"The Rector will be back, sir, direckly. I was to I tell you so pertickler. They had 'im out to a man in the Row, who's been drinkin' days, and was goin' on shockin'—his wife was afraid to stop in the house. But he won't be long, sir."

And Anne, very stiff and on her dignity, relieved one of the two armchairs of its habitual burden of books, gave it a dusting with her apron, and offered it to the visitor. It was evident that she regarded his presence with entire disfavour, but was prepared to treat him with prudence for the master's sake. Her devotion to Meynell had made her shrewd; she perfectly understood who were his enemies, and who his friends.

Barron, with a sharp sense of annoyance that he should be kept waiting, merely because a drunken miner happened to be beating his wife, coldly accepted her civilities, and took up a copy of the Times which was lying on the table. But when Anne had retired, he dropped the newspaper, and began with a rather ugly curiosity to examine the room. He walked round the walls, looking at the books, raising his eyebrows at the rows of paper-bound German volumes, and peering closely into the titles of the English ones. Then his attention was caught by a wall-map, in which a number of small flags attached to pins were sticking. It was an outline map of England, apparently sketched by Meynell himself, as the notes and letterings were in his handwriting. It was labelled "Branches of the Reform League." All over England the little flags bristled, thicker here, and thinner there, but making a goodly show on the whole. Barron's face lengthened as he pondered the map.

Then he passed by the laden writing-table. On it lay an open copy of the Modernist, with a half-written "leader" of Meynell's between the sheets. Beside it was a copy of Thomas À Kempis, and Father Tyrrell's posthumous book, in which a great soul, like a breaking wave, had foamed itself away; a volume of Sanday, another of Harnack, into the open cover of which the Rector had apparently just pinned an extract from a Church paper. Barron involuntarily stooped to read it. It ran:

"This is no time for giving up the Athanasian Creed. The moment when the sewage of continental unbelief is pouring into England is not the moment for banishing to a museum a screen that was erected to guard the sanctuary."

Beneath it, in Meynell's writing:

"A gem, not to be lost! The muddle of the metaphor, the corruption of the style, everything is symbolic. In a preceding paragraph the writer makes an attack on Harnack, who is described as 'notorious for opposing' the doctrines of the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection. That history has a right to its say on so-called historical events never seems to have occurred to this gentleman; still less that there is a mystical and sacred element in all truth, all the advancing knowledge of mankind, including historical knowledge, and that therefore his responsibility, his moral and spiritual risk even, in disbelieving Harnack, is probably infinitely greater than Harnack's in dealing historically with the Birth Stories. The fact is the whole onus is now on the orthodox side. It is not we that are on our defence; but they."

Barron raised himself with a flushed cheek, and a stiffened mouth. Meynell's note had removed his last scruples. It was necessary to deal drastically with a clergyman who could write such things.

A step outside. The sleeping dogs on the doorstep sprang up and noisily greeted their master. Meynell shut them out, to their great disgust, and came hurriedly toward the study.

Barron, as he saw him in the doorway, drew back with an exclamation. The Rector's dress and hair were dishevelled and awry, and his face—pale, drawn, and damp with perspiration—showed that he had just come through a personal struggle.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Barron. But that fellow, Pinches—you remember?—the new blacksmith—has been drinking for nearly a week, and went quite mad this morning. We just prevented him from killing his wife, but it was a tough business. I'll go and wash and change my coat, if you will allow me."

So he went away, and Barron had a few more minutes in which to meditate on the room and its owner. When at last Meynell came back, and settled himself in the chair opposite to his visitor, with a quiet "Now I am quite at your service," Barron found himself overtaken with a curious and unwelcome hesitation. The signs—a slightly strained look, a quickened breathing—that Meynell still bore upon him of a physical wrestle, combined perhaps with a moral victory, suddenly seemed, even in Barron's own eyes, to dwarf what he had to say—to make a poor mean thing out of his story. And Meynell's shining eyes, divided between close attention to the man before him and some recent and disturbing recollections in which Barron had no share, reinforced the impression.

