The Beckoning Hand, and Other Stories Read online

  _PROFESSOR MILLITER'S DILEMMA._

  The Gospel Evangelists were naturally very proud of Professor Milliter.A small and despised sect, with not many great, not many rich, not manynoble among them, they could comfort themselves at least with thereflection that they numbered in their fold one of the most learned andjustly famous of modern English scientific thinkers. It is true, theirplace of meeting at Mortiscombe was but an upper chamber in a smallcottage; their local congregation consisted of hardly more than threescore members; and their nickname among their orthodox churchyneighbours was the very opprobrious and very ridiculous one of "theShivering Ranters." Still, the Gospel Evangelists felt it was a greatprivilege to be permitted the ministrations of so learned and eloquent apreacher as Professor Milliter. The rector of the parish was an OxfordM.A., of the usual decorously stereotyped conventional pattern; but inpoint even of earthly knowledge and earthly consideration, said thecongregation at Patmos Chapel, "he is not worthy to unloose the latchetof our pastor's shoe." For Professor Milliter was universally allowed tobe the greatest living authority in England on comparative anatomy, therising successor of Cuvier, and Owen, and Milne-Edwards, and Carpenter,in the general knowledge of animal structure.

  Mortiscombe, as everybody knows, is the favourite little suburbanwatering-place, close by the busy streets and noisy wharves of a greatEnglish manufacturing centre. It is at Mortiscombe that the WesternCounties College of Science is situated, away from the smoke and bustleof the whirring city: and it was in the Western Counties College ofScience that Cyril Milliter ably filled the newly founded chair ofComparative Anatomy. When he was first appointed, indeed, peoplegrumbled a little at the idea of a Professor at the College undertakingevery Sunday to preach in a common conventicle to a low assembly ofvulgar fanatics, as in their charitable Christian fashion they loved tocall the Gospel Evangelists. But Cyril Milliter was a man of characterand determination: he had fully made up his own mind upon theologicalquestions; and having once cast in his lot with the obscure sect ofGospel Evangelists, to which his parents had belonged before him, he wasnot to be turned aside from his purpose by the coarse gibes of theordinary public or the cynical incredulity of more cultivated butscarcely more tolerant polite society. "Not a Gospel Evangelist reallyand truly: you must surely be joking, Mr. Milliter," young ladies saidto him at evening parties with undisguised astonishment; "why, they'rejust a lot of ignorant mill-hands, you know, who meet together in anupper room somewhere down in Ford's Passage to hear sermons from someignorant lay preacher."

  "Quite so," Cyril Milliter would answer quietly; "and _I_ am theignorant lay preacher who has been appointed to deliver those sermons tothem. I was brought up among the Gospel Evangelists as a child, and nowthat I am a man my mature judgment has made me still continue amongthem."

  Mortiscombe is well known to be a very advanced and liberal-mindedplace; so, after a time, people ceased to talk about the curioussingularity of Cyril Milliter's Sunday occupation. All through the weekthe young professor lectured to his class on dry bones and the othercheerful stock-in-trade of his own department; and on Sundays he walkeddown erect, Bible in hand, to his little meeting-room, and therefervently expounded the Word, as it approved itself to his soul andconscience, before the handful of earnest artisans who composed hisfaithful but scanty congregation. A fiery and enthusiastic preacher wasCyril Milliter, devoured with zeal for what seemed to him the rightdoctrine. "There is only one thing worth living for in this fallenworld," he used to say to his little group of attentive hearers, "andthat is Truth. Truth, as it reveals itself in the book of nature, mustbe our quest during the working week: Truth, as it reveals itself in thewritten Word, must be our quest on these happy blessed seventh-daySabbaths." There was a high eager light in his eye as he spoke, mingledwith a clear intellectual honesty in his sharply cut features, whichgave at once the stamp of reality to that plain profession of hissimple, manly, earnest creed.

  One other subject, however, beside the pursuit of truth, just at thatmoment deeply interested Cyril Milliter; and that subject assumed bodilyform in the pretty little person of Netta Leaworthy. Right in front ofCyril, as he expounded the Word every Sunday morning, sat a modest,demure, dimpled English girl, with a complexion like a blushingapple-blossom, and a mouth like the sunny side of a white-heart cherry.She was only the daughter of an intelligent mill-hand, a foreman at oneof the great factories in the neighbouring city, was dainty,whitefingered, sweet-voiced little Netta; but there was a Puritanfreshness and demureness and simplicity about her that fairly won theheart of the enthusiastic young professor. Society at Mortiscombe hadmade itself most agreeable to Cyril Milliter, in spite of hisheterodoxy, as Society always does to eligible young bachelors of goodeducation; and it had thrown its daughters decorously in his way, byasking him to all its dinners, dances, and at-homes, with most profuseand urgent hospitality. But in spite of all the wiles of the mostexperienced among Society's mothers, Cyril Milliter had positively hadthe bad taste to fix his choice at last upon nobody better than simple,unaffected, charming little Netta.

