The summer of the year whose events, in so far as they affected a certain little group of Nevilton people we are attempting to describe, seemed, to all concerned, to pass more and more rapidly, as the days began again to shorten. July gave place to August, and Mr. Goring’s men were already at work upon the wheat-harvest. In the hedges appeared all those peculiar signals of the culmination of the season’s glory, which are, by one of nature’s most emphatic ironies, the signals also of its imminent decline.

Old-man’s-beard, for instance, hung its feathery clusters on every bush; and, in shadier places, white and black briony twined their decorative leaves and delicate flowers. The blossom of the blackberry bushes was already giving place to unripe fruit, and the berries of traveller’s-joy were beginning to turn red. Hips and haws still remained in that vague colourless state which renders them indistinguishable to all eyes save those of the birds, but the juicy clusters of the common night-shade—“green grapes of Proserpine”—greeted the wanderer with their poisonous Circe-like attraction, from their thrones of dog-wood and maple, and whispered of the autumn’s approach. In dry deserted places the scarlet splendour of poppies was rapidly yielding ground to all those queer herbal plants, purplish or whitish in hue—the wild hyssop, or marjoram, being the most noticeable of them—which more than anything else denote the coming on of the equinox. From dusty heaps of rubbish the aromatic daisy-like camomile gave forth its pungent fragrance, and in damper spots the tall purple heads of hemp-agrimony flouted the dying valerian.

An appropriate date at the end of the month had been fixed for the episcopal visit to Nevilton; and the candidates for confirmation were already beginning, according to their various natures and temperaments, to experience that excited anticipation, which, even in the dullest intelligence, such an event arouses.

The interesting ceremony of Gladys Romer’s baptism had been fixed for a week earlier than this, a fanciful sentiment in the agitated mind of Mr. Clavering having led to the selection of this particular day on the strange ground of its exact coincidence with the anniversary of a certain famous saint.

The marriage of Gladys with Dangelis, and of Lacrima with John Goring, was to take place early in September, Mrs. Romer having stipulated for reasons of domestic economy that the two events should be simultaneous.

Another project of some importance to at least three persons in Nevilton, was now, as one might say, in the air; though this was by no means a matter of public knowledge. I refer to Vennie Seldom’s fixed resolution to be received into the Catholic Church and to become a nun.

Ever since her encounter in the village street with the loquacious Mr. Wone, Vennie had been oppressed by an invincible distaste for the things and people that surrounded her. Her longing to give the world the slip and devote herself completely to the religious life had been incalculably deepened by her disgust at what she considered the blasphemous introduction of the Holy Name into the Christian Candidate’s political canvassing. The arguments of Mr. Taxater and the conventional anglicanism of her mother, were, compared with this, only mild incentives to the step she meditated. The whole fabric of her piety and her taste had been shocked to their foundations by the unctuous complacency of Mr. Romer’s evangelical rival.

Vennie felt, as she stood aside, in her retired routine, and watched the political struggle sway to and fro in the village, as though the champions of both causes were odiously and repulsively in the wrong. The sly conservatism of the quarry-owner becoming, since the settlement of the strike, almost fulsome in its flattery of the working classes, struck her as the most unscrupulous bid for power that she had ever encountered; and when, combined with his new pose as the ideal employer and landlord, Mr. Romer introduced the imperial note, and talked lavishly of the economic benefits of the Empire, Vennie felt as though all that was beautiful and sacred in her feeling for the country of her birth, was blighted and poisoned at the root.

But Mr. Wone’s attitude of mind struck her as even more revolting. The quarry-owner was at least frankly and flagrantly cynical. He made no attempt—unless Gladys’ confirmation was to be regarded as such—to conciliate religious sentiment. He never went to church, and in private conversation he expressed his atheistic opinions with humorous and careless shamelessness. But Mr. Wone’s intermingling of Protestant unction with political chicanery struck the passionate soul of the young girl as something very nearly approaching the “unpardonable sin.” Her incisive intelligence, fortified of late by conversations with Mr. Taxater, revolted, too, against the vague ethical verbiage and loose democratic sentiment with which Mr. Wone garnished his lightest talk. Since Philip’s release from prison and his reappearance in the village, she had taken the opportunity of having several interviews with the Christian Candidate’s son, and these interviews, though they saddened and perplexed her, increased her respect for the young man in proportion as they diminished it for his father. With true feminine instinct Vennie found the anarchist more attractive than the socialist, and the atheist less repugnant than the missionary.

One afternoon, towards the end of the first week in August, Vennie persuaded Mr. Taxater to accompany her on a long walk. They made their way through the wood which separates the fields around Nevilton Mount from the fields around Leo’s Hill. Issuing from this wood, along the path followed by every visitor to the hill who wishes to avoid its steeper slopes, they strolled leisurely between the patches of high bracken-fern and looked down upon the little church of Athelston.

