‘I should never have imagined you a clergyman,’ he said, thoughtfully, ’but I can see that your mind has been developing powers in that direction.—­Well, so be it!  I can only hope you have found your true work in life.’

‘But you doubt it?’

’I can’t say that I doubt it, as I can’t understand you.  To be sure, we have been parted for many years.  In some respects I must seem much changed’—­

‘Greatly changed,’ Godwin put in, promptly.

‘Yes,’ pursued the other, correctively, ’but not in a way that would seem incredible to anyone whatever.  I am conscious of growth in tolerance, but my attitude in essentials is unchanged.  Thinking of you—­as I have often enough done—­I always kept the impression you made on me when we were both lads; you seemed most distinctly a modern mind—­one of the most modern that ever came under my notice.  Now, I don’t find it impossible to understand my father, when he reconciles science with religion; he was born sixty years ago.  But Godwin Peak as a—­a—­’

‘Parson,’ supplied Peak, drily.

’Yes, as a parson—­I shall have to meditate much before I grasp the notion.’

‘Perhaps you have dropped your philosophical studies?’ said Godwin, with a smile of courteous interest.

’I don’t know.  Metaphysics have no great interest for me, but I philosophise in a way.  I thought myself a student of human nature, at all events.’

’But you haven’t kept up with philosophical speculation on the points involved in orthodox religion?’

’I confess my ignorance of everything of the kind—­unless you include Bishop Blougram among the philosophers?’

Godwin bore the gaze which accompanied this significant inquiry.  For a moment he smiled, but there followed an expression of gravity touched with pain.

‘I hadn’t thought of broaching this matter,’ he said, with slow utterance, but still in a tone of perfect friendliness.  ’Let us put it aside.’

Warricombe seemed to make an effort, and his next words had the accent of well-bred consideration which distinguished his ordinary talk.

’Pray forgive my bad joke.  I merely meant that I have no right whatever to argue with anyone who has given serious attention to such things.  They are altogether beyond my sphere.  I was born an agnostic, and no subtlety of demonstration could incline me for a moment to theological views; my intellect refuses to admit a single preliminary of such arguments.  You astonish me, and that’s all I am justified in saying.’

’My dear Warricombe, you are justified in saying whatever your mind suggests.  That is one of the principles which I hold unaltered—­ let me be quite frank with you.  I should never have decided upon such a step as this, but for the fact that I have managed to put by a small sum of money which will make me independent for two or three years.  Till quite lately I hadn’t a thought of using my freedom in this way; it was clear to me that I