How _utter_ at this moment must be his loss to understand by what marvel _I_ could ever have learned that name. I expected at least to see him start, to look abashed a little. But no; his eyes rested serenely on my face: he seemed to be sorry for me, to deplore my indiscretion. Here, then, is a man mighty in ma.s.s and stature, all self-a.s.sured, whose will, whether it be bent upon good or upon ill, is hardly to be withstood.

Such a person is, apart from special considerations, inherently formidable; but how if this person be found trying to convert another to enmity against the Church, and at the same time be found striking up a friendship with a churchman who in certain particulars resembles another churchman imprisoned in his castle? Certainly, one's mind can't reject a notion of danger; and it has appeared to me that I ought not to hold my peace in the matter, in spite of the _outre_ warning of the card which Baron Kolar has been kind enough to forward me."

We had now arrived before Ritching church, which stands well back from the village street in a large piece of land--"park" one may call it--well timbered and dark. The building itself is big, modern, and ugly--one of those churches with huge roofs, red bricks, red shingles, which rather suggest the cult of some latter-day Moloch than of the Carpenter. It is built, however, over some old vaults in which repose generations of the Hampshire branch of the Bellasis family, once of Goodford, now extinct.

We got into the grounds by a gateway in a wall of rubble before the church, and thence, by a path which winds inward through the park some quarter of a mile towards the vicarage, pa.s.sed on to the vicarage garden. The night was now dark, and we found the house in darkness.

"It looks," said Langler in a low voice, "as if the baron's visit to the doctor has been quite a long one--two hours at the least--for he seems to be still here, if one may divine by the darkness in this front part, which, no doubt, the doctor would have lighted on seeing his visitor through. The baron must have left his trap at the Calf's Head, for I don't see it here. Let us wait outside, then, a little. The doctor, by the way, has the good taste to look out from his study window behind yonder upon a patch of that white vetch which shimmers so bridally in all shades of twilight. Come softly, and I will show it you."

I tracked his tread through thicket towards the back of the old manse, till we began to catch sight of a glow of light emanating from a cas.e.m.e.nt behind, and a moment later Langler whispered me: "There, you see, is the growth of vetch."

Five feet farther, and from an angle of a lean-to, we could peer through ivy and rose-bush into a lighted room: in it were Baron Kolar and Dr Burton, standing. Langler laid hold of my arm, and we stood breathless, looking.

The two in the room were deep in converse, the rumour of which reached us, but none of the words.

Presently the baron took his hand from the doctor's shoulder, took up a book from a table, held it uplifted a minute, kissed it.

He then tendered the book to the doctor, who seemed to us to draw back rather, and I felt Langler's grasp tighten on my arm, but the baron seemed to press and reason with the doctor; then the doctor took the book, lifted it to his lips, kissed it: and at once the hands of the two men met in a clasp.

Langler whispered into my ear: "but what agreement hath Christ with Belial? Isn't it written that he who is a friend of the world is the enemy of G.o.d?"

CHAPTER VIII

THE FACE OF ROBINSON

Two minutes after that clasp of the hands the doctor pa.s.sed out of the room with the baron; two minutes later he returned to the room alone, and stood at the cas.e.m.e.nt, with his brow drooped toward his breast, in a brown study.

Langler whispered to me: "you will wait outside. I am going to speak to him now."

We walked round to the front of the manse, where Langler rapped, Dr Burton presently came to him, and I from outside looked on at the two standing together in lamplight in a parlour.

Langler, I think, was not asked to sit. I heard the brogue of Dr Burton, then in Langler's hand beheld the piece of paper on which Dr Burton was spoken of as a "union of Becket and Savonarola." Dr Burton did not look at it, but began to lower angrily, Langler to bow, till at last Dr Burton frowned towards the doorway. Langler bowed, and withdrew.

When angry he had a habit of lowering the eyelids in an expression of hissing disdain, and the street-lamps, as we trudged through Ritching, revealed him so to me. For some time he was silent, but finally, when we were climbing towards Goodford village, he said: "Dr Burton has insulted me, Arthur, and for the moment I find it difficult to speak of him in a Christian spirit. However, he is a good man--I really need just now to repeat that fact to myself--though mewed up in cra.s.sness.

