"I think Mrs. Elsmere is with me--that she approves?" "With one reservation." The words came gravely, after a moment's doubt. His eyes asked her to be frank. "I think it would be possible--I think it would be just--if Miss Puttenham were to empower you to go to your Bishop. He too has rights!" said Catharine, her clear skin reddening. Meynell paused: then spoke with hesitation. "Yes--that I possibly might do--if you permit me?" He turned again to Alice. "Go to him--go to him at once!" she said with a sob she could not repress. Another silence. Then Meynell walked to the window and looked at the weather. "It is not raining so fast," he said in his cheerful voice. "Oughtn't you to be going home--getting ready and arranging with Hester? It's an awful business going abroad." Alice rose silently. Catharine went into the kitchen to fetch the waterproof which had been drying. Alice and Meynell were left alone. She looked up. "It is so hard to be hated!" she said passionately--"to see you hated. It seems to burn one's heart--the coarse and horrible things that are being said--" He frowned and fidgeted--till the thought within forced its way: "Christ was hated. Yet directly the least touch of it comes to us, we rebel--we cry out against God." "It is because we are so weak--we are not Christ!" She covered her face with her hands. "No--but we are his followers--if the Life that was in him is in us too. '_Life that in me has rest_--_as I_--_Undying Life_--_have power in Thee_!'" He fell--murmuring--into lines that had evidently been in his thoughts, smiling upon her. Then Catharine returned. Alice was warmly wrapped up, and Catharine took her to the door, leaving Meynell in the sitting-room. "We will come and help you this evening--Mary and I," she said tenderly, as they stood together in the little passage. "Mary?" Alice looked at her in a trembling uncertainty. "Mary--of course." Alice thought a moment, and then said with a low intensity, a force to which Catharine had no clue--"I want you--to tell her--the whole story. Will you?" Catharine kissed her cheek in silence, and they parted. * * * * * Catharine went slowly back to the little sitting-room. Meynell was standing abstracted before the fire, his hands clasped in front of him, his head bent. Catharine approached him--drawing quick breath. "Mr. Meynell--what shall I do--what do you wish me to do or say--with regard to my daughter?" He turned--pale with amazement. And so began what one may call--perhaps--the most romantic action of a noble life! CHAPTER XVII When Catharine returned to the little sitting-room, in which the darkness of a rainy October evening was already declaring itself, she came shaken by many emotions in which only one thing was clear--that the man before her was a good man in distress, and that her daughter loved him.