When, at the death of Father Speares, he was called to the charge, he accepted it without a struggle and without emotion. He saw in it but an opening to heavier labor and an opportunity to hasten the progress of his slow suicide. So he took the work from the failing hands and devoted to it the fulness of his own frenzied vigor. The ritual which his predecessor loved became sacred to him, and the most trivial ceremonials grew mighty with memory of the dead. Each candle upon the altar, each silken thread in the embroidered vestments he wore, was a tribute to a sincerity which was not his. He lent a sudden fervor to the decoration of the church and to the training of his choristers, passionately reviving lost and languishing rites of religion, and silencing the faint protests of his more conservative parishioners by an arrogant appeal to the "Ornaments Rubric" of the Prayer-book. In defiance of the possible opposition of the bishop, he transposed the "Gloria" to its old place in the Catholic Mass, hurling, like an avenging thunderbolt, at a priestly objector to the good old rule of St. Vincent, "Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus." "My dear father," his senior warden had once said to him, "I doubt if most priests put as much work into their whole lives as you do into one celebration." "I know," replied Father Algarcife slowly. "If I have left anything undone it has been from oversight, not fear of labor." The warden smiled. "Your life is a proof of your industry as well as your faith," he responded. "Only a man who loves his religion better than his life would risk himself daily. It is your great hold upon your people. They believe in you." "Yes, yes," said the other. "But I have wanted to warn you," continued the warden. "It cannot last. Give yourself rest." Father Algarcife shook his head. "I rest only when I am working," he answered, and he added, a little wistfully, "The parish bears witness that I have done my best by the charge." The warden, touched by the wistfulness, lowered his eyes. "That you have done any man's best," he returned. "Thank you," said Father Algarcife. Then he passed into the sacristy to listen to the confession of a parishioner. It was a tedious complaint, and he followed it abstractedly--winding through the sick imaginings of a nervous woman and administering well-worn advice in his rich voice, which lent a charm to the truisms. When it was over, he advised physical exercise, and, closing the door, seated himself to await the next comer. It was Miss Vernish, and as she entered, with her impatient limp, the bitterness of her mouth relaxed. She was supervising the embroidering of the vestments to be worn at Easter, and in a spirit of devotion she had sacrificed her diamonds to their ornamentation. Her eyes grew bright as she talked, and a religious warmth softened her manner.