comfortably over his
stomach, but eventually threw to the winds every vestige of his
ecclesiastical dignity . . . .

Then there came a note from the old bishop, who was traveling. A kindly
note, withal, if non-committal,--to the effect that he had received
certain communications, but that his physician would not permit him to
return for another ten days or so. He would then be glad to see Mr.
Holder and talk with him.

What would the bishop do? Holder's relations with him had been more than
friendly, but whether the bishop's views were sufficiently liberal to
support him in the extreme stand he had taken he could not surmise. For
it meant that the bishop, too, must enter into a conflict with the first
layman of his diocese, of whose hospitality he had so often partaken,
whose contributions had been on so lordly a scale. The bishop was in his
seventieth year, and had hitherto successfully fought any attempt to
supply him with an assistant,--coadjutor or suffragan.

At such times the fear grew upon Hodder that he might be recommended for
trial, forced to abandon his fight to free the Church from the fetters
that bound her: that the implacable hostility of his enemies would rob
him of his opportunity.

Thus ties were broken, many hard things were said and brought to his
ears. There were vacancies in the classes and guilds, absences that
pained him, silences that wrung him. . . .

Of all the conversations he held, that with Mrs. Constable was perhaps
the most illuminating and distressing. As on that other occasion, when
he had gone to her, this visit was under the seal of confession, unknown
to her husband. And Hodder had been taken aback, on seeing her enter his
office, by the very tragedy in her face--the tragedy he had momentarily
beheld once before. He drew up a chair for her, and when she had sat
down she gazed at him some moments without speaking.

"I had to come," she said; "there are some things I feel I must ask you.
For I have been very miserable since I heard you on Sunday."

He nodded gently.

"I knew that you would change your views--become broader, greater. You
may remember that I predicted it."

"Yes," he said.

"I thought you would grow more liberal, less bigoted, if you will allow
me to say so. But I didn't anticipate--" she hesitated, and looked up at
him again.

"That I would take the extreme position I have taken," he assisted her.

"Oh, Mr. Hodder," she cried impulsively, "was it necessa