Every one has known, at one time or another in life, that strange unexpected calm that always falls like sudden snow on a storm-tossed country, after some great crisis or upheaval. The blow has seemed so catastrophic that the world must be changed with the force of its fall-- but the world is not changed; hours pass and days go by, and no one seems to be aware that anything has occurred...it is only when months have gone, and perhaps years, that one looks back and sees that it was, after all, on such and such a day that life was altered, values shifted, the face of the world turned to a new angle.

This is platitudinous, but platitudes are not platitudes when we first make our personal experience of them. There seemed nothing platitudinous to Brandon in his present experiences. The day on which he had received Falk's letter had seemed to fling him neck and crop into a new world--a world dim and obscure and peopled with new and terrifying devils. The morning after, he was clear again, and it was almost as though nothing at all had occurred. He went about the town, and everybody behaved in a normal manner. No sign of those strange menacing figures, the drunken painter, the sinister, smiling Hogg; every one as usual.

Ryle complacent and obedient; Bentinck-Major officious but subservient; Mrs. Combermere jolly; even, as he fancied, Foster a little more amiable than usual. It was for this open, outside world that he had now for many years been living; it was not difficult to tell himself that things here were unchanged. Because he was no psychologist, he took people as he found them; when they smiled they were pleased and when they frowned they were angry.

Because there was a great deal of pressing business he pushed aside Falk's problem. It was there, it was waiting for him, but perhaps time would solve it.

He concentrated himself with a new energy, a new self-confidence, upon the Cathedral, the Jubilee, the public life of the town.

Nevertheless, that horrible day had had its effect upon him. Three days after Falk's escape he was having breakfast alone with Joan.

"Mother has a headache," Joan said. "She's not coming down."

He nodded, scarcely looking up from his paper.

In a little while she said: "What are you doing to-day, daddy? I'm very sorry to bother you, but I'm housekeeping to-day, and I have to arrange about meals----"

"I'm lunching at Carpledon," he said, putting his paper down.

"With the Bishop? How nice! I wish I were. He's an old dear."

"He wants to consult me about some of the Jubilee services," Brandon said in his public voice.

"Won't Canon Ryle mind that?"

"I don't care if he does. It's his own fault, for not managing things better."

"I think the Bishop must be very lonely out there. He hardly ever comes into Polchester now. It's because of his rheumatism, I suppose. Why doesn't he resign, daddy?"

"He's wanted to, a number of times. But he's very popular. People don't want him to go."

"I don't wonder." Joan's eyes sparkled. "Even if one never saw him at all it would be better than somebody else. He's such an old darling."

"Well, I don't believe myself in men going on when they're past their work. However, I hear he's going to insist on resigning at the end of this year."

"How old is he, daddy?"

"Eighty-seven."

There was always a tinge of patronage in the Archdeacon's voice when he spoke of his Bishop. He knew that he was a saint, a man whose life had been of so absolute a purity, a simplicity, an unfaltering faith and courage, that there were no flaws to be found in him anywhere. It was possibly this very simplicity that stirred Brandon's patronage. After all, we were living in a workaday world, and the Bishop's confidence in every man's word and trust in every man's honour had been at times a little ludicrous. Nevertheless, did any one dare to attack the Bishop, he was immediately his most ardent and ferocious defender.

It was only when the Bishop was praised that he felt that a word or two of caution was necessary.

However, he was just now not thinking of the Bishop; he was thinking of his daughter. As he looked across the table at her he wondered. What had Falk's betrayal of the family meant to her? Had she been fond of him? She had given no sign at all as to how it had affected her. She had her friends and her life in the town, and her family pride like the rest of them. How pretty she looked this morning! He was suddenly aware of the love and devotion that she had given him for years and the small return that he had made. Not that he had been a bad father--he hurriedly reassured himself; no one could accuse him of that. But he had been busy, preoccupied, had not noticed her as he might have done. She was a woman now, with a new independence and self-assurance! And yet such a child at the same time! He recalled the evening in the cab when she had held his hand. How few demands she ever made upon him; how little she was ever in the way!

He went back to his paper, but found that he could not fix his attention upon it. When he had finished his breakfast he went across to her. She looked up at him, smiling. He put his hand on her shoulder.

