“I have not been conducting the services, but I resume them next Sunday,” said the rector.  “I ought to tell you,” he went on, regarding her, “in view of the conversation we have had, that I have changed my mind concerning a great many things we have talked about—­although I have not spoken of this as yet to any of the members of the congregation.”

She was speechless, and could only stare at him blankly.

“I mean,” he continued, with a calmness that astonished her afterwards, “that I have changed my whole conception as to the functions and future of the Church, that I have come to your position, that we must make up our minds for ourselves, and not have them made up for us.  And that we must examine into the truth of all statements, and be governed accordingly.”

Her attitude was one of mingled admiration, concern, and awe.  And he saw that she had grasped something of the complications which his course was likely to bring about.

“But you are not going to leave us!” she managed to exclaim.

“Not if it is possible to remain,” he said, smiling.

“I am so glad.”  She was still overpowered by the disclosure.  “It is good of you to tell me.  Do you mind my telling Phil?”

“Not at all,” he assured her.

“Will you forgive me,” she asked, after a slight pause during which she had somewhat regained her composure, “if I say that I always thought, or rather hoped you would change? that your former beliefs seemed so—­unlike you?”

He continued to smile at her as she stepped forward to take the car.

“I’ll have to forgive you,” he answered, “because you were right—­”

She was still in such a state of excitement when she arrived down town that she went direct to her husband’s law office.

“I like this!” he exclaimed, as, unannounced, she opened the door of his sanctuary.  “You might have caught me with one of those good-looking clients of mine.”

“Oh, Phil!” she cried, “I’ve got such a piece of news, I couldn’t resist coming to tell you.  I met Mr. Hodder—­and he’s changed.”

“Changed!” Phil repeated, looking up at her flushed face beside him.  Instead of a law-book, he flung down a time table in which he had been investigating the trains to a quail shooting club in the southern part of the state:  The transition to Mr. Hodder was, therefore, somewhat abrupt.  “Why, Nell, to look at you, I thought it could be nothing else than my somewhat belated appointment to the United States Supreme Court.  How has Hodder changed?  I always thought him pretty decent.”

“Don’t laugh at me,” she begged, “it’s really serious—­and no one knows it yet.  He said I might tell you.  Do you remember that talk we had at father’s, when he first came, and we likened him to a modern Savonarola?”

“And George Bridges took the floor, and shocked mother and Lucy and Laureston,” supplied Phil.