"Oh yes!" answered Mary, quietly--"He's a great High Churchman, and he wants to introduce Mass vestments and the confessional whenever he can. Some people say that he receives an annual payment from Rome for doing this kind of work." "Another form of the Papal secret service!" commented Reay, drily--"I understand! I've seen enough of it!" Mary had taken a clean tablecloth from an oaken press, and was spreading it out for dinner. "Well," she said, smilingly, "he won't find it very advantageous to him to take the duties here. For every man and woman in the village intends to keep away from Church altogether if he does not give us our services exactly as we have always been accustomed to them. And it won't be pleasant for him to read prayers and preach to empty seats, will it?" "Scarcely!" And Angus, standing near the fire, bent his brows with meditative sternness on the glowing flames. Then suddenly addressing Helmsley, he said--"You asked me a while ago, David, why I didn't go to Church. I told you I wished I could go, as I used to do with my father every Sunday. For, when I was a boy, our Sundays were real devotional days--our preachers _felt_ what they preached, and when they told us to worship the great Creator 'in spirit and in truth,' we knew they were in earnest about it. Now, religion is made a mere 'party' system--a form of struggle as to which sect can get the most money for its own purposes. Christ,--the grand, patient, long-suffering Ideal of all goodness, is gone from it! How can He remain with it while it is such a Sham! Our bishops in England truckle to Rome--and, Rome itself is employing every possible means to tamper with the integrity of the British constitution. The spies and emissaries of Rome are everywhere--both in our so-called 'national' Church and in our most distinctly _un_-national Press!" Helmsley listened with keen interest. As a man of business, education, observation, and discernment, he knew that what Reay said was true,--but in his assumed role of a poor and superannuated old office clerk, who had been turned adrift from work by reason of age and infirmities, he had always to be on his guard against expressing his opinion too openly or frankly. "I don't know much about the newspapers,"--he said, mildly--"I read those I can get, just for the news--but there isn't much news, it appears to me----"