Breakfast at the White House, Upcote Minor, was an affair of somewhat minute regulation.

About a fortnight after Mr. Barron's call on the new tenants of Maudeley Hall, his deaf daughter Theresa entered the dining-room as usual on the stroke of half-past eight. She glanced round her to see that all was in order, the breakfast table ready, and the chairs placed for prayers. Then she went up to a side-table on which was placed a large Bible and prayer-book and a pile of hymn-books. She looked at the lessons and psalms for the day and placed markers in the proper places. Then she chose a hymn, and laid six open hymn-books one upon another. After which she stood for a moment looking at the first verse of the psalm for the day: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help." The verse was one of her favourites, and she smiled vaguely, like one who recognizes in the distance a familiar musical phrase.

Theresa Barron was nearly thirty. She had a long face with rather high cheek-bones, and timid gray eyes. Her complexion was sallow, her figure awkward. Her only beauty indeed lay in a certain shy and fleeting charm of expression, which very few people noticed. She passed generally for a dull and plain woman, ill-dressed, with a stoop that was almost a deformity, and a deafness that made her socially useless. But the young servants whom she trained, and the few poor people on her father's estate to whom she was allowed to minister, were very fond of "Miss Theresa." But for her, the owner of Upcote Minor Park would have been even more unpopular than he was, indoors and out. The wounds made by his brusque or haughty manner to his inferiors were to a certain extent healed by the gentleness and the good heart of his daughter. And a kind of glory was reflected on him by her unreasoning devotion to him. She suffered under his hardness or his self-will, but she adored him all the time; nor was her ingenuity ever at a loss for excuses for him. He always treated her carelessly, sometimes contemptuously; but he would not have known how to get through life without her, and she was aware of it.

On this August morning, having rung the bell for the butler, she placed the Bible and prayer-book beside her father's chair, and opening the door between the library and the dining-room, she called, "Papa!"

Through the farther door into the hall there appeared a long procession of servants, headed by the butler, majestically carrying the tea-urn. Something in this daily procession, and its urn-bearer, had once sent Stephen Barron, the eldest son—then an Eton boy just home from school—into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, which had cost him his father's good graces for a week. But the procession had been in no way affected, and at this later date Stephen on his visits home took it as gravely as anybody else.

The tea-urn, pleasantly hissing, was deposited on the white cloth; the servants settled themselves on their chairs, while Theresa distributed the open hymn-books amongst them; and when they were all seated, the master of the house, like a chief actor for whom the stage waits, appeared from the library.

He read a whole chapter from the Bible. It told the story of Gehazi, and he read it with an emphasis which the footman opposite to him secretly though vaguely resented; then Theresa at the piano played the hymn, in which the butler and the scullery-maid supported the deep bass of Mr. Barron and the uncertain treble of his daughter. The other servants remained stolidly silent, the Scotch cook in particular looking straight before her with dark-spectacled eyes and a sulky expression. She was making up her mind that either she must be excused from prayers in future, or Mr. Barron must be content with less cooking for breakfast.

After the hymn, the prayer lasted about ten minutes. Stephen, a fervently religious mind, had often fidgeted under the minute and detailed petitions of it, which seemed to lay down the Almighty's precise course of action toward mankind in general for the ensuing day. But Theresa, who was no less spiritual, under other forms, took it all simply and devoutly, and would have been uncomfortable if any item in the long catalogue had been omitted. When the Amen came, the footman, who never knew what to do with his legs during the time of kneeling, sprang up with particular alacrity.

As soon as the father and daughter were seated at breakfast—close together, for the benefit of Theresa's deafness—Mr. Barron opened the post-bag and took out the letters. They arrived half an hour before breakfast, but were not accessible to any one till the master of the house had distributed them.

Theresa looked up from hers with an exclamation.

"Stephen hopes to get over for dinner to-night!"

