tn't she be a brute! Think what she's
done to me! Look how wretched she's made my life! And she's got every
single thing she can want. Oh, I don't wonder that people have their
doubts about this marvellous mercy of God! I don't see any mercy in
what's happened to me. I never saw any mercy in what happened to
father; and yet he only did what he ought to have done."

The excitement was rising within her--a steady torrent lifting to
the flood. Janet watched its progress steadily in her eyes. When it
reached this point, she adroitly changed the current of her thoughts.

"What did your father do?" she asked with interest.

Sally looked up and the expression in her eyes changed.

"Have I never told you?"

"No."

"He consecrated too much wine one Easter Sunday where he was taking
a _locum tenens_--and afterwards, when he had to drink it--it went
to his head."

She told it so seriously that Janet was driven to choke the rush of
laughter rising within her.

"Why did he have to drink it?" she asked.

"They have to. Consecrated wine mustn't be kept."

"But why not? Does it go bad?"

"Janet! No--but, don't you see?--they do keep it in the Roman
Catholic Church--on the altar--that's why the little red lamp is
always burning in front. That's why the people bow when they first
come into the church. And don't you see they're afraid in the Anglican
Church, that if the Bread and Wine were kept, people might venerate
it as the real Presence, which of course it isn't."

"Isn't it?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I couldn't tell you."

"Then he had to drink it all himself?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't he get somebody to help him?"

"He did try. He asked the warden--but the warden was a total
abstainer."

Janet looked sternly out of the window.

"Then he asked a man he saw outside the church--but he was apparently
an atheist. At any rate, he didn't believe in that."

"P'raps he thought the wine wasn't good?" Janet suggested.

"Oh no--he offered to drink it; but of course as he didn't believe--"

"Didn't believe in what? He believed it was wine, didn't he?"

"Oh yes--but he didn't believe in the Communion. So father had to
drink it himself. And then, the Bishop came into the vestry and found
him."

"What happened then?"

"Nothing then--but a few months later, he was appointed to the
chaplaincy of a Union--of course a much smaller position than the
one he had occupied."

"Didn't they give any reasons?"

"Oh yes--in a s