s tone of mind which was like a
fresh wind blowing over the fevered places of the other's heart.

They talked long and earnestly, Edwardes describing his own work, and
the changes creeping over the modern Unitarian body, Elsmere saying
little, asking much.

At last the young man looked at Elsmere with eyes of bright decision.

'You cannot work with the Church!' he said--'it is impossible. You will
only wear yourself out in efforts to restrain what you could do
infinitely more good, as things stand now, by pouring out. Come to
us!--I will put you in the way. You shall be hampered by no pledges of
any sort. Come and take the direction of some of my workers. We have all
got our hands more than full. Your knowledge, your experience, would be
invaluable. There is no other opening like it in England just now for
men of your way of thinking and mine. Come! Who knows what we may be
putting our hands to--what fruit may grow from the smallest seed?'

The two men stopped beside the lightly frozen water. Robert gathered
that in this soul, too, there had risen the same large intoxicating
dream of a reorganised Christendom, a new wide-spreading shelter of
faith for discouraged browbeaten man, as in his own. 'I will!' he said
briefly, after a pause, his own look kindling--'it is the opening I have
been pining for. I will give you all I can, and bless you for the
chance.'

* * * * *

That evening Robert got home late after a busy day full of various
engagements. Mary, after some waiting up for 'Fader,' had just been
carried protesting, red lips pouting, and fat legs kicking, off to bed.
Catherine was straightening the room, which had been thrown into
confusion by the child's romps.

It was with an effort--for he knew it would be a shock to her--that he
began to talk to her about the breakfast-party at Mr. Flaxman's, and his
talk with Murray Edwardes. But he had made it a rule with himself to
tell her everything that he was doing or meant to do. She would not let
him tell her what he was thinking. But as much openness as there could
be between them, there should be.

Catherine listened--still moving about the while--the thin beautiful
lips becoming more and more compressed. Yes, it was hard to her, very
hard; the people among whom she had been brought up, her father
especially, would have held out the hand of fellowship to any body of
Christian people, but not to the Unitarian. No real barrier of