After introducing Enid to the sorrow-stricken family, Vane took his leave of her to go about his work. He met the pony-cart coming up the hill, and told the footman to wait for his mistress outside the farmhouse. Then he went on to the other hamlet, doing his work just as well and conscientiously as ever, and yet all the while thinking many thoughts which had very little connection with it.

He got back to the Retreat just in time for supper, and when the meal was over he asked Father Philip for the favour of half an hour’s conversation. The request was, of course, immediately granted, and as soon as he was alone with the old man, who was wise alike in the things of the world and in those of the spirit, he told him, not as penitent to confessor, but rather as pupil to teacher, the whole story of his meeting and conversation with Enid, not omitting the slightest detail that his memory held, from the first thrill of emotion that he had experienced on seeing her to the last word he had spoken to her on leaving the farmhouse.

Father Philip was silent for some time after he had finished his story, then, leaning back in his deep armchair, he looked at Vane, who was still walking slowly up and down the little room, and said in a quiet, matter-of-fact voice:

“I’m very glad, Maxwell, that you’ve told me this. As I have told you before, I have listened to a good many life-histories in this room, but I must admit that yours is one of the strangest and most difficult of them. The fact of Miss Raleigh having married the son of the lord of the manor here, and having come down while you are here, naturally makes it more difficult still. But then, you know, my dear fellow, the greater the difficulty and the danger of the strife the greater the honour and the reward of victory.

“For my own part I think that your meeting with her in the road down yonder, if not ordered by Providence, may, with all reverence, be called providential. Those emotions which you experienced on first seeing her, and for which you were inclined to reproach yourself, were after all perfectly human, and therefore natural and pardonable. I needn’t tell you now that I entirely disagree with those who consider that a man should cease to be a man when he becomes a clergyman. You are young, and you are made of flesh and blood. You were once very much in love with this young lady” there was a slight, almost imperceptible emphasis upon the “once” which somehow made Vane wince “you might have married her, but you forewent that happiness in obedience to a conviction which would have done honour to the best of us. You would have been either more or less than human if your heart had not beaten a little harder and your blood had not flowed a little faster when you met her unexpectedly like that in a country road.

“But,” he went on, sitting up in his chair and speaking with a little more emphasis, “the very fact that you so quickly discovered such a decided change in her, and that that change, moreover, struck you as being one for the worse, is to my mind a distinct proof that your paths in life have already diverged very widely.”

“And yet, Father Philip,” said Vane, as the old man paused and looked up at him, “you can hardly say, surely, that it was a good thing for me to discover that change. I can tell you honestly that it was a very sad one for me.”

“Possibly,” said Father Philip, “and, without intending the slightest disrespect to Mrs. Garthorne, I still say that it was a good thing for you to discover it.”

“But why, Father Philip? How can it be a good thing for a man to discover a change for the worse in a woman whom he has grown up with from boy and girl, whom he has loved, and who has been to him the ideal of all that was good and lovable on earth?”

“My dear Maxwell, what you have just said convinces me that you have learnt or are in course of learning one of the most valuable lessons that experience can teach you. Remember that a man can only see with his own eyes, that he can only judge from his own perceptions. I do not agree with you in thinking that the Mrs. Garthorne of the present differs so greatly from the Miss Raleigh of the past. Different in a certain degree, of course, she must be. She was a girl then, living under the protection of her father’s roof. She is a wife now, with a home of her own, with new cares, new responsibilities, new prospects. In fact, the whole world has changed for her, and therefore it would be very strange if she had not changed too. But that was not the change you saw. I would rather believe that that was in yourself, that you are a different man, not that she is a different woman.”

“I think I see what you mean,” said Vane, seating himself on the edge of an old oak table in the middle of the room. “You mean that while she has remained the same or nearly so my point of view has altered. I see her in a different perspective, and through a different atmosphere.”

“Exactly,” replied Father Philip. “It is both more reasonable and more charitable to believe that you have changed for the better, and not she for the worse.”

“God grant that it may be so,” said Vane, slipping off the table and beginning his walk again. “If it is so, then at least my work has not been without some result, and some of my prayers have been granted. But now, Father Philip, I want your advice. What shall I do? Shall I stay here and meet her just as an old friend? Shall I accept her invitation over to the Abbey? Shall I bring her here and introduce her to you, so that you may tell her what she can do for our people? Shall I trust myself to this sort of intercourse with her, or, as my time here is nearly up, shall I go away?”