But he recaptured himself quickly. After all, it was at once a charitable and a high-judicial part that he had come to play. He gathered his dignity about him, resenting the momentary disturbance of it.

"I am come to-day, Mr. Meynell, on a very unpleasant errand."

The formal "Mr." marked the complete breach in their once friendly relations. Meynell made a slight inclination.

"Then I hope you will tell it me as quickly as may be. Does it concern yourself, or me? Maurice, I hope, is doing well?"

Barron winced. It seemed to him an offence on the Rector's part that Meynell's tone should subtly though quite innocently remind him of days when he had been thankful to accept a strong man's help in dealing with the escapades of a vicious lad.

"He is doing excellently, thank you—except that his health is not all I could wish. My business to-day," he continued, slowly—"concerns a woman, formerly of this village, whom I happened by a strange accident to see just after her return to it—"

"You are speaking of Judith Sabin?" interrupted Meynell.

"I am. You were of course aware that I had seen her?"

"Naturally—from the inquest. Well?"

The quiet, interrogative tone seemed to Barron an impertinence. With a suddenly heightened colour he struck straight—violently—for the heart of the thing.

"She told me a lamentable story—and she was led to tell it me by seeing—and identifying—yourself—as you were standing with a lady in the road outside the cottage."

"Identifying me?" repeated Meynell, with a slight accent of astonishment.
"That I think is hardly possible. For Judith Sabin had never seen me."

"You were not perhaps aware of it—but she had seen you."

Meynell shook his head.

"She was mistaken—or you are. However, that doesn't matter. I gather you wish to consult me about something that Judith Sabin communicated to you?"

"I do. But the story she told me turns very closely on her identification of yourself; and therefore it does matter," said Barron, with emphasis.

A puzzled look passed again over Meynell's face. But he said nothing. His attitude, coldly expectant, demanded the story.

Barron told it—once more. He repeated Judith Sabin's narrative in the straightened, rearranged form he had now given to it, postponing, however, any further mention of Meynell's relation to it till a last dramatic moment.

He did not find his task so easy on this occasion. There was something in the personality of the man sitting opposite to him which seemed to make a narrative that had passed muster elsewhere sound here a mere vulgar impertinence, the wanton intrusion of a common man on things sacredly and justly covered from sight.

He laboured through it, however, while Meynell sat with bent head, looking at the floor, making no sign whatever. And at last the speaker arrived at the incident of the Grenoble visitor.

"I naturally find this a very disagreeable task," he said, pausing a moment. He got, however, no help from Meynell, who was dumb; and he presently resumed—"Judith Sabin saw the gentleman who came distinctly. She felt perfectly certain in her own mind as to his relation to Miss Puttenham and the child; and she was certain also, when she saw you and Miss Puttenham standing in the road, while I was with her that—"

Meynell looked up, slightly frowning, awaiting the conclusion of the sentence—

—"that she saw—the same man again!"

Barron's naturally ruddy colour had faded a little; his eyes blinked. He drew his coat forward over his knee, and put it back again nervously.

Meynell's face was at first blank, or bewildered. Then a light of understanding shot through it. He fell back in his chair with an odd smile.

"So that—is what you have in your mind?"

Barron coughed a little. He was angrily conscious of an anxiety and misgiving he had not expected. He made all the greater effort to recover what seemed to him the proper tone.

"It is all most sad—most lamentable. But I had, you perceive, the positive statement of a woman who should have known the facts first-hand, if any one did. Owing to her physical state, it was impossible to cross-examine her, and her sudden death made it impossible to refer her to you. I had to consider what I should do—"

"Why should you have done anything—" said Meynell dryly, raising his eyes—"but forget as quickly as possible a story you had no means of verifying, and which bore its absurdity on the face of it?"

Barron allowed himself a slight and melancholy smile.

"I admit of course—at once—that I could not verify it. As to its prima facie absurdity, I desire to say nothing offensive to you, but there have been many curious circumstances connected with your relation to the Fox-Wilton family which have given rise before now to gossip in this neighbourhood. I could not but perceive that the story told me threw light upon them. The remarkable language of Sir Ralph's will, the position of Miss Hester in the Fox-Wilton family, your relation to her—and to—to Miss Puttenham."

