loved it and believed in it and trusted it exactly as though it had been
the work of his own hands. Halfway towards the Arden Gate he overtook poor
old shambling Canon Morphew, who really ought, in the Archdeacon's
opinion, to have died long ago. However, as he hadn't died the Archdeacon
felt kindly towards him, and he had, when he talked to the old man, a
sense of beneficence and charity very warming to the heart.

"Well, Morphew, enjoying the sun?"

Canon Morphew always started when any one spoke to him, being sunk all day
deep in dreams of his own, dreams that had their birth somewhere in the
heart of the misty dirty rooms where his books were piled ceiling-high and
papers blew about the floor.

"Good afternoon...good afternoon, Archdeacon. Pray forgive me. You came
upon me unawares."

Brandon moderated his manly stride to the other's shuffling steps.

"Hope you've had none of that tiresome rheumatism troubling you again."

"Rheumatism? Just a twinge--just a twinge.... It belongs to my time of
life."

"Oh, don't say that!" The Archdeacon laughed his hearty laugh. "You've
many years in front of you yet."

"No, I haven't--and you don't mean it, Archdeacon--you know you don't. A
few months perhaps--that's all. The Lord's will be done. But there's a
piece of work...a piece of work...."