"Unfortunate—as I may very probably not see him," said her father, sharply. "I am going to Markborough, and may have to stay the night!"

"You are going to see the Bishop?" asked his daughter, timidly. Her father nodded, adding after a minute, as he began upon his egg:

"However, I must have some conversation with Stephen before long. He knows that I have not felt able to stay my hand to meet his wishes; and perhaps now he will let me understand a little more plainly than I do, what his own position is."

The speaker's tone betrayed bitterness of feeling. Theresa looked pained.

"Father, I am sure—"

"Don't be sure of anything, my dear, with regard to Stephen! He has fallen more and more under Meynell's influence of late, and I more than suspect that when the time comes he will take sides openly with him. It will be a bitter blow to me, but that he doesn't consider. I don't expect consideration from him, either as to that—or other things. Has he been hanging round the Fox-Wiltons lately as usual?"

Theresa looked troubled.

"He told me something the other night, father, I ought to have told you.
Only—"

"Only what? I am always kept in the dark between you."

"Oh, no, father! but it seems to annoy you, when—when I talk about Stephen, so I waited. But the Rector and Lady Fox-Wilton have quite forbidden any engagement between Stephen and Hester. Stephen did propose—and they said—not for two years at least."

"You mean to say that Stephen actually was such a fool?" said her father violently, staring at her.

Theresa nodded.

"A girl of the most headstrong and frivolous character!—a trouble to everybody about her. Lady Fox-Wilton has often complained to me that she is perfectly unmanageable with her temper and her vanity! The worst conceivable wife for a clergyman! Really, Stephen—"

The master of the house pushed his plate away from him in speechless disgust.

"And both Lady Fox-Wilton and the Rector have always taken such trouble about her—much more than about the other children!" murmured Theresa, helplessly.

"What sort of a bringing up do you think Meynell can give anybody?" said her father, turning upon her.

Theresa only looked at him silently, with her large mild eyes. She knew it was of no use to argue. Besides, on the subject of the Rector she very much agreed with her father. Her deafness and her isolation had entirely protected her from Meynell's personal influence.

"A man with no religious principles—making a god of his own intellect—steeped in pride and unbelief—what can he do to train a girl like Hester? What can he do to train himself?" thundered Barron, bringing his hand down on the table-cloth.

"Every one says he is a good man," said Theresa, timidly.

"In outward appearance. What's that? A man like Meynell, who has thrown over the Christian faith, may fall into sin at any moment. His unbelief is the result of sin. He can neither help himself—nor other people—and you need never be surprised to find that his supposed goodness is a mere sham and delusion. I don't say it is always so, of course," he added.

Theresa made no reply, and the subject dropped. Barron returned to his letters, and presently Theresa saw his brow darken afresh over one of them.

"Anything wrong, father?"

"There's always something wrong on this estate. Crawley [Crawley was the head keeper] has caught those boys of John Broad again trespassing and stealing wood in the west plantation! Perfectly abominable! It's the second or third time. I shall give Broad notice at once, and we must put somebody into that cottage who will behave decently!"

"Poor Broad!" said Theresa, with her gentle, scared look. "You know, father, there isn't a cottage to be had in the village—and those boys have no mother—and John works very hard."

"Let him find another cottage all the same," said Barron briefly. "I shall go round, if I do get back from Markborough, and have a talk with him this evening."

There was silence for a little. Theresa was evidently sad. "Perhaps Lady Fox-Wilton would find him something," she said anxiously at last. "His mother was her maid long ago. First she was their schoolroom maid—then she went back to them, when her husband died and John married, and was a kind of maid housekeeper. Nobody knew why Lady Fox-Wilton kept her so long. They tell you in the village she had a shocking temper, and wasn't at all a good servant. Afterward I believe she went to America and I think she died. But she was with them a long while. I daresay they'd do something for John."

Barron made no reply. He had not been listening, and was already deep in other correspondence.