Uppishness, of course, is part of the being of every dominant man, and I don't blame him for his uppishness, but only for the fact that it is so blatant and instant. Still, one must take the thorns with the rose, and I promise by to-morrow morning to love him again. Partly it was my own fault, for I should have felt, after the compact which we witnessed, that my warning would be all too late. Imagine how momentous must have been the matter of that compact, Arthur, when Burton could be brought to confirm it with the Bible at his lips, and imagine the craft and the might of will by which he must have felt himself crimped and mesmerised.

Here is a man who two days ago began by telling Baron Kolar that he had not leisure to listen to him, and already we find him _in genubus_, with (of all things) _the Book_ at his lips. Have you not here a miracle of mind? But given a known individuality, one may deduce certain facts from it. We can a.s.sert, for instance, from our sure knowledge of Burton, that the compact contained nothing dishonouring to _him_, that it was lofty and pure on _his_ part. It must be so. And since it was Kolar who first kissed, and afterwards Burton, we may say, too, that the first terms of the pact are to be fulfilled by Kolar. If Kolar will do certain things, as he says he will, then Burton will do certain things. But what things?

Pity we couldn't catch a few s.n.a.t.c.hes of the talk; yet certainly, even so, I don't think that we are quite in the dark. For Burton's motives were lofty and pure: therefore Kolar's promises of good things did not concern Burton's own self-interests, or not solely. Yet Burton was so enthusiastic as to these promises that he took an oath of repayment: they may very likely, therefore, have concerned his love--the Church.

But the Church where? At Ritching? It is inconceivable that Kolar can be so interested in the Church at Ritching as to wish to exact any oath with regard to it. 'Church,' therefore, as between him and Burton, must mean Church on a larger scale; and in the Church on this scale we know that Kolar is, in fact, interested. But how is Burton, a village priest, to repay services rendered to the Church on so large a scale? Does it not seem as if Kolar's promises do not apply altogether to the Church, but in part to Burton personally, that Burton is not for ever to remain a village priest? Indeed, did not Kolar yesterday volunteer the prophecy that this 'union of Becket and Savonarola' is 'destined to become the greatest priest in Europe'? A singular prophecy, Arthur, from a man whose words in general a.s.suredly have some significance. We may guess, then, that Kolar's undertakings consist in rendering to the Church some good which will include the rise and greatness of the doctor himself, and the doctor swears to use his greatness in some way indicated, or to be indicated, by Kolar. Certainly, such seem the divinations prompted by the facts which we have."

"Isn't it a strange thing," I said, "the interest of Kolar in the doctor, even before he saw him? It is not to be supposed that Kolar is a very regular church-goer, yet he hastened to hear the doctor at once on coming to Goodford. One could be almost certain that the letter describing the doctor as Becket _plus_ Savonarola, and asking someone to 'come down,' was addressed to no other than to Baron Kolar."

"Very likely," replied Langler; "and that was chiefly what I had to say to Burton in our interview just now. I tried to persuade him that the baron is no friend of priests, that he probably has one of them a prisoner in his burg at this moment, but because I could make no certain statements his mind was closed against me. On his part, he used the words 'evil-speaking,' 'presumption,' 'interference'; he said 'dare,' he said 'irreverent.' But I won't speak of that interview--it was _bete_.

The sentiment that now occupies my mind about Dr Burton is this: 'the pity of it!' One cannot touch pitch and go undefiled. I have often had the augury that Burton is a man with a tragedy in his future, and, if I was right, that tragedy now perhaps takes shape: it will consist in his 'defilement.' Baron Kolar has prophesied that the doctor will be the greatest of priests: well, if I, too, may prophesy, I say that from being the greatest of priests, as he now is, he will become no priest at all; that by little and little he will drop from his height, will lose perfection of motive and absoluteness of fibre, till on a day he will find himself fingering the dross of the grosser world."

By this time we had got into sight of the lights of Goodford House. On our arrival, as we were pa.s.sing through the outer hall, a man handed a letter to Langler, which Langler, after glancing through it, handed to me; and I read the words: "Charles Robinson, your groom, is certainly in this neighbourhood, and if you have not found him it is because you have not searched enough. If you have the courage to meet the writer at the north-west corner of Hallam Castle alone at seven on Sunday evening, he promises you that at least you shall see the face of the missing man.--A Well-wisher."

