ege!'

Mr. Newcome turned and looked at her with surprise.

'Yes, it was a privilege,' he said slowly--the story had been an account
of the rescue of a young country lad from a London den of thieves and
profligates--'you are right; it was just that.'

And then some sensitive inner fibre of the man was set vibrating, and he
would talk no more of himself or his past, do what they would.

So Robert had hastily to provide another subject, and he fell upon that
of the squire.

Mr. Newcome's eyes flashed.

'He is coming back? I am sorry for you, Elsmere. "Woe is me that I am
constrained to dwell with Mesech, and to have my habitation among the
tents of Kedar!"'

And he fell back in his chair, his lips tightening, his thin long hand
lying along the arm of it, answering to that general impression of
combat, of the spiritual athlete, that hung about him.

'I don't know,' said Robert brightly, as he leant against the
mantelpiece looking curiously at his visitor. 'The squire is a man of
strong character, of vast learning. His library is one of the finest in
England, and it is at my service. I am not concerned with his opinions.'

'Ah, I see,' said Newcome in his driest voice, but sadly. 'You are one
of the people who believe in what you call tolerance--I remember.'

'Yes, that is an impeachment to which I plead guilty,' said Robert,
perhaps with equal dryness; 'and you--have your worries driven you to
throw tolerance overboard?'

Newcome bent forward quickly. Strange glow and intensity of the
fanatical eyes--strange beauty of the wasted persecuting lips!

'Tolerance!' he said with irritable vehemence--'tolerance! Simply
another name for betrayal, cowardice, desertion--nothing else. God,
Heaven, Salvation on the one side, the devil and hell on the other--and
one miserable life, one wretched sin-stained will, to win the battle
with; and in such a state of things _you_--' he drooped his voice,
throwing out every word with a scornful, sibilant emphasis--'_you_ would
have us behave as though our friends were our enemies and our enemies
our friends, as though eternal misery were a bagatelle and our faith a
mere alternative. _I stand for Christ_, and His foes are mine.'

'By which I suppose you mean,' said Robert quietly, 'that you would shut
your door on the writer of _The Idols of the Market-place_?'

'Certainly.'

And the priest rose, his whole attention concentrated on Robert, as
though some deeper-lying motive were