PERADVENTURE

OR THE SILENCE OF GOD
BY ROBERT KEABLE

"He is a god; peradventure he sleepeth"—1 Kings xviii. 27

CONSTABLE & CO LTD
LONDON BOMBAY SYDNEY

First published, 1922

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

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

DEDICATION

MY DEAR CHRISTOPHER,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I want to set that down too, before a reader turns a page.

Ever yours,
ROBERT KEABLE.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

[DEDICATION]

I. [LAMBETH COURT]
II. [CAMBRIDGE]
III. [CHRISTMAS CAROLS]
IV. [FATHER VASSALL]
V. [VACATION]
VI. [MOUNT CARMEL]
VII. [THURLOE END]
VIII. [JUDGMENTS]
IX. [FORDHAM]
X. ["THE BLIND BEGGAR"]
XI. [URSULA]
XII. [ZANZIBAR]

PERADVENTURE

CHAPTER I
LAMBETH COURT

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

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

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

(1)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I know, dad," said the boy, his eyes shining. "How could one think otherwise?"

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

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

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

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

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

HOW SHALL YE ESCAPE
IF YE NEGLECT
SO GREAT SALVATION?

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

(2)

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

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

"Garn," said Joe, "damn yer!"

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

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

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

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

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

"I got 'ere fust"—shrilly, from the other.

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

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

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

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

Remember I'm the sinner
Whom Jesus came to save....

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

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

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

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

"Are you alone?" he asked. "May I see you home?"

"I don't like to trouble you," she said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Does it?"

"Yes. Everyone thinks so. Do you know you frighten me sometimes."

"Frighten you! Why in the world?"

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

"I wish I could," said Paul, quite gravely. "Why not?"

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

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

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

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

"I see," she said.

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

"God will surely show you what you must do," said the girl quietly.

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

She nodded.

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

"I read that bit of yours in The Record," she said.

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

"Oh you are lucky!" she exclaimed involuntarily.

"Lucky? Why?"

"You've so much to give. I've nothing."

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

"Don't say that," he said. "You've yourself—give that. No one can give more."

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

"Why not?" he asked.

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

"It won't change me at all," said Paul.

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

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

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

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

She nodded without speaking, and put her hand on the latch.

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

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

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

"I saw Miss Thornton home, mother," said Paul.

"Oh, Paul! Was no one else going her way?"

"I did not think to ask," replied Paul frankly.

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

"No, mother."

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

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

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

(3)

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

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

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

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

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

"After Lambeth Court, Allington Church," cried Paul gaily. "Let's go in."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That's just it," she said.

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

Paul sighed. "I almost wish I were not going to Cambridge," he said.

"Why?" she asked.

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

"Yes."

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

"What did he say?"

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

"Yes?"

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

She said nothing. "It's so hard to wait," he added restlessly.

"I'm glad you didn't go," she ventured.

"Why?"

"Many of us are," she equivocated.

"Why?" demanded Paul again, looking boldly at her.

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

His eyes shone. "I'm very glad," he said softly. "Will you pray for me, Edith?"

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

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

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

"Do you know me now?" she asked.

"Much better. When I come back, shall we have more rides like this?"

"I don't know," she said.

"What do you mean?"

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

He flushed. "I shall do as I please," he said. "And I know I shall want you."

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

"Will you write to me at Cambridge?" he demanded.

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

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

"I haven't a good one," she said.

"But you've something—a snapshot, anything," he pressed eagerly.

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

"That'll be lovely!" he cried. "Do give me that."

"How? Shall I send it you?"

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

"Yes," she said.

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

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

(4)

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yours sincerely,
"EDITH."

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

CHAPTER II
CAMBRIDGE

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

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

His Name will flee, the while thou mouldest thy lips for speech.—JELLALUDIN.

(1)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No," said Paul.

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

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

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

"Yes," said Paul, kindling at the proffered friendship.

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

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

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

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

"Oh?" queried Paul dubiously.

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

"I liked him," said Paul shortly.

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

Paul was tickled. "All right," he said, laughing. "But how?"

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

"What time?"

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

"Right-o," said Paul. "Good-night."

"Good-night. Doesn't matter if you're a bit late."

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

(2)

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

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

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

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

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

"What topping rooms you have," he said.

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

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

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

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

"You should show them to Tressor. He'd help you."

"Great Scott!" exclaimed Paul, "I shouldn't dare."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well, you should. It's damned good. Have a cigarette."

"I don't smoke," said Paul.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Oh no," said Hartley. "You're used to all that kind of thing, I know."

"How did you come to hear of my being up?" queried Paul.

