At last Pierson said: "Thank you, Alec; I understand."

The Canon uttered a resounding sigh. "You didn't realise how very easily
people misinterpret her being here with you; it seems to them a kind--a
kind of challenge. They were bound, I think, to feel that; and I'm
afraid, in consequence--" He stopped, moved by the fact that Pierson had
closed his eyes.

"I am to choose, you mean, between my daughter and my parish?"

The Canon seemed, with a stammer of words, to try and blunt the edge of
that clear question.

"My visit is quite informal, my dear fellow; I can't say at all. But
there is evidently much feeling; that is what I wanted you to know. You
haven't quite seen, I think, that--"

Pierson raised his hand. "I can't talk of this."

The Canon rose. "Believe me, Edward, I sympathise deeply. I felt I had
to warn you." He held out his hand. "Good-bye, my dear friend, do
forgive me"; and he went out. In the hall an adventure befell him so
plump, and awkward, that he could barely recite it to Mrs. Rushbourne
that night.

"Coming out from my poor friend," he said, "I ran into a baby's
perambulator and that young mother, whom I remember as a little
thing"--he held his hand at the level of his thigh--"arranging it for
going out. It startled me; and I fear I asked quite foolishly: 'Is it a
boy?' The poor young thing looked up at me. She has very large eyes,
quite beautiful, strange eyes. 'Have you been speaking to Daddy about
me?' 'My dear young lady,' I said, 'I'm such an old friend, you see.
You must forgive me.' And then she said: 'Are they going to ask him to
resign?' 'That depends on you,' I said. Why do I say these things,
Charlotte? I ought simply to have held my tongue. Poor young thing; so
very young! And the little baby!" "She has brought it on herself, Alec,"
Mrs, Rushbourne replied.

VII

1

The moment his visitor had vanished, Pierson paced up and down the study,
with anger rising in his, heart. His daughter or his parish! The old
saw, "An Englishman's house is his castle!" was being attacked within
him. Must he not then harbour his own daughter, and help her by candid
atonement to regain her inward strength and peace? Was he not thereby
acting as a true Christian, in by far the hardest course he and she could
pursue? To go back on that decision and imperil his daughter's spirit,
or else resign his parish--the alternatives were brutal! This was the
centre of his w