One letter still remained unopened. Theresa knew very well that it was from her brother Maurice, in London. And presently she pushed it toward Barron.

"Won't you open it? I do want to know if it's all right."

Barron opened it, rather unwillingly. His face cleared, however, as he read it.

"Not a bad report. He seems to like the work, and says they treat him kindly. He would like to come down for the Sunday—but he wants some money."

"He oughtn't to!" cried Theresa, flushing. "You gave him plenty."

"He makes out an account," said her father, glancing at the letter; "I shall send him a small cheque. I must say, Theresa, you are always rather inclined to a censorious temper toward your brother."

He looked at her with an unusual vivacity in his hard, handsome face. Theresa hastily excused herself, and the incident dropped. But when breakfast was over and her father had left the room, Theresa remained sitting idly by the table, her eyes fixed on the envelope of Maurice's letter, which had fallen to the floor. Maurice's behaviour was simply disgraceful! He had lost employment after employment by lazy self-indulgence, trusting always to his father's boundless affection for him, and abusing it time after time. Theresa was vaguely certain that he was besmirched by all sorts of dreadful things—drinking, and betting—if not worse. Her woman's instinct told her much more than his father had ever discovered about him. Though at the same time she had the good sense to remind herself that her own small knowledge of the world might lead her to exaggerate Maurice's misdoings. And for herself and Stephen, no less than for her father, Maurice was still the darling and Benjamin of the family, commended to them by a precious mother whose death had left the whole moral structure of their common life insecure.

She was still absorbed in uneasy thoughts about her brother, when the library door opened violently and her father came in with the Markborough Post in his hand.

His face was discomposed; his hand shook. Theresa sprang up.

"What is the matter, father?"

He pointed to the first page of the paper, and to the heading—"Extraordinary meeting at Markborough. Proceedings against the Rector of Upcote. Other clergy and congregations rally to his support."

She read the account with stupefaction. It described a meeting summoned by the "Reformers' Club" of Markborough to consider the announcement that a Commission of Inquiry had been issued by the Bishop of Markborough in the case of the Rector of Upcote Minor, and that legal proceedings against him for heretical teaching and unauthorized services would be immediately begun by certain promoters, as soon as the Bishop's formal consent had been given.

The meeting, it seemed, had been so crowded and tumultuous that adjournment had been necessary from the rooms of the Reformers' Club to the Town Hall. And there, in spite of a strong orthodox opposition, a resolution in support of the Rector of Upcote had been passed, amid scenes of astonishing enthusiasm. Three or four well-known local clergy had made the most outspoken speeches, declaring that there must be room made within the church for the liberal wing, as well as for the Ritualist wing; that both had a right to the shelter of the common and ancestral fold; and that the time had come when the two forms of Christianity now prevailing in Christendom should be given full and equal rights within the Church of the nation.

Meynell himself had spoken, urging on the meeting the profound responsibility resting on the Reformers—the need for gentleness no less than for courage; bidding them remember the sacredness of the ground they were treading, the tenacity and depth of the roots they might be thought to be disturbing.

"Yet at the same time we must fight!—and we must fight with all our strength. For over whole classes of this nation, Christianity is either dying or dead; and it is only we—and the ideas we represent—that can save it."

The speech had been received with deep emotion rather than applause; and the meeting had there and then proceeded to the formation of a "Reformers' League" to extend throughout the diocese. "It is already rumoured," said the Post, "that at least sixteen or eighteen beneficed clergy, with their congregations, have either joined, or are about to join, the Reformers. The next move now lies with the Bishop, and with the orthodox majority of the diocese. If we are not mistaken, Mr. Meynell and his companions in heresy will very soon find out that the Church has still power enough to put down such scandalous rebellions against her power and authority as that of the Rector of Upcote, and to purge her borders of disloyal and revolutionary priests." Theresa looked up. Her face had grown pale. "How terrible, father! Did you know they were to hold the meeting?"

