“I think you are wrong,” said Colin seriously. “I believe him to be sincere, though mistaken on some points.”
“What! he’s in your black books too? How has he managed that?”
“He has forbidden me to preach publicly to the men,” was the answer, given in a low voice, but with strong feeling—“said it would lead either to religious persecution or the suspicion of it, and that I must be satisfied with showing them a Christian life, and teaching any one who might come to me privately of his own accord. But that isn’t enough. They don’t come, and how can I reach them?”
“Poor old Colin!” said Ferrers, much amused. “What a Crusader you are, far too good to live nowadays. Fancy finding you in rebellion against constituted authority! I’ll back you to get more and more stubborn the worse he bullies you.”
Colin’s face flushed. “No, I was wrong to speak as I did,” he said. “It is possible the Major may be right, though I cannot see it. In any case, it is my duty to submit for the present.”
“Which means that you won’t accept my sympathy against the great Keeling. You always were a staunch little chap, Colin. Bet anything you stick up for me behind my back just as you do for him.”
“Of course,” said Colin simply; “you are our oldest friend.”
“That’s all very well, but your sister doesn’t feel as you do. It was pretty clearly intimated to me to-day that I was not to call her Penelope, by the bye. She’s done with me, I see. She scarcely spoke a word to me the whole time I was there.”
“No, no; indeed you are wrong,” said Colin eagerly. “She is ill, and can’t talk much. She knows your wishes perfectly. Why, you can’t think I would ever let her disappoint you?”
“You wouldn’t, perhaps, but Lady Haigh would be precious glad to see her do it. Look here, Colin, give your sister a message from me. Put it properly—that while I accept her ruling, and won’t venture to address her at present—you know the sort of thing?—yet I fully intend to claim her promise some day, and I regard her as belonging to me, and I trust she does the same. Make it as strong as you like.”