"Um--yes.... And what are you going to do to-day, dear?"

"I've heaps to do. There's the Jubilee work-party in the morning. Then there are one or two things in the town to get for mother." She paused.

He hesitated, then said:

"Has any one--have your friends in the town--said anything about Falk?"

She looked up at him.

"No, daddy--not a word."

Then she added, as though to herself, with a little sigh, "Poor Falk!"

He took his hand from her shoulder.

"So you're sorry for him, are you?" he said angrily.

"Not sorry, exactly," she answered slowly. "But--you will forgive him, won't you?"

"You can be sure," Brandon said, "that I shall do what is right."

She sprang up and faced him.

"Daddy, now that Falk is gone, it's more necessary than ever for you to realise me."

"Realise you?" he said, looking at her.

"Yes, that I'm a woman now and not a child any longer. You don't realise it a bit. I said it to mother months ago, and told her that now I could do all sorts of things for her. She has let me do a few things, but she hasn't changed to me, not been any different, or wanted me any more than she did before. But you must. You must, daddy. I can help you in lots of ways. I can----"

"What ways?" he asked her, smiling.

"I don't know. You must find them out. What I mean is that you've got to count on me as an element in the family now. You can't disregard me any more."

"Have I disregarded you?"

"Of course you have," she answered, laughing.

"Well, we'll see," he said. He bent down and kissed her, then left the room.

He left to catch the train to Carpledon in a self-satisfied mind. He was tired, certainly, and had felt ever since the shock of three days back a certain "warning" sensation that hovered over him rather like hot air, suggesting that sudden agonizing pain...but so long as the pain did not come...He had thought, half derisively, of seeing old Puddifoot, even of having himself overhauled--but Puddifoot was an ass. How could a man who talked the nonsense Puddifoot did in the Conservative Club be anything of a doctor? Besides, the man was old. There was a young man now, Newton. But Brandon distrusted young men.

He was amused and pleased at the station. He strode up and down the platform, his hands behind his broad back, his head up, his top-hat shining, his gaiters fitting superbly his splendid calves. The station- master touched his hat, smiled, and stayed for a word or two. Very deferential. Good fellow, Curtis. Knew his business. The little, stout, rosy-faced fellow who guarded the book-stall touched his hat. Brandon stopped and looked at the papers. Advertisements already of special Jubilee supplements--"Life of the Good Queen," "History of the Empire, 1837-1897." Piles of that trashy novel Joan had been talking about, The Massarenes, by Ouida. Pah! Stuff and nonsense. How did people have time for such things? "Yes, Mr. Waller. Fine day. Very fine May we're having. Ought to be fine for the Jubilee. Hope so, I'm sure. Disappoint many people if it's wet...."

He bought the Church Times and crossed to the side-line. No one here but a farmer, a country-woman and her little boy. The farmer's side- face reminded him suddenly of some one. Who was it? That fat cheek, the faint sandy hair beneath the shabby bowler. He was struck as though, standing on a tight-rope in mid-air, he felt it quiver beneath him. Hogg.... He turned abruptly and faced the empty line and the dusty neglected boarding of a railway-shed. He must not think of that man, must not allow him to seize his thoughts. Hogg--Davray. Had he dreamt that horrible scene in the Cathedral? Could that have been? He lifted his hand and, as it were, tore the scene into pieces and scattered it on the line. He had command of his thoughts, shutting down one little tight shutter after another upon the things he did not want to see. That he did not want to see, did not want to know.

The little train drew in, slowly, regretfully. Brandon got into the solitary first-class carriage and buried himself in his paper. Soon, thanks to his happy gift of attending only to one question at a time, the subjects that that paper brought up for discussion completely absorbed him. Anything more absurd than such an argument!--as though the validity of Baptism did not absolutely depend...

He was happily lost; the little train steamed out. He saw nothing of the beautiful country through which they passed--country, on this May morning, so beautiful in its rich luxuriant security, the fields bending and dipping to the tree-haunted streams, the hedges running in lines of blue and dark purple like ribbons to the sky, that, blue-flecked, caught in light and shadow a myriad pattern as a complement to its own sun-warmed clouds. Rich and English so utterly that it was almost scornful in its resentment of foreign interference. In spite of the clouds the air was now in its mid-day splendour, and the cows, in clusters of brown, dark and clay-red, sought the cool grey shadows of the hedges.

