He hung about the ruins till it was ten o'clock by his watch, and then went straight to the hall. Sir Wilton was at home; but the footman hesitated to admit this visitor. Carlton's own hesitation was, however, at an end, and his eye forbade rebuff. He was shown into the drawing-room, where a very young girl was at the piano, evidently practising, and yet playing in a way that made Carlton sorry when she stopped. The cool room smelling of flowers; the glimpse of garden through an open window, with the court marked out and chairs under the trees; the momentary sound of a fine instrument finely touched: it was all the very breath and essence of the pleasant every-day world from which he had rightly and richly earned dismissal, and it all was branded in his brain. Then the young girl rose, and stood in doubt with the sun upon her plaited hair, and eyes great with innocent distress; but Carlton barely bowed, and the child hardly knew how she got across the room. Sir Wilton entered with jaunty step. His whiskered jaw was set like a vice, but the light of conscious triumph danced in his fixed eyeballs. Carlton had come prepared to have his intrusion treated as his latest crime; a glance convinced him that the other was too sure of victory to object to an interview with the virtually vanquished. "So you are quite determined that I shall not rebuild the church?" It was a point-blank beginning. Sir Wilton shrugged and smiled. "I have told you to build it if you can," said he. "But you mean to make that an impossibility?" "Naturally I don't intend to make it easy." "Admit that by foul means, since none are fair, you are deliberately preventing me from doing my duty!" Carlton pressed his point with a heat he regretted, but could not help. "I admit nothing," said the other, doggedly--"least of all what you are pleased to consider your 'duty.' Your real duty I've already told you. Resign the living. Let us see the last of you." Carlton met the rigid stare with one as unwavering and more acute. It was as though he would have seen to the back of the other's brain. "Very well," he said at length. "You shall!" "Ah!" cried Sir Wilton, when he had recovered from his surprise. But it was not the cry of victory; there was an uncharacteristic lack of finality in the clergyman's tone. "You shall see the last of me this very morning," he continued swiftly, nervously, "if you like! But it will rest with you. I am not going unconditionally. Will you listen to what I have to say?" Gleed shrugged again, but this time there was no accompanying smile. The other threw up his head with a sudden decisiveness--a pulpit trick of his when about to make a primary point--and his right fist fell into his left palm without his knowing it.