"I heard something about a debate at this precious club. What does that matter? Let them blaspheme in private as they please, it hurts nobody but themselves. But a public meeting at the Bishop's very door—and eighteen of his clergy!"

He paced the room up and down, in an excitement he could hardly control.
"The poor, poor Bishop!" said Theresa, softly, the tears in her eyes.

"He will have the triumph of his life!" exclaimed Barron, looking up. "If there are dry bones on our side, this will put life into them. Those fellows have given themselves into our hands!"

He paused in his walk, falling into a profound reverie in which he lost all sense of his daughter's presence. She dared not rouse him; and indeed the magnitude of the scandal and distress left her speechless. She could only think of the Bishop—their frail, saintly Bishop whom every one loved. At last a clock struck. She said gently:

"Father, I think it is time to go."

Barron started, drew a long breath, gathered up the newspaper, and took a letter from his pocket.

"That is for Maurice. Put in anything you like, but don't miss the morning post."

"Do you see the Bishop this morning, father?"

"No—this afternoon. But there will be plenty to do this morning." He named two or three heads of the church party in Markborough on whom he must call. He must also see his solicitor, and find out whether the counsel whom the promoters of the writ against Meynell desired to secure had been already retained.

He kissed his daughter absently and departed, settling all his home business before he left the house in his usual peremptory manner, leaving behind him indeed in the minds of his butler and head gardener, who had business with him, a number of small but smarting wraths, which would ultimately have to be smoothed away by Theresa.

But when Theresa explored the open envelope he had given her for her brother, she found in it a cheque for £50, and a letter which seemed to Maurice's sister—unselfish and tender as she was—deplorably lacking in the scolding it ought to have contained. If only her father had ever shown the same affection for Stephen!

Meanwhile as Barron journeyed to Markborough, under the shadow of the great Cathedral, quite another voice than his was in possession of the episcopal ear. Precisely at eleven o'clock Richard Meynell appeared on the doorstep of the Palace, and was at once admitted to the Bishop's study.

As he entered the large book-lined room his name was announced in a tone which did not catch the Bishop's attention, and Meynell, as he hesitatingly advanced, became the spectator of a scene not intended for his eyes. On the Bishop's knee sat a little girl of seven or eight. She was crying bitterly, and the Bishop had his arms round her and was comforting her.

[Illustration: "Meynell, as he hesitatingly advanced, became the spectator of a scene not intended for his eyes"]

"There was bogies, grandfather!—there was!—and Nannie said I told lies—and I didn't tell lies."

"Darling, there aren't bogies anywhere—but I'm sure you didn't tell lies. What did you think they were like?"

"Grandfather, they was all black—and they jumped—and wiggled—and spitted—o-o-oh!"

And the child went off in another wail, at which moment the Bishop perceived Meynell. His delicate cheek flushed, but he held up his hand, in smiling entreaty; and Meynell disappeared behind a revolving bookcase.

The Bishop hastily returned to the charge, endeavouring to persuade his little granddaughter that the "bogie" had really been "cook's black cat," generally condemned to the kitchen and blackbeetles, but occasionally let loose to roam the upper floors in search of nobler game. The child dried her eyes, and listened, gravely weighing his remarks. Her face gradually cleared, and when at the end he said slyly, "And even if there were bogies, little girls shouldn't throw hairbrushes at their Nannies!" she nodded a judicial head, adding plaintively:

"But then Nannies mustn't talk all the time, grandfather! Little girls must talk a itty itty bit. If Nannies not let them, little girls must frow somefing at Nannies."

The Bishop laughed—a low, soft sound, from which Meynell in the distance caught the infection of mirth.

A few murmured words—no doubt a scolding—and then:

"Are you good, Barbara?"

"Ye-s," said the child, slowly—"not very."

"Good enough to say you're sorry to Nannie?"

The child smiled into his face.

"Go along then, and say it!" said the Bishop, "and mind you say it nicely."

