"Then how did you find out?" asked Vane, in the same dry, hard voice. "I more than believe you when you say she would never have told you."

"Through the merest accident," replied Rayburn. "A day or two after we landed, we went to dinner at Verrey's, and we had hardly sat down before a friend of hers, Miss Russell, came in—well—with a friend, as they say. She came and spoke to Carol, and the four of us dined together. The next day Miss Russell came to see Carol, and you know, or perhaps you don't know, that it was Miss Russell's friend who introduced me to Carol. I got hold of Miss Russell afterwards—she's as clean-hearted a girl as ever the Fates—however, you won't agree with me there perhaps, you don't believe in Fate, I do. But that's neither here nor there. I told her what I am going to tell you, and she told me Carol's story, and that is why I am here to-night."

There was a good deal of meaning in the words, but for Vane there was infinitely more in Rayburn's voice and the half-shamed manner in which he spoke. Vane felt that if this talk went on much longer, the strain would be too much for him to bear, for it was his sister, or at least the daughter of his own mother that this man was talking about. He put out his hand again and said:

"I think I know now, Mr. Rayburn, what you were going to say, and if I am right, let me, her brother, say it for you and for her, you won't refuse my hand this time, will you?"

"No," said Rayburn, "I won't, and for the matter of that," he went on as their hands met, "I don't think there is much more for either of us to say, except just for me to ask you one question."

"Yes," said Vane, "and what is that?"

"You are her brother and a priest. Will you take me for your brother-in-law and marry us?"

Their hands were still clasped; each was looking straight into the other's eyes, and the two faces, so different individually, and yet for the moment so strangely alike, fronted each other in silence. Then Vane dropped Rayburn's hand, put his hands on his shoulders, and said:

"You cannot be lying, you haven't the mouth or the eyes of a man who tells lies. You have sinned, sinned deeply, for you have bought with your money what should have no other price than lawful love; but love has come to you, and love has made lawful and right what was sinful before. You told me at first that you wanted to confess to me both as man and priest. Very well, as man, as Carol's brother I forgive you, if you have done anything that I have to forgive, and as a priest of God I will marry you, and when you have taken the Sacrament of Matrimony from my hands, as a priest, I will absolve you from your sin. It is a miracle——"

"Yes," said Rayburn, "it is. I am not altogether of your way of thinking, you know, but there, I am with you; it is a miracle in more ways than one. I know I am expressing myself horribly badly, but, to put it as shortly as I can, it is the sort of miracle that only a good, clean-souled, pure-hearted girl like Carol, could have worked upon a fellow like myself. I tell you, Maxwell, honestly, that if she wouldn't have me now, I'm damned if I know what I should do. She is everything that is good to me. I am worth nearly a couple of millions, and not a cent of it would be worth anything to me if I lost her. And so you really will marry us?"

"I will," said Vane. "Thank God and you into whose heart He has put this saving thought of righteousness."

"Yes," said Rayburn, "I see what you mean, but really, the credit isn't mine at all, it is all Carol's. Do you know, Maxwell, that I am going to have one of the most delightful wives man ever won? If I could only tell you just exactly how I fell in love with her—but of course a man could never tell another man that, and after all it doesn't matter. I've got the one girl in the world I want——"

There was another little pause, and then Rayburn went on, speaking as shyly and hesitatingly as a schoolboy confessing a peccadillo:

"There's one other thing I should like to say, Maxwell, but I hardly know how to say it."

He stopped again, and Vane said, smiling for the first time during the interview:

"Then say it, as one man would say it to another. I think we understand each other now. What is it?"

"Well, it's this," replied Rayburn, flushing like a girl under the tan of his skin, "you know Carol and I met quite by chance, and I took her away just as what she seemed to be. Then, after a month or two—you'll hardly believe me, but it is the Lord's own truth—I began to fall in love with her, honestly I mean, and in quite a different way. One evening, it was in Japan, and we were coming back from a trip to Fuji. I couldn't stand it any longer, I felt such a hopeless sweep, and I told her. It was a queer sort of courtship, and it took me about six weeks to bring her round—and then at last—we were in the Rockies then—she gave in and confessed that she loved me in the same way that I loved her. I kissed her. I could never tell you how different that kiss was from all the others."

"Of course it was," said Vane, gently. "It was a pure one, a holy one, and God was very near you, Rayburn, in that moment."

"I believe He was," replied Rayburn, simply, "for from that moment, we were both absolutely changed. Since that kiss, Carol has been as sacred to me as my own sister would be if I had one. That is what I wanted to tell you."

"And God bless you for telling me!" said Vane, solemnly. "If I had any doubts before, I have none now. After that, knowing all I do, I would give you the blessed Sacrament to-morrow."

"On Sunday I hope you will give it to us both," replied Rayburn.

At that moment the door opened, and Sir Arthur came in.

"Dinner is nearly ready," he said. "Are you about ready for it? Ah, yes, I see, you understand each other, don't you?"

"Yes, Sir Arthur," said Rayburn, swinging round with an almost military precision of movement. "I've made my confession, and I am to receive absolution when the happiest moment of my life comes, and you know when that will be."

"I think I do," said Sir Arthur, with a look at Vane, who was staring vacantly down into the flower-filled fireplace. "Then you have settled it all between you, is that so, Vane?"

"Yes, with God's help, we have," he replied, and then, with a swift change of tone and manner he went on: "and now as we have got our family affairs settled to a certain extent, I suppose we can go and join the ladies. I am longing to see Carol again."

"And so am I," said Rayburn, "let us go."



CHAPTER XXI.

Rayburn went out first and Vane followed him, feeling, as he said to himself afterwards, as though he was walking across the boundary between one world and another. He knew that Carol and Dora were in the drawing-room. Dora he had never seen before. Carol he had not seen since the night of the University Boat Race. Ernshaw, with the memory of what he had said in Vane's room at Oxford fresh in his mind, caught him by the arm and said:

"Maxwell, I believe I am going to meet my fate to-night as you met yours in another way. Was there ever such a complication in the life-affairs of little mortals like ourselves?"

"I don't know," said Vane, "and I don't care," gripping his arm hard as they crossed the hall. "Wait, it may be the Providence that shapes our ends."

"Rough-hew them as we will," said Rayburn, looking backward.

"Ah, well, since we understand each other, as I think we do now, Vogue la galere! And, Mr. Ernshaw," he went on, "I have heard things and things. I am not giving any confidences away, but by the same token you and I will soon be sailing in the same boat or something very like it——"

"Oh, yes," said Ernshaw, "I see what you mean!" Then he gripped his arm a little harder before they went into the drawing-room. Vane went on with his father, and Ernshaw said:

"Look here, Maxwell, you have passed your crisis, you and Rayburn, I'm only getting near mine. What am I to do, what can I do?"

"That I can't tell you. You see, to put it into the twentieth-century language, the Eternal Feminine is here, and you have got to reckon with her just as Rayburn has done. Come now, if you've made your mind up, go and meet your fate."

As he said this Vane pushed the door of the drawing-room open. Sir Arthur and Rayburn had gone in just before him.

"Carol!"

"Vane! and is it really you—you?"

"Yes," he said, taking a few swift strides towards her and for the first time putting his arms round her. "Yes, dear, your brother."

"Really brother, Vane? Do you truly mean it—will you really take me for your sister now that you know everything—I mean all about Cecil and myself?"

"Yes, Carol, and because I do know, because he as a man has told me everything. I am going to marry you soon, and no man, no priest could marry his sister to his friend with more hope for happiness than I shall marry you and Rayburn."

He took hold of her left hand, and stretched out his hand to Rayburn and said:

"Come now, sister and brother, as you are going to be!"

He took their two hands and joined them. Over the two hands he clasped his own, and looking swiftly from one to the other he said:

"Afterwards I will say the words that I cannot speak here." And then, with a sudden change of tone and manner which came as a quick surprise to both Carol and Rayburn, he went on:

"Rayburn, this is my sister. Carol, Rayburn tells me that he wants to marry you, and I suppose——"

"You needn't suppose anything at all, Vane. I've said yes already. If you and Sir Arthur will only say yes too——"

Vane drew back from her, and looked round toward Sir Arthur and Dora. Rayburn, having gone through the formalities of introduction which Vane's tact had made necessary, held out his hand and they shook hands.

