So they went on, in the faint darkness, under the black branches and the grey sky. Mr. Bexley was not going to relinquish hope at the very outset; and he proceeded from point to point, adducing all the considerations which made it very much more advantageous to be orthodox than to be not orthodox. He might have persuaded a man who was hovering between the two states to go over to the bosom of the Church; but his entreaties, and representations, and arguments had little effect upon a man who was separated from him by the great chasm of a dawning era. "Perhaps I may lament my present negative, critical attitude," said Mr. Anerley, quite frankly, "but I prefer it to yours. The successive tides of faith which pass over the world leave little circling eddies, and I have been caught in one of these; I cannot tell in what direction the next great movement will be—I only know I shall not see it." The end of it was, just then, that Mr. Anerley begged of his neighbour and counsellor to go in-doors and have some supper with them. Mr. Bexley, a little disheartened, but still confident in his spiritual power to overcome, some time or other, the strong resistance of the unconverted man’s heart, agreed; and so they both went into the house and entered the dining-room, where the supper-table had just been prepared. Mrs. Anerley started up, with her face red as fire, when she saw her husband and the clergyman enter together; and this obvious departure from her usual self-possessed and easy manner at once struck Mr. Anerley as being very peculiar. Nay, the poor little woman, feeling herself very guilty—harbouring a secret notion that she had tried to entrap her generous and open-minded husband—was more than ordinarily attentive and courteous to him. She was far more civil, and obliging, and formal towards him than towards her stranger-guest; and she never by any chance lifted her eyes to his. Mr. Anerley saw it all, understood it all, and thought of it with an inward, pitying smile that was scarcely visible upon his lips. "There is a creature," he said to himself, "who might convert any man to anything, if she had the least logical chance on her side." He saw also, or perhaps feared, that this embarrassment and restraint would only make her uncomfortable for the evening; and so, in his kindly way, he called Dove to him. The young girl went over to him, and he put his arm round her waist, and said: "Do you see that small woman over there, who looks so guilty? She is guilty; and that gentleman there, whom you have been accustomed to regard as the very pattern of all the virtues in the parish, is her accomplice." Mrs. Anerley started again, and glanced in a nervous way towards Mr. Bexley. Even her desire for her husband’s salvation was lost in the inward vow that never, never again would she seek for aid out of the domestic circle.