Athelston was a long, rambling village, encircling the northern end of the Leonian promontory and offering shelter, in many small cottages all heavily built of the same material, to those of the workmen in the quarries who were not domiciled in Nevilton.

“It would be rather nice,” said Vennie to the theologian, “if it wouldn’t spoil our walk, to go and look at that carving in the porch, down there. They say it has been cleaned lately, and the figures show up more clearly.”

The papal champion gravely surveyed the outline of the little cruciform church, as it shimmered, warm and mellow, in the misty sunshine at their feet.

“Yes, I know,” he remarked. “I met our friend Andersen there the other day. He told me he had been doing the work quite alone. He said it was one of the most interesting things he had ever done. By the way, I am confident that that rumour we heard, of his getting unsettled in his mind, is absolutely untrue. I have never found him more sensible—you know how silent he is as a rule? When I met him he was quite eloquent on the subject of mediÆval carving.”

Vennie looked down and smiled—a sad little smile. “I’m afraid,” she said; “that his talking so freely is not quite a good sign. But do let’s go. I have never looked at those queer figures with anyone but my mother; and you know the way she has of making everything seem as if it were an ornament on her own mantelpiece.”

They began descending the hill, Mr. Taxater displaying more agility than might have been expected of him, as they scrambled down between furze-bushes, rabbit-holes, and beds of yellow trefoil.

“How dreadfully I shall miss you, dear child,” he said. “No one could accuse me of selfishness in furthering your wish for the religious life. Half the pleasant discoveries I’ve made in this charming country have been due to you.”

The young girl turned and regarded him affectionately. “You have been more than a father to me,” she murmured.

“Ah, Vennie, Vennie!” he protested, “you mustn’t talk like that. After all, the greatest discovery we have made, is the discovery of your calling for religion. I have much to be thankful for. It is not often that I have been permitted such a privilege. If we had not been thrown together, who knows but that the influence of our good Clavering——”

Vennie blushed scarlet at the mention of the priest’s name, and to hide her confusion, buried her head in a great clump of rag-wort, pressing its yellow clusters vehemently against her cheeks, with agitated trembling hands.

When she lifted up her face, the fair hair under her hat was sprinkled with dewy moisture. “The turn of the year has come,” she said. “There’s mist on everything today.” She smiled, with a quick embarrassed glance at her companion.

“The turn of the year has come,” repeated the champion of the papacy.

They descended the slope of yet another field, and then paused again, leaning upon a gate.

“Have you ever thought how strange it is,” remarked the girl, as they turned to survey the scene around them, “that those two hills should still, in a way, represent the struggle between good and evil? I always wish that my ancestors had built a chapel on Nevilton Mount instead of that silly little tower.”

The theologian fixed his eyes on the two eminences which, from the point where they stood, showed so emphatically against the smouldering August sky.

“Why do you call Leo’s Hill evil?” he asked.

Vennie frowned. “I always have felt like that about it,” she answered. “It’s an odd fancy I’ve got. I can’t quite explain it. Perhaps it’s because I know something of the hard life of the quarry-men. Perhaps it’s because of Mr. Romer. I really can’t tell you. But that’s the feeling I have!”

“Our worthy Mr. Wone would thank you, if you lent him your idea for use in his speeches,” remarked the theologian with a chuckle.

“That’s just it!” cried Vennie. “It teases me, more than I can say, that the cause of the poor should be in his hands. I can’t associate him with anything good or sacred. His being the one to oppose Mr. Romer makes me feel as though God had left us completely, left us at the mercy of the false prophets!”

“Child, child!” expostulated Mr. Taxater—“Custodit Dominus animas sanctorum suorum; de manu peccatoris liberabit eos.”

“But it is so strange,” continued Vennie. “It is one of the things I cannot understand. Why should God have to use other means than those His church offers to defeat the designs of wicked people? I wish miracles happened more often! Sometimes I dream of them happening. I dreamt the other night that an angel, with a great silver sword, stood on the top of Nevilton Mount, and cried aloud to all the dead in the churchyard. Why can’t God send real angels to fight His battles, instead of using wolves in sheep’s clothing like that wretched Mr. Wone?”

The champion of the papacy smiled. “You are too hard on our poor Candidate, Vennie. There’s more of the sheep than the wolf about our worthy Wone, after all. But you touch upon a large question, my dear; a large question. That great circle, whose centre is everywhere and its circumference nowhere, as St. Thomas says, must needs include many ways to the fulfilment of His ends, which are mysterious to us. God is sometimes pleased to use the machinations of the most evil men, even their sensual passions, and their abominable vices, to bring about the fulfilment of His will. And we, dear child,” he added after a pause, “must follow God’s methods. That is why the church has always condemned as a dangerous heresy that Tolstoyan doctrine of submission to evil. We must never submit to evil! Our duty is to use against it every weapon the world offers. Weapons that in themselves are unholy, become holy—nay! even sacred—when used in the cause of God and His church.”

