n."

Willis looked awkward for a moment; then he said, "Well, at least you
must go into a retreat; you must go forthwith. Morley, do you know when
Mr. de Mowbray or Father Agostino gives his next retreat? Reding, it is
just what you want, just what all Oxford men want; I think you will not
refuse me."

Charles looked up in his face, and smiled. "It is not my line," he said
at length. "I am on my way to Oxford. I must go. I came here to be of
use to you; I can be of none, so I must go. Would I _could_ be of
service; but it is hopeless. Oh, it makes my heart ache!" And he went on
brushing his hat with his glove, as if on the point of rising, yet loth
to rise.

Morley now struck in: he spoke all along like a gentleman, and a man of
real piety, but with a great ignorance of Protestants, or how they were
to be treated.

"Excuse me, Mr. Reding," he said, "if before you go, I say one word. I
feel very much for the struggle which is going on in your mind; and I am
sure it is not for such as me to speak harshly or unkindly to you. The
struggle between conviction and motives of this world is often long; may
it have a happy termination in your case! Do not be offended if I
suggest to you that the dearest and closest ties, such as your connexion
with the Protestant Church involves, may be on the side of the world in
certain cases. It is a sort of martyrdom to have to break such; but they
who do so have a martyr's reward. And, then, at a University you have so
many inducements to fall in with the prevailing tone of thought;
prospects, success in life, good opinion of friends--all these things
are against you. They are likely to choke the good seed. Well, I could
have wished that you had been able to follow the dictates of conscience
at once; but the conflict must continue its appointed time; we will
hope that all will end well."

"I can't persuade these good people," thought Charles, as he closed the
street-door after him, "that I am not in a state of conviction, and
struggling against it; how absurd! Here I come to reclaim a deserter,
and I am seized even bodily, and against my will all but hurried into a
profession of faith. Do these things happen to people every day? or is
there some particular fate with me thus to be brought across religious
controversies which I am not up to? I a Roman Catholic! what a contrast
all this with quiet Hartley!" naming his home. As he continued to think
on what had passed he was still less sat