hem, there was silence in the
room. Canon Beecher rose from his knees and stood watching him, his lips
moving with unspoken supplication. At last Hyacinth also rose and stood,
calm suddenly.

'You have conquered me,' he said.

'My son, my son, this is joy indeed! All along I knew He could not fail
you. But I have not conquered you. The Lord Jesus has saved you.'

'I do not know,' said Hyacinth slowly, 'whether I have been saved or
lost. I am not sure even now that I know the good side from the bad.
But I do know that I cannot live without the hope of being loved by Him.
Whether it is the better part to which I resign myself I cannot tell.
No doubt He knows. As for me, if I have been forced to make a great
betrayal, if I am to live hereafter very basely--and I think I am--at
least I have not cut myself off from the opportunity of loving Him.'

CHAPTER XXI

Canon Beecher took no notice of Hyacinth's last speech. He had returned
with amazing swiftness and ease from the region of high emotion to the
commonplace. Excursions to the shining peaks of mystical experience are
for most men so rare that the glory leaves them with dazzled eyes, and
they walk stumblingly for a while along the dull roads of the world.
But Canon Beecher, in the course of his pleading with Hyacinth, had been
only in places very well known to him. The presence chamber of the King
was to him also the room of a familiar friend. It was no breathless
descent from the green hill of the cross to the thoroughfare of common
life.

'Now, my dear boy,' he said, 'we really must go and talk to my wife and
Marion. Besides, I must tell you the plan I have made for you--the plan
I was just going to speak about when you put it out of my head with the
news of your love-making.'

For Hyacinth a great effort was necessary before he could get back to
his normal state. His hands were trembling violently. His forehead and
hair were damp with sweat. His whole body was intensely cold. His mind
was confused, and he listened to what was said to him with only the
vaguest apprehension of its meaning. The Canon laid a firm hand upon
his arm, and led him away from the study. In the passage he stopped, and
asked Hyacinth to go back and blow out the candle which still burned on
the study table.

'And just put some turf on the fire,' he added; 'I don't want it to go
out.'

The pause enabled Hyacinth to regain his self-command, and the
performance of the perfectly ordin