ssion, no
settled purpose in life. I am Japhet in search of a career."

She glanced at his shabby clothes. He had been to a mission-house in the
East End.

"You are poor?" she asked softly.

"I have enough, more than enough," he answered, "to live on."

Her eyes lingered upon his clothes, but he offered no explanation.
Enough to live on, she reflected, might mean anything!

"You say that you have no profession," she remarked. "I suppose you
would call it a vocation. But why did you want to come and preach to my
villagers at Thorpe? Why didn't you go into the Church if you cared for
that sort of thing?"

"There was a certain amount of dogma in the way," he answered. "I should
make but a poor Churchman. They would probably call me a free-thinker.
Besides, I wanted my independence."

She nodded.

"I am beginning to understand a little better," she said. "Now you must
tell me this. Why did you entertain the idea of mission work in a place
like Thorpe, when the whole of that awful East End was there waiting for
you?"

"All the world of reformers," he answered, "rushes to the East End. We
fancied there was as important work to be done in less obvious places."

"And you started your work," she asked, "directly you left college?"

"Before, I think," he answered. "You see, I wasn't alone. There were
several of us who felt the same way--Holderness, for instance, the man
who came to your house with me the other night. He works altogether upon
the political side. He's a Socialist--of a sort. Two of the others went
into the Church, one became a medical missionary. I joined in with a few
who thought that we might do more effective work without tying ourselves
down to anything, or subscribing to any religious denomination."

She looked at him curiously. He was tall, broad-shouldered and muscular.
He wore even his shabby clothes with an air of distinction.

"I suppose," she said calmly, "that I must belong to a very different
world. But what I cannot understand is why you should choose a career
which you intend to pursue apparently for the benefit of other people.
All the young men whom I have known who have taken life seriously enough
to embrace a career at all, have at least studied their individual
tastes."

"Well," he answered, smiling, "it isn't that I fancy myself any better
than my fellows. I was at Magdalen, you know, under Heysey. I think that
it was his influence which shaped our ideas."

"Yes! I have heard