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

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

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

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

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

"Right," said Paul. "Ten minutes?"

"Yes—not longer. Cheerio. Good luck on the river." And he went out.

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

Paul explained, reaching for his cap and stick.

"Gosh! So you're preaching on Sunday, are you? He won't get me, anyway."

"Don't suppose he'll ask you," said Paul. "Where's Gus Strether?"

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

"Well, let's go. We haven't much time if we're walking down together."

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

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

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

Strether snorted again. "Opprobrious conduct," he muttered stormily.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes, if you like. Give me some paper, Kestern."

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

"The more the merrier," said Donaldson. "Don't spoil sport."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"She overheard Donaldson saying it, I expect," invented the resourceful Paul.

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

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

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

Paul nodded.

"Oh my holy aunt, what a spree! What did he say? What's he going to do?"

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

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

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

Donaldson stared. "He's a damned good sport, anyway."

"May be," retorted Paul. "So's old Gussie, if it comes to that."

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

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

"Hullo! Back?" queried Paul. "What happened, Gussie?"

No answer.

"Oh come on," said Paul, "what did she say? Did you get rid of her easily?"

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

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

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

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

"Shut up," growled Strether suspiciously.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Wait for him to come back. Then pull his leg."

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

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

(3)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"My dear fellow, I know true art when I see it," protested Manning.

"Art?" queried Paul, bewildered.

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

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

"But your presentation of it was a distinct tour de force," said Manning.

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

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

"Don't!" cried Paul. "You laugh at it. I cannot do that."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That, then," said Manning, "is my business. My soul is my own, at any rate."

"No," said Paul, "it was bought with a price. 'Ye are not your own.'"

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

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

"Thanks," said Manning drily. "Then I claim my freedom."

"But," capped Paul, "you have to choose whom you will serve."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(4)

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

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

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

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

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

"I've never been to the theatre," said Paul frankly.

The other nodded slowly in his meditative fashion. "So?" he queried.

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

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

"That's different," objected Paul.

Strether laid down his knife and fork. "Going to the P.M., Sunday?" he queried.

"Yes, I expect so," said Paul. "Why?"

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

Paul got up dubiously. He looked out of the window.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Note. Honestly, I have never enjoyed myself more in all my life."

Poor Paul!

(5)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paul hardly liked to tell him. It seemed fantastic as he said it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I say," said Paul, "The Granta's taken that yarn of mine about Egypt."

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

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

"Can't say," said Donaldson.

Then Paul told him.

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

"Why on earth——" began Paul, utterly surprised.

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

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

"I shan't go this morning. I shall cut it."

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

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

"I've done, thanks," said Paul. "I don't want any more."

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

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

CHAPTER III
CHRISTMAS CAROLS

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

(1)

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

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

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

"Very glad, mother darling," said Paul, kissing her. "Where's dad?"

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

Paul laughed. "That's a big order," he said. "I don't know where to begin."

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

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

"And do you find the lectures hard?" she queried.

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

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

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

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

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

"I hope you will still be able to lend us a hand, however," said his visitor.

"Rather," said Paul. "Who's taking the children on Sunday?"

"I am, unless you'd rather."

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

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

"Rather," said the young man again. "Are all the folk going strong?"

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

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

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

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

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

(2)

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

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

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

"Why ever not?" he asked, closing the house door behind her.

"You're so much older," she said.

"Two months, Madeline," he protested, using her name deliberately.

"Is that all? It seems to me that you've been away ages."

Paul glanced at her. She was entirely demure, and did not look at him.

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

"I suppose you've met all sorts of ripping people."

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

"I'm not surprised," she said. "I always thought you had it in you."

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

"Is it very lovely?" she asked softly.

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

"Doesn't Claxted bore you after all that?"

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

"Have you? Oh how splendid! I'd love to go."

"Don't tell anyone," said Paul, cautiously.

"Of course not. What did you see?"

"The Mikado."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Have a background of palms and cover the framework with ivy."

"That'd be lovely. But how could we get the ivy?"

"Leave that to me. I'll get it for you."

"Will you? Thanks so much. Could I help?"

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

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

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

Paul was suddenly shy. "Oh they're nothing," he said.

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

"I'm going to be a foreign missionary," he said.

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

Paul grew grave. "I'd prefer to be among savages," he said.

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

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

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

Paul laughed. "Honestly, I can't see you dowdy, Madeline," he said.

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

"Do you think so?" she said easily.

"Yes. By the way, you just must come up for the Mays. Will you promise?"

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

(3)

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

"How can I, mother?" retorted Madeline, on this occasion.

