"I object to that," George interrupted. He suddenly saw that this was the one chance of his life of saying the right thing to the right person; and he determined to fight every step of the way with this cardinal before death claimed him. "I object to that," he repeated. "I neither disappeared nor hid myself in any way. There was no question of concealment whatever. I found myself most perfidiously deserted; and I went on my way alone, neither altering my habits, nor changing my appearance----" "There was no implication of that kind, Mr. Rose." "I am very glad to hear Your Eminency say so. But such things are said. They are the formulæ which spite or indolence or foolishness uses of a man whom it has not seen for a month. Sometimes they are detrimental. To me they are offensive; and I am not in a mood to tolerate them." The cardinal swallowed the cachet; and proceeded, "I first wrote to you at your publishers; and my letters were returned unopened, and marked _Refused_." "That was in accordance with my own explicit directions. A few years ago, the opportunity was given me of drawing a sharp line across my life----" "You mean----" "I allude to a series of libels which were directed against me in the newspapers, especially in Catholic newspapers--dirty Keltic wood-pulp----" "Precisely. But why was that an occasion for drawing what you call a sharp line across your life?" "Eminency," said George, calming down and setting out to be concise and categorical, "scores of people who had known me all my life must have seen that those attacks were libellous, and false. You yourself must have seen that." He stretched out a hand and opened and shut it, as though claws protruded from velvet and retired. "Yet only a single one out of all those scores came forward to assure me of friendship in that dreadful moment. All the rest spewed their bile or licked their lips in unctuous silence. I was left to bear the brunt alone, except for that one; and he was not a Catholic. Except from him, I had no sympathy and no comfort whatever. I don't know any case in all my reading, to say nothing of my experience, where a man had a better or a clearer or a more convincing test of the trueness and the falseness of his friends. Not to do any man an injustice, and that no one might call me rash or precipitate in my decision, I waited two years--two whole years. The Bishop of Caerleon came to me in this period of isolation; and one other Catholic, a man of my own trade. Later, that one betrayed me again, so I will say no more of him. Women, of course, I neglect. And the rest unanimously held aloof. Then I published a book; and I told my publishers to refuse all letters which might be addressed to them for me. The sharp line was drawn. I wanted no more fair-weather friends, afraid to stand by me in storms. If, after those two awful years, I had received overtures from my former acquaintances, I really think I should have fulminated at them St. Matthew xxv. 41-43----"