. The world, the flesh, and the devil
had polished themselves to match all that was best in him, and blended
impartially with it, so that in very truth he did not know where to
condemn. A brave man, when examined, will confess all that he honourably
may, but not more; so Trenholme confessed himself to be worldly, but
against that he was forced to confess that a true son of the world would
have been insensible to the torture he was groaning under. He upbraided
himself for not knowing right from wrong, and yet he knew that it was
only a very superficial mind that imagined that without direct
inspiration from Heaven it could detect its sin and error truly. Crying
for such inspiration, his cry seemed unanswered.

Ah, well, each man must parley as best he may with the Angel who
withstands him in the narrow place where there is no way to turn to the
right hand or the left. We desire at such times to be shown some such
clear portraiture of the ideal to which we must conform in our place and
circumstance as shall cause us no more to mistake good for evil.
Possibly, if such image of all we ourselves ought to be were given to
our gaze, we could not look in its eyes and live. Possibly, if Heaven
granted us the knowledge of all thoughts and deeds that would make up
the ideal self, we should go on our way producing vile imitations of it
and neglecting Heaven, as they do who seek only to imitate the Divine
Example. At any rate, such perfection of self-ideal is not given us,
except with the years that make up the sum of life.

CHAPTER VI.

Robert Trenholme had a lively wit, and it stood him many times in lieu
of chapel walls for within it he could retire at all times and be
hidden. Of all that he experienced within his heart at this time not any
part was visible to the brother who was his idle visitor; or perhaps
only the least part, and that not until the moot point between them was
touched upon.

There came a day, two days after the old preacher had been buried, when
the elder brother called out:

"Come, my lad, I want to speak to you."

Robert was lying on a long couch improvised for him in the corner of his
study. The time was that warm hour of the afternoon when the birds are
quiet and even the flies buzz drowsily. Bees in the piebald petunias
that grew straggling and sweet above the sill of the open window, dozed
long in each sticky chalice. Alec was taking off his boots in the lobby,
and in reply to the condescen