of his own
temperament, or he had reacted obviously and filled in Chasters' gaps
and pauses. Chasters could beat a road to the Holy of Holies, and shy
at entering it. But in spite of all the man's roughness, in spite of a
curious flavour of baseness and malice about him, the spirit of truth
had spoken through him. God has a use for harsh ministers. In one man
God lights the heart, in another the reason becomes a consuming fire.
God takes his own where he finds it. He does not limit himself to nice
people. In these matters of evidence and argument, in his contempt for
amiable, demoralizing compromise, Chasters served God as Scrope could
never hope to serve him. Scrope's new faith had perhaps been altogether
impossible if the Chasters controversy had not ploughed his mind.

For a time Scrope dwelt upon this remarkable realization. Then as
he turned over the pages his eyes rested on a passage of uncivil and
ungenerous sarcasm. Against old Likeman of all people!...

What did a girl like Clementina make of all this? How had she got the
book? From Eleanor? The stuff had not hurt Eleanor. Eleanor had been
able to take the good that Chasters taught, and reject the evil of his
spirit....

He thought of Eleanor, gallantly working out her own salvation. The
world was moving fast to a phase of great freedom--for the young and the
bold.... He liked that boy....

His thoughts came back with a start to his wife. The evening was
slipping by and he had momentous things to say to her. He went and just
opened the door.

"Ella!" he said.

"Did you want me?"

"Presently."

She put a liberal interpretation upon that "presently," so that after
what seemed to him a long interval he had to call again, "Ella!"

"Just a minute," she answered.

(15)

Lady Ella was still, so to speak, a little in the other room when she
came to him.

"Shut that door, please," he said, and felt the request had just that
flavour of portentousness he wished to avoid.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I wanted to talk to you--about some things. I've done something rather
serious to-day. I've made an important decision."

Her face became anxious. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"You see," he said, leaning upon the mantelshelf and looking down at the
gas flames, "I've never thought that we should all have to live in this
crowded house for long."

"All!" she interrupted in a voice that made him look up sharply. "You're
not going away, Ted?"

"Oh, no