em of
theology had reared itself.

More than a little of this conflagration the professor realized. Also
he realized its potential danger. If the scaffolding began to go, what
then? Would the flames blaze up all the higher on the heap of fallen
ruins; or would the ice water which, in the Parson Wheelers, had taken
the place of good red blood, spurt from the veins of this, their
latter-day descendant, and quench the fires before they reached the
superstructure of his faith? The professor realized to the full,
moreover, his personal accountability in the matter. None the less, he
could never quite decide where the real right lay. Should he ignore the
possible loss to science or should he help on the probable loss to
theologic eloquence? He shook his head at the question. Like all true
scientists, he must hold himself impartial. Asked, however, he surely
had no moral right to withhold facts from a mature mind like that of
Scott Brenton. Facts he would give, and plainly, and without
modification or omission. There, though, he would stop. The inferences
which Brenton should draw out from them should be no concern of his.

And Scott Brenton who, from the start, had had a trick of drawing
inferences to suit himself, was all the better pleased on that account.

By degrees, then, the intimacy between the two men waxed strong. The
one imparted things; the other absorbed them greedily. As time went on,
there were few days in the week which did not find them together at
some hour and place or other: in the laboratory, in the rector's study
at the church, on the golf links, or scouring the hill and valley roads
that stretched out, a lovely network to enmesh the town.

One such walk had been scheduled for a day in April, a day when the
whole physical world is a fragrant commentary on the truths of
resurrection. The professor, it had been agreed, should call for
Brenton at two. At half-past two, he had not appeared; and Brenton,
loath to lose his half-day in the open, set out in search of him.

As a matter of course, the search began in the outer laboratory where,
in all probability, the professor had been hindered by a student
grappling either with conscience or a condition, perhaps, indeed, with
both combined. Such things had happened more than once in Brenton's
experience of the department. The fact that it was a girls' college,
though, made the earlier alternative more probable than was the later
one. Brenton smiled a little,