Meynell's composure became a matter of some difficulty, but he maintained it.

"What was there abnormal—or suspicious—in any of these circumstances?" he asked, his eyes fixed intently on his visitor.

"I see no purpose to be gained by going into them on this occasion," said Barron, with all the dignity he could bring to bear. "For the unfortunate thing is—the thing which obliged me whether I would or no—and you will see from the dates that I have hesitated a long time—to bring Judith Sabin's statement to your notice—is that she seems to have talked to some one else in the neighbourhood before she died, besides myself. Her son declares that she saw no one. I have questioned him; of course without revealing my object. But she must have done so. And whoever it was has begun to write anonymous letters—repeating the story—in full detail—with the identification—that I have just given you."

"Anonymous letters?" repeated Meynell, raising himself sharply. "To whom?"

"Dawes, the colliery manager, received the first."

"To whom did he communicate it?"

"To myself—and by his wish, and in the spirit of entire friendliness to you, I consulted your friend and supporter, Mr. Flaxman."

Meynell raised his eyebrows.

"Flaxman? You thought yourself justified?"

"It was surely better to take so difficult a matter to a friend of yours, rather than to an enemy."

Meynell smiled—but not agreeably.

"Any one else?"

"I have heard this morning on my way here that Miss Nairn has received a copy."

"Miss Nairn? That means the village."

"She is a gossipping woman," said Barron.

Meynell pondered. He got up and began to pace the room—coming presently to an abrupt pause in front of his visitor.

"This story then is now all over the village—will soon be all over the diocese. Now—what was your object in yourself bringing it to me?"

"I thought it right to inform you—to give you warning—perhaps also to suggest to you that a retreat from your present position—"

"I see—you thought it a means of bringing pressure to bear upon me?—you propose, in short, that I should throw up the sponge, and resign my living?"

"Unless, of course, you can vindicate yourself publicly."

Barron to his annoyance could not keep his hand which held a glove from shaking a little. The wrestle between their personalities was rapidly growing in intensity.

"Unless I bring an action, you mean—against any one spreading the story? No—I shall not bring an action—I shall not bring an action!" Meynell repeated, with emphasis.

"In that case—I suggest—it might be better to meet the wishes of your
Bishop, and so avoid further publicity."

"By resigning my living?"

"Precisely. The scandal would then drop of itself. For Miss Puttenham's sake alone you must, I think, desire to stop its development."

Meynell flushed hotly. He took another turn up the room—while Barron sat silent, looking straight before him.

"I shall not take action"—Meynell resumed—"and I shall not dream of retreating from my position here. Judith Sabin's story is untrue. She did not see me at Grenoble and I am not the father of Hester Fox-Wilton. As to anything else, I am not at liberty to discuss other people's affairs, and I shall not answer any questions whatever on the subject."

The two men surveyed each other.

"Your Bishop could surely demand your confidence," said Barron coldly.

"If he does, it will be for me to consider."

A silence. Barron looked round for his stick. Meynell stood motionless, his hands in his baggy pockets, his eyes on Barron. Lightings of thought and will seemed to pass through his face. As Barron rose, he began to speak.

"I have no doubt you think yourself justified in taking the line you clearly do take in this matter. I can hardly imagine that you really believe the story you say you got from Judith Sabin—which you took to Flaxman—and have, I suppose, discussed with Dawes. I am convinced—forgive me if I speak plainly—that you cannot and do not believe anything so preposterous—or at any rate you would not believe it in other circumstances. As it is, you take it up as a weapon. You think, no doubt, that everything is fair in controversy as in war. Of course the thing has been done again and again. If you cannot defeat a man in fair fight, the next best thing is to blacken his character. We see that everywhere—in politics—in the church—in private life. This story may serve you; I don't think it will ultimately, but it may serve you for a time. All I can say is, I would rather be the man to suffer from it than the man to gain from it!"