The peace of centuries lay upon this land, and the sun with loving hands caressed its warm flanks as though here, at least, was some one of whom it might be sure, some one known from old time.

The little station at Carpledon was merely a wooden shed. Woods running down the hill threatened to overwhelm it; at its very edge beyond the line, thick green fields slipped to the shining level waters of the Pol. Brandon walked up the hill through the wood, past the hedge and on through the Park to the Palace drive. The sight of that old, red, thick-set building with its square comfortable windows, its bell-tower, its dovecots, its graceful, stolid, happy lines, its high old doorway, its tiled roof rosy-red with age, respectability and comfort, its square solemn chimneys behind and between whose self-possession the broad branches of the oaks, older and wiser than the house itself, uplifted their clustered leaves with the protection of their conscious dignity-- this house thrilled all that was deepest and most superstitious in his soul.

To this building he would bow, to this house surrender. Here was something that would command all his reverence, a worthy adjunct to the Cathedral that he loved; without undue pride he must acknowledge to himself that, had fate so willed it, he would himself have occupied this place with a worthy and fitting appropriateness. It seemed, indeed, as he pulled the iron bell and heard its clang deep within the house, that he understood what it needed so well that it must sigh with a dignified relief when it saw him approach.

Appleford the butler, who opened the door, was an old friend of his--an aged, white-locked man, but dignity itself.

"His lordship will be down in a moment," he said, showing him into the library. Some one else was there, his back to the door. He turned round; it was Ronder.

When Brandon saw him he had again that sense that came now to him so frequently, that some plot was in process against him and gradually, step by step, hedging him in. That is a dangerous sense for any human being to acquire, but most especially for a man of Brandon's simplicity, almost naÏvetÉ of character.

Ronder! The very last man whom Brandon could bear to see in that place and at that time! Brandon's visit to-day was not entirely unengineered. To be honest, he had not spoken quite the truth to his daughter when he had said that the Bishop had asked him out there for consultation. Himself had written to the Bishop a very strong letter, emphasising the inadequacy with which his Jubilee services were being prepared, saying something about the suitability of Forsyth for the Pybus living, and hinting at certain carelessnesses in the Chapter "due to new and regrettable influences." It was in answer to this letter that Ponting, the Resident Chaplain, had written saying that the Bishop would like to give Brandon luncheon. It may be said, therefore, that Brandon wished to consult the Bishop rather than the Bishop Brandon. The Archdeacon had pictured to himself a cosy tÊte-À-tÊte with the Bishop lasting for an hour or two, and entirely uninterrupted. He flattered himself that he knew his dear Bishop well enough by this time to deal with him exactly as he ought to be dealt with. But, for that dealing, privacy was absolutely essential. Any third person would have been, to the last extent, provoking. Ronder was disastrous. He instantly persuaded himself, as he looked at that rubicund and smiling figure, that Ronder had heard of his visit and determined to be one of the party. He could only have heard of it through Ponting.... The Archdeacon's fingers twisted within one another as he considered how pleasant it would be to wring Ponting's long, white and ecclesiastical neck.

And, of course, behind all this immediate situation was his sense of the pleasure and satisfaction that Ronder must be feeling about Falk's scandal. Licking his thick red lips about it, he must be, watching with his little fat eyes for the moment when, with his round fat fingers, he might probe that wound.

Nevertheless the Archdeacon knew, by this time, Ronder's character and abilities too well not to realise that he must dissemble. Dissembling was the hardest thing of all that a man of the Archdeacon's character could be called upon to perform, but dissemble he must.

His smile was of a grim kind.

"Ha! Ronder; didn't expect to see you here."

"No," said Ronder, coming forward and smiling with the utmost geniality. "To tell you the truth, I didn't expect to find myself here. It was only last evening that I got a note from the Bishop asking me to come out to luncheon to-day. He said that you would be here."

Oh, so Ponting was not to blame. It was the Bishop himself. Poor old man! Cowardice obviously, afraid of some of the home-truths that Brandon might find it his duty to deliver. A coward in his old age....

