Hodder sat down on the other side of the fireplace. He, too, seemed to be striving for a common footing. “It was a question of proclaiming the truth when at last I came to see it, Langmaid. I could not help doing what I did. Matters of policy, of a false consideration for individuals could not enter into it. If this were not so, I should gladly admit that you had a just grievance, a peculiar right to demand why I had not remained the strictly orthodox person whom you induced to come here. You had every reason to congratulate yourself that you were getting what you doubtless would call a safe man.” “I'll admit I had a twinge of uneasiness after I came home,” Langmaid confessed. Hodder smiled at his frankness. “But that disappeared.” “Yes, it disappeared. You seemed to suit 'em so perfectly. I'll own up, Hodder, that I was a little hurt that you did not come and talk to me just before you took the extraordinary--before you changed your opinions.” “Would it have done any good?” asked the rector, gently. “Would you have agreed with me any better than you do now? I am perfectly willing, if you wish, to discuss with you any views of mine which you may not indorse. And it would make me very happy, I assure you, if I could bring you to look upon the matter as I do.” This was a poser. And whether it were ingenuous, or had in it an element of the scriptural wisdom of the serpent, Langmaid could not have said. As a lawyer, he admired it. “I wasn't in church, as usual,--I didn't hear the sermon,” he replied. “And I never could make head or tail of theology--I always told you that. What I deplore, Hodder, is that you've contrived to make a hornets' nest out of the most peaceful and contented congregation in America. Couldn't you have managed to stick to religion instead of getting mixed up with socialism?” “So you have been given the idea that my sermon was socialistic?” the rector said. “Socialistic and heretical,--it seems. Of course I'm not much of an authority on heresy, but they claim that you went out of your way to knock some of their most cherished and sacred beliefs in the head.” “But suppose I have come to the honest conclusion that in the first place these so-called cherished beliefs have no foundation in fact, and no influence on the lives of the persons who cherished them, no real connection with Christianity? What would you have me do, as a man? Continue to preach them for the sake of the lethargic peace of which you speak? leave the church paralyzed, as I found it?” “Paralyzed! You've got the most influential people in the city.” Hodder regarded him for a while without replying. “So has the Willesden Club,” he said. Langmaid laughed a little, uncomfortably.