ore him. He believed firmly that he had been shown God, that he had
himself stood in the presence of God, and that there had been a plain
call to him to proclaim God to the world. He had realized God, and it
was the task of every one who had realized God to help all mankind to
the same realization. The proposal of Lady Sunderbund had fallen in with
that idea. He had been steeling himself to a prospect of struggle and
dire poverty, but her prompt loyalty had come as an immense relief to
his anxiety for his wife and family. When he had talked to Eleanor
upon the beach at Hunstanton it had seemed to him that his course was
manifest, perhaps a little severe but by no means impossible. They had
sat together in the sunshine, exalted by a sense of fine adventure and
confident of success, they had looked out upon the future, upon
the great near future in which the idea of God was to inspire and
reconstruct the world.

It was only very slowly that this pristine clearness became clouded and
confused. It had not been so easy as Eleanor had supposed to win over
the sympathy of Lady Ella with his resignation. Indeed it had not been
won over. She had become a stern and chilling companion, mute now upon
the issue of his resignation, but manifestly resentful. He was secretly
disappointed and disconcerted by her tone. And the same hesitation of
the mind, instinctive rather than reasoned, that had prevented a frank
explanation of his earlier doubts to her, now restrained him from
telling her naturally and at once of the part that Lady Sunderbund was
to play in his future ministry. In his own mind he felt assured about
that part, but in order to excuse his delay in being frank with his
wife, he told himself that he was not as yet definitely committed to
Lady Sunderbund's project. And in accordance with that idea he set
up housekeeping in London upon a scale that implied a very complete
cessation of income. "As yet," he told Lady Ella, "we do not know where
we stand. For a time we must not so much house ourselves as camp. We
must take some quite small and modest house in some less expensive
district. If possible I would like to take it for a year, until we know
better how things are with us."

He reviewed a choice of London districts.

Lady Ella said her bitterest thing. "Does it matter where we hide our
heads?"

That wrung him to: "We are not hiding our heads."

She repented at once. "I am sorry, Ted," she said. "It slipped from
me.