the eyes for all their intensity looked out from a face furrowed and
pale--overshadowed by physical and mental strain. The girl sitting at the
tea-table could scarcely take her eyes from it. It appealed at once to
her heart and her intelligence. And yet there were other feelings in her
which resisted the appeal. Once or twice she looked wistfully at Barron.
She would gladly have found in him a more attractive champion of a
majestic cause.

"What can my coachman be about?" said Barron impatiently. "Might I
trouble you, Mrs. Flaxman, to ring again? I really ought to go home."
Mrs. Flaxman rang obediently. The butler appeared. Mr. Barron's servants,
it seemed, were having tea.

"Send them round, please, at once," said their master, frowning. "At
once!"

But the minutes passed on, and while trying to keep up a desultory
conversation with his hostess, and with the young lady at the tea-table,
to whom he was not introduced, Mr. Barron was all the while angrily
conscious of the conversation going on between the Rector and Manvers.
There seemed to be something personally offensive and humiliating to
himself in the knowledge displayed by these two men--men who had deserted
or were now betraying the Church--of the literature of Anglican
apologetics, and of the thought of the great Anglican bishop. Why this
parade of useless learning and hypocritical enthusiasm? What was Bishop
Butler to them? He could hardy sit patiently through it, and it was with
most evident relief that he rose to his feet when his carriage was
announced.

* * * * *