“Inquest,” the Missioner supplied with a fierce smile.

The Bishop encouraged by the first sign of humour he had observed in the bigoted priest hastened to smile back.

“Well, let us call it an inquest, but not, I hope, I sincerely and devoutly hope, Mr. Lidderdale, not an inquest upon a dead body.”  Then hurriedly he went on.  “I may smile with the lips, but believe me, my dear fellow labourer in the vineyard of Our Lord Jesus Christ, believe me that my heart is sore at the prospect of your resignation.  And the Bishop of London, if I have to go back to him with such news, will be pained, bitterly grievously pained.  He admires your work, Mr. Lidderdale, as much as I do, and I have no doubt that if it were not for the unhappy controversies that are tearing asunder our National Church, I say I do not doubt that he would give you a free hand.  But how can he give you a free hand when his own hands are tied by the necessities of the situation?  May I venture to observe that some of you working priests are too ready to criticize men like myself who from no desire of our own have been called by God to occupy a loftier seat in the eyes of the world than many men infinitely more worthy.  But to return to the question immediately before us, let me, my dear Mr. Lidderdale, do let me make to you a personal appeal for moderation.  If you will only consent to abandon one or two—­I will not say excrescences since you object to the word—­but if you will only abandon one or two purely ceremonial additions that cannot possibly be defended by any rubric in the Book of Common Prayer, if you will only consent to do this the Bishop of London will, I can guarantee, permit you a discretionary latitude that he would scarcely be prepared to allow to any other priest in his diocese.  When I was called to be Bishop Suffragan of Devizes, Mr. Lidderdale, do you suppose that I did not give up something?  Do you suppose that I was anxious to abandon some of the riches to which by my reading of the Ornaments Rubric we are entitled?  But I felt that I could do something to help the position of my fellow priests struggling against the prejudice of ignorance and the prey of political moves.  In twenty years from now, Mr. Lidderdale, you will be glad you took my advice.  Ceremonies that to-day are the privilege of the few will then be the privilege of the many.  Do not forget that by what I might almost describe as the exorbitance of your demands you have gained more freedom than any other priest in England.  Be moderate.  Do not resign.  You will be inhibited in every diocese; you will have the millstone of an unpaid debt round your neck; you are a married man.”

“That has nothing . . .”  Lidderdale interrupted angrily.