"It is rather unceremonious, Miss Maxwell," he said, addressing her for the first time by a name that was not her own, "but——"

"But, my dear Carol, you are forgetting that you are hostess to-night," said Sir Arthur, "and I think there are two of our guests who have not been, as one would say in Society, properly introduced."

"Oh, of course; I'm so sorry," said Carol. "Dora, forgive me. I know you will. I was too happy just now to think of anything else. Mr. Ernshaw, this is Dora. Dora, this is Mr. Ernshaw. I hope you will be very good friends. That's a rather unconventional way of introduction, I must say."

As the last words left her laughing lips, and she was looking exquisitely dainty and desirable in a quietly magnificent costume which had cost as much as many much advertised wedding dresses, Dora and Ernshaw faced each other for the first time. She had seen him with Vane at the ordination service in Worcester Cathedral, but they had never met before under the sanction of social acquaintance.

She looked at him and he looked at her, and as their eyes met some impulse in the soul of both made them hold out their hands as people do not usually do when they are introduced in ordinary drawing-room style. Ernshaw's went out straight.

"Miss Russell," he said, even while her hand was moving slowly towards his.

"My dear Mr. Ernshaw, whatever you have to say, I'm afraid I will have to ask you to keep it just for a little," said Sir Arthur, as the door swung open. "Here is Koda Bux, and he does not allow me to be late for dinner; he has many virtues, but that is the best of them. Mr. Rayburn, you will take Carol in? Mr. Ernshaw, will you give your arm to Miss Russell, and Vane and I will bring up the rear."

"Dad," said Vane, as he gripped his father's arm, "you have helped to do God's work to-night; look at them!"

"You did more when you got out of the cab at the top of the gardens here," he whispered in reply.

"I didn't do that, dad; she did. She knew, and I didn't. God bless her."

"Amen," said his father. "And now we will return to earth and go and eat."

There were not many more delightful dinners eaten in London that night than what Cecil Rayburn called his betrothal feast. He and Carol now understood each other thoroughly. Vane and his father also knew the circumstances so far as they were concerned, and a little more. Ernshaw and Dora, each knowing just a little more than the others did, began to make friends fast, and therefore rapidly, but Dora was still declassee. Carol had already been lifted beyond the confines of that half-sphere which is inhabited by so many thousands of women who are neither maiden, wife, nor widow. Dora was still a dweller in it, knowing all its infamy and shame, and knowing, too, that awful necessity which is so often at once the equivalent and the excuse for sin.

Everyone took Sir Arthur's hint, and the conversation rattled on around the table as lightly as it might have around any other dinner table in London. Carol and Sir Arthur and Rayburn had it mostly to themselves at first, but after a little the conversation grew more general. Dora and Carol engaged in a really brilliant discussion on the subject of Mrs. Lynn Linton's last book, with the result that Carol said that she wouldn't live for ever at any price, to which Dora replied with just a suspicion of a note of sadness in her voice.

"Yes, Carol, I quite agree with you, or at least if I were you I should do."

"Which," said Ernshaw, "is, I think, as nearly as possible the same thing. Surely if one cannot agree with one's self——"

"No, Mr. Ernshaw," said Dora, putting her elbows on the table and her chin between her hands. "No, I'm afraid I can hardly agree with you there. After all, our worst enemies are those of our own household, by which of course I mean our immediate surroundings. It is this awful necessity to live, to eat and to have a place to sleep in. Of course you are thinking of what Talleyrand said to the young aristocrat who wanted to live for nothing."

"Yes," said Ernshaw, "I know that. He said he didn't see the necessity, and I am not altogether certain that he was wrong, but you——"

"Yes, I," she replied in a tone that had a thrill of angry reproach running through it, "I, as you know, am—well—a superfluous woman, one who isn't wanted, a sort of waste product of the factory that we call civilisation."

"I am afraid you people are getting far too serious in your conversation," said Carol from her end of the table opposite Sir Arthur. "No, Dora, I really can't allow it; social problems are not in the menu to-night, and you and Mr. Ernshaw will have to keep them for some other time. Meanwhile, suppose we leave the rest for their smokes, and you come with me and run through that song you are going to sing; we haven't tried it together for quite a long time, as Mr. Rayburn said when we were on the other side of the Atlantic. Come along."

As she rose from her chair, Koda Bux, who had been standing immovable behind his master, opened the door, and as Carol, daintily and yet most plainly dressed, passed through, his sombre eyes lit up as though by an inspiration of long past days, and his teeth came together and he said in his soul:

"It is the daughter of the Mem Sahib; what marvel is this! If there is vengeance to be done, may mine be the hand. Inshallah! I should die content, even if it was only a minute afterwards. He has his kismet, and I have mine. Allah will give it to me; but they may be the same. Once the roomal round his neck, and his breath would be already in his mouth. Dog and son of a dog, he would be better dead!"

It had been arranged that Carol and Dora should take up their abode with Sir Arthur, so that Carol might be married from her father's house. Under the circumstances it was only natural that the wedding was to be absolutely private, and it was already decided that immediately after the wedding Rayburn and Carol should leave for a month in Paris, and then go on to Western Australia, where most of Rayburn's mining properties were. He also owned one side of a street in Perth and a country estate with a big bungalow-built house on the eastern hills overlooking the Swan River.

The only difficulty appeared ahead to Sir Arthur was some mysterious connection with the Raleighs and the Garthornes. It was, of course, impossible that the wedding could take place without their knowledge, if Sir Arthur was to give Carol away as he intended to do, and yet the moment that Garthorne's name was mentioned Carol had turned white to the lips and a look of deadly fear had come into her eyes.

"No, no," she said, "not them, I can't tell you why, and you mustn't ask me. You have been very good to me, and you are going to do more for me than ever was done to a girl like me before, but sooner than meet them I would run away again as I did from Melville Gardens. I would, really, but you must not ask me why; there are some things that cannot be told."

After this Sir Arthur, finding it impossible to get any inkling of the mystery from Carol, asked Dora if she could tell him the meaning of it, and she too turned white. She did not reply for a few moments, and then she said:

"No, Sir Arthur, I cannot tell you. All I can say is that Carol is perfectly right. It would be utterly impossible for her to meet either Sir Reginald Garthorne or his son, and of course she could not meet Mrs. Garthorne without meeting her husband. There is a reason, and a very solemn one, too, for this, but I can assure you, Sir Arthur——"

"That is enough, Miss Russell," said Sir Arthur gravely. "I am perfectly satisfied, and I have no right to ask for an explanation. The wedding shall be absolutely private; no one shall be asked except ourselves. Vane shall marry them early in the morning, we will come back here for lunch, and then they will go straight off to Paris. I will tell the Garthornes about it afterwards."

"Yes," said Dora, "I think that would be best."

That night Carol and Dora had a talk in Carol's room. It was rather a discussion perhaps than a conversation, and the question was whether Sir Arthur and Vane should be told the dreadful secret which Carol had discovered at Reginald Garthorne's wedding. Carol, clean-hearted and straightforward as she was naturally, shrank in horror from such a revelation as this; but Dora, whose nature was deeper, and who had a stronger religious bias, felt that at all hazards the truth should be told, horrible as it was.

"That man Garthorne," she said, "is a brute. I am perfectly certain that he deliberately made your brother drunk that day at Oxford—I mean that he took advantage of the weakness that you discovered to tempt him to go on drinking, so that he might get drunk on the most important morning of his life. He knew very well what he was doing. He knew if he could only make him drunk that morning, everything would be at an end between him and Miss Raleigh."

"But, my dear Dora, suppose that is so, and I hope it isn't," replied Carol, "how on earth can you have found that out? Of course, if it really is so, Vane and Sir Arthur ought to know of it, and, well, I suppose of the other thing too, dreadful and all as it is, but——"

"I see what you mean," said Dora, "and I will tell you why. In the first place, when we were at the flat, Bernard—I mean Mr. Falcon—told me one or two things Mr. Garthorne had said to him when they were getting confidential over their whiskies, and I had a few minutes' talk with Mr. Ernshaw this evening which—well, what Mr. Falcon told me and what he said were the two and two that made four. I am afraid that is not very grammatical, but it is true. Of course he wouldn't have told me if I had not said something about it; but the moment he told me about your brother's collapse that morning the truth came to me like a flash. Reginald Garthorne is a scoundrel, and his father is worse, for he is a hypocrite as well as a scoundrel. He pretends to be Sir Arthur's friend—he has done so for years. He has allowed his son to steal Vane's life-long love from him, knowing all that he himself did—and, well, no—I can't say the rest."

