what becomes of you, anyway. Forgive me--I don't mean to
be rude--but you may make a parson yet. But don't found a new religion
for Heaven's sake, and don't muddle up man-made laws and God-made
instincts--if they are God-made," he added.

Peter said nothing, until they were waiting at the carriage-door for
Jenks. Then he said: "Then you think out here men have simply abandoned
conventions, and because there is no authority or fear or faith left to
them, they do as they please?"

Langton settled himself in a corner. "Yes," he said, "that's right in a
way. But that's negatively. I'd go farther than that. Of course, there
are a lot of Judas Iscariots about for whom I shouldn't imagine the devil
himself has much time, though I suppose we ought not to judge 'em, but
there are also a lot of fine fellows--and fine women. They are men and
women, if I understand it, who have sloughed off the conventions, that
are conventions simply for convention's sake, and who are reaching out
towards the realities. Most of them haven't an idea what those are, but
dumbly they know. Tommy knows, for instance, who is a good chum and who
isn't; that is, he knows that sincerity and unselfishness and pluck are
realities. He doesn't care a damn if a chap drinks and swears and commits
what the Statute-Book and the Prayer-Book call fornication. And he
certainly doesn't think there is an ascending scale of sins, or at
any rate that you parsons have got the scale right."

"I shouldn't be surprised if we haven't," said Peter. "The Bible lumps
liars and drunkards and murderers and adulterers and dogs--whatever that
may mean--into hell altogether."

"That's so," said Langton, sticking a candle on the window-sill; "but I
reckon that's not so much because they lie or drink or murder or lust
or--or grin about the city like our friend Jenks, who'll likely miss the
boat for that very reason, but because of something else they all have in
common."

"What's that?" demanded Peter.

"I haven't the faintest idea," said Langton.

At this moment the French guard, an R.T.O., and Jenks appeared in sight
simultaneously, the two former urging the latter along. He caught sight
of them, and waved.

"Help him in," said the R.T.O., a jovial-looking subaltern,
genially--"and keep him there," he added under his voice.
"He's had all he can carry, and if he gets loose again he'll
be for the high jump. The wonder is he ever got back in
time."

Peter helped him up. The