"Very fine day," said Brandon.

"Beautiful," said Ronder. "Really, looks as though we are going to have good weather for the Jubilee."

"Hope we do," said Brandon. "Very hard on thousands of people if it's wet."

"Very," said Ronder. "I hope Mrs. Brandon is well."

"To-day she has a little headache," said Brandon. "But it's really nothing."

"Well," said Ronder. "I've been wondering whether there isn't some thunder in the air. I've been feeling it oppressive myself."

"It does get oppressive," said Brandon, "this time of the year in Glebeshire--especially South Glebeshire. I've often noticed it."

"What we want," said Ronder, "is a good thunderstorm to clear the air."

"Just what we're not likely to get," said Brandon. "It hangs on for days and days without breaking."

"I wonder why that is," said Ronder; "there are no hills round about to keep it. There's hardly a hill of any size in the whole of South Glebeshire."

"Of course, Polchester's in a hollow," said Brandon. "Except for the Cathedral, of course. I always envy Lady St. Leath her elevation."

"A fine site, the Castle," said Ronder. "They must get a continual breeze up there."

"They do," said Brandon. "Whenever I'm up there there's a wind."

This most edifying conversation was interrupted by the entrance of the Reverend Charles Ponting. Mr. Ponting was very long, very thin and very black, his cadaverous cheeks resembling in their colour nothing so much as good fountain-pen ink. He spoke always in a high, melancholy and chanting voice. He was undoubtedly effeminate in his movements, and he had an air of superior secrecy about the affairs of the Bishop that people sometimes found very trying. But he was a good man and a zealous, and entirely devoted to his lord and master.

"Ha! Archdeacon.... Ha! Canon. His lordship will be down in one moment. He has asked me to make his apologies for not being here to receive you. He is just finishing something of rather especial importance."

The Bishop, however, entered a moment later. He was a little, frail man, walking with the aid of a stick. He had snow-white hair, rather thick and long, pale cheeks and eyes of a bright china-blue. He had that quality, given to only a few in this world of happy mediocrities, of filling, at once, any room into which he entered with the strength and fragrance of his spirit. So strong, fearless and beautiful was his soul that it shone through the frail compass of his body with an unfaltering light. No one had ever doubted the goodness and splendour of the man's character. Men might call his body old and feeble and past the work that it was still called upon to perform. They might speak of him as guileless, as too innocent of this world's slippery ways, as trusting where no child of six years of age would have trusted; these things might have been, and were, said, but no man, woman, nor child, looking upon him, hesitated to realise that here was some one who had walked and talked with God and in whom there was no shadow of deceit nor evil thought. Old Glasgow Parmiter, the lawyer, the wickedest old man Polchester had ever known, said once of him, "If there's a hell, I suppose I'm going to it, and I'm sure I don't care. There may be one and there may not. I know there's a heaven. Purcell lives there."

His voice, which was soft and strong, had at its heart a tiny stammer which came out now and then with a hesitating, almost childish, charm. As he stood there, leaning on his stick, smiling at them, there did seem a great deal of the child about him, and Brandon, Ponting and Ronder suddenly seemed old, wicked and soiled in the world's ways.

"Please forgive me," he said, "for not being down when you came. I move slowly now.... Luncheon is ready, I know. Shall we go in?"

The four men crossed the stone-flagged hall into the diningroom where Appleford stood, devoutly, as one about to perform a solemn rite. The dining-room was high-ceilinged with a fireplace of old red brick fronted with black oak beams. The walls were plain whitewash, and they carried only one picture, a large copy of DÜrer's "Knight and the Devil." The high, broad windows looked out on to the sloping lawn whose green now danced and sparkled under the sun. The trees that closed it in were purple shadowed.

They sat, clustered together, at the end of a long oak refectory table. The Bishop himself was a teetotaler, but there was good claret and, at the end, excellent port. The only piece of colour on the table was a bowl of dark-blue glass piled with fruit. The only ornament in the room was a beautifully carved silver crucifix on the black oak mantelpiece. The sun danced across the stained floor with every pattern and form of light.

