Robert had at that moment under his arm a German treatise on the history of the Logos doctrine, which afterwards, looking back on the little scene, he thought it probable Newcome recognised. They turned towards the rectory together, Newcome still asking abrupt questions as to the squire, the length of time he was to be away, Elsmere's work, parochial and literary, during the past six months, the numbers of his Sunday congregation, of his communicants, etc. Elsmere bore his catechism with perfect temper, though Newcome's manner had in it a strange and almost judicial imperativeness. 'Elsmere,' said his questioner presently, after a pause, 'I am going to have a retreat for priests at the Clergy House next month. Father H----,' mentioning a famous High Churchman, 'will conduct it. You would do me a special favour'--and suddenly the face softened, and shone with all its old magnetism on Elsmere--'if you would come. I believe you would find nothing to dislike in it, or in our rule, which is a most simple one.' Robert smiled, and laid his hand on the other's arm. 'No, Newcome, no; I am in no mood for H----.' The High Churchman looked at him with a quick and painful anxiety visible in the stern eyes. 'Will you tell me what that means?' 'It means,' said Robert, clasping his hands tightly behind him, his pace slackening a little to meet that of Newcome--'it means that if you will give me your prayers, Newcome, your companionship sometimes, your pity always, I will thank you from the bottom of my heart. But I am in a state just now when I must fight my battles for myself, and in God's sight only!' It was the first burst of confidence which had passed his lips to any one but Catherine. Newcome stood still, a tremor of strong emotion running through the emaciated face. 'You are in trouble, Elsmere; I felt it, I knew it, when I first saw you!' 'Yes, I am in trouble,' said Robert quietly. 'Opinions?' 'Opinions, I suppose--or facts,' said Robert, his arms dropping wearily beside him. 'Have you ever known what it is to be troubled in mind, I wonder, Newcome?' And he looked at his companion with a sudden pitiful curiosity. A kind of flash passed over Mr. Newcome's face. '_Have I ever known?_' he repeated vaguely, and then he drew his thin hand, the hand of the ascetic and the mystic, hastily across his eyes, and was silent--his lips moving, his gaze on the ground, his whole aspect that of a man wrought out of himself by a sudden passion of memory. Robert watched him with surprise, and was just speaking, when Mr. Newcome looked up, every drawn attenuated feature working painfully.