"You mean," said Carol quietly, and with a note of hardness in her voice, "you mean that he is my father. It is very dreadful, isn't it?"

"Yes, Dora, it is, but you are not to blame after all; you didn't know, and of course we must admit that Mr. Garthorne didn't know so morally. You are both quite innocent there, but there is someone else just now. We've been friends and comrades now for a long time, tell me, dear, does Mr. Rayburn know?"

"I have told him everything," replied Carol, with an effort which she could not conceal, even from Dora.

"Yes, everything, even the very worst. You know when, as he says, he fell in love with me and, as I told you, began to treat me altogether differently, and then asked me to marry him, I said 'No.' I felt that I couldn't say 'Yes' honestly unless he knew everything. I had got very fond of him, and I suppose that was the reason why. I felt that I had to tell him the truth, and so I told him. Of course it wouldn't have been the straight thing to do anything else. If he had been like other men——"

"But he isn't," said Dora; "all men are not men, you know, and he's a man, and you are just about as lucky a girl as ever got a real man for her husband. Now I see what you mean. Yes, of course, it would be wicked to tell the truth just now. In a week you will be married and away to Australia to live a new life in a new world. Then no one will know Mrs. Rayburn, the wife of the millionaire, except as Mrs. Rayburn, but after that vengeance must be done."

"But why, Dora—why not let things stop just as they are? What is the use of bringing all these things up again and making misery for everybody?"

"Simply because the truth should be known, because a man who has done another the greatest possible injury should not be allowed to remain his friend even in appearance. The truth ought to be told, and it must be told."

"Very well," said Carol, "tell it, Dora, after I am gone. I have told him all the truth, but you know I am like a girl coming out of hell into heaven."

"And do you think that I would spoil your heaven?" said Dora. "No, you are too good for that."

"I am not half so good as you," said Carol. "I have only had infinitely more good fortune than I deserve."

"I don't think that," replied Dora. "I have known you too long and too well. I believe, after all, that everyone does get in this world just about what they deserve if everything was understood, which of course it isn't; but I am quite certain about you. Good-night, Carol, and pleasant dreams—as of course they will be if you have any."

"Good-night, Dora!" laughed Carol, with one of her swift changes of manner. "By the way, I have quite forgotten to ask you how you like Mr. Ernshaw?"

Dora looked at her straight in the eyes for a moment, her cheeks flushed ever so slightly, and she said almost stiffly:

"I am afraid, Carol, you have begun to dream already."

As the door closed Carol went and stood in front of the long mirror in the wardrobe, and still smiling at herself, as well she might, she said:

"Well, it is all very wonderful, and part of it very terrible, and I certainly have got a great deal more than I deserve. If Dora only gets what she deserves it will make things a little more equal. Good-night—Mrs. Rayburn!"



CHAPTER XXII.

On the following Sunday evening London had another theological sensation. The National Secular Society had advertised far and wide that the preacher of the famous sermon at St. Chrysostom had consented to deliver an address at the Hall of Science, and that the chair was to be taken by the President of the Society, who was one of the most eloquent and uncompromising exponents of free-thought and rationalism in the world.

Not only in the Anglican churches but also among Catholics and Nonconformists a perfect tempest of indignation had burst forth during the past few days. A hurriedly summoned but crowded meeting was held at Exeter Hall on the same night that Vane had welcomed Carol and her lover into the family circle. It was mainly expressive of evangelical opinion, and was addressed with indignant eloquence by several of the principal Low Church and Nonconformist divines in London. Their principal theme was ritualism and atheism, with special reference to the connection that appeared to exist between them in the person of the Rev. Vane Maxwell.

To begin with, he had joined a confraternity of Anglican priests whose practises were notoriously and admittedly illegal, and he had taken advantage of his position in the pulpit to preach a sermon which had sent a thrill of indignation through the hearts of all the most generous supporters of Church and mission work throughout the United Kingdom and abroad.

He had taken upon himself to put a brutally literal construction on the words of Christ which it would be absolutely impossible to carry out in practice unless the whole of Christendom were pauperised—and what, then, would become of the work of the churches, and, particularly, of those vast missionary movements which had spread the light of Christianity in so many dark places of the earth? How would they continue to exist without the vast sums which Christians of wealth so generously contributed? What was to happen, even to the churches of all denominations in England itself, if they accepted the preposterous doctrine that a man could not enjoy the fruit of his own labour, or inherit that of his ancestors, and at the same time remain a Christian? It was totally out of the question, far beyond the bounds of all practical common sense, and therefore it could not be Christian, since, if such a doctrine were true, Christianity would be impossible.

And now, not content with preaching from a Christian pulpit a heresy which, if accepted by Christians, would make Christianity a practical impossibility, this headstrong, unthinking visionary, reckless of all the best traditions of his Church and his cloth, was going to address an assembly of infidels and atheists, and, as a minister of the Gospel, make friends with those who blasphemed the name of God every time they used it, and did their utmost to destroy the edifice of Christianity and to uproot the foundations of the Christian faith.

It was monstrous, it was horrible, and the general sense of the speeches, and of the resolutions which were unanimously and enthusiastically carried at the end of the meeting, was that the man who could preach heresy in a Christian pulpit, then, the next Sunday, associate himself deliberately with infidels and atheists, was not worthy to remain within the fold of the Christian Ministry.

Of course, the speeches were duly reported in the papers the next morning with, in some cases, a considerable amount of editorial embroidery, and nowhere were they read with greater interest than at the breakfast-table of Sir Arthur's house in Warwick Gardens, especially as, side by side with them, came the announcement that another meeting of protest was to be held at St. James's Hall on the Saturday evening, under the auspices of a committee of members of the English Church Union. The chair was to be taken by Canon Thornton-Moore, and several of the leading lights of High Anglicanism were to speak.

"What a very wicked person you must be, Vane," said Carol, who had swiftly skimmed through some of the speeches and the comments on them. "The Low Church people seem to have excommunicated you altogether, and now the High Church are going to do it. Why don't you go to this meeting to-night and give them a bit of your mind? I believe they are all frightened of you and your new doctrines, and that is why they are making such a fuss about it."

"My doctrines are not new, Carol," replied Vane, with a smile which seemed to her very gentle and sweet. "They are just as old as Christianity itself, and they are not mine, but the Master's. No, I don't think I shall go to the meeting. I am afraid there will be quite trouble enough without me, and, besides, personal controversy seldom does any good at all. I only hope, indeed, that these good people will keep away from the Hall of Science on Sunday night. It is the greatest of pities that it was made public. I simply wanted to have a quiet talk with the usual audience."

"I am afraid you won't have many more quiet talks with any audiences now, Vane," laughed Sir Arthur. "This sudden jump that you have made into fame has made it impossible. You will have to pay the usual penalty of greatness."

"It appears," said Carol, "in this case, to be mostly abuse and misunderstanding."

"I don't think there is much misunderstanding, Carol," said Dora. "It seems to me to be quite the other way about. These people understand Mr. Maxwell only too well for their own comfort. They see quite plainly that if he is right, as, of course, he is, wealth and real Christianity cannot go together; therefore, equally, of course, fat livings and bishoprics and archbishoprics at ten and fifteen thousand a year will also be impossible. It may be very wicked to say so, but I think a lot of these good people are worrying themselves much more about salaries and endowments and that sort of thing than real Christianity."

"Of course they are," said Carol. "I wonder how many of them will do what Vane has done, give up everything he had——"

"My dear Carol," interrupted Vane, gently, "that is not quite the point. You must remember that these men have their opinions just as I have mine, and they may not think it their duty to do that. I do not believe that it is right for a man to be a priest of the Church and possess more than the actual necessaries of life. They believe that it is right."

"And a very convenient belief, too!" said Carol, with a look of admiration. "Well, I am not as charitable as you are, and I don't believe that they do believe it. Now, there's Cecil and the carriage. Dear me! how very punctual he is."

