He was not sufficiently skilled in self-analysis to lay his finger on the weakness that had brought him to such a pass. He thought no ill of his wife. He knew enough of human nature to admit that nothing outside a man's own soul could dishonour him or bring him to harm. Unconsciously he was disloyal to the tenets of his calling in considering his own case. With all others he professed that God moved in a mysterious way and that everything happened for the best according to God's providence. He had long since abandoned all belief in the possibility of a noble collective life here on earth, for he had seen too much not to know that when two or three are gathered together it is not to seek God, but to promote knavery and jealousy. Moments of agony he had had when he had half seen his own scepticism, but the simple devotion of some of his parishioners, craftsmen, and factory hands, and his own great liking for many of his poor had kept him from throwing up his work, and he would say: "Though I do it ill, yet it might be done worse." Besides, he could not afford to renounce the stipend. Every year he had made small inroads upon his capital, fifty pounds here and a hundred there to satisfy creditors or sudden demands of charity for larger sums than he could afford to pay out of income. Well, well--no doubt he was making a mountain out of a molehill, and things were not nearly so bad as they seemed. The house had been much jollier since Serge came back and Annette brought youth and joy into it, and if none of the family seemed to be on the way to brilliant lives, after all there were better things in the world than success, and nothing mattered so much as affection and love. And yet, how small a part love played in human life! How soon it died! In the end Francis laughed at himself, and told himself that thinking was no use. It neither made good better nor bad worse. Things were what they were and nothing would alter them. Young Lawrie, with his brain stuffed full of illusions, wished to enter into Holy Orders. So be it. He had promised to do all he could to help him: after all it was something to find a young man with thoughts higher than the pleasure next to hand, and the first step seemed to be to see his father. So Francis Folyat wrote to James Lawrie in his awkward spidery hand--(he could not bear writing letters)--and asked for an interview in order to discuss with him the future of his son Bennett. James Lawrie replied courteously, appointing a day, and on it Francis walked across Dale Park and over the new Cromwell Bridge and up the shabby-genteel street from the river to the stucco Gothic house. Tibby opened the door to him and looked him up and down. "You'll be Mr. Folyat," she said. "That is my name." "Our Bennett's been a new lad since he went to your house, Mr. Folyat." "I'm glad of that." "It's not all to the good," said Tibby, grumpily, and she turned and led him down the long passage to the dining-room. She announced: