The Cathedral by Hugh Walpole (page 8)

She understood nothing. Her terror caught her like the wind. She crouched back against the bannisters, covering her face with her hand.

“Don’t hit me, father. Please, please don’t hit me.”

He stood over her, staring down at her.

“It’s a plot, and you must be in it with the others…. Well, go and tell them they’ve won. Tell them to come and kick me again. I’m down now. I’m beaten; go and tell them to come in–to come and take my house and my clothes. Your mother’s gone–follow her to London, then.”

He turned. She heard him go into the drawing-room.

Suddenly, although she still did not understand what had happened, she knew that she must follow him and care for him. He had pulled the curtains aside and thrown up the windows.

“Let them come in! Let them come in! I–I—-“

Suddenly he turned towards her and held out his arms.

“I can’t–I can’t bear any more.” He fell on his knees, burying his face in the shoulder of the chair. Then he cried:

“Oh, God, spare me now, spare me! I cannot bear any more. Thou hast chastised me enough. Oh, God, don’t take my sanity from me–leave me that. Oh, God, leave me that! Thou hast taken everything else. I have been beaten and betrayed and deserted. I confess my wickedness, my arrogance, my pride, but it was in Thy service. Leave me my mind. Oh, God, spare me, spare me, and forgive her who has sinned so grievously against Thy laws. Oh, God, God, save me from madness, save me from madness.”

In that moment Joan became a woman. Her love, her own life, she threw everything away.

She went over to him, put her arms around his neck, kissed tim, fondled him, pressing her cheek against his.

“Dear, dear father. I love you so. I love you so. No one shall hurt you. Father dear, father darling.”

Suddenly the room was blazing with light. The Torchlight Procession tumbled into the Precincts. The Cathedral sprang into light; on all the hills the bonfires were blazing.

Black figures scattered like dwarfs, pigmies, giants about the grass. The torches tossed and whirled and danced.

The Cathedral rose from the darkness, triumphant in gold and fire.

Book IV

The Last Stand

Chapter I

In Ronder’s House: Ronder, Wistons

Every one has, at one time or another, known the experience of watching some friend or acquaintance moved suddenly from the ordinary atmosphere of every day into some dramatic region of crisis where he becomes, for a moment, far more than life-size in his struggle against the elements; he is lifted, like Siegmund in _The Valkyrie_, into the clouds for his last and most desperate duel.

There was something of this feeling in the attitude taken in our town after the Jubilee towards Archdeacon Brandon. As Miss Stiles said (not meaning it at all unkindly), it really was very fortunate for everybody that the town had the excitement of the Pybus appointment to follow immediately the Jubilee drama; had it not been so, how flat would every one have been! And by the Pybus appointment she meant, of course, the Decline and Fall of Archdeacon Brandon, and the issue of his contest with delightful, clever Canon Ronder.

The disappearance of Mrs. Brandon and Mr. Morris would have been excitement enough quite by itself for any one year. As every one said, the wives of Archdeacons simply did _not_ run away with the clergymen of their town. It was not done. It had never, within any one’s living memory, been done before, whether in Polchester or anywhere else.

Clergymen were, of course, only human like any one else, and so were their wives, but at least they did not make a public declaration of their failings; they remembered their positions, who they were and what they were.

In one sense there had been no public declaration. Mrs. Brandon had gone up to London to see about some business, and Mr. Morris also happened to be away, and his sister-in-law was living on in the Rectory exactly as though nothing had occurred. However, that disguise could not hold for long, and every one knew exactly what had happened–well, if not exactly, every one had a very good individual version of the whole story.

And through it all, above it, behind it and beyond it, towered the figure of the Archdeacon. _He_ was the question, he the centre of the drama. There were a hundred different stories running around the town as to what exactly had happened to him during those Jubilee days. Was it true that he had taken Miss Milton by the scruff of her long neck and thrown her out of the house? Was it true that he had taken his coat off in the Cloisters and given Ronder two black eyes? (The only drawback to this story was that Ronder showed no sign of bruises.) Had he and Mrs. Brandon fought up and down the house for the whole of a night, Joan assisting? And, above all, _what_ occurred at the Jubilee Fair? _Had_ Brandon been set upon by a lot of ruffians? Was it true that Samuel Hogg had revenged himself for his daughter’s abduction? No one knew. No one knew anything at all. The only certain thing was that the Archdeacon had a bruise on his temple and a scratch on his cheek, and that he was “queer,” oh, yes, very queer indeed!

It was finally about this “queerness” that the gossip of the town most persistently clung. Many people said that they had watched him “going queer” for a long while back, entirely forgetting that only a year ago he had been the most vigorous, healthiest, sanest man in the place. Old Puddifoot, with all sorts of nods, winks and murmurs, alluded to mysterious medical secrets, and “how much he could tell an’ he would,” and that “he had said years ago about Brandon….” Well, never mind what he had said, but it was all turning out exactly as, for years, he had expected.

Nothing is stranger (and perhaps more fortunate) than the speed with which the past is forgotten. Brandon might have been all his days the odd, muttering, eye-wandering figure that he now appeared. Where was the Viking now? Where the finest specimen of physical health in all Glebeshire? Where the King and Crowned Monarch of Polchester?

In the dust and debris of the broken past. “Poor old Archdeacon.” “A bit queer in the upper storey.” “Not to be wondered at after all the trouble he’s had.” “They break up quickly, those strong-looking men.” “Bit too pleased with himself, he was.” “Ah, well, he’s served his time; what we need are more modern men. You can’t deny that he was old-fashioned.”

People were not altogether to be blamed for this sudden sense that they were stepping into a new period, out of one room into another, so to speak. The Jubilee was responsible for that. It _did_ mark a period, and looking back now after all these years one can see that that impression was a true one. The Jubilee of ’97, the Boer War, the death of Queen Victoria–the end of the Victorian Era for Church as well as for State.

And there were other places beside Polchester that could show their typical figures doomed, as it were, to die for their Period–no mean nor unworthy death after all.

But no Polcastrian in ’97 knew that that service in the Cathedral, that scratch on the Archdeacon’s cheek, that visit of Mrs. Brandon to London– that these things were for them the Writing on the Wall. June 1897 and August 1914 were not, happily for them, linked together in immortal significance–their eyes were set on the personal history of the men and women who were moving before them. Had Brandon in the pride of his heart not claimed God as his ally, would men have died at Ypres? Can any bounds be placed to one act of love and unselfishness, to a single deed of mean heart and malicious tongue?

It was enough for our town that “Brandon and his ways” were out-of-date, and it was a lucky thing that as modern a man as Ronder had come amongst us.

And yet not altogether. Brandon in prosperity was one thing, Brandon in misfortune quite another. He had been abominably treated. What had he ever done that was not actuated absolutely by zeal for the town and the Cathedral?

And, after all, had that man Ronder acted straight? He was fair and genial enough outwardly, but who could tell what went on behind those round spectacles? There were strange stories of intrigue about. Had he not determined to push Brandon out of the place from the first moment of his arrival? And as far as this Pybus living went, it was all very well to be modern and advanced, but wasn’t Ronder advocating for the appointment a man who laughed at the Gospels and said that there were no such things as snakes and apples in the Garden of Eden? After all, he was a foreigner, and Brandon belonged to them. Poor old Brandon!

Ronder was in his study, waiting for Wistons. Wistons had come to Polchester for a night to see his friend Foster. It was an entirely private visit, unknown to anybody save two or three of his friends among the clergy. He had asked whether Ronder could spare him half an hour. Ronder was delighted to spare it….

Ronder was in the liveliest spirits. He hummed a little chant to himself as he paced his study, stopping, as was his habit, to touch something on his table, to push back a book more neatly into its row on the shelf, to stare for an instant out of the window into the green garden drenched with the afternoon sun.

Yes, he was in admirable spirits. He had known some weeks of acute discomfort. That phase was over, his talk with Brandon in the Cloisters after the Cathedral service had closed it. On that occasion he had put himself entirely in the right, having been before that, under the eye of his aunt and certain critics in the town, ever so slightly in the wrong. Now he was justified. He had humbled himself before Brandon (when really there was no reason to do so), apologised (when truly there was not the slightest need for it)–Brandon had utterly rejected his apology, turned on him as though he were a thief and a robber–he had done all that he could, more, far more, than his case demanded.

So his comfort, his dear consoling comfort, had returned to him completely. And with it had returned all his affection, his tenderness for Brandon. Poor man, deserted by his wife, past his work, showing as he so obviously did in the Jubilee week that his brain (never very agile) was now quite inert, poor man, poor, poor man! Ronder, as he walked his study, simply longed to do something for Brandon–to give him something, make him a generous present, to go to London and persuade his poor weak wife to return to him, anything, anything to make him happy again.

Too sad to see the poor man’s pale face, restless eyes, to watch his hurried, uneasy walk, as though he were suspicious of every man. Everywhere now Ronder sang Brandon’s praises–what fine work he had done in the past, how much the Church owed him; where would Polchester have been in the past without him?

“I assure you,” Ronder said to Mrs. Preston, meeting her in the High Street, “the Archdeacon’s work may be over, but when I think of what the Church owes him—-“

To which Mrs. Preston had said: “Ah, Canon, how you search for the Beauty in human life! You are a lesson to all of us. After all, to find Beauty in even the meanest and most disappointing, that is our task!”

There was no doubt but that Ronder had come magnificently through the Jubilee week. It had in every way strengthened and confirmed his already strong position. He had been everywhere; had added gaiety and sunshine to the Flower Show; had preached a most wonderful sermon at the evening service on the Tuesday; had addressed, from the steps of his house, the Torchlight Procession in exactly the right words; had patted all the children on the head at the Mayor’s tea for the townspeople; had enchanted everywhere. That for which he had worked had been accomplished, and accomplished with wonderful speed.

