, but they are the foundations of a sound
religion.'

'Dirt, drains, and Darwin,' said Langham meditatively, taking up
Darwin's 'Earthworms,' which lay on the study table beside him, side by
side with a volume of Grant Allen's 'Sketches.' 'I didn't know you cared
for this sort of thing!'

Robert did not answer for a moment, and a faint flush stole into his
face.

'Imagine, Langham!' he said presently, 'I had never read even the
"Origin of Species" before I came here. We used to take the thing half
for granted, I remember, at Oxford, in a more or less modified sense.
But to drive the mind through all the details of the evidence, to force
one's self to understand the whole hypothesis and the grounds for it, is
a very different matter. It is a revelation.'

'Yes,' said Langham; and could not forbear adding, 'but it is a
revelation, my friend, that has not always been held to square with
other revelations.'

In general these two kept carefully off the religious ground. The man
who is religious by nature tends to keep his treasure hid from the man
who is critical by nature, and Langham was much more interested in other
things. But still it had always been understood that each was free to
say what he would.

'There was a natural panic,' said Robert, throwing back his head at the
challenge. 'Men shrank and will always shrink, say what you will, from
what seems to touch things dearer to them than life. But the panic is
passing. The smoke is clearing away, and we see that the battle-field
is falling into new lines. But the old truth remains the same. Where and
when and how you will, but somewhen and somehow, God created the heavens
and the earth!'

Langham said nothing. It had seemed to him for long that the clergy were
becoming dangerously ready to throw the Old Testament overboard, and all
that it appeared to him to imply was that men's logical sense is easily
benumbed where their hearts are concerned.

'Not that everyone need be troubled with the new facts,' resumed Robert
after a while, going back to his pipe. 'Why should they? We are not
saved by Darwinism. I should never press them on my wife, for instance,
with all her clearness and courage of mind.'

His voice altered as he mentioned his wife--grew extraordinarily soft,
even reverential.

'It would distress her?' said Langham interrogatively, and inwardly
conscious of pursuing investigations begun a year before.

'Yes, it would distress her. She holds the