'Then the narrative of the creation of man; that's not at all incompatible with his slow development through ages. To teach the scientific fact--if we yet really know it--would have been worse than useless. The story is meant to express that spirit, and not matter, is the source of all existence. Indeed, our knowledge of the true meaning of the Bible has increased with the growth of science, and naturally that must have been intended from the first. Things which do not concern man's relation to the spiritual have no place in this book; they are not within its province. Such things were discoverable by human reason, and the knowledge which achieves has nothing to do with a divine revelation.' To Godwin it was a grinding of the air, but the listener appeared to think it profitable. With his clerical friend, Mr. Lilywhite, he rarely touched on matters of religion. The vicar of St. Ethelreda's was a man well suited to support the social dignity of his Church. A gentleman before everything, he seemed incapable of prying into the state of a parishioner's soul; you saw in him the official representative of a Divinity characterised by well-bred tolerance. He had written a pleasant little book on the by-ways of Devon and Cornwall, which brought about his intimacy with the Warricombe household. Peak liked him more the better he knew him, and in the course of the summer they had one or two long walks together, conversing exclusively of the things of earth. Mr. Lilywhite troubled himself little about evolution; he spoke of trees and plants, of birds and animals, in a loving spirit, like the old simple naturalists. Geology did not come within his sphere. 'I'm very sorry,' he said, 'that I could never care much for it. Don't think I'm afraid of it--not I! I feel the grandeur of its scope, just as I do in the case of astronomy; but I have never brought myself to study either science. A narrowness of mind, no doubt. I can't go into such remote times and regions. I love the sunlight and the green fields of this little corner of the world--too well, perhaps: yes, perhaps too well.' After one of these walks, he remarked to Mrs. Lilywhite: 'It's my impression that Mr. Peak has somehow been misled in his choice of a vocation. I don't think he'll do as a churchman.' 'Why not, Henry?' asked his wife, with gentle concern, for she still spoke of Peak's 'quiet moral force'. 'There's something too restless about him. I doubt whether he has really made up his mind on any subject whatever. Well, it's not easy to explain what I feel, but I don't think he will take Orders.' Calling at the vicarage one afternoon in September, Godwin found Mrs Lilywhite alone. She startled him by saying at once: 'An old acquaintance of yours was with us yesterday, Mr. Peak.' 'Who could that be, I wonder?' He smiled softly, controlling his impulse to show quite another expression. 'You remember Mr. Bruno Chilvers?' 'Oh, yes!'