Gortre was tired and shaken by the long, nervous strain, but the evident pleasure of Father Ripon and Sir Michael, the knowledge that he had acquitted himself well, was comforting and sustaining. He walked home, down quiet Holborn, curiously dead without the traffic of a week day and the lights of the shop fronts, and not reanimated by the strolling pedestrians, young people of the lower classes from the East End, who thronged it. Lincoln's Inn was wonderfully soothing and quiet as his footsteps echoed in the old quadrangle. After a lonely, tranquil supper--Hands was at a dinner-party somewhere in Mayfair and Spence was at the office of _The Daily Wire_ preparing for Monday's paper--he wheeled a small writing-desk up to the fireside and began a long letter of news and thankfulness to Helena. He pictured the pleasant dining-room at Walktown, the Sunday night's supper,--an institution at the Vicarage after the labours of the busiest day in the week,--with a guest or two perhaps. He knew they would be thinking of him, as he of them, and pictured the love-light in his lady's sweet, calm eyes. CHAPTER XI "NEITHER DO I CONDEMN THEE" Autumn came to London, a warm, lingering season. There was a hint of the South in the atmosphere of town. All business moved with languor; there was more enjoyment in life as people went and came through the streets under so ripe and genial a sun. Gortre had settled down to steady, regular work. At no time before had a routine been so pleasant to him. His days were full of work, which, hard as it was, came to him with far more appeal than his duties at Walktown. Nothing ever stagnated here, at the very hub and centre of things. The splendid energy and force of Father Ripon, the magnificent unconvention of his methods, animated his staff to constant and unflagging exertions. Gortre felt that he was suddenly "grown up," that his life before had been spent in futile playtime compared to the present. One central fact in St. Mary's parish held all the great organisation together. This was the daily services in the great church. Priests, deacons, sisters of mercy, school teachers, and lay helpers all drew their strength and inspiration from this source. The daily Eucharist, matins, evensong, were both a stimulus and stimulant of enormous power. Church brought the mysteries in which they lived, moved, and had their being into intimate relation with every circumstance of daily life. The extraordinary thing, which many of Father Ripon's staff were almost unable to understand, was that more people did not avail themselves of what they regarded--viewing the thing from a standpoint of personal experience--such helpful opportunities.