"I understand that I have no right to cross-question a man on his
share in a document which six or eight others have signed.
Shall it be further understood"--he looked up with a quick smile of
goodness, whereat Brother Copas felt ashamed--"that I sent for you as
a friend, and that you may speak frankly, if you will so honour me,
without fear of my remembering a word to your inconvenience?"

"And since you so honour me, Master," said Brother Copas, "I am ready
to answer all you ask."

"Well, then, I have read with particular interest, what you have to
say here about the practice of Confession. (This, by the way, is a
typed copy, with which the Bishop has been kind enough to supply me.)
You have, I assume, no belief in it or in the efficacy of the
Absolution that follows it."

The Master, searching for a paragraph, did not perceive that Brother
Copas flushed slightly.

"And," he continued, as he found the passage and laid his finger on
it, "although you set out your arguments with point--with fairness,
too, let me add--I am perhaps not very far wrong in guessing that you
have for Confession an instinctive dislike which to your own mind
means more than any argument you use."

The Master looked up with a smile; but by this time Brother Copas's
flush had faded.

"You may say that, Master, of the whole document. I am an old man--
far too old to have my beliefs and disbeliefs quickened by argument.
They have long since hardened into prejudices; and, speaking
generally, I have a prejudice against this setting of old men by the
ears with a lot of Neo-Catholic stuff which irritates half of us
while all are equally past being provoked to any vital good."

The Master sighed, for he understood.

"I, too, am old," he answered, "older even than you; and as death
draws nearer I incline with you, to believe that the fewer our words
on these questions that separate us the better. (There's a fine
passage to that effect in one of Jowett's Introductions, you may
remember--the _Phaedo_, I think.) Least said is soonest mended, and
good men are too honest to go out of the world professing more than
they know. Since we are opening our minds a little beyond our wont,
let me tell you exactly what is my own prejudice, as you would call
it. To me Confession has been a matter of happy experience--I am
speaking now of younger days, at Cuddesdon--"

"Ah!" breathed Copas.

"And the desire to offer to others what has been a great ble