"There's not much to wonder at in that," said Sir Arthur. "Well, now, I suppose you young ladies are going to have a morning in Paradise—the one that is bounded by Oxford Street on the north and Piccadilly on the south. Vane, we will go and have a cigar with Mr. Rayburn while they are getting ready."

The meeting at St. James's Hall was much less crowded, and, as some thought, much more decorous than the one at Exeter Hall. Canon Thornton-Moore, a man of stately presence, high social standing and very considerable wealth—he had married the daughter of one of the most successful operators in the Kaffir Circus—made an ideal chairman. He was a High Churchman and the son of a Bishop. He was the incarnation of the most aristocratic section of the Anglican Church. He was supported by the presence of a Duke and two High Church peers on the platform, and half a dozen vicars and curates, all eloquent preachers and fashionable exponents of ritualistic doctrine, were announced to speak in advocacy of the protest which the meeting had been called to make.

The proceedings were very quiet and dignified—and very churchy. It was the Church from beginning to end; it never seemed to strike either the speakers or the audience that there was anything that might fairly be called Christianity outside the Church. In fact, the words Christ and Christianity were not used at all from the platform.

The only approach to unseemliness occurred when, in response to a formal intimation that "discussion within reasonable limits" would be permitted, one of the Kilburn Sisters, a woman who had given up a fortune and relinquished a title, got up and asked the chairman point-blank what his interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount was, and further, if any of the noble and reverend gentlemen on the platform could give a better exposition of it as a rule of Christian life than Vane Maxwell had done?

She had hardly uttered her question before murmurs of angry protest began to run from lip to lip through the hall; but when she went on to ask why the preacher of the now famous sermon should be denounced by his fellow priests for giving an address to free-thinkers in a free-thought hall, when Christ himself, for his own good purposes, associated himself with publicans and sinners and thought none too low or too utterly lost to take by the hand, her voice was at once drowned by a chorus of "Oh! Oh's!" amidst which the chairman rose and said in his most dignified manner:

"I hope that I have the sense and feeling of the meeting with me when I say that the questions asked by our most respected sister seem to have been asked under a total misconception of the circumstances. It is obvious that they raise issues which could not possibly be discussed in such a place, and on such an occasion as this. I would remind our dear friend that this edifice is not a church, and this platform not a pulpit; and that, therefore, I do not feel myself justified, even if time and other circumstances permitted, to enter upon a doctrinal subject which involves so many far-reaching considerations as this one does."

The Canon sat down amidst a many-voiced murmur of approval, and the Duke said audibly to him:

"A very proper way, my dear Canon, of dealing with a most improper question. The dear lady seems to think that we are not capable of reading our Bibles for ourselves."

After that the chairman put to the meeting the resolution of protest to the effect that if the Reverend Vane Maxwell persisted in carrying out his intention to proceed from a pulpit of the church to the platform of an infidel lecture hall, he would make it the painful duty of his canonical superiors to take his conduct into most serious consideration, and, further, should he persist in this deplorable resolution, he would arouse the gravest suspicions in the minds of all loyal churchmen as to his fitness for dispensing the sacred functions of his office.

The Kilburn Sister and a few others walked out amidst a chilling silence, and under a silent fire of glances which ought to have made them feel very uncomfortable. Perhaps it did.

The resolution was put and passed without a dissentient voice, and when the proceedings were over and Lady Canore, who had been one of the most energetic organisers of the meeting, got back into her carriage, she said to her husband:

"I think the dear Canon's reply was most dignified and proper. That woman ought to be ashamed of herself—and a Kilburn Sister, too! Donald, I shall certainly go and hear what this Mr. Maxwell has to say to these—ah—these people at, where is it? the Hall of what? Oh, yes! Science, and you must manage to get a seat. I believe you pay for them just as you do in a theatre. It is, of course, very shocking, but I think it will be most interesting."

A good many other members of the audience said practically the same thing in other ways, and so it came about that the Hall in Old Street was packed as it had not been since the most famous days of Charles Bradlaugh, and packed, too, with a most strangely assorted audience of democrats and aristocrats, socialists and landowners, freethinkers of the deistic, the atheistic, and the agnostic persuasions, and Christians of even more varying shades of opinion, from the most rigidly Calvinistic evangelical, to the most artistically emotional of the High Anglican cult.

The President rose amidst the usual applause, but it hushed the moment he began to speak, in clear incisive tones which sent every syllable distinctly from end to end of the hall:

"Friends, I intend to say very little, because we are going to hear to-night what we very seldom hear in a secular lecture-hall. We are going to hear an address which you are waiting for as eagerly as I am, an address delivered by a man who, as a Priest of the Church of England, last Sunday sent a thrill of astonishment, of amazement, I might almost say of horror, through Christian England."

A burst of applause, coming chiefly from the back of the hall, interrupted the speaker, but he put his hand up, and went on:

"No, please! I must ask you not to applaud. For one thing, there is not time for it. Just let me get my say said, and then, when Mr. Maxwell gives us the message he has brought us from what we are, perhaps, too ready to believe the enemy's camp, applaud him as much as you like. What I want to do now is to say as far as possible without offence, and without hurting the feelings of the many members of Christian churches who have come amongst us to-night, that it is to be our privilege to listen here in what has been recently called the head-quarters of infidelity—an insulting epithet which I, with you and all true rationalists indignantly repudiate—a man, a Christian clergyman, a priest of the Church of England who has, as you already know, raised a hurricane of criticism throughout this Christian country by daring to tell Christians just what Jesus of Nazareth meant—if plain words mean anything—when he preached the Sermon on the Mount. He has dared to say from a Christian pulpit what we have been saying from these platforms of ours ever since we had them—that Christendom is not Christian, and that it cannot be so until it is prepared to be honest with itself and its God.

"Mr. Maxwell has come amongst us to-night with other thoughts, other faiths, other beliefs than ours, but from what I see of the audience he will not speak to freethinkers only. I believe that there are more professing Christians in this hall to-night than there ever have been before. Let us remember that. It may be that Mr. Maxwell will teach us some lessons as unpalatable as those which he taught from the pulpit of St. Chrysostom; but do not let us forget this that we shall be listening to a man who is a missionary in the best sense of the word, a man who has justified his faith by the sacrifice of his worldly prospects, and who has taken upon himself a task infinitely more difficult, infinitely more thankless than that of the missionary who, as we believe, carries at an immense expense of money which could be better spent in the charity that begins at home, a message of salvation, as he no doubt honestly believes it to be, to savages who cannot understand it, or to the people who were civilized when we were savages, and who don't want it and won't have it.

"Mr. Maxwell has taken upon himself, if I may say so without offence, a far nobler mission than this, a greater task, if possible, than that of the noble men and women of all creeds, and no creed, who minister to the wants of our own savages, by which I mean those who have been kept in a state of savagery infinitely worse than that of the negro slave of seventy years ago, by the necessities of the civilization which is no more Christian than it is humane.

"Mr. Maxwell, by preaching that one famous sermon of his, has constituted himself a missionary to the rich, to those who profess and call themselves Christians, and yet are content to live utterly and hopelessly unchristian lives. Friends, the man beside me has begun to make himself the Savonarola of the twentieth century. Whether his creed is ours or not, we must all agree that that sermon of his is the beginning of a great and noble work. He told his wealthy and fashionable hearers last Sunday that they could not be Christians unless they were honest with God and their fellow men. As regards the first part, some of us have different beliefs to his, but as regards the second, we are with him heart and soul. If he can teach us to be honest with ourselves and each other, he will have done more to conquer sin and vice, more to make earth that human paradise that the poets and dreamers and prophets of all ages have longed for and foretold, than all the churches and all the creeds have done for the last two thousand years. It is a godly because it is a goodly work, and—if there is a God—that God will bless him and help him in it."



CHAPTER XXIII.

As the President sat down and Vane rose to his feet, quite a tumult of mingled applause, "hear, hears," hissings and hootings rose up from the strangely assorted audience.

