pursued Chilvers.
    »Yes.«
    »Ha! I hope to see much of them. They are people after my own heart. Long
ago I had a slight acquaintance with them. I hear we shan't see them till the
summer.«
    »I believe not.«
    »Mr. Warricombe is a great geologist, I think? - Probably he frequents
public worship as a mere tribute to social opinion?«
    He asked the question in the airiest possible way, as if it mattered nothing
to him what the reply might be.
    »Mr. Warricombe is a man of sincere piety,« Godwin answered, with grave
countenance.
    »That by no means necessitates church-going, my dear Peak,« rejoined the
other, waving his hand.
    »You think not? I am still only a student, you must remember. My mind is in
suspense on not a few points.«
    »Of course! Of course! Pray let me give you the results of my own thought on
this subject.«
    He proceeded to do so, at some length. When he had rounded his last period,
he unexpectedly started up, swung on his toes, spread his chest, drew a deep
breath, and with the sweetest of smiles announced that he must postpone the
delight of further conversation.
    »You must come and dine with me as soon as my house is in reasonable order.
As yet, everything is sens dessus-dessous. Delightful old city, Exeter!
Charming! Charming!«
    And on the moment he was gone.
    What were this man's real opinions? He had brains and literature; his pose
before the world was not that of an ignorant charlatan. Vanity, no doubt, was
his prime motive, but did it operate to make a cleric of a secret materialist,
or to incite a display of excessive liberalism in one whose convictions were
orthodox? Godwin could not answer to his satisfaction, but he preferred the
latter surmise.
    One thing, however, became clear to him. All his conscientious scruples
about entering the Church were superfluous. Chilvers would have smiled pityingly
at anyone who disputed his right to live by the Establishment, and to stand up
as an authorised preacher of the national faith. And beyond a doubt he regulated
his degree of breadth by standards familiar to him in professional intercourse.
To him it seemed all-sufficient to preach a gospel of moral progress, of
intellectual growth, of universal fraternity. If this were the tendency of
Anglicanism, then almost any man who desired to live a cleanly life, and to see
others do the same