is agitation that he did not heed, at
first, a knock on the door, which was repeated. He thrust the letter
inside his coat as the janitor of the parish house appeared.

"There is a gentleman to see you, sir, in the office," he said.

Hodder went down the stairs. And he anticipated, from the light yet
nervous pacing that he heard on the bare floor, that the visitor was
none other than his vestryman, Mr. Gordon Atterbury. The sight of the
gentleman's spruce figure confirmed the guess.

"Good morning, Mr. Atterbury," he said as he entered.

Mr. Atterbury stopped in his steps, as if he had heard a shot.

"Ah--good morning, Mr. Hodder. I stopped in on my way to the office."

"Sit down," said the rector.

Mr. Atterbury sat down, but with the air of a man who does so under
protest, who had not intended to. He was visibly filled and almost
quivering with an excitement which seemed to demand active expression,
and which the tall clergyman's physical calm and self-possession seemed
to augment. For a moment Mr. Atterbury stared at the rector as he sat
behind his desk. Then he cleared his throat.

"I thought of writing to you, Mr. Hodder. My mother, I believe, has
done so. But it seemed to me, on second thought, better to come to you
direct."

The rector nodded, without venturing to remark on the wisdom of the
course.

"It occurred to me," Mr. Atterbury went on, "that possibly some things I
wish to discuss might--ahem be dispelled in a conversation. That I might
conceivably have misunderstood certain statements in your sermon of
yesterday."

"I tried," said the rector, "to be as clear as possible."

"I thought you might not fully have realized the effect of what you
said. I ought to tell you, I think, that as soon as I reached home
I wrote out, as accurately as I could from memory, the gist of your
remarks. And I must say frankly, although I try to put it mildly, that
they appear to contradict and controvert the doctrines of the Church."

"Which doctrines?" Hodder asked.

Gordon Atterbury sputtered.

"Which doctrines?" he repeated. "Can it be possible that you
misunderstand me? I might refer you to those which you yourself preached
as late as last June, in a sermon which was one of the finest and most
scholarly efforts I ever heard."

"It was on that day, Mr. Atterbury," replied the rector, with a touch
of sadness in his voice, "I made the discovery that fine and scholarly
efforts were not Christianity."

"Wha