Mr. Polwarth thought a little.
"It would be well, I think, to retain it for a time at least while you search," he said. "If you do not within a month see prospect of finding him, then resign. In any case, your continuance in the service must depend on your knowledge of the lord of it, and his will concerning you."
"May not a prejudice in favour of my profession blind and deceive me?"
"I think it will rather make YOU doubtful of conclusions that support it."
"I will go and try," said Wingfold, rising; "but I fear I am not the man to make discoveries in such high regions."
"You are the man to find what fits your own need if the thing be there," said Polwarth. "But to ease your mind for the task: I know pretty well some of our best English writers of the more practical and poetic sort in theology—the two qualities go together—and if you will do me the favour to come again to-morrow, I shall be able, I trust, to provide you wherewithal to feed your flock, free of that duplicity which, be it as common as the surplice, and as fully connived as laughed at by that flock, is yet duplicity. There is no law that sermons shall be the preacher's own, but there is an eternal law against all manner of humbug. Pardon the word."
"I will not attempt to thank you," said Wingfold, "but I will do as you tell me. You are the first real friend I have ever had—except my brother, who is dead."
"Perhaps you have had more friends than you are aware of. You owe something to the man, for instance, who, with his outspoken antagonism, roused you first to a sense of what was lacking to you."
"I hope I shall be grateful to God for it some day," returned
Wingfold. "I cannot say that I feel much obligation to Mr. Bascombe.
And yet when I think of it,—perhaps—I don't know—what ought a man
to be more grateful for than honesty?"
After a word of arrangement for next day the curate took his leave, assuredly with a stronger feeling of simple genuine respect than he had ever yet felt for man. Rachel bade him good night with her fine eyes filled with tears, which suited their expression, for they always seemed to be looking through sorrow to something beyond it.