The Rector as he pulled at his pipe could still feel the fluttering of her slender hand in his. The recollection stirred in him again all the intolerable pity, the tragic horror of the past. Poor, poor little girl. But she should be happy yet, "with rings on her fingers," and everything proper! Then from this fatherly and tender preoccupation he passed into a more intimate and poignant dreaming. Mary!--in the moonlight, under the autumn trees, was the vision that held him; varied sometimes by the dream of her in that very room, sitting ghostly in the chair beside him, her lovely eyes wandering over its confusion of books and papers. He thought of her exquisite neatness of dress and delicacy of movement, and smiled happily to himself. "How she must have wanted to tidy up!" And he dared to think of a day when she would come and take possession of him altogether--books, body and soul, and gently order his life.... "Why, you rascals!"--he said, jealously, to the dogs--"she fed you--I know she did--she patted and pampered you, eh, didn't she? She likes dogs--you may thank your lucky stars she does!" But they only raised their eager heads, and turned their loving eyes upon him, prepared to let loose pandemonium as soon as he showed signs of moving. "Well, you don't expect me to take you out for a walk at ten o'clock at night, do you?--idiots!" he hurled at them reprovingly; and after another moment of bright-eyed interrogation, disappointment descended, and down went their noses on their paws again. * * * * * His trust in the tender steadfastness of Mary's character made itself powerfully felt in these solitary moments. She knew that while these strenuous days were on he could allow himself no personal aims. But the growing knowledge that he was approved by a soul so pure and so devout had both strung up all his powers and calmed the fevers of battle. He loved his cause the more because it was ever more clear to him that she passionately loved it too. And sensitive and depressed as he often was--the penalty of the optimist--her faith in him had doubled his faith in himself. There was a singular pleasure also in the link his love for her had forged between himself and Elsmere--the dead leader of an earlier generation. "Latitudinarianism is coming in upon us like a flood!"--cried the _Church Times_, wringing its hands. In other words, thought Meynell, "a New Learning is at last penetrating the minds and consciences of men--in the Church, no less than out of it." And Elsmere had been one of its martyrs. Meynell thought with emotion of the emaciated form he had last seen in the thronged hall of the New Brotherhood. "_Our_ venture is possible--because _you_ suffered," he would say to himself, addressing not so much Elsmere, as Elsmere's generation, remembering its struggles, its thwarted hopes, and starved lives.