Barron took up his hat. "I cannot be surprised that you receive me in this manner," he said, with all the steadiness he could muster. "But as you cannot deal with this very serious report in the ordinary way, either by process of law, or by frank explanation to your friends—"

"My 'friends'!" interjected Meynell.

"—Let me urge you at least to explain matters to your diocesan. You cannot distrust either the Bishop's discretion, or his good will. If he were satisfied, we no doubt should be the same."

Meynell shook his head.

"Not if I know anything of the odium theologicum! Besides, the Miss Nairns of this world pay small attention to bishops. By the way—I forgot to ask—you can tell me nothing on the subject of the writer of the anonymous letters?—you have not identified him?"

"Not in the least. We are all at sea."

"You don't happen to have one about you?"

Barron hesitated and fumbled, and at last produced from his breast-pocket the letter to Dawes, which he had again borrowed from its owner that morning. Meynell put it into a drawer of his writing-table without looking at it.

The two men moved toward the door.

"As to any appeal to you on behalf of a delicate and helpless lady—" said Meynell, betraying emotion for the first time—"that I suppose is useless. But when one remembers her deeds of kindness in this village, her quiet and irreproachable life amongst us all these years, one would have thought that any one bearing the Christian name would have come to me as the Rector of this village on one errand only—to consult how best to protect her from the spread of a cruel and preposterous story! You—I gather—propose to make use of it in the interests of your own Church party."

Barron straightened himself, resenting at once what seemed to him the intrusion of the pastoral note.

"I am heartily sorry for her"—he said coldly. "Naturally it is the women who suffer in these things. But of course you are right—though you put the matter from your own point of view—in assuming that I regard this as no ordinary scandal. I am not at liberty to treat it as such. The honour concerned—is the honour of the Church. To show the intimate connection of creed and life may be a painful—it is also an imperative duty!"

He threw back his head with a passion which, as Meynell clearly recognized, was not without its touch of dignity.

Meynell stepped back.

"We have talked enough, I think. You will of course take the course that seems to you best, and I shall take mine. I bid you good day."

* * * * *

From the study window Meynell watched the disappearing figure of his adversary. The day was wet, and the funereal garden outside was dank with rain. The half-dead trees had shed such leaves as they had been able to put forth, and behind them was a ragged sky of scudding cloud.

In Meynell's soul there was a dull sense of catastrophe. In Barron's presence he had borne himself as a wronged man should; but he knew very well that a sinister thing had happened, and that for him, perhaps, to-morrow might never be as yesterday.

What was passing in the village at that moment? His quick visualizing power showed him the groups in the various bar parlours, discussing the Scandal, dividing it up into succulent morsels, serving it up with every variety of personal comment, idle or malicious; amplyfying, exaggerating, completing. He saw the neat and plausible spinster from whose cruel hands he had rescued a little dumb, wild-eyed child, reduced by ill-treatment to skin and bone—he saw her gloating over the anonymous letter, putting two and two maliciously together, whispering here, denouncing there. He seemed to be actually present in the most disreputable public-house of the village, a house he had all but succeeded in closing at the preceding licensing sessions. How natural, human, inevitable, would be the coarse, venomous talk—the inferences—the gibes!

There would be good men and true of course, his personal friends in the village, the members of his Parish Council, who would suffer, and stand firm. The postponed meeting of the Council, for the acceptance of the new Liturgy, was to be held the day after his return from Paris. To them he would speak—so far as he could; yes, to them he would speak! Then his thought spread to the diocese. Charges of this kind spread with extraordinary rapidity. Whoever was writing the anonymous letters had probably not confined himself to two or three. Meynell prepared himself for the discovery of the much wider diffusion.

He moved back to his writing-table, and took the letter from the drawer. Its ingenuity, its knowledge of local circumstance, astonished him as he read. He had expected something of a vulgarer and rougher type. The handwriting was clearly disguised, and there was a certain amount of intermittent bad spelling, which might very easily be a disguise also. But whoever wrote it was acquainted with the Fox-Wilton family, with their habits and his own, as well as with the terms of Sir Ralph's will, so far as—mainly he believed through the careless talk of the elder Fox-Wilton girls—it had become a source of gossip in the village. The writer of it could not be far away. Was it a man or a woman? Meynell examined the handwriting carefully. He had a vague impression that he had seen something like it before, but could not remember where or in what connection.