Vennie remained puzzled and silent. She felt a vague, remote dissatisfaction with her friend’s argument; but she found it difficult to answer. She glanced sadly up at the cone-shaped mount above them, and wished that in place of that heathen-looking tower, she could see her angel with the silver sword.

“It is all very confusing,” she murmured at last, “and I shall be glad when I am out of it.”

The theologian laid his hand—the hand that ought to have belonged to a prince of the church—upon his companion’s.

“You will be out of it soon, child,” he said, “and then you will help us by your prayers. We who are the temporal monks of the great struggle are bound to soil our hands in the dust of the arena. But your prayers, and the prayers of many like you, cleanse them continually from such unhappy stains.”

Even at the moment he was uttering these profound words, Mr. Taxater was wondering in his heart how far his friend’s inclination to a convent depended upon an impulse much more natural and feminine than the desire to avoid the Mr. Romers and Mr. Wones of this poor world. He made a second rather brutal experiment.

“We must renounce,” he said, “all these plausible poetic attempts to be wiser than God’s Holy Church. That is one of the faults into which our worthy Clavering falls.”

Once more the tell-tale scarlet rushed into the cheeks of Nevilton’s little nun.

“Yes,” she answered, stooping to pluck a spray of wild basil, “I know.”

They opened the gate, and very soon found themselves at the entrance to Athelston church. Late summer flowers, planted in rows on each side of the path, met them with a ravishing fragrance. Stocks and sweet-williams grew freely among the graves; and tall standard roses held up the wealth of their second blossoming, like chalices full of red and white wine. Heavy-winged brown butterflies fluttered over the grass, like the earth-drawn spirits, Vennie thought, of such among the dead as were loath to leave the scene of their earthly pleasures. Mounted upon a step-ladder in the porch was the figure of James Andersen, absorbed in removing the moss and lichen from the carving in the central arch.

He came down at once when he perceived their approach. “Look!” he said, with a wave of his hand, “you can see what it is now.”

Obedient to his words they both gazed curiously at the quaint early Norman relief. It represented a centaur, with a drawn bow and arrow, aiming at a retreating lion, which was sneaking off in humorously depicted terror.

“That is King Stephen,” said the stone-carver, pointing to the centaur. “And the beast he is aiming at is Queen Maud. Stephen’s zodiacal sign was Sagittarius, and the woman’s was Leo. Hence the arrow he is aiming.”

Vennie’s mind, reverting to her fanciful distinction between the two eminences, and woman-like, associating everything she saw with the persons of her own drama, at once began to discern, between the retreating animal and the fair-haired daughter of the owner of Leo’s Hill, a queer and grotesque resemblance.

She heaved a deep sigh. What would she not give to see her poor priest-centaur aim such an arrow of triumph at the heart of his insidious temptress!

“I think you have made them stand out wonderfully clear,” she said gently. “Hasn’t he, Mr. Taxater?”

The stone-carver threw down the instrument he was using, and folded his arms. His dark, foreign-looking countenance wore a very curious expression.

“I wanted to finish this job,” he remarked, in a slow deep voice, “before I turn into stone myself.”

“Come, come, my friend,” said Mr. Taxater, while Vennie stared in speechless alarm at the carver’s face. “You mustn’t talk like that! You people get a wrong perspective in things. Remember, this is no longer the Stone Age. The power of stone was broken once for all, when certain women of Palestine found that stone, which we’ve all heard of, lifted out of its place! Since then it is to wood—the wood out of which His cross was made—not to stone, that we must look.”

The carver raised his long arm and pointed in the direction of Leo’s Hill. “Twenty years,” he said, “have I been working on this stone. I used to despise such work. Then I grew to care for it. Then there came a change. I loved the work! It was the only thing I loved. I loved to feel the stone under my hands, and to watch it yielding to my tools. I think the soul of it must have passed into my soul. It seemed to know me; to respond to me. We became like lovers, the stone and I!” He laughed an uneasy, disconcerting laugh; and went on.

“But that is not all. Another change came. She came into my life. I needn’t tell you, Miss Seldom, who I mean. You know well enough. These things cannot be hidden. Nothing can be hidden that happens here! She came and was kind to me. She is kind to me still. But they have got hold of her. She can’t resist them. Why she can’t, I cannot say; but it seems impossible. She talks to me like a person in a dream. They’re going to marry her to that brute Goring. You’ve heard that I suppose? But of course it’s nothing to you! Why should it be?”

He paused, and Vennie interrupted him sharply. “It is a great deal to us, Mr. Andersen! Every cruel thing that is done in a place affects everyone who lives in the place. If Mr. Taxater and—and Mr. Clavering—thought that Miss Traffio was being driven into this marriage, I’m sure they would not allow it! They would do something—everything—to stop such an outrage. Wouldn’t you, Mr. Taxater?”

“But surely, Vennie,” said the theologian, “you have heard something of this? You can’t be quite so oblivious, as all that, to the village scandal?”

He spoke with a certain annoyance as people are apt to do, when some disagreeable abuse, which they have sought to forget, is brought vividly before them.

