And then, discontented still, as though the heart of the matter were still untouched, he went on, restlessly wandering the while, with his long arms linked behind him, 'throwing out' words at an object in his mind, trying to grasp and analyse that strange sense which haunts the student of Rome's decline as it once overshadowed the infancy of Europe, that sense of a slowly departing majesty, of a great presence just withdrawn, and still incalculably potent, traceable throughout in that humbling consciousness of Goth or[Pg 199] Frank that they were but 'beggars hutting in a palace—the place had harboured greater men than they!'

'There is one thing,' Langham said presently, in his slow nonchalant voice, when the tide of Robert's ardour ebbed for a moment, 'that doesn't seem to have touched you yet. But you will come to it. To my mind, it makes almost the chief interest of history. It is just this. History depends on testimony. What is the nature and the value of testimony at given times? In other words, did the man of the third century understand, or report, or interpret facts in the same way as the man of the sixteenth or the nineteenth? And if not, what are the differences, and what are the deductions to be made from them, if any?' He fixed his keen look on Robert, who was now lounging against the books, as though his harangue had taken it out of him a little.

'Ah, well,' said the rector, smiling, 'I am only just coming to that. As I told you, I am only now beginning to dig for myself. Till now it has all been work at second hand. I have been getting a general survey of the ground as quickly as I could with the help of other men's labours. Now I must go to work inch by inch, and find out what the ground is made of. I won't forget your point. It is enormously important, I grant—enormously,' he repeated reflectively.

'I should think it is,' said Langham to himself as he rose; 'the whole of orthodox Christianity is in it, for instance!'

There was not much more to be seen. A little wooden staircase led from the second library to the upper rooms, curious old rooms, which had been annexed one by one as the squire wanted them, and in which there was nothing at all—neither chair, nor table, nor carpet—but books only. All the doors leading from room