“As for trusting yourself, Maxwell,” said Father Philip slowly, “that is a question I cannot answer. You must ask that of your own soul, and I will pray and you must pray that it shall answer you with an honest ‘Yes.’ I don’t believe that the answer will be anything else. But if it is, then by all means go, go to the first work that your hand finds to do. Go and join your friend Ernshaw in his mission under Southey. But if it is ‘Yes,’ as I hope and believe it will be, then stop until it is time for you to take your priest’s orders. Visit the Abbey, bring Mrs. Garthorne here, interest her in the good work that you have already, I hope, made her begin by taking her to the Clellens. Prove to her and her husband, and, most important of all, to yourself, that you did not take that resolve of yours lightly or in vain, that, in short, you are one of those who can, as Tennyson says, ’rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things.’

“That, Maxwell, is the best advice I can give you. When you go to your room you will, of course, ask for guidance from the Source which cannot err, and I will add my prayers to yours that it may be given you.”

The next day a mounted footman brought a note from Garthorne to Vane saying that his wife had told him of her meeting with him, and also expressing his pleasure at finding that he was in the neighbourhood, and asking him to come over to dine and sleep at the Abbey the next evening. If that evening would suit him he had only to tell the messenger, and a dog-cart would be sent for him, as the distance by road over the Bewdley Bridge was considerably over seven miles.

He had been awake nearly all night. In fact, he had spent the greater part of it on his knees questioning his own soul and seeking that advice which Father Philip had advised him to seek, and when the early morning service in the little chapel was over he honestly believed that he had found it. He went back into his room, after telling the man to put his horse in the stable, and go to what was stilled called the buttery and get a glass of beer, and wrote a note thanking Garthorne for his invitation, and accepting it for the following night.

If Vane had been told a couple of years before that he would visit Enid and her husband as an ordinary guest, that he would sit opposite to her at table and hear her address another man as “dear” in the commonplace of marital conversation, that he would see her exchange with another man those little half-endearments which are not the least of the charms of the first few married years, and that he would be able to look upon all this at least with grave eyes and unmoved features, he would simply have laughed at the idea as something too ridiculous ever to come within the bounds of possibility.

Yet, to the outward view, that was exactly what happened during his stay at Garthorne Abbey. He seemed to see Enid through some impalpable and yet impenetrable medium. He could see her as he always had seen her; but to touch her, to put his hand upon her, even to dream of one of those caresses which such a short time ago had been as common as hand-shakes between them, was every whit as impossible as the present condition of things would have seemed to him then.

There were a few other people to dinner. None of them knew anything of his previous relationship to Enid, and their presence naturally, and perhaps fortunately, kept the conversation away from the things of the past; but the Fates had put him in full view of Enid at the table, and, do what he would, he could not keep his eyes from straying back again and again to that perfect and once well-beloved face, any more than he could keep his ears from listening to that voice which had once been the sweetest of music for him, rather than to the general conversation in which it was his social duty to take a part.

It was a sore trial to the fortitude and self-control of a man who had loved as long and as dearly as he had done, but the strength which his long vigils away among the hills had given him did not desert him, and he came through it outwardly calm and triumphant, however deeply the iron was entering into his soul the while. It was one of those occasions on which such a man as he would take refuge from spiritual torment in intellectual activity, and neither Enid nor her husband had ever heard him talk so brilliantly and withal so lightly and good-humouredly as he did that night.

One of the guests was the vicar of Bedminster; and a Canon of Worcester, an old friend of Sir Reginald’s, happened to be staying in the house. They were both High Churchmen, the Canon perhaps a trifle “higher” than the Vicar, and they were both delighted with him. The Canon remembered his ordination at Worcester, and during the conversation, which had now turned upon the relationship between the Church and the People, he said:

“Well, Maxwell, I will say frankly if you can preach as well as you can talk, and if your doctrine is as sound as your opinion on things in general seems to be, the Church will be none the poorer when you are priested. I think I shall ask the Bishop to let you preach the Sunday after you take full orders. I suppose your Father Superior up there would let you come, wouldn’t he?

“A grand man, that Father Philip, by the way,” he went on, looking round the table. “In his quiet, unostentatious way, in his little room up there in the old house of Our Lady of Rest, as they used to call it, he has done more real work for the Church than, I am afraid, a good many of us have done with all our preaching in churches and cathedrals.”

“That,” said Enid, “would be altogether delightful. Of course, we should all come and hear your Reverence,” she went on, with a half ironical nod towards Vane. “You know, Canon, Mr. Maxwell and I are quite old friends. In fact, we came home from India as children in the same ship, didn’t we, Reggie?” she added, with another laughing nod, this time at her husband, “and I am sure your Reverence would have no more interested listener than I should be.”

“It is quite possible, Mrs. Garthorne,” Vane replied in something like the same tone, “that you might be more interested than pleased.”

“Indeed,” said Enid, “and may I ask why?”

There was an immediate silence round the table, everybody wondering what his answer would be.