  For one sunny Sunday morning, after worship, Cyril had turned out intothe fields behind the Common, for a quiet stroll among the birds andflowers: when, close by the stile in the upper meadow, he cameunexpectedly upon Netta Leaworthy, alone upon the grass with her ownfancies. She was pulling an ox-eye daisy carelessly to pieces as hepassed, and he stopped a minute unperceived beside the hedge, to watchher deft fingers taking out one ray after another quickly from theblossom to the words of a foolish childish charm. Netta blushed crimsonwhen she saw she was observed at that silly pastime, and Cyril thoughtto himself he had never seen anything in his life more lovely than theblushing girl at that moment. Learned and educated as he was, he hadsprung himself from among the ranks of the many, and his heart was withthem still rather than with the rich, the noble, and the mighty. "I willnever marry among the daughters of Heth," he said to himself gently, ashe paused beside her: "I will take to myself rather a wife and ahelpmate from among the Lord's own chosen people."

  "Ah, Miss Leaworthy," he went on aloud, smiling sympathetically at herembarrassment, "you are following up the last relics of a dyingsuperstition, are you? 'One for money, two for health, Three for love,and four for wealth.' Is that how the old saw goes? I thought so. Andwhich of the four blessings now has your daisy promised you I wonder?"

  The tone he spoke in was so very different from that which he had justbeen using in the chapel at worship that Netta felt instinctively whatit foreboded; and her heart fluttered tremulously as she answered in thequietest voice she could command, "I haven't finished it yet, Mr.Milliter; I have made five rounds already, and have a lot of rays leftstill in the middle of the daisy."

  Cyril took it from her, laughingly, and went on with the rhyme--hisconscience upbraiding him in an undertone of feeling meanwhile for suchan unworthy paltering with old-world superstition--till he had gonetwice round the spell, and finished abruptly with "Three for love!""Love it is!" he cried gaily. "A good omen! Miss Leaworthy, we none ofus love superstition: but perhaps after all it is something more thanthat; there may be a Hand guiding us from above, even in these everydaytrifles! We must never forget, you know, that every hair of our heads isnumbered."

  Netta's heart fluttered still more violently within her as he looked ather so closely. Could it be that really, in spite of everything, thegreat, learned, good, clever young professor was going to ask her to behis wife? Netta had listened to him with joy Sunday after Sunday fromhis simple platform pulpit, and had felt in her heart that no man neverexpounded the gospel of love as beautifully as he did. She had fanciedsometimes--girls cannot help fancying, be they as modest and retiring asthey may--that he really did like her just a little. And she--she hadadmired and wondered at him from a distance. But she could hardlybelieve even now that that little vague day-dream which had sometimesfloated faintly before her eyes was going to be actually realized ingood earnest. She could answer nothing, her heart beat so; but shelooked down to the
ground with a flushed and frightened look which wasmore eloquent in its pretty simplicity than all the resources of themost copious language.

  Cyril Milliter's mind, however, was pretty well made up already on thisimportant matter, and he had been waiting long for just such anopportunity of asking Netta whether she could love him. And now, evenwithout asking her, he could feel at once by some subtle inner sensethat his eager question was answered beforehand, and that modest,maidenly little Netta Leaworthy was quite prepared to love him dearly.

  For a moment he stood there looking at her intently, and neither of themspoke. Then Netta raised her eyes from the ground for a second's flash;and Cyril's glance caught hers one instant before she bent them downagain in haste to play nervously with the mangled daisy. "Netta," hesaid, the name thrilling through his very marrow as he uttered it,"Netta, I love you."

  She stood irresolute for a while, listening to the beating of her ownheart, and then her eye caught his once more, timidly, but she spokenever a syllable.

  Cyril took her wee white hand in his--a lady's hand, if ever you sawone--and raised it with chivalrous tenderness to his lips. Netta allowedhim to raise it and kiss it without resistance. "Then you will let melove you?" he asked quickly. Netta still did not answer, but throwingherself back on the bank by the hedgerow began to cry like a frightenedchild.

  Cyril sat down, all tremulous beside her, took the white hand unresistedin his, and said to her gently, "Oh, Netta, what is this for?"

  Then Netta answered with an effort, through her tears, "Mr. Milliter,Mr. Milliter, how can you ever tell me of this?"

  "Why not, Netta? Why not, my darling? May I not ask you to be my wife?Will you have me, Netta?"

