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stening in her face. I live only for her--and I cannot feel that it matters to her in the least whether I do or not. Perhaps, some day. Meanwhile you may be sure I think of nothing else. She knows nothing of what is going on in England--and she says she adores Paris."
* * * * *
One night in December Meynell came in late from a carpentering class of village boys. The usual pile of letters and books awaited him, and he began upon them reluctantly. As he read them, and put them aside, one by one, his face gradually changed and darkened. He recalled a saying of Amiel's about the French word "consideration"--what it means to a man to have enjoyed unvarying and growing "consideration" from his world; and then, suddenly, to be threatened with the loss of it. Life and consciousness drop, all in a moment, to a lower and a meaner plane.
Finally, he lit on a letter from one of his colleagues on the Central Modernist Committee. For some months it had been a settled thing that Meynell should preach the sermon in Dunchester Cathedral on the great occasion in January when the new Liturgy of the Reform was to be inaugurated with all possible solemnity in one of England's most famous churches.
His correspondent wrote to suggest that after all the sermon would be more fitly entrusted to the Modernist Bishop of Dunchester himself. "He has worked hard, and risked much for us. I may say that inquiries have been thrown out, and we find he is willing."
No apology--perfunctory regrets--and very little explanation! Meynell understood.
He put the letter away, conscious of a keenly smarting mind. It was now clear to him that he had made a grave misreckoning; humiliating, perhaps irreparable. He had counted, with a certain confident simplicity, on the power of his mere word, backed by his character and reputation, to put the thing down; and they were not strong enough. Barron's influence seemed to him immense and increasing. A proud and sensitive man forced himself to envisage the possibi