s going on within
him.

Well, now that he had worked it out, now that he had reached his
decision, it was incumbent upon him to tell his assistant what that
decision was. Hodder shrank from it as from an ordeal. His affection
for the man, his admiration for McCrae's faithful, untiring, and
unrecognized services had deepened. He had a theory that McCrae
really liked him--would even sympathize with his solution; yet he
procrastinated. He was afraid to put his theory to the test. It was not
that Hodder feared that his own solution was not the right one, but that
McCrae might not find it so: he was intensely concerned that it should
also be McCrae's solution--the answer, if one liked, to McCrae's mute
and eternal questionings. He wished to have it a fruition for McCrae as
well as for himself; since theoretically, at least, he had pierced the
hard crust of his assistant's exterior, and conceived him beneath to be
all suppressed fire. In short, Hodder wished to go into battle side by
side with McCrae. Therein lay his anxiety.

Another consideration troubled him--McCrae's family, dependent on a
rather meagre salary. His assistant, in sustaining him in the struggle
he meant to enter, would be making even a greater sacrifice than
himself. For Hodder had no illusions, and knew that the odds against
him were incalculable. Whatever, if defeated, his own future might be,
McCrae's was still more problematical and tragic.

The situation, when it came, was even more difficult than Hodder
had imagined it, since McCrae was not a man to oil the wheels of
conversation. In silence he followed the rector up the stairs and into
his study, in silence he took the seat at the opposite side of the
table. And Hodder, as he hesitated over his opening, contemplated in no
little perplexity and travail the gaunt and non-committal face before
him:

"McCrae," he began at length, "you must have thought my conduct this
summer most peculiar. I wish to thank you, first of all, for the
consideration you have shown me, and to tell you how deeply I appreciate
your taking the entire burden of the work of the parish."

McCrae shook his head vigorously, but did not speak.

"I owe it to you to give you some clew to what happened to me," the
rector continued, "although I have an idea that you do not need much
enlightenment on this matter. I have a feeling that you have somehow
been aware of my discouragement during the past year or so, and of the
causes of