his head emphatically. "Don't try," he said. "It's an impossibility for you, I should say—not your line at all."

Paul suddenly realised what a problem he was up against. He sighed. "It's awfully hard," he said. "I suppose I must teach."

"No," said Tressor, "not yet anyway. I want you to give your own literary taste a chance. Write poetry. Do another play—more carefully this time."

Paul smiled ruefully. In the Lent Term he had had an inspiration. Dropping his reading, cutting his lectures, burying himself in his rooms, he had begun and written a play. And Tressor had lectured him for the first, threatened dire things for the second, and finally and utterly turned down the last.

"I know," said Tressor equably. "I don't suppose you could, and I'm not suggesting it. But what about Fordham?"

"Yes; as you know, I have a house to which I go occasionally. My friends sometimes consider it an unnecessary luxury since I'm only there two or three times a year. But it's rather a nice house, and it wants living in. It would do it good to have someone living in it and looking after it a little. There are some cottages, and some rough shooting, and a garden. I bought the place because of the garden; you'd like it. You might write poetry in it, and a play, or half a dozen, seeing how quickly you write. What do you say?"

He had talked slowly on to give Paul time. The boy's face was a study. Even then, he hardly took it in.

"No," said Tressor, "not exactly as my guest. Have some more coffee? You see, I want you to do some work. Go as my agent, let us say. My housekeeper will look after you, and be glad of it, and I'll give you a small salary. You'll keep yourself, and, I think, you'll write. To be honest, I think you'll write well."

Words came with a rush. "I'd like it more than anything on earth. It would be absolutely too good to be true. I can't thank you enough. I—I——"

"Right, then. Thank me by writing good poetry. By the way, Manning is coming down with me in August; do you think you could join us, and remain on?"

"I must consult my father, of course," said Paul, "but I'm certain I can say yes. How perfectly too glorious. Oh, I say, you're just too good to me, sir."

On the way Paul remembered that another Children's Special Service Mission had been in the air for that August. Dick Hartley had urged it. Well, it was no longer in the air.

Paul met his parents on the station platform. Mr. Kestern shook his hand firmly; his mother kissed him with tears of pride in her eyes. "Oh, Paul," she whispered, "I'm so glad. Father's just delighted."

"The Lord has given you brains, sonnie," said the clergyman. "I pray that you will use them always in His service."

"So have we, Paul," said Mrs. Kestern. "Madeline and Mr. Ernest are coming up to see you take your degree."

"Are they? How jolly! We'll have a picnic up the river. But you'll never guess what I've got to tell you. Wait till we're in the cab. Porter, lend a hand with these traps, will you? I've got rooms for you quite near St. Mary's, mother."

"Yes, dear. Oh, Paul, I can't believe you're grown up! It's so funny to have my little son taking rooms for me."

They were on thin ice, he thought. "Come on, this way. That cab will do for us. In you get, mother."

Paul studied his face. He could not tell how he would take it. He would be disappointed, but he might be rather proud. Anyway, he must plunge.

"Mr. Tressor, father, wants me to go down to Fordham, nominally as his agent, really to have a year at least in which to write. He thinks I shall be able to do some good stuff. It will cost me nothing; he will even give me a small salary; and I shall really and truly be able to write at last."

His father was not looking at him. "I take it, then," he said, "that this project—possibility—of joining the Church of Rome, is postponed—indefinitely?"

"Thank God," said Mr. Kestern, "thank God." (He paused a second, swallowing in his throat.) "May I be forgiven for doubting that our Lord ever failed to hear and answer prayer."

A little burst of anger flashed in Paul's heart. "At Thurloe End," he said, "I should have become a Roman Catholic if—if——" He remembered Tressor's comment, and stopped. If! If what? His mother supplied a further example of the diverse possible interpretations of that incident.

"Oh, my son," she said, "you will never know how your father agonised in prayer for you. All the time you were in that terrible place——"

"That will do, mother," put in Mr. Kestern quickly. "The lad has been saved, as it were, out of the mouth of the lion. That is enough. Thank God, thank God. And when do you go to Fordham, Paul?"

"Mr. Tressor must take a great interest in you, dear. Shall we meet him? Your father and I would like to thank him for his great kindness to our boy."

"He is coming to lunch," said Paul. "Mrs. Roper is probably getting it ready now. Manning and Strether are coming too. It'll be a bit of a tight fit, but I think we can all squeeze in somehow."

It was two years since his parents had last been in his rooms. His father's first look was for the text. It hung there still, Paul having stubbornly refused to take it down. The man remembered that first prayer, and again saw the hand of God upon him for good. Then he espied the writing-desk; by this time it was a crucifix that hung there. He looked quickly away; it were best to say nothing. His wife took that cue from him. Besides, she had eyes for the oar that hung immense the length of the wall. "Is that your oar, dear?" she asked. "Did you row with it?"

Paul smiled. "No, mummie," he said with affectionate raillery, "I used it for a walking-stick."

She glanced at him incredulously. Then smiled. "You shouldn't laugh at me," she said. "Paul, where did you get the pictures!"

"Fairly, Paul. But I think I liked those dogs you had best. You always were an odd boy. Do you remember your doves, and your newts? Nasty things."

He laughed outright. "Oh, mother," he said, "my poor prints! But I've got the Landseers stored in the Gyp-room and I'll bring them home for you."

"Thank you, dear. I think they'd do nicely in your old bedroom, and they'll remind you of college when you come home."

The days that followed were unforgettable. For one thing, they were to be the last in the old town and each one had to be savoured to the full. For another, only a few men, waiting for degrees, were up, and Paul had to take his people through colleges and churches and chapels that were not wholly deserted, but in which, nevertheless, beauty reigned supreme in unaccustomed silence. He had a new pride in lawn and court and hall. In a little, he was to be a part of the ancient place, an admitted son, and a son, moreover, who could, so to speak, look his foster-mother fairly in the face. Each separate street and building, too, held a remembered association. It was odd to recall how he had peered through the gate of Christ's and wondered if it were St. Mary's; wandered through Trinity, not quite sure that he had a right to be there; bought his first cake in that little grocer's; swept, one rag night, triumphantly down Pety Cury in a hurrying host with proctors hard in the rear. Then he had to show the Henry Martyn Hall, Parker's Piece, St. Saviour's, and he even dared greatly and pointed out the creeper-fronted Catholic presbytery.

Besides, the days gave him a new intimacy with his parents. A barrier had gone, now that the spectre of the Scarlet Woman no longer peeped out of every conversation. Also the furnishings of Claxted at least were not here. His father, it is true, occasionally probed him to see how far the original impulse to take Anglican Orders really remained, but the thrusts were easily parried. His mother was more of a difficulty. In Great St. Mary's she had laid a hand on his arm. "I wonder if I shall ever see my son preach in that pulpit," she said wistfully.

Paul had no heart to shatter her dream. "I wonder," he replied lightly. But he knew that he did not.

The Ernests came up the day before the great occasion. In the afternoon, the five of them went to a tea garden on the Upper River. Paul refrained from asking any other men for two reasons: for one, there was no one up, unless it were Strether, who would mix with his father and Mr. Ernest; for the other it was rather a wonderful Madeline that he met on the station platform. He never guessed how perseveringly the visit and the garnishings had been schemed for, planned and prepared. He only knew that she wore an amazingly simple frock and a big hat from whose shade the regular beauty of her face looked out at him. In the shaded sunlight, her big eyes, under the dark lashes striking and unusual in so fair a blonde, laughed up at his. "I say, Paul," she said, "you've no idea how proud we are of you."

"Rubbish, you never are," she challenged. But it was not that that made her look away content.

Strether saw them together, and found occasion to make enquiries in his own fashion. "Who's the girl?" he growled.

But he told her, all the same. After tea, the elders sat on in the dappled shade, and Paul dug out a punt and put the girl into it. They floated gently into "Paradise," and he pulled in under a spreading tree. "By Jove, it's hot," he said. "I think we'll lay up, if you don't mind."

"Of course. Come and sit down." She moved her skirt and shifted a cushion. She had no doubt whatever where he was to sit.

He threw himself down beside her. "May I smoke?" he asked. Claxted seemed impossibly far.

He tapped his cigarette on his case. "No," he said vaguely. It was so trifling an incident, but it was one among many. Madeline at Cambridge was, somehow, a new Madeline. He was aware how much he liked the change, and he resolved to take Strether's advice.

She lay quite still. Then she heaved a little sigh. She couldn't help it. For one thing, Paul was rather delicious in his collarless shirt and blazer, the pillar of his throat good to see. For another, there was utter charm about them: the soft-flowing river, the whisper of the water under the punt's stern, the tall trees that met high overhead and interlaced in their delicate beauty, the bright sunlight on the green fields and swifter flow yonder, without the brooky tunnel. And besides——

"I prayed about it, Paul," she said simply. She meant it. In her own way, she meant it absolutely. Honestly, too, she was too glad to think for a moment, as she might have done, that perhaps this was the very best opening of them all. Yet, after all, it was not.

"Yes. I thought you liked that horrid Father Vassall too much. I thought you'd become a Roman Catholic as sure as fate. Mother said—— But never mind. You won't now anyway. Oh, Paul, will you write a real play?"

"Of course not. You can do much bett—— No," (she was very honest) "that's not right. I admire clergymen ever so much. But you know, Paul, almost anyone can be a clergyman."

"Of course they can. Ethel Cator's brother is going to be a clergyman; you know him: he sings rather nicely. But just fancy writing a play! Paul, I don't care what they say at Claxted: you must give me a box the first night."

She looked up at him dreamily. "You might even be an actor yourself," she said. "Do you remember those charades that Christmas at the Gators'?" Then a trifle hastily: "Talking of them reminds me."

She had taken off her hat. Her hair was so much sunshot silk. And Paul understood all about the charades at the Gators'. He had extemporised the whole affair, scene by scene. It was the one thing he loved at parties. And one scene had been the deck of a ship in the evening, a piano playing in the background, she in a chair, he, playing the lover, leaning on the bulwark. They had played it rather too well, if anything, though the Gators were not the sort of people, even at Claxted, to mind. And afterwards, Paul remembered, they had been chaffed over it, in a jolly kind of way, and he had been flattered, and they had gone on playing they were lovers, especially going down to supper, on the stairs. It was rather nice of her to remember.

He leant a little towards her. "I remember," he said, looking down into her face.

"You certainly will," he vowed. "I shall jolly well come. And I say, perhaps you and your father might even come to see me, at Fordham."

"Oh," she breathed, "that would be jolly. But it won't be possible, you know, unless——"

She looked up swiftly, and away. A spirit moved in Paul, but then, after all, he was not going to be a parson. He reached out and took her hand. "Unless what?"

She laughed. "But perhaps you'll come back and preach occasionally at the Mission Hall," she said. "The workers will miss you, Paul. Mr. Derrick, Albert Vintner and Edith Thornton."

Paul gave no sign, or he thought he did not. She studied him. The temptation to probe a little further was irresistible. "Miss Thornton's getting quite High Church," she said. "Her people are rather worried about it."

"Well," said Paul, rapidly mastering himself and speaking deliberately now, "I'm inclined to be High Church myself, come to that. The Catholic religion's rather wonderful, Madeline. Father Vassall thought I ought to be a Redemptorist."

"A friar. A member of the religious order of the Redemptorists. They preach missions—a sort of Catholic evangelists."

She nodded. "Yes, that's it. He isn't a monk or a friar, but he'd like you to be one. I know. I've heard father talk about it."

Paul detected the sneer. He was perfectly cool now. More than that, he was getting angry. But he still held her hand, and she noticed nothing. "Edith Thornton," he said, "is rather wonderful."

Madeline shifted a little. "Is she?" she questioned. "I can't say I know her very well. She's full of good works, of course. I expect she'd make a splendid wife for a curate. She'd rather like to marry a clergyman, Paul."

For the life of him he couldn't help it. "An actor, perhaps," he said, "or an author."

He laughed suddenly. "Well, Madeline," he said, "I'll remember. I expect I'll be able to introduce you to ever so many. And I'm sure they'd want to marry you anyway. There'll be no need to pray about that."

He let go her hand and stood up. "By Jove," he said, "I think we ought to be getting back."

So, then, the great day came and went. Scarlet splashed the streets. Self-conscious young men moved about them in rabbit-skin hoods and undergraduate gowns and fluttering bows of white, girls walked beside them in conscious surrender of one day at any rate to superior claims, and parents brooded majestically in the background. The files of neophytes lined up on the crowded floor of the Senate House in an atmosphere of subdued whispering talk, peering over heads and round shoulders in an endeavour to see what was going forward at the far end. One had occasional glimpses of a rather bored-looking personage in robes on a raised chair, dons with sheafs of papers in the vicinity, and some young man or another kneeling in stiff self-consciousness. Other colleges' undergraduates went up, applauded by compatriots, disdained by the rest. Paul was vividly rejoiced that he came from St. Mary's and not from Emmanuel or Cats.; an Emmanuel rowing-blue, arriving a little late, shouldered past him with a glance that shouted aloud the absurdity of those half-dozen St. Mary's men. An usher gave them their signal. Paul found himself in a cleared space, and saw Tressor looming large on its edge. He was aware that he had to kneel in a feudal attitude and that the Vice-Chancellor was murmuring Latin. The indifference of the majority about him made the whole ceremony oddly impersonal. And now they were all out again, and there was the façade of the Library, and the buttresses of King's Chapel, looking stained and grey against a grey sky.

That evening, Paul had an odd encounter. He had seen his people to their rooms, and, returning, hesitated to ring the bell and enter college. It had become a jolly night of stars, with a fleeting mist on the river, and he was going down for good the very next day. He thought he would walk through the old town for the last time, in the ways he had walked so many times during the past three years, his mind in a whirl of thought. So he strolled over the bridge, and down past spectral St. Laurence's, and round the corner by portentous John's, and so on to Trinity. And as he drew near to Trinity, the sound of bolts being withdrawn in the great gateway came to his ears in the stillness.

The door opened, and a tall figure emerged. "Good-night, my lord," said the porter's voice, subservient, deferential.

Paul smiled to himself. When the black-gaitered figure came abreast, he, too, spoke. "Good evening, my lord," he said.

The Bishop of Mozambique halted and stared through the night at his interlocutor curiously. "Good evening," he said. "I fear I don't recognise you."

"What! The sampler of Keswick Conventions and Wesleyan—was it?—Conferences. A rather dogmatic and assertive young man, if I remember rightly. Of course. How are you?"

"Splendid," said the other, looking down more closely. "And now what's the next move? Have you made up your mind yet? How's Father Vassall?"

Paul was wide awake and in a state of mental exaltation. The other's voice was kindly and cheerful, and somehow invited confidences. He thought rapidly, that, after all, here was an adviser to hand whose point of view would be interesting hearing. Probably they would never meet again, and instinctively he knew that this big, almost boyish bishop would spare him five minutes and respect his confession. Moreover, though the Bishop of Mozambique could hardly be said to be in any way representative of the Church of England, at any rate he was an Anglican bishop with authority and Paul was still of his communion.

It was a rapid and impulsive decision, but once made, he acted immediately upon it. "Are you in a hurry?" he asked.

"Not particularly," said the Bishop, "but I'm lodging at Selwyn and must get back pretty soon."

"May I walk up with you? I wanted a stroll. It's my last Cambridge night, and it would be jolly through the Backs."

"I've decided what to do, temporarily at least. It doesn't matter what just now, but it means a rejection of Orders, for a time at any rate, and also of the Church of Rome. Now I came to that conclusion at Father Vassall's house down at Thurloe End last vac., but it has troubled me, more or less, ever since. I've heard several opinions upon it, none of which agree with my own, and I'd very much like yours. You see, you're the only bishop I know, and—and—you're Church of England too."

The big man laughed. "Excellent," he said. "'I'm Church of England too.' Well, well.... But I suppose I am, and if I can do anything I'll be delighted. Not particularly for that reason though."

Paul sensed humour, but he could not see it. The other's voice, however, was very friendly. And when the Bishop thrust his hand into his arm and bade him get on with it, he did so.

Once more again, then, this time under the shadowy high trees, as they paced in the scented dark past Fellows' gardens and placid sleeping lawns, Paul told of his conflict in the little chapel. The Bishop heard him very gravely. He asked a question or two as the story was told, but for the most part heard in silence. And when the boy finished, they walked a good hundred yards before he spoke. Then, looking straight before him, weightily, gently, he delivered his verdict.

"Kestern," he said, "I will tell you what I think, and I am pretty sure of it because, though I've seen so little of you, I feel fairly sure of you. I believe you love our Lord with all your heart. I believe you wish to serve Him. And therefore I can tell you what I think of that experience in the chapel."

Paul said nothing. Perhaps the other waited for him to speak, perhaps he did not. At any rate, at last he spoke again. Indirectly he passed his judgment. "'He shall give His angels charge concerning thee'," he quoted, "'to keep thee in all thy ways.'"

In silence the two finished their walk. They stood for a few minutes outside of Selwyn Lodge, the tall big man looking into the boy's face with oddly troubled eyes. "But——" he said at last. He broke off abruptly. "I won't say it," he said. "It's not my job. You've asked me one thing, and given me one confidence; I can say no more. You must settle your own life."

The other nodded. "He knows, of course," he said, as one professional might speak of another. "But look here: we could do with you in Mozambique if you care to come."

Paul was interiorly shaken by that more than a little. It was so sudden. In a flash, he saw a path before his feet. A clergyman, a missionary; not quite as he had imagined, but suppose the Bishop, after all, were right? Catholicism without the Pope, Catholicism in a sense with a kindlier, less definite cross. Fordham suddenly menaced him. What if it meant, well, well—betrayal, a cleverly hid, intriguing, attractive scheme, but betrayal. He hesitated.

He did not, could not know, of course, but the word tipped the scale. Think! Paul had thought till he could think no more. For a while he was done with thought. Fordham meant a year's rest, a year's solace.

"Thank you ever so much," he said. "I won't forget it. And thanks awfully for hearing me. But I'm booked for a year at least. Good-bye."

Paul walked off to St. Mary's alone, if a man who walks with a thousand fears, doubts, desires, hopes and loves legioned in his heart, ever walks alone.

In the morning he breakfasted with Manning. His friend was enthusiastic over the possibility of Fordham, and utterly and wholly delighted. He himself, having spent a fourth year in research work, was off to Central Africa in September to shoot big game and incidentally study tropical medicine, but he would see Paul at the Manor before he went. He was an odd mixture, and Paul rather envied him. Money, or the lack of it, did not hamper him; in his own subject, he was distinctly brilliant; yet his science was a plaything in his life. He did not sit lightly to the serious subjects that worried Paul, but he rode them on the curb with easy mastery. Paul was increasingly aware that he wanted, nowadays, to talk to Manning.

Thus, then, that the second post and not the first brought him his letter, mattered not a little—perhaps.

"I'll be quite honest; I don't like it. It seems to me that you are going down to Fordham as Jonah took ship for Tarshish. God grant there's a storm—and a whale! I shall pray for it anyway, so look out. Of course, after your visit here, I've no right to judge, for I believe you did not play tricks. But it beats me.... Honestly, I'd rather, far rather, hear that you were going to be a PROTESTANT CLERGYMAN!

Paul, Mr. and Mrs. Kestern, Mr. Ernest and Madeline caught the 11.20 to town. They were all a bit subdued, especially Madeline.

CHAPTER IX
FORDHAM

Foot after foot ye go back and travail and make yourselves mad;
Blind feet that feel for the track where highway is none to be had.
Therefore the God that ye make you is grievous, and gives not aid,
Because it is but for your sake that the God of your making is made.