  Netta looked at him timidly, with another blush, and said slowly, "No,Mr. Milliter; I cannot. I must not."

  "Why not, Netta? Oh, why not? Tell me a reason."

  "Because it wouldn't be right. Because it wouldn't be fair to you.Because it wouldn't be true of me. You ought to marry a lady--someone in your own rank of life, you know. It would be wrong to tieyour future down to a poor nameless nobody like me, when you mightmarry--marry--almost any lady you chose in all Mortiscombe."

  "Netta, you pain me. You are wronging me. You know I care nothing forsuch gewgaws as birth or wealth or rank or station. I would not marryone of those ladies even if she asked me. And, as to my own position inlife, why, Netta, my position is yours. My parents were poor God-fearingpeople, like your parents; and if you will not love me, then, Netta,Netta, I say it solemnly, I will never, never marry anybody."

  Netta answered never a word; but, as any other good girl would do in herplace, once more burst into a flood of tears, and looked at himearnestly from her swimming eyes in speechless doubt and trepidation.

  Perhaps it was wrong of Cyril Milliter--on a Sunday, and in the publicpathway too--but he simply put his strong arm gently round her waist,and kissed her a dozen times over fervidly without let or hindrance.

  Then Netta put him away from her, not too hastily, but with a lingeringhesitation, and said once more, "But, Mr. Milliter, I can never marryyou. You will repent of this yourself by-and-by at your leisure. Justthink, how could I ever marry you, when I should always be toofrightened of you to call you anything but 'Mr. Milliter!'"

  "Why, Netta," cried the young professor, with a merry laugh, "if that'sall, you'll soon learn to call me, 'Cyril.'"

  "To call you 'Cyril,' Mr. Milliter! Oh dear, no, never. Why, I've lookedat you so often in meeting, and felt so afraid of you, because you wereso learned, and wise, and terrible: and I'm sure I should never learn tocall you by your Christian name, whatever happened."

  "And as you can't do that, you won't marry me! I'm delighted to hear it,Netta--delighted to hear it; for if that's the best reason you canconjure up against the match, I don't think, little one, I shall find itvery hard to talk you over."

  "But, Mr. Milliter, are you quite sure you won't regret it yourselfhereafter? Are you quite sure you won't repent, when you find Societydoesn't treat you as it did, for my sake? Are you quite sure nothingwill rise up hereafter between us, no spectre of class difference, orclass prejudice, to divide our lives and make us unhappy?"

  "Never!" Cyril Milliter answered, seizing both her hands in his eagerly,and looking up with an instinctive glance to the open heaven above themas witness. "Never, Netta, as long as I live and you live, shall anyshadow of such thought step in for one moment to put us asunder."

  And Netta, too proud and pleased to plead against her own heart anylonger, let him kiss her once again a lover's kiss, and pressed his handin answer timidly, and walked back with him blushing towardsMortiscombe, his affianced bride before the face of high heaven.

  When Society at Mortiscombe first learnt that that clever youngProfessor Milliter was really going to marry the daughter of somefactory foreman, Society commented frankly upon the matter according tothe various idiosyncrasies and temperaments of its component members.Some of it was incredulous; some of it was shocked; some of it wascynical; some of it was satirical; and some of it, shame to say, wasspitefully free with suggested explanations for such very strange andunbecoming conduct. But Cyril Milliter himself was such a transparentlyhonest and straightforward man, that, whenever the subject was alludedto in his presence, he shamed the cynicism and the spitefulness ofSociety by answering simply, "Yes, I'm going to marry a Miss Leaworthy,a very good and sweet girl, the daughter of the foreman at the TubeWorks, who is a great friend of mine and a member of my little Sundaycongregation." And, somehow, when once Cyril Milliter had said that inhis quiet natural way to anybody, however cynical, the somebody nevercared to talk any more gossip thenceforward for ever on the subject ofthe professor's forthcoming marriage.

  Indeed, so fully did the young professor manage to carry publicsentiment with him in the end, that when the wedding-day actuallyarrived, almost every carriage in all Mortiscombe was drawn up at thedoors of the small chapel where the ceremony was performed; and youngMrs. Milliter had more callers during the first fortnight after herhoneymoon than she knew well how to accommodate in their tinydrawing-room. In these matters, Society never takes any middle course.Either it disapproves of a "mixed marriage" altogether, in which case itcrushes the unfortunate offender sternly under its iron heel; or else itrapturously adopts the bride into its own magic circle, in which caseshe immediately becomes a distinct somebody, in virtue of the verydifference of original rank, and is invited everywhere with_empressement_ as a perfect acquisition to the local community. Thislast was what happened with poor simple