He felt certain that the inner life of such a personality as Mary Elsmere was rich and passionate. Sometimes, in these lonely hours, did she think of the man who had told her so much of himself on that, to him, memorable walk? Meynell looked back upon the intimate and autobiographical talk into which he had been led, with some wonder and a hot cheek. He had confessed himself partly to Elsmere's daughter, on a hint of sympathy, as to one entitled to such a confidence, so to speak, by inheritance, should she desire it; but still more--he owned it--to a delightful woman. It was the first time in Meynell's strenuous life, filled to the brim with intellectual and speculative effort on the one hand, and with the care of his parish on the other, that he had been conscious of any such feeling as now possessed him. In his first manhood it had been impossible for him to marry, because he had his brothers to educate. And when they were safely out in the world the Rector, absorbed in the curing of sick bodies and the saving of sick souls, could not dream of spending the money thus set free on a household for himself. He had had his temptations of the flesh, his gusts of inclination, like other men. But he had fought them down victoriously, for conscience sake; and it was long now since anything of the sort had assailed him. He paused a moment among the trees, just before the cottage passed out of sight. The sun was sinking in a golden haze, the first prophecy of autumnal mists. Broad lights lay here and there upon the water, to be lost again in depths of shadow, wherein woods of dream gave back the woods that stooped to them from the shore. Everything was so still he could hear the fish rising, the run of a squirrel along a branch, the passage of a coot through the water. The very profoundity of nature's peace suddenly showed him to himself. A man engaged in a struggle beyond his power!--committed to one of those tasks that rend and fever the human spirit even while they ennoble it! He had talked boldly to Stephen and the Bishop of "war"--"inevitable" and "necessary war." At the same time there was no one who would suffer from war more than he. The mere daily practice of Christianity, as a man's life-work, is a daily training in sensitiveness, involves a daily refining of the nerves. When a man so trained, so refined, takes up the public tasks of leadership and organization, in this noisy, hard-hitting world, his nature is set at enmity with itself. Meynell did not yet know whether the mystic in him would allow the fighter in him to play his part. If the memory of Fenton's cold, unrecognizing eyes and rigid mouth, as they passed each other in the silence of the Cathedral, had power to cause so deep a stab of pain, how was he to brace himself in the future to what must come?--the alienation of friend after friend, the condemnation of the good, the tumult, the poisoned feeling, the abuse, public and private.