Vane faced the half-delighted, half-angry throng with the perfect steadiness of a man who has decided upon a certain course and means to pursue it at all hazards. Curiosity reduced one portion of the audience to silence, and a respectful anticipation the other. In the sea of faces before him, Vane recognised several that were familiar to him. His father, Carol, Dora, Ernshaw and Rayburn were there as a matter of course. Several clerics, high and low, Anglican and Nonconformist, were dotted about the audience, some with folded arms and frowning brows as though they were expecting the worst of heresies, others smiling in bland and undisguised contempt, believing that they had come to see one of their own cloth, who had already made himself an even more disagreeable subject of reflection to them than even the infidels in whose house the magic of Vane's sudden fame had brought them together, do that which would make it impossible for him to again commit such an offence in the pulpit of an English church.

For a moment or two there was a hush of intense silence of mental suspense and expectation as Vane faced his audience and looked steadily about him before he began to speak, and when he did begin, the silence changed to an almost inaudible murmur and movement which is always the sign of relaxed tension among a large body of human beings.

His first words were as unconventional as they were unexpected.

"Brother men and sister women; some of you, like myself, believe in God, in the existence of an all-wise, over-ruling Providence, which shapes the destinies of mankind, and yet at the same time allows each man and woman to work out his or her own earthly destinies for good or ill, as he or she chooses—by reason or desire, by inclination or passion—and we also believe in the efficacy of the sacrifice which was consummated on Calvary. There are others listening to me now to whom these beliefs are merely idle dreams, the inventions of enthusiasts, or the deliberate frauds of those who brought them into being and imposed them by physical force upon those who had no means of resistance, for their own personal and political ends.

"I have not come here to make any attempt to settle these differences between us. As a priest of the Church, I wish, with all my soul, that I could. As a man, I know that I can't. But there is one ground at least upon which we can meet as friends, whatever our opinions may be as regards religion and theology—two terms which, I think every one here will agree with me, are very far from meaning the same thing."

"As a priest of the Church, I cannot hear that without protest!" cried a tall, high-browed, thin-featured, deep-eyed clergyman, springing to his feet in the middle of the hall. "If theology, the Science of God, does not mean the same thing as religion, the word religion has no meaning. More dangerous, I had almost said more disgraceful, words never fell from the lips of a man calling himself a priest of the Church of God."

The last sentence was spoken in a high, shrill voice, which rose above the angry murmurs which came from all parts of the hall, but these Vane silenced in a moment, by holding up his hand and smiling as some of the audience had never seen a man smile before.

"I am glad," he went on, in slow, very distinct tones, "that such an objection has been raised so early by a brother priest. It will help us to understand each other more clearly, and so I will try to answer him at once. The difference between religion and theology is the difference between the whole and the part; but theology is not a science, for there is no science of the Infinite. It is only the study of the many different conceptions which men of all nations and races have formed as to the nature of the over-ruling Power of the universes—of all the attempts to solve the insoluble and to answer the unanswerable.

"There are two sayings, one Arabian and one Italian, which I hope I may quote without offence. One is, 'God gives us the outline of the picture, we fill it in. We cannot change the outline, but we are responsible for every stroke of the brush. In the end God judges the picture.'

"The other was the saying of a famous Italian artist, 'Children and fools should not see work half done.'

"Now let us grant for the sake of argument that there is a Creator, and therefore a scheme of creation. How much can we, dwellers upon a world which is but as a grain of sand washed hither and thither by the tide-flow of the ocean of Infinity, know about the workings of the Will in obedience to which, as some of us believe, that tide ebbs and flows through the uncounted ages of Eternity, and over the measureless expanse of Infinity? Faced with such a colossal problem as this, must we not all confess ourselves to be but as children and fools, since we do not and cannot see even half of the work, but only an immeasurably tiny fragment of it? For this reason I feel justified in saying that those who deny the existence of the Divine Architect of the universe and those who claim to know all about His plans, are, at least, equally mistaken.

"But that, although I have been glad of the opportunity of saying it, is not quite what I came here to say, and, therefore, we will drop that part of the subject. Last Sunday I preached a sermon which—I say it both with wonder and gladness—has produced a very much wider and deeper effect than I could have hoped it would do. That was a sermon preached in a Christian church to a congregation, which, at least, professed and called itself Christian. To-night I am going to ask you to listen to a secular sermon preached from the same text. It will be very brief, because I know that you have a custom, and a very good one, of following discourses with discussion, and as I am going to raise a few distinctly controversial subjects, I want to leave plenty of our available time over for the discussion.

"The theme of my sermon last Sunday at St. Chrysostom's may be summed up in one word—Honesty. The essence of the Sermon on the Mount is just honesty. I suppose everyone here has read it, and therefore you will remember that from beginning to end there is not a word of dogma in it. In other words it is absolutely untheological. Perhaps this fact, a very important one, has never struck some of you before. When the Master preached that sermon, he, as I believe, deliberately left out every reference to dogma or doctrine, creed or church, so that men, whatever their belief, their nation or their race, could equally accept it as a universal rule of life and conduct.

"Some of us here believe in miracles, some do not. I do, and, so believing, I think that the Sermon on the Mount is the greatest of all miracles. It is a greater thing to preach a doctrine to which all honest men, coming whithersoever they may from the ends of the earth, will and must subscribe if they are honest—a doctrine which is true for all time and for all men, than to cleanse the leper or to raise the dead to life.

"I will ask you to let me put this point in another way, and in a certainly more attractive form. Let me read you the expression of this universal truth in the words of two English poets separated from each other by more than two hundred years of time and many mountain ridges and deep valleys of changing thought and opinion:

"Father of all! in every age, In every clime adored, By saint, by savage, and by sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!

"Thou great First Cause, least understood, Who all my sense confined To know but this, that Thou art good, And that myself am blind.

"Yet gave me, in this dark estate, To see the good from ill; And, binding nature fast in fate, Left free the human will.

"Those lines are from Pope's immortal poem 'The Universal Prayer'; these are from Rudyard Kipling's 'Hymn Before Action.'

"High lust and froward bearing, Proud heart, rebellious brow— Deaf ear and soul uncaring, We seek Thy mercy now! The sinner that forswore Thee, The fool that passed Thee by, Our times are known before Thee— Lord, grant us strength to die!

"For those who kneel beside us At altars not Thine own, Who lack the lights that guide us, Lord, let their faith atone! If wrong we did to call them, By honour bound they came; Let not Thy wrath befall them, But deal to us the blame!

"Those, perhaps, are the most solemn and deep-meaning words that have been written or spoken since Jesus of Nazareth preached the Sermon on the Mount, and the inner sense, as I read it, is the same. In life, in death, be honest with yourself, with your brother-man and your sister-woman, and with your God if you believe in one.

"Last Sunday in the pulpit I quoted the words of Colonel Ingersoll, 'God cannot afford to damn an honest man.' That phrase has always seemed to me a marvellous mixture of blasphemy, ignorance, and sound common sense. From my point of view it is blasphemous, because it is the utterance of the atom trying to understand the universe. It is ignorant, because it is impossible for that human atom who uttered it to form any adequate conception of the infinitely great whole of which he was an infinitely small part. And yet, humanly speaking, it is the soundest and hardest of common sense. If God is honest He must respect honesty, no matter whether it is the honesty of belief, or of disbelief, always supposing that the belief and the disbelief are honest.

"The man who calls himself a Christian and does not conduct his daily life in accordance with the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount, is one of two things—a fool who cannot understand the meaning of plain words, or a knave, who, for many reasons, which most of my hearers will understand, pretends to be that which he is not. I may remind you here that knavery is not by any means confined to the limits of what is conventionally termed criminality. For every crime that puts a man or a woman into prison, there are a hundred others committed in every-day life with absolute impunity, and yet they are just as serious, and they merit a similar if not a heavier punishment than those which the law punishes with social degradation and the miseries of penal servitude.

"I wonder whether it has occurred to any of you who are listening to me now—whether you are Christians, professed or real, atheists or agnostics—to ask yourselves if, under the present conditions of what we are pleased to call civilization, an honest world would be possible, and that, I may say, is just the same thing as asking whether Christians can or cannot live their lives in accordance with the teachings of Him who went about doing good? Of course we all call ourselves honest, and some of us really believe that we are. At any rate, most of us would feel very much insulted if any one else told us that we were not. But are we? Let us put our pride in our pockets for a moment and try to answer that pregnant question. Honesty, like many other terms, of which immorality is one, has, through its conventional use, acquired a very restricted and therefore a quite unreal meaning. We have, by some vicious process of thought, got accustomed to call a man or a woman who transgresses the social law in a certain direction immoral, and in the same way we have come to apply the word dishonesty to practices which mean stealing or the attempt to steal property of a concrete form.