He was firmly established as the leading Churchman in Polchester; only now let the Pybus living go in the right direction (as it must do), and he would have nothing more to wish for.

He loved the place. As he looked down into the garden and thought of the years of pleasant comfort and happiness now stretching in front of him, his heart swelled with love of his fellow human beings. He longed, here and now, to do something for some one, to give some children pennies, some poor old men a good meal, to lend some one his pounds, to speak a good word in public for some one maligned, to——

“Mr. Wistons, sir,” said the maid. When he turned round only his exceeding politeness prevented him from a whistle of astonishment. He had never seen a photograph of Wistons, and the man had never been described to him.

From all that he had heard and read of him, he had pictured him a tall, lean ascetic, a kind of Dante and Savonarola in one, a magnificent figure of protest and abjuration. This man who now came towards him was little, thin, indeed, but almost deformed, seeming to have one shoulder higher than the other, and to halt ever so slightly on one foot. His face was positively ugly, redeemed only, as Ronder, who was no mean observer, at once perceived, by large and penetrating eyes. The eyes, indeed, were beautiful, of a wonderful softness and intelligence.

His hair was jet black and thick; his hand, as it gripped Ronder’s, strong and bony.

“I’m very glad to meet you, Canon Ronder,” he said. “I’ve heard so much about you.” His voice, as Mrs. Combermere long afterwards remarked, “has a twinkle in it.” It was a jolly voice, humorous, generous but incisive, and exceedingly clear. It had a very slight accent, so slight that no one could ever decide on its origin. The books said that Wistons had been born in London, and that his father had been Rector of Lambeth for many years; it was also quickly discovered by penetrating Polcastrians that he had a not very distant French ancestry. Was it Cockney? “I expect,” said Miss Stiles, “that he played with the little Lambeth children when he was small”–but no one really knew…

The two men sat down facing one another, and Wistons looked strange indeed with his shoulders hunched up, his thin little legs like two cross-bones, one over the other, his black hair and pale face.

“I feel rather like a thief in the night,” he said, “stealing down here. But Foster wanted me to come, and I confess to a certain curiosity myself.”

“You would like to come to Pybus if things go that way?” Ronder asked him.

“I shall be quite glad to come. On the other hand, I shall not be at all sorry to stay where I am. Does it matter very much where one is?”

“Except that the Pybus living is generally considered a very important step in Church preferment. It leads, as a rule, to great things.”

“Great things? Yes…” Wistons seemed to be talking to himself. “One thing is much like another. The more power one seems to have outwardly, the less very often one has in reality. However, if I’m called I’ll come. But I wanted to see you, Canon Ronder, for a special purpose.”

“Yes?” asked Ronder.

“Of course I haven’t enquired in any way into the probabilities of the Pybus appointment. But I understand that there is very strong opposition to myself; naturally there would be. I also understand that, with the exception of my friend Foster, you are my strongest supporter in this matter. May I ask you why?”

“Why?” repeated Ronder.

“Yes, why? You may say, and quite justly, that I have no right at all to ask you that question. It should be enough for me, I know, to realise that there are certain people here who want me to come. It ought to be enough. But it isn’t. It _isn’t_. I won’t–I can’t come here under false pretences.”

“False pretences!” cried Ronder. “I assure you, dear Mr. Wistons–“

“Oh, yes, I know. I know what you will naturally tell me. But I have caught enough of the talk here–Foster in his impetuosity has been perhaps indiscreet–to realise that there has been, that there still is, a battle here between the older, more conservative body of opinion and the more modern school. It seems to me that I have been made the figure-head of this battle. To that I have no objection. It is not for the first time. But what I want to ask you, Canon Ronder, with the utmost seriousness, is just this:

“Have you supported my appointment because you honestly felt that I was the best man for this particular job, or because–I know you will forgive me if this question sounds impertinent–you wished to score a point over some personal adversary?”

The question _was_ impertinent. There could be no doubt of it. Ronder ought at once to resent any imputation on his honesty. What right had this man to dip down into Ronder’s motives? The Canon stared from behind his glasses into those very bright and insistent eyes, and even as he stared there came once again that cold little wind of discomfort, that questioning, irritating wind, that had been laid so effectively, he thought, for ever to rest. What was this man about, attacking him like this, attacking him before, even, he had been appointed? Was it, after all, quite wise that Wistons should come here? Would that same comfort, so rightly valued by Ronder, be quite assured in the future if Wistons were at Pybus? Wouldn’t some nincompoop like Forsyth be perhaps, after all, his best choice?

Ronder suddenly ceased to wish to give pennies to little children or a present to Brandon. He was, very justly, irritated.

“Do forgive me if I am impertinent,” said Wistons quietly, “but I have to know this.”

“But of course,” said Ronder, “I consider you the best man for this appointment. I should not have stirred a finger in your support otherwise.” (Why, something murmured to him, are people always attributing to you unworthy motives, first your aunt, then Foster, now this man?) “You are quite correct in saying that there is strong opposition to your appointment here. But that is quite natural; you have only to consider some of your published works to understand that. A battle is being fought with the more conservative elements in the place. You have heard probably that the Archdeacon is their principal leader, but I think I may say that our victory is already assured. There was never any real doubt of the issue. Archdeacon Brandon is a splendid fellow, and has done great work for the Church here, but he is behind the times, out-of-date, and too obstinate to change. Then certain, family misfortunes have hit him hard lately, and his health is not, I fear, what it was. His opposition is as good as over.”

“That’s a swift decline,” said Wistons. “I remember only some six months ago hearing of him as by far the strongest man in this place.”

“Yes, it has been swift,” said Ronder, shaking his head regretfully, “but I think that his position here was largely based on the fact that there was no one else here strong enough to take the lead against him.

“My coming into the diocese–some one, however feeble, you understand, coming in from outside–made an already strong modern feeling yet stronger.”

“I will tell you one thing,” said Wistons, suddenly shooting up his shoulders and darting forward his head. “I think all this Cathedral intrigue disgusting. No, I don’t blame you. You came into the middle of it, and were doubtless forced to take the part you did. But I’ll have no lot or hold in it. If I am to understand that I gain the Pybus appointment only through a lot of backstairs intrigue and cabal, I’ll let it be known at once that I would not accept that living though it were offered me a thousand times.”

“No, no,” cried Ronder eagerly. “I assure you that that is not so. There has been intrigue here owing to the old politics of the party who governed the Cathedral. But that is, I hope and pray, over and done with. It is because so many of us want to have no more of it that we are asking you to come here. Believe me, believe me, that is so.”

“I should not have said what I did,” continued Wistons quietly. “It was arrogant and conceited. Perhaps you cannot avoid intrigue and party feeling among the community of any Cathedral body. That is why I want you to understand, Canon Ronder, the kind of man I am, before you propose me for this post. I am afraid that you may afterwards regret your advocacy. If I were invited to a Canonry, or any post immediately connected with the Cathedral, I would not accept it for an instant. I come, if I come at all, to fight the Cathedral–that is to fight everything in it, round and about it, that prevents men from seeing clearly the figure of Christ.

“I believe, Canon Ronder, that before many years are out it will become clear to the whole world that there are now two religions–the religion of authority, and the religion of the spirit–and if in such a division I must choose, I am for the religion of the spirit every time.”

The religion of the spirit! Ronder stirred, a little restlessly, his fat thighs. What had that to do with it? They were discussing the Pybus appointment. The religion of the spirit! Well, who wasn’t for that? As to dogma, Ronder had never laid very great stress upon it. A matter of words very largely. He looked out to the garden, where a tree, scooped now like a great green fan against the blue-white sky, was shading the sun’s rays. Lovely! Lovely! Lovely like the Hermes downstairs, lovely like the piece of red amber on his writing-table, like the Blind Homer…like a scallop of green glass holding water that washed a little from side to side, the sheen on its surface changing from dark shadow to faintest dusk. Lovely! He stared, transported, his comfort flowing full-tide now into his soul.

“Exactly!” he said, suddenly turning his eyes full on Wistons. “The Christian Church has made a golden calf of its dogmas. The Calf is worshipped, the Cathedral enshrines it.”

Wistons gave a swift curious stab of a glance. Ronder caught it; he flushed. “You think it strange of me to say that?” he asked. “I can see that you do. Let me be frank with you. It has been my trouble all my life that I can see every side of a question. I am with the modernists, but at the same time I can understand how dangerous it must seem to the dogmatists to abandon even an inch of the country that Paul conquered for them. I’m afraid, Wistons, that I see life in terms of men and women rather than of creeds. I want men to be happy and at peace with one another. And if to form a new creed or to abandon an old one leads to men’s deeper religious happiness, well, then….” He waved his hands.

Wistons, speaking again as it were to himself, answered, “I care only for Jesus Christ. He is overshadowed now by all the great buildings that men have raised for Him. He is lost to our view; we must recover Him. Him! Him! Only Him! To serve Him, to be near Him, almost to feel the touch of His hand on one’s head, that is the whole of life to me. And now He is hard to come to, harder every year….” He got up. “I didn’t come to say more than that.

“It’s the Cathedral, Render, that I fear. Don’t you yourself sometimes feel that it has, by now, a spirit of its own, a life, a force that all the past years and all the worship that it has had have given it? Don’t you even feel that? That it has become a god demanding his own rites and worshippers? That it uses men for its own purposes, and not for Christ’s? That almost it hates Christ? It is so beautiful, so lovely, so haughty, so jealous!

“For I, thy God, am a jealous God.’…” He broke off. “I could love Christ better in that garden than in the Cathedral. Tear it down and build it up again!” He turned restlessly, almost savagely, to Ronder. “Can you be happy and comfortable and at ease, when you see what Christ might be to human beings and what He is? Who thinks of Him, who cares for Him, who loves His sweetness and charity and tenderness? Why is something always in the way, always, always, always? Love! Charity! Doesn’t such a place as this Cathedral breed hatred and malice and pride and jealousy? And isn’t its very beauty a contempt?…And now what right have you to help my appointment to Pybus?”

