We can not silence the tongues of busybodies and
mischief-makers, you know. And I confess, speaking as your spiritual head
and adviser, it would be a source of grief to me if a young clergyman,
who has eaten the bread of the Establishment, and my own as well, were
about to avow himself the subject and slave of an Italian bishop."

John Storm came back from the door.

"What you are saying, sir, requires that I should be plain spoken. In
giving up my curacy I am not leaving the Church of England; I am only
leaving you."

"I am so glad, so relieved!"

"I am leaving you because I can not live with you any longer, because the
atmosphere you breathe is impossible to me, because your religion is not
my religion, or your God my God!"

"You surprise me. What have I done?"

"A month ago I asked you to set your face as a clergyman against the
shameful and immoral marriage of a man of scandalous reputation, but you
refused; you excused the man and sided with him. This morning you thought
it necessary to investigate in public the case of one of that man's
victims, and you sided with the man again--you denied to the girl the
right even to mention the scoundrel's name!"

"How differently we see things! Do you know I thought my examination of
the poor young thing was merciful to the point of gentleness! And that, I
may tell you--notwithstanding the female volcano who came down on me--was
the view of the board and of his lordship the chairman."

"Then I am sorry to differ from them. I thought it unnecessary and
unmanly and brutal, and even blasphemous!"

"Mr. Storm! Do you know what you are saying?"

"Perfectly, and I came to say it."

His eyes were wild, his voice was hoarse; he was like a man breaking the
bonds of a tyrannical slavery.

"You called that poor child a prostitute because she had wasted the good
gifts which God had given her. But God has given good gifts to you
also--gifts of intellect and eloquence with which you might have raised
the fallen and supported the weak, and defended the downtrodden and
comforted the broken-hearted--and what have you done with them? You have
bartered them for benefices, and peddled them for popularity; you have
given them in exchange for money, for houses, for furniture, for things
like this--and this--and this! You have sold your birthright for a mess
of pottage, therefore _you_ are the prostitute!"

"You're not yourself, sir; leave me," and, crossing the room, the canon
touch