"Ah! I'll go and find him."
"Yes, I should."
And off he went.
"It is really very pleasant," said Claudia, "to prevent Sir Roderick finding out things that he wants to find out. I think it does me credit—and it annoys him so very much. I will go and have a nice drive with Mrs. Lane, and see some old women. I feel as if I ought to do something proper."
And perhaps it was about time.
CHAPTER VIII
Stafford in Retreat, and Sir Roderick in Action.
When Stafford got into the train on his headlong flight from Millstead Manor, he had no settled idea of his destination, and he arrived in London without having made much progress toward a resolution. Not knowing what he wanted, he could not decide where he was most likely to find it. Did he want to forget or to think; to repent or to resolve? This is the alternative that presents itself to a mind puzzled to know whether its doubt is a concession to sin or a homage to reason. Stafford had been bred in a school widely different from that which treats all questions as open, and all to be referred to the verdict of the balance of expediency. Among other lessons, he had been taught a deep distrust of the instrument by which he was forced to guide his actions. But no training had succeeded in eradicating a strong mind's instinct of self-confidence, and if up till now he had committed no rebellion, it was because his reason had been rather a voluntary and eager helper than a captive or slave to the tribunal he distinguished from it by the name of conscience. With some surprise at himself—a surprise that now took the place of shame—he recognized that he was not ready to take everything for granted, that he must know that what he was flying from was in fact sin, not only that it might be. That it was sin he fully believed, but he would be sure. So much triumph his passion extorted from him as he paced irresolutely up and down the square in front of Euston, after seeing Kate and Haddington safely away, while the porter and cabman wondered why the traveler seemed not sure where he wanted to go. Of their wonder and their irreverent suggestions he was supremely careless.
No, he would not go back at once to his active work. Not only did his health still forbid that—and, indeed, last night's struggle seemed to him to have undone most of the good he had gained from the quiet of Millstead—but, what was more, he believed, above all, in the importance of the state of the pastor's own soul, and was convinced that his work would be weak and futile done under such conditions; that in theological language, there would be no blessing on it. When he had once reached that conclusion, his path was plain before him. He would go to the Retreat. This word Retreat has become familiar to those who study ecclesiastical items in the paper. But the Retreat Stafford had in his mind was not quite of the common kind. It had been founded by one of the leaders of his party, and was intended to serve the function of a spiritual casual ward, whither those who were for the moment at a loss might resort and find refuge until they had time to turn round. It was not a permanent home for any one. After his stay, the visitor returned to the world if he would; if he were finally disabled he was passed on to a permanent residence of another kind. The Retreat was a temporary refuge only. Sometimes it was full, sometimes it was empty; save for the Superintendent, as he was called; for religious terms were avoided, and a severe neutrality of description forbade the possibility of the Retreat itself seeming to take any side in the various mental battles for which it afforded a clear field, remote from interruption and from the bias alike of the world and of previous religious prepossessions. A man was entirely left to himself at the Retreat. Save at the dinner hour, no one spoke to him except the Superintendent. The rule of his office was that he should always be ready to listen on all subjects, and to talk on all indifferent subjects. Advice and exhortation were forbidden to him. If a man wanted the ordinary consolations of religion, his case was not the special case the Retreat was founded to meet. When nobody could help a man, and nothing was left for him but to go through with the struggle in his own soul, then he came to the Retreat. There he stayed till he reached some conclusion: that is, if he could reach one within a reasonable time; for the pretense of unconquerable hesitation was not received. When he arrived at his resolve, he went away: what the resolve was, and where he was going, whether to High or Low, to Rome or Islington, to Church or Dissent, or even to Mohammed or Theosophy, or what not, or nothing, nobody asked. Such a foundation had struck many devoted followers of the Founder as little better than a negation or an abdication. The Founder thought otherwise. "If forms and words are of any use to him, a man will never come," he said; "if he comes, let him alone." And it may be that this difference between the Founder and his disciples was due to the fact that the Founder believed that, given a fair field in any honest mind, his views must prevail, whereas the disciples were not so strong in faith.