“I am sorry, sir,” Hodder answered, “to have caused you any worry—­or inconvenience.”

“Perhaps,” said the bishop, “I have had too much smooth sailing for a servant of Christ.  Indeed, I have come to that conclusion.”

Hodder did not reply.  He was moved, even more by the bishop’s manner and voice than his words.  And the opening to their conversation was unexpected.  The old man put on his spectacles, and drew from the top of one of the bundles a letter.

“This is from one of your vestrymen, Mr. Gordon Atterbury,” he said, and proceeded to read it, slowly.  When he had finished he laid it down.

“Is that, according to your recollection, Mr. Hodder, a fairly accurate summary of the sermon you gave when you resumed the pulpit at the end of the summer?”

“Yes, sir,” answered the rector, “it is surprisingly accurate, with the exception of two or three inferences which I shall explain at the proper moment.”

“Mr. Atterbury is to be congratulated on his memory,” the bishop observed a little dryly.  “And he has saved me the trouble of reading more.  Now what are the inferences to which you object?”

Hodder stated them.  “The most serious one,” he added, “is that which he draws from my attitude on the virgin birth.  Mr. Atterbury insists, like others who cling to that dogma, that I have become what he vaguely calls an Unitarian.  He seems incapable of grasping my meaning, that the only true God the age knows, the world has ever known, is the God in Christ, is the Spirit in Christ, and is there not by any material proof, but because we recognize it spiritually.  And that doctrine and dogma, ancient speculations as to how, definitely, that spirit came to be in Christ, are fruitless and mischievous to-day.  Mr. Atterbury and others seem actually to resent my identification of our Lord’s Spirit with the social conscience as well as the individual conscience of our time.”

The bishop nodded.

“Hodder,” he demanded abruptly, leaning forward over his desk, “how did this thing happen?”

“You mean, sir—­”

There was, in the bishop’s voice, a note almost pathetic.  “Oh, I do not mean to ask you anything you may deem too personal.  And God forbid, as I look at you, as I have known you, that I should doubt your sincerity.  I am not your inquisitor, but your bishop and your friend, and I am asking for your confidence.  Six months ago you were, apparently, one of the most orthodox rectors in the diocese.  I recognize that you are not an impulsive, sensational man, and I am all the more anxious to learn from your own lips something of the influences, of the processes which have changed you, which have been strong enough to impel you to risk the position you have achieved.”

By this unlooked-for appeal Hodder was not only disarmed, but smitten with self-reproach at the thought of his former misjudgment and underestimation of the man in whose presence he sat.  And it came over him, not only the extent to which, formerly, he had regarded the bishop as too tolerant and easygoing, but the fact that he had arrived here today prepared to find in his superior anything but the attitude he was showing.  Considering the bishop’s age, Hodder had been ready for a lack of understanding of the step he had taken, even for querulous reproaches and rebuke.