Brandon could not remember a more unpleasant meal in that room; he could not, indeed, remember ever having had an unpleasant meal there before. The Bishop talked, as he always did, in a most pleasant and easy fashion. He talked about the nectarines and plums that were soon to glorify his garden walls, about the pears and apples in his orchard, about the jokes that old Puddifoot made when he came over and examined his rheumatic limbs. He gently chaffed Ponting about his punctuality, neatness and general dislike of violent noises, and he bade Appleford to tell the housekeeper, Mrs. Brenton, how especially good to-day was the fish soufflÉ. All this was all it had ever been; nothing could have been easier and more happy. But on other days it had always been Brandon who had thrown back the ball for the Bishop to catch. Whoever the other guest might be, it was always Brandon who took the lead, and although he might be a little ponderous and slow in movement, he supplied the Bishop's conversational needs quite adequately.

And to-day it was Ronder; from the first, without any ostentation or presumption, with the utmost naturalness, he led the field. To understand the full truth of this occasion it must be known that Mr. Ponting had, for a considerable number of years past, cherished a deep but private detestation of the Archdeacon. It was hard to say wherein that hatred had had it inception--probably in some old, long-forgotten piece of cheerful patronage on Brandon's part; Mr. Ponting was of those who consider and dwell and dwell again, and he had, by this time, dwelt upon the Archdeacon so long and so thoroughly that he knew and resented the colour of every one of the Archdeacon's waistcoat buttons. He was, perhaps, quick to perceive to-day that a mightier than the Archdeacon was here; or it may have been that he was well aware of what had been happening in Polchester during the last weeks, and was even informed of the incidents of the last three days.

However that may be, he did from the first pay an almost exaggerated deference to Ronder's opinion, drew him into the conversation at every possible opportunity, with such, interjections as "How true! How very true! Don't you think so, Canon Ronder?" or "What has been your experience in such a case, Canon Ronder?" or "I think, my lord, that Canon Ronder told me that he knows that place well," and disregarding entirely any remarks that Brandon might happen to make.

No one could have responded more brilliantly to this opportunity than did Ronder; indeed the Bishop, who was his host at the Palace to-day for the first time, said after his departure, "That's a most able man, most able. Lucky indeed for the diocese that it has secured him...a delightful fellow."

No one in the world could have been richer in anecdotes than Ronder, anecdotes of precisely the kind for the Bishop's taste, not too worldly, not too clerical, amusing without being broad, light and airy, but showing often a fine scholarship and a wise and thoughtful experience of foreign countries. The Bishop had not laughed so heartily for many a day. "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" he cried at the anecdote of the two American ladies in Siena. "That's good, indeed...that's very good. Did you get that, Ponting? Dear me, that's perfectly delightful!" A little tear of shining pleasure trickled down his cheek. "Really, Canon, I've never heard anything better."

Brandon thought Ronder's manners outrageous. Poor Bishop! He was indeed failing that he could laugh so heartily at such pitiful humour. He tried, to show his sense of it all by grimly pursuing his food and refusing even the ghost of a chuckle, but no one was perceiving him, as he very bitterly saw. The Bishop, it may be, saw it too, for at last he turned to Brandon and said:

"But come, Archdeacon. I was forgetting. You wrote to me s-something about that Jubilee-music in the Cathedral. You find that Ryle is making rather a m-mess of things, don't you?"

Brandon was deeply offended. Of what was the Bishop thinking that he could so idly drag forward the substance of an entirely private letter, without asking permission, into the public air? Moreover, the last thing that he wanted was that Ronder should know that he had been working behind Ryle's back. Not that he was in the least ashamed of what he had done, but here was precisely the thing that Ronder would like to use and make something of. In any case, it was the principle of the thing. Was Ronder henceforth to be privy to everything that passed between himself and the Bishop?

He never found it easy to veil his feelings, and he looked now, as Ponting delightedly perceived, like an overgrown, sulky schoolboy.

"No, no, my lord," he said, looking across at Ponting, as though he would love to set his heel upon that pale but eager visage. "You have me wrong there. I was making no complaint. The Precentor knows his own business best."

"You certainly said something in your letter," said the Bishop vaguely. "There was s-something, Ponting, was there not?"

"Yes, my lord," said Ponting. "There was. But I expect the Archdeacon did not mean it very seriously."