Vennie, too, became irritable. The question of Lacrima’s marriage had more than once given her conscience a sharp stab. “I think it is a shame to us all,” she cried vehemently, “that this should be allowed. It is only lately that I’ve heard rumours of it, and I took them for mere gossip. It’s been on my mind.” She looked almost sternly at the theologian. “I meant to talk to you about it. But other things came between. I haven’t seen Lacrima for several weeks. Surely, if it is as Mr. Andersen says, something ought to be done! It is a horrible, perfectly horrible idea!” She covered her face with her hands as if to shut out some unbearable vision.

James Andersen watched them both intently, leaning against the wood-work of the church-door.

“I thought you all knew of this,” he said presently. “Perhaps you did; but the devil prompted you to say nothing. There are a great many things in this world which are done while people—good people—look on—and nothing said. Do you wonder now that the end of this business will be a curious one; I mean for me? For you know, of course, what is going to happen? You know why I have been chosen to work at this particular piece of carving? And why, ever since I quarrelled with Luke and drank in Hullaway Inn, I have heard voices in my head? The reason of that is, that Leo’s Hill is angry because I have deserted it. Every stone I touch is angry, and keeps talking to me and upbraiding me. The voices I hear are the voices of all the stones I have ever worked with in my life. But they needn’t fret themselves. The end will surprise even them. They do not know,”—here his voice took a lower tone, and he assumed that ghastly air of imparting a piece of surprising, but quite natural, information, which is one of the most sinister tokens of monomania,—“that I shall very soon be, even as they are! Isn’t it funny they don’t know that, Miss Seldom? Isn’t it a curious thing, Mr. Taxater? I thought of that, just now, as I chipped the dirt from King Stephen. Even he didn’t know, the foolish centaur! And yet he has been up there, seeing this sort of thing done, for seven hundred years! I expect he has seen so many girls dragged under this arch, with sick terror in their hearts, that he has grown callous to it. A callous king! A knavish-smiling king! It makes me laugh to think how little he cares!”

The unfortunate man did indeed proceed to laugh; but the sound of it was so ghastly, even to himself, that he quickly became grave.

“Luke will be here soon,” he said. “Luke has always come for me, these last few days, when his work is over. It’ll be over soon now, I think. He may be here any moment; so I’d better finish the job. Don’t you worry about Lacrima, ladies and gentlemen! She’ll fly away with the rooks. This centaur-king will never reach her with his arrows. It’ll be me, not her, he’ll turn into stone!”

He became silent and continued his labour upon the carving. The wonder was that with his head full of such mad fancies he could manage so delicate a piece of work. Mr. Taxater and Vennie watched him in amazement.

“I think,” whispered the latter presently, “we’d better wait in the churchyard till his brother comes. I don’t like leaving him in this state.”

Mr. Taxater nodded, and retreating to the further end of the path, they sat down together upon a flat tombstone.

“I am sorry,” said Mr. Taxater, after a minute or two’s silence, “that I spoke rather crossly to you just now. The truth is, the man’s reference to that Italian girl made me feel ashamed of myself. I have not your excuse of being ignorant of what was going on. I have, in fact, been meaning to talk to you about it for some weeks; but I hesitated, wishing to be quite sure of my ground first.

“Even now, you must remember, we have no certain authority to go upon. But I’m afraid—I’m very much afraid—what Andersen says is true. It is evidently his own certain knowledge of it that has upset his brain. And I’m inclined to take his word for it. I fear the girl must have told him herself; and it was the shock of hearing it from her that had this effect.

“There’s no doubt he’s seriously ill. But if I know anything of these things, it’s rather a case of extreme nervous agitation than actual insanity. In any event, it’s a relief to remember that this kind of mania is, of all forms of brain-trouble, the easiest cured.”

Vennie made an imperious little gesture. “We must cure him!” she cried. “We must! We must! And the only way to do it, as far as I can see, is to stop this abominable marriage. Lacrima can’t be doing it willingly. No girl would marry a man like that, of her own accord.”

Mr. Taxater shook his head. “I’m afraid there are few people,” he remarked, “that some girl or other wouldn’t marry if the motive were strong enough! The question is, What is the motive in this instance?”

“What can Mr. Quincunx be thinking of?” said Vennie. “He hasn’t been up to see mother lately. In fact, I don’t think he has been in our house since he began working in Yeoborough. That’s another abominable shame! It seems to me more and more clear that there’s an evil destiny hanging over this place, driving people on to do wicked things!”

“I’m afraid we shall get small assistance from Mr. Quincunx,” said the theologian. “The relations between him and Lacrima are altogether beyond my power of unravelling. But I cannot imagine his taking any sort of initiative in any kind of difficulty.”

“Then what are we to do?” pleaded Vennie, looking anxiously into the diplomatist’s face.

Mr. Taxater rested his chin upon the handle of his cane and made no reply.

