,' said Lady Carbury with a sigh and a
shudder.

'I don't know that it is worse than a belief which is no belief,' said
the priest with energy;--'than a creed which sits so easily on a man
that he does not even know what it contains, and never asks himself as
he repeats it, whether it be to him credible or incredible.'

'That is very bad,' said Lady Carbury.

'We're getting too deep, I think,' said Roger, putting down the book
which he had in vain been trying to read.

'I think it is so pleasant to have a little serious conversation on
Sunday evening,' said Lady Carbury. The priest drew himself back into
his chair and smiled. He was quite clever enough to understand that
Lady Carbury had been talking nonsense, and clever enough also to be
aware of the cause of Roger's uneasiness. But Lady Carbury might be
all the easier converted because she understood nothing and was fond
of ambitious talking; and Roger Carbury might possibly be forced into
conviction by the very feeling which at present made him unwilling to
hear arguments.

'I don't like hearing my Church ill-spoken of,' said Roger.

'You wouldn't like me if I thought ill of it and spoke well of it,'
said the priest.

'And, therefore, the less said the sooner mended,' said Roger, rising
from his chair. Upon this Father Barham look his departure and walked
away to Beccles. It might be that he had sowed some seed. It might be
that he had, at any rate, ploughed some ground. Even the attempt to
plough the ground was a good work which would not be forgotten.

The following morning was the time on which Roger had fixed for
repeating his suit to Henrietta. He had determined that it should be
so, and though the words had been almost on his tongue during that
Sunday afternoon, he had repressed them because he would do as he had
determined. He was conscious, almost painfully conscious, of a certain
increase of tenderness in his cousin's manner towards him. All that
pride of independence, which had amounted almost to roughness, when
she was in London, seemed to have left her. When he greeted her
morning and night, she looked softly into his face. She cherished the
flowers which he gave her. He could perceive that if he expressed the
slightest wish in any matter about the house she would attend to it.
There had been a word said about punctuality, and she had become
punctual as the hand of the clock. There was not a glance of her eye,
nor a turn of her hand, that he did