"Ha! ha! ha!--No, no; I don't say that. I know so well how to make allowance for the prejudices a man has inherited from foolish ancestors, and which have been instilled into him, as well, with his earliest nourishment, both bodily and mental. But--come now--I do love open dealing--I am myself open as the day--did you not take to the church as a profession, in which you might eat a piece of bread--as somebody says in your own blessed Bible--dry enough bread it may be, for the old lady is not over-generous to her younger children--still a gentlemanly sort of livelihood?" Wingfold held his peace. It was incontestably with such a view that he had signed the articles and sought holy orders--and that without a single question as to truth or reality in either act. "Your silence is honesty, Mr. Wingfold, and I honour you for it," said Bascombe. "It is an easy thing for a man in another profession to speak his mind, but silence such as yours, casting a shadow backward over your past, require courage: I honour you, sir." As he spoke, he laid his hand on Wingfold's shoulder with the grasp of an athlete. "Can the sherry have anything to do with it?" thought the curate. The fellow was, or seemed to be, years younger than himself! It was an assurance unimaginable--yet there it stood--six feet of it good! He glanced at the church tower. It had not vanished in mist! It still made its own strong, clear mark on the eternal blue! "I must not allow you to mistake my silence, Mr. Bascombe," he answered the same moment. "It is not easy to reply to such demands all at once. It is not easy to say in times like these, and at a moment's notice, what or how much a man believes. But whatever my answer might be had I time to consider it, my silence must at least not be interpreted to mean that I do NOT believe as my profession indicates. That, at all events, would be untrue." "Then I am to understand, Mr. Wingfold, that you neither believe nor disbelieve the tenets of the church whose bread you eat?" said Bascombe, with the air of a reprover of sin. "I decline to place myself between the horns of any such dilemma," returned Wingfold, who was now more than a little annoyed at his persistency in forcing his way within the precincts of another's personality. "It is but one more proof--more than was necessary--to convince me that the old system is a lie--a lie of the worst sort, seeing it may prevail even to the self-deception of a man otherwise remarkable for honesty and directness. Good night, Mr. Wingfold." With lifted hats, but no hand-shaking, the men parted. CHAPTER VI. THE CURATE IN THE CHURCHYARD.