“I hope I’m not disturbing you, Hodder,” he said.  “The janitor said you were in, and your door is open.”

“Not at all,” replied the rector, rising.  As he stood for a moment facing the lawyer, the thought of their friendship, and how it had begun in the little rectory overlooking the lake at Bremerton, was uppermost in his mind,—­yes, and the memory of many friendly, literary discussions in the same room where they now stood, of pleasant dinners at Langmaid’s house in the West End, when the two of them had often sat talking until late into the nights.

“I must seem very inhospitable,” said Hodder.  “I’ll light the lamp—­it’s pleasanter than the electric light.”

The added illumination at first revealed the lawyer in his familiar aspect, the broad shoulders, the big, reddish beard, the dome-like head, —­the generous person that seemed to radiate scholarly benignity, peace, and good-will.  But almost instantly the rector became aware of a new and troubled, puzzled glance from behind the round spectacles. . .”

“I thought I’d drop in a moment on my way up town—­” he began.  And the note of uncertainty in his voice, too, was new.  Hodder drew towards the fire the big chair in which it had been Langmaid’s wont to sit, and perhaps it was the sight of this operation that loosed the lawyer’s tongue.

“Confound it, Hodder!” he exclaimed, “I like you—­I always have liked you.  And you’ve got a hundred times the ability of the average clergyman.  Why in the world did you have to go and make all this trouble?”

By so characteristic a remark Hodder was both amused and moved.  It revealed so perfectly the point of view and predicament of the lawyer, and it was also an expression of an affection which the rector cordially, returned . . . .  Before answering, he placed his visitor in the chair, and the deliberation of the act was a revelation of the unconscious poise of the clergyman.  The spectacle of this self-command on the brink of such a crucial event as the vestry meeting had taken Langmaid aback more than he cared to show.  He had lost the old sense of comradeship, of easy equality; and he had the odd feeling of dealing with a new man, at once familiar and unfamiliar, who had somehow lifted himself out of the everyday element in which they heretofore had met.  The clergyman had contrived to step out of his, Langmaid’s, experience:  had actually set him—­who all his life had known no difficulty in dealing with men—­to groping for a medium of communication . . . .

Hodder sat down on the other side of the fireplace.  He, too, seemed to be striving for a common footing.

“It was a question of proclaiming the truth when at last I came to see it, Langmaid.  I could not help doing what I did.  Matters of policy, of a false consideration for individuals could not enter into it.  If this were not so, I should gladly admit that you had a just grievance, a peculiar right to demand why I had not remained the strictly orthodox person whom you induced to come here.  You had every reason to congratulate yourself that you were getting what you doubtless would call a safe man.”