"But I think you will all agree with me that both these words have come to be used in a sense which is so narrow, that it destroys their original meaning. For every man or woman who transgresses the social law and is therefore called immoral—of course after being found out—there are a hundred or more who break the moral law every hour of their waking lives. All of you, no doubt, possess bibles. Read the 27th and 28th verses of the fifth chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew, and you will understand what I mean.

"But there is another immorality than this, and, as I believe, a greater immorality, for this, so far as it concerns our sister women, is often not immorality at all. It is the surrender of a feeble nature to a pitiless necessity, the necessity to live, the only alternative, in too many cases, to self-murder. There is another immorality infinitely worse than this, which when, as we Christians believe, the hosts of men are ranged before the Bar of Eternal Justice will spell damnation, hopeless and irrevocable, and that is the immorality which means a dishonesty that deliberately deceives—not always for the purpose of gain, for this kind of dishonesty is generally practised by those whom, to put it plainly, it would not pay to steal.

"A French philosopher once said that there is that within the heart of every man which, if known, would make his dearest friend hate him. That, I am afraid, is true, not only of men but of women. It is not the fault of the men or the women; it is due simply to artificial conditions of life and to the individual ignorance and stupidity which make reform impossible. Until what we call civilised and Christian Society can make up its mind to conduct its personal, its national, and its international affairs on the broad and simple lines laid down in the Sermon on the Mount, no man can afford to be quite honest. In other words, if Christendom would be really Christian, it would also be honest; honest with itself and with its God, with the God whom it now only pretends to worship, saying loudly, 'Lord, Lord,' and doing not the things which He saith!

"It would not matter—and this I say with all reverence and with a full sense of my responsibilities as a Priest of the Church—it would not matter whether Society called itself Christian or not, as long as it was honest."

"That is absolute atheism and blasphemy!" exclaimed a well-known Nonconformist preacher, springing up and holding his hands out towards the platform. "The man who could speak those words cannot be either a Christian or a minister of the Gospel. I call upon the speaker to be honest now, honest with himself and us, and confess that he is not a Christian, and therefore unworthy to be a preacher of any Christian creed."

A storm of mingled expressions of approval and assent burst out from every part of the crowded hall. Vane stood immovable and listened to it with a smile hovering round his lips. The President rose at once and said:

"I must remind the reverend gentleman who has made this interruption—an interruption which, if made in a church or a chapel, would render him liable to imprisonment—is entirely out of order. We welcome discussion, but it must come in its proper place. We cannot tolerate interruption, and we won't."

The rebuke was too just and too pointed not to be felt, even by the bigot who had deserved it. He sat down, and when the thunder of applause which greeted the President's brief but pregnant interlude had died away, Vane went on without a trace of emotion in his voice:

"I cannot say that I am sorry that that interruption was made, because it makes it possible for me to ask whether there is really any difference between Christianity and honesty?"

Again he was interrupted, this time by half the audience getting on to its feet and cheering. The other portion sat still, and the units of it began to look at each other very seriously. Vane was, in fact, bringing the matter down to a most uncomfortably fine point. He made a slight motion with his hand, and his hearers, having already recognised the true missionary, or bringer of messages to the souls of men, instantly became silent and expectant.

"If Christianity is not honest, or if honesty is not, for all practical purposes, the same thing as Christianity, then so much the worse for Christianity or for honesty as the case may be. A religion which is not honest is not a religion. Honesty which is not a religion—that is to say a tie between man and man—is not honest. That, I think, is a dilemma from which there is no escape."

There was another burst of applause, this time almost universal, which the President did not attempt to check. A few members of the audience looked even more uncomfortable than before, but by the time Vane was able to make himself heard again it was quite plain that the great majority of his audience, believers and unbelievers, were heart and soul with him.

"That," he went on, with a laughing note in his voice, "shows me that we have got on to friendly territory at last, on to the ground of our common humanity. I said just now, before my friend in the audience diverted my attention to another and very important point, most of us would feel very much insulted if anyone told us that we were not honest. We should jump to the conclusion that such a statement was the same thing as calling us thieves or swindlers; but that is not the question. Honesty is not by any means confined to commercial dealings. It has a social meaning and a very far reaching one too, for, as a matter of fact, the man or woman who deceives another in the smallest detail of life is not strictly honest, because it is impossible to be strictly honest without at the same time being strictly truthful.

"It has been said that half the truth is worse than a lie. It is, I think, a greater sin to tell half the truth than a deliberate and comprehensive lie, for it is possible to tell a lie with an honest, if mistaken purpose; and yet the business of the modern world is mainly conducted by half-truths. Everyone tries to deceive the person he is doing business with to some extent. It is not altogether his fault, for he knows that if he didn't do so, the other man would deceive him, and so get the better of the bargain. That is the way of the world, as it is called, and a very bad way, and, as we believe, a very unchristian way it is.

"Still, it is impossible to blame the trader and the man of commerce for this. The real fault, the real sin, is not individual, it is collective—the guilt properly belongs to Society. Men do not descend to these mean subterfuges and these despicable trickeries merely to make money, to pile on hundreds on hundreds and thousands on thousands. In their hearts all the best of them despise the methods by which they are forced to earn their incomes and make their fortunes; but the penalties which the laws of Society place on honesty are so tremendous that a really honest man will deliberately sacrifice his own honour rather than incur them. That is a very serious thing to say, and yet it is the literal truth, and the most pitiable part of the matter is that he commits these sins of unscrupulousness and dishonesty chiefly for the sake of his wife and children. The social penalties of honesty would fall most heavily on them. Their houses and their luxurious furniture, their carriages and their horses, their costly clothing and precious jewels would be theirs no longer; in a word, they would become poor, and Society has no place for people if they are poor, whatever else they may be.

"To put the question in another way, a tiger seeking for its prey and slaying it ruthlessly when it has found it is not a pleasant subject for contemplation, but before we blame the tiger we must remember that somewhere at home in the jungle there is a Mrs. Tiger and some little tigers who have to be fed somehow. The tiger's methods of killing for food are merciful in comparison with the methods of many men who already possess enough to give the ordinary comforts of decent life to those who are depending upon them, and yet go on deceiving and swindling, for deception in commerce is swindling, in order to obtain those superfluities of life which are absolutely necessary to keep up what is called position in Society.

"I do not say that wealth and comfort would be impossible in an honest world; there is no reason why they should be, but they would be gained in greater moderation and by different methods. For instance, if Society could and would change its standards of honesty and morality, the force of public opinion would soon make crime impossible, save among the mentally and morally diseased, who would, of course, be treated in the same merciful but relentless fashion as we now treat what we call our criminal lunatics.

"It will of course be quite impossible for me to treat this vast subject in anything like detail in a single address, and therefore I shall content myself with having thrown out these few suggestions, and leave the development of it to those who will, I hope, take part in the discussion.

"But one word more in conclusion. Your President has called me a missionary, a missionary to the rich. That is the mission which I have taken on myself, and therefore I gladly accept the title, all the more gladly because it comes from one who, while he differs from me absolutely on every theological point which I believe essential to salvation, has proved his faith by giving me that title and by uttering a prayer which has, I hope, already been heard by Him to whom all hearts are open, and from whom no secrets are hid."

When Vane sat down there burst out a storm of applause, through which not a few hisses, mostly from clerical lips, pierced shrilly. Yet, few and simple as his words had been, it was quite evident that they had gone straight to the hearts of the majority of his audience.

The President rose when the applause subsided, and, after a brief speech, in which he frankly admitted that if all teachers of the Christian faith were like Vane Maxwell, and if there were no other sort of Christianity than his, there would be very little of what too many Christians call infidelity in the world, gave the usual notice that the meeting was now open for discussion.

