zing at each other as from mountain peaks across impassable valleys.
With all the will in the world, their souls lost touch, though the sense
in the clergyman of the other's vague yearning for human companionship
was never absent. It was this yearning that attracted Hodder, who found
in it a deep pathos.

After one of these intervals of silence, Eldon Parr looked up from his
claret.

"I congratulate you, Hodder, on the stand you took in regard to
Constable's daughter," he said.

"I didn't suppose it was known," answered the rector, in surprise.

"Constable told me. I have reason to believe that he doesn't sympathize
with his wife in her attitude on this matter. It's pulled him down,
--you've noticed that he looks badly?"

"Yes," said the rector. He did not care to discuss the affair; he had
hoped it would not become known; and he shunned the congratulations of
Gordon Atterbury, which in such case would be inevitable. And in spite
of the conviction that he had done his duty, the memory of his talk with
Mrs. Constable never failed to make him, uncomfortable.

Exasperation crept into Mr. Pares voice.

"I can't think what's got into women in these times--at Mrs. Constable's
age they ought to know better. Nothing restrains them. They have
reached a point where they don't even respect the Church. And when that
happens, it is serious indeed. The Church is the governor on our social
engine, and it is supposed to impose a restraint upon the lawless."

Hodder could not refrain from smiling a little at the banker's
conception.

"Doesn't that reduce the Church somewhere to the level of the police
force?" he asked.

"Not at all," said Eldon Parr, whose feelings seemed to be rising.
"I am sorry for Constable. He feels the shame of this thing keenly,
and he ought to go away for a while to one of these quiet resorts.
I offered him my car. Sometimes I think that women have no morals.
At any rate, this modern notion of giving them their liberty is sheer
folly. Look what they have done with it! Instead of remaining at home,
where they belong, they are going out into the world and turning it
topsy-turvy. And if a man doesn't let them have a free hand, they get
a divorce and marry some idiot who will."

Mr. Parr pushed back his chair and rose abruptly, starting for the door.
The rector followed him, forcibly struck by the unusual bitterness in his
tone.

"If I have spoken strongly, it is because I feel strongly," he said in a