Ronder smiled.

“You are what we need here,” he said. “You shall shake some of our comfort from us–make a new life here for us.”

Wistons was suddenly almost timid. He spoke as though he were waking from some dream.

“Good-bye…. Good-bye. No, don’t come down. Thank you so much. Thank you. Very kind of you. Good-bye.”

But Ronder insisted on coming down. They shook hands at his door. The figure was lost in the evening sun.

Ronder stood there for a moment gazing at the bright grass, the little houses with their shining knockers, the purple shadow of the Cathedral.

Had he done right? Was Wistons the man? Might he not be more dangerous than…? No, no, too late now. The fight with Brandon must move to its appointed end. Poor Brandon! Poor dear Brandon!

He looked across at the house as on the evening of his arrival from that same step he had looked.

Poor Brandon! He would like to do something for him, some little kindly unexpected act!

He closed the door and softly padded upstairs, humming happily to himself that little chant.

Chapter II

Two in the House

A letter from Falk to Joan.

Dear Joan–Mother has been here. I could get nothing out of her. I had only one thing to say–that she must go back to father. That was the one thing that she asserted, over and over again, that she never would. Joan, she was tragic. I felt that I had never seen her before, never known her. She was thinking of nothing but Morris. She seemed to see him all the time that she was in the room with me. She is going abroad with Morris at the end of this week–to South America, I believe. Mother doesn’t seem now to care what happens, except that she will not go back to father.

She said an odd thing to me at the end–that she had had her time, her wonderful time, and that she could never be as unhappy or as lonely as she was, and that she would love him always (Morris, I suppose), and that he would love her.

The skunk that Morris is! And yet I don’t know. Haven’t I been a skunk too? And yet I don’t feel a skunk. If only father would be happy! Then things would be better than they’ve ever been. You don’t know how good Annie is, Joan. How fine and simple and true! Why are we all such mixtures? Why can’t you ever do what’s right for yourself without hurting other people? But I’m not going to wait much longer. If things aren’t better soon I’m coming down whether he’ll see me or no. We _must_ make him happy. We’re all that he has now. Once this Pybus thing is settled I’ll come down. Write to me. Tell me everything. You’re a brick, Joan, to take all this as you do. Why did we go all these years without knowing one another?–Your loving brother,

FALK.

A letter from Joan to Falk.

DEAREST FALK–I’m answering you by return because I’m so frightened. If I send you a telegram, come down at once. Mr. Morris’s sister-in-law is telling everybody that he only went up to London on business. But she’s not going to stay here, I think. But I can’t think much even of mother. I can think of no one but father. Oh, Falk, it’s been terrible these last three days, and I don’t know _what’s_ going to happen.

I’ll try and tell you how it’s been. It’s two months now since mother went away. That night it was dreadful. He walked up and down his room all night. Indeed he’s been doing that ever since she went. And yet I don’t think it’s of her that he’s thinking most. I’m not sure even that he’s thinking of her at all.

He’s concentrating everything now on the Pybus appointment. He talks to himself. (You can see by that how changed he is.) He is hurrying round to see people and asking them to the house, and he’s so odd with them, looking at them suddenly, suspiciously, as though he expected that they were laughing at him. There’s always something in the back of his mind– not mother, I’m sure. Something happened to him that last day of the Jubilee. He’s always talking about some one who struck him, and he puts his hand up to feel his forehead, where there was a bruise. He told me that day that he had fallen down, but I’m sure now that he had a fight with somebody.

He’s always talking, too, about a “conspiracy” against him–not only Canon Ronder, but something more general. Poor dear, the worst of it all is, how bewildered he is. You know how direct he used to be, the way he went straight to his point and wasn’t afraid of anybody. Now he’s always hesitating. He hesitates before he goes out, before he goes upstairs, before he comes into my room. It’s just as though he was for ever expecting that there’s some one behind the door waiting for him with a hammer. It’s so strange how I’ve changed my feeling about him. I used to think him so strong that he could beat down anybody, and now I feel he wants looking after all the time. Perhaps he never was really strong at all, but it was all on the outside. All the same he’s very brave too. He knows all the town’s been talking about him, but I think he’d face a whole world of Polchesters if he could only beat Canon Ronder over the Pybus appointment. If Mr. Forsyth isn’t appointed to that I think he’ll go to pieces altogether. You see, a year ago there wouldn’t have been any question about it at all. Of course he would have had his way.

But what makes me so frightened, Falk, is of something happening in the house. Father is so suspicious that it makes me suspicious too. It doesn’t seem like the house it was at all, but as though there were some one hiding in it, and at night it is awful. I lie awake listening, and I can hear father walking up and down, his room’s next to mine, you know. And then if I listen hard enough, I can hear footsteps all over the house– you know how you do in the middle of the night. And there’s always some one coming upstairs. This will sound silly to you up in London, but it doesn’t seem silly here, I assure you. All the servants feel it, and Gladys is going at the end of the month.

And oh, Falk! I’m so sorry for him! It does seem so strange that everything should have changed for him as it has. I feel his own bewilderment. A year ago he seemed so strong and safe and secure as though he would go on like that for ever, and hadn’t an enemy in the world. How could he have? He’s never meant harm to any one. Your going away I can understand, but mother, I feel as though I never could speak to her again. To be so cruel to father and to write him such a letter! (Of course I didn’t see the letter, but the effect of it on father was terrible.)

He’s so lonely now. He scarcely realises me half the time, and you see he never did think very much about me before, so it’s very difficult for him to begin now. I’m so inexperienced. It’s hard enough running the house now, and having to get another servant instead of Gladys–and I daresay the others will go too now, but that’s nothing to waiting all the time for something to happen and watching father every minute. We _must_ make him happy again, Falk. You’re quite right. It’s the only thing that matters. Everything else is less important than that. If only this Pybus affair were over! Canon Ronder is so powerful now. I’m so afraid of him. I do hate him so! The Cathedral, and the town, everything seems to have changed since he came. A year ago they were like father, settled for ever. And now every one’s talking about new people and being out-of-date, and changing the Cathedral music and everything! But none of that matters in comparison with father.

I’ve written a terribly long letter, but it’s done me ever so much good. I’m sometimes so tempted to telegraph to you at once. I’m almost sure father would be glad to see you. You were always the one he loved most. But perhaps we’d better wait a little: if things get worse in any way I’ll telegraph at once.

I’m so glad you’re well, and happy. You haven’t in your letters told me anything about the Jubilee in London. Was it very fine? Did you see the Queen? Did she look very happy? Were the crowds very big? Much love from your loving sister,

JOAN.

* * * * *

Joan, waiting in the shadowy drawing-room for Johnny St. Leath, wondered whether her father had come in or no.

It wouldn’t matter if he had, he wouldn’t come into the drawing-room. He would go directly into his study. She knew exactly what he would do. He would shut the door, then a minute later would open it, look into the hall and listen, then close it again very cautiously. He always now did that. And in any case if he did come into the drawing-room and saw Johnny it wouldn’t matter. His mind was entirely centred on Pybus, and Johnny had nothing to do with Pybus. Johnny’s mother, yes. Had that stout white- haired cockatoo suddenly appeared, she would be clutched, absorbed, utilised to her last white feather. But she didn’t appear. She stayed up in her Castle, serene and supreme.

Joan was very nervous. She stood, a little grey shadow in the grey room, her hands twisting and untwisting. She was nervous because she was going to say good-bye to Johnny, perhaps for ever, and she wasn’t sure that she’d have the strength to do it.

Suddenly he was there with her in the room, big and clumsy and cheerful, quite unaware apparently that he was never, after this, to see Joan again.

He tried to kiss her but she prevented him. “No, you must sit over there,” she said, “and we must never, at least not probably for years and years, kiss one another again.”

He was aware, as she spoke, of quite a new, a different Joan; he had been conscious of this new Joan on many occasions during these last weeks. When he had first known her she had been a child and he had loved her for her childishness; now he must meet the woman and the child together, and instinctively he was himself more serious in his attitude to her.

“We could talk much better, Joan dear,” he said, “if we were close together.”

“No,” she said; “then I couldn’t talk at all. We mustn’t meet alone again after to-day, and we mustn’t write, and we mustn’t consider ourselves engaged.”

“Why, please?”

“Can’t you see that it’s all impossible? We’ve tried it now for weeks and it becomes more impossible every day. Your mother’s absolutely against it and always will be–and now at home–here–my mother—-“

She broke off. He couldn’t leave her like that; he sprang up, went across to her, put his arms around her, and kissed her. She didn’t resist him nor move from him, but when she spoke again her voice was firmer and more resolved than before.

“No, Johnny, I mean it, I can think of nothing now but father. So long as he’s alive I must stay with him. He’s quite alone now, he has nobody. I can’t even think about you so long as he’s like this, so unwell and so unhappy. It isn’t as though I were very clever or old or anything. I’ve never until lately been allowed to do anything all my life, not the tiniest bit of housekeeping, and now suddenly it has all come. And if I were thinking of you, wanting to see you, having letters from you, I shouldn’t attend to this; I shouldn’t be able to think of it—-“

“Do you still love me?”

“Why, of course. I shall never change.”

“And do you think that I still love you?”

“Yes.”

“And do you think I’ll change?”

“You may. But I don’t want to think so.”

“Well, then, the main question is settled. It doesn’t matter how long we wait.”

“But it _does_ matter. It may be for years and years. You’ve got to marry, you can’t just stay unmarried because one day you may marry me.”

“Can’t I? You wait and see whether I can’t.”

“But you oughtn’t to, Johnny. Think of your family. Think of your mother. You’re the only son.”

