that he had lost his landmarks, and was confused in
his path. When the logic is taken out of all that a man is doing, what
is to become of him? This was what he felt; an ideal person in
Reginald's place could not have made a better answer. Suddenly somehow,
by a strange law of association, there came into his mind the innocent
talk he had overheard between the two girls who were, he was aware,
May's sisters. A certain romantic curiosity about the family came into
his mind. Certainly they could not be an ordinary family like others.
There must be something in their constitution to account for this sudden
downfall, which he had encountered in the midst of all his theories. The
Mays must be people of a different strain from others; a peculiar race,
to whom great thoughts were familiar; he could not believe that there
was anything common or ordinary in their blood. He went out in silence,
with the holder of the sinecure which he had so denounced, but which now
seemed to him to be held after a divine fashion, in a way which common
men had no idea of. Very little could he say, and that of the most
commonplace kind. He walked quite respectfully by the young clergyman's
side along the crowded High Street, though without any intention of
going to the hospital, or of actually witnessing the kind of work
undertaken by his new friend. Northcote himself had no turn that way. To
go and minister at a sick-bed had never been his custom; he did not
understand how to do it; and though he had a kind of sense that it was
the right thing to do, and that if any one demanded such a service of
him he would be obliged to render it, he was all in the dark as to how
he could get through so painful an office; whereas May went to it
without fear, thinking of it only as the most natural thing in the
world. Perhaps, it is possible, Northcote's ministrations, had he been
fully roused, would have been, in mere consequence of the reluctance of
his mind, to undertake them, more real and impressive than those which
Reginald went to discharge as a daily though serious duty; but in any
case it was the Churchman whose mode was the more practical, the more
useful. They had not gone far together, when they met the Rector
hurrying to the railway; he cast a frowning, dissatisfied look at
Northcote, and caught Reginald by the arm, drawing him aside.

"Don't be seen walking about with that fellow," he said; "it will injure
you in people's minds. What have you to d