action, of art, or of letters, seems to inherit his
magnificent powers through the female line. Sir Francis Galton, it is
true, did not make a great point of this curious observation, but the
tendency of more recent analyses is all in the direction of confirming
the hypothesis; and it would seem to hold good in the converse
proposition, namely, that the exceptional woman inherits her qualities
from her father.

CHAPTER V

HIS DEPARTURE FROM STOKE-UNDERHILL

I

The village of Stoke was no whit intimidated by the news that Mrs. Reade
sowed abroad. The women exclaimed and chattered, the men gaped and shook
their heads, the children hung about the ruinous gate that shut them out
from the twenty-yard strip of garden which led up to Stott's cottage.
Curiosity was the dominant emotion. Any excuse was good enough to make
friendly overtures, but the baby remained invisible to all save Mrs.
Reade; and the village community kept open ears while the lust of its
eyes remained, perforce, unsatisfied. If Stott's gate slammed in the
wind, every door that commanded a view of that gate was opened, and
heads appeared, and bare arms--the indications of women who nodded to
each other, shook their heads, pursed their lips and withdrew for the
time to attend the pressure of household duty. Later, even that gate
slamming would reinvigorate the gossip of backyards and front doorways.

The first stranger to force an entry was the rector. He was an Oxford
man who, in his youth, had been an ardent disciple of the school that
attempts the reconciliation of Religion and Science. He had been
ambitious, but nature had predetermined his career by giving him a head
of the wrong shape. At Oxford his limitations had not been clearly
defined, and on the strength of a certain speech at the Union, he crept
into a London west-end curacy. There he attempted to demonstrate the
principle of reconciliation from the pulpit, but his vicar and his
bishop soon recognised that excellent as were his intentions, he was
doing better service to agnosticism than to his own religion. As a
result of this clerical intrigue he was vilely marooned on the savage
island of Stoke-Underhill, where he might preach as much science as he
would to the natives, for there was no fear of their comprehending him.
Fifteen years of Stoke had brought about a reaction. Nature had made him
a feeble fanatic, and he was now as ardent an opponent of science as he
had once been a defe