She looked out to sea in silence for awhile.

Then she turned to her father.  “And you think that His Kingdom will come—­perhaps in quite a little time—­perhaps in our lifetimes?  And that all these ridiculous or wicked little kings and emperors, and these political parties, and these policies and conspiracies, and this nationalist nonsense and all the patriotism and rowdyism, all the private profit-seeking and every baseness in life, all the things that it is so horrible and disgusting to be young among and powerless among, you think they will fade before him?”

The bishop pulled his faith together.

“They will fade before him—­but whether it will take a lifetime or a hundred lifetimes or a thousand lifetimes, my Norah—­”

He smiled and left his sentence unfinished, and she smiled back at him to show she understood.

And then he confessed further, because he did not want to seem merely sentimentally hopeful.

“When I was in the cathedral, Norah—­and just before that service, it seemed to me—­it was very real....  It seemed that perhaps the Kingdom of God is nearer than we suppose, that it needs but the faith and courage of a few, and it may be that we may even live to see the dawning of his kingdom, even—­who knows?—­the sunrise.  I am so full of faith and hope that I fear to be hopeful with you.  But whether it is near or far—­”

“We work for it,” said Eleanor.

Eleanor thought, eyes downcast for a little while, and then looked up.

“It is so wonderful to talk to you like this, Daddy.  In the old days, I didn’t dream—­Before I went to Newnham.  I misjudged you.  I thought Never mind what I thought.  It was silly.  But now I am so proud of you.  And so happy to be back with you, Daddy, and find that your religion is after all just the same religion that I have been wanting.”

CHAPTER THE NINTH — THE THIRD VISION

(1)

One afternoon in October, four months and more after that previous conversation, the card of Mr. Edward Scrope was brought up to Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey.  The name awakened no memories.  The doctor descended to discover a man so obviously in unaccustomed plain clothes that he had a momentary disagreeable idea that he was facing a detective.  Then he saw that this secular disguise draped the familiar form of his old friend, the former Bishop of Princhester.  Scrope was pale and a little untidy; he had already acquired something of the peculiar, slightly faded quality one finds in a don who has gone to Hampstead and fallen amongst advanced thinkers and got mixed up with the Fabian Society.  His anxious eyes and faintly propitiatory manner suggested an impending appeal.

Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey had the savoir-faire of a successful consultant; he prided himself on being all things to all men; but just for an instant he was at a loss what sort of thing he had to be here.  Then he adopted the genial, kindly, but by no means lavishly generous tone advisable in the case of a man who has suffered considerable social deterioration without being very seriously to blame.