Barbara threw her arm round his neck and hugged him passionately. Then he set her down, and she ran happily away, through a door at the farther end of the room.

Meynell advanced, and the Bishop came to meet him. Over both faces, as they approached each other, there dropped a sudden shadow—a tremor as of men who knew themselves on the brink of a tragical collision—decisive of many things. And yet they smiled, the presence of the child still enwrapping them.

"Excuse these domesticities," said the Bishop, "but there was such woe and lamentation just before you came. And childish griefs go deep. Bogies—of all kinds—have much to answer for!"

Then the Bishop's smile disappeared. He beckoned Meynell to a chair, and sat down himself.

Francis Craye, Bishop of Markborough, was physically a person of great charm. He was small—not more than five foot seven; but so slenderly and perfectly made, so graceful and erect in bearing, that his height, or lack of it, never detracted in the smallest degree from his dignity, or from the reverence inspired by the innocence and unworldliness of his character. A broad brow, overshadowing and overweighting the face, combined, with extreme delicacy of feature, a touch of emaciation, and a pure rose in the alabaster of the cheeks, to produce the aspect of a most human ghost—a ghost which had just tasted the black blood, and recovered for an hour all the vivacity of life. The mouth, thin-lipped and mobile to excess, was as apt for laughter as for tenderness; the blue eyes were frankness and eagerness itself. And when the glance of the spectator pursued the Bishop downward, it was to find that his legs, in the episcopal gaiters, were no less ethereal than his face; while his silky white hair added the last touch of refinement to a personality of spirit and fire.

Meynell was the first to speak.

"My lord! let me begin this conversation by once more thanking you—from my heart—for all the personal kindness that you have shown me in the last few months, and in the correspondence of the last fortnight."

His voice wavered a little. The Bishop made no sign.

"And perhaps," Meynell resumed, "I felt it the kindest thing of all that—after the letters I have written you this week—after the meeting of yesterday—you should have sent me that telegram last night, saying that you wished to see me to-day. That was like you—that touched me indeed!" He spoke with visible emotion.

The Bishop looked up.

"There can be no question, Meynell, of any personal enmity between yourself and me," he said gravely. "I shall act in the matter entirely as the responsibilities of my office dictate—that you know. But I have owed you much in the past—much help—much affection. This diocese owes you much. I felt I must make one last appeal to you—terrible as the situation has grown. You could not have foreseen that meeting of yesterday!" he added impetuously, raising his head.

Meynell hesitated.

"No, I had no idea we were so strong. But it might have been foreseen. The forces that brought it about have been rising steadily for many years."

There was no answer for a moment. The Bishop sat with clasped hands, his legs stretched out before him, his white head bent. At last, without moving, he said:

"There are grave times coming on this diocese, Meynell—there are grave times coming on the Church!"

"Does any living church escape them?" said Meynell, watching him—with a heavy heart.

The Bishop shook his head.

"I am a man of peace. Where you see a hope of victory for what you think, no doubt, a great cause, I see above the mÊlÉe, Strife and Confusion and Fate—"red with the blood of men." What can you—and those who were at that meeting yesterday—hope to gain by these proceedings? If you could succeed, you would break up the Church, the strongest weapon that exists in this country against sin and selfishness—and who would be the better?"

"Believe me—we sha'n't break it up."

"Certainly you will! Do you imagine that men who are the spiritual sons and heirs of Pusey and Liddon are going to sit down quietly in the same church with you and the eighteen who started this League yesterday? They would sooner die."

Meynell bore the onslaught quietly.

"It depends upon our strength," he said slowly, "and the strength we develop, as the fight goes on."

"Not at all!—a monstrous delusion!" The Bishop raised an indignant brow. "If you overwhelmed us—if you got the State on your side, as in France at the Revolution—you would still have done nothing toward your end—nothing whatever! We refuse—we shall always refuse—to be unequally yoked with those who deny the fundamental truths of the Faith!"