Then the storm burst over Vane's devoted head. By a sort of tacit agreement the Secularists left the attack to the clergy. As a matter of fact they had practically no cause for dispute with Vane. On the contrary they delighted in the frankness of his expression of his belief, and the uncompromising fashion in which he had denounced and repudiated that unchristian form of Christianity which, as the President had put it, was responsible through its hypocrisy and double-dealing with God and man for all the honest unbelief, and all the scoffing and scepticism, which it pretended to deplore. So the Secularists sat still and silent, enjoying hugely the series of bitter attacks that were made on Vane by cleric after cleric, Anglican and Nonconformist, for close on a couple of hours. Vane took it all very quietly, now smiling and now looking grave almost to sadness, and when the last speaker had exhausted his passion and his eloquence, and the President asked him to reply, he got up and said in slow but grave and very clear tones:

"I have no reply to make to what I have heard, save to say that I have heard with infinite sorrow from the lips of clergymen of every denomination and shade of opinion a series of statements which not one of them could justify from the teachings of Him who preached the Sermon on the Mount. There is no other criterion of Christian faith and doctrine than is to be found in the New Testament, and from the first verse in the Gospel according to St. Matthew to the last in Revelations there is not one word which contradicts what I have spoken, or which supports what they have said.

"That is a serious thing to say, but I say it with full knowledge and with perfect faith. I mean no personal offence. That would of course be impossible under the circumstances; but it is also quite impossible for me, after saying what I have said here and elsewhere, to argue seriously with those who are by profession teachers and preachers of the revelation of Jesus Christ—of the message of God to man by God incarnate in the flesh—and who are yet able to reconcile in their own souls the sayings of Jesus of Nazareth and the doings of twentieth century Christianity. We have heard the words infidel and infidelity used many times to-night. There is no infidelity in honest unbelief; and, sorrowfully as I say it, I still feel it my duty to say it, that there is more real infidelity inside the churches than there is outside, for the worst and most damnable of all infidelities is that which says with its lips 'Lord, Lord,' and does not with its heart and its hands do that which He saith."

There was a little silence, a silence of astonishment on the one part of the audience and of absolute stupefaction on the part of the other. Then the storm of applause broke out once more, but there was no hissing mingled with it this time. About a score of black-clad figures rose pale and silent amidst the cheering throng and walked out. Their example was followed by most of the West End Christians, including her ladyship of Canore and her husband and daughters, whose curiosity had been more than amply satisfied. The cheers changed from enthusiasm to irony as the irregular procession moved towards the doors, and an irreverent Secularist at the back of the hall jumped on his seat and shouted, with an unmistakable Old Street accent:

"Got a bit more than you came for, eh? Hope you've enjoyed your lordly selves. Don't forget to say your prayers to-night. You want a lot of converting before you'll be Christians. I've 'alf a mind to put up one for you to-night myself, blowed if I 'aven't."

Then the applause changed to laughter, hearty and good-humoured, and when the President had proposed the usual vote of thanks to the lecturer, and Vane had accepted his invitation to give a series of addresses at the halls of the Society throughout the country, the most memorable meeting on record at the Hall of Science came to an end.



CHAPTER XXIV.

The next Sunday, Vane, the Mayfair Missionary, as one of the evening papers had called him, preached at St. Chrysostom, and took for his text:

"Art thou a master of Israel and knowest not these things."

During the week, the storm of indignation against him had been growing both in strength and violence, and a movement was already on foot to arraign him before the Ecclesiastical Courts on charges of heresy and unbelief, and of bringing the priesthood into contempt by publicly associating himself as a priest with the avowed enemies of the Church.

The church was, of course, crowded, but the congregation was composed of very different elements from those which had made up his congregation a fortnight before. There were many of its richest members there, but they did not come in their carriages. Many others had come in trains or 'busses, or had walked from Mile End and Bethnal Green to hear the words of the new prophet; and scores of these had not seen the inside of a church for years, or ever dreamt of listening with anything like respect to a sermon from a Christian pulpit, yet none were more respectful and attentive than these infidels and heretics whose respectful attention and new-awakened reverence were the first fruits of Vane's mission harvest.

His sermon was a direct and uncompromising reply to the challenge to prove that he was worthy to wear the cloth of the priesthood, and when it was over, his hearers, the believers and unbelievers alike, had been driven to the conviction, unpleasant as it was to some of them, that if the preacher had drawn his conclusions right from the words of Christ and his Apostles, it was absolutely certain that neither churches or churchmen, whatever their form of doctrine might be, could at the same time be wealthy and powerful in the worldly sense, and remain anything more than nominal Christians.

After the sermon Vane assisted Father Baldwin in the administration of the Sacrament, and Carol and Rayburn took the elements from his hands; Carol for the first time in her life, and Rayburn for the first time since he had reached manhood. It was for them the consecration of their new love and the new life which was to begin next day.

Dora, who had been present at the service and had remained through the communion, had, greatly to the surprise of every one, and even to the sorrow of Carol and Vane, refused steadily to partake. She would give no reason, and therefore Carol quite correctly concluded that she had some very sufficient one.

At ten the next morning, Vane married Carol and Rayburn. The ceremony was as simple as the forms of the Church allowed, and absolutely private. Sir Arthur gave Carol away, and Ernshaw acted as Rayburn's best man. The only others present were Father Baldwin and Dora, and a few of the usual idlers to whom a wedding of any sort is an irresistible attraction, and who had no notion of the strangeness of the wooing and the winning, or of the depth of the life-tragedy which was being brought to such a happy ending in such simple fashion.

The only guests at the marriage-feast were Dora, Ernshaw, and Vane. It was just a family party, as Sir Arthur called it, so the bride and bridegroom were spared the giving and receiving of speeches. Never did a greater change take place in a girl's life more simply and more quietly than this tremendous, almost incredible change which took place in Carol's, when, from being a nameless outcast beyond the pale of what is more or less correctly termed respectable society, she became the wife of a man who had wooed, and won her under such strange circumstances, yet knowing everything, and the mistress of millions to boot.

When the brougham that was to take them to the station drew up at the door, Rayburn put his hand on Vane's arm, and led him to the study.

"Maxwell," he said, as he shut the door, "I have done the best thing to-day that a man can do. I have got a good wife, and——"

"You have done a great deal more than that, Rayburn," said Vane, "infinitely more. I needn't tell you what it is, but if ever God and his holy Saints looked down with blessing on the union of man and woman, they did upon your marriage to-day."

"I see what you mean," said Rayburn, "and for Carol's sake, I hope so with all my heart. Now, look here," he went on, in an altered tone, taking an envelope out of his pocket, "you know that I don't find myself able to believe with you on this question of the possession of wealth. Perhaps I have got too much of it to be able to do so; but what I have, I know Carol will help me to use better than I could use it myself. It is the usual thing, I believe, for a man who has just taken a wife unto himself, to make a thank-offering to the Church. Here is mine, and it is not only mine, but hers, for we had a talk about it yesterday. Open it when we have gone. And now, good-bye, brother Vane, and God speed you in your good work!"

When the last good-byes had been said, and the last kisses and handshakes exchanged, and the carriage had driven away, Vane went alone into the study, and opened the envelope. It contained a note in Carol's writing, and a cheque. The note ran thus:

"MY DEAREST BROTHER,

"The enclosed is the result of a talk I had with Cecil last night, he also had one with Mr. Ernshaw, and I had one with Dora. I should like it to be used, under your direction, for the good of those who are as I was, but have not been so blest with such good fortune as I have been.

"Ever your most loving and grateful sister, "CAROL."

The cheque was for twenty thousand pounds.

Vane could scarcely believe his eyes when he looked at the five figures. Then, when he had grasped the meaning of them, he murmured:

"God bless them both; they have made a good beginning," and went back to join the others in the dining-room.

He had a long talk with Ernshaw that afternoon, and they decided to bank the money in their joint name, Ernshaw absolutely refusing to have it in his name alone, as the cheque had been given to Vane, and towards the end of the talk Ernshaw said:

"I am glad to say that I should not be very much surprised now if what your father said a couple of years ago were to come true. In fact, I have broached the subject already very gently and circumspectly, of course, but she absolutely refuses even to consider the matter for at least a year. Still, she did it so gently and so sweetly that I don't by any means despair; and that girl, Maxwell, will make as good a wife as a parson ever had, and a better one than a good many have. She has given me my life-work, too. You are going to try and redeem the rich, or, at least, to show them the way of redemption. I, with God's help, and hers, am going to try and show a way of redemption to those who have lost everything, and this money of Rayburn's will give us a magnificent start, if you will agree with me that it will be devoted to it."

