Ashe saw a faint cloud pass over the face of the hostess. He was
himself a little shocked; and Candish frowned slightly.

"The church admits her priests to this sacrament in a higher sense," he
said with some stiffness.

Helen smiled.

"Now I have shocked you," was her comment. "I beg your pardon."

"I can never accustom myself to a familiar way of handling sacred
things," he returned. "It is to me too vital a matter."

"I am afraid that that is because you are still so young," she
retorted. "It is, if you'll pardon me, the prerogative of youth to find
all views but its own intolerable."

The manner in which this was said deprived the words of their sting,
but Mrs. Fenton evidently felt that they were getting upon dangerous
ground, and she interposed.

"We shall ask you to define youth next, Helen," she threw in.

"Oh, that is easy. Young people are always those of our own age."

In the laugh that followed this the question of the marriage of the
clergy was allowed to drop; but to all that had been said Philip had
listened with a beating heart. He felt the air about him to be charged
with meanings which he could not divine. He had somehow a suspicion