"My lord, you are so yoked at the present moment," said Meynell firmly—the colour had flashed back into his cheeks—"it is the foundation of our case that half the educated men and women we gather into our churches to-day are—in our belief—Modernists already. Question them!—they are with us—not with you. That is to say, they have tacitly shaken off the old forms—the Creeds and formularies that bind the visible, the legal, church. They do not even think much about them. Forgive me if I speak plainly! They are not grieving about the old. Their soul—those of them, I mean that have the gift of religion—is travailing—dumbly travailing—with the new. Slowly, irresistibly, they are evolving for themselves new forms, new creeds, whether they know it or not. You—the traditional party—you, the bishops and the orthodox majority—can help them, or hinder them. If you deny them organized expression and outlet, you prolong the dull friction between them and the current Christianity. You waste where you might gather—you quench where you might kindle. But there they are—in the same church with you—and you cannot drive them out!"

The Bishop made a sound of pain.

"I wish to drive no one out," he said, lifting a diaphanous hand. "To his own master let each man stand or fall. But you ask us—us, the appointed guardians of the Faith—the ecclesia docens—the historic episcopate—to deny and betray the Faith! You ask us to assent formally to the effacing of all difference between Faith and Unfaith—you bid us tell the world publicly that belief matters nothing—that a man may deny all the Divine Facts of Redemption, and still be as good a Christian as any one else. History alone might tell you—and I am speaking for the moment as a student to a student—that the thing is inconceivable!"

"Unless—solvitur vivendo!" said Meynell in a low voice. "What great change in the religious life of men has not seemed inconceivable—till it happened? Think of the great change that brought this English Church into being! Within a couple of generations men had to learn to be baptized, and married, and buried, with rites unknown to their fathers—to stand alone and cut off from the great whole of Christendom—to which they had once belonged—to see the Mass, the cult of Our Lady and the Saints, disappear from their lives. What change that any Modernist proposes could equal that? But England lived through it!—England emerged!—she recovered her equilibrium. Looking back upon it all now, we see—you and I agree there—that it was worth while—that the energizing, revealing power behind the world was in the confusion and the dislocation; and that England gained more than she lost when she made for herself an English and a national Church in these islands, out of the shattered dÉbris of the Roman System."

He bent forward, and looked intently into the Bishop's face. "What if another hour of travail be upon us? And is any birth possible without pain?"

"Don't let us argue the Reformation!" said the Bishop, with a new sharpness of note. "We should be here all night. But let me at least point out to you that the Church kept her Creeds!—the Succession!—the four great Councils!—the unbroken unity of essential dogma. But you"—he turned with renewed passion on his companion—"what have you done with the Creeds? Every word in them steeped in the heart's blood of generations!—and you put them aside as a kind of theological bric-À-brac that concerns us no more. Meynell!—you have no conception of the forces that this movement of yours, if you persist in it, will unchain against you! You are like children playing with the lightning!"

Denunciation and warning sat with a curious majesty on the little Bishop as he launched these words. It was with a visible effort that Meynell braced himself against them.

"Perhaps I estimate the forces for and against differently from yourself, Bishop. But when you prophesy war, I agree. There will be war!—and that makes the novelty of the situation. Till now there has never been equality enough for war. The heretic has been an excrescence to be cut away. Now you will have to make some terms with him! For the ideas behind him have invaded your inmost life. They are all about you and around you—and when you go out to fight him, you will discover that you are half on his side!"

"If that means," said the Bishop impatiently, "that the Church is accessible to new ideas—that she is now, as she has always been, a learned Church—the Church of Westcott and Lightfoot, of a host of younger scholars who are as well acquainted with the ideas and contentions of Modernism—as you call it—as any Modernist in Europe—and are still the faithful servants and guardians of Christian dogma—why, then, you say what is true! We perfectly understand your positions—and we reject them."