“Mother can just think of me for once. It will be a bit of a change for her. It will do her good. I’ve told her whom I want to marry, and she must just get used to it. She admits herself that she can’t have anything against you personally, except that you’re too young. I asked her whether she wanted me to marry a Dowager of sixty.”

Joan moved away. She walked to the window and looked out at the grey mist sweeping like an army of ghostly messengers across the Cathedral Green. She turned round to him.

“No, Johnny, this time it isn’t a joke. I mean absolutely what I say. We’re not to meet alone or to write until–father doesn’t need me any more. I can’t think, I mustn’t think, of anything but father now. Nothing that you can say, or any one can say, will make me change my mind about that now…. And please go, Johnny, because it’s so hard while you’re here. And we _must_ do it. I’ll never change, but you’re free to, and you _ought_ to. It’s your duty to find some one more satisfactory than me.”

But Johnny appeared not to have heard her last words. He had been looking about him, at the walls, the windows, the ceiling–rather as a young dog sniffs some place new to him.

“Joan, tell me. Are you all right here? You oughtn’t to be all alone here like this, just with your father. Can’t you get some one to come and stay?”

“No,” she answered bravely. “Of course it’s all right. I’ve got Gladys, who’s been with us for years.”

“There’s something funny,” he said, still looking about him. “It feels queer to me–sort of unhappy.”

“Never mind that,” she said, hurriedly moving towards the door, as though she had heard footsteps. “You must go, Johnny. Kiss me once, the last time. And then no letters, no anything, until–until–father’s happy again.”

She rested in his arms, suddenly tranquil, safe, at peace. Her hands were round his neck. She kissed his eyes. They clung together, suddenly two children, utterly confident in one another and in their mutual faith.

A hand was on the door. They separated. The Archdeacon came in. He peered into the dusky room.

“Joan! Joan! Are you there?”

She came across to him. “Yes, father, here I am. And this is Lord St. Leath.”

“How do you do, sir?” said Johnny.

“How do you do? I hope your mother is well.”

“Very well, thank you, sir.”

“That’s good, that’s good. I have some business to discuss with her. Rather important business; I may come and see her to-morrow afternoon if she is disengaged; Will you kindly tell her?”

“Indeed I will, sir.”

“Thank you. Thank you. This room is very dark. Why are there no lights? Joan, you should have lights. There’s no one else here, is there?”

“No, father.”

Johnny heard their voices echoing in the empty hall as he let himself out.

Brandon shut his study door and looked about him. The lamp on his table was lit, his study had a warm and pleasant air with the books gleaming in their shelves and the fire crackling. (You needed a fire on these late summer evenings.) Nevertheless, although the room looked comfortable, he did not at once move into it. He stood there beside the door, as though he was waiting for something. He listened. The house was intensely quiet. He opened the door and looked into the passage. There was no one there. The gas hissed ever so slightly, like a whispering importunate voice. He came back into his room, closing the door very carefully behind him, went across softly to his writing-table, sat down, and took up his pen. His eyes were fixed on the door, and then suddenly he would jerk round in his chair as though he expected to catch some one who was standing just behind him.

Then began that fight that always now must be waged whenever he sat down at his desk, the fight to drive his thoughts, like sheep, into the only pen that they must occupy. He must think now only of one thing; there were others–pictures, ideas, memories, fears, horrors even–crowding, hovering close about him, and afterwards–after Pybus–he would attend to them. Only one thing mattered now. “Yes, you gibbering idiots, do your worst; knock me down. Come on four to one like the cowards that you are, strike me in the back, take my wife from me, and ruin my house. I will attend to all of you shortly, but first–Pybus.”

His lips were moving as he turned over the papers. _Was_ there some one in the room with him? His head was aching so badly that it was difficult to think. And his heart! How strangely that behaved in these days! Five heavy slow beats, then a little skip and jump, then almost as though it had stopped beating altogether.

Another thing that made it difficult to work in that room was that the Cathedral seemed so close. It was not close really, although you could, so often, hear the organ, but now Brandon had the strange fancy that it had drawn closer during these last weeks, and was leaning forward with its ear to his house, listening just as a man might! Funny how Brandon now was always thinking of the Cathedral as a person! Stones and bricks and mortar and bits of glass, that’s what the Cathedral was, and yet lately it had seemed to move and have a being of its own.

Fancies! Fancies! Really Brandon must attend to his business, this business of Pybus and Forsyth, which in a week now was to be settled. He talked to himself as he turned the papers over. He had seen the Bishop, and Ryle (more or less persuaded), and Bentinck-Major (dark horse, never could be sure of him), Foster, Rogers…Foster? Foster? Had he seen Foster? Why did the mention of that name suddenly commence the unveiling for him of a scene upon which, he must not look? The crossing the bridge, up the hill, at the turnstile, paying your shilling…no, no, no farther. And Bentinck-Major! That man laughed at him! Positively he dared, when a year ago he would have bent down and wiped the dust off his shoes! Positively!

That man! That worm! That mean, sycophantic…He was beginning to get angry. He must not get angry. That’s what Puddifoot had said, that had been the one thing that old Puddifoot had said correctly. He must not get angry, not even with–Ronder.

At the mention of that name something seemed to stir in the room, some one to move closer. Brandon’s heart began to race round like a pony in a paddock. Very bad. Must keep quiet. Never get excited. Then for a moment his thoughts did range, roaming over that now so familiar ground of bewilderment. Why? Why? Why?

Why a year ago _that_, and now _this_? When he had done no one in the world any harm and had served God so faithfully? Why? Why? Why?

Back, back to Pybus. This wasn’t work. He had much to do and no time to lose. That enemy of his was working, you could be sure of that. Only a week! Only a week!

Was that some one moving in the room? Was there some one stealing behind him, as they had done once, as…? He turned sharply round, rising in his chair. No one there. He got up and began stealthily to pace the floor. The worst of it was that however carefully you went you could never be quite sure that some one was not just behind you, some one very clever, measuring his steps by yours. You could never be sure. How still the house was! He stopped by his door, after a moment’s hesitation opened it and looked out. No one there, only the gas whispering.

What was he doing, staring into the hall? He should be working, making sure of his work. He went back to his table. He began hurriedly to write a letter:

DEAR FOSTER–I cannot help feeling that I did not make myself quite clear when I was speaking to you yesterday about Forsyth as the best incumbent of the Pybus living. When I say best, I mean, of course, most suitable.

When he said _best_ did he meant _most suitable? Suitable_ was not perhaps exactly the word for Forsyth. It was something other than a question of mere suitability. It was a keeping out of the _bad_, as well as a bringing in of the _good_. _Suitable_ was not the word that he wanted. What did he want? The words began to jump about on the paper, and suddenly out of the centre of his table there stretched and extended the figure of Miss Milton. Yes, there she was in her shabby clothes and hat, smirking…. He dashed his hand at her and she vanished. He sprang up. This was too bad. He must not let these fancies get hold of him. He went into the hall.

He called out loudly, his voice echoing through the house, “Joan! Joan!”

Almost at once she came. Strange the relief that he felt! But he wouldn’t show it. She must notice nothing at all out of the ordinary.

She sat close to him at their evening meal and talked to him about everything that came into her young head. Sometimes he wished that she wouldn’t talk so much; she hadn’t talked so much in earlier days, had she? But he couldn’t remember what she had done in earlier days.

He was very particular now about his food. Always he had eaten whatever was put in front of him with hearty and eager appreciation; now he seemed to have very little appetite. He was always complaining about the cooking. The potatoes were hard, the beef was underdone, the pastry was heavy. And sometimes he would forget altogether that he was eating, and would sit staring in front of him, his food neglected on his plate.

It was not easy for Joan. Not easy to choose topics that were not dangerous. And so often he was not listening to her at all. Perhaps at no other time did she pity him so much, and love him so much, as when she saw him staring in front of him, his eyes puzzled, bewildered, piteous, like those of an animal caught in a trap. All her old fear of him was gone, but a new fear had come in its place. Sometimes, in quite the old way, he would rap out suddenly, “Nonsense–stuff and nonsense!…As though _he_ knew anything about it!” or would once again take the whole place, town and Cathedral and all of them, into his charge with something like, “I knew how to manage the thing. What they would have done without– ” But these defiances never lasted.

They would fade away into bewilderment and silence.

He would complain continually of his head, putting his hand suddenly up to it, and saying, like a little child:

“My head’s so bad. Such a headache!” But he would refuse to see Puddifoot; had seen him once, and had immediately quarrelled with him, and told him that he was a silly old fool and knew nothing about anything, and this when Puddifoot had come with the noblest motives, intending to patronise and condole.

After dinner to-night Joan and he went into the drawing-room. Often, after dinner, he vanished into the study “to work”–but to-night he was “tired, very tired–my dear. So much effort in connection with this Pybus business. What’a come to the town I don’t know. A year ago the matter would have been simple enough…anything so obvious….”

He sat in his old arm-chair, whence for so many years he had delivered his decisive judgments. No decisive judgments tonight! He was really tired, lying back, his eyes closed, his hands twitching ever so slightly on his knees.

Joan sat near to him, struggling to overcome her fear. She felt that if only she could grasp that fear, like a nettle, and hold it tightly in her hand it would seem so slight and unimportant. But she could not grasp it. It was compounded of so many things, of the silence and the dulness, of the Precincts and the Cathedral, of whispering trees and steps on the stairs, of her father and something strange that now inhabited him like a new guest in their house, of her loneliness and of her longing for some friend with whom she could talk, of her ache for Johnny and his comforting, loving smile, but most of all, strangely, of her own love for her father, and her desire, her poignant desire, that he should be happy again. She scarcely missed her mother, she did not want her to come back; but she ached and ached to see once again that happy flush return to her father’s cheek, that determined ring to his voice, that buoyant confident movement to his walk.

