At last the banker rang, sharply, the bell on his desk.  A secretary entered, to whom he dictated a telegram which contained these words:  “Langmaid has discovered a way out.”  It was to be sent to an address in Texas.  Then he turned in his chair and crossed his knees, his hand fondling an ivory paper-cutter.  He smiled a little.

“Well, Mr. Hodder,” he said.

The rector, intensely on his guard, merely inclined his head in recognition that his turn had come.

“I was sorry,” the banker continued, after a perceptible pause,—­that you could not see your way clear to have come with me on the cruise.”

“I must thank you again,” Hodder answered, “but I felt—­as I wrote you —­that certain matters made it impossible for me to go.”

“I suppose you had your reasons, but I think you would have enjoyed the trip.  I had a good, seaworthy boat—­I chartered her from Mr. Lieber, the president of the Continental Zinc, you know.  I went as far as Labrador.  A wonderful coast, Mr. Hodder.”

“It must be,” agreed the rector.  It was clear that Mr. Parr intended to throw upon him the onus of the first move.  There was a silence, brief, indeed, but long enough for Hodder to feel more and more distinctly the granite hardness which the other had become, to experience a rising, reenforcing anger.  He went forward, steadily but resolutely, on the crest of it.  “I have remained in the city,” he continued, “and I have had the opportunity to discover certain facts of which I have hitherto been ignorant, and which, in my opinion, profoundly affect the welfare of the church.  It is of these I wished to speak to you.”

Mr. Parr waited.

“It is not much of an exaggeration to say that ever since I came here I have been aware that St. John’s, considering the long standing of the parish, the situation of the church in a thickly populated district, is not fulfilling its mission.  But I have failed until now to perceive the causes of that inefficiency.”

“Inefficiency?” The banker repeated the word.

“Inefficiency,” said Hodder.  “The reproach, the responsibility is largely mine, as the rector, the spiritual, head of the parish.  I believe I am right when I say that the reason for the decision, some twenty years ago, to leave the church where it is, instead of selling the property and building in the West End, was that it might minister to the poor in the neighbourhood, to bring religion and hope into their lives, and to exert its influence towards eradicating the vice and misery which surround it.”

“But I thought you had agreed,” said Mr. Parr, coldly, “that we were to provide for that in the new chapel and settlement house.”