Although the Reverend Francis Attlebury was vowed in his soul to celibacy and had never so much as flirted since he took his degree at Oxford twenty-three years ago, he had more knowledge of the mind of woman than most married men pleasurably or painfully achieve. Women came to him with their troubles, their grievances, even sometimes their sins; it was no more his business to pooh-pooh the grievances than to extenuate the sins; one does not carry a cross the more cheerfully or, as a rule, any further, because a bystander assures one that it is in reality very light. He was a tall stout man--a grievance of his own was that he looked abominably well-fed in spite of constant self-denial--and possessed a face of native and invincible joviality. He was looking quite jovial now as he listened to Cyril Maxon, agreed that he had been shamefully used, and concluded in his own mind that if the negotiations were to be carried on in that spirit they might just as well not be initiated at all. The thing was not to prove how wrong she had been in going, but to get her back. She was more likely to come back, if it were conceded to her that she had at least a fair excuse for going. Would Cyril Maxon ever make such a concession--or let somebody make it for him? The two men were old and intimate friends; moreover Maxon was even eager to acknowledge an authority in Attlebury's office, as well as a confidence in his personal judgment. "You won't make her think she was always wrong by proving that you were always right, Cyril." "Am I to say I was wrong where I know I was right?" "You've probably said you were right already. Need you repeat it?" "I'm ready to forgive her--absolutely and unreservedly." "Would you go a little further--do something rather harder? Accept forgiveness?" The diplomatist smiled. "Conditional forgiveness we might call it, perhaps. Forgiveness in case there might be anything for her to forgive?" Maxon broke out in natural impatience at the incomprehensible. "On my honour, I don't understand what she's got to complain of. I took her from a poor home, I've given her every luxury, she shares my career--I needn't use mock modesty with you, Frank--I've given her absolute fidelity----" He ended with a despairing wave of his hands. Attlebury neither argued nor rebuked. "Is there anybody who has influence with her--whom she likes and relies on?" "I should hate anybody else being dragged into it--except you, of course. I asked her to come to you." "Oh, I know I'm suspect. I should be no good." He smiled contentedly. "Nobody you can think of?" "Well, the man she consulted about it was Hobart Gaynor." His tone was full of grudging dislike of such a consultation. "Hobart Gaynor? Yes, I know him. Not a bad choice of hers, Cyril, if she felt she had to go to some one. Not quite our way of thinking, but a very good fellow." "Why is he to poke his nose into my affairs?"