Through Meynell's expression there passed a gleam—slight and gentle—of something like triumph.

"Forgive me!—but I think you have given me my point. Let me recall to you the French sayings—'Comprendre, c'est pardonner—Comprendre, c'est aimer.' It is because for the first time you do understand them—that, for the first time, the same arguments play upon you as play upon us—it is for that very reason that we regard the field as half won, before the battle is even joined."

The Bishop gazed upon him with a thin, dropping lip—an expression of suffering in the clear blue eyes.

"That Christians"—he said under his breath—"should divide the forces of Christ—with the sin and misery of this world devouring and defiling our brethren day by day!"

"What if it be not 'dividing'—but doubling—the forces of Christ!" said Meynell, with pale resolution. "All that we ask is the Church should recognize existing facts—that organization should shape itself to reality. In our eyes, Christendom is divided to-day—or is rapidly dividing itself—into two wholly new camps. The division between Catholic and Protestant is no longer the supreme division; for the force that is rising affects both Protestant and Catholic equally. Each of the new divisions has a philosophy and a criticism of its own; each of them has an immense hold on human life, though Modernism is only now slowly realizing and putting out its power. Two camps!—two systems of thought!—both of them Christian thought. Yet one of them, one only, is in possession of the churches, the forms, the institutions; the other is everywhere knocking at the gates. 'Give us our portion!'—we say—'in Christ's name.' But only our portion! We do not dream of dispossessing the old—it is the last thing, even, that we desire. But for the sake of souls now wandering and desolate, we ask to live side by side with the old—in brotherly peace, in equal right—sharing what the past has bequeathed! Yes, even the loaves and fishes!—they ought to be justly divided out like the rest. But, above all, the powers, the opportunities, the trials, the labours of the Christian Church!"

"In other words, so far as the English Church is concerned, you propose to reduce us within our own borders to a peddling confusion of sects, held together by the mere physical link of our buildings and our endowments!" said the Bishop, as he straightened himself in his chair.

He spoke with a stern and contemptuous force which transformed the small body and sensitive face. In the old room, the library of the Palace, with its rows of calf-bound folios, and its vaulted fifteenth century roof, he sat as the embodiment of ancient, inherited things, his gentleness lost in that collective, that corporate, pride which has been at once the noblest and the deadliest force in history.

Meynell's expression changed, in correspondence. It, too, grew harder, more challenging.

"My lord—is there no loss already to be faced, of another kind?—is all well with the Church? How often have I found you here—forgive me!—grieving for the loss of souls—the decline of faith—the empty churches—the dwindling communicants—the spread of secularist literature—the hostility of the workmen! And yet what devotion, what zeal, there is in this diocese, beginning with our Bishop. Have we not often asked ourselves what such facts could possibly mean—why God seemed to have forsaken us?"

"They mean luxury and selfishness—the loss of discipline at home and abroad," said the Bishop, with bitter emphasis. "It is hard indeed to turn the denial of Christ into an argument against His Gospel!"

Meynell was silent. His heart was burning within him with a passionate sense at once of the vast need and hungry unrest so sharply dismissed by the Bishop, and of the efficacy of that "new teaching" for which he stood. But he ceased to try and convey it by argument. After a few moments he began in his ordinary voice to report various developments of the Movement in the diocese of which he believed the Bishop to be still ignorant.

"We wish to conceal nothing from you," he said at last with emotion; "and consistently with the trial of strength that must come, we desire to lighten the burden on our Bishop as much as we possibly can. This will be a solemn testing of great issues—we on our side are determined to do nothing to embitter or disgrace it."

The Bishop, now grown very white, looked at him intently.

"I make one last appeal, Meynell, to your obedience—and to the promises of your ordination."