He put it back in his drawer, and as he did so his eyes fell upon his half-written article for the _Modernist _and on the piles of correspondence beside it. A sense of bitter helplessness overcame him, a pang not for himself so much as for his cause. He realized the inevitable effect of the story in the diocese, weighted, as it would be, with all the colourable and suspicious circumstances that could undoubtedly be adduced in support of it; its effect also beyond the diocese, through the Movement of which he was the life and guiding spirit; through England—where his name was rapidly becoming a battle-cry.

And what could he do to meet it? Almost nothing! The story indeed as a whole could be sharply and categorically denied, because it involved a fundamental falsehood. He was not the father of Hester Fox-Wilton.

But simple denial was all that was open to him. He could neither explain, nor could he challenge inquiry. His mouth was shut. He had made no formal vow of secrecy to any one. He was free to confide in whom he would. But all that was tender, pitiful, chivalrous in his soul stood up and promised for him, as he stood looking out into the October rain, that for no personal—yes!—and for no public advantage—would he trifle with what he had regarded for eighteen years as a trust, laid upon him by the dying words of a man he had loved, and enforced more and more sharply with time by the constant appeal of a woman's life—its dumb pain, the paradox of its frail strength, its shrinking courage. That life had depended upon him during the worst crisis of its fate as its spiritual guide. He had toward Alice Puttenham the feeling of the "director," as the saints have understood it; and toward her story something of the responsibility of a priest toward a confession. To reveal it in his own interest was simply impossible. If the Movement rejected him—it must reject him.

"Not so will I fight for thee, my God!—not so!" he said to himself in great anguish of mind.

It was true indeed that at some future time Alice Puttenham's poor secret must be told—to a specified person, with her consent, and by the express direction of that honest, blundering man, her brother-in-law, whose life, sorely against his will, had been burdened with it. But the indiscriminate admission of the truth, after the lapse of years, would, he believed, simply bring back the old despair, and paralyze what had always been a frail vitality. And as to Hester, the sudden divulgence of it might easily upset the unstable balance in her of mind and nerve and drive her at once into some madness. He must protect them, if he could.

Could he? He pondered it.

At any moment one of these letters might reach Alice. What if this had already happened? Supposing it had, he might not be able to prevent her from doing what would place the part played toward her by himself in its true light. She would probably insist upon his taking legal action, and allowing her to make her statement in court.

The thought of this was so odious to him that he promptly put it from him. He should assume that she knew nothing; though as a practical man he was well aware that she could not long remain ignorant; certainly not if she continued to live in Upcote. Then, it was a question probably of days or hours. Her presence in the cottage, when once the village was in full possession of the slander, would be a perpetual provocation. One way or another the truth must penetrate to her.

An idea occurred to him. Paris! So far he had insisted on going himself with Hester to Paris because of his haunting feeling of responsibility toward the girl, and his resolve to see with his own eyes the household in which he was placing her. But suppose he made excuses? The burden of work upon him was excuse enough for any man. Suppose he sent Alice in his stead, and so contrived as to keep her in or near Paris for a while? Then Edith Fox-Wilton would of course have the forwarding of her sister's correspondence, and might, it seemed to him, take the responsibility of intercepting whatever might inform or alarm her.

Not much prospect of doing so indefinitely!—that he plainly saw. But to gain time was an immense thing; to prevent her from taking at once Quixotic steps. He knew that in health she had never been the same since the episode of Judith's return and death. She seemed suddenly to have faded and drooped, as though poisoned by some constant terror.

He stood lost in thought a little longer by his writing-table. Then his hand felt slowly for a parcel in brown paper that lay there.

He drew it toward him and undid the wrappings. Inside it was a little volume of recent poems of which he had spoken to Mary Elsmere on their moonlit walk through the park. He had promised to lend her his copy, and he meant to have left it at the cottage that afternoon. Now he lingeringly removed the brown paper, and walking to the bookcase, he replaced the volume.