"Of course, it must be," said Vane, "there can't be any doubt about that. Miss Russell will naturally be at the head of the work, I suppose, and the first thing we ought to do, I think, is to get an establishment for her, and let her start as soon as may be. I suppose you have talked it over with her already?"

"Oh, yes," replied Ernshaw, "and she is more than delighted with the idea."

"I am glad to hear it," said Vane, "no one could possibly do the work better. Ernshaw, old man," he went on, more gravely, "I'm afraid for myself that with a helper, and, I hope, some day a help-meet like Miss Russell, you will have a good deal more chance of success in your work than I shall in mine."

"That, my dear fellow," replied Ernshaw, "is in other hands than ours. There lies the work to our hands, and all we have got to do is to do it. By the way, as far as mine is concerned, I hope you will help me to persuade your father to take a share in it."

"I am perfectly certain he will," said Vane; "the fact that Carol suggested it will be quite enough for that."

"Then if he does, by the time you come back from your first crusade, I think you will find things getting pretty well into order."

"I'm sure I shall," said Vane.

But it was already written that this crusade was not to begin until many other things had happened. That evening at dinner Sir Arthur said:

"Vane, I had a note from Sir Reginald this afternoon asking me to run down to the Abbey for a few days, and then join them at Cowes. You are included in the invitation, but, of course, you wouldn't go to Cowes, and I don't think I shall, the work here will be very much more interesting; but I thought perhaps you might like to run down to the Abbey and see Father Philip before you start on your mission. Garthorne and Enid are there, and her father and mother are going. It wouldn't be a bad opportunity to tell the family party the good news about Carol."

"Oh, yes," said Vane, "I should like that, immensely; in fact, I've been thinking already that if Father Baldwin agrees with me that before I do make a start on my mission to Midas, as my friend, Reed, called it the other day, the best thing I could do would be to spend a day or two at the Retreat, and go into the matter thoroughly with Father Philip."

While he was speaking, Ernshaw noticed that Dora turned deadly pale. When dinner was over Sir Arthur announced that he was going round for an hour to see Sir Godfrey Raleigh on a little Indian business. Dora felt now that her opportunity had come. It was a terrible thing to do, and yet, all things considered, present, and to come, she felt that it was her plain duty to do it, and not to permit this ghastly deception to go on any longer. Her soul revolted at the thought of Sir Arthur and Vane, Carol's half-brother, going to the Abbey and being received as friends by Sir Reginald Garthorne. Knowing what she did, it seemed to her too hideous to be thought of, and so when Vane asked jestingly what they were going to do to amuse themselves, she got up, looking very white, and said, in a voice that had a note almost of terror in it:

"Mr. Maxwell, there is something I want to say to you; something that I must say to you. I cannot say it to you and Mr. Ernshaw together; it is bad enough to say it even to you, but when I have said it, you will be able to talk it over and try what is best to be done. I want to tell it to you first, because it concerns you most."

"By all means," said Vane, looking at her with wonder in his eyes, "come into the library. Ernshaw, I know, will excuse us; put on a pipe, and get yourself some whiskey and soda. Now, Miss Russell," he said, as he opened the door for her, "I'm at your service."

They left the room, and Ernshaw lit his pipe and sat down to speculate as to the cause of Dora's somewhat singular request, but fifteen minutes had not passed before the door was thrown open, and she came in white to the lips and shaking from head to foot, and said:

"Mr. Ernshaw, come, please, quick. Mr. Maxwell is ill, in a fit, I think. I have had to tell him something very dreadful, and it has been too much for him."

Ernshaw jumped up without a word and ran into the library. Vane was lying in a low armchair and half on the floor, his body rigid, his hands clenched, his eyes wide open and sightless, and a slight creamy froth was streaked round his lips.

"A fit!" said Ernshaw. "You must have given him some terrible shock. Run and fetch Koda Bux and we will get him to bed; then tell a servant to go for Doctor Allison; we will have him round all right before Sir Arthur comes back."

In a couple of minutes Vane was on his bed, and Koda Bux had opened his teeth and was dropping drop by drop, a green, syrupy fluid into his mouth, while Ernshaw was getting his boots off ready for the hot-water bottle that the housekeeper was preparing. By the time the Doctor had arrived, Koda Bux's elixir had already done its work. His eyes had closed and opened again with a look of recognition in them, his jaws had relaxed and his limbs were loosening. The Doctor listened to what Ernshaw had said while he was feeling his almost imperceptible pulse and Koda was wrapping his feet up in a blanket with a hot-water bottle.

"Yes, I see," said the Doctor, "intensely nervous, high-strung temperament, just what we should expect Mr. Vane Maxwell to be now.

"A very great mental shock and a fit. No, not epileptic, epileptoid, perhaps. Did you say that this man gave him something which brought him round? One of those Indian remedies, I suppose—very wonderful. I wish we knew how to make them. I suppose you won't tell us what it is, my man?"

Koda Bux's stiff moustache moved as though there were a smile under it, and he bowed his head and said:

"Sahib, it is not permitted; but by to-morrow the son of my master shall be well, for he is my father and my mother, and my life is his."

"I thought so," laughed the Doctor, who was an old friend of Sir Arthur's. "I know you, Koda Bux, and I think I can trust you. I'll look in again in a couple of hours, Mr. Ernshaw, just to see that everything is right, but I don't think that I shall be wanted."

When the Doctor left Koda Bux took charge of the patient as a right, and when they got back into the dining-room, Dora said after a short and somewhat awkward silence:

"Mr. Ernshaw, after what has happened, I suppose it is only fair that I should tell you what I told Mr. Maxwell, because when he gets better, of course, he will talk it over with you, which is very dreadful, almost incredible. I promised Carol that I should not say anything about it until she was out of England. Of course, she told Mr. Rayburn; she wouldn't marry him until he knew the whole story, and so I'm not breaking any confidence in telling you."

"Yes," he said, "I can fully understand that. And now, what is it? It is just as well that we should all know before Sir Arthur comes back, if I am to have any share in it."

"Of course, you must have," she said, almost passionately. "You could not remain Mr. Maxwell's friend and help him in the work you are going to do if you did not know, and I had better tell you before Sir Arthur comes back, so that you can think what is best to be done."

"Very well; tell me, please."

And she told him the whole miserable, pitiful, terrible story as she had heard it from Carol from beginning to end. When she reached the part about the flat in Densmore Gardens, his face whitened and his jaws came together, and he muttered through his teeth:

"Very awful; but, of course, they didn't know. The sins of the fathers! I am afraid Sir Reginald will have a very terrible confession to make. It is difficult to believe that a human being could be guilty of such infamy."

"Still I'm afraid there is no doubt about it," said Dora. "But what's to be done? Mr. Maxwell will never let his father go to the Abbey now without telling him what I have told you, and when he knows—no, I daren't think about it. And poor Mrs. Garthorne, too; she married Mr. Garthorne in all innocence, although I still believe she would rather have married Mr. Maxwell. What would happen to her if she knew?"

"She would go mad, I believe," said Ernshaw. "It would be the most terrible thing that a woman in her position could learn. We can only hope that she shall never learn. If she ever does, God help her!"

"Yes," said Dora. "And yet, what is to happen? How can she help knowing in the end? It must come out some time, you know."

"Yes, I am afraid it must," said Ernshaw, "but still, sufficient unto the day; we shall do no good by anticipating that. We may as well leave it, as the old Greeks used to say, on the knees of the gods."

And meanwhile the gods were working it out in their own way, using Koda Bux as their instrument. Vane had gone to sleep after a second dose of the drug which had brought him out of his fit, and, as the keen Oriental intellect of Koda Bux had more than half expected, perhaps intended, he soon began to talk quite reasonably and connectedly in his sleep, and so it came to pass that a mystery which had puzzled Koda Bux for many a long year was revealed to him.

When the Doctor came Vane was sleeping quietly, and, while he was examining him, Sir Arthur arrived, and was told that he had been taken ill shortly after dinner, and this the Doctor explained was probably due to the very severe mental strain to which he had subjected himself during the last week or so. He went up to his room and found Koda Bux on guard. Koda salaamed and said: