father, out of a natural love for his son, connived at any--

'Oh! what is it? do speak, papa! tell me all! Why can you no
longer be a clergyman? Surely, if the bishop were told all we
know about Frederick, and the hard, unjust--'

'It is nothing about Frederick; the bishop would have nothing to
do with that. It is all myself. Margaret, I will tell you about
it. I will answer any questions this once, but after to-night let
us never speak of it again. I can meet the consequences of my
painful, miserable doubts; but it is an effort beyond me to speak
of what has caused me so much suffering.'

'Doubts, papa! Doubts as to religion?' asked Margaret, more
shocked than ever.

'No! not doubts as to religion; not the slightest injury to
that.' He paused. Margaret sighed, as if standing on the verge of
some new horror. He began again, speaking rapidly, as if to get
over a set task:

'You could not understand it all, if I told you--my anxiety, for
years past, to know whether I had any right to hold my living--my
efforts to quench my smouldering doubts by the authority of the
Church. Oh! Margaret, how I love the holy Church from which I am
to be shut out!' He could not go on for a moment or two. Margaret
could not tell what to say; it seemed to her as terribly
mysterious as if her father were about to turn Mahometan.

'I have been reading to-day of the two thousand who were ejected