He sat down to write to Alice Puttenham, and to scribble a note to Lady Fox-Wilton asking her to see him as soon as possible. Then Anne forced some luncheon on him, and he had barely finished it when a step outside made itself heard. He looked up and saw Hugh Flaxman.

"Come in!" said the Rector, opening the front door himself. "You are very welcome."

Flaxman grasped—and pressed—the proffered hand, looking at Meynell the while with hesitating interrogation. He guessed from the Rector's face that the errand on which he came had been anticipated.

Meynell led him into the study and shut the door.

"I have just had Barron here," he said, turning abruptly, after he had pushed a chair toward his guest. "He told me he had shown one of these precious documents to you." He held up the anonymous letter.

Flaxman took it, glanced it over in silence and returned it.

"I can only forgive him for doing it when I reflect that I may thereby—perhaps—be enabled to be of some little use to you. Barron knows what I think of him, and of the business."

"Oh! for him it is a weapon—like any other. Though to do him justice he might not have used it, but for the other mysterious person in the case—the writer of these letters. You know—" he straightened himself vehemently—"that I can say nothing—except that the story is untrue?"

"And of course I shall ask you nothing. I have spent twenty-four hours in arguing with myself as to whether I should come to you at all. Finally I decided you might blame me if I did not. You may not be aware of the letter to my sister-in-law?"

Meynell's start was evident.

"To Mrs. Elsmere?"

"She brought it to us on Friday, before the party. It was, I think, identical with this letter"—he pointed to the Dawes envelope—"except for a few references to the part Mrs. Elsmere had played in helping the families of those poor fellows who were killed in the cage-accident."

"And Miss Elsmere?" said Meynell in a tone that wavered in spite of himself. He sat with his head bent and his eyes on the floor.

"Knows, of course, nothing whatever about it," said Flaxman hastily. "Now will you give us your orders? A strong denial of the truth of the story, and a refusal to discuss it at all—with any one—that I think is what you wish?"

Meynell assented.

"In the village, I shall deal with it at the Reform meeting on Thursday night." Then he rose. "Are you going to ForkÉd Pond?"

"I was on my way there."

"I will go with you. If Mrs. Elsmere is free, I should like to have some conversation with her."

They started together through a dripping world on which the skies had but just ceased to rain. On his way through the park Meynell took off his hat and walked bareheaded through the mist, evidently feeling it a physical relief to let the chill, moist air beat freely on brow and temples. Flaxman could not help watching him occasionally—the forehead with its deep vertical furrow, the rugged face, stamped and lined everywhere by travail of mind and body, and the nobility of the large grizzled head. In the voluminous cloak—of an antiquity against which Anne protested in vain—which was his favourite garb on wet days, he might have been a friar of the early time, bound on a preaching tour. The spiritual, evangelic note in the personality became—so Flaxman thought—ever more conspicuous. And yet he walked to-day in very evident trouble, without, however, allowing to this trouble any spoken expression whatever.

As they neared the ForkÉd Pond enclosure, Meynell suddenly paused.

"I had forgotten—I must go first to Sandford—where indeed I am expected."

"Sandford? I trust there is no fresh anxiety?"

"There is anxiety," said Meynell briefly.

Flaxman expressed an unfeigned sympathy.

"What is Miss Hester doing to-day?"

"Packing, I hope. She goes to-morrow."

"And you—are going to interview this fellow?" asked Flaxman reluctantly.

"I have done it already—and must now do it again. This time I am going to threaten."

"With anything to go upon?"

"Yes. I hope at last to be able to get some grip on him; though no doubt my chances are not improved since yesterday," said Meynell, with a grim shadow of a smile, "supposing that anybody from Upcote has been gossipping at Sandford. It does not exactly add to one's moral influence to be regarded as a Pharisaical humbug."

"I wish I could take the business off your shoulders!" said Flaxman, heartily.

Meynell gave him a slight, grateful look. They walked on briskly to the high road, Flaxman accompanying his friend so far. There they parted, and Hugh returned slowly to the cottage by the water, Meynell promising to join him there within an hour.