"Yes, I know, but..."
"What has Newman been writing to you?" asked Tristram suspiciously.
"An enthusiastic account of the woods of Dart. He has been staying with Froude, you know."
"We have seen better things than the Dart—or even the Axe—for that matter," observed Tristram. "Anything else?"
Dormer turned over the pages of his letter. "He sends me a tirade against Liberalism and the anti-dogmatic principle, which makes me long to be home. He says the Bill is bound to pass and the nation is for revolution."
"Well, I suppose we knew that," returned Tristram, unimpressed. "How is he getting on with the Councils?"
"Very well, I think. I told you, Tristram, that he was the right man."
"Oh, I dare say he is good enough," was the grudging reply.
"Listen to this," said Dormer. "'My work opens a grand and most interesting field to me, but how I shall ever be able to make one assertion, much less to write one page, I cannot tell.' That will be all right."
No response from Tristram. Dormer smiled to himself and, seeing the mood he was in, omitted the rest of the page where Newman confided to him his fear that he should be obliged to confine himself to the one Council dealing with the Arian heresy.