 heard all at
once that he was gone, and that we should see no more of him. Where is he? What
is he doing?«
    There was a barely appreciable delay before Mrs. Warricombe made answer.
    »We have quite lost sight of him,« she said, with an artificial smile. »We
know only that he was called away on some urgent business - family affairs, I
suppose.«
    Chilvers, in the most natural way, glanced from the speaker to Sidwell, and
instantly, without the slightest change of expression, brought his eyes back
again.
    »I hope most earnestly,« he went on, in his fluty tone, »that he will
return. A most interesting man! A man of large intellectual scope, and really
broad sympathies. I looked forward to many a chat with him. Has he, I wonder,
been led to change his views? Possibly he would find a secular sphere more
adapted to his special powers.«
    Mrs. Warricombe had nothing to say. Sidwell, finding that Mr. Chilvers'
smile now beamed in her direction, replied to him with steady utterance:
    »It isn't uncommon, I think, nowadays, for doubts to interfere with the
course of study for ordination?«
    »Far from uncommon!« exclaimed the Rector of St. Margaret's, with almost
joyous admission of the fact. »Very far from uncommon. Such students have my
profound sympathy. I know from experience exactly what it means to be overcome
in a struggle with the modern spirit. Happily for myself, I was enabled to
recover what for a time I lost. But charity forbid that I should judge those who
think they must needs voyage for ever in sunless gulfs of doubt, or even
absolutely deny that the human intellect can be enlightened from above.«
    At a loss even to follow this rhetoric, Mrs. Warricombe, who was delighted
to welcome the Rev. Bruno, and regarded him as a gleaming pillar of the Church,
made haste to introduce a safer topic. After that, Mr. Chilvers was seen at the
house with some frequency. Not that he paid more attention to the Warricombes
than to his other acquaintances. Relieved by his curate from the uncongenial
burden of mere parish affairs, he seemed to regard himself as an apostle at
large, whose mission directed him to the households of well-to-do people
throughout the city. His brother clergymen held him in slight esteem. In private
talk with Martin Warricombe, Mr. Lilywhite did not hesitate to call him a
mountebank, and to add other depreciatory
