to us at a critical moment," he said--"and I am afraid
you are against me."

She asked what they had been discussing, though, indeed, as she said,
she partly guessed. And the Dean, beginning to be shaken in his own
cause, repeated his pleadings with a sinking heart. They sounded to him
stranger and less persuasive than before. In doing what he had done he
had been influenced by an instinctive feeling that Ashe would not treat
the wrong done him as other men might treat it; that, to put it at the
least, he would be able to handle it with an ethical originality, to
separate himself in dealing with it from the mere weight of social
tradition. Yet now as he saw the faces of mother and son together--the
mother leaning on the son's arm--and realized all the strength of the
social ideas which they represented, even though, in Ashe's case, there
had been a certain individual flouting of them, futile and powerless in
the end--the Dean gave way.

"There--there!" he said, as he finished his plea, and Lady Tranmore's
sad gravity remained untouched. "I see you both think me a dreamer of
dreams!"

"Nay, dear friend!" said Lady Tranmore, with the melancholy smile which
lent still further beauty to the refined austerity of her face; "these
things seem possible to you, because you are the soul of goodness--"

"And a pious old fool to boot!" said the Dean, impatiently. "But I am
willing--like St. Paul and my betters--to be a fool for Christ's sake.
Lady Tranmore, are you or are you not a Christian?"

"I hope so," she said, with composure, while her cheek flushed. "But our
Lord did not ask impossibilities. He knew there were limits to human
endurance--and human pardon--though there might be none to God's."

"'Be ye perfect, as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,'" cried
the Dean. "Where are the limits there?"

"There are other duties in life besides that to a wife who has betrayed
her husband," she said, steadily. "You ask of William what he has not
the strength to give. His life was wrecked, and he has pieced it
together again. And now he has given it to his country. That poor,
guilty child has no claim upon it."

"But understand," said Ashe, interposing, with an energy that seemed to
express the whole man--"while I live, <i>everything</i>--short of what you
ask--that can be done to protect or ease her, shall be done. Tell her
that."

His features worked painfully. The Dean took up his hat and stick.

"And may I tell h