At this moment the gate clicked behind them, and Luke Andersen appeared. He glanced hastily towards the porch; but his brother was absorbed in his work and apparently had heard nothing. Stepping softly along the edge of the path he approached the two friends. He looked very anxious and troubled.

Raising his hat to Vennie, he made a gesture with his hand in his brother’s direction. “Have you seen him?” he enquired. “Has he talked to you?”

The theologian nodded.

“Oh, I think all this is dreadful!” whispered Vennie. “I’m more distressed than I can tell you. I’m afraid he’s very, very ill. And he keeps talking about Miss Traffio. Surely something can be done, Mr. Andersen, to stop that marriage before it’s too late?”

Luke turned upon her with an expression completely different from any she had ever seen him wear before. He seemed to have suddenly grown much older. His mouth was drawn, and a little open; and his cheeks were pale and indented by deep lines.

“I would give my soul,” he said with intense emphasis, “to have this thing otherwise. I have already been to Lacrima—to Miss Traffio, I mean—but she will do nothing. She is mad, too, I think. I hoped to get her to marry my brother, off-hand, anyhow; and leave the place with him. But she won’t hear of it. I can’t understand her! It almost seems as if she wanted to marry that clown. But she can’t really; it’s impossible. I’m afraid that fool Quincunx is at the bottom of it.”

“Something must be done! Something must be done!” wailed Vennie.

“Sustinuit anima mea in verbo ejus!” muttered Mr. Taxater. “Speravit anima mea in Domino.”

“I shouldn’t mind so much the state he’s in,” continued Luke, “if I didn’t remember how my mother went. She got just like this before she died. It’s true my father was a brute to her. But this different kind of blow seems to have just the same effect upon James. Fool that I am, I must needs start a miserable quarrel with him when he was most worried. If anything happens, I tell you I shall feel I’m responsible for the whole thing, and no one else!”

All this while Mr. Taxater had remained silent, his chin on the handle of his cane. At last he lifted up his head.

“I think,” he began softly, “I should rather like a word alone with Mr. Luke, Vennie. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind wandering down the lane a step or two? Then I can follow you; and we’ll leave this young man to get his brother home.”

The girl rose obediently and pressed the youth’s hand. “If anyone can help you,” she said with a look of tender sympathy, “it is Mr. Taxater. He has helped me in my trouble.”

As soon as Vennie was out of hearing the theologian looked straight into Luke’s face.

“I have an idea,” he said, “that if any two people can find a way out of this wretched business, it is you and I together.”

“Well, sir,” said Luke, seating himself by Mr. Taxater’s side and glancing apprehensively towards the church-porch; “I have tried what I can do with Miss Romer, but she maintains that nothing she can say will make any difference to Miss Traffio.”

“I fancy there is one thing, however, that would make a difference to Mr. Quincunx,” remarked the theologian significantly. “I am taking for granted,” he added, “that it is this particular marriage which weighs so heavily on your brother. He would not suffer if he saw her wedded to a man she loved?”

“Ah!” exclaimed Luke, “your idea is to appeal to Quincunx. I’ve thought of that, too. But I’m afraid it’s hopeless. He’s such an inconceivably helpless person. Besides, he’s got no money.”

“Suppose we secured him the money?” said Mr. Taxater.

Luke’s countenance momentarily brightened; but the cloud soon settled on it again.

“We couldn’t get enough,” he said with a sigh. “Unless,” he added, with a glimmer of humour, “you or some other noble person have more cash to dispose of than I fancy is at all likely! To persuade Quincunx into any bold activity we should have to guarantee him a comfortable annuity for the rest of his life, and an assurance of his absolute security from Romer’s vengeance. It would have to be enough for Lacrima, too, you understand!”

The theologian shook the dew-drops from a large crimson rose which hung within his reach.

“What precise sum would you suggest,” he asked, “as likely to be a sufficient inducement?”

The stone-carver meditated. “Those two could live quite happily,” he remarked at last, “on two hundred a year.”

“It is a large amount to raise,” said Mr. Taxater. “I fear it is quite beyond my power and the power of the Seldoms, even if we combined our efforts. How right Napoleon was, when he said that in any campaign, the first, second, and third requisite was money!

“It only shows how foolish those critics of the Catholic Church are, who blame her for laying stress upon the temporal side of our great struggle against evil. In this world, as things go, one always strikes sooner or later against the barrier of money. The money-question lies at the bottom of every subterranean abuse and every hidden iniquity that we unmask. It’s a wretched thing that it should be so, but we have to accept it; until one of Vennie’s angels”—he added in an undertone—“descends to help us! Your poor brother began talking just now about the power of stone. I referred him to the Cross of our Lord—which is made of another material!

“But unfortunately in the stress of this actual struggle, you and I, my dear Andersen, find ourselves, as you see, compelled to call in the help, not of wood, but of gold. Gold, and gold alone, can furnish us with the means of undermining these evil powers!”