"I'll try," said Paul, good-humouredly, and strolled off in her direction.

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

"Well, mother?"

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

Madeline tossed her pretty head. "I know what I am about, mother," she said.

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

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

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

"Come on then," said Paul, catching Madeline's eye, and she moved off with him.

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

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

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

"Here's the tea," said Paul. "Sorry I was so long. You must want it."

"I do. Oh, and you've got eclairs! How delicious; I love them."

"I remembered that you did at the school-treat last August."

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

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

"Paul, you know perfectly well you used to laugh at her as much as any of us."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well, naturally, seeing what our fathers are."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Mother's a dear," she said.

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

"I couldn't go. I was ever so sorry."

"Really?"

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

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

"You'll be here to-night?" he questioned.

She shook her head. "That's why I've come this afternoon."

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

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

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

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

"Sunday?"

"You silly! You know as well as I do!"

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

She smiled. "Monday's the first night of carol singing," she said.

"No!" he cried eagerly. "I'll come. What time do you start?"

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

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

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

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

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

(4)

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

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

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

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

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

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

"A pity! I should call it something worse than that," retorted the lady.

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

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

"And how much Gospel have you heard preached there?" she demanded, shrewdly.

"Yes, Paul, that's the test," said his father.

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

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

"The empty cross symbolises that," said Paul.

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

"A little earlier," retorted Paul.

"But not early enough. Did Paul have a cross in the catacombs?"

"Possibly," said Paul, nettled.

Miss Bishop uttered an indignant exclamation. "Not of that sort," she said.

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

"But, father," began his son——

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

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

"Perhaps, possibly—but if we can perhaps draw the people there——"

"Yes, show them the road in, and maybe they'll go again."

"We hope not," said the clergyman meekly, "by the grace of God."

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

"I will speak, Mr. Kestern," she said, "if you wish it."

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

"You do, dad," cried Paul, moved more than a little, and meant it.

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

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

"Rather," she said; "that will improve things."

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

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

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

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

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

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

(5)

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

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

"It's out of your way, Vintner," said Paul. "I can do it."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Oh!" cried Edith, and fell back from him.

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

"Oh, Paul!" she cried, "Paul! Paul! ... Oh, I never meant to let you do it!"

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

"No, no, no!" she cried, almost fiercely.

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

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

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

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

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

"But she knows my mother," said the girl, simply.

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

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

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

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

"Oh, Paul! Could I? May I?"

"It's will you," he said, smiling.

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

He kissed her again, then, gently, and she suffered him.

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

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

"Do you love Him more if they are there?" she asked.

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

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

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

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

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

"Oh, Paul, of course. And you mustn't say that."

"I shall. It's true.... Edith, when shall I see you again?"

(6)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Let us pray," said the clergyman suddenly.

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

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

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

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

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

"But—but——" Paul found it hard to put his new thought into words.

"Well, Paul, laddie, out with it."

"Well, dad, I don't see how that could have made him fit for heaven."

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

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

CHAPTER IV
FATHER VASSALL

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

(1)

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

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

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

Paul shook his head. "I could not write at home, somehow," he said.

"Why not?"

"I don't know. I was too busy, perhaps, for one thing."

"Reading?"

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

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

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

Manning was announced.

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

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

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

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

"Yes. He's a great preacher in his way. Have you heard him?"

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

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

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

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

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

"Surely——" began Paul, and stopped, wishing he had not begun.

"Well?" queried Tressor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tressor moved, for him, a trifle impatiently. "You think so, do you?" he said.

"Oh, yes," said Paul, much more sure of his ground now.

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

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

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

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

"I wonder how long you will believe all that," queried Tressor gravely.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(2)

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

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

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

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

"I see the difference between Tressor's Christianity and—and my father's."

"Which is?"

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

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

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

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

"Heavens! What's the matter?" he asked, smiling.

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

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

"Ah," he said shortly, and was silent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Suppose I have?"

"Then you must do what He says."

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

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

(3)

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

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

She nodded slowly. "Yes, in a way," she said.

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

"He would not," she said.

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

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

"Exactly," said Paul again.

"But what would happen to the world if everyone did that?" queried Edith.

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

"And so it stoned them."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(4)

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

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

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

"Only while waiting to get to work," persisted Paul.

"Might be at a prayer meeting," growled the other.

Paul assented sadly. "I admit that's logical," he said.

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

"It's a bad example. People wouldn't understand. But it's awfully jolly."

"Thought you'd got a bloomin' text up in your rooms to make 'em understand."

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

"Thought that was Popish."

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

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

"Thought you ought to give all your money to the Chinese," said Strether.

