Grail gazed at the fire; the earnest words wrought in him.

‘If that were possible!’ he murmured.

‘Tell me,’ the other resumed, quickly, ’how many of the serious people whom you know in Lambeth ever go to a place of worship?’

Gilbert turned his eyes inquiringly, suspiciously.  Was Egremont about to preach a pietistic revival?

‘I have very few acquaintances,’ he answered, ’but I know that religion has no hold upon intelligent working men in London.’

’That is the admission I wanted.  For good or for evil, it has passed; no one will ever restore it.  And yet it is a religious spirit that we must seek to revive.  Dogma will no longer help us.  Pure love of moral and intellectual beauty must take its place.’

Gilbert smiled at a thought which came to him.

‘The working man’s Bible,’ he said, ‘is his Sunday newspaper.’

’And what does he get out of it?  The newspaper is the very voice of all that is worst in our civilisation.  If ever there is in one column a pretence of higher teaching, it is made laughable by the base tendency of all the rest.  The newspaper has supplanted the book; every gross-minded scribbler who gets a square inch of space in the morning journal has a more respectful hearing than Shakespeare.  These writers are tradesmen, and with all their power they cry up the spirit of trade.  Till the influence of the newspaper declines—­the newspaper as we now know it—­our state will grow worse.

Grail was silent.  Egremont had worked himself to a fervour which showed itself in his unsteady hands and tremulous lips.

‘I had not meant to speak of this yet,’ he continued.  ’I hoped to surround myself with a few friends who would gradually get to know my views, and perhaps think they were worth something.  I have obeyed an impulse in opening my mind to you; I feel that you think with me.  Will you join me as a friend, and work on with me for the founding of such a society as I have described?’

‘I will, Mr. Egremont,’ was the clear-voiced answer.

Walter put forth his hand, and it was grasped firmly.  In this moment he was equal to his ambition, unwavering, exalted, the pure idealist.  Grail, too, forgot his private troubles, and tasted the strong air of the heights which it is granted us so seldom and for so brief a season to tread.  There was almost colour in his cheeks, and his deep-set eyes had a light as of dawn.

‘We have much yet to talk of,’ said Egremont, as he rose, ’but it gets late and I mustn’t keep you longer.  Will you come here some evening when there is no lecture and let us turn over our ideas together?  I shall begin at once to think of the library.  It will make a centre for us, won’t it?  And remember Ackroyd.  You are intimate with him?’

‘We think very differently of many things,’ said Grail, ’but I like him.  We work together.’

’We mustn’t lose him.  He has the bright look of a man who could do much if he were really moved.  Persuade him to come and see me on Sunday night.’