Cry out, for his kingdom is shaken; cry out, for the people
blaspheme;
Cry aloud till his godhead awaken; what doth he to sleep and
to dream?
Is not this the great God of your sires, that with souls and with
bodies was fed,
And the world was on flame with his fires? O fools, he was God,
and is dead.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE: Hymn of Man .

And that inverted Bowl we call the Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to It for help—for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.
OMAR KHAYYÁM.

Ursula Manning stared out at the rods of rain. Chanctonbury Ring was all but blotted out; she could just see the crown of beeches when the mists were blown aside for a few moments, and that was all. The woods below stood heavy and motionless, and the fields between them and the cottage lay stretched out, drinking it in. It had been a hot dry summer, and the whole world was rejoicing in the rain. That decided Ursula. She turned back into the bedroom, opened a wardrobe, and took out an old tweed skirt and jumper. Then she took off most of her clothes and assumed these. She let down her hair, twisted it into a long black plait, tied it firmly, and swung the heavy mass over her shoulder with a defiant jerk. Then, bareheaded, she went downstairs humming a little song, and selected a stick in the hall. She looked about eighteen, dressed so.

Her mother came out of the sitting-room. "Ursula," she cried, "you're not going out!"

"Yes, mother, I am. Why not? The rain's heavenly, and the woods have spread out their hands to it. And I want to get soaked."

The elder lady stood irresolute, a ludicrous expression of dismay in her face. The girl looked at her and laughed. "Oh, mother," she cried, "say it if it's any help!"

Mrs. Manning, at that, smiled ruefully. "Ursula," she said, "it's all very well, but you are trying. You'll probably catch your death of cold."

Ursula opened the door and stepped into the porch. She looked up into the leaden sky and down at the runnels of water on either side of the little garden path to the gate. Then she glanced back at her mother, smiled at her, waved her hand, and stepped into the downpour without a word.

Her mother gave a little scream. "Ursula! Where's your mac.?" The muffled click of the latch at the gate answered her.

It opened into a little lane that ran down on the left to a main road and up on the right towards the woods below Chanctonbury. Up this then, she went, swinging her stick, swinging out. The rain fell steadily around and upon her, and ever and again she lifted her face to it and smiled slowly to herself at the kiss and sting of it. In a little the winding track became a mere footpath and debouched into an old chalk-quarry, cut from the side of the hill, fringed with immense beech-trees and an occasional oak. The girl ran a few steps up a sodden low bank and stood for a moment looking down into the great bowl. A continual patter and sough of rain came up to her, though here, under the giant trees, less of the actual downpour reached her. The white chalk shone through the misty air. A miniature torrent poured as a little waterfall over the far brink and splashed below on to bushes and brambles. A warm, rich, wet fragrance rose all about her, and every living green thing seemed stretched out and motionless in an utter ecstasy of enjoyment.

The girl drew a deep breath. Unconsciously, she was registering it all. All the grey monotones, all the myriad little drips and splashings, all the washed leaves and grasses around and underfoot, and all the tall upreaching brown trunks that rose against the teeming sky, were impressing themselves upon her mind. She knew it as an instinct and stood there to miss nothing. And one day Ursula Manning would paint just such a picture, and people would wonder how she did it, and the critics talk of her unique gift.

But at the quarry she turned to the left. The high soaked grasses reached to her knees; last year's litter of leaves clung to her feet; sprays of bramble clutched at her short skirt; but she moved slowly and persistently on. Her eyes, that looked at you always without a tremor, glanced quietly right and left as she went. By field-path and coppice, and now in a sunken lane that skirted an old wall behind which rose Fordham Manor, she made her way. She was drenched through and through, but it was warm rain, and besides the exercise kept her warm. The pores of her skin, like those of the woods and the plants, opened to the joyous quickening benison of it. Rain dripped from her plaited hair and shone on her face. And still she moved steadily through it, with the erect carriage and proud swing of her, and those resolute eager eyes.

Just past the old wall, where it turns to run up to the coach-house and stables and barns against which fruitful ancient fig-trees grow, she crossed a field diagonally to her left. Its boundary hedge was thick and she moved along to the right seeking an opening. Not until she was all but at the corner did she find it, and there, pushing back a tangle of old man's beard and bryony, she leapt through and out on to the carriage-drive running by the park up to the house. And just then a car turned the corner and swept past her.

There were three men in it besides the driver. One sat next him, his hat pulled down, muffled in an overcoat, but she knew him. Of the others, one turned and waved cheerfully over the back as the car went on. She knew him, too, just as she knew that he was arriving that day to stay with Mr. Tressor. The third man she did not know. She smiled suddenly to herself. It was plain they had been caught in the open car by the sudden storm, driving up from Brighton probably. What fun! Her cousin hated rain.

Manning turned back to Paul. "My cousin Ursula," he said. "She lives just here, when she's not in town. Possibly you know the name. She paints, and has rather a growing reputation."

"Oh," said Paul. "What in the world was she doing out in this then? She looked drowned."

"I know. She loves that sort of thing. I wonder what you'll think of her, Paul."

"I don't know. She's rather unusual. Not your sort at all I should imagine. But—well, I don't know. It will be rather amusing to see."

Ursula went on down the drive, her thoughts idle, her appreciation vivid. Arrived in the macadamised road of civilisation, she followed it without giving a thought to the fact that girls, soaked to the skin, hatless but happy, are rareties along even country roads. The surface had been rapidly softening under the downpour, but little she cared for that either. Blackberries gleamed scarlet, purple, black in every hedge; thrushes, in the now gentle rain, were already out on the war-path for worms; and the sweep of the South Downs on her right was visible through the dripping trees. Ursula began to sing to herself as she went, breaking off to nod friendlily to a carter who knew her, and picking up her song again without troubling whether or not he was out of earshot. That was her way. She had always seen clearly and scorned muddle-headed conventionalities; at first, while her father lived and she was still in her teens, with a certain submission to authority, but since, after her twenty-first birthday, quite openly and frankly. Her mother, who never had had much of a will of her own, gave in to her daughter as she had to her husband. Thus, at Ursula's suggestion, they had taken the old cottage under Chanctonbury on the edge, but actually part of, Mr. Tressor's estate, and Mrs. Manning had been forced to admit the advantage of the change from the big establishment which Mr. Manning had maintained as befitted a banking magnate. Then, a rather lonely aunt coming to live with them, the girl had announced her intention of having a flat and studio in town, and since she had her own money and moreover made more, nothing in the world was able to prevent her. She came and went now between the two, with intervals of wandering abroad. She had a big circle of her own acquaintances of whom her mother knew little, chiefly however, it must be confessed, because she did not understand more than about a third of what they said and did when they came down to Sussex with her daughter; but she had only a few friends. These her mother knew less than the rest, retaining enough spirit to avow definitely that she did not want to know them. They professed views and took part in movements which were, frankly, beyond toleration. There was Muriel Lister, for example, who preached in churches and actually led a campaign for the admission of women to the priesthood.

Yet Ursula herself took active part in no movements or campaigns. On account of this it was perhaps odd that the leaders of them should be her friends. But then a subtle reason underlay that. For Ursula was rather a good person to talk to, and a very good person to have coffee with by night in her studio after the fatigue of committees, inclined, as is the way of committees, to be a little heavy in hand. She was sympathetic, understanding, entirely capable of giving an opinion, but she did not say much. Also she was clean-handed, so to speak. It was a little irritating, possibly, at times, that she was so resolutely unimpassioned when a reactionary bishop insulted women or ministers took back by some Civil Service Regulation what the Removal of Sex Disabilities Act had given. But one knew it was Ursula. And one knew, moreover, that at a crisis neither bishop nor ministers mattered to her a toss of her present rain-soaked plait.

For Ursula, with her quiet, good-humoured resolution and her unquestioned art, not only saw life from an enviable angle, but quietly acted as if that were the only one from which it should be seen by reasonable people. Her cousin had once said of her that she "pressed towards the goal" with apostolic conviction. Not that it was a wholly good definition because, unlike the apostle, she tried to make no proselytes, seeing the world about her as a very lovely satisfying thing with which she was content to be satisfied. Constitutionally, and from environment, no lost cause had as yet come vividly her way.

Two days later she was introduced to Paul. Manning and he were doing the round of the park, Manning with a gun under his arm, Paul, metaphorically, with a pencil in his hand. In other words, he was realising what a lovely place it was. The wide sweeps of grass, the clumps of trees, the views of the Downs, and the utter quiet of this little Sussex backwater were already exercising their magic upon him. The two of them had come along the northern boundary of the estate and were now skirting the lake. It was a wild overgrown place, with nothing formal about it, a big irregular sheet of water with a tangle of weeds and lilies at one end and a regiment of great elms closing it in. An avenue of limes led from it to the house, an odd avenue that only appeared as an avenue when you came upon its entrance, suddenly, in the middle of grassy park-land. Thus it started nowhere in particular, and, from a distance, had no particular object, since the water itself lay low at the far end of it behind a raised bank. Paul already loved that. You wandered down from the garden and saw, suddenly, the green guarded road of it running away into the park. Intrigued, you entered, and sauntered carelessly up it. Then, at quite a long last, you climbed the slope of the bank and suddenly saw before you this still enchanted refuge where the fish leaped in the gathering dusk and white swans sailed friendlily up in the heat of the sun. Here and there a fallen trunk lay half in and half out of the water. In places there was no coming at the brink for forests of reeds. But, at its deepest corner, a promontory of hazels that was almost an island, thrust out into its serenity.

The friends leaped from stone to tussock and tussock to log and landed. A suggestion of a path led them through the few yards of undergrowth. And there, hidden by a screen of green, with the water at her feet, sat Ursula on the flat prow of a punt. She was making a little water-colour, palette in one hand, brush in the other, a little impressionist study of a pine that stood by himself on the bank opposite, his brown roots reaching down into the lake.

"Hullo, Ursula," said Manning, "we didn't see you. Let me introduce Paul Kestern. He's going to be a near neighbour, so you've got to know him."

The girl looked up but did not move. Paul found himself staring across a tiny strip of water into clear brown eyes, a pale oval face, and a frame of black hair, all set on a tall pillar of white throat and neck. She was wearing a brilliant yellow jumper, without adornment, and a short blue skirt. She was long-limbed, and he realised vaguely that her white bare arms and black stockinged legs were shapely and lissom and good to see. "How do you do," he said properly.

Paul was puzzled. He shot a glance at Manning, but he was fiddling unconcernedly with his gun. Left to his own resources, he continued to be polite.

"I'm afraid I must, but I shall hope to remember yet," she retorted whimsically.

"Rather not," put in Manning, restoring his piece to his arm, "Ursula never comes to see me."

Manning laughed. They were good friends, these two. "Why, indeed," he said, "but you needn't rub it in. And you might be so nice as to come and have dinner in the immediate future and make up a four at bridge."

"You must first," she said, "extract a nice note of invitation from Mr. Tressor, and it must include mother and auntie. In addition you must call upon us. Call this afternoon, and bring Mr. Kestern. Meantime you're just a little bit of a nuisance at the moment. I want to paint."

"Painted it. That is, there was one poem especially I couldn't forget. I saw it rather vividly."

"Oh," said Paul, with a deep breath. Somehow the fact that she knew of his work and had appreciated it to that extent, seemed to him the biggest praise that he had had yet. He could not take his eyes off her. "Which one?" he asked at last.

She considered him a moment Then: "I'll show you the sketch," she said, "and you shall guess which it is meant to illustrate." She got up as she spoke and turned round for a case that lay behind her in the punt.

Something in his tone—a faint trace of mockery, it seemed to Paul—struck them both. Paul looked guilty of foolishness and the girl stood arrested. They both of them looked at Manning. That instant pose remained with Paul long afterwards as the key-note of their meeting. It was symbolic, somehow, as if Manning would always be faintly contemptuous of them. But why, the boy had no idea.

"Well," said Ursula, and she spoke so soon that it was as if there had been no pause, "I have not, it is true. I was only going to pack up because I can paint no more just now, thanks to you, Arnold, you old rotter. But I will do more now. Mr. Kestern, will you walk back with me, and see your picture?"

Manning thrust his hand into his arm. "What about the Mill cottage?" he asked banteringly.

His friend laughed. "Good Lord, Paul," he said, "a pretty sort of an agent you'll make! I was taking him to see his first job," he explained. "Old Morley wants a new roof, or something of that sort. But, of course, it doesn't matter. I was only rotting. We'll walk up with you, Ursula. That'll be the call, and on my own responsibility I'll invite you and my dear aunt in to bridge after dinner this very day."

"So he's going to be Mr. Tressor's agent," said Ursula, busy over her painting materials.

"Well," said Paul honestly and a little awkwardly, "it's only an excuse, I fear."

"Paul's to prove himself a poet," said Manning, "and incidentally to settle the theory and content of revelation. Perhaps you'll help him."

They strolled back together, Manning in the middle, and it was Manning who did most of the talking. He chatted on, occasionally asking a question, but for the most part taking it for granted, apparently from experience, that Ursula would listen rather than speak. Paul, too, was not much included in the conversation, which concerned the Manning family and their friends and the girl's work. Thus he gathered from the bantering talk a good deal concerning her life here and in London, her art and her friends. It interested him profoundly. She was a new type altogether in his experience, one of which he had heard rumours, so to speak, at Claxted (where such strange goings-on were occasionally mentioned with scandalised horror), but which one would equally fail to find at Thurloe End or St. Mary's. Glancing past his friend from time to time, he watched her face. She turned her head but little, walking steadily and silently forward. But he noticed how she kept her eyes up, and how she had a trick of staring at a tree or a cloud or a beast in the lush pasture with a kind of untroubled wonder. It was easy to understand that here was an artist.

They came then to the cottage and Paul was introduced to the mother and aunt. Ursula stood by while the usual things were said, and then turned to him. "Now, Mr. Kestern," she said, "will you come this way?"

Her mother glanced up, but said nothing, and Paul, since no one else moved, followed her alone.

She led the way upstairs and into a room over the porch, the room from which she had watched the rain. It was big and airy and light, half studio and half bedroom. The bed itself stood in an alcove, curtained with a vivid cretonne, blue in the main, on which rioted a bold design of orange and yellow and scarlet fruit, with apple-blossom and leaves. The curtain was half drawn, and the still Puritan Paul felt a little that he ought not to look that way. Ursula, quite obviously had no such views at all, for she crossed the room to the alcove, pulled the curtain yet further back, and sought for a portfolio that lay in a little recess near the head of the bed.

Paul stood hesitatingly. He did not quite know what to do. The girl called to him over her shoulder. "Sit down, will you," she said, "anywhere."

He walked over to a couch by the window and sat down, looking out over the gay garden to the Downs. Hollyhocks marched as an army with banners in a bed beneath the window. Chanctonbury's crown, clear and bright in the sunlight to-day, rose into the pale blue sky above.

"What a glorious window-seat," he said, with a little note of content in his voice. She threw him a glance, but did not speak. She was searching through the portfolio.

"I think," observed Paul meditatively, "I'm the luckiest man alive to get a chance of a year here."

Ursula found what she was looking for. "Here it is," she said, coming over to him.

And then, carrying on the conversation: "I think those of us who can see and express things, ought to think first of that," she said. "After all, one lives somehow."

But Paul hardly heard. He was staring at the little picture, and was very silent.

Her silence told him he was correct. It was the short thing, since then slightly renamed and improved, that Tressor had, of all he had written, praised superlatively. Of all he had written, but, as he looked at this, astonishment welled up in him. "But this is not what I wrote," he said.

It was a picture of dull-red angry sunset tones over a bare stony plain and a dimly-outlined ragged track. A solitary figure of a man lay there, just as he had stumbled forward and fallen at the last step. The light glowed on his sunburnt nude back, his face in shadow; and on one other object, for, some short way beyond him, was a dimly-seen ruined shrine, with the statue of a god, half overthrown. The stone effigy reeled insecurely against a broken pillar, and the glow of the dying sun caught on its upcast face. The girl had copied some Greek masterpiece, and there, in that lone waste, as if to mock the beaten human figure, a regular, perfect, immobile brow and eyes and nose and lips turned upwards to the sky. In the fallen man was life, beaten and despairing, but life; in the fallen god was death, serene and lovely, but death.

"I suspect that was not all. I should not be in the least surprised if you had more in your mind than you knew. Anyway, your spent day struck me so."

Paul started, and looked at her almost with awe. He saw it all so plainly. He had sat down to write one evening after a dull heavy day when all the growing doubt and despair in his soul had been surging around him. He had written of a dying sun, a barren waste, a wearied walk, a lost hope; yet he had not seen this—no, no, not this.

She hesitated. "Speaking generally, I agree," she answered, "but why do you say so?"

"That fallen god, that empty temple," he urged, suddenly, almost passionately moved, he could hardly say why.

"I see." She was quite deliberate. "I remember what Arnold said. You have still an idol in the shrine."

If she had lashed him with a whip, he could not have been more startled, more outraged. There, in that sunny window, looking out over that gay garden, this attractive, striking, interesting girl, for whose work and thought he had already a youthful generous impulse, had suddenly blasphemed. And she had done it so coolly, so unemotionally. "There is no god," she had said, exactly as if she had passed a detached criticism on art or verse.

And yet no ringing affirmation, no dogmatic assertion to equal hers, sprang to his lips. Conflict and pain had done more in his heart than he had guessed. "Oh, there must be, there must be!" was all that he could cry, as if he hoped against hope.

Ursula took the picture from his hand and their eyes met. Even in his distress, he saw the miracle. Hers were utterly serene. He knew his own to be inchoate, baffled, grieved. And yet in her serenity, too, was a touch of kindliness, and a kind of deep wonder of understanding as if, despite her empty heaven, she looked on mystery.

Something deep down in him stirred before those eyes of hers. He forgot that he had only known her half a morning. He forgot that he was a man and a Christian, and she was a girl and a heathen. And he forgot entirely that it was the fool who said in his heart there is no god. "Oh," he cried, "you've no idea how down and out I am!"

She smiled and put out her hand. "I'll help," she said, "and I put it badly, too, just now. Peradventure there is a god, but, you know, we don't know even his Name and—and—he seems asleep."

They were odd words, he thought vaguely, but somehow there was tenderness and strength hidden in them. Paul Kestern knew suddenly how much he wanted both. And so he reached out, too, and put his hand into hers.

The impression of Ursula's personality was indeed strong enough to veil the full significance of what she had said for several days. In part, moreover, the influence of Tressor and Manning, and still more, the business of adjustment to his new environment made for this. Paul always sensed the atmosphere of houses and places in rather a cat-like way, wandering about a little, twisting, as it were, in the new bed, until it was familiar and friendly. And Fordham Manor was so different from any other house in which he had ever stayed, let alone lived, that the process took time.

It was a very beautiful place, of more than one date, but the front had been wholly rebuilt in the early Georgian period, while the back had been left Jacobean. The result was singularly arresting. Strong, severe, plain, dignified, yet not pompous and over heavy, a circular drive ran up to the entrance hall. On either side equally matched buildings—the servants' quarters and the like—pushed out, each with a little cupola and gables. Wide open high iron gates led to a gravelled drive with a balustrade, a slope, and below a big herbaceous border. Below that again there was a further walk, a low railing, and a full wide sweep of park-land where, away to the right and but trees from here, ran the avenue. But when one skirted or passed right through the house, one came out on a herb garden and box-trimmed walks; and from the beds of rosemary, lavender and thyme one looked back to the sweet smiling red brickwork and wide windows of the earlier building, with an irregular roof and high dormer windows.