Paul laughed. "Old ass," he said; "this is missionary work."

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

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

"But is it necessary, Paul?" queried his mother gently.

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

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

"And the cocksure folk are the people he gets first," added Miss Bishop.

"Then," said Paul shrewdly, "you ought to look out, Miss Bishop."

"Paul," said his father sternly, "you forget yourself."

(5)

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That I am a fierce Protestant, I suppose you mean," smiled Paul.

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

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

"Much b-better P-P-Protestant than p-p-poet," exploded the accused merrily.

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

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

"Why don't you go then?" enquired Paul carelessly.

"P-priests are forbidden to go to p-plays," said Father Vassall.

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

"Kestern prefers missionary meetings," said Hannam.

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

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

Hannam grinned, and threw himself back in his chair. He anticipated enjoyment.

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

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

"Never one," said Father Vassall.

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

"Have you ever seen a copy of what we did b-burn?" asked the other.

Paul shook his head.

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

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

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

"Burn it," said Paul instantly.

The little priest laughed. "Q-q-quite so," he exploded.

"He has you, Kestern," put in Hannam; "admit it. Have a cigarette, Father."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You read h-history?" the priest asked, a trifle sharply.

Paul nodded.

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

"Of course."

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

Paul's silence was sufficient answer to the old dilemma.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hannam laughed outright.

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

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

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

The priest nodded, and turned for a word with Hannam as Paul went to the door.

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

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

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

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

"W-what is it?" he asked.

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

"With all my heart," said the priest simply and unhesitatingly.

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

Father Vassall named a day and time.

(6)

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

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

"Dick," he said vehemently, "I can't help it. They're right."

"Who are?"

"Roman Catholics."

"Don't be an ass."

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

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

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

"Don't want to," ejaculated the other.

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

Dick grunted.

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

"I said: 'Because it's in the Bible.'

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

"I said: 'It means the bread represents His Body broken for us.'

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

"I said: 'By prayer, by reason, and by the guidance of the Holy Spirit.'

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

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

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

"And so?"

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

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

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

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

Dick laughed again. "You're a nice old ass," he said.

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

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

(7)

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

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

"He may do stuff worth reading yet, if he'll take good advice."

"Which is?" asked Paul.

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

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

Manning shook his head. "I know I'm right," he said. "Pass the cake, Strether."

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

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

Donaldson swore.

"Well, I'm damned!" put in a member. "You silly blighter!"

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

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

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

Strether grunted.

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

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

Paul smiled, understanding him. "Why?" he demanded.

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

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

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

Paul hurled a cushion at him. The two friends went down and out together.

"What's worrying you especially?" asked Manning, half an hour later.

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

"Ah! No time at all for it?"

"No. And he doesn't understand."

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

CHAPTER V
VACATION

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

(1)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(2)

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

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

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

"How do you do?" said Paul correctly, eyeing him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"In the native quarter," said Dick, playing with his fork.

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

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

"The language?" persisted Paul, still at sea.

"I learnt that at Cambridge years ago," said Childers.

"You don't say so. Did you take Oriental Languages, or whatever they call it?"

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

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

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

"I never said that, Mr. Leather," put in Childers.

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

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

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

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

"A pack of liars and scoundrels," said Leather hotly, brimming over.

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

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

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

Leather drummed with his fingers on the table.

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

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

"Prayer to a false god never did that for a man," retorted Leather.

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

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

"Most certainly," said Childers.

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

"A little," said Childers, "though I am really a mere novice."

The other completely lost his temper. "Show us then," he said curtly.

"Oh yes, do," cried Paul, but in a wholly different tone.

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

"Exactly," cut in Leather. "Tricks."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Still? Was it still? Paul caught his breath.

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

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

"How on earth——" began Dick.

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

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

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

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

"Mr. Childers," he asked, "what do your spirit-guides say of Christ?"

The clear blue eyes looked into his serenely. "They do not say much," he said.

"But why not?"

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

"But we know Him," objected Paul, "here and now."

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

"Along the road?"

"Yes. Prayer, Fasting, Self-discipline. It is very hard."

Paul shook his head. "'My yoke is easy and My burden is light,'" he quoted.

"That was not all He said," said Childers gravely.

And Paul, stricken by a host of texts, sat on very still.

"Do you yourself find God?" he asked at last.

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

"'He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father,'" returned the boy eagerly.

"And what precisely does that mean?" asked Childers, rather tenderly.

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

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

(3)

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

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

"You old crow," said Dick.

"Well, if I can't sing," retorted Paul, "I can at least make a joyful noise."