Of course, one little circle of Brenton's intimates, the Keltridges and the Opdykes and the Dennisons, talked of the matter freely among themselves, discussing causes, watching for effects. They regretted the necessity for change, doubted it, even. Granted the necessity, though, they rejoiced that Brenton could be transplanted from one calling to the other, without the need for their losing him from their midst. It was Brenton the friend they cared for; not Brenton the preacher and pastor of souls. Moreover, there was not one of them who, asked, would have hesitated to affirm that now at last Scott Brenton was entering upon his true calling. Indeed, had not Professor Opdyke the word of his old colleague, Professor Mansfield, to that effect? Had not Professor Mansfield, even, left his classroom, in the middle of the term, for the sake of appearing before the trustees of the college, and giving his vehement testimony to that same effect? The college, that section of the college, at least, which dealt with the chemical department, rejoiced greatly, when once Scott Brenton was launched upon his lecture courses. Doctor Keltridge, trustee and medical adviser, though, had a double cause for his rejoicing. Not only did he believe that at last Brenton was the right peg in the proper hole; but he was overjoyed at the possibility of what the change might accomplish in the man himself. Brenton, on the morning that his child had died, had lost something which he never would regain. In more senses than one, his wife and he, henceforward, would be twain, not the one flesh ordained by matrimony. In the hour of his supreme need, Katharine had left him and had gone her scientific way. In that hour, moreover, his little son, pledge of their closest union, had been taken from him; and Brenton was only too well aware that now no second and similar pledge would ever be. In the eyes of the world and of the literal law, Katharine was still his wife. In the eye of the spirit, she was holding herself as far aloof from him as if their marriage had never taken place, so far aloof that, nowadays, Brenton scarcely felt the friction of her presence.