One of the most fanatical of Flynn's followers discovered that the boy James was buried not twenty yards away from the angel-guarded tomb of Humphrey Clay, and this, when bruited, fell like a spark upon the dry minds of the most ignorant members of the faction. On a dark evening in November they went up to the cemetery, overturned the little marble cross, effaced the name James Matthew Folyat, and scattered the wreaths and flowers. Mrs. Folyat took to her bed. The ringleaders were discovered and arrested, and Francis appeared in court, very pale, obviously near breaking-point, and in a very low voice said that he did not wish to prosecute. There was a wave of sympathy for the unfortunate rector of St. Paul's. Flynn's paper was boycotted of advertisements and he fell into low water. He had ruined himself in the struggle and he had almost drained Francis of courage and faith in human-kind. He clung obstinately to his work, but was dogged by a sense of the futility of it all and, in his worst moments, saw it only as a mechanical sanctification of birth, marriage, and death. Humanity seemed so primitive--just a base struggle for existence and satisfaction in existence, and silly devastating squabbles about forms. He realised dreadfully what a gulf lay between himself and his wife, and he strove desperately to bridge it, only to discover that she was unconscious of any disparity and had a diabolical skill in coating any uncomfortable fact with a romantic fiction so that it became as a pearl upon her shell. He blamed himself for it, and was kind to her and fought against the exasperation which her prattle aroused in him. Having no friend to whom he could turn--all the men he knew deferred to his cloth and treated him as a creature apart--he tried to find sympathy and interest in his daughters and Frederic, his remaining son. They were absorbed in their youth and their dreams and folly, and seemed to be afraid of him. He watched them, but soon found that he was spying upon them. The one thing he had to love was the memory of the boy James, who became ever more radiant to him, and he used to watch the goings out and comings in of the boy next door and think him a splendid fellow, and regret all that he had missed when his own boy was alive. For many, many days life seemed to stand still. There was dull routine, Sunday succeeded Sunday. Gradually gaiety crept once more into the house in Fern Square, but it seemed to Francis so remote--as remote as the woman upstairs, who complained and complained and yet could babble of fashion and the weather and money and the young men who came courting her daughters. VI FREDERIC'S FRIENDS _By my troth, Cony, if there were a thousand boys, thou would'st spoil them all with taking their parts._ THE KNIGHT OF THE BURNING PESTLE.