"Do you mean that you find the Precentor inefficient?" said the Bishop, looking at the coffee with longing and then shaking his head. "Not to-day, Appleford, alas--not to-day."

"Oh, no," said Brandon, colouring. "Of course not. Our tastes differ a little as to the choice of music, that's all. I've no doubt that I am old- fashioned."

"How do you find the Cathedral music, Canon?" he asked, turning to Ronder.

"Oh, I know very little about it," said Ronder, smiling. '"Nothing in comparison with the Archdeacon. I'm sure he's right in liking the old music that people have grown used to and are fond of. At the same time, I must confess that I haven't thought Ryle too venturesome. But then I'm very ignorant, having been here so short a time."

"That's right, then," said the Bishop comfortably. "There doesn't seem much wrong."

At that moment Appleford, who had been absent from the room for a minute, returned with a note which he gave to the Bishop.

"From Pybus, my lord," he said; "some one has ridden over with it."

At the word "Pybus" there was an electric silence in the room. The Bishop tore open the letter and read it. He half started from his chair with a little exclamation of distress and grief.

"Please excuse me," he said, turning to them. "I must leave you for a moment and speak to the bearer of this note. Poor Morrison...at last... he's gone!--Pybus!..."

The Archdeacon, in spite of himself, half rose and stared across at Ronder. Pybus! The living at last was vacant.

A moment later he felt deeply ashamed. In that sunlit room the bright green of the outside world quivering in pools of colour upon the pure space of the white walls spoke of life and beauty and the immortality of beauty.

It was hard to think of death there in such a place, but one must think of it and consider, too, Morrison, who had been so good a fellow and loved the world, and all the things in it, and had thought of heaven also in the spare moments that his energy left him.

A great sportsman he had been, with a famous breed of bull-terrier, and anxious to revive the South Glebeshire Hunt; very fine, too, in that last terrible year when the worst of all mortal diseases had leapt upon his throat and shaken him with agony and the imminent prospect of death-- shaken him but never terrified him. Brandon summoned before him that broad, jolly, laughing figure, summoned it, bowed to its fortitude and optimism, then, as all men must, at such a moment, considered his own end; then, having paid his due to Morrison, returned to the great business of the--Living.

They were gathered together in the hall now. The Bishop had known Morrison well and greatly liked him, and he could think of nothing but the man himself. The question of the succession could not come near him that day, and as he stood, a little white-haired figure, tottering on his stick in the flagged hall, he seemed already to be far from the others, to be caught already half-way along the road that Morrison was now travelling.

Both Brandon and Ronder felt that it was right for them to go, although on a normal day they would have stayed walking in the garden and talking for another three-quarters of an hour until it was time to catch the three- thirty train from Carpledon. Mr. Ponting settled the situation.

"His lordship," he said, "hopes that you will let Bassett drive you into Polchester. There is the little wagonette; Bassett must go, in any case, to get some things. It is no trouble, no trouble at all."

They, of course, agreed, although for Brandon at any rate there would be many things in the world pleasanter than sitting with Ronder in a small wagonette for more than an hour. He also had no liking for Bassett, the Bishop's coachman for the last twenty years, a native of South Glebeshire, with all the obstinacy, pride and independence that that definition includes.

There was, however, no other course, and, a quarter of an hour later, the two clergymen found themselves opposite one another in a wagonette that was indeed so small that it seemed inevitable that Ronder's knees must meet Brandon's and Brandon's ankles glide against Ronder's.

The Archdeacon's temper was, by this time, at its worst. Everything had been ruined by Ronder's presence. The original grievances were bad enough --the way in which his letter had been flouted, the fashion in which his conversation had been disregarded at luncheon, the sanctified pleasure that Ponting's angular countenance had expressed at every check that he had received; but all these things mattered nothing compared with the fact that Ronder was present at the news of Morrison's death.

Had he been alone with the Bishop then, what an opportunity he would have had! How exactly he would have known how to comfort the Bishop, how tactful and right he would have been in the words that he used, and what an opportunity finally for turning the Bishop's mind in the way it should go, namely, towards Rex Forsyth!

As his knees, place them where he would, bumped against Ronder's, wrath bubbled in his heart like boiling water in a kettle. The very immobility of Bassett's broad back added to the irritation. "It's remarkably small for a wagonette," said Ronder at last, when some minutes had passed in silence. "Further north this would not, I should think, be called a wagonette at all, but in Glebeshire there are special names for everything. And then, of course, we are both big men."

This comparison was most unfortunate. Ronder's body was soft and plump, most unmistakably fat. Brandon's was apparently in magnificent condition. It is well known that a large man in good athletic condition has a deep, overwhelming contempt for men who are fat and soft. Brandon made no reply. Ronder was determined to be pleasant.

"Very difficult to keep thin in this part of the world, isn't it? Every morning when I look at myself in the glass I find myself fatter than I was the day before. Then I say to myself, 'I'll give up bread and potatoes and drink hot water.' Hot water! Loathsome stuff. Moreover, have you noticed, Archdeacon, that a man who diets himself is a perfect nuisance to all his friends and neighbours? The moment he refuses potatoes his hostess says to him, 'Why, Mr. Smith, not one of our potatoes! Out of our own garden!' And then he explains to her that he is dieting, whereupon every one at the table hurriedly recites long and dreary histories of how they have dieted at one time or another with this or that success. The meal is ruined for yourself and every one else. Now, isn't it so? What do you do for yourself when you are putting on flesh?"

"I am not aware," said Brandon in his most haughty manner, "that I am putting on flesh."

"Of course I don't mean just now," answered Ronder, smiling. "In any case, the jolting of this wagonette is certain to reduce one. Anyway, I agree with you. It's a tiresome subject. There's no escaping fate. We stout men are doomed, I fancy."

There was a long silence. After Brandon had moved his legs about in every possible direction and found it impossible to escape Ronder's knees, he said:

"Excuse my knocking into you so often, Canon."

"Oh, that's all right," said Ronder, laughing. "This drive comes worse on you than myself, I fancy. You're bonier.... What a splendid figure the Bishop is! A great man--really, a great man. There's something about a man of that simplicity and purity of character that we lesser men lack. Something out of our grasp altogether."

"You haven't known him very long, I think," said Brandon, who considered himself in no way a lesser man than the Bishop.

"No, I have not," said Ronder, pleasantly amused at the incredible ease with which he was able to make the Archdeacon rise. "I've never been to Carpledon before to-day. I especially appreciated his inviting me when he was having so old a friend as yourself."

Another silence. Ronder looked about him; the afternoon was hot, and little beads of perspiration formed on his forehead. One trickled down his forehead, another into his eye. The road, early in the year though it was, was already dusty, and the high Glebeshire hedges hid the view. The irritation of the heat, the dust and the sense that they were enclosed and would for the rest of their lives jog along, thus, knee to knee, down an eternal road, made Ronder uncomfortable; when he was uncomfortable he was dangerous. He looked at the fixed obstinacy of the Archdeacon's face and said:

"Poor Morrison! So he's gone. I never knew him, but he must have been a fine fellow. And the Pybus living is vacant."

Brandon said nothing.

"An important decision that will be--I beg your pardon. That's my knee again.

"It's to be hoped that they will find a good man."

"There can be only one possible choice," said Brandon, planting his hands flat on his knees.

"Really!" said Ronder, looking at the Archdeacon with an air of innocent interest. "Do tell me, if it isn't a secret, who that is."

"It's no secret," said Brandon in a voice of level defiance. "Rex Forsyth is the obvious man."

"Really!" said Ronder. "That is interesting. I haven't heard him mentioned. I'm afraid I know very little about him."

"Know very little about him!" said Brandon indignantly. "Why, his name has been in every one's mouth for months!"

"Indeed!" said Ronder mildly. "But then I am, in many ways, sadly out of things. Do tell me about him."

"It's not for me to tell you," said Brandon, looking at Ronder with great severity. "You can find out anything you like from the smallest boy in the town." This was not polite, but Ronder did not mind. There was a little pause, then he said very amiably:

"I have heard some mention of that man Wistons."

"What!" cried Brandon in a voice not very far from a shout. "The fellow who wrote that abnominable book, The Four Creeds?"

"I suppose it's the same," said Ronder gently, rubbing his knee a little.

"That man!" The Archdeacon bounced in his seat. "That atheist! The leading enemy of the Church, the man above any who would destroy every institution that the Church possesses!"

"Come, come! Is it as bad as that?"

"As bad as that? Worse! Much worse! I take it that you have not read any of his books."

"Well, I have read one or two!"

"You have read them and you can mention his name with patience?"

"There are several ways of looking at these things----"

"Several ways of looking at atheism? Thank you, Canon. Thank you very much indeed. I am delighted to have your opinion given so frankly."

("What an ass the man is!" thought Ronder. "He's going to lose his temper here in the middle of the road with that coachman listening to every word.")

"You must not take me too literally, Archdeacon," said Ronder. "What I meant was that the question whether Wistons is an atheist can be argued from many points of view."

"It can not! It can not!" cried Brandon, now shaking with anger. "There can be no two points of view. 'He that is not with me is against me'----"

"Very well, then," said Ronder. "It can not. There is no more to be said."

"There is more to be said. There is indeed. I am glad, Canon, that at last you have come out into the open. I have been wondering for a long time past when that happy event was to take place. Ever since you came into this town, you have been subverting doctrine, upsetting institutions, destroying the good work that the Cathedral has been doing for many years past. I feel it my duty to tell you this, a duty that no one else is courageous enough to perform----"

"Really, is this quite the place?" said Ronder, motioning with his hand towards Bassett's broad back, and the massive sterns of the two horses that rose and fell, like tubs on a rocking sea.

But Brandon was past caution, past wisdom, past discipline. He could see nothing now but Ronder's two rosy cheeks and the round gleaming spectacles that seemed to catch his words disdainfully and suspend them there in indifference. "Excuse me. It is time indeed. It is long past the time. If you think that you can come here, a complete stranger, and do what you like with the institutions here, you are mistaken, and thoroughly mistaken. There are those here who have the interests of the place at heart and guard and protect them. Your conceit has blinded you, allow me to tell you, and it's time that you had a more modest estimate of yourself and doings."

"This really isn't the place," murmured Ronder, struggling to avoid Brandon's knees.

"Yes, atheism is nothing to you!" shouted the Archdeacon. "Nothing at all! You had better be careful! I warn you!"

"You had better be careful," said Ronder, smiling in spite of himself, "or you will be out of the carriage."

That smile was the final insult. Brandon, jumped up, rocking on his feet. "Very well, then. You may laugh as you please. You may think it all a very good joke. I tell you it is not. We are enemies, enemies from this moment. You have never been anything but my enemy."

"Do take care, Archdeacon, or you really will be out of the carriage."

"Very well. I will get out of it. I refuse to drive with you another step. I refuse. I refuse."

"But you can't walk. It's six miles."

"I will walk! I will walk! Stop and let me get out! Stop, I say!"

But Bassett who, according to his back, was as innocent of any dispute as the small birds on the neighbouring tree, drove on.

"Stop, I say. Can't you hear?" The Archdeacon plunged forward and pulled Bassett by the collar. "Stop! Stop!" The wagonette abruptly stopped.

Bassett's amazed face, two wide eyes in a creased and crumpled surface, peered round.

"It's war, I tell you. War!" Brandon climbed out. "But listen, Archdeacon! You can't!"

"Drive on! Drive on!" cried Brandon, standing in the road and shaking his umbrella.

The wagonette drove on. It disappeared over the ledge of the hill.

There was a sudden silence. Brandon's anger pounded up into his head in great waves of constricting passion. These gradually faded. His knees were trembling beneath him. There were new sounds--birds singing, a tiny breeze rustling the hedges. No living soul in sight. He had suddenly a strange impulse to shed tears. What had he been saying? What had he been doing? He did not know what he had said. Another of his tempers....

The pain attacked his head--like a sword, like a sword.

He found a stone and sat down upon it. The pain invaded him like an active personal enemy. Down the road it seemed to him figures were moving--Hogg, Davray--that other world--the dust rose in little clouds.

What had he been doing? His head! Where did this pain come from?

He felt old and sick and weak. He wanted to be at home. Slowly he began to climb the hill. An enemy, silent and triumphant, seemed to step behind him.

Book III