"Oh, Phil, if I could only get the ascetic nonsense out of you!" Ashe could not answer. He could not reprove his friend after the separation--which to him had been so long and so sorrowful, and he had a secret feeling that they were to be more entirely divided. The pair walked in silence a moment, and then Wynne spoke. "Well, I'll not talk on forbidden subjects; but, surely, Phil, you are not going to throw me over entirely. I wouldn't drop you, no matter what happened." "I'm not throwing you over," Philip answered with a choking in his throat. "I would--Oh, Maurice," he broke out, interrupting himself, "it isn't for want of caring for you, but if I am ever to help you, I must keep my own faith. I have been so troubled and so--There," he broke off again, "let us talk of something else." He felt that Maurice was studying him carefully. "Phil, old fellow, you are hysterically incoherent. What's the matter with you? It can't be all my going off. Can't you come home with me, and talk it out?" Ashe shook his head. The more he was touched and moved by the affection of his friend, the more he shrank from him. This tender comradeship seemed to him the most subtile of temptations. He feared, moreover, lest he might reveal to Maurice too much of what was in his heart. "Not now," he said. "I must go home at once." "Then I'll walk along with you," rejoined the other. "I do wish you'd let me help you. You are evidently all played out physically, and half an eye could see that you've something on your mind. Is it the bishop?" "That has troubled me a good deal," Ashe returned, feeling a relief in being able to say this truthfully. "Well, Phil, if you worry yourself sick over what you can't help, what strength will you have for the things that you can do? I'm glad it isn't all my going that has brought you to this, for you look positively ill. I wish you'd get sick-leave, and go off a while." Ashe shook his head again. He felt that if Maurice went on talking to him he should lose his self-command. He must get away; yet he could not bear to hurt his friend. He turned toward Maurice and held out his hand. "Dear Maurice," he said, "don't be hurt; but I can't talk with you. I must be alone. I am upset, and not myself. It is not that I don't trust you, you know; but there are things that a man has to fight out for himself." The other stopped, and regarded him closely. "All right, Phil," he said. "I understand. If you've got a fight with the devil on hand nobody can help you. I only wish I could." He wrung the hand of Ashe, and added: "Good-by. I'm always fond of you, old fellow; and you know that when there is a place that I can help there's nothing I wouldn't do for you." Ashe tried to answer, but he could not command his voice. He could only return the warm pressure of Wynne's hand, and then, miserable and hopeless, go on his way to his conflict with the arch fiend.