r
in life than you have done in examination.'

The young man was deeply touched. This tone of personal comment and
admonition was very rare with Mr. Grey. He felt a sudden consciousness
of a shared burden which was infinitely soothing, and though he made no
answer, his face lost something of its harassed look as the two walked
on together down Oriel Street and into Merton Meadows.

'Have you any immediate plans?' said Mr. Grey, as they turned into the
Broad Walk, now in the full leafage of June, and rustling under a brisk
western wind blowing from the river.

'No; at least I suppose it will be no good my trying for a fellowship.
But I meant to tell you, sir, of one thing--I have made up my mind to
take orders.'

'You have? When?'

'Quite lately. So that fixes me, I suppose, to come back for divinity
lectures in the autumn.'

Mr. Grey said nothing for a while, and they strolled in and out of the
great shadows thrown by the elms across their path.

'You feel no difficulties in the way?' he asked at last, with a certain
quick brusqueness of manner.

'No,' said Robert eagerly. 'I never had any. Perhaps,' he added, with a
sudden humility, 'it is because I have never gone deep enough. What I
believe might have been worth more if I had had more struggle; but it
has all seemed so plain.'

The young voice speaking with hesitation and reserve, and yet with a
deep inner conviction, was pleasant to hear. Mr. Grey turned towards it,
and the great eyes under the furrowed brow had a peculiar gentleness of
expression.

'You will probably be very happy in the life,' he said. 'The Church
wants men of your sort.'

But through all the sympathy of the tone Robert was conscious of a veil
between them. He knew, of course, pretty much what it was, and with a
sudden impulse he felt that he would have given worlds to break through
it and talk frankly with this man whom he revered beyond all others,
wide as was the intellectual difference between them. But the tutor's
reticence and the younger man's respect prevented it.

When the unlucky second class was actually proclaimed to the world,
Langham took it to heart perhaps more than either Elsmere or his mother.
No one knew better than he what Elsmere's gifts were. It was absurd that
he should not have made more of them in sight of the public. '_Le
clericalisme, voila l'ennemi!_' was about the gist of Langham's mood
during the days that followed on the class list.

Elsmere, howeve