Within, the house had in fact many faults. The rooms were much too small for its size for one thing. But while this would have mattered to a family in residence, if anything it added to its suitability for Tressor, a bachelor and only an occasional visitor. Besides there was at least one feature which admirably fitted now. There was a large partially divided hall into which descended a wide dignified staircase. This hall particularly pleased Paul. It was rather a stately obvious hall as one entered from the front, but one skirted the stairs, and behold its aspect changed. The big fireplace behind was Jacobean. There was a bookcase full of new books meant to be read. There were long low chairs and a plenty of rugs and footstools. And the portraits in the front portion gave way to a picture or two which he was beginning to love. One was a Dutch landscape, sombre, mysterious, and the other ploughlands and three strong horses that climbed a ridge in a gale of driving wind.

The men were already settling down. They met at breakfast, and thereafter Tressor departed to his study and was no more seen till lunch. Manning and Paul, however, gaily wasted half a morning. They smoked a pipe in the gardens, and picked up the newspapers in the lounge hall on their way to work afterwards, Paul usually reading or glancing through anything he had done the day before. In the afternoon, they rode or motored or walked, found tea waiting them on their return, and separated for a couple of hours' more serious going before the dressing bell. In the evening things seemed to fall out with easy content, though Tressor would withdraw to his study again as often as not. It was all rather leisured and easy. Expressed in colour, Paul thought of Claxted as having none; of Thurloe End as black and white and scarlet; of Fordham as blue and old gold within and brown and green without.

As for duties, as yet he had none worth the mention. Old Mrs. Bird, the housekeeper, and he, already loved each other. It was obvious that she proposed to take charge of him. Rider, who combined the functions of valet and butler and chauffeur, had instructions to take Paul over when Tressor was away, and seemed gravely imperturbed. Timothy, the head gardener and an institution, appeared actually prepared to teach him a little; and as for the gamekeeper, who lived at the lodge, he talked dogs and horses with Manning by the hour, and accepted Paul because he could listen with grave attention. In a word, the establishment was plainly ready to accept him, and he was, as he should have been, profoundly grateful.

It was thus, then, after a morning stroll, while Manning was perfunctorily looking through The Times , that Paul broached the agnosticism of Ursula. The ladies had dined at the Manor the previous evening, and she had sung. Paul had had no conversation out of the ordinary with her, and yet once again the strength of her personality had impressed him. So now, as he stood by the carved and decorated mantelpiece and looked out through the open window to the sunny garden, sniffing the fragrant scent of herbs and box that wafted in, the girl was vividly in his mind. "Arnold," he said.

Manning folded the paper carelessly and tossed it aside, feeling for his tobacco pouch. "I'm sure I'm very pleased," he said.

"True. It runs in the family in this generation. A reaction perhaps. Her father was a churchwarden, and her mother likes the vicar to call once a month."

Paul shifted uneasily. "It isn't a subject for joking to me," he said. "You know that, very well you know it. I may be in difficulties, but I believe in God with all my heart."

Manning leaned back easily in his chair and lit his pipe. "You think you do," he said, between the puffs.

Paul rounded on him eagerly. "But I do," he insisted. "To be honest, it is an utter mystery to me how you do not. I can't conceive of it at all. I know we've never discussed the point before—it hasn't seemed to me worth discussion, the existence of God, I mean—but I want to now."

"Because, impossible as it seems to me in your or anybody's case, that your cousin should say 'There is no god' utterly staggers me."

He smoked thoughtfully. "Humph," he said at last, dubiously, "but I doubt if Ursula is as much an atheist as an agnostic. She probably put it that way because her god, whatever she thinks, has nothing worth mentioning in common with any idea of God in your mind."

Paul regarded him for a moment in troubled silence, weighing his words. Then he sighed. "It is utterly beyond me," he said. "How, in the face of things as they are, you or anyone can fail to believe in a Creator, an Inspirer, a Supporter, I do not see. It may be old-fashioned, but even Paley's Evidences seem good enough to me. Allow evolution if you like, allow anything, you've got to get back to something . There must have been a beginning, even if it was all the most tenuous of spiral nebulæ. Well, who made that?"

"Well, if God didn't create it, how did it come? What other hypothesis is possible? It's not conceivable, thinkable even at all, that matter is eternal. Why, eternity, backwards or forwards, is unthinkable."

"No," said Manning, sitting up sharply, "that's exactly where you're wrong. One most emphatically must not."

Complete bewilderment settled down on Paul. He made a characteristic little gesture at last. "I suppose I haven't the intelligence necessary to follow you," he said almost bitterly.

"Paul," said Manning, "you have, that's the rub. More, I shouldn't be in the least surprised if you did. You've been God-ridden all your life, obsessed, bound, but you've broken steadily away from the chains. It seems inevitable to me that sooner or later you will break with this also. If I've said nothing much so far, it's because, in a way, I'm not interested. I like you too much to want to see you rot up your life with Roman Catholicism or any arrant nonsense of that sort, but I've always thought you had better keep your God till—till——" He hesitated. Then: "Possibly till the right person came along to deliver you."

"Indeed I do not," replied Manning quickly. "I had no idea you two would seriously broach the subject. But it is interesting that it has come that way. You're in good hands, though Ursula keeps more of the cargo than I can carry."

"Sit down then. Don't prowl about. I've got to be steadily serious and profound for at least ten minutes, and I need help."

Paul perceived a hassock at his feet and dropped on to it. "Carry on," he said, smiling a little as the other had meant him to do.

But Manning was in no hurry to begin. Before he began to speak, Timothy came past the window, saw the two sitting silently, and went on again, shaking his head and muttering to himself. And when Manning did begin to speak, he was abrupt, and there was a hard note in his voice.

"Look here, Paul," he said, "the root of the matter is just this: God is a guess in the dark. You are driven back and back and back, as you say, till you can't go further, but then you begin to invent meaningless words to cover your inadequacy. You talk about infinite and eternal and almighty, words which are no more than scraps of mathematical logic. The mind knows that it's beaten, that for some odd reason it cannot travel back beyond certain bounds. It's like space: you cannot conceive of something that ends, without your demanding what comes next. Something, you say, must come next, and next, and next. And there can't be a last; and yet there must be a last, an end..."

He stopped, as if he was trying once more himself to beat back against the reeling thought. Paul remained immovable.

"Well, now, the mind hates a vacuum. It must round off things. Thus, then, at that extreme limit of comprehension, when no further logical sequence is possible, it gets out of the difficulty by creating a conception upon which it can rest. Thought demands a beginning, an end, a supreme power, a reason, and the imagination of man, when his mind can no more, simply jumps in the dark. 'All right,' it says, 'there is One Who is Eternal, Almighty, Infinite—God.' A guess in the dark, you see."

Paul stared into that shifting black abyss. The horror of it rose into his eyes. Waves and seas, inexorable, heartless, rolled in upon him, and he felt himself sinking, sinking. The sensation was almost physical, and he had literally to moisten his lips to speak. "We have Christ," he said. "He was not in the dark. He knew."

Manning got up. "Look here, Paul," he said, "we've worked over that ground. Christianity is a matter of evidence. God Almighty, you know something of it! 'By what authority?'" He relit his pipe and tossed the match through the window.

Paul turned the question over in his mind. Of course, that was the question. He saw it, like a flaming note of interrogation, burning in upon him. That unanswerable question: "By what authority?" Father Vassall——

"And," Arnold burst out, "ultimately, that is evidence we can test for ourselves. What did Christ say of God? Take one thing: that He was a Father, who heard and answered and cared for His creatures, for the least of them. Well, does He—I ask you, does He? Come, now, be honest. You know He doesn't. There is not a flicker of evidence in the whole vast universe that God hears or answers or cares. There are laws, great driving laws, that's all. Shove your finger in and you'll get hurt; jump right in and you'll be killed. Inevitably. Always. Screaming to God won't save you. Some bloody war's on, and a woman implores God to save her lover. Well, does He? If He turn a single bullet aside, He must disarrange the whole cosmic law. Does He ? I ask you—does He?"

Paul hid his face. He saw the past three years white as an open road before him.... "Does He?"

But Manning did not seem to notice. "There's no fatherly control, that's the point. Even religion squirms before the obviousness of that, and invents excuses. God maketh His rain to fall on the just and on the unjust. Pish, He does no such thing. He has nothing to do with the fall of rain, or He abdicated His power before the dawn of history."

Manning dropped back into his chair. "Stop," he cried. "If we are to go on talking you must not say that. You surrender to the savage when you say that. He, poor devil, sees the lightning hit his hut: 'Somebody must be angry,' he says. Experience comes along and shows even unscientific minds the irrefragable laws of thunderstorms, and your poor fellow bleats: 'Then somebody must have caused them.' Science comes along and demonstrates without a doubt the unity of matter and the existence of the electron, and the dear Christian folds his hands: 'But God is the First Cause, the Creator.' Guesses, all of them. Guess if you want to, Kestern, but not to me. I won't. That's flat."

Paul could stand it no more. He jumped up and paced restlessly about. "I see what you mean," he cried.... "Oh, and I see what she meant, too.... It was beautiful, beautiful, but a marble statue after all; and it's the end of the day; and it's fallen—fallen.... Well, the traveller has fallen too.... No wonder.... Oh, no wonder...."

Manning smoked steadily. He had been unusually vehement, and was a trifle ashamed of himself. "I say, Paul," he said at last, "pull yourself together. You're not a fool."

Paul stopped in his walk and stood regarding him. But he did not make an answer to that. "If you don't guess, what happens then?"

Manning smiled languidly. "Well, you don't guess, that's all. It's quite simple. Perhaps there is a god; perhaps He is all that is said about Him. Perhaps.... Only we are reasonable men and we have to go upon facts, and the facts are that there is no trace of Him."

"Unless very existence is a sign—the fact that things are," said Paul, catching at a straw.

"Oh, very well, have it if you will. But of what or of whom is existence a sign? I know it's sentimental twaddle to talk of the cruelty and so on of Nature, and I won't. But you know and I know there are laws, and what sort of laws? To what sort of mind can you argue from Nature's laws? Think."

Paul thought. He thought of the regularity and beauty of ice-crystals which no one can see without a microscope. Why always regular? Why beautiful? He thought of the evolution and the extinction of the dinosaur, the pterodactyl and the rest. Why? Necessary? Useful? "Did the hand, then, of the Potter shake?" He thought of the laws that calmly allow men and women to bring forth congenital idiots or children loathsomely diseased in body or in soul. Laws! He flamed suddenly with rage. "The mind of a devil!" he cried.

"Rubbish," retorted Manning. "Good heavens, Paul, pull yourself together! But there, I suppose it takes time."

"You dear old ass, there's NO personality in it at all. That's the whole argument. You will guess . Talk about the high hills! You go skipping on from point to point—in imagination. Existence exists so far as we can tell. Relatively to us it exists, anyway. But that is the end of the argument. You can go no further. Nothing imaginable can have created it—nothing—nothing." And forgetting Tennyson, he pushed his arm through Paul's and led him out into the garden.

The sweet warm sun was releasing a thousand scents. Paul drew trailing fingers through a spiky host of lavender. Butterflies fluttered their apparently aimless dance over the beds, and bees, more obviously purposeful, dived into flowerets. Even the ancient flags on which they stood were cracked and broken by the impetuous thrust of tiny tendrils one could destroy with a pinch.

Arnold Manning took up his parable. "'Consider the lilies,'" he quoted. "Christ took a far step forward, anyway, Paul. The savage only saw horror, and made his grinning abomination as an image of God. The Jew saw, for some reason, the beauty of law and unity, and Elijah mocked the poor leaping priests of Baal and cried out on Jehovah. Christ saw beauty and tenderness, and invested His God with a still higher personality. 'Ye know not the Father,' He said. And we, we poor moderns, we see it all, Paul, and we see that all—all—those conceptions were just shadows of ourselves."

Paul was gazing up towards the Downs with a far-away look in his eyes. Little fleecy floating clouds were racing shadows of themselves across the rich green turf. "I see," he said sadly.

They strolled up and down. "Go and write a poem about this," said Manning with unusual gentleness. "That will buck you up."

It would be foolish to pretend that a couple of conversations shattered the faith of years, and yet, in life, it often seems so. Under the surface, the insidious work goes on, and perhaps there is never a crisis for which there has not been preparation. So it was with Paul. The ground had been steadily slipping from beneath his feet. Upon a proffered rock, for good or ill, he had not climbed. Now, with all the thunder and confusion of a cataclysm, the elaborate structure fell.

Manning's cool challenge, as much or more than his logic, had brought about the ruin. Does God hear? he had asked, and deliberately awaited the answer. Once Paul would have been as swift and as assured in his reply. In Lambeth Court, on Parker's Piece, even at Port o' Man, he would instantly have answered yes. But those days had gone. He fought the conclusion, wrestled with it, even still prayed earnestly against it, but could not escape the only possible deduction, as it seemed to him. There had been no answer at all, absolutely and literally none; or else, as Father Vassall would have it, he had been heard and led, led deliberately and as he could bear it, to the threshold of the Catholic Church. But his father, than whom none prayed more earnestly, said that that was the devil, and the Bishop of Mozambique that there the angels of God had been set about him for deliverance. Which was right? He had been tossed like a shuttlecock among them.

Out of that dilemma, Tressor's quiet reasoned judgment had opened up a way of escape. Fordham Manor had seemed so plainly the best and wisest refuge. His father, again, had approved. Besides, if he could write verse, that was a gift of God given him for improvement. And it was not that he did not pray even now, and read the Bible, too, as he had been taught. Only the Bible pointed, if anywhere, where they who advised him most to read it would not admit there was any conceivable possibility of going.

No, the arches of the years had led Paul irresistibly on. One by one, soaring unseen before him, they had closed down at the end of each span an appreciable march nearer to the brink of the precipice. He stood there now, peering into its depths, discerning no path at all, suspecting that the plunge into the abyss was only a matter of weeks, or days. Does God hear? demanded Manning, and Paul had no answer but the echo of Job's old cry: "Oh that I knew where I might find Him!"

Small wonder that he could not write poetry. Poetry! There was no meaning in life if God were not—no reasonable end, no conceivable beginning, nothing worth while. Arnold might grub about with his science; Paul sought the spirit of things. And when he turned to Tressor, the don utterly failed him.

It was odd, Paul thought, how entirely he failed him. Paul was coming daily to love more and more this kindly pleasant man, but he was beginning to see joints in his harness. The three of them would talk of an evening, for Paul could not do otherwise, and he would drag a somewhat unwilling Manning into it; but Tressor answered the younger man not at all. He clung to a refuge that was not yet, at any rate, storm-proof for Paul. Logic, said Tressor, failed at a point. The heart of man universally had need of God, and it would not crave if there was nothing to crave for. Tressor relied on intuition and instinct. Instinct and intuition, said Manning, were the result of training and environment. Psychology could dissect and label both, almost as easily as physiology the bones and muscles of a man. There was mystery before and behind, said Tressor, but God was fatherly, and in the end the weary soul would fall back upon His heart and rest.

"Sir," Manning cried one evening, goaded for once out of his habitual calm, "if your principles had been applied in science, man would be still in the Stone Age!"

Tressor had flicked an eyelid and looked hurt. He had shortly gone off to his study, and Manning had as shortly gone after him to apologise. He had returned a little flushed. "He's a jolly good chap," he said to Paul. "It's beastly of me to hurt his feelings."

Feelings! As if, Paul thought, feelings mattered. He walked bareheaded in the avenue and stood on the edge of the sleeping lake, and he cried out of the depths of his tortured soul to God. One syllable of an answer, one solitary sign out of the still night, one resolute conviction even, if God preferred that secret way, among the changing shifting doubts that racked his soul, and he would be ready to drink any kind of cup and be baptized with any baptism.

Tacked on to the very house, was a peculiar feature of the place. The parish church was also the private chapel. The parish had dwindled all but to the inhabitants of the park and grounds, and one clergyman served Fordham and held as well the living of the considerable village that lay beyond; but, occasionally, once a month for each service, Communion was celebrated, Evensong sung, so near to them that it was difficult even for unsympathetic guests not to go. Besides, Tressor liked one to go, and that was enough for Manning and Paul.

The last Sunday in the month, then, Paul went to Evensong. All the servants were there: dear old Mrs. Bird in a bonnet that tinkled with jet, with service-books the treasured gifts of her master; Timothy, for the most part crouched in his pew, expressionless; Rider, precise and understanding; the maids, strange in Sunday outdoor garments. The three friends occupied a pew discreetly not in the front, flatteringly not too far behind. And Mr. Prideaux took the service and preached.

There had, it appeared, but lately been a serious controversy in the Church. A dean had preached at Westminster on the earlier chapters of Genesis, had depreciated their historic value, and had welcomed the teachings of Professor Darwin. A bishop had retorted in the Guardian , and Catholic-minded clergy taken the matter up in the Church Times . The Record had said that it had long told the public that this would be the result of ... And so on.

Mr. Prideaux, an able, energetic, zealous man, preached upon the subject. He believed in dealing with subjects of current interest, besides (though he did not say so), unless you are very High Church, the month of August is singularly desert in regard to festivals. He may also have thought that here his small select congregation did at any rate contain a proportion of listeners who would be more interested in such matters than the average villager. And he was quite right in a sense.

Only the Vicar could not know that there was a veritable gulf fixed between his comfortable reasoned theology and the devastating vivid modernism of either Manning or Paul. The priest said that, "of course," Darwinism was not proved; an increasing host of scientists disagreed with it. Besides, Darwin had never taught Darwinism. Again, if he had, there was nothing inherently hostile to the true teachings of the Church in the theory of evolution. There was nothing of revelation as to the precise point at which the ape-man became the man-ape with a soul. And it was only those who had forgotten the true relation of Church and Bible who found any difficulty in Genesis. The devout churchman only saw in these inspired fragments of ancient legend illustrations of the eternal groping of the soul of man after truth, and, he might say, an unique witness to the guiding hand of God....

Mr. Prideaux came to supper afterwards, and played a couple of rubbers of bridge. He was genial, and hoped, when he learned of Paul's taking up of residence at Fordham, that Paul would come to see him. He was a bachelor, and it would be delightful if they could see a good deal of each other.

Paul went up slowly to his room at last. He opened the window and looked out towards the avenue and the lake. The trees stretched grey and ghostly in a dim misty starlight, but they were not friendly or inviting to-night. Something had gone from the face of earth and sky. Darwin, evolution, science, ape-men, the interpretations of texts—what jargon! Where was God now, and why would He not speak? What else mattered? He was silent; He had been eternally silent it seemed; it was but the promptings of their own imagination which men had taken for His voice.

CHAPTER X
"THE BLIND BEGGAR"

The only strength for me is to be found in the sense of a personal presence everywhere, it scarcely matters whether it be called human or divine; a presence which only makes itself felt at first in this and that particular form and feature.... Into this presence we come, not by leaving behind what are usually called earthly things, or by loving them less, but by living more intensely in them, and loving more what is really lovable in them; for it is literally true that this world is everything to us, if only we choose to make it so, if only we "live in the present" because it is eternity....—RICHARD LEWIS NETTLESHIP: Lectures and Memories , Vol. I., p. 72.

He hath made everything beautiful in its time; He hath also set the world in their heart, and yet so that man cannot find out the work that God hath wrought from the beginning even unto the end....—ECCLES. iii.

August drew to its sunny close, and Manning and Tressor departed, leaving Paul to superintend the reroofing of old Morley's Mill cottage, the building of an extra poultry house, the laying-out of a new flower bed, the cutting down of a few trees and the letting of an empty cottage. They also left him to write poetry; and whereas, without assistance, he would have cut a poor figure at any of the practical jobs, he felt that he was doing even worse as a poet. September found him, then, alone and perturbed; but October came, heralded with the gleam of crimson and gold banners among the beeches of Chanctonbury, and found him alone and desperate.

He was the more overwhelmed by it all as he was totally unprepared. Hitherto his days had been more full than he could manage, for, besides talk and friends and all the incidents of life at Cambridge, he had had his degree for which to work. Hitherto verse had been a refuge, a joy which he had allowed himself with a kind of grim deliberation. He would want to write, feeling that strange, deep, indefinite hunger within him that all who have in any degree the gift of a creative art know so well, and he would permit himself to leave his books and sit by the fire or in the window-seat with a pencil for an hour, a measured hour only. Or hitherto there had been other difficulties in the way, from Donaldson's tramp on the stairs to the disturbing furniture at Claxted—little things, things over which one ought to be able to triumph, but things which ordinarily triumph over us all.

There, then, lay the sting of it. He had now time and to spare. He had now both loneliness, and, on the other hand, the company of beauty both within and without doors. He had, in the well-trained servants of the house and estate, the very best of human help towards that respect and leisure and comfort that our rather pitiable souls do need. He had Prideaux at the Vicarage, the best of fellows, for a companionable pipe and chat, and he had Mrs. Manning and Miss Netterly, her sister, only too ready to give him tea in their drawing-room and be kind. The disturbing element was wholly withdrawn. Ursula had gone to London on a whim of her own in August, and on an ill-defined visit thereafter, and had at last returned so absorbed in a picture perhaps, so possibly deliberately remote, that, if he saw her, it was only to pass the time of day, or watch her face immobile as he rested in the evening in her mother's drawing-room.

In despair, he had abandoned the attempt to write for one to read. The possibility of reading had been one of the attractions of Fordham. At Claxted he had done but little more than learn the names of classical English authors, at Cambridge but snatched odd moments for them. He was peculiarly unfamiliar with the work of the great poets and he had soaked himself in none of the moderns. He had longed so eagerly for the chance really to read Swinburne, Francis Thompson and the like, and now that it had come he could not. The malignancy of his own particular devil followed him even in this. He would walk to Storrington and tramp back over the Downs to curl himself up in the lounge with the Hound of Heaven in his hands, only to find his eyes wandering from the page and his feet stirring restlessly towards the gardens where old Timothy would be pottering about. Not, of course, that old Timothy helped at all, and he would perhaps take a hand with a spade or listen to a discourse on manners for half an hour or so, and then turn unsatisfied to the towering strength of the animophilous lime-trees in the avenue and the quiet assurance of the sleeping water in the lake. Old Timothy would look after him and shake his head. He had small opinion of strapping young men who could not dig for a morning and be thankful.

Half-way through October Paul came near to the climax. A morning unusually wretched had led to an afternoon's honest endeavour with the foresters in the park, and he had returned to bath and change with a more comfortable feeling in his heart and pleasurably tired muscles. But even as he dressed, the shadows crept in again. He came down the wide stairs to the hall slowly, a haunted man. Its very quiet and peace and air of waiting kindly readiness to help, exasperated him. A friendly touch, where one looks for love, is worse than indifference to a lover. And brooding there, he had determined to write to Tressor and tell him that the experiment was a failure and that he must leave.

After dinner, the company of his thoughts intolerable, he told Rider that he was going out and walked across the park to the cottage below the Downs. Mrs. Manning was always glad to see him, and he knew he would like to sit in an arm-chair and listen to her placid chat. She understood just nothing at all, that was the best of her. Prideaux would understand sufficient to irritate but not enough to help; the Manor had an air of understanding but of keeping its own placid secret. Mrs. Manning would talk about her fowls and ask him if he did not think Mr. Lloyd George too terrible. And in the morning he would write to Tressor.

Ursula was there. It appeared that her picture was nearing completion, and that she was, as it were, standing aside for a day or two to be quite sure of the necessary final touches. She sat idly, watching her mother at work. He studied her profile as she sat, deliberately telling himself that this and that might have been improved, deliberately conscious that he would not have altered a line. Sure strength lingered on her face in some subtle way. She was oddly remote, splendidly active, he felt,—the other side of a veil. Of that veil she was in supreme command. Not that it mattered; he did not want her to lift it. He was too preoccupied, too much on the rack to care.

When he had gone, the girl sat on silent for a little. Then, without moving, she asked a question or two of her mother.

"Yes, dear, a good deal. He and Arnold came several times, and when Arnold went, he kept up the habit of dropping in."

Certain vivid little scenes formed themselves in Ursula's mind. She had seen him walking and talking with Manning, had heard him with Tressor. And she remembered his face by the lake and in her room. A quiet man? Eager, ardent, she had thought him. And there was his verse, too.

"He's absorbed in his work, I expect," went on her mother, her head on one side as she touched her embroidery deftly. "Mr. Tressor said he thought he would do a great deal. He said he was very prolific, I remember. They use such odd words."

"Well, dear," said her mother, folding her work, "I think it's bedtime. You must be tired, too."

Mrs. Manning always thought one must be tired. Curiously enough, she was so nice about it that one forgot to be irritated.

In her own room Ursula uncovered her picture and had a look at it. She read a little. Then she sat on awhile, staring out of the window. Then she got up, fetched her portfolio and looked through its contents. When she reached the little water-colour she had done to illustrate Paul's poem, she put it on one side—thereafter by itself on her mantelpiece. Then she went to bed.

In the morning she announced the intention of taking a walk. Everyone placidly agreed, as they did from force of habit where Ursula was concerned, and her mother came to the gate with her and watched her away in her yellow jumper, with a green scarf and skirt. Mrs. Manning was very proud of her daughter. She did not ask where she was going, however.

Paul, after a late breakfast, strolled out on to the terrace. He was turning over the phrases of his letter to Tressor when he saw the girl coming up the drive. He went to meet her. It crossed his mind that she might be bringing a message from her mother.

"Hullo," he said, when he was within speaking distance. "Good morning. How are you?"

"Not particularly," replied Paul ruefully. "I was just about to write a beastly letter."

She nodded. They were standing still there, on the drive. She looked away from him, as if she had seen all she wanted, looking out over the park alive in the sun.

"I've written nothing for ages," he went on impulsively. "I can't. And I can't read either."

"Now? With you? Where?" It was only afterwards that he realised that this was not the politest reply.

His face lit up. He saw in a flash how good a walk with her would be. "Oh, good," he cried, "I'd love to. May I get a stick and a hat? Will you come in a moment?"

She led the way, down the drive, past the lodge, up to the right, up a little path that skirted the hedges and ran through the woods at the foot of the great hill, and then up still more, by a winding track that serpentined out into the open downland at the top. The ring of Chanctonbury was away on their right; a dew-pond ringed with a stony beach just in front, its waters reflecting the blue of the autumn sky and ruffled with a wind from the sea. Before them they could see Cissbury in the distance and follow the coast line past Worthing, hid behind a down, to Shoreham, with Lancing Chapel set up above it, and Brighton. It was so clear to-day that the gleam of white on the cliffs beyond Rottingdean was distinctly visible.

They had said little as they climbed, as one does, for it is a climb, but now they turned to the left and walked slowly along the close-cropped ride through the tufted hummocky grass, skirting that ridge below which Fordham and Steyning nestle and a down winds to the sea.

"I would," cried Paul eagerly, "I'd love to. Besides——" He broke off, puzzling at her as they walked.

"I saw last night," she said imperturbably. "It struck me that you were down and out, and hadn't a soul to speak to."

She walked on deliberately. "I'm not bothering. You see, I like you, and I like your verse, and you're the sort of person it's worth while talking to in life."

"That's very good of you," said Paul. "But I don't deserve all that. I'm an awful fool, and I've floundered about till I've got fairly well bogged."

"I don't know where to begin. Yes, I do though. After all, it's you who bogged me really."

He smiled at her ruefully, but she took no notice, her eyes on the landscape below. "You said there was no God," went on Paul, "and I couldn't forget it, and spoke to Arnold about it at last. Then he rubbed it in. For three years, now, I've been seeking to get at the truth about God. You don't know how I've tried. I've tried to hear His voice, to know what He wants, and I've got no nearer. Or I think I haven't. It hadn't struck me till you spoke and Arnold pushed it home that perhaps the reason is that—that—there isn't a God at all."

Her tone arrested him. He knew what she meant. They walked a hundred yards while he turned it over. He had a sudden vision of the generations of seekers that had gone before him seeking. He saw vividly that where the mystics, saints and doctors had spent lifetimes, three years was not much. But as he saw, he flamed out. The floodgates were loosened. At last, like the psalmist, he spake with his tongue.

"Yes. Three years. Oh, I know it's a drop in the bucket. But they're the three best years up to now of my life, and they are my life. They're all I've had to give. And if God is a Father to us, if He cares at all, He must be big enough to be interested even in my three years."

"He doesn't care at all. He is silent, always silent. You were right: He must be asleep. There's never any voice nor any that answers. And so all the light's gone out of life. What's the good of anything? What's the meaning of anything? Before, everything in the world seemed to have a secret joy behind it, and it was wonderful to feel part of a great plan, to be able to lend oneself to it and work for it. It was wonderful to feel that Christ knew and was our Master and Friend. Oh, I loved Him so! And He's gone, He's hidden. And with Him has gone all the light and joy in living."

She said nothing. "I tell you it's gone!" he cried again, and it was an exceeding bitter cry.

They were walking on the edge of a beech spinney. The tall dainty trunks towered up towards the sun and their wide crown of leaves moved together with smooth billowy swaying motions. And where their spreading branches reached out towards the slope of the Down, a rich wreath of colour was growing among them. Ursula stretched up her hand as they walked and broke off a spray of golden glory. She held it out to Paul without a word.

"Oh, no," she replied calmly. "It's dull and ugly and useless and a combination of so many chemical elements that you can read all about in the books. It's perfectly plain. What is more, the leaves are already in decay."

Paul heard her at first in blank amazement. He glanced from her face to the bough in his hand, and from the bough to her face. He could read nothing there. He looked up at the spinney from which she had broken it, and as he looked anew its brown and green and grey and gold cleared before his eyes. It was as sudden as a song. Some little hidden chain snapped inside him. "Please go on," he said, like a child.

"You're not worth it. You're as blind as a bat. And you, with your verse and your talk, you pretended to see!"

The scorn of her voice lashed him. She humbled him pitifully. And yet she said so little. It was the tone of the biting words that did it, and the fact that she was so seemingly unmoved.

"Tried! That's exactly what you would do. Tried! One has to try so very hard to see the sunlight."

They walked on in silence. It was very odd; as they walked Paul began to study the short green grass and the delicate curving tendrils of moss as if he had never seen them before.

"Paul," she said at last, and he was past thinking it strange, "if one is blind one cannot see. If one has eyes, one can't help seeing."

He made an effort to recover his position. "But it's God that matters," he said, "it's not the things themselves. And if God is not there, why, then——"

"Why, then, the rose is still red to-day as it was yesterday, and still sweet, sweet in its life and sweet in its death. And a new one is on the way. Who are you to talk about God Whom you do not and cannot understand? Talk about the things that you see, that is your business. Smell the scent of the rose, pick it, love it, worship it. Are you mad?"

"But the mind matters. It's the first principle of philosophy. You can't get away from that."

She stopped and lay a hand upon his arm. "Listen," she said in a new voice. A lark was singing somewhere in the far blue empyrean. "Look," she said. The wide open country of field and coppice and lane lay spread before them. And so they stood awhile.

"Paul," she went on presently, "it's too lovely for you and me to spoil. Let the priest and the philosopher go their own ways. It's their vocation; perhaps they must, poor souls. Meanwhile, the beauty of the world is beyond argument. God!" (She spoke softly and rather wonderingly.) "God! Oh, I know nothing of God. Perhaps He is not, perhaps He is. The God they talk about, anyway, is not here. But the earth is here, light and colour are here, beauty is here, and beauty is enough for you to sing and for me to paint, all our days."

Paul looked about him with eyes that had grown wider with a new amazement as she spoke. "Oh," he said as softly as she, "I see, I see."

They walked down to Steyning by the steep path that drops over the hill and skirts the big bosom of the Down. Paul plucked sprays of leaves, laughed, swung his stick, sang. She laughed back at him. "Madcap," she said.

"Oh, I know. I'm mad. No, I'm not. But I have been mad, you know. But, I say, you must teach me more. We must talk about this. Will you?"

"I'm the blind beggar-man. 'One thing I know: once I was blind, but now I see.' Remember?"

She nodded at him, sensing something of the old evangelical years in his quotation.

"Oh, it's wonderful! Heavens, what a poem! No: I'll write a play about it. You see it, don't you? How was he made to see, eh, how?"

"Why, clay touched his eyes, common clay—and he saw! You understand: it was just common clay that he had been walking upon, blind as a bat, for all his days. And he saw!"

She saw the parable, grave all at once. "Paul," she said, "I told you a moment ago that you would teach."

"Come on," he shouted, plunging down the hill, "I want to write. Heavens, how I want to write! Ursula, I shall read it to you bit by bit. And you shall paint a picture of it. We'll do it together. 'The Beggar-Man.' Shall we?"

Thus, veritably, was born "The Beggar-Man." The general public knew nothing of it till the play was staged, more than twelve months later, after the usual intolerable delays and the appearance of the author's second book of verse, and then, for all the interest it aroused in this new author, and for all the heavy bookings, few ever knew the details of its origin and working out. It was, as staged, a children's mystery. They loved the Beggar-Man, and shouted with glee at his gay sallies and his new-born wonderment in wooden stools, his rickety hut and the weeds about his door. They loved his adventure with the King, the stupid old King who was as blind as—as a beggar-man. But grown-up people went, too, and they smiled a little wistfully when the children laughed, and looked a little sadly at glittering Herod. It was not a biblical play in a sense, and yet, as a critic said, it was a chapter or two of St. John's gospel that had not previously been written.

As to Paul, in these days, that Beggar-Man moved into Fordham Manor and lived with him. He and the boy became inseparables. He inspired a thousand songs that did not mention his name, but he related incidents and preached parables that Paul would retail as wholly his own. Ursula was their confidante. Mrs. Manning, at first bewildered, at length perforce tolerant, got used to the arrival of Paul on a morning breathless from a race across the park. "Good-morning, Mrs. Manning," he would shout, "where's Ursula?"

Ursula, at her easel, would smile gravely and call "Come in" almost before he knocked.

"Oh, I say," Paul would cry gaily, "what do you think the Beggar-Man told me last night? He says that, after the cure, he went off to his house without his stick. Without his stick. He could hardly believe so simple a thing as that as he went, but it was true. For the first time, then, he saw his home—a poor enough shanty, but his own home, that he saw for the first time. He was still rubbing the tears out of his eyes, when there came a knock at the door.

"'Excuse me,' said the man without, trembling with eagerness, 'but is there any more of that clay? I don't want all yours, of course, only just a little.... Or if you could tell me where to get it....'

"'Good heavens!' roared the blind man (asserting himself for the first time in history, Ursula), 'it was clay, man, good honest clay! Look at it! Turn round and look at it! There's miles of the holy precious stuff. Go down on your miserable knees, as I did, and thank God for it. I didn't make it. I can't give it to you. God thrusts it at you. Were you born blind?'"

Paul would throw himself into the window-seat and look gravely at her. "I say, do you know, in the long run, they all said that he was still blind!"

"They all said he was still blind. The people, you know, and the Pharisees. The people said: 'But, look here, how could clay open a man's eyes? The thing's ridiculous. There must be more in it than that. Come now, He said a magic word, didn't He, that Jesus? He had some secret medicine, eh? You're hiding something, you know you are! What was it?'

"'Rubbish,' said the people, 'you're as blind as a bat to believe that twaddle.'"

Ursula would lean back thoughtfully, studying him. "And the Pharisees?" she asked softly.

"Ah, the Pharisees!" Paul jumped up and began to walk restlessly about. "You see, Ursula, when he was blind they were rather satisfied with him. He saw so plainly what good, wise, holy men they were. He saw plainly that they were meant to be masters in Israel, and it is right and proper for beggars to see that. But when they were up against his sight, and showed plainly that ultimately they knew no more than he did, and, indeed, not so much, about God or Jesus or miracles or clay or anything, he began to think that they, too, must have been born blind."

Silence between them. He was staring out of the window now, and she leaning back in her chair, playing with her brushes.

"Well, they were so sure about Jesus. They made a whole religion up about him. And the Beggar-Man never could do that. 'He took the clay that he and I were standing on,' he would say, 'and I saw. That's all I have to tell. One thing I know: whereas I was blind, now I see.'"

"'Of course,' said the Beggar-Man, 'as I worship my mother and my wife and the little blue spring lilies on the hills of Galilee.'

"'No,' they said. 'He's the Second Person of the Trinity. He's the Logos. He's Eternal, Invisible, the Only Wise——'

"And the Beggar-Man used to interrupt them. 'Stop,' he used to say, 'that's beyond me. I can't follow that. One thing I know: whereas——'

And Paul turned round from the window, his eyes meeting hers. "They turned the Beggar-Man out of the Church," he said gravely.

And she would nod back at him, with a little smile. "He went on seeing, though," she would say.

Despite his eagerness that October morning, Paul did not then, all at once, write his play. He said that he and the Beggar had got to get to know each other. And before he got to the actual draft, he wrote down a few definite incidents in the later life of the Beggar-Man. He brought the manuscript round to Ursula one day the following Spring when the new flowers were out on Chanctonbury very much as they had been when they sprang into vivid flames of being before the newly-opened eyes of the blind Beggar on the hills of Galilee that he had loved so much. He brought it round to her very early, while the family at the cottage were still at breakfast, which did not perturb him at all.

After greetings, he looked across at Ursula. "Can you come for a long walk this morning?" he asked.

"At least, not a very long walk. I want you to come to that little wood on the crest of the Downs above Steyning—you know—and let me read this to you."

Mrs. Manning's eyes travelled from one to the other a little anxiously. Really, these two ... But perhaps this time ... Well, if the girl knew her own mind....

"Don't forget it's only Spring," said Mrs. Manning at the door. "Don't catch cold."

At the remembered spot, Paul spread a mackintosh on the ground. "There," he said, "sit down. I'm going to read to you. Do you mind?"

She smiled her own silent slow smile at him, and drew her knees up, and clasped her hands round them, and stared down at the sleepy little town nestling far below.

Paul read. It was the last stage before the actual and now famous play. He had written without introduction as if he were about a short story, and, in main, it was this that was dramatised.

Paul finished. Ursula, who had hardly moved, put out a hand and laid it gently on his arm.

Paul drew a breath of relieved content, being satisfied now that he knew her so well.

"I see the wonder and beauty of things as they are. I see that they satisfy. I see that that's enough, that—that they're a kind of avenue down which a man can go forward. And at the end, perhaps, he will find, not all the secret, but a still living lovely lake of water into which he will plunge, content."

Paul studied her face. "I would like you to be there," he said, a little restlessly.

Next morning, Ursula went up to town and took up residence again in her flat. Mrs. Manning had fluttered about her all the afternoon, and learned nothing. Her daughter seemed wholly unaware that she might have any question to ask, and Mrs. Manning did not dare ask her anything directly. But she thought she might learn more from Paul. So, when her daughter's car had driven off, she and her sister walked round to the Manor with a note Ursula had left for Paul.

They found him at work. He got up, pen in hand, and a look in the back of his eyes that Mrs. Manning saw in her daughter's when she was very busily painting.

"Has she?" queried Paul. "She didn't tell me she was going." He tore it open, and read it quickly. It only took him a few seconds to read and he smiled as he finished.

"That's all right," he said. "It's nothing much, Mrs. Manning, only about my work."

At the end of a long morning's work, Paul picked up the note as if he had not seen it before, and re-read it. "I'm off to town," she had written. "I've had a sudden notion. Give my love to the Beggar-Man. You and he have got your work to do together just now, and I should only interrupt, but call me in at the finish and I want a box the first night. URSULA." Having read it, Paul smiled again. He was still preoccupied with the beauty of the budding limes that arched the avenue of Sight.

CHAPTER XI
URSULA

If you teach a man to keep his eyes upon what others think of him, unthinkingly to lead the life and hold the principles of the majority of his contemporaries, you must discredit in his eyes the authoritative voice of his own soul. He may be a docile citizen; he will never be a man. It is ours, on the other hand, to disregard the babble and chattering of other men better and worse than we are, and to walk straight before us by what light we have. They may be right; but so, before heaven, are we. They may know; but we know also, and by that knowledge we must stand or fall. There is such a thing as loyalty to a man's better self; and from those who have not that, God help me, how am I to look for loyalty to others? ...

Although all the world ranged themselves in one line to tell "This is wrong," be you your own faithful vassal and the ambassador of God—throw down the glove and answer "This is right." Do you think you are only declaring yourself? Perhaps in some dim way, like a child who delivers a message not fully understood, you are opening wider the straits of prejudice and preparing mankind for some truer and more spiritual grasp of truth; perhaps, as you stand forth for your own judgment, you are covering a thousand weak ones with your body; perhaps, by this declaration alone, you have avoided the guilt of false witness against humanity and the little ones unborn. It is good, I believe, to be respectable, but much nobler to respect oneself and utter the voice of God.—ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

You see deeper? Thus saw he,
And by the light he saw, must walk: how else
Was he to do his part?
ROBERT BROWNING: Saviour of Society .

The day had come at last, and had all but ended. The busy writing, that had been but an interlude, as it seemed afterwards, to the work of curtailing, altering, lengthening and finally staging the play; the alternating moods of despair and hope; the weeks of rehearsals; the immediate days before the performance, spent in town, half lived at the theatre, spent in a new bewildering atmosphere of critical interested faces, critical indifferent faces, toadying sycophant faces, stupid careless faces; all these were over. Arnold and Ursula had stood by him all the time, Arnold giving him sanctuary in his rooms, Ursula ready for his moods, the clearing-house of his thoughts and emotions. Paul had grown ever more clearly aware what good friends these were, and now, for the first night, they two and Tressor had been with him in the box.

He was very tired; that seemed to stand out more clearly than anything else. He was utterly tired of his own work, and utterly tired of the whole dreary business of staging. He had seen the curtain go up chiefly with a kind of dull wonder that anyone should be there to watch the fantastically familiar and now boring thing. He had looked down with the rest, across the footlights, into that Eastern street where passers by came and went, and mules and asses, where a radiant sun shone blindingly, where tall white houses and the gaudy booths of merchants filled the scene; but he had a sudden odd sense of Chanctonbury and dark pines and the cool mellow wind, and a feeling that the beggar-man had no place there. Yet the beggar-man was duly at his corner crouching in the dust, whining, shrinking from the Pharisee's robe, the merchant's stick. Paul found himself staring with aroused interest—his blind beggar-man! And then there had been that confused murmur off the stage; the sudden emptying of the street; that cry of the Son of David, startlingly clear, that had fetched the beggar-man to his feet and drawn him groping off, leaving the deserted stalls, the glaring dust and a tethered beast or two for the audience to study the while the noise without died down, and leaped again into a sudden shout as the miracle was accomplished. That had been his idea, his only, and his the new striding in of that alert figure, thronged, jostled, questioned, who made his resolute revolutionary way back to his old seat for his bowl and his stool ere he marched off home—seeing.

With the fall of the curtain, an eager manager had pushed his way in. "Capital, capital, Mr. Kestern. It's going like a bell. Thoroughwood is here, and he's very impressed, very impressed indeed. I was not sure of him, you know, but if he says the right thing, the play's made. I congratulate you, Mr. Kestern, I do indeed."

Paul had stared at him. Then he bowed and murmured a conventional reply, and sat down heavily by Ursula. She had put her hand on his arm and smiled. "That's all right," she said. "Don't mind him. People will see the right thing, if he doesn't."

And so it had been. The thing was sight. Even a first-night London theatre audience, attracted by the advertisement of an unusual thing, had seen that. The play as a play was good, but the play as a parable was something more. The clay had touched more eyes than those of the blind beggar that night. When the last curtain fell, it had fallen on a silent house. The weaving of the spell had been complete. Art, poetry, drama and successful staging, all had been there, but the spirit of something more had stolen into the place. Several thousand men and women had looked on truth in its beauty, stripped of the shams and conventionalities of orthodox religion, and the utter loveliness of it had gone straight to their hearts.

Of course, the applause had come, had grown, had begun as a breath of relief and had risen to a crescendo of tumult. People had invaded the box. The manager had gestured towards a sea of upturned faces, looking their way. Paul had gone behind, shaken hands with a sudden grateful eagerness with the men and women who had played in his success, and appeared for a moment before the curtain. He had said something, and bowed, and felt suddenly utterly carried away, so that he had waved his hand boyishly and had, apparently, done just the right thing, whatever that was. At present he had no recollection. But even Ursula had been smiling when he rejoined them.

"Right," said Paul. "Which way? ... What is it? Lend me a pencil, will you? There, will that do?"

Arnold thrust his arm into his. "Look here," he said, "for heaven's sake don't start signing programmes now. On you go, Ursula. We'll follow."

The porter in his little box smiled at him. The manager appeared again and smiled at him. ("Oh, I say, don't go. Do stay for supper...." "Thanks awfully, but I've got a show fixed up, I fear. Another night....") A little crowd at the door smiled at him and thrust forward. A policeman even smiled at him, and thrust back. Ursula got in; Paul was vividly aware of the dark night, a muddy street, a yellow flare of light over the way, the tail of a poster: "——AR-MAN," and the gleam of the girl's white opera-cloak. Then he too was in, in the dark confined little space, sitting down by her, fumbling to move her wraps a little, stowing his legs away to make room for Arnold. And then Arnold, lingering momentarily to bid the driver make all speed, was in too, and the door banged, and the first performance was over.

"Did you see Muriel?" asked Ursula. "She was in front. She waved to me. I took it to mean that she'd go on."

Arnold laughed. "Hear that, Ursula? Still, I suppose it's excusable. Personally I should have been drunk before this. You're really a marvel, Paul."

Her eyes danced at him. "Oh, it's nothing," she said. "We're all of us too excited to talk sense. Paul, isn't it absolutely priceless?"

"Tressor shook hands with you, and said good-night and that he'd clear off, and you were to let him know when you were going down to Fordham," explained Arnold belatedly.

"Oh, yes, so he did. I say, Mortimer did 'Herod' well, didn't he? And d'you know, that finish is good, isn't it? It was wonderful to-night. In the end, it seemed to me that I hadn't written it, hadn't even seen it before."

"Magic of an excited house," commented Arnold. "Well, you ought to be a happy man. You're a lucky one, anyway."

Arnold put his head out of the window. "Here we are," he cried, half in and half out of the taxi. "We've done nothing."

Paul turned suddenly to the girl. "You did everything," he said, with vivid realisation.

It had been Ursula's wish to give Paul a triumphant supper at her flat the night of his success. It was not to be a big affair, the three of them and Muriel Lister only, and Paul had eagerly assented, realising a little how intolerable any other programme would be. So now Ursula went ahead upstairs, and when Paul and his friend came in, was drawing her gloves off before the fire and chatting with her friend. "Here he is," she cried. "Now Muriel."

Muriel Lister took an eager pace forward and held out her hand. "Mr. Kestern," she said, "I don't know how to congratulate you. You've done far more than devise a successful play, far more than write some wonderful poetry. You've preached a new religion, do you know that? You're rightly called Paul; you're an apostle."

Paul laughed. "That's the one role I've sought all my days," he said, "but I thought I should never play it."

"Well, you have. All London will know it to-morrow. You've said the thing the churches are afraid to say. You've said what we've been trying to preach for years. And what's more, you've said it in such a way that people will listen and see. Oh, I do congratulate you!"

"My dear Muriel," said Arnold, "you're intolerable. A parson is bad enough, but a woman parson is worse. Whatever you girls may feel, I'm dying for eats and drinks, and I bet the successful author is too, only, probably, he's too shy to say so. Let's eat first and talk it over afterwards."

Muriel chuckled and turned to Ursula. "What a pig he is," she cried, "but perhaps he's right. We're all four too exalted for life at present. Let's eat, and we shall grow sane. It's a parable. Come on, my dear; shall I dole out chicken?"

They gathered round the table in a corner of the big studio and fell to, talking reminiscently and mostly all at once the while. Finally Paul pushed his chair back a little and laughed aloud.

"Oh," cried Paul, "I can't believe it, you know, I can't believe it! We four, here, and I the author of a play that—that (I know it's conceited, but I can't help it) that perhaps half London will be talking about in a week!"

His little gesture took them all in: Arnold opposite, consuming trifle; Ursula on his left, tall, dark, leaning back in her chair, playing with a spoon, smiling; Muriel on his right, keen-faced, upright, fair; the bare table littered with pleasant things of glass and silver; dishes—the white débris of chicken, the shattered orange of a jelly; the shadowed spaces of the studio about them; the blue curtains; the faded Persian rug; easel; worn, easy chairs; model's throne; a shelf in the corner gleaming with the hammered copper of Ursula's collection of antique Arab coffee-pots and bowls; a standard lamp shaded with blue and old gold; a bookcase with its owner's carefully selected volumes, among which were a couple now bearing his name. And the three looked at him and read his face for a second or two in silence. They all knew what he meant. It was rather wonderful when one considered the Paul Kestern of Lambeth Court.

Muriel Lister broke the little silence. "It's like you not to believe it yet," she said.

She threw a glance at Ursula. The two were great friends and confided in each other. Then she laughed. "You're still a bit blind, you know," she retorted.

Paul chose the big footstool, which, in the studio, had come to be regarded as his special right. Arnold sprawled on a couch. Muriel Lister sat on a chair by Paul. Ursula had a pile of cushions in the corner between Arnold and the fire, and said little as was her wont.

"You've got to preach that new religion of yours," went on Muriel when they were settled. "I hope you realise that."

Paul frowned. He liked Miss Lister, but not especially her rather parsonic manner. "I don't know that I can," he said.

"Surely you do. Don't you see it's just what the world is waiting for? Men and women have outgrown that old pious talk of a god that is no more than a glorified human being, and especially they've outgrown all those grave-clothes the Greek philosophers and Eastern gnostics wound about the figure of the prophet of Nazareth in order to present to the world a conception, a Jesus of the Nicene Creed. But somehow there was no way out. We all speculated as to the personality of God, except a few, who were agnostics, but you get nowhere with negations."

"I know," said Paul gravely. "That God of theirs is asleep. The oracle is silent. I know."

"Yes, and now by some stroke of genius you've put your finger on the thing that matters. Sight. The beauty of the world. 'He's good, omnipotent, a father'—that's what the theologians have said. 'It's beautiful,' say you, and that's enough."

She flashed on him. "Rubbish," she cried. "That's not the gospel of the Beggar-Man, is it, Mr. Kestern?"

"No, the glory of this is that it is positive. It strides forward. It builds; it——"

"It builds what? Let's be practical. That sort of talk, up to the present anyway, has mostly built Agapemones."

Arnold sucked his pipe. "I fear I can't follow so quickly," he retorted cynically.

"You wouldn't. But, don't you see? This creed doesn't seek an æsthetic hybrid sensual beauty. When the beggar-man had his eyes opened, what was it seemed beautiful to him? Eh, what?"

"Exactly. Clay. The beauty of gold-brown earth." And Miss Lister relapsed into silence.

"A gospel that origins and ends don't matter and that we ought to be influenced by them not at all; that God is veiled, but the veil is good; that we are kin to all that is; that barriers are of our own making; that the urge of life within us is our guide; and that moralities and revelations and false spiritualities have themselves made sin. And," she added slowly, "that the true spiritual life consists in the pursuit of learning, experience and beauty, according to vocation, without fear and for themselves alone."

"Yes, without fear. The gospel of the Beggar-Man banishes fear. He knows right values. He knows he cannot be robbed of anything that matters. He fears no man; all men are brothers; all are blind beggars with potential sight; he has nothing but pity for your aristocrat, your millionaire."

"It appears to be you and not Paul who is preaching anyway," put in Ursula, staring into the fire.

"Which reminds me," said Paul gravely, "that I've to go down to Claxted to-morrow."

"Yes, to my people. I've utterly neglected them lately. They don't even know I've written a play."

"Yes," Paul replied slowly, "I think they will." And was suddenly silent, with a silence that the little company knew to be significant. The firelight danced on his face. Ursula turned her head slowly and studied him.

Paul went back with Arnold, and next morning the two friends packed up and parted, Arnold going to Cambridge, Paul to Claxted. The latter was to spend some weeks with his people and was restless over the prospect. He did not say much, however; Arnold was almost incapable of understanding just what Claxted meant. He knew that the Kesterns were "old-fashioned" and "strait-laced"; what he could not know was the sincerity, the earnestness on the one hand, and the fierce fanaticism on the other, of their faith. But Paul knew, or thought so. Perhaps he should have realised even more than he did, but the years of partial separation and the mellow influence of Fordham had dulled his memory to some extent.

He had hardly left Claxted station, however, before he got an inkling of what was to be. In Edward Street he ran into Miss Bishop. Now Miss Bishop was Miss Bishop, a unique product of divine providence, but beneath all her angularity and sectarianism ran a kindly current which had hitherto embraced Paul. He therefore smiled at seeing her, shifted a suitcase to his left hand and held out his right. "Why, Miss Bishop," he said, "how do you do?"

The woman's lips compressed and her eyes flashed. "You can be as cheerful as that, can you?" she said. "Do you realise the evil you have done? But I suppose you don't. May God open your eyes in time, that is all I have to say. Good-day." And she passed on, without taking his hand.

Paul's astonishment and dismay were almost ludicrous. A passing small boy with a street urchin's keen perception, perceived vaguely that he had hit on a lucky incident. His arrested whistle and wide grin recalled Paul to his senses.

Paul ignored him, caught a glimmer of the humour of the situation, changed his grip on his suitcase again, and passed on. But as he went, he turned her words over in his mind. Increasingly he could see no sense in them.

Taking the cinder-path that skirts the railway, the kindly touch of familiar things which have ceased to have power to perplex or terrify came to his aid. It was along this path that he had gone to the Mission Hall Sunday by Sunday, the waters of his soul troubled with the frenzy of apostleship, but it was along this path that he had returned often and again arm in arm with a tender kindly Mr. Kestern who had shared all his son's enthusiasms and sympathised in his distresses. Here, as a schoolboy, he had counted trains or trudged eagerly home from school for a Saturday afternoon excursion. Here, more adult, he had been first conscious of sex stimulus (though then and now he did not so label it) in the company of Madeline and Edith. Edith! Yes, it was of Edith that he thought mostly as he walked home. She had been reserved and sorrowful on his going to Fordham, had replied more and more tardily to letters, had finally ceased to write at all. But he too had ceased. Anyone as sensitive as Paul to surroundings would have felt an incongruity between Edith Thornton and Fordham Manor, and then, too, he had been going through an emotional stress big enough to dominate his mind. But now, back here in the home atmosphere, he thought very warmly of her. He longed for her simplicity, her naïve faith. It did not seem to him a barrier between them. After all, with the sight of the Beggar-Man, it was easy to enfold her in tenderness and understanding.

Thus, then, he came at last to his father's door, waited impatiently for the maid to open it, dropped his bag in the little hall, and turned impulsively to the figure of Mr. Kestern irresolute in the study door.

The love, the sorrow, the yearning of Mrs. Kestern's cry stabbed him suddenly and unexpectedly to the heart. She had rushed past her husband and flung her arms about his neck. Emotion welling up in him, he bent his head to kiss her, and felt the hot tears on her cheek.

"Oh, my boy, my boy.... You've come at last, Paul. Oh, my son, you'll never doubt your mother's love for you, will you? Kiss your father, Paul. I cannot lose either of my men."

Paul was already bewildered. The pathos of her grip on his arm, and the significance of her eagerness to see the greeting between him and his father, were not lost upon him. His mother clinging to him, he turned to his father, who had not stirred.

"Of course I've come, mother darling," he said. "But I've been terribly busy, you know. And it's awfully jolly seeing you and daddy again. (He used the childish word unconsciously.) How are you, father?"

The man moved a little and brushed his son's lips. Paul perceived in a moment that he had aged. Fear slipped suddenly into his mind. He peered a little to see his father's eyes, and then, with something like a catch in his heart, and with a deliberate blindness, pushed them before him into the study. "Oh, it is jolly to be back," he cried again, but with simulated enthusiasm now, refusing to admit what he had seen, stifling his growing apprehension.

Mr. Kestern seated himself in his revolving chair in front of the bureau. His Bible lay open upon it. Paul caught a glimpse of the underlinings, the "railway-lines," the added red and black of the almost microscopic notes in the neat handwriting he knew so well. He looked swiftly round. The case of stuffed birds, the books, the framed portraits, a print of John G. Paton, missionary in the New Hebrides—nothing had changed. His eye fell on a text, the letters of which had been cut out separately with a fretsaw, hung on an invisible thread, and draped on the wall above the bureau. "Jesus Himself drew near and went with them." That was new; and yet, yet, how old! The old Claxted; the old faith; the old obstinate unchanging evangelicalism that was already a lifetime old to him.

The hidden note of bitterness stung Paul for the first time to something like anger. He choked it down, however. "Very well indeed, thanks," he said evenly. "I had supper with them last night, and saw Manning off to Cambridge this morning."

"The very newspaper told us that much," said Mr. Kestern, with a gesture towards the Morning Post that lay folded on a side-table. "After the theatre, I understand."

The harshness of the man's voice was too obvious to allow of any further equivocation. Paul moved over to the fireplace, and his mother, seated in an arm-chair, held out a hand appealingly to him.

"Paul, dear," she entreated, "don't anger your father. You know what he feels about the theatre."

"Nothing!" exclaimed Mr. Kestern, wheeling round on him, no longer able to restrain himself, "nothing! Do you think it is nothing that my boy should write a play? My son, photographed with a stage-manager, appearing—what is your word?—'called' before the curtain! Oh, God, what have I done that my son should come to this!"

"Father, father, don't!" cried Mrs. Kestern. "Of course Paul must take his own place——"

"Mother, you don't know what you say. His own place! But that is the son we gave to God, that is the son of our hopes and prayers, that is the boy for whom we contrived and saved that he might go to college, and now—now, he writes plays! The bitterness is more than I can bear. I have lost my son."

The grim comedy of it was lost on the three of them. Mrs. Kestern burst into tears. "Father, dear," she sobbed, "don't say such terrible things. Oh, I can't bear it!"

Something awoke and flared up in Paul. The thing had come so quickly, with such an appearance of inevitability that he had been taken wholly unawares. He had hoped for a reasonable talk about the theatre, and at least a comfortable agreement to differ. But he had been conscious during the last few minutes of utter helplessness before this incredible attitude, and now the cruel absurdity of it all flamed before him.

"Father," he burst out, "you've no right to speak so. You've no right to judge the theatre as you do. You know nothing about it. You've not seen my play."

"I haven't, thank God, I haven't. But I've read about it. I've read about it with utter shame and dismay. Yet I can't, I won't at least, believe all that the paper hints at. Is it true that you have parodied the Gospel?"

"Yes, parodied. I gather you have taken a story that you learned as a boy at your mother's knee, upon which I have even heard you preach, and have reset it, rewritten it, pushing the Master into the background, denying, so far as I can see, the Son of God."

"Mother, that will do. Paul and I must thrash this thing out. Tell me, Paul, once and for all, what is Jesus Christ now to you?"

Paul stared at him. Mr. Kestern, flushed, vehement, terrible, was the father of the old Catholic controversial days, the father from whom he was divided by an impassable gulf. What could he say? How could he explain? He made an involuntary hopeless gesture that was immediately misunderstood, and turned back to the fireplace.

"Ah," cried Mr. Kestern, "you will not answer. This is what your Catholic friends have done for you! I told you so, but you would never believe me. Rome was so reasonable and fair, wasn't it?—an angel of light. Father Vassall believed in Christ as earnestly as I did—did you not say that? But this is the end! You deny the Master who bought you with His own blood!"

The utter injustice of that charge broke down Paul's last reserve. He turned swiftly back, as vehement as the other, the true son of his father if the elder could only have seen it. "You don't know what you say," he cried. "This is utter madness, utter childish folly. Father Vassall has nothing whatever to do with all this. How could he? Do you think he wanted me to go to Fordham, though you did. Why, if he had had his way, I should be a Catholic priest by now, or well on the way to it."

"Just so," stormed his father, "a Catholic priest indeed! Then he would have trapped you finely. As it is, baulked in that, he will send your soul to hell by another road!"

"Oh, I can't bear it, I can't bear it," cried Mrs. Kestern, rocking herself to and fro.

Paul clenched his fists. "You've no right to speak so," he retorted passionately. "How dare you insult Father Vassall in that way? Is it like Christ to talk so? If that is all your evangelicalism can do for you, I am well quit of it."

"So you admit you are quit of it? You turn your back on your father's and mother's faith? You have no use for the Scripture of Truth?"

The boy might, in a saner moment, have caught the tone of invincible bigotry that had crept into his father's words. "Of course I've use for it," retorted Paul again, contemptuously. "Haven't I written a play under its inspiration? But I must make my own judgment on religion."

Mr. Kestern sobered suddenly and terribly. He spoke biting words with slow deliberation. "You must, sir," he said, "only it is blasphemy to speak so of inspiration. And you will be good enough to tell me what is your judgment on the Master Who alone is served in this house."

Paul gazed at him a minute. Phrases rose to his lips. Then he realised how useless they would be. His anger died as quickly as it had arisen. "You would not understand," he said hopelessly.

"I know I have not the new learning of my son," retorted Mr. Kestern bitterly, "but I think I can understand that much. Will you answer a plain question? Are you still on the Lord's side, or not?"

"Of course he is," wept Mrs. Kestern. "Father, how can you ask? Speak, Paul, and tell him you still love and serve the Lord Jesus?"

Paul hesitated. Then he drew himself up. "I love and respect and admire Jesus of Nazareth with all my heart," he said. "His teaching it is that has opened my eyes, and his gospel of compassion and brotherliness is as noble as any that the world has yet heard. But I cannot call him God as you do, and as Catholics do."

The anger died in Mr. Kestern's face. The look of an old and broken man crept into it. He turned back to his desk and picked up his Bible. "Do you perhaps remember what this says?" he demanded. "Listen." (He fumbled with the leaves.) "'He that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God, and this is the spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.'"

The words lingered in the little room. The three of them, each in his or her own way, quailed before the stark decisiveness of them. Mrs. Kestern it was who first could bear it no longer. "Father, he is your son," she cried. "Nothing can alter that!"

Mr. Kestern was on his feet, two thousand years of Christianity stripped from him, the spirit of the Old Testament glowing in his face. "What saith the Scripture?" he cried. "'Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother.' 'Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way.' Or our Master Himself: 'He that loveth child more than me is not worthy of me.' And you, Paul, have done both these things. My grey hairs you would bring down in sorrow to the grave, but that is not enough. Here, into this very parish of which I am pastor, you have brought your devil's doctrine and broken up one family of Christ's flock already. Shall I spare my son any more than our brother spared his daughter? You will leave this house, and I do not want to see your face till you come as a penitent again."

Mrs. Kestern buried her face in her hands and cowered in her chair with an inarticulate cry of woe so bitter that both father and son shrank before it. The clergyman stepped quickly over to her. "Mother, mother," he cried, "the dear Lord knows. He will save the boy yet. But how can we have such in this house?"

"My son, my son," she wailed. Then, breaking free from her husband, "Oh, Paul, say you don't mean it! Paul, Paul, would you break your mother's heart? Say you don't mean it, Paul, say you don't mean it!"

She flung her arms round his neck, but the boy put her away. He was piecing this and that together, and was no more only the boy. "What do you mean," he demanded, "when you say I have broken up a family in this parish? What charge is that? Tell me, if you have any justice left in you."

"I do not know," cried Paul passionately. "I begin to think you are mad, all mad. My God, if this is the religion of Christ, Christ would not know it!"

His father started, and for a moment it was almost as if the old man would strike his son. Then, with a gesture, he strode to the door. "Go," he said, "go. Only last month I had to comfort Mr. Thornton when his child, Edith, left his house to become a Papist through you. Papist or atheist, it is all one to me. I will not have such within my house."

His tone, and the use of the girl's name, braced Mrs. Kestern. "Oh, Paul," she cried, "you knew of it, don't pretend you didn't! How you could have acted so behind our backs I can't think. Poor, poor girl! Oh, you had better go now. It would be better for us all. May our Father have mercy on us, and may you be spared the agony that your parents know."

His mother's action brought Paul to his senses. He looked from one to the other of them in consternation. "You don't mean it," he cried, "surely you don't mean it!"

"Don't go like that, Paul," sobbed Mrs. Kestern, breaking down again, "I can't bear it."

Paul pulled himself together. "But, mother, father," he said, "this is sheer madness. We are not living in the Middle Ages. This isn't melodrama. I—I differ from you in religion, I know; I can't help it; I must do what seems right to me. But surely, because of that——"

His father opened the study door. Broken and old, there was a certain dignity now in his face. "Paul," he said, "we talk different tongues, but nothing alters the fact that you have turned utterly from the religion of your parents to serve another. 'As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.' You have no place here. Go now, lest we say in our anger what ought not to be said."

Paul looked again heavily round the room. "You have said it already," he replied, and left the house.

Paul walked down the street like a man in a dream. Once he stopped, turned, and walked a few paces back, telling himself that it could not be true, that it was too theatrical to be true. But his father's face rose before him as he went, and still more the terror of his mother's tears. He recalled the history of a friend of his in training for the Baptist ministry, who had decided he could not accept the doctrine of the deity of Christ and had been cursed by his widowed mother and turned into the street with eighteenpence in his pocket. Somehow it had never seemed possible that it could happen to him. Yet, in the throes of the Catholic stage of his soul's pilgrimage, it had been plain enough that something of that sort would happen if he made his submission to the Church. Once more, the horror of his parents' grief as he had seen it when he knelt in Father Vassall's chapel gripped his heart. And now, and now, suddenly, so ironically, so futilely, so childishly, this thing had swept down upon him. He, Paul Kestern, had been turned from his father's house. The thing was true.

Then, into the stream of his thoughts, drifted the memory of what had been said of Edith Thornton. Of all the incredible happenings of an incredible morning, that, perhaps, was ultimately one of the most incredible. Edith a Catholic! He thought of her face under the lamplight in Lambeth Court—oh, incredible! But one moment: he thought of her prayer under the pines at Keswick, of her answer to his dilemma after his return from Thurloe End. Gradually he began to piece together the mosaic of her simple reasoning, her resolute faith, her ardent love; it was exactly of such souls that Catholic saints are made. That, then, had been the inner meaning of her sorrow over his going to Fordham and of her silence thereafter. This resolution, this terrible domestic retribution, had come crashing down on her head, and she, too, had been driven out alone.

Once more the flame of anger flickered in his heart. As he thought it over, his indignation grew. He pictured her, as he loved best to do, in the quiet neat simplicity of that brown dress of hers, with her clear, trustful eyes. And they had turned her out, had they, to what, he should like to know? Good God, and this was in England to-day! He saw Mr. Thornton, rotund, bald, very respectable, and realised that if, at bottom, he was as bigoted a Protestant as any of them, business was mixed up with religion. The man had never really loved his daughter, Paul thought, he, with his commercial soul, his respectable tradesman's boot-licking servility, his front pew in the side aisle never empty on a Sunday. And as he thought of it all, he came to a resolution. He gripped his stick more firmly and turned off to Edward Street.

A girl assistant came forward. Paul did not know her. Could he see Mr. Thornton? She would enquire. What name?

A flutter of surprise and then of understanding crossed the girl's face. Would he sit down. She would tell Mr. Thornton.

She disappeared behind a screen and opened a door. Paul, looking round the suburbanly-fashionable shop, knew that she stood in front of a solid, highly polished desk in that little inner sanctum, and wondered if she would say more than his name. If not, it would be his father who would be expected. The immediate appearance of Mr. Thornton round the screen, bowing, smiling, rubbing his hands, showed him that she had not. He walked forward. As the photographer started in surprise, he spoke.

"How do you do, Mr. Thornton? I've come to ask if I may see Edith." (Better to put it that way: the man would not know how much he had been told.)

Edith's father stood and looked at him in amazement. Paul, out of the corner of his eye, saw the interested friendly smile of the girl behind. Possibly Mr. Thornton saw it reflected in the young man's face, for his own flushed angrily. He stumbled for words. "You, you——" he spluttered. "How dare you, sir?"

Paul surveyed him coolly. He was sure of his ground now. "Really, Mr. Thornton..." he said. "Your daughter and I were very good friends in the Mission, and I have not seen her for some time."

"Look here," burst out the man, "you may be a clergyman's son, and you may think to come it over me, but I tell you you were responsible—I know you were responsible. Broke her mother's 'eart, she has, and you——"

He realised suddenly that he was in the shop. Anyone might come in. The girl was there. He took a grip of himself and prepared for a more cold-blooded battle. "Ah," he said conventionally, "I'm very glad you've called. Will you please to come inside a moment."

The little man was still more reassured by the weight and prosperity of his office furniture. He sank into his chair, and motioned Paul to a seat. One glance to see that the door was shut behind him, and then:

"I'm very glad you've called. If there was a just law in this land, I ought to be able to prosecute you, I ought. You made my girl a Catholic, you did,—a Papist, my girl! You go to college to learn to be a minister, and you come sneaking back pervertin' a girl like my Edith. And where is she now, I ask you, where is she now? In a convent, that's where she is. Fair broke her mother's 'eart it has. A convent! Going to be a nun! And what tricks they'll play on her there, what dirty tricks them Jesuits will be up to——"

Paul cut in decisively. "Mr. Thornton," he said, "that will do. That is utter rubbish, you know. What is more, it is beastly. I won't hear it."

Mr. Thornton knew education and the manner of gentlemen. He had all the Claxted respect for them. So now this peremptory young man momentarily shut him up. "Er—er—I——" he stuttered.

Paul leaned coolly back and waited. He was desperately angry, and he was beginning to be aware of a sense of bitter loss, but both, here, only made him cool. And his coolness enraged the photographer even as he stammered under his set-back. His sense of outrage, of personal injury, came rapidly to the fore again. It grew every second, and at last:

"Well, I've lost my girl, anyway, I have, and through you. What had you got to do with her, anyway, that's what I want to know? Walkin' out with her—as good as—I hear now——"

Paul flushed. There it was, the naked truth, as Alf Vintner and Maud and half the parish probably saw it. He bit his lip. "Mr. Thornton," he said, "I wanted to marry your daughter."

Marry! The man gaped on him. Somehow he had not thought that. He had never thought that Mr. Kestern's son, at Cambridge too, doing so well, going to be a minister, had thought seriously of marrying his daughter. Heavens, what they had missed! And this young man apparently thought he had missed something, too. After all, then, he couldn't have persuaded her to seek a convent. This was a new development.

"You don't say so, now, Mr. Kestern, sir," he said. "Well, Edith was a dear good girl, the best of the lot I always said. Whatever made her take up with that Catholikism, I can't tell. She never heard it in this house, I know. And seeing that you were going High Church, mother and I, we thought..."

"Well, sir, she outs with it one evening, six months or so ago it was. Says she's going to be received into the Church—those were her very words. Going to be received into the Church! It made me very hot, Mr. Kestern, it did. No member of our family has ever been a Catholic, thank God, and I said as I wouldn't have a child of mine a Catholic in a good church-going evangelical house like this. Said it out plain and straight, I did. And she ups and walks out of the door that very night."

"Well, sir, I was hot, I admit. She provoked me, too, knowing better'n her father. 'If you can't go to my church, out you go,' I said. 'You mean that, father?' she asks. 'Yes,' I said, standing on my dignity, and she just walks off. Her mother in tears, too. 'You go to communion with me, or you're no daughter of mine,' that was what I said, Mr. Kestern, and your father, he supported me in it afterwards."

"As she was, she walked out, Mr. Kestern. Went straight to the Catholic Convent, I believe. Her mother saw her there once. And where she is now, I don't know. No, I don't know . She was going to be a nun, she said, and it seems, she being over-age, nobody can't stop her. If there was a law in this so-called Christian land, Mr. Kestern——"

Paul got up. The look on his face checked the photographer. "I understand, Mr. Thornton," he said, "despite your words. Your Christianity was such that you drove your daughter from your house for the sake of her new faith. I should hardly have thought it possible, but I fear I understand only too well. And I will tell you what I think of it, Mr. Thornton. It was a cowardly, mean, base, unchristian thing of you to do, and that Jesus, in whose name you did it, would never have lent his authority to any such thing. It is utterly foreign to his gospel. As for Edith, I hope to God she knows her own mind, that is all, and in my own sorrow, I can only find heart to be glad that at least she is not here. Good-day." And Paul, not waiting for the other to recover, walked out of the shop.

At the corner of Edward Street and Wellington Road, scarcely reasoning as to what he was about to do, he hailed a cab and drove to the convent. He had bearded the nun who opened the door and was in the parlour waiting to see the Reverend Mother before he realised the futility of his action. Still, he was there now, and he looked curiously about him. It was while he waited in that parlour that he came to a realisation of how far from the religion it represented he had moved. Plainly furnished with a table, a few stiff chairs, a foreign-looking so-called couch with an antimacassar, and a cheap bookshelf with old-fashioned books in it, an oleograph of Pius IX. hung over the mantelpiece, beaming blandly, half a crucifix behind him. A Madonna in coloured plaster stood on a shelf, and on the mantel-piece at one end a cast of Christ pointing to his bleeding dripping heart, and at the other another of St. Theresa gazing seraphically upwards. A crucifix stood between them, the Christ meeting St. Theresa's gaze with agonised eyes, white girt about the waist with a heavy plaster loin-cloth. The table was covered with a faded red cloth. It held an inkstand and a blotter. In the corner a prie-Dieu was tucked out of the way.

The Reverend Mother was kind and polite. Did he come from the family? No, and Paul hardly cared to explain. Well, of course, he could not, in any case, see Sister Edith. Nor was she there in fact. She had been admitted to the novitiate, and, during training, the rules were strict. She could not promise that a letter would be given; it depended on the letter. Paul understood that it would be read. The sister was very happy, however, much happier than she had been on the night she arrived alone and in tears, turned out from her father's house....

That was all, of course. He might have known it. But one thing after another.... Paul Kestern suddenly took stock of his own heart.

Where, indeed, was he even to sleep that night? In the street, he turned the question over. And afterwards, what was he to do? Manning was at Cambridge; well, Fordham.... But suddenly he hated Fordham. He saw it, proud, aloof, and utterly failing to understand such troubles as were his. Tressor, too, would be there, and Paul shrank from Tressor's dignified quiet kindliness. He suddenly knew himself to be alone. He knew himself to be beaten, bruised, lonely; yes, he, with the morning's paper full of his triumph. Apples of Sodom.... For this he had made the great exchange. This was what it all came to: he was down and out and alone. Ursula?

He took train to town, engaged a room for the night at the Grosvenor as being the nearest hotel, and took a taxi to her flat. Two at a time he mounted the stairs; damn the lift. He knocked. "Come in," she called.

It was eight o'clock and the lights were on, of course. She was sitting alone in an easy-chair by the fire, clad in a loose simple dress of a rich deep orange that became her well. She was reading, and looked up almost expectantly from her book at his knock. A little fire leaped in the grate, and the room was still, familiar, kind. She smiled enquiringly as she saw him. "Why, Paul," she said.

Paul moved slowly over to her, closing the door behind him. On the rug before the fire, he came to a standstill, looking down into her upturned face with its clear unafraid open eyes, set in its ring of black hair, taking in her regular definite features, her white throat. She smiled at him again as he stood there, tenderly.

"Ursula, Ursula!" he cried, took a hasty step forward, dropped on his knees before her, and buried his face in the kindly flame of her dress.

She reached a hand out and laid it on his head, stroking his hair. For a little neither moved. Then: "I understand, Paul," she said without more words; "I thought it might be so. Your face told me last night."

He looked up. "You're very wonderful," he said slowly. "How could you guess? But it's not only my people, Ursula. That, of course, was just too terrible. Father simply drove me out. Not a word of explanation would he allow. It happened so quickly, too; at first I hardly understood.... But I think it was worse afterwards when I did. Edith has gone to be a nun."

"Yes." (Words came quicker now.) "Of course you don't know about her though. I was in love with her. Ursula, she was such a dear. Somehow or another I see now what I've lost, desolatingly. Do you know—of course, it sounds absurd—but in my mind she is, as it were, in the balance against the theatre. She was so different. She was so unspoilt, so simple, so loving. Oh, she was a dear, Ursula. And she's gone to be a nun, and it was I who made her."

"Well, I set her thinking about the Catholic Church, I suppose. Of course I don't know in the least what brought her to it in the end, but still I can see, somehow. She was made to be a nun."

"But, Ursula, I'm utterly sick and miserable to-night. I can't put it into words properly. I see what I've lost. My people—of course, they're ignorant, almost mad, but they've got something that I've lost. Their faith is wonderful. Christ is so real to them. They live in an odd world, but it isn't shallow, it isn't a sham, and our world is such a sham, Ursula. I feel that at the theatre so much. You never know what people really think and mean. And afterwards, in the morning light, so to speak, it's all made-up and painted and false."

"And then there's Edith. You can't see Edith, Ursula, as I do. She was like a flower. She was so utterly simple and childish and true. She was just the opposite to all this. She saw through things. That's why she's become a nun, of course; just walked straight forward into it. And our world never walks straight forward."

The tone of her voice held him. She had shaded her face with her hand now and did not look at him. "Our world, Paul?" she queried again.

She did not at once reply. Then, suddenly, she turned and looked at him. "What are you going to do now?" she asked.

"I thought the blind beggar saw beauty so wonderfully. Didn't it fill his life?"

"I thought that would startle you. We only fixed it definitely this morning. Muriel's brother is an assistant commissioner or something of that sort in Basutoland, and he's given her an open invitation to visit him. Yesterday, too, she was asked to go out and address some series of meetings in the Cape and Natal. I should like to see the country and paint. So we settled this morning to go together—about June. Come too."

Paul turned it swiftly over. With his books and his successful play he knew he could raise enough money. He drew a deep breath. "Oh," he said, "I'd love it."

"Good," she said, "that's settled. We're travelling East Coast. And now, why not go down and stay with mother for a little?"

CHAPTER XII
ZANZIBAR

Lo, winged with world's wonders,
With miracles shod,
With the fires of his thunders
For raiment and rod,
God trembles in heaven, and the angels are white with the terror of God.

Thought made him and breaks him,
Truth slays and forgives;
But to you, as time takes him,
This new thing it gives,
Even love, the beloved Republic, that feeds upon freedom and lives.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE: Hertha .

High sat white Helen, lonely and serene.
He had not remembered that she was so fair,
And that her neck curved down in such a way;
And he felt tired. He flung the sword away,
And kissed her feet, and knelt before her there,
The perfect Knight before the perfect Queen.
RUPERT BROOKE: Menelaus and Helen .

Paul was staring over Ursula's shoulder at her nearly finished water-colour, and she, leaning back a little, was putting quick touches to it. Her chair was against the rail on the shady side of the boat deck; and just below, the endless procession of natives who had begun carrying coal from lighters alongside to the coal bunkers of the ship since but an hour or two after anchor had been dropped the night before, and who were still apparently as busy as ever, toiled, each man in it naked to the waist-cloth, sooty and perspiring, in the blazing sun. The dingy, clumsy, rough-hewn boats in the utterly clear water through which you could see almost to their keels, were bathed in that vivid light, while, between burning blue above and sparkling blue beneath, the chanting labourers passed up with full baskets and bent shoulders and down with empty ones and laughter. Now and again a fussy launch, usually with a gay flag fluttering in the breeze of its passage, chunked or chortled by. Across the flow, a big P. and O. steamer moved slowly into the Canal, its crowd of emigrants leaning over the side, staring, shouting, talking. On their own ship, people were mostly clustered at the gangways chaffering with pedlars, or dispersed ashore or below. Paul himself was back from a visit to Simon Artz and carried packages under his arm.

"You've hit it absolutely," he said. "But the whole thing says something besides. It says it plainly, too. It's stupid of me not to be able to put it into words. I shall in a minute."

The boys' monotonous chant came steadily up to them, and a siren shrieked. The P. and O. mail was lost behind a big Jap steamer, and from half a dozen ships about them came the sound of striking bells. As the noise of the last of them died away, Paul spoke.

"I know," he said slowly. "You've got the incredible contrast there. Naked, sweating, tired natives, working endlessly for a mere trifle at a boring weary job in a living world of light and colour, and—and being jolly over it. They are jolly. Look at that chap's face, looking up at us. And that one, chipping his neighbour." (He indicated two figures in the sketch.) "It's just sheer animal spirits."

"Yes. It's in the sketch as you've painted it. A fierce vehemently-lived to-day, and no to-morrow or yesterday."

"I shall. Do you realise I've written like blazes since we've been on this stunt?"

"I have," Paul went on. "You've made me. You're a perpetual inspiration, Ursula."

Her body relaxed, and she laughed a little, happily. "The next book, please," she said. "'To Ursula: An Inspiration.'"

He moved forward a pace or two, and leaned over the rail, looking out and over the gimcrack shore buildings with their staring, blatant, ugly modernity. "It's all very well," he said, "for you to take it lightly, but it happens to be so amazingly true. I'm always seeing things with you."

Ursula studied his shoulders in her silent way for a minute or two. Then she got up. "I've to wash for luncheon, Paul," she said, as she moved away, "and don't forget we go ashore afterwards."

Left alone, he looked away again over the town. In the middle distance, a minaret rose into the hot air. His gaze rested on it, and the train of thought he had had running through his mind more or less consciously all the morning since he had passed beneath its shadow in the street and stared in through the little entrance to the vestibule that was not screened from view, re-occurred to him. It concerned their whole journey. They had come overland to Marseilles, and had stopped twelve hours in Paris as Muriel wanted to do some shopping. Leaving the girls, then, he had gone up to Montmartre with the old ecclesiastical interest still keen in his mind, and thereafter had come down to Notre Dame. And in the two churches, a beginning to the lesson that the voyage seemed to be reading him, had been made.

The great modern church, with its flaunting colour and electric light and garish decorations, had been offered first. Herein the religious half of twentieth-century France placated God. At the door, great lists of names, business-like, methodical, were a perpetual prayer for the dead, the sick, specially needy souls, children, neophytes of the priesthood and all the other classes of that Catholic world. Under the blown bubble of the dome, worshippers came and went with eager faith. Without, the great carven figure of the Sacred Heart looked out across the city that this new temple was to save. Beneath, Paris laughed, and shopped, and went about its business in the more hidden streets and houses with French alacrity.

Notre Dame seemed to him an already half-deserted backwater. All the pageantry of the Middle Ages—bishop and cardinal, noble and king, peasant and soldier—had flowed in and out again through its great sombre austere doors, here, where massive pillars and narrow windows shut out the sun. The ancient stone effigy of the Mother of God was blackened and a little disreputable. She still had her candles, yes; but official France no more bowed before her, and modern France was trying a new supplication up on the hill. Ten thousand thousand prayers had been prayed here. As many broken hearts had wept here. Cui bono ? For without, the Seine still slipped lazily by, and over her bridges passed the crowd that laughed and shopped and went about its business.

Naples had shown him Pompeii. It had been an unforgettable day when the three of them trod upon the old chariot-ruts in the gate of the ancient city. The roofless houses, the winding ways, the shops and baths and theatres, had been alive and peopled again in Paul's imagination. Neither the dust nor the tireless sun could daunt him as he toiled with his ultimately protesting companions in and out and up and down. He had seen the patrician roll by in his chariot, the gladiator boast and drink in the tavern, the slave girl laugh with her friends at the street corner, the Greek merchant jostle his way through the crowd with perspiring porters bearing his merchandise behind him. And then, in the temple of Apollo, he had seen the swaying crowd, the sacrosanct priest, the incense, the offering, the smiling god. A place of prayer again; older now; more ruined; an ancient outworn faith, but still the eternal place of prayer from which men had cried to the heavens above for the Kingdom of God on earth. Well, and in the streets of Pompeii, Americans laughed, and Cook's tourists bought spurious curiosities, and Neapolitan guides went about their business.

Here, in Port Said, at the door of the immemorial East, he had seen Jewish synagogue, Mohammedan mosque, Koptic chapel, Catholic cathedral and Anglican church. A thousand tongues of prayer, and all about them Port Said: courtesan, merchant, material, tawdry Port Said. British and French and Egyptian; Levantine and Syrian and Greek; American and Jew and cosmopolite, how they went about their business! They all wooed their gods one way and another, thought Paul, all but perhaps Ursula's nigger boys whose job was the hardest and dirtiest of all, and who laughed in the sun.

They left at sunset, and after dinner, as in duty bound, the three of them drew chairs forrard the wind-screen and watched the steady blaze of the white searchlights as the ship's great eyes stared ahead at the narrow waterway, the steep engineered banks and the flat endless sands. Here and there dahabeeyahs, moored for the night, stood out for a few minutes with their thin spars black and graceful against that infinite white glare, and then slipped into the shadows behind. Dredging barges loomed monstrous and distorted, and dropped silently behind. Once a lonely Arab on a camel stood revealed in every detail, motionless, on the bank above, and once a long string of mules passed, padding through the night. And always there were the stars, and low down the Cross that Paul saw for the first time. The majority of their fellow-passengers stood and chatted for a few minutes and then went below for music or cards. But Ursula, Muriel and Paul sat on.

"Amazing thing," said Muriel at last. "I suppose the Children of Israel crossed somewhere about here. Moses has always seemed to me a slightly humorous person, but I don't think he will again."

"And to me," said Paul reflectively, "he has always seemed immensely impressive. I don't think he will again."

"Why not?" queried Muriel aggressively. She and Paul on the whole got on very well together, but they nearly always sparred. "All this makes the Exodus so extraordinarily real. One can see it happening."

"Yes," assented Paul, "but don't you see, it makes it also extraordinarily small. Good Lord, look at those immemorial sands. Israelites! Why Egyptians and Assyrians and Ethiopians and Greeks and Romans and scores more whose names are forgotten have passed here. I was taught that the Exodus was the central act of the play, but it's merely an interlude for the shifting of scenery."

Muriel, who was sitting between them, glanced from one to the other. Then she settled herself back in her chair. "Oh, go on, you two," she said contentedly. "I love to hear you. You're both of you making your own lives more than any other two people I know, and you both of you pretend you're not."

Ursula laughed again. "We're marionettes right enough," she said, "but by some odd chance we're alive, and we can thoroughly enjoy the play."

Paul drew a deep breath of content. "I wish this bit of it would continue for a very long time," he said happily. And while the great vessel glided on almost silently with its impression of relentless irresistible purpose, the three sat silent, staring at the stars.

The Red Sea unfolded itself. They saw a dawn in Port Suez. Paul was first on deck in his pyjamas; and with but one glance around rushed excitedly down to the cabin that Muriel and Ursula shared between them. Their door stood on the latch. He thumped on it vigorously.

Paul fumbled with the lock and pushed aside the curtain. Ursula was sitting up in bed reading, her hair about her, her thin silk nightdress exposing her shoulders and neck. In the bunk above, Muriel, on her side, covered with a sheet, only half awake, opened her eyes sleepily.

It is odd how moments of understanding come in life, not to be hurried, not to be gainsaid. Paul Kestern had travelled with these two for some days now with all their opportunities of intimacy, and in her own flat he had seen Ursula Manning robed for the evening or making a belated breakfast even more revealingly dressed than now. He might, so to speak, have known himself in love with her fifty times. But not till this minute did his hand clutch with a sudden nervousness at the nearest thing about him (which happened to be the curtain), and his breath catch in his throat. Not till this minute did she seem to him utterly desirable for himself alone, and—for that is the deviltry of love—so supremely lovely that she must be unattainable. Or all but unattainable. Men dare great adventures with a kind of godlike effrontery. But in nothing are they more godlike that when, realising the awe and majesty of love, they conceive deliberately that they may win to it.

Would they, though, if, more often than not, the woman did not divine their thought and hold out the sceptre from her throne? That, at any rate, is another deviltry.

So Ursula. "Hullo, Paul," she said, very unconcerned, her eyes resting softly on him, "what's up? Ship on fire?"

"No," stammered Paul, "I say, are you awake? That is, I mean—well, of course, I see you are! I say, come on deck. The sunrise is too heavenly for words."

"It's also hot," said Muriel, sitting up in her bunk and leaning over to look at Ursula. "Hullo! Good-morning. You reading?"

Paul looked at Muriel. She, too, wore a thin silk nightdress, but at the sight of her he recovered his assurance. "Well, do come up, both of you," he said. "It's far too good to miss."

Ursula closed her book and drew her knees up, preparatory to getting out of the bunk. "Coming," she said. "Paul, tell the steward we'll have tea on deck."

He departed on his errand, humming to himself with sudden elation. In the passage he ran into Major Jardine. On such occasions heretofore as a fourth person had been demanded of necessity, Jardine had filled that position, and had seemed increasingly to relish it. He was in the King's African Rifles, returning from leave to his companies in Zanzibar. He grinned at Paul, but with a certain gloom born of the tropics and the hour.

Paul laughed. "Come and see the sunrise, Major," he said. "It'll cheer you up. We're having tea on deck."

Then the other visibly brightened. "Good," he cried with alacrity. "I'll tub later. Shan't be a jiffy." And he disappeared into his cabin to get rid of his impedimenta.

On the boat-deck, then, the four gathered. Muriel dispensed tea, assisted by the Major, and lit cigarettes. Ursula and Paul drew a little apart. She leant a hand on the davits of one of the boats, and Paul stood back a little by her side.

Brown and orange and yellow and burnt brick-red, the sandstone hills and sandy wastes grew startlingly and swiftly clear as they watched. The new sun rose over the desert, over the rocky hills, a great golden orb, instantly alive. Magically the shadows drew off the sea or faded in its depths; the blue of it lightened, grew transparently clear, translucent. "Look," said Ursula, in a half whisper, and pointed down.

Paul took a step forward, and peered where she indicated. In the still water a great shark followed by a small replica of itself moved lazily through the watery world about it. Its gentle sinuous movements were scarcely noticeable; it glided by undisturbed with just fanning tail. Slate-grey, mottled with black, it was so near the surface that one could fancy one saw its wicked little eye inspecting the silent monster of the ship lying there at its ease so invulnerable and great.

"But that faery town," said the girl softly, who had raised her eyes from the sea.

White and picturesque, with the green of palms flecked here and there upon it, Port Suez sparkled in the now risen sun. With its tumbled flat-roofed houses, its occasional minaret, its fringe of gardens, it was a painted thing, a bit of the veritable East, for all the heat and dust and smells and commonplaceness of day in its streets.

Paul stood motionless by her side, gazing. "Do you suppose we can go ashore?" he asked at length.

"No." She shook her head. "Nobody ever seems to here. Besides you'd much better not, Paul."

"I'd love to. I know what you're going to say, but I don't believe it. I like dirt and smells. They're just as mysterious and magical as colour and scent."

Ursula glanced at them. "For all that, Paul's right," she said. And she smiled at him.

A sort of fierce flame leapt in Paul at that. He had hard work to control himself. The hid passion of his nature was asserting itself. He threw his head back and laughed. Then he caught Ursula by the hand. "Oh, come on!" he cried. "Ursula, I'll race you round the deck."

She slipped her hand into his arm, and they strolled off. For the moment it was enough for Paul that they two walked together.

That morning's sun, as it set at last over Egypt, lit up the peninsula of Sinai with fierce red flames. The hot day had drawn slowly out, and most people were in deck chairs, with their books on their laps as the sun went down. Even the Major had been reading, a novel by Mr. Charles Garvice. Earlier on, the three had merrily attacked him for his choice, and he had stoutly defended himself. "That's all very well," he said, "but the sort of stuff they put in novels these days, beats me. I don't want to read a bally sermon—can't understand it either—and half the rest a fellow's ashamed to read in ladies' company. Now this chap, what's his name?" (he looked back to the cover—"Never can remember authors' names")—"Garvice, you always know what you've got with him."

"Milk and honey," said Muriel in her abrupt way, staring out over the peninsula in the direction of the Promised Land.

Muriel laughed. "Yes, and there are the Ten Commandments," she said, "over there."

Jardine still looked puzzled. He liked Muriel, against his will as it were. Ursula, he told Paul, was so damned quiet, but Muriel said things a feller couldn't understand. Odd pair. Pretty though. And deuced attractive. What did Kestern think?

So now. "That's where you get me," he said. "But, I say, what about a sundowner? Coming, Kestern?"

"Right, Miss Manning. You and Miss Lister can discuss the Commandments for five minutes exactly. Then you must forget them."

"But there's nothing about sundowners in the Decalogue, Major," said Paul gaily, as he moved off. "Or I shouldn't——" They went out of hearing.

Muriel glanced at her companion. "It's odd," she said. "Paul's lost sight of God, but he still thinks he can keep morality."

Ursula fixed her gaze on the darkening mountains. "I don't agree, my dear," she said.

Muriel considered this. "You mean His veil of beauty that you're so fond of talking about, and painting," she said. "Well, perhaps.... But still he thinks he keeps orthodox morality."

Muriel found a marker and shut her book. Her motions suggested that she was about to open a conversation, but she did not speak at once, though she put her book down and stretched herself out in her chair. But at last she spoke deliberately.

"Dear," she said, "I know what you think about all that.... Now Paul's in love with you, whether he knows it or whether he doesn't." (A little pause.) "You know it anyway. Also you're high priestess of his new religion."

She stopped. She seemed to think the other would say something, but that was not Ursula's way. Not for the first time, despite their friendship, Muriel found it irritating. "Look here, Ursula," she said, sitting up, "what's going to happen when he does begin to think about morality?"

A look grew in Ursula's face. Her friend studied her intently. "I say, Ursie," she said, but in a changed softened tone, "it's playing with fire. Paul's not quite an ordinary man."

Ursula made no direct reply. But the other understood her. "He's like a person who has glimpsed Paradise through the bars," she said.

But Paul was to fulfil Muriel's prediction sooner than she expected. The little Gaika meandered in her slow and steady way down the Red Sea. At the close of a sweltering day, she drew into Port Sudan, and it was at Port Sudan that Paul Kestern began first to think about morality in the light of his opened eyes. It happened this way.

The three were sitting over coffee in the saloon when the Major, who had finished earlier and had gone up on deck, re-entered and crossed over to them. "I say," he said, "the skipper says we shall be here all night and can go ashore if we like. You three care to come?"

"It's a dull place, you know," said the Major, as if it were his duty to apologise for it. "A wharf, a railway station and sand, mostly. But it's rather interestin'. It's going to be the main port for Khartoum and Upper Egypt one day."

"Oh, there are some native stores, Miss Lister, and an hotel where we can get a drink. And it will be cool on shore in the night air."

It was necessary to row across the harbour in a native boat. The men handed the girls in and sat beside them on the rough seats. A "boy" in a red fez, with his shirt hanging loose over his cotton drawers, who was to act as guide, directed operations. Two grinning negroes, their muscles knotted beneath their flimsy vests, drove the boat over the dark waters with long sweeps of oars. There was no moon, but the stars gave a soft light. And as the blunt prow cut the sea, a thousand molten ripples broke in little waves left and right, silver streamers melted into the darkness on either side, while the blades of the oars turned up liquid fire. Every little drop that fell from them was a diamond of light. As they looked over the side, gleaming flights of living silver gems of fish fled before their approach. Over the black waters ahead, shone a yellow flicker or two from lanterns on the quay.

They landed, laughing and joking, and found themselves on a roadway that was, as the Major had said, all sand, except for granite curbstones that ran ahead into the night and marked its course. Now and again, a board announced the site of a church or hotel; and at a cross-road in the waste, building operations had been begun for a big shop, a theatre and a restaurant.

"Down towards those lights. There are makeshift stores there, and the native quarter. I expect we might find a native café and music hall going strong."

Their guide jabbered in Swahili and Jardine interpreted. "He says there's a theatre," he said smiling, "if the ladies care to see it."

"A theatre!" ejaculated Paul. "Heavens above! What in the world do they show here?"

"There'll be a cinematograph," said the Major judicially, "and a band, and dances, and songs screeched loud enough to drown even the band. We might look in. If it's a bit too much for the ladies, we can leave."

As if in ready answer, the sound of a chorus was borne on the night air to them. The party stood still and stared at each other. Then they broke into mutual laughter. There was no mistaking it: Africa was singing in what it called English: "I'm a bro-ken doll."

"Come on, come on," cried Paul, recovering himself. "We shall miss half the fun."

"Oh, no, we shan't," said Jardine. "Take it easy, for goodness' sake. They'll keep it up till morning, especially as there's a ship in."

As they approached, the glares and shadowy buildings ahead resolved themselves into more recognisable objects. They stopped at length on the edge of a crowd that was sitting at trestle tables in a half-light that faded into the dark night around. Everyone was looking towards a big ramshackle building that held out an open-air stage. Kerosine flares and oil lamps illuminated it. A band, in tattered crimson tunics, blared and beat below, but rather out of the way to the right to permit of the artistes descending into the auditorium, and on it, at the moment, a stout dark-haired Greek woman was singing. Her voice reached them only at intervals, for, harsh and loud and discordant as it was, the band beat it most of the time. Suddenly, with a gesture, she commanded the chorus. The audience took it up. Ragged Africans—Sudanese, Fellahin, Swahilis; Indians, and half-castes; frowsy Greeks and Levantines; and a sprinkling of white-ducked, more respectable looking, but distinctly dark Europeans; they all sang, shouted, beat time. It was obviously a popular item. Ursula laughed heartily. "Oh," she cried, "how priceless! Can't we go nearer the stage and sit down, Major?"

