Candish turned upon him a look of rebuke. "What right have you or I to ask that question?" he retorted sternly. "I do penance for loving her, and God is my witness how carefully I have hidden it. It is not for me to question her right to love if she please." Philip rose, and went to the other, holding out his hand. "Mr. Candish," said he earnestly, "you have taught me my lesson. I have been a weak fool, and worse. I will pray for strength to lay my passion on the altar and forget it." The rector took the extended hand, looking into Philip's eyes with a glance so wistful, so humble, and so tender that the remembrance went with Ashe long. "And forget it?" he repeated. "I do not know that I could do that!" He dropped the hand of Ashe, and shook himself as if he would shake off the mood which had taken possession of him. "Come," he declared resolutely, "this will not do. This is not the sort of mood that makes men. Let me give you a single piece of advice,--I am older, you know; don't pity yourself, whatever else you do. In the first place, that would be equivalent to saying that Providence doesn't know what is best for you; and in the second, it spoils all one's sense of values." As Ashe that afternoon journeyed down to Montfield, he recalled all the details of this interview. The more he considered the more he respected Candish and the less satisfaction he found in his own conduct. Yet perhaps the human mind cannot cease self-justification at any point short of annihilation, and Philip still had in his secret thought a deep feeling that the church should more absolutely settle the question of the celibacy of its clergy, so that there might be no more doubts. He honored the attitude of Candish, and he resolved to imitate it. He who has never shaken hands with the devil, however, can have little idea how hard it is to loose his grasp; and Philip groaned at the thought of how far he was even from wishing to put his love out of its high place in his heart.