“Because,” he replied, with a change of tone so swift as to be almost startling, “as soon as I take full Orders, it is my purpose, with God’s help and under Father Philip’s advice, to become a missionary, not a missionary to the heathen, as we are pleased to call them, or to the infinitely more degraded heathen of our own country, but to such people as you, you who are really living in sin without knowing it. Has it ever struck you, Canon, how great a work the Church has left undone in what are called the upper ranks of Society? You know the vast majority of them really and honestly believe themselves to be good Christians, and yet, as far as practical obedience to the teaching of Christ goes, they are no more Christians than an unconverted Hottentot is.”

“Oh er ah yes,” replied the Canon rather awkwardly, and in the midst of a long silence. “Of course, I quite understand you and er by the way, do you intend to apply for any preferment?”

“I shall get a curacy with Ernshaw if I can in the East End to begin with, or, perhaps, with Father Baldwin in Kensington,” said Vane, unable, like Enid and her husband and one or two others, to repress a faint smile at the Canon’s not very skilful change of subject. “But I shall not attempt to get a living or anything of that sort. You see, I have some private means, and so I shall be in the happy position of being able to do my work without pay. Besides, while there is such an amount of poverty in the lower ranks of the Church, I think it is little less than sinful for a man who can live without it to take a stipend which, at least, might be bread and butter to a man who has nothing.”

There was a rather awkward pause after this speech, as everyone at the table save Vane knew perfectly well that both the Vicar and the Canon had considerable private means in addition to the substantial stipends they drew from their clerical offices. At length Enid looked across at her husband with a wicked twinkle in her eye, and put an end to the situation by rising. As soon as the ladies were gone, Garthorne sent the wine round and adroitly turned the conversation back again to general subjects. When they went into the drawing-room, a discussion on the prospects of the season was in full swing, and from motives of prudence, this, varied with a little music and singing, was kept up till the ladies retired for the night.

When Enid shook hands with Vane they happened to be out of earshot of the others, and as she returned his clasp with the same old frank pressure, she said in a low tone:

“You were splendid to-night, Vane, and you will be more splendid still in the pulpit, only they’ll never let you preach in the Cathedral after that. Well, good-night. After all, I was wrong and you were right. You have chosen the better part. God bless you and be with you, Vane. Good-night!”

As their eyes met he fancied that he saw a faint mist in hers. Then her long lashes fell; she turned her head away and the next moment she was gone.

When the good-nights had been said, Garthorne took his male guests into the smoking-room for whisky and soda and cigars. Vane laughingly declined, and asked permission to light a pipe.

“No, thanks,” he said, with perfect good temper, although the offer was not in the best of taste. “I’ve not forgotten the last brandy and soda I had with you at Oxford.”

When bed-time came, Garthorne took Vane up to his room. As his host said “good-night,” Vane followed him to the door and watched him as he went along the panelled corridor and down the great staircase to next floor, on which the Bride-chamber of the Abbey was situated. Then he went in and locked his door.

He sat down in an easy chair in the corner of the room and covered his face with his hands. After all, had he done the right thing in accepting Garthorne’s invitation? Had he not over-estimated his strength? As he sat there, he felt that he had thrown himself unnecessarily into a life and death conflict. He encountered temptations every day of his life, although to the ordinary individual it might seem that the life which he and his companions led must be singularly devoid of temptation, yet here he was confronted with a trial which he could have avoided. Ought he to have avoided it?

Then there came to his mind the remembrance of a passage in one of the sermons which Father Philip had once preached to the little community in the Retreat. The words seemed particularly appropriate to Vane at the time, and he made a note of them in a little memorandum book which he always carried with him for the purpose of writing down any sentences which he heard or read which might strengthen him in the life which he had chosen for himself. He took the book from his pocket and read:

“The ideal life is never one of rigid asceticism any more than it is one of voluptuous self-indulgence; it is an equilibrium of forces, a vital harmony, a constant symphony, in the performance of which all capabilities in all phases of expression are called into vital but never into hysterical activity. The true peace is so heroic that it only follows crucifixion of all that was once regarded as essential to human happiness.”

He sat for a moment after he had read and re-read this passage. Then he went to the mirror over the mantel-piece, and drew back shocked and terrified at the sudden change which had come over his features. They reminded him strongly of the features he had seen in the glass that other night in Warwick Gardens. Then he turned away and threw himself on his knees by the bed and groaned aloud in the bitterness of his soul:

“Oh, God! it is too heavy for me! Not by my strength but by Thine alone can I bear it.”

It was the only prayer he uttered. In fact, they were the only words he could speak; but when he rose from the bedside he felt relieved, so far relieved that he took from his pocket a well-worn copy of Thomas a Kempis’s “Imitation,” and sat and read until almost daybreak.