But the guide had caught some of the English words. "Seet down?" he queried. "Yas, sar. Plenty room up there. Missy, come thees way."

The boy showed all his white teeth. "Me Abdullah, mees," he said. "You follow me."

The boy leading, the girls following, the Major and Paul were bound to go. Paul was eager enough. Jardine was less ready, and, with some knowledge, more apprehensive. "Good God, Kestern," he said, "this is more than I bargained for. You never know what you're in for here."

It was impossible, however, to draw back easily now. The proprietor himself, an oiled smiling Syrian in evening dress, had come forward. With a magnificent gesture, he indicated a small table for four on the left, and waved Abdullah into the surrounding blackness. Jardine nodded to some ship's officers at a little distance, and seemed more relieved when he saw a sprinkling of women about them and even a group of ladies from the ship on the edge of the shadows. But they were too noticeably prominent for his liking. It was too late to move, however, and he bowed to the inevitable, giving orders for drinks to the Indian waiter, but with audible misgivings over that.

"I'll order wine," he said. "We can see that the cork hasn't been tampered with, and that's less likely to poison you than anything else."

"I wouldn't have missed it for the world," put in Paul enthusiastically. "By Jove, Ursula, just look at that band! Did you ever see anything more comic in your life?"

Paul shortly forgot the stage, or nearly so. It was the audience that interested him, and the great glow of light that lost itself in the black desert about and shone on strange Eastern faces that came and went on the shadow-line of its edge. It was unusual, too, to sit with that fantastic noise in one's ears and yet to be able to look out to the silence yonder under the serene stars. There were two semi-European women at a table near, also, to whom his eyes constantly if surreptitiously returned. Fat, bulging, in tawdry lace and imitation jewels, they were nevertheless smiling, gay, human, he thought, and one of them kept a motherly eye on a child of seven or eight in a sailor suit who would wander from her side. He leant forward to draw Ursula's attention to them. And then he saw that her eyes were fixed on the stage.

Into the garish light, heralded with clashing cymbals, advanced three African girls with elaborately dressed woolly hair, thick rouged lips, bright laughing eyes. Their legs and feet were bare. Short coloured skirts reached only to the knee, and scarcely to that. Above the waist they wore only tiny bodices of vivid colour, red and yellow, which were bound tightly across breasts firmly outlined beneath them. Gaudy necklaces of beads and coins sparkled around their necks, and a host of jingling bangles decorated their bare arms. Each carried a tambourine, and to the accompaniment of native drums, they postured and danced.

It was no more than a danse du ventre , but it was at least a new experience for Paul.

A tense stillness settled gradually down on the audience, it seemed to him. The edge of the broken irregular circle of light filled up with faces, a grey and black wall of them, a fence of gleaming staring eyes. The drums beat in a wild rhythm, and shrill native pipes broke in. Wilder and wilder grew the dance. The protuberant posturings, the voluptuous writhings of which he hardly guessed the meaning, the extraordinary wheelings in swift steps during which the three performers shook their heavy buttocks brazenly at the gazing crowd, glancing over their shoulders the while, were abandoned for more reckless tossing of arms and legs, more shrill, more cacophonous music. Paul grew white. The Major leaned over towards the ladies. "Er—er," he stammered, red-faced. "I think perhaps it's getting late. Hadn't we better be going?"

"Wait till this is over," said Ursula, coolly. "You can't leave in the middle of a turn."

And then, from the wings, into the blaze and noise, danced a swift figure. The girl was perhaps an Abyssinian with maybe French blood in her veins;—she was known at any rate to the crowd who cheered as one man and shouted her name. Regularly featured, superbly framed, her raven-black hair flowed loose about her, crowned with a scarlet flower. Her skirt was diaphanous and spangled; a sort of loose white scarf was held by a clasp between her breasts but floated in a cloud around her as she moved. Her shapely back bare, her curved and lithesome body firm, her twinkling little feet light, her colour too was at any rate white by comparison with the previous performers. The barbaric clamour of music died down. The three negro girls collapsed on one side. The audience subsided with tense expectancy. She danced in silence and alone.

She utterly held her audience. Born of mixed parentage, better not named, where, how, God knows, probably she was dirty, certainly she was as coarse, as savage, as animal, as she well could be. But she held her audience. She weaved a spell of romance, of poetry, of magic, there, in those garish lights and in that rough rude place. She was incarnate grace, and she was lovely, say what you would. Entreating, forbidding, abandoning, desiring, she was wild pagan love. The negresses, too, had danced a passion that had grown old, very, very old, a forced, a thought-out thing; she danced passion, but the passion of the Song of Songs, of Dionysus young in Attic fields, of youth itself. And as she finished, she disengaged her flower with a swift movement from her hair, and tossed it to—Paul.

He caught it instinctively. And then he realised that he had caught it. He held it in his fingers, felt its stem firm between them, and knew that he was himself and awake. He realised that he had been standing and that the four of them were in a prominent position. He realised, too, that he had been charmed against his will, caught away, and that his face had shown it; that she had seen it; that she had, in her wanton way, chosen him.... He uttered an exclamation and dropped the bloom.

"For God's sake, let's get out," said Jardine, somewhere. Lights swam before Paul. He heard dimly a burst of cheering, voices speaking in a moment of less noise, a little laughter, then more cheers. He stumbled among chairs. Perspiration stood on him so that he fumbled for his handkerchief to wipe his face. His brain cleared a little in doing so. He saw a bloated face that leered up from a table and realised that the man was speaking to him. With his hasty gesture of refusal, his brain cleared a little more, and he began to understand. He began to understand, above all, how and why he had liked the dance.

They were outside an infinity later and walking through the cool night. He glanced down, still rather stupidly, feeling his feet on sand, and saw that his shoes were covered with it, and the black turned-up ankles of his evening trousers. Looking ahead, he saw Jardine was on in front with Muriel. He turned his head to steal a glance at Ursula, and cried out on the instant.

He marvelled at her level voice. She was perfectly cool, he noticed, looking straight ahead in her direct way as they walked. And the flower was a trumpet-shaped hibiscus that burned in the opening of her evening frock even against the white skin of her neck. He suddenly understood his confused memories. They had laughed at him, and cheered her when she had picked it up.

"Well, she ... That girl!" Then, swiftly, with a kind of brazen anger: "She was practically naked!"

"Yes. She had one of the most lovely bodies I've ever seen." Ursula turned her head and looked up at him with a faint twinkle of amusement in her eyes.

"But—but——" Paul stammered for words. Yet even so, the girl by his side, with her serene smile, began to master his excitement by her mere cool presence. "But, Ursula, it was a disgraceful thing."

"Oh? You didn't seem to think so while you watched. Personally, I thought it was wonderfully beautiful."

"But you can't justify it," he protested in bewilderment that grew with every sentence. "It was grossly immoral."

"What was immoral then? The flower? The dust-heap? The girl's body? The dance? Ugly or beautiful, perhaps, but immoral? What do you mean?"

"Well, it appealed to the worst passions in everyone, to the animal in us, in—in me."

"It appealed to you sensually no doubt. Your mind, informed by your senses, appreciated the animal grace and beauty. Why not? Are animals immoral?"

"A soul?" queried Paul. "Well..." (He stumbled desperately.) "The immortal part of us, the home of the spirit, a bit of God."

Her tone instantly arrested him. There, in the night, picking their way down the road-to-be over the sand of the desert, the blare of the music behind them in the distance, he was arrested again. He was quick enough to see it with the swiftness of thought. God! Everything came back to God. And where was God? And if there was no God, where was morality?

Ursula put her hand on his arm. It was rather like Chanctonbury all over again, he thought instantly, and smiled involuntarily at the thought. Here, in Egypt, in the whirl of new experience, her touch on his arm brought back the song of the lark and the vision of the English sun on the fields and woods round Steyning. And she knew it.

"You old dear," she said. "What about the beggar's clay? Is clay magical in plants and flowers, and sinful in human bodies?"

She laughed a very little. "Has God spoken His laws so clearly, Paul?" she said. "I thought you had come to the conclusion that He was rather silent."

"Where!" The word echoed in his consciousness, and he knew that he had no answer. Tramping over the sand, tramping through the night, he saw to what he had come, or thought he saw. Thus soon was Muriel answered.

Ursula laughed a little again. "Poor old Paul," she said. "Look here, dear, the girl gave us the best she had to give, and what she gave had real beauty. Isn't that enough for you and me?"

He made no answer, and they walked a little further in silence. Then her hand on his arm tightened. "Doesn't the blind beggar see?" she queried, smiling up at him in the dark.

Paul caught her hand. A glimmer of her meaning danced before him, but as a whole it still eluded him as yet. It eluded him, but there was something in her voice that made his blood run swift and hot as it had but just now in the café chantant . "Ursula, darling," he whispered.

She checked him. "You see, Paul," she said gently, "you were angry not because she was probably half a slave, or ill-treated, or ignorant, or as like as not solely out for your money. You didn't think of those things. No, you were angry because she was naked. That was beastly, immoral—that being what she was she gloried in her body and her grace. Well, it was not beastly to me, especially in her. What else had she to glory in? Why should she not have gloried in her body? Is a beautiful body beastly? She danced natural passion—is natural passion immoral? I cannot follow your theology. She was lovely and she gave us her best, and—well, I was glad to be able to thank her for it."

Paul's grip tightened on her hand. "Why, Ursula," he said huskily, "it was I who was beastly, priggish——"

She shrugged her shoulders. Then she laughed lightly. "Let that pass," she said. "Will you wear your flower now?"

She peered up at him. Then she loosened her hand and took the bloom from her dress. "Here it is," she said, presenting it.

He held it in his fingers a moment or two, studying its fresh loveliness in the dim starlight. Its faint scent came to his nostrils. She stood smiling and looking at him.

She read in his eyes what he meant, and if he had not been quite so blind and stupid and seeming rich he would have read in hers that the gate of Paradise stood open before him, as she had said to Muriel. But she saw that he had not read that yet, and if she was not quite content, she was at least very wise. "Because the sea is cool and lovely?" she asked.

Paul told himself as he went to sleep that he would ask Ursula to marry him in the morning. But he did not. He may have been at one time a budding evangelist and he was certainly now a poet, but he was still the son of Claxted, and he found it hard to escape from all that that meant. He had ideas as to proposals, and this was a serious proposal of marriage. He waited his chance, then; and missed a good many through waiting to be quite sure that the right moment had indeed come. Thus and thus is it ever likely to be, even when we sleepers awake, and all roads lead to "Nowhere."

But in Zanzibar he had his way. Aden came and went, and Kilindini, and that first walking through tropical bush to the old fort by the sea that has dreamed so many hundred years away since the remnant of its Portuguese garrison was crucified on its walls. Not even in Mombasa, sitting on the shore at the entrance of the river, did he speak, for there is a golf links of sorts hard by and the Major and Muriel were going round. Even more wonderfully, not even that night at sea did he speak, though the surface was like a sheet of polished dark glass that now and again shivered into an untellable pool of liquid silver as a school of flying fish shattered its quietude into phosphorescent fire. Yet, possibly, his silence then was not so wonderful after all. It was such a night of wonder that he could hardly speak at all, even although he thought himself in love.

Zanzibar, however, sufficed. Here they were to leave the Major, and here, naturally, he showed them round before they sailed. He had a bungalow out past Mnazi Mmoja, before the barracks, overlooking the sea, and his car met him at the landing-stage. So they were driven slowly past the front of the Sultan's palace and through the native town to the tidal creek that washes the base of Livingstone's house twice a day; up the creek road then, past the English Cathedral with its tall thin spire rising above what was once the whipping-post of the slave market, rising out of a sea of scarlet-flowering flamboyants that surround it and were in full bloom to greet them; up the road that skirts the English Games Club; past the German Club; past the cemetery where waxen frangipanni and purple bougainvillaea shed their blossoms the perpetual summer. Down a private way to the right now, and there, on a grassy knoll fronting the sea-beach, a grove of palms behind, the still strait across which lay the hills of Africa in a haze before, stood Major Jardine's bungalow.

They had but the day and the evening, and the Major suggested a run across the island to the beach at Chuaka where the surf of the Indian Ocean beats all day and a cool wind blows even in the hot season. Zanzibar, he said, was but a bigger Mombasa so far as the native town went, but nowhere else on the coast would you find tangle of banana and orange and lime and coconut and mango and almond and areca and date, with here and there a grove of cassuarinas or cloves, to match this. He was right. They skirted the banks of low swampy rivers lovely with blue water-lilies and reeds and scarlet dragon-flies; ran through plantations of grey austere coconut trees through which the sunlight trickled down on to thin sparse olive grass; left clusters of brown huts set in small patches of delicately-leaved red-stemmed muhoga; climbed the two hundred feet of the Liliputian hill of coral that makes the backbone of the island; came out on to that plain at its summit where English bracken grows and a sweet yellow shrub that might, at a distance, be English gorse; and descended at last through groves of orange trees, the fruit scattered in lavish profusion on the very road, to the collector's house at Chuaka.

He was a polite Goanese, and he made them tea, serving them himself on his barazza which was hung out from the first floor over the very beach beneath, where the white coral sand glistened in the sun and the surf beat in perpetually. Thereafter they strolled off, theoretically to look for shells, though no one did much looking: Jardine because he did not care for shells; Muriel because, after her kind, she wanted honestly to reach a distant point and see what lay beyond; Ursula because she was utterly entranced by the stretch of the foreshore, with the riot of vegetation ever invading the sands and ever, in its outposts of mangrove, the very sea itself; and Paul because he was beginning to realise that he cared about collecting nothing except Ursula. Muriel and the Major were thus soon out of sight. Ursula and Paul, having wasted half an hour watching the antics of a naked kiddie in a miniature outrigger canoe which he finally ran ashore with consummate ease and made fast with the skill of an ancient mariner, found a great mass of coral rock which overhung a pool that was one enchanted garden of colour and life. They both waded in till Ursula had her skirts high above her knees, and Paul's uprolled trousers showed a good couple of inches of soaked territory.

"Look!" she cried. "Paul, do you see that sea-urchin? Look! In there. Oh, my dear, do you see its spines? Satiny brown, spotted with blue and red. Could you get it?"

"If I die in the attempt," said Paul manfully, giving a fresh tug to his trousers and moving cautiously forward. Here was promise of the Claxted vivarium at last!

"Good lord, this coral," he groaned. "Why don't some of the blighters who write about African seas say coral is as sharp as—ugh!—needles!" He reached forward at length and plunged his arm deep into the pool.

"Oh, go on," laughed Ursula, "another inch.... Your trousers don't matter. That's it.... Got it?"

"Damn!" cried Paul. "Oh, I say I'm sorry, but those spines are sharp. Lor, I'm soaked. But there, just look at him. Look at him trying to walk on my hand. Come on out, and let's put him in shallow water and watch him move."

They bent together over the lovely thing and watched it walk slowly but purposefully away. And while they stood there, motionless, barefoot, side by side on the sand in some six inches or so of the warm water, a fleet of tiny sky-blue fish invaded the shallows. Ursula caught Paul's hand, and there they stood, hardly daring to breathe, while the little living fragments of sapphire poked their tiny noses about their toes. Then, suddenly, Paul laughed tempestuously, and they fled.

"I couldn't help it," said Paul a little ruefully, stooping to rub his foot. "That fellow was actually bedding down between my foot and yours, and he tickled so."

"Well, anyway, we've got to put on shoes and stockings now. It'll be sunset in next to no time. Paul, did you ever imagine anything quite as lovely as all this?"

Paul stood, and let his gaze wander around. There was not a soul to be seen in the curve of the bay in which they were. A little way off, the outrigger, rough-hewn and brown, lay on its side. King crabs were beginning to emerge from their holes in the sand and stand on their spidery legs and survey the evening world from their castles of eyes. Far out at sea feathery pink clouds were floating down to a barred horizon of emerald and gold. All around and about them a soft light glowed from which the fierce vividness of the day had died away.

He turned and put his arm in hers. "Let's sit in the outrigger and put on our things," he said.

They sat side by side, and Paul was aware again, as he had been lately, of the girl's loveliness. Unconcerned, gaily, she towelled her feet on his handkerchief, drew on her stockings, fastened them, smoothed down her skirt. She finished before him, since she had dried first, and sat waiting for a second or two, her face resting on her hands, her eyes on the ever-deepening sunset colours. He too finished, and followed her gaze seawards.

Absurdly enough, knowledge came to him just then, like a revelation. There was no apparent reason why it should not have come before, and he did not move for a little pondering his dulness and the surpassing wonder of things. For this awakening was not a bit as he had imagined such things would be. He was not excited or passionate, not now at any rate. He wanted indeed to touch her, but tenderly, he could scarcely tell himself how tenderly. He put his arm gently about her waist. "Yes, Ursula, you, you," he whispered.

She turned with a swift movement and faced him. "I!" she cried, her eyes alight, "I!"

Then, for Paul Kestern and Ursula Manning, for both of them, the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them passed away, and there was vision of a new heaven and a new earth.

After a little, Paul disengaged himself from her arms. There was an odd expression of wonder written on his face, very plain to see. Ursula tried to read it, but was puzzled. "What is it, Paul darling?" she whispered.

"Why," he said slowly, "do you know what I was thinking? All my years of worry and doubt, all that talk about religion——" He broke off.

He hesitated. Then he laughed merrily like a child and flung his arms about her again, eagerly, boisterously. "Of course," he managed to say at last, "it was all awfully important. Really, truly , Ursula."

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Peradventure; or, The Silence of God

PERADVENTURE

PERADVENTURE

CHAPTER I
LAMBETH COURT

CHAPTER II
CAMBRIDGE

CHAPTER III
CHRISTMAS CAROLS

CHAPTER IV
FATHER VASSALL

CHAPTER V
VACATION

CHAPTER VI
MOUNT CARMEL

CHAPTER VII
THURLOE END

CHAPTER VIII
JUDGMENTS

CHAPTER IX
FORDHAM

CHAPTER X
"THE BLIND BEGGAR"

CHAPTER XI
URSULA

CHAPTER XII
ZANZIBAR

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Peradventure; or, The Silence of God

PERADVENTURE

PERADVENTURE

CHAPTER I LAMBETH COURT

CHAPTER II CAMBRIDGE

CHAPTER III CHRISTMAS CAROLS

CHAPTER IV FATHER VASSALL

CHAPTER V VACATION

CHAPTER VI MOUNT CARMEL

CHAPTER VII THURLOE END

CHAPTER VIII JUDGMENTS

CHAPTER IX FORDHAM

CHAPTER X "THE BLIND BEGGAR"

CHAPTER XI URSULA

CHAPTER XII ZANZIBAR

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

CHAPTER I
LAMBETH COURT

CHAPTER II
CAMBRIDGE

CHAPTER III
CHRISTMAS CAROLS

CHAPTER IV
FATHER VASSALL

CHAPTER V
VACATION

CHAPTER VI
MOUNT CARMEL

CHAPTER VII
THURLOE END

CHAPTER VIII
JUDGMENTS

CHAPTER IX
FORDHAM

CHAPTER X
"THE BLIND BEGGAR"

CHAPTER XI
URSULA

CHAPTER XII
ZANZIBAR