To-night she could not be sure whether he slept or no. She watched him, and the whole world seemed to hold its breath. Suddenly an absurd fancy seized her. She fought against it for a time, sitting there, her hands tightly clenched. Then suddenly it overcame her. Some one was listening outside the window; she fancied that she could see him–tall, dark, lean, his face pressed against the pane.

She rose very softly and stole across the floor, very gently drew back one of the curtains and looked out. It was dark and she could see nothing– only the Cathedral like a grey web against a sky black as ink. A lamp, across the Green, threw a splash of orange in the middle distance–no other light. The Cathedral seemed to be very close to the house.

She closed the curtain and then heard her father call her.

“Joan! Joan! Where are you?”

She came back and stood by his chair. “I was only looking out to see what sort of a night it was, father dear,” she said.

He suddenly smiled. “I had a pleasant little nap then,” he said; “my head’s better. There. Sit down close to me. Bring your chair nearer. We’re all alone here now, you and I. We must make a lot of one another.”

He had paid so little attention to her hitherto that she suddenly realised now that her loneliness had, during these last weeks, been the hardest thing of all to bear. She drew her chair close to his and he took her hand.

“Yes, yes, it’s quite true. I don’t know what I should have done without you during these last weeks. You’ve been very good to your poor, stupid, old father!”

She murmured something, and he burst out, “Oh, yes, they do! That’s what they say! I know how they talk. They want to get me out of the way and change the place–put in unbelievers and atheists. But they shan’t–not while I have any breath in my body–” He went on more gently, “Why just think, my dear, they actually want to have that man Wistons here. An atheist! A denier of Christ’s divinity! Here worshipping in the Cathedral! And when I try to stop it they say I’m mad. Oh, yes! They do! I’ve heard them. Mad. Out-of-date. They’ve laughed at me–ever since–ever since… that elephant, you know, dear…that began it…the Circus….”

She leaned over him.

“Father dear, you mustn’t pay so much attention to what they say. You imagine so much just because you aren’t very well and have those headaches–and–and–because of other things. You imagine things that aren’t true. So many people here love you—-“

“Love me!” he burst out suddenly, starting up in his chair. “When they set upon me, five of them, from behind and beat me! There in public with the lights and the singing.” He caught her hand, gripping it. “There’s a conspiracy, Joan. I know it. I’ve seen it a long time. And I know who started it and who paid them to follow me. Everywhere I go, there they are, following me.

“That old woman with her silly hat, she followed me into my own house. Yes, she did! ‘I’ll read you a letter,’ she said. ‘I hate you, and I’ll make you cry out over this.’ They’re all in it. He’s setting them on. But he shan’t have his way. I’ll fight him yet. Even my own son—-” His voice broke.

Joan knelt at his feet, looking up into his face. “Father! Falk wants to come and see you! I’ve had a letter from him. He wants to come and ask your forgiveness–he loves you so much.”

He got up from his chair, almost pushing her away from him. “Falk! Falk! I don’t know any one called that. I haven’t got a son—-“

He turned, looking at her. Then suddenly put his arms around her and kissed her, holding her tight to his breast.

“You’re a good girl,” he said. “Dear Joan! I’m glad you’ve not left me too. I love you, Joan, and I’ve not been good enough to you. Oh, no, I haven’t! Many things I might have done, and now it’s too late…too late…”

He kissed her again and again, stroking her hair, then he said that he was tired, very tired–he’d sleep to-night. He went slowly upstairs.

He undressed rapidly, flinging off his clothes as though they hurt him. As though some one else had unexpectedly come into the room, he saw himself standing before the long glass in the dressing-room, naked save for his vest. He looked at himself and laughed.

How funny he looked only in his vest–how funny were he to walk down the High Street like that! They would say he was mad. And yet he wouldn’t be mad. He would be just as he was now. He pulled the vest off over his head and continued to stare at himself. It was as though he were looking at some one else’s body. The long toes, the strong legs, the thick thighs, the broad hairless chest, the stout red neck–and then those eyes, surely not his, those strange ironical eyes! He passed his hand down his side and felt the cool strong marble of his flesh. Then suddenly he was cold and he hurried into his night-shirt and his dressing-gown.

He sat on his bed. Something deep down in him was struggling to come up. Some thought…some feeling…some name. Falk! It was as though a bell were ringing, at a great distance, in the sleeping town–but ringing only for him. Falk! The pain, the urgent pain, crept closer. Falk! He got up from his bed, opened his door, looked out into the dark and silent house, stepped forward, carefully, softly, his old red dressing-gown close about him, stumbling a little on the stairs, feeling the way to his study door.

He sat in his arm-chair huddled up. “Falk! Falk! Oh, my boy, my boy, come back, come back! I want you, I want to be with you, to see you, to touch you, to hear your voice! I want to love you!

“Love–Love! I never wanted love before, but now I want it, desperately, desperately, some one to love me, some one for me to love, some one to be kind to. Falk, my boy. I’m so lonely. It’s so dark. I can’t see things as I did. It’s getting darker.

“Falk, come back and help me….”

Chapter III

Prelude to Battle

That night he slept well and soundly, and in the morning woke tranquil and refreshed. His life seemed suddenly to have taken a new turn. As he lay there and watched the sunlight run through the lattices like strands of pale-coloured silk, it seemed to him that he was through the worst. He did what he had not done for many days, allowed the thought of his wife to come and dwell with him.

He went over many of their past years together, and, nodding his head, decided that he had been often to blame. Then the further thought of what she had done, of her adultery, of her last letter, these like foul black water came sweeping up and darkened his mind…. No more. No more. He must do as he had done. Think only of Pybus. Fight that, win his victory, and then turn to what lay behind. But the sunlight no longer danced for him, he closed his eyes, turned on his side, and prayed to God out of his bewilderment.

After breakfast he started out. A restless urgency drove him forth. The Chapter Meeting at which the new incumbent of Pybus was to be chosen was now only three days distant, and all the work in connection with that was completed–but Brandon could not be still. Some members of the Chapter he had seen over and over again during the last months, and had pressed Rex Forsyth’s claims upon them without ceasing, but this thing had become a symbol to him now–a symbol of his fight with Ronder, of his battle for the Cathedral, of his championship, behind that, of the whole cause of Christ’s Church.

It seemed to him that if he were defeated now in this thing it would mean that God Himself had deserted him. At the mere thought of defeat his heart began to leap in his breast and the flags of the pavement to run before his eyes. But it could not be. He had been tested; like Job, every plague had been given to him to prove him true, but this last would shout to the world that his power was gone and that the Cathedral that he loved had no longer a place for him. And then–and then—–

He would not, he must not, look. At the top of the High Street he met Ryle the Precentor. There had been a time when Ryle was terrified by the Archdeacon; that time was not far distant, but it was gone. Nevertheless, even though the Archdeacon were suddenly old and sick and unimportant, you never could tell but that he might say something to somebody that it would be unpleasant to have said. “Politeness all the way round” was Ryle’s motto, and a very safe one too. Moreover, Ryle, when he could rise above his alarm for the safety of his own position, was a kindly man, and it really _was_ sad to see the poor Archdeacon so pale and tired, the scratch on his cheek, even now not healed, giving him a strangely battered appearance.

And how would Ryle have liked Mrs. Ryle to leave him? And how would he feel if his son, Anthony (aged at present five), ran away with the daughter of a publican? And how, above all, would he feel did he know that the whole town was talking about him and saying “Poor Precentor!”? But perhaps the Archdeacon did _not_ know. Strange the things that people did not know about themselves!–and at that thought the Precentor went goose-fleshy all over, because of the things that at that very moment people might be saying about _him_ and he knowing none of them!

All this passed very swiftly through Ryle’s mind, and was quickly strangled by hearing Brandon utter in quite his old knock-you-down-if-you- don’t-get-out-of-my-way voice, “Ha! Ryle! Out early this morning! I hope you’re not planning any more new-fangled musical schemes for us!”

Oh, well! if the Archdeacon were going to take that sort of tone with him, Ryle simply wasn’t going to stand it! Why should he? To-day isn’t six months ago.

“That’s all right, Archdeacon,” he said stiffly. “Ronder and I go through a good deal of the music together now. He’s very musical, you know. Every one seems quite satisfied.” _That_ ought to get him–my mention of Ronder’s name…. At the same time Ryle didn’t wish to seem to have gone over to the other camp altogether, and he was just about to say something gently deprecatory of Ronder when, to his astonishment, he perceived that Brandon simply hadn’t heard him at all! And then the Archdeacon took his arm and marched with him down the High Street.

“With regard to this Pybus business, Precentor,” he was saying, “the matter now will be settled in another three days. I hope every one realises the extreme seriousness of this audacious plot to push a heretic like this man Wistons into the place. I’m sure that every one _does_ realise it. There can be no two opinions about it, of course. At the same time—-“

How very uncomfortable! There had been a time when the Precentor would have been proud indeed to walk down the High Street arm-in-arm with the Archdeacon. But that time was past. The High Street was crowded. Any one might see them. They would take it for granted that the Precentor was of the Archdeacon’s party. And to be seen thus affectionately linked with the Archdeacon just now, when his family affairs were in so strange a disorder, when he himself was behaving so oddly, when, as it was whispered, at the Jubilee Fair he had engaged in a scuffle of a most disreputable kind. The word “Drink” was mentioned.

Ryle tried, every so gently, to disengage his arm. Brandon’s hand was of steel.

“This seems to me,” the Archdeacon was continuing, “a most critical moment in our Cathedral’s history. If we don’t stand together now we–we–“

The Archdeacon’s hand relaxed. His eyes wandered. Ryle detached his arm. How strange the man was! Why, there was Samuel Hogg on the other side of the street!

He had taken his hat off and was smiling. How uncomfortable! How unpleasant to be mixed in this kind of encounter! How Mrs. Ryle, would dislike it if she knew!

