it is this," said Bateman; "I wish to approach the subject with as
great delicacy as possible: don't tell me if you don't like it, or tell
me just as much as you like; yet you will excuse an old friend. They
say you are going to leave the Church of your baptism for the Church of
Rome."

"Is it widely spread?" asked Charles coolly.

"Oh, yes; I heard it in London; have had a letter mentioning it from
Oxford; and a friend of mine heard it given out as positive at a
visitation dinner in Wales."

"So," thought Charles, "you are bringing _your_ witness against me as
well as the rest."

"Well but, my good Reding," said Bateman, "why are you silent? is it
true--is it true?"

"What true? that I am a Roman Catholic? Oh, certainly; don't you
understand, that's why I am reading so hard for the schools?" said
Charles.

"Come, be serious for a moment, Reding," said Bateman, "do be serious.
Will you empower me to contradict the report, or to negative it to a
certain point, or in any respect?"

"Oh, to be sure," said Charles, "contradict it, by all means, contradict
it entirely."

"May I give it a plain, unqualified, unconditional, categorical, flat
denial?" asked Bateman.

"Of course, of course."

Bateman could not make him out, and had not a dream how he was teasing
him. "I don't know where to find you," he said. They paced down the walk
in silence.

Bateman began again. "You see," he said, "it would be such a wonderful
blindness, it would be so utterly inexcusable in a person like yourself,
who had known _what_ the Church of England was; not a Dissenter, not an
unlettered layman; but one who had been at Oxford, who had come across
so many excellent men, who had seen what the Church of England could be,
her grave beauty, her orderly and decent activity; who had seen churches
decorated as they should be, with candlesticks, ciboriums, faldstools,
lecterns, antependiums, piscinas, rood-lofts, and sedilia; who, in fact,
had seen the Church Service _carried out_, and could desiderate
nothing;--tell me, my dear good Reding," taking hold of his button-hole,
"what is it you want--what is it? name it."

"That you would take yourself off," Charles would have said, had he
spoken his mind; he merely said, however, that really he desiderated
nothing but to be believed when he said that he had no intention of
leaving his own Church. Bateman was incredulous, and thought him close.
"Perhaps you are not aware," he said, "how much i