"I was a boy then"—said Meynell slowly—"I am a man now. I took those vows sincerely, in absolute good faith; and all the changes in me have come about, as it seems to me, by the inbreathing of a spirit not my own—partly from new knowledge—partly in trying to help my people to live—or to die. They represent to me things lawfully—divinely—learnt. So that in the change itself, I cannot acknowledge or feel wrongdoing. But you remind me—as you have every right to do—that I accepted certain rules and conditions. Now that I break them, must I not resign the position dependent on them? Clearly, if it were a question of any ordinary society. But the Christian Church is not an ordinary society! It is the sum of Christian life!"

The Bishop raised a hand of protest, but without speaking. Meynell resumed:

"And that Life makes the Church—moulds it afresh, from age to age. There are times—we hold—when the Church very nearly expresses the Life; there are others when there are great discordances between the Life, and its expression in the Church. We believe that there are such discordances now because—once more—of a New Learning. And we believe that to withdraw from the struggle to make the Church more fully represent the Life would be sheer disloyalty and cowardice. We must stay it out, and do our best. We are not dishonest, for, unlike many Liberals of the past and the present—we speak out! We are inconsistent indeed with a past pledge; but are we any more inconsistent than the High Churchman who repudiates the 'blasphemous fables' of the Mass when he signs the Articles, and then encourages adoration of the Reserved Sacrament in his church?"

The Bishop made no immediate reply. He was at that moment involved in a struggle with an incumbent in Markborough itself who under the very shadow of the Cathedral had been celebrating the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin in flat disobedience to his diocesan. His mind wandered for a minute or two to this case. Then, rousing himself, he said abruptly, with a keen look at Meynell:

"I know of course that, in your case, there can be no question of clinging to the money of the Church."

Meynell flushed.

"I had not meant to speak of it—but your lordship knows that all I receive from my living is given back to church purposes. I support myself by what I write. There are others of us who risk much more than I—who risk indeed their all!"

"You have done a noble work for your people, Meynell." The Bishop's voice was not unlike a groan.

"I have done nothing but what was my bounden duty to do."

"And practically your parish is with you in this terrible business?"

"The church people in it, by an immense majority—and some of the dissenters. Mr. Barron, as you know, is the chief complainant, and there are of course some others with him."

"I expect to see Mr. Barron this afternoon," remarked the Bishop, frowning.

Meynell said nothing.

The Bishop rose.

"I understand from your letter this morning that you have no intention of repeating the service of last Sunday?"

"Not at present. But the League will go to work at once on a revised service-book."

"Which you propose to introduce on a given Sunday—in all the Reformers' churches?"

"That is our plan."

"You are quite aware that this whole scheme may lead to tumults—breaches of the peace?"

"It may," said Meynell reluctantly.

"But you risk it?"

"We must," said Meynell, after a pause.

"And you refuse—I ask you once more—to resign your living, at my request?"

"I do—for the reasons I have given."

The Bishop's eyes sparkled.

"As to my course," he said, dryly, "Letters of Request will be sent at once to the Court of Arches preferring charges of heretical teaching and unauthorized services against yourself and two other clergy. I shall be represented by so-and-so." He named the lawyers.

They stood, exchanging a few technical informations of this kind for a few minutes. Then Meynell took up his hat. The Bishop hesitated a moment, then held out his hand.

Meynell grasped it, and suddenly stooped and kissed the episcopal ring.

"I am an old man"—said the Bishop brokenly—"and a weary one. I pray God that He will give me strength to bear this burden that is laid upon me."

Meynell went away, with bowed head. The Bishop was left alone. He moved to the window and stood looking out. Across the green of the quadrangle rose the noble mass of the Cathedral. His lips moved in prayer; but all the time it was as though he saw beside the visible structure—its ordered beauty, its proud and cherished antiquity—a ruined phantom of the great church, roofless and fissured, its sacred places open to the winds and rains, its pavements broken and desolate.

The imagination grew upon him, and it was only with a great effort that he escaped from it.

"My bogies are as foolish as Barbara's," he said to himself with a smile as he went back to the daily toil of his letters.