John Church had reached his difficult moment—the moment he had learned to dread. It lay in wait for him always at the end of unbaffled investigation, of hard-fast steering by principle, of determined preliminary action of every kind—the actual executive moment. Neither the impulse of his enthusiasm nor the force of his energy ever sufficed to carry him over it comfortably; rather, at this point, they ebbed back, leaving him stranded upon his responsibility, which invariably at once assumed the character of a quicksand. He was never defeated by himself at these junctures, but he hated them. He turned out from himself then, consciously seeking support and reinforcement, to which at other times he was indifferent; and it was in a crisis of desire for encouragement that he permitted himself to say to Lewis Ancram that God knew he believed the College Grants Notification was the right thing to do. He had asked Ancram to wait after the Council meeting was over very much for this purpose. “Yes, sir,” the Chief Secretary replied; “if I may be permitted to say so, it is the most conscientious piece of legislation of recent years.” The Lieutenant-Governor looked anxiously at Ancram from under his bushy eyebrows, and then back again at the Notification. It lay in broad margined paragraphs of beautiful round baboo’s handwriting, covering a dozen pages of foolscap, before him on the table. It waited only for his ultimate decision to go to the Government Printing Office and appear in the _Gazette_ and be law to Bengal. Already he had approved each separate paragraph. His Chief Secretary had never turned out a better piece of work. “To say precisely what is in my mind, Ancram,” Church returned, beginning to pace the empty chamber, “I have sometimes thought that you were not wholly with me in this matter.” “I will not disguise from you, sir”—Ancram spoke with candid emphasis—“that I think it’s a risky thing to do, a—deuced risky thing.” His Honour was known to dislike strong language. “But as to the principle involved there can be no two opinions.” His Honour’s gaunt shadow passed and repassed against the oblong patch of westering February sunlight that lightened the opposite wall before he replied. “I am prepared for an outcry,” he said slowly at last. “I think I can honestly say that I am concerned only with the principle—with the possible harm, and the probable good.”