with me when I demurred at hearing his confession without authority from
his father; but I don't like stolen fruit, and I'm not sure even now if
I was right in yielding on that point. I shouldn't have yielded if I
hadn't felt that Cyril might be hurt in the future by my scruples. Now
look here, Mark, you've got to see that I don't regret my surrender. If
that youth doesn't get from religion what I hope and pray he will get
. . . but let that point alone. My scruples are my own affair. Your
convictions are your own affair. But Cyril is our joint affair. He's
your convert, but he's my penitent; and Mark, don't overdecorate your
building until you're sure the foundations are well and truly laid."

Mark was never given an opportunity of proving the excellence of his
methods by the excellence of Cyril's life, because on the morning after
this conversation, which took place one wet Sunday evening in Advent he
was sent for by his uncle, who demanded to know the meaning of This.
This was a letter from the Reverend Eustace Pomeroy.

The Limes,

38, Cranborne Road,

Slowbridge.

December 9.

Dear Mr. Lidderdale,

My son Cyril will not attend school for the rest of this term.
Yesterday evening, being confined to the house by fever, I went up
to his bedroom to verify a reference in a book I had recently lent
him to assist his divinity studies under you. When I took down the
book from the shelf I noticed several books hidden away behind, and
my curiosity being aroused I examined them, in case they should be
works of an unpleasant nature. To my horror and disgust, I found
that they were all works of an extremely Popish character, most of
them belonging to a clergyman in this neighbourhood called Ogilvie,
whose illegal practices have for several years been a scandal to
this diocese. These I am sending to the Bishop that he may see with
his own eyes the kind of propaganda that is going on. Two of the
books, inscribed Mark Lidderdale, are evidently the property of
your nephew to whom I suppose my son is indebted for this wholesale
corruption. On questioning my son I found him already so sunk in
the mire of the pernicious doctrines he has imbibed that he
actually defied his own father. I thrashed him severely in spite of
my fever, and he is now under lock and key in his bedroom where he
will remain until he sail