she exclaimed, resenting what seemed a reflection on the
Gore orthodoxy.

"Do they in any manner affect your conduct?"

"My conduct?" she repeated. "I don't know what you mean. I was brought
up in the church, and Mr. Plimpton has always gone, and we are bringing
up the children to go. Is that what you mean?"

"No," Hodder answered, patiently, "that is not what I mean. I ask
whether these stories in any way enter into your life, become part of
you, and tend to make you a more useful woman?"

"Well--I have never considered them in that way," she replied, a little
perplexed.

"Do you believe in them yourself?"

"Why--I don't know,--I've never thought. I don't suppose I do,
absolutely--not in those I have mentioned."

"And you think it right to teach things to your children which you do not
yourself believe?"

"How am I to decide?" she demanded.

"First by finding out yourself what you do believe," he replied, with a
touch of severity.

"Mr. Hodder!" she cried in a scandalized voice, "do you mean to say that
I, who have been brought up in this church, do not know what Christianity
is."

He looked at her and shook his head.

"You must begin by being honest with yourself," he went on, not heeding
her shocked expression. "If you are really in earnest in this matter,
I should be glad to help you all I can. But I warn you there is no
achievement in the world more difficult than that of becoming a,
Christian. It means a conversion of your whole being something which you
cannot now even imagine. It means a consuming desire which,--I fear,--in
consideration of your present mode of life, will be difficult to
acquire."

"My present mode of life!" she gasped.

"Precisely," said the rector. He was silent, regarding, her. There was
discernible not the slightest crack of crevice in the enamel of this
woman's worldly armour.

For the moment her outraged feelings were forgotten. The man had
fascinated her. To be told, in this authoritative manner, that she was
wicked was a new and delightful experience. It brought back to her the
real motive of her visit, which had in reality been inspired not only by
the sermon of the day before, but by sheer curiosity.

"What would you have me do?" she demanded.

"Find yourself."

"Do you mean to say that I am not--myself?" she asked, now completely
bewildered.

"I mean to say that you are nobody until you achieve conviction."

For Charlotte Plimpton, nee Gore, to be told in h