The idea of disinterested sacrifice
was so utterly foreign to the good man's own creed and practice,
that he could but see one pair of alternatives.

'Either he is a good man, or he's a hypocrite. Either he's right,
or he's gone over for some vile selfish end; and what can that be
but money?'

Lancelot gently hinted that there might be other selfish ends
besides pecuniary ones--saving one's soul, for instance.

'Why, if he wants to save his soul, he's right. What ought we all
to do, but try to save our souls? I tell you there's some sinister
reason. They've told him that they expect to convert England--I
should like to see them do it!--and that he'll be made a bishop.
Don't argue with me, or you'll drive me mad. I know those Jesuits!'

And as soon as he began upon the Jesuits, Lancelot prudently held
his tongue. The good man had worked himself up into a perfect
frenzy of terror and suspicion about them. He suspected concealed
Jesuits among his footmen and his housemaids; Jesuits in his
counting-house, Jesuits in his duns. . . .

'Hang it, sir! how do I know that there ain't a Jesuit listening to
us now behind the curtain?'

'I'll go and look,' quoth Lancelot, and suited the action to the
word.

'Well, if there ain't there might be. They're everywhere, I tell
you. That vicar of Whitford was a Jesuit. I was sure of it all
along; but the man seemed so pious; and certainly he did my poor
dear boy a deal of good. But he ruined you, you know. And I'm
convinced--no, don't contradict me; I tell you, I won't stand it--
I'm convinced that this whole mess of mine is a plot of those
rascals;--I'm as certain of it as if they'd told me!'

'For what end?'

'How the deuce can I tell? Am I a Jesuit, to understand their
sneaking, underhand--pah! I'm sick of life! Nothing but rogues
wherever one turns!'

And then Lancelot used to try to persuade him to take poor Luke back
again. But vague terror had steeled his heart.

'What! Why, he'd convert us all! He'd convert his sisters! He'd
bring his priests in here, or his nuns disguised as ladies' maids,
and we should all go over, every one of us, like a set of nine-
pins!'

'You seem to think Protestantism a rather shaky cause, if it is so
easy to be upset.'

'Sir! Protestantism is the cause of England and Christianity, and
civilisation, and freedom, and common sense, sir! and that's the
very reason why it's so easy to perver