"I--I didn't say that!" gasped the rector. "This house is mine--you have no right--Dear, dear, I don't know what I'm doing, or what I'm saying." "You have said enough, Mr. Swinton. Your son is in this house. I have him, at last." "My son is ill, Mr. Ormsby. You must give him time. This dreadful matter may yet be set right." "It is in the hands of the police. Good-day." John Swinton was powerless to say a word in his son's defense. He led Ormsby from the room and out of the house, without another word of protest. On his return, he sank down in his writing-chair, groaning and weeping. "Oh, what have I said! What have I done! I've doubly betrayed him. Nobody can help him now, unless--unless--" He clasped his hands upon the desk as if in prayer, looking upward. He saw his way, clear and defined. Even as Abraham offered up his son at the call of God, so he must deliver up his guilty wife, and cry aloud his own sin. Ay, from the pulpit. It would be the last time his voice would ever be raised in the house of God. His congregation would know him for a sinner, a liar, a coward. He had remained silent when scandalous tongues were busy defaming his son's reputation; and not a word of protest had fallen from his lips. He had gone to the pulpit, and, with an expectant hush in the church, they had waited for him to speak of his dead son who had died gloriously--and no word had passed his lips, because only one declaration was possible. Either he must deny the foul slander, or by his silence give impetus to the rumor of guilt. The hue and cry had been openly raised for his son, and he had done nothing. The devil had demanded Dick, even as God demanded Isaac. And the traitorous priest had been under the spell of a woman. It was hard to deliver up to man's justice the wife of his bosom. It was no longer a choice of two evils; it was an issue between God and himself. He prayed for strength that he might be able to go out of the house now--before his wife returned--and declare her guilt to the police and his own condonation of it; after that, to call together his own flock and make open confession of his sin, and say farewell to the priesthood. Then--chaos--poverty--new work, with Dick's help--but work with clean hands. The way was clear enough now--while Mary was away out of the house--while her voice no longer rang in his ears and the soft rustle of her skirts had died away. But, when she came back with her pale face and care-lined eyes, her soft voice and caressing hand, pleading, pathetic, seeking protection from the horrible contact of a jail, would he be able to hold out?