"You can't expect a man like me, a disciple of Stepton, to take the Roman
Catholic view of such a matter."
"You are not a clergyman," said Chichester.
Malling could not help smiling.
"You think the profession carries with it certain obligations," he said. "No doubt it does. But I shall never believe that one of them is to shut your eyes to any fact in the whole scheme of Creation. Harm can never come from truth."
"If I could believe that!" Chichester cried out.
"Do you mean to tell me you don't believe it?"
Chichester looked at Malling for quite a minute without replying. Then he got up, and said, with a changed voice and manner:
"If the rector doesn't come to see me I shall have to go. Sunday is not a holiday, you know, for us clergymen."
He drew out his watch and looked at it.
"I shall have to go. I'm taking the Children's Service."