"Oh, Canada has taught me something; and so have South Africa and India; and so have you and Stairs, with your mission, or pilgrimage, or whatever it is—your Message."
"Well," said Stairs, "it seems to me your view of our pilgrimage is a very kindly, and perhaps flattering one; and as I have said, your aims as a citizen of the Empire and a lover of the Old Country could not have warmer sympathizers than Reynolds and myself; but——"
"Mind, I'm not trying to turn your religious teaching to any ignoble purpose," said Crondall, quickly. "I am not asking you to introduce a single new word or thought into it for my sake."
"That's so," said Reynolds, his eye upon Stairs.
"Quite so, quite so," said Stairs. "And, of course, I am with you in all you hope for; but you know, Crondall, religion is perhaps a rather different matter to a parson from what it is to you. Forgive me if I put it clumsily, but——"
And now, greatly daring, I ventured upon an interruption, speaking upon impulse, without consideration, and hearing my voice as though it were something outside myself.
"George Stairs," I said—and I fancy the thoughts of both of us went back sixteen years—"what was it you thought about the Congregational minister when you took over your post at Kootenay? How did you decide to treat him? Did you ever regret the partnership?"
"Now if that isn't straight out Western fashion!" murmured Reynolds. Constance beamed at me from her place beside John Crondall.
"I leave it at that," said our host.
"A palpable bull's-eye," said Forbes Thompson.