"Yes, to my shame, I am. By good rights, Brenton, I ought to order you into a sanatorium, until you get over the desire to make an idiot of yourself. I doubt, though, if it would do any good. I fancy that your case is chronic, that you won't be happy till you've muddled your intellectual salvation according to your own notions. If that's the fact, the sooner you go about it, the better. Your hanging on at Saint Peter's is only so much wear and tear upon your nerves. Ours, too, when it comes to that. One doesn't get much sanctification out of a sermon couched in glittering generalities and delivered by a rector with a crumpled brow. Therefore the trustee of the college has told tales to the doctor, and the doctor is hinting the gist of those tales to his patient." "Do you think I'd fill the place?" Brenton's voice surprised himself by its unwonted quivering of eagerness. "Depends on whether you get the chance," the doctor parried. "Moreover, your getting the chance depends on what you think about your taking it. There's another man talked about for the position; but I have a good deal of say in the matter, and Opdyke has more. He considers you rather a genius in his line, a wasted genius, and would jump at a chance to have you put in under him as instructor. What do you think?" Brenton's reply came without an instant's hesitation. "I will take it, if it's offered me." "You know it will shut Saint Peter's door to you for ever? In a case like this, one can't go back again." "I know," Brenton made brief assent. "You realize all you are giving up?" "I do." "You know the world is full of potential Prathers; and you also know what your wife will say? Does she understand what you have been going through?" Brenton's lips stiffened. "I have not meant to keep anything back from her. How far she has grasped all it has meant to me--However, in honour, I have done my best." And, despite the weakening drop of his voice on the final phrases, the doctor believed him. Believing and likewise knowing Katharine, he pitied Brenton from the bottom of his heart. After all, was the fellow quite so invertebrate as he had sometimes seemed? "Well, I will talk to Opdyke first, and then bring the matter up before the rest of the trustees. There's a meeting, early in October. Best not do anything until that is over. Then, in all decency, you will have to give a little time to Saint Peter's. You can't well bolt off, like a cook in a tantrum. Prepare their Christmas diet for them; and then go into this other thing, directly after mid-years." "But, feeling as I do, have I any right to keep on at Saint Peter's?" Brenton queried. The doctor cut his query short.