sible, to-day has been my last public appearance as rector of this
parish!'

The Squire looked at him dumfounded.

'And your reasons?' he said, with quick imperativeness.

Robert gave them. He admitted, as plainly and bluntly as he had done
to Grey, the Squire's own part in the matter; but here, a note of
antagonism, almost of defiance, crept even into his confession of wide
and illimitable defeat. He was there, so to speak, to hand over his
sword. But to the Squire, his surrender had all the pride of victory.

'Why should you give up your living?' asked the Squire after several
minutes' complete silence.

He too had sat down, and was now bending forward, his sharp small eyes
peering at his companion.

'Simply because I prefer to feel myself an honest man. However, I
have not acted without advice. Grey of St. Anselm's--you know him of
course--was a very close personal friend of mine at Oxford. I have been
to see him, and we agreed it was the only thing to do.'

'Oh, Grey,' exclaimed the Squire, with a movement of impatience. 'Grey
of course wanted you to set up a church of your own, or to join his!
He is like all idealists, he has the usual foolish contempt for the
compromise of institutions.'

'Not at all,' said Robert calmly, 'you are mistaken; he has the most
sacred respect for institutions. He only thinks it well, and I agree
with him, that with regard to a man's public profession and practice he
should recognize that two and two make four.'

It was clear to him from the Squire's tone and manner that Mr.
Wendover's instincts on the point were very much what he had expected,
the instincts of the philosophical man of the world, who scorns the
notion of taking popular beliefs seriously, whether for protest or
for sympathy. But he was too weary to argue. The Squire, however,
rose hastily and began to walk up and down in a gathering storm of
irritation. The triumph gained for his own side, the tribute to his
life's work, were at the moment absolutely indifferent to him. They were
effaced by something else much harder to analyze. Whatever it was,
it drove him to throw himself upon Robert's position with a perverse
bewildering bitterness.

'Why should you break up your life in this wanton way? Who, in God's
name is injured if you keep your living? It is the business of the
thinker and the scholar to clear his mind of cobwebs. Granted. You have
done it. But it is also the business of the practical man to live! I