CHAPTER IX

"CRUCIFY TO YOURSELVES AFRESH THE SON OF MAN ..."

It was the thirteenth Sunday after Trinity, and for what reason I don't remember--certainly, the house-party at Goodford were hardly zealots in the matter of church-going--that Sunday evening quite a party had been got up to go to the office at Ritching. The fact, I believe, was that the fame of Dr Burton's oratory had spread through the house, and dowager and lordling, finding the Sabbath evening empty, yielded to the pique of curiosity and to Mrs Edward's organising genius.

Baron Kolar, too, had everywhere dropped the opinion that Dr Burton was a nice fellow, that he was not so bad, that he was the only living man with whom grandiose speech was a natural function, like sleep.

Langler alone had declined to take part in the bout. Under any circ.u.mstances, I fancy, he would have shrunk from that kind of religious picnic; but he had now the special reason that he meant to go "at seven"

that evening to the rendezvous at Hallam Castle given him in the unsigned letter.

To me this seemed very foolish, for I argued that no one could know the whereabouts of Robinson except those to whom he owed his disappearance, and during two days I had been praying Langler to ignore the letter. He answered that he had made up his mind to go. But at least he would let me go with him, I urged. He answered that he would rather be alone. What arms, I asked, would he take with him? He said that he was not accustomed to carry weapons about, and would take his stick.

"But you speak," I had said, "just as though you were not conscious of any danger in the undertaking."

"Well, I am conscious of danger," he answered, "but I believe that in proportion to the danger may be the amount of information to be gathered."

He had said that he would walk to Hallam Castle (three miles), and then, after his interview with the letter-writer, walk from Hallam to Ritching church (two miles), in order to get back to Goodford with the house-party in a carriage.

A little before six on the Sunday evening I was leaning with Miss Emily over a bridge in the north park when he came to us on his way to the rendezvous, spoke a few words, said he was going farther, and made me a signal with the eyes to be mum. Twice he waved back at us as he went forward; once and again I saw him stop to bend over a hedge-flower. He was rather pale. I had long understood that his heart was not strong, as small exertions would sometimes put him out of breath.

Miss Emily, for her part, had consented to be one of the party of excursionists, so after half-an-hour at the bridge she and I climbed the rising ground to the house to go to the church.

She said, I remember, that the escapade was a bore to her, so that up to that moment she certainly meant to go.

There in front of the porch when we reached it stood a crowd of vehicles, saddle-horses, drivers, grooms, in the midst of costumes and chatter. Two of the carriages had already started, bearing away cries of laughter at the crowded discomfort within them. I saw the pink brow of Mr Edwards under the neck of a rearing horse; large Mrs Edwards was in a flush of earnestness; Baron Kolar was seated on a cube of marble bestowing his teeth upon the scene.

Miss Emily was not yet ready to start, so ran into the house, telling me that she would be back in three minutes.

It had been ordained by Mrs Edwards that she should drive with Baron Kolar. I was with another party. In a few minutes only two of the vehicles were left; in one of them sat the baron, waiting for Miss Emily. I was in the other with four ladies; the baron's was a cabriolet, mine a car; both waited for the coming of Miss Emily.

Someone in my car said: "she is a long time."

The baron's eyes wandered; he drew his hand backward over his sc.r.a.p of hair, looking restless; he pipped nothings. Presently he called out: "where is she, then?"

I was unwilling to drive away without her, so I called back to him: "if you will take my place, I will take yours, and wait for her."

There was the objection of s.p.a.ce to this proposition; but, without answering, the baron at once got himself down from his cabriolet, and, with ponderous cares, managed to wedge himself into my place in the car, which drove off, while I stood by the cabriolet, waiting for Miss Emily.

She did not come. I waited ten minutes, fifteen. Then I went into the house, full of trouble.

I quickly found a housemaid, and sent her to hunt, but, running back after some minutes, she said that Miss Langler was not in her room.

Before long I had a number of men and women searching the house for her; but she could not be found, and my heart sank at the thought that both of them, brother and sister, were where I did not know.

One of the girls said that half-an-hour before, when Miss Langler was coming down the great stair to join the party, she had handed to Miss Langler a note which one of the villagers of Mins had given her. She had gone away while Miss Langler was reading the note, and did not know what Miss Langler had done afterwards.