“You yourself told me when you wrote to me that Bishop Crawshay disapproved of much that was done at St. Agnes’.  It was you who put it into my head at the beginning of our correspondence that you were not asking me formally to open the new church, because you were doubtful of the effect your method of worship might have upon me.  I don’t wish for a moment to suggest that you were trying to bundle on one side the question of the licence, before I had had a moment to look round me in my new diocese, I say I do not think this for a moment; but inasmuch as the question has come before me officially, as sooner or later it must have come before me officially, I cannot allow my future action to be prejudiced by giving you liberties now that I may not be prepared to allow you later on.  Suppose that in three years’ time the question of consecrating the new St. Agnes’ arises and the legality of this third altar or Holy Table is questioned, how should I be able to turn round and forbid then what I have not forbidden now?”

“Your lordship prefers to force me to resign?”

“Force you to resign, Mr. Rowley?” the Bishop repeated in aggrieved accents.  “What can I possibly have said that could lead you to suppose for one moment that I was desirous of forcing you to resign?  I make allowance for your natural disappointment.  I make every allowance.  Otherwise Mr. Rowley I should be tempted to characterize such a statement as cruel.  As cruel, Mr. Rowley.”

“What other alternative have I?”

“I should have said, Mr. Rowley, that you have one other very obvious alternative, and that is to accept my ruling upon the subject of this third altar or Holy Table.  When I shall receive an assurance that you will do so, I shall with pleasure, with great pleasure, give you a new licence.”

“I could not possibly do that,” said the Missioner.  “I could not possibly go back to my people to-night and tell them this Holy Week that what I have been teaching them for ten years is a lie.  I would rather resign a thousand times.”

“That is a far more accurate statement than your previous assertion that I was forcing you to resign.”

“When will you have found a priest to take my place temporarily?” the Missioner asked in a chill voice.  “It is unlikely that the Silchester College authorities will find another missioner at once, and I think it rests with your lordship to find a locum tenens.  I do not wish to disappoint my people about the date of the opening of their new church.  They have been looking forward to this Easter for so long now.  Poor dears!”

Father Rowley sighed out the last ejaculation to himself, and his sigh ran through the Bishop’s opulent library like a dull wind.  Mark had a mad impulse to tell the Bishop the story of his father and the Lima Street Mission.  His father had resigned on Palm Sunday.  Oh, this ghastly dream. . . .  Father Rowley leave Chatsea!  It was unimaginable. . . .