“Yes—­that last terrible Gratcher can’t hurt me now.”

He frowned, with a sulky assumption of that dignity which he felt was demanded of him.

“I don’t understand you!”

Still the unseeing eyes played about him, yet she heard at last.

“But he will—­he will!” she cried exultingly, and her eyes were wet with an unexplained gladness.

CHAPTER XIX

A MERE BIT OF GOSSIP

The Ministers’ Meeting of the following Tuesday was pleasantly enlivened with gossip—­retained, of course, within seemly bounds.  There was absent the Reverend Dr. Linford, sometime rector of St. Antipas, said lately to have emerged from a state of spiritual chrysalis into a world made new with truths that were yet old.  It was concerning this circumstance that discreet expressions were oftenest heard during the function.

One brother declared that the Linfords were both extremists:  one with his absurdly radical disbelief in revealed religion; the other flying at last to the Mother Church for that authority which he professed not to find in his own.

Another asserted that in talking with Dr. Linford now, one brought away the notion that in renouncing his allegiance to the Episcopal faith he had gone to the extreme of renouncing marriage, in order that the Mother Church might become his only bride.  True, Linford said nothing at all like this;—­the idea was fleeting, filmy, traceable to no specific words of his.  Yet it left a track across the mind.  It seemed to be the very spirit of his speech upon the subject.  Certainly no other reason had been suggested for the regrettable, severance of this domestic tie.  Conjecture was futile and Mrs. Linford, secluded in her country home at Edom, had steadfastly refused, so said the public prints, to give any reason whatsoever.

His soup finished, the Reverend Mr. Whittaker unfolded the early edition of an evening paper to a page which bore an excellent likeness of Dr. Linford.

“I’ll read you some things from his letter,” he said, “though I’ll confess I don’t wholly approve his taste in giving it to the press.  However—­here’s one bit: 

“’When I was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church I dreamed of wielding an influence that would tend to harmonise the conflicting schools of churchmanship.  It seemed to me that my little life might be of value, as I comprehended the essentials of church citizenship.  I will not dwell upon my difficulties.  The present is no time to murmur.  Suffice it to say, I have long held, I have taught, nearly every Catholic doctrine not actually denied by the Anglican formularies; and I have accepted and revived in St. Antipas every Catholic practice not positively forbidden.

“But I have lately become convinced that the Anglican orders of the ministry are invalid.  I am persuaded that a priest ordained into the Episcopal Church cannot consecrate the elements of the Eucharist in a sacrificial sense.  Could I be less than true to my inner faith in a matter touching the sacred verity of the Real Presence—­the actual body and blood of our Saviour?