The texture of Mr. Taxater’s mind was so nicely inter-threaded with the opposite strands of metaphysical and Machiavellian wisdom, that this discourse, fantastic as it may sound to us, fell from him as naturally as rain from a heavy cloud. Luke Andersen’s face settled into an expression of hopeless gloom.

“The thing is beyond us, then,” he said. “I certainly can’t provide an enormous sum like that. James’ and my savings together only amount to a few hundreds. And if no quixotic person can be discovered to help us, we are bound hand and foot.

“Oh I should like,” he cried, “to make this place ring and ting with our triumph over that damned Romer!”

“Quis est iste Rex gloriÆ?” muttered the Theologian. “Dominus fortis et potens; Dominus potens in proelio.”

“I shall never dare,” went on the stone-carver, “to get my brother away into a home. The least thought of such a thing would drive him absolutely out of his mind. He’ll have to be left to drift about like this, talking madly to everyone he meets, till something terrible happens to him. God! I could howl with rage, to think how it all might be saved if only that ass Quincunx had a little gall!”

Mr. Taxater tapped the young man’s wrist with his white fingers. “I think we can put gall into him between us,” he said. “I think so, Andersen.”

“You’ve got some idea, sir!” cried Luke, looking at the theologian. “For Heaven’s sake, let’s have it! I am completely at the end of my tether.”

“This American who is engaged to Gladys is immensely rich, isn’t he?” enquired Mr. Taxater.

“Rich?” answered Luke. “That’s not the word for it! The fellow could buy the whole of Leo’s Hill and not know the difference.”

Mr. Taxater was silent, fingering the gold cross upon his watch-chain.

“It remains with yourself then,” he remarked at last.

“What!” cried the astonished Luke.

“I happen to be aware,” continued the diplomatist, calmly, “that there is a certain fact which our friend from Ohio would give half his fortune to know. He certainly would very willingly sign the little document for it, that would put Mr. Quincunx and Miss Traffio into a position of complete security. It is only a question of ‘the terrain of negotiation,’ as we say in our ecclesiastical circles.”

Luke Andersen’s eyes opened very widely, and the amazement of his surprise made him look more like an astounded faun than ever—a faun that has come bolt upon some incredible triumph of civilization.

“I will be quite plain with you, young man,” said the theologian. “It has come to my knowledge that you and Gladys Romer are more than friends; have been more than friends, for a good while past.

“Do not wave your hand in that way! I am not speaking without evidence. I happen to know as a positive fact that this girl is neither more nor less than your mistress. I am also inclined to believe—though of this, of course, I cannot be sure—that, as a result of this intrigue, she is likely, before the autumn is over, to find herself in a position of considerable embarrassment. It is no doubt, with a view to covering such embarrassment—you understand what I mean, Mr. Andersen?—that she is making preparations to have her marriage performed earlier than was at first intended.”

“God!” cried the astounded youth, losing all self-possession, “how, under the sun, did you get to know this?”

Mr. Taxater smiled. “We poor controversialists,” he said, “have to learn, in self-defence, certain innocent arts of observation. I don’t think that you and your mistress,” he added, “have been so extraordinarily discreet, that it needed a miracle to discover your secret.”

Luke Andersen recovered his equanimity with a vigorous effort. “Well?” he said, rising from his seat and looking anxiously at his brother, “what then?”

As he uttered these words the young stone-carver’s mind wrestled in grim austerity with the ghastly hint thrown out by his companion. He divined with an icy shock of horror the astounding proposal that this amazing champion of the Faith was about to unfold. He mentally laid hold of this proposal as a man might lay hold upon a red-hot bar of iron. The interior fibres of his being hardened themselves to grasp without shrinking its appalling treachery.

Luke had it in him, below his urbane exterior, to rend and tear away every natural, every human scruple. He had it in him to be able to envisage, with a shamelessness worthy of some lost soul of the Florentine’s Inferno, the fire-scorched walls of such a stark dilemma. The palpable suggestion which now hung, as it were, suspended in the air between them, was a suggestion he was ready to grasp by the throat.

The sight of his brother’s gaunt figure, every line of which he knew and loved so well, turned his conscience to adamant. Sinking into the depths of his soul, as a diver might sink into an ice-cold sea, he felt that there was literally nothing he would not do, if his dear Daddy James could be restored to sanity and happiness.

Gladys? He would walk over the bodies of a hundred Gladyses, if that way, and that alone, led to his brother’s restoration!

“What then?” he repeated, turning a bleak but resolute face upon Mr. Taxater.

The theologian continued: “Why, it remains for you, or for someone deputed by you, to reveal to our unsuspecting American exactly how his betrothed has betrayed him. I have no doubt that in the disturbance this will cause him we shall have no difficulty in securing his aid in this other matter. It would be a natural, an inevitable revenge for him to take. Himself a victim of these Romers, what more appropriate, what more suitable, than that he should help us in liberating their other victims? If he is as wealthy as you say, it would be a mere bagatelle for him to set our good Quincunx upon his feet forever, and Lacrima with him! It is the kind of thing it would naturally occur to him to do. It would be a revenge; but a noble revenge. He would leave Nevilton then, feeling that he had left his mark; that he had made himself felt. Americans like to make themselves felt.”