But his mind was speedily taken off his own affairs. He was conscious of the Archdeacon, standing at his full height, his eyes, as he afterwards described it a thousand times, “bursting from his head.” Then, “before you could count two,” the Archdeacon was striding across the street.

It was a sunny morning, people going about their ordinary business, every one smiling and happy. Suddenly Ryle saw the Archdeacon stop in front of Hogg; himself started across the street, urged he knew not by what impulse, saw Hogg’s ugly sneering face, saw the Archdeacon’s arm shoot out, catch Hogg one, two terrific blows in the face, saw Hogg topple over like a heap of clothes falling from their peg, was in time to hear the Archdeacon crying out, “You dirty spy! You’d set upon me from behind, would you? Afraid to meet me face to face, are you? Take that, then, and that!” And then shout, “It’s daylight! It’s daylight now! Stand up and face me, you coward!”

The next thing of which the terrified Ryle was conscious was that people were running up from all sides. They seemed to spring from nowhere. He saw, too, how Hogg, the blood streaming from his face, lay there on his back, not attempting to move. Some were bending down behind him, holding his head, others had their hands about Brandon, holding him back. Errand- boys were running, people were hurrying from the shops, voices raised on every side–a Constable slowly crossed the street–Ryle slipped away–

Joan had gone out at once after breakfast that morning to the little shop, Miss Milligan’s, in the little street behind the Precincts, to see whether she could not get some of that really fresh fruit that only Miss Milligan seemed able to obtain. She was for some little time in the shop, because Miss Milligan always had a great deal to say about her little nephew Benjie, who was at the School as a day-boy and was likely to get a scholarship, and was just now suffering from boils. Joan was a good listener and a patient, so that it was quite late–after ten o’clock–as she hurried back.

Just by the Arden Gate Ellen Stiles met her.

“Oh, you poor child!” she cried; “aren’t you at home? I was just hurrying up to see whether I could be of any sort of help to you!”

“Any help?” echoed Joan, seeing at once, in the nodding blue plume in Ellen’s hat, forebodings of horrible disaster.

“What, haven’t you heard?” cried Ellen, pitying from the bottom of her heart the child’s white face and terrified eyes.

“No! What? Oh, tell me quickly! What has happened? To father–“

“I don’t know exactly myself,” said Ellen. “That’s what I was hurrying up to find out…. Your father…he’s had some sort of fight with that horrible man Hogg in the High Street…. No, I don’t know…But wait a minute….”

Joan was gone, scurrying through the Precincts, the paper bag with the fruit clutched tightly to her.

Ellen Stiles stared after her; her eyes were dim with kindness. There was nothing now that she would not do for that girl and her poor father! Knocked down to the ground they were, and Ellen championed them wherever she went. And now this! Drink or madness–perhaps both! Poor man! Poor man! And that child, scarcely out of the cradle, with all this on her shoulders! Ellen would do anything for them! She would go round later in the day and see how she could be useful.

She turned away. It was Ronder now who was “up”…and a little pulling- down would do him no sort of harm. There were a few little things she was longing, herself, to tell him. A few home-truths. Then, half-way down the High Street, she met Julia Preston, and didn’t they have a lot to say about it all!

Meanwhile Joan, in another moment, was at her door. What had happened? Oh, what had happened? Had he been brought back dying and bleeding? Had that horrible man set upon him, there in the High Street, while every one was about? Was the doctor there, Mr. Puddifoot? Would there perhaps have to be an operation? This would kill her father. The disgrace…. She let herself in with her latch-key and stood in the familiar hall. Everything was just as it had always been, the clocks ticking. She could hear the Cathedral organ faintly through the wall. The drawing-room windows were open, and she could hear the birds, singing at the sun, out there in the Precincts. Everything as it always was. She could not understand. Gladys appeared from the kitchen.

“Oh, Gladys, here is the fruit…. Has father come in?”

“I don’t know, miss.”

“You haven’t heard him?”

“No, miss. I’ve been upstairs, ‘elping with the beds.”

“Oh–thank you, Gladys.”

The terror slipped away from her. Then it was all right. Ellen Stiles had, as usual, exaggerated. After all, she had not been there. She had heard it only at second-hand. She hesitated for a moment, then went to the study door. Outside she hesitated again, then she went in.

To her amazement her father was sitting, just as he had always sat, at his table. He looked up when she entered, there was no sign upon him of any trouble. His face was very white, stone-white, and it seemed to her that for months past the colour had been draining from it, and now at last all colour was gone. A man wearing a mask. She could fancy that he would put up his hands and suddenly slip it from him and lay it down upon the table. The eyes stared through it, alive, coloured, restless.

“Well, Joan, what is it?”

She stammered, “Nothing, father. I only wanted to see–whether–that–“

“Yes? Is any one wanting to see me?”

“No–only some one told me that you…I thought–“

“You heard that I chastised a ruffian in the town? You heard correctly. I did. He deserved what I gave him.”

A little shiver shook her.

“Is that all you want to know?”

“Isn’t there anything, father, I can do?”

“Nothing–except leave me just now. I’m very busy. I have letters to write.”

She went out. She stood in the hall, her hands clasped together. What was she to do? The worst that she had ever feared had occurred. He was mad.

She went into the drawing-room, where the sun was blazing as though it would set the carpet on fire. What _was_ she to do? What _ought_ she to do? Should she fetch Puddifoot or some older woman like Mrs. Combermere, who would be able to advise her? Oh, no. She wanted no one there who would pity him. She felt a longing, urgent desire to keep him always with her now, away from the world, in some corner where she could cherish and love him and allow no one to insult and hurt him. But madness! To her girlish inexperience this morning’s acts could be nothing but madness. There in the middle of the High Street, with every one about, to do such a thing! The disgrace of it! Why, now, they could never stay in Polchester…. This was worse than everything that had gone before. How they would all talk, Canon Ronder and all of them, and how pleased they would be!

At that she clenched her hands and drew herself up as though she were defying the whole of Polchester. They should not laugh at him, they should not dare!…

But meanwhile what immediately was she to do? It wasn’t safe to leave him alone. Now that he had gone so far as to knock some one down in the principal street, what might he not do? What would happen if he met Canon Ronder? Oh! why had this come? What had they done to deserve this?

What had _he_ done when he had always been so good?

She seemed for a little distracted. She could not think. Her thoughts would not come clearly. She waited, staring into the sun and the colour. Quietness came to her. Her life was now his. Nothing counted in her life but that. If they must leave Polchester she would go with him wherever he must go, and care for him. Johnny! For one terrible instant he seemed to stand, a figure of flame, outside there on the sun-drenched grass.

Outside! Yes, always outside, until her father did not need her any more. Then, suddenly she wanted Johnny so badly that she crumpled up into one of the old arm-chairs and cried and cried and cried. She was very young. Life ahead of her seemed very long. Yes, she cried her heart out, and then she went upstairs and washed her face and wrote to Falk. She would not telegraph until she was quite sure that she could not manage it by herself.

The wonderful morning changed to a storm of wind and rain. Such a storm! Down in the basement Cook could scarcely hear herself speak! As she said to Gladys, it was what you must expect now. They were slipping into Autumn, and before you knew, why, there would be Winter! Nothing odder than the sudden way the Seasons took you! But Cook didn’t like storms in that house. “Them Precincts ‘ouses, they’re that old, they’d fall on top of you as soon as whistle Trefusis! For her part she’d always thought this ‘ouse queer, and it wasn’t any the less queer since all these things had been going on in it.” It was at this point that the grocery “boy” arrived and supposed they’d ‘eard all about it by that time. All about what? Why, the Archdeacon knocking Samuel ‘Ogg down in the ‘Igh Street that very morning! Then, indeed, you could have knocked Cook down, as she said, with a whisper. Collapsed her so, that she had to sit down and take a cup of tea, the kettle being luckily on the boil. Gladys had to sit down and take one too, and there they sat, the grocer’s boy dismissed, in the darkening kitchen, their heads close together, and starting at every hiss of the rain upon the coals. The house hung heavy and dark above them. Mad, that’s what he must be, and going mad these past ever so many months. And such a fine man too! But knocking people down in the street, and ‘im such a man for his own dignity! ‘Im an Archdeacon too. ‘Ad any one ever heard in their lives of an Archdeacon doing such a thing? Well, that settled Cook. She’d been in the house ten solid years, but at the end of the month she’d be off. To sit in the house with a madman! Not she! Adultery and all the talk had been enough, but she had risked her good name and all, just for the sake of that poor young thing upstairs, but madness!–no, that was another pair of shoes.

Now Gladys was peculiar. She’d given her notice, but hearing this, she suddenly determined to stay. That poor Miss Joan! Poor little worm! So young and innocent–shut up all alone with her mad father. Gladys would see her through–

“Why, Gladys,” cried Cook, “what will your young feller you’re walkin’ with say?”

“If ‘e don’t like it ‘e can lump it,” said Gladys. “Lord, ‘ow this house does rattle!”

All the afternoon of that day Brandon sat, never moving from his study- table. He sat exultant. Some of the shame had been wiped away. He could feel again the riotous happiness that had surged up in him as he struck that face, felt it yield before him, saw it fade away into dust and nothingness. That face that had for all these months been haunting him, at last he had banished it, and with it had gone those other leering faces that had for so long kept him company. His room was dark, and it was always in the dark that they came to him–Hogg’s, the drunken painter’s, that old woman’s in the dirty dress.

And to-day they did not come. If they came he would treat them as he had treated Hogg. That was the way to deal with them!

His heart was bad, fluttering, stampeding, pounding and then dying away. He walked about the room that he might think less of it. Never mind his heart! Destroy his enemies, that’s what he had to do–these men and women who were the enemies of himself, his town and his Cathedral.

Suddenly he thought that he would go out. He got his hat and his coat and went into the rain. He crossed the Green and let himself into the Cathedral by the Saint Margaret Chapel door, as he had so often done before.

The Cathedral was very dark, and he stumbled about, knocking against pillars and hassocks. He was strange here. It was as though he didn’t know the place. He got into the middle of the nave, and positively he didn’t know where he was. A faint green light glimmered in the East end. There were chairs in his way. He stood still, listening.

He was lost. He would never find his way out again. _His_ Cathedral, and he was lost! Figures were moving everywhere. They jostled him and said nothing. The air was thick and hard to breathe. Here was the Black Bishop’s Tomb. He let his fingers run along the metal work. How cold it was! His hand touched the cold icy beard! His hand stayed there. He could not remove it. His fingers stuck.

He tried to cry out, and he could say nothing. An icy hand, gauntleted, descended upon his and held it. He tried to scream. He could not.

He shouted. His voice was a whisper. He sank upon his knees. He fainted, slipping to the ground like a man tired out.

There, half an hour later, Lawrence found him.

Chapter IV

The Last Tournament

On the morning of the Chapter Meeting Ronder went in through the West door, intending to cross the nave by the Cloisters. Just as he closed the heavy door behind him there sprang up, close to him, as though from nowhere at all, that horrible man Davray. Horrible always to Ronder, but more horrible now because of the dreadful way in which he had, during the last few months, gone tumbling downhill. There had been, until lately, a certain austerity and even nobility in the man’s face. That was at last completely swept away. This morning he looked as though he had been sleeping out all night, his face yellow, his eyes bloodshot, his hair tangled and unkempt, pieces of grass clinging to his well-worn grey flannel suit.

“Good morning, Canon Ronder,” he said.

“Good morning,” Ronder replied severely, and tried to pass on. But the man stood in his way.

“I’m not going to keep you,” he said. “I know what your business is this morning. I wouldn’t keep you from it for a single moment. I know what you’re going to do. You’re going to get rid of that damned Archdeacon. Finish him for once and all. Stamp on him so that he can never raise up his beautiful head again. I know. It’s fine work you’ve been doing ever since you came here, Canon Ronder. But it isn’t you that’s been doing it. It’s the Cathedral.”

“Please let me pass,” said Ronder. “I haven’t any time just now to spare.”

“Ah, that hurts your pride. You like to think it’s you who’s been the mighty fine fellow all this time. Well, it isn’t you at all. It’s the Cathedral. The Cathedral’s jealous, you know–don’t like its servants taking all the credit to themselves. Pride’s dangerous, Canon Ronder. In a year or two’s time, when you’re feeling pretty pleased with yourself, you just look back on the Archdeacon’s history for a moment and consider it. It may have a lesson for you. Good morning, Canon Ronder. Pleased to have met you.”

The wretched creature went slithering up the aisle, chuckling to himself. How miserable to be drunk at that early hour of the morning! Ronder shrugged his shoulders as though he would like to shake off from them something unpleasant that was sticking to them. He was not in a good mood this morning. He was assured of victory–he had no doubt about it at all– and unquestionably when the affair was settled he would feel more tranquil about it. But ever since his talk with Wistons he had been unsure of the fellow. Was it altogether wise that he should come here? His perfect content seemed to be as far away as ever. Was it always to be so?

And then this horrible affair in the High Street three days ago, how distressing! The Archdeacon’s brain was going, and that was the very last thing that Ronder had desired. What he had originally seen was the pleasant picture of Brandon retiring with his wife and family to a nice Rectory in the diocese and ending his days–many years hence it is to be hoped–in a charming old garden with an oak-tree on the lawn and pigeons cooing in the sunny air.

But this! Oh, no! not this! Ronder was a practical man of straight common- sense, but it did seem to him as though there had been through all the movement of the last six months some spirit far more vindictive than himself had ever been. He had never, from the first moment to the last, been vindictive. With his hand on his heart he could say that. He did not like the Cathedral that morning, it seemed to him cold, hostile, ugly. The thick stone pillars were scornful, the glass of the East window was dead and dull. A little wind seemed to whistle in the roof so far, so far above his head.

He hurried on, his great-coat hugged about him. All that he could say was that he did hope that Brandon would not be there this morning. His presence could alter nothing, the voting could go only one way. It would be very painful were he there. Surely after the High Street affair he would not come.

Ronder saw with relief when he came into the Chapter House that Brandon was not present. They were standing about the room, looking out into the Cloisters, talking in little groups–the Dean, Bentinck-Major, Ryle, Foster, and Bond, the Clerk, a little apart from the others as social decency demanded. When Ronder entered, two things at once were plain–one, how greatly during these last months he had grown in importance with all of them and, secondly, how nervous they were all feeling. They all turned towards him.

“Ah, Ronder,” said the Dean, “that’s right. I was afraid lest something should keep you.”

“No–no–what a cold damp day! Autumn is really upon us.”

They discussed the weather, once and again eyeing the door apprehensively. Bentinck-Major took Ronder aside:

“My wife and I have been wondering whether you’d honour us by dining with us on the 25th,” he said. “A cousin of my wife’s, Lady Caroline Holmesby, is to be staying with us just then. It would give us such great pleasure if you and Miss Ronder would join us that evening. My wife is, of course, writing to Miss Ronder.”

“So far as I know, my aunt and I are both free and will be delighted to come,” said Ronder.

“Delightful! That will be delightful! As a matter of fact we were thinking of having that evening a little Shakespeare reading. We thought of _King Lear_.”

“Ah! That’s another matter,” said Ronder, laughing. “I’ll be delighted to listen, but as to taking part–“

“But you must! You must!” said Bentinck-Major, catching hold of one of the buttons on Ronder’s waistcoat, a habit that Ronder most especially disliked. “More culture is what our town needs–several of us have been thinking so. It is really time, I think, to start a little Shakespeare reading amongst ourselves–strictly amongst ourselves, of course. The trouble with Shakespeare is that he is so often a little–a little bold, for mixed reading–and that restricts us. Nevertheless, we hope…I do trust that you will join us, Canon Ronder.”

“I make no promises,” said Ronder. “If you knew how badly I read, you’d hesitate before asking me.”

“We are past our time,” said the Dean, looking at his watch. “We are all here, I think, but Brandon and Witheram. Witheram is away at Drymouth. He has written to me. How long we should wait—-“

“I can hardly believe,” said Byle nervously, “that Archdeacon Brandon will be present. He is extremely unwell. I don’t know whether you are aware that three nights ago he was found by Lawrence the Verger here in the Cathedral in a fainting fit. He is very unwell, I’m afraid.”

The whole group was immensely interested. They had heard…. Fainting? Here in the Cathedral? Yes, by the Bishop’s Tomb. He was better yesterday, but it is hardly likely that he will come this morning.

“Poor man!” said the Dean, gently distressed. “I heard something…That was the result, I’m afraid, of his fracas that morning in the High Street; he must be most seriously unwell.”

“Poor man, poor man!” was echoed by everybody; it was evident also that general relief was felt. He could not now be expected to be present.

The door opened, and he came in. He came hurriedly, a number of papers in one hand, wearing just the old anxious look of important care that they knew so well. And yet how changed he was! Instead of moving at once to his place at the long table he hesitated, looked at Bentinck-Major, at Foster, then at Bond, half-puzzled, as though he had never seen them before.

“I must apologise, gentlemen,” he said, “for being late. My watch, I’m afraid, was slow.”

The Dean then showed quite unexpected qualities.

“Will you sit here on my right, Archdeacon?” he said in a firm and almost casual voice. “We are a little late, I fear, but no matter–no matter. We are all present, I think, save Archdeacon Witheram, who is at Drymouth, and from whom I have received a letter.” They all found their places. Ronder was as usual exactly opposite to Brandon. Foster slouched into his seat with his customary air of absentmindedness. Ryle tried not to look at Brandon, but his eyes were fascinated and seemed to swim in their watery fashion like fish fascinated by a bait.

“Shall we open with a prayer,” said the Dean, “and ask God’s blessing on this morning’s work?”

They prayed with bent heads. Brandon’s head was bent longer than the others.

When he looked up he stared about him as though completely bewildered.

“As you all know,” the Dean said in his softly urgent voice, as though he were pressing them to give him flowers for his collection, “our meeting this morning is of the first urgency. I will, with your approval, postpone general business until the more ordinary meeting of next week. That is if no one has any objection to such a course?”

No one had any objections.

“Very well, then. As you know, our business this morning is to appoint a successor to poor Morrison at Pybus St. Anthony. Now in ordinary cases, such an appointment is not of the first importance, but in the matter of Pybus, as you all know, there is a difference. Whether rightly or wrongly, it has been a tradition in the Diocese that the Pybus living should be given only to exceptional men. It has been fortunate in having a succession of exceptional men in its service–men who, for the most part, have come to great position in the Church afterwards. I want you to remember that, gentlemen, when you are making your decision this morning. At the same time you must remember that it has been largely tradition that has given this importance to Pybus, and that the living has been vacant already too long.”

He paused. Then he picked up a piece of paper in front of him.

“There have been several meetings with regard to this living already,” he said, “and certain names have been very thoroughly discussed among us. I think we were last week agreed that two names stood out from the others. If to-day we cannot agree on one of those two names, we must then consider a third. That will not, I hope, be necessary. The two names most favourably considered by us are those of the Rev. Rex Forsyth, Chaplain to Bishop Clematis, and the Rev. Ambrose Wistons of St. Edward’s Hawston. The first of these two gentlemen is known to all of us personally, the second we know chiefly through his writings. We will first, I think, consider Mr. Wistons. You, Canon Foster, are, I know, a personal friend of his, and can tell us why, in your opinion, his would be a suitable appointment.”

