e had passed from story and psalm to the Song of songs, and
was finally stopped by--"I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye
find my beloved, that ye tell him that I am sick of love."

He laid the book down and leaned back in his chair, and holding his
temple with one hand (this was his favourite attitude) he looked in the
fire fixedly. He was ravaged by emotion. The magical fervour of the
words he had just read had revealed to him the depth of his passion.

But he would tear the temptation out of his heart. The conduct of his
life had been long ago determined upon. He had known the truth as if by
instinct from the first; no life was possible except an ascetic life, at
least for him. And in this hour of weakness he summoned to his aid all
his ancient ideals: the solemnity and twilight of the arches, the
massive Gregorian chant which seems to be at once their voice and their
soul, the cloud of incense melting upon the mitres and sunsets, and the
boys' treble hovering over an ocean of harmony. But although the picture
of his future life rose at his invocation it did not move him as
heretofore, nor did the scenes he evoked of conjugal grossness and
platitude shock him to the extent he had expected. The moral rebellion
he succeeded in exciting was tepid, heartless, and ineffective, and he
was not moved by hate or fear until he remembered that God in His
infinite goodness had placed him for ever out of the temptation which he
so earnestly sought to escape from. Kitty was a Protestant. In a pang
of despair, windows and organ collapsed like cardboard; incense and
arches vanished, and then rose again with the light of a more gracious
vision upon them. For if the dignity and desire of mere self-salvation
had departed, all the lighter colours and livelier joys of the
conversion of others filled the sky of faith with morning tones and
harmonies. And then?... Salvation before all things, he answered in his
enthusiasm;--something of the missionary spirit of old time was upon
him, and forgetful of his aisles, his arches, his Latin authors, he went
down stairs and asked Kitty to play a game of billiards.

"We play billiards here on Sunday, but you would think it wrong to do
so."

"But to-day is not Sunday."

"No, I was only speaking in a general way. Yet I often wonder how you
can feel satisfied with the protection your Church affords you against
the miseries and trials of the world. A Protestant, you know, may
believe pret