print!'

'I am sorry to say, Mrs. Waltham, that the majority of things which
appear in print nowadays are more or less disgraceful. However, this may
claim prominence, in its way.'

'And I may safely contradict it? It will be such a happiness to do so.'

'Contradict it by all means, madam. You may cite me as your authority.'

The vicar crushed the sheet into his pocket and strode homewards.

CHAPTER XIII

In the church of the Insurgents there are many orders. To rise to the
supreme passion of revolt, two conditions are indispensable: to possess
the heart of a poet, and to be subdued by poverty to the yoke of ignoble
labour. But many who fall short of the priesthood have yet a share
of the true spirit, bestowed upon them by circumstances of birth and
education, developed here and there by the experience of life, yet
rigidly limited in the upshot by the control of material ease, the fatal
lordship of the comfortable commonplace. Of such was Hubert Eldon. In
him, despite his birth and breeding, there came to the surface a rich
vein of independence, obscurely traceable, no doubt, in the
characters of certain of his ancestors, appearing at length where
nineteenth-century influences had thinned the detritus of convention
and class prejudice. His nature abounded in contradictions, and as yet
self-study--in itself the note of a mind striving for emancipation--had
done little for him beyond making clear the manifold difficulties strewn
in his path of progress.

You know already that it was no vulgar instinct of sensuality which had
made severance between him and the respectable traditions of his family.
Observant friends naturally cast him in the category of young men whom
the prospect of a fortune seduces to a life of riot; his mother had no
means of forming a more accurate judgment. Mr. Wyvern alone had seen
beneath the surface, aided by a liberal study of the world, and no doubt
also by that personal sympathy which is so important an ally of charity
and truth. Mr. Wyvern's early life had not been in smooth waters; in him
too revolt was native, tempered also by spiritual influences of the most
opposite kind. He felt a deep interest in the young man, and desired to
keep him in view. It was the first promise of friendship that had been
held out to Hubert, who already suffered from a sense of isolation, and
was wondering in what class of society he would have to look for his
kith and kin. Since boyhood he had drawn