“It depends on what you want,” said Foster, frowning around upon every one present; and then suddenly selecting little Bond as apparently his most dangerous enemy and scowling at him with great hostility, “if you want to let the religious life of this place, nearly dead already, pass right away, choose a man like Forsyth. But I don’t wish to be contentious; there’s been contention enough in this place during these last months, and I’m sick and ashamed of the share I’ve had in it. I won’t say more than this–that if you want an honest, God-fearing man here, who lives only for God and is in his most secret chamber as he is before men, then Wistons is your man. I understand that some of you are afraid of his books. There’ll be worse books than his you’ll have to face before you’re much older. _That_ I can tell you! I said to myself before I came here that I wouldn’t speak this morning. I should not have said even what I have, because I know that in this last year I have grievously sinned, fighting against God when I thought that I was fighting for Him. The weapons are taken out of my hands. I believe that Wistons is the man for this place and for the religious life here. I believe that you will none of you regret it if you bring him to this appointment. I can say nothing more.”

What had happened to Foster? They had, one and all, expected a fighting speech. The discomfort and uneasiness that was already in the room was now greatly increased.

The Dean asked Ronder to say something. Ronder leaned forward, pushing his spectacles back with his fingers. He leaned forward that he might not see Brandon’s face.

By chance he had not seen Brandon for more than a fortnight. He was horrified and frightened by the change. The grey-white face, the restless, beseeching, bewildered eyes belonging apparently to some one else, to whom they were searching to return, the long white fingers ceaselessly moving among the papers and tapping the table, were those of a stranger, and in the eyes of the men in that room it was he who had produced him. Yes, and in the eyes of how many others in that town? You might say that had Brandon been a man of real spiritual and moral strength, not Ronder, not even God Himself, could have brought Brandon to this. But was that so? Which of us knows until he is tried? His wife, his son, his body, all had failed him. And now this too…. And if Ronder had not come to that town would it have been so? Had it not been a duel between them from the moment that Ronder first set his foot in that place? And had not Ronder deliberately willed it so? What had Ronder said to Brandon’s son and to the woman who would ruin Brandon’s wife?

All this passed in the flash of a dfeam through Ronder’s brain, perhaps never entirely to leave him again. In that long duel there had been perhaps more than one defeat. He knew that they were waiting for him to speak, but the thoughts would not come. Wistons? Forsyth?…Forsyth? Wistons? Who were they? What had they to do with this personal relation of his with the man opposite?

He flushed. He must say something. He began to speak, and soon his brain, so beautifully ordered, began to reel out the words in soft and steady sequence. But his soul watched Brandon’s soul.

“My friend, Canon Foster, knows Mr. Wistons so much better than I do,” he said, “that it is absurd for me to try and tell you what he should tell you.

“I do regard him as the right man for this place, because I think our Cathedral, that we all so deeply love, is waiting for just such a man. Against his character no one, I suppose, has anything to say. He is known before all the world as a God-fearing Christian. He is no youth; he has had much experience; he is, every one witnesses, lovable and of strong personal charm. It is not his character, but his ideas, that people have criticised. He is a modernist, of course, a man of an enquiring, penetrating mind, who must himself be satisfied of the truth for which he is searching. Can that do us here any harm? I believe not. I think that some of us, if I may say so, are too easily frightened of the modern spirit of enquiry. I believe that we Churchmen should step forward ready to face any challenge, whether of scientists, psychologists or any one else–I think that before long, whether we like it or no, we shall have to do so. Mr. Wistons is, I believe, just the man to help us in such a crisis. His opinions are not precisely the same as those of some of us in this diocese, and I’ve no doubt that if he came here there would be some disputes from time to time, but I believe those same disputes would do us a world of good. God did not mean us to sit down twiddling our thumbs and never using our brains. He gave us our intelligences, and therefore I presume that He meant us to make some use of them.

“In these matters Mr. Wistons is exactly what we want here. He is a much- travelled man, widely experienced in affairs, excellent at business. No one who has ever met him would deny his sweetness and personal charm. I think myself that we are very fortunate to have a chance of seeing him here–“

Ronder ceased. He felt as though he had been beating thin air with weak ineffective hands. They had, none of them, been listening to him or thinking of him; they had not even been thinking of Wistons. Their minds had been absorbed, held, dominated by the tall broad figure who sat in their midst, but was not one of them.

Brandon, in fact, began to speak almost before Ronder had finished. He did not look up, but stared at his long nervous fingers. He spoke at first almost in a whisper, so that they did not catch the first few words. “…Horrified…” they heard him say. “Horrified…. So calmly…. These present….

“Cannot understand….” Then his words were clearer. He looked up, staring across at Ronder.

“Horrified at this eager acceptance of a man who is a declared atheist before God.” Then suddenly he flung his head back in his old challenging way and, looking round upon them all, went on, his voice now clear, although weak and sometimes faltering:

“Gentlemen, this is perhaps my last appearance at these Chapter Meetings. I have not been very well of late and, as you all know, I have had trouble. You will forgive me if I do not, this morning, express myself so clearly or carefully as I should like.

“But the first thing that I wish to say is that when you are deciding this question this morning you should do your best, before God, to put my own personality out of your minds. I have learnt many things, under God’s hand, in the last six months. He has shown me some weaknesses and failings, and I know now that, because of those weaknesses, there are some in this town who would act against anything that I proposed, simply because they would wish me to be defeated. I do implore you this morning not to think of me, but to think only of what will be best–best–best—- ” He looked around him for a moment bewildered, frowning in puzzled fashion at Ronder, then continued again, “best for God and the work of His Church.

“I’m not very well, gentlemen; my thoughts are not coming very clearly this morning, and that is sad, because I’ve looked forward to this morning for months past, wishing to fight my very best….” His voice changed. “Yes, fight!” he cried. “There should be no fight necessary in such a matter. But what has happened to us all in the last year?

“A year ago there was not one of us who would have considered such an appointment as I am now disputing. Have you read this man’s books? Have you read in the papers his acknowledged utterances? Do you know that he questions the Divinity of Christ Himself—-“

“No, Archdeacon,” Foster broke in, “that is not true. You can have no evidence of that.”

Brandon seemed to be entirely bewildered by the interruption. He looked at Foster, opened his mouth as though he would speak, then suddenly put his hand to his head.

“If you will give me time,” he said. “Give me time. I will prove everything, I will indeed. I beg you,” he said, suddenly turning to the Dean, “that you will have this appointment postponed for a month. It is so serious a matter that to decide hastily—-“

“Not hastily,” said the Dean very gently. “Morrison died some months ago, and I’m afraid it is imperative that we should fill the vacancy this morning.”

“Then consider what you do,” Brandon cried, now half-rising from his chair. “This man is breaking in upon the cherished beliefs of our Church. Give him a little and he will take everything. We must all stand firm upon the true and Christian ground that the Church has given us, or where shall we be? This man may be good and devout, but he does not believe what we believe. Our Church-that we love–that we love—-” He broke off again.

“You are against me. Every man’s hand now is against me. Nevertheless what-I say is right and true. What am I? What are you, any of you here in this room, beside God’s truth? I have seen God, I have walked with God, I shall walk with Him again. He will lead me out of these sore distresses and take me into green pastures—-“

He flushed. “I beg your pardon, gentlemen. I am taking your time. I must say something for Mr. Forsyth. He is young; he knows this place and loves it; he cares for and will preserve its most ancient traditions….

“He cares for the things for which we should care. I do commend him to your attention—-“

There was a long silence. The rain that had begun a thick drizzle dripped on the panes. The room was so dark that the Dean asked Bond to light the gas. They all waited while this was being done. At last the Dean spoke:

“We are all very grateful to you, Archdeacon, for helping us as you have done. I think, gentlemen, that unless there is some other name definitely to be proposed we had better now vote on these two names.

“Is there any further name suggested?”

No one spoke.

“Very well, then. I think this morning, contrary to our usual custom, we will record our votes on paper. I have Archdeacon Witheram’s letter here advising me of his wishes in this matter.”

Paper and pens were before every one. The votes were recorded and sent up to the Dean. He opened the little pieces of paper slowly.

At last he said:

“One vote has been recorded in favour of Mr. Forsyth, the rest for Mr. Wistons. Mr. Wistons is therefore appointed to the living of Pybus St. Anthony.”

Brandon was on his feet. His body trembled like a tree tottering. He flung out his hands.

“No…. No…. Stop one moment. You must. You–all of you—-

“Mr. Dean–all of you…. Oh, God, help me now!…You have been influenced by your feelings about myself. Forget me, turn me away, send me from the town, anything, anything…. I beseech you to think only of the good of the Cathedral in this affair. If you admit this man it is the beginning of the end. Slowly it will all be undermined. Belief in Christ, belief in God Himself…. Think of the future and your responsibility to the unborn children when they come to you and say: ‘Where is our faith? Why did you take it from us? Give it back to us!’ Oh, stop for a moment! Postpone this for only a little while. Don’t do this thing!…Gentlemen!”

They could see that he was ill. His body swayed as though it were beyond his control. His hands were waving, turning, beseeching….

Suddenly tears were running down his cheeks.

“Not this shame!” he cried. “Not this shame!–kill me–but save the Cathedral!”

They were on their feet. Foster and Ryle had come round to him. “Archdeacon, sit down.” “You’re ill.” “Rest a moment” With a great heave of his shoulders he flung them off, a chair falling to the ground with the movement.

He saw Ronder.

“You!…my enemy. Are you satisfied now?” he whispered. He held out his quivering hand. “Take my hand. You’ve done your worst.”

He turned round as though he would go from the room. Stumbling, he caught Foster by the shoulder as though he would save himself. He bent forward, staring into Foster’s face.

“God is love, though,” he said. “You betray Him again and again, but He comes back.”

He gripped Foster’s shoulder more tightly. “Don’t do this thing, man,” he said. “Don’t do it. Because Ronder’s beaten me is no reason for you to betray your God…. Give me a chair. I’m ill.”

He fell upon his knees.

“This…Death,” he whispered. Then, looking up again at Foster, “My heart. That fails me too.”

And, bowing his head, he died.