ning warm, Master
Blanchminster sat huddled in his armchair before a bright fire.
A table stood at his elbow, with some books upon it, his untasted
glass of wine, and half a dozen letters--his evening's post.
But the Master leaned forward, spreading his delicate fingers to the
warmth and, between them, gazing into the core of the blaze.

The butler ushered in Brother Copas and withdrew, after a glance at
the lights. Two wax candles burned upon the writing-table in the
oriel, and on the side-table an electric lamp shaded with green silk
faintly silhouetted the Master's features. Brother Copas, standing a
little within the doorway, remarked to himself that the old gentleman
had aged of late.

"Ah, Brother Copas? Yes, I sent for you," said the Master, rousing
himself as if from a brown study. "Be seated, please."

He pointed to a chair on the opposite side of the hearth; and Brother
Copas, seating himself with a bow, spread the worn skirt of his
Beauchamp robe, and arranged its folds over his knees. The firelight
sparkled upon the Beauchamp rose on his breast, and seemed to hold
the Master's eye as he looked up after a pause.

"You guess, no doubt, why I sent for you?"

Brother Copas inclined his head.

"It concerns the Petition which Brother Warboise presented to the
Bishop last Monday. I am not complaining just now of his fashion of
procedure, which I may hazard was not of your suggesting."

"It was not, Master. I may say so much, having warned him that I
should say it if questioned."

"Yet you wrote out and signed the Petition, and, if I may hazard
again, composed it?"

"I did."

"I have," said Master Blanchminster, studying the back of his hands
as he held his palms to the fire, "no right to force any man's
conscience. But it seemed to me, if I may say so, that while all
were forcibly put, certain of your arguments ignored--or, let me
rather say, passed over--points which must have occurred to a man of
your learning. Am I mistaken?"

"You understand, Master," said Brother Copas, slightly embarrassed,
and slightly the more embarrassed because the Master, after asking
the question, seemed inclined to relapse into his own thoughts,
"the Petition was not mine only. I had to compose it for all the
signatories; and that, in any public business, involves striking a
mean."

"I understand even more," said the Master, rousing himself, and
reaching for a copy of the Petition, which lay among his papers.