Luke’s countenance, in spite of his interior acquiescence, stiffened into a haggard mask of dismay.

“But this is beyond anything one has ever heard of!” he protested, trying in vain to assume an air of levity. “It is beyond everything. Actually to convey, to the very man one’s girl is going to marry, the news of her seduction! Actually to ‘coin her for drachmas,’ as it says somewhere! It’s a monstrous thing, an incredible thing!”

“Not a bit more monstrous than your original sin in seducing the girl,” said Mr. Taxater.

“That is the usual trick,” he went on sternly, “of you English people! You snatch at your little pleasures, without any scruple, and feel yourselves quite honourable. And then, directly it becomes a question of paying for them, by any form of public confession, you become fastidiously scrupulous.”

“But to give one’s girl away, to betray her in this shameless manner oneself! It seems to me the ultimate limit of scurvy meanness!”

“It only seems to you so, because the illusion of chivalry enters into it; in other words, because public opinion would condemn you! This honourable shielding of the woman we have sinned with, at every kind of cost to others, has been the cause of endless misery. Do you think you are preparing a happy marriage for your Gladys in your ‘honourable’ reticence? By saving her from this union with Mr. Dangelis—whom, by the way, she surely cannot love, if she loves you—you will be doing her the best service possible. Even if she refuses to make you her husband in his place—and I suppose her infatuation would stop at that!—there are other ways, besides marriage, of hiding her embarrassed condition. Let her travel for a year till her trouble is well over!”

Luke Andersen reflected in silence, his drooping figure indicating a striking collapse of his normal urbanity.

At last he spoke. “There may be something in what you suggest,” he remarked slowly. “Obviously, I can’t be the one,” he added, after a further pause, “to strike this astounding bargain with the American.”

“I don’t see why not,” said the theologian, with a certain maliciousness in his tone, “I don’t see why not. You have been the one to commit the sin; you ought naturally to be the one to perform the penance.”

The luckless youth distorted his countenance into such a wry grimace, that he caused it to resemble the stone gargoyles which protruded their lewd tongues from the church roof above them.

“It’s a scurvy thing to do, all the same,” he muttered.

“It is only relatively—‘scurvy,’ as you call it,” replied Mr. Taxater. “In an absolute sense, the ‘scurviness’ would be to let your Gladys deceive an honest man and make herself unhappy for life, simply to save you two from any sort of exposure. But as a matter of fact, I am not inclined to place this very delicate piece of negotiation in your hands. It would be so fatally easy for you—under the circumstances—to make some precipitate blunder that would spoil it all.

“Don’t think,” he went on, observing the face of his interlocutor relapsing into sudden cheerfulness, “that I let you off this penance because of its unchivalrous character. You break the laws of chivalry quite as completely by putting me into the possession of the facts.

“I shall, of course,” he added, “require from you some kind of written statement. The thing must be put upon an unimpeachable ground.”

Luke Andersen’s relief was not materially modified by this demand. He began to fumble in his pocket for his cigarette-case.

“The great point to be certain of,” continued Mr. Taxater, “is that Quincunx and Lacrima will accept the situation, when it is thus presented to them. But I don’t think we need anticipate any difficulty. In case of Dangelis’ saying anything to Mr. Romer, though I do not for a moment imagine he will, it would be well if you and your brother were prepared to move, if need were, to some other scene of action. There is plenty of demand for skilled workmen like yourselves, and you have no ties here.”

The young man made a deprecatory movement with his hands.

“We neither of us should like that, very much, sir. James and I are fonder of Nevilton than you might imagine.”

“Well, well,” responded the theologian, “we can discuss that another time. Such a thing may not be necessary. I am glad to see, my friend,” he added, “that whatever wrong you have done, you are willing to atone for it. So I trust our little plan will work out successfully. Perhaps you will look in, tomorrow night? I shall be at leisure then, and we can make our arrangements. Well, Heaven protect you, ‘a sagitta volante in die, a negotio perambulante in tenebris.’”

He crossed himself devoutly as he spoke, and giving the young man a friendly wave of the hand, and an encouraging smile, let himself out through the gate and proceeded to follow the patient Vennie.

He overtook his little friend somewhere not far from the lodge of that admirable captain, whose neatly-cut laurel hedge had witnessed, according to the loquacious Mrs. Fringe, the strange encounter between Jimmy Pringle and his Maker. Vennie was straying slowly along by the hedge-side, trailing her hand through the tall dead grasses. Hearing Mr. Taxater’s footsteps, she turned eagerly to meet him.

“Well,” she asked, “what does Luke say about his brother? Is it as bad as we feared?”

“He doesn’t think,” responded the theologian, “any more than I do, that the thing has gone further than common hallucination.”

“And Lacrima—poor little Lacrima!—have you decided what we must do to intervene in her case?”

“I think it may be said,” responded the scholar gravely, “that we have hit upon an effective way of stopping that marriage. But perhaps it would be pleasanter and easier for you to remain at present in ignorance of our precise plan. I know,” he added, smiling, “you do not care for hidden conspiracies.”

Vennie frowned. “I don’t see why,” she said, “there should be anything hidden about it! It seems to me, the thing is so abominable, that one would only have to make it public, to put an end to it completely.

“I hope”—she clasped her hands—“I do hope, you are not fighting the evil one with the weapons of the evil one? If you are, I am sure it will end unhappily. I am sure and certain of it!”

She spoke with a fervour that seemed almost prophetic; and as she did so, she unconsciously waved—with a pathetic little gesture of protest—the bunch of dead grasses which she held in her hand.

Mr. Taxater walked gravely by her side; his profile, in its imperturbable immobility, resembling the mask of some great mediÆval ecclesiastic. The only reply he made to her appeal was to quote the famous Psalmodic invocation: “Nisi Dominus Ædificaverit domum, in vanum laboraverunt qui Ædificant eam.”

It would have been clear to anyone who had overheard his recent conversation with Luke, and now watched his reception of Vennie’s instinctive protest, that whatever the actions of this remarkable man were, they rested upon a massive foundation of unshakable philosophy.

There was little further conversation between them; and at the vicarage gate, they separated with a certain air of estrangement. With undeviating feminine clairvoyance, Vennie was persuaded in the depths of her mind that whatever plan had been hit upon by the combined wits of the theologian and Luke, it was one whose nature, had she known it, would have aroused her most vehement condemnation. Nor in this persuasion will the reader of our curious narrative regard her as far astray from the truth.

Meanwhile the two brothers were also returning slowly along the road to Nevilton. Had Mr. Clavering, whose opinion of the younger stone-carver was probably lower than that of any of his other critics, seen Luke during this time, he might have formed a kindlier judgment of him. Nothing could have exceeded the tact and solicitude with which he guided the conversation into safe channels. Nothing could have surpassed, in affectionate tenderness, the quick, anxious glances he every now and then cast upon his brother. There are certain human expressions which flit suddenly across the faces of men and women, which reveal, with the seal of absolute authenticity, the depth of the emotion they betray. Such a flitting expression, of a love almost maternal in its passionate depth, crossed the face of Luke Andersen at more than one stage of their homeward walk.

James seemed, on the whole, rather better than earlier in the day. The most ominous thing he did was to begin a long incoherent discourse about the rooks which kept circling over their heads on their way to the tall trees of Wild Pine. But this particular event of the rooks’ return to their Nevilton roosting-place was a phase of the local life of that spot calculated to impress even perfectly sane minds with romantic suggestion. It was always a sign of the breaking up of the year’s pristine bloom when they came, a token of the not distant approach of the shorter equinoctial days. They flew hither, these funereal wayfarers, from far distant feeding-grounds. They did not nest in the Nevilton woods. Nevilton was to them simply a habitation of sleep. Many of them never even saw it, except in its morning and evening twilight. The place drew them to it at night-fall, and rejected them at sunrise. In the interval they remained passive and unconscious—huddled groups of black obscure shapes, tossed to and fro in their high branches, their glossy heads full of dreams beyond the reach of the profoundest sage. Before settling down to rest, however, it was their custom, even on the stormiest evenings, to sweep round, above the roofs of the village, in wide airy circles of restless flight, uttering their harsh familiar cries. Sailing quietly on a peaceful air or roughly buffeted by rainy gusts of wind—those westerly winds that are so wild and intermittent in this corner of England—these black tribes of the twilight give a character to their places of favourite resort which resembles nothing else in the world. The cawing of rooks is like the crying of sea-gulls. It is a sound that more than anything flings the minds of men back to “old unhappy far-off things.”

The troubled soul of the luckless stone-carver went tossing forth on this particular night of embalmed stillness, driven in the track of those calmly circling birds, on the gust of a thought-tempest more formidable than any that the fall of the leaves could bring. But the devoted passion of the younger brother followed patiently every flight it took; and by the time they had reached the vicarage-gate, and turned down the station-hill towards their lodging, the wild thoughts had fallen into rest, and like the birds in the dusk of their sheltering branches, were soothed into blessed forgetfulness.

Luke had recourse, before they reached their dwelling, to the magic of old memories; and the end of that unforgettable day was spent by the two brothers in summoning up childish recollections, and in evoking the images and associations of their earliest compacts of friendship.

When he left his brother asleep and stood for a while at the open window, Luke prayed a vague heathen prayer to the planetary spaces above his head. A falling star happened to sweep downward at that moment behind the dark pyramid of Nevilton Mount, and this natural phenomenon seemed to his excited nerves a sort of elemental answer to his invocation; as if it had been the very bolt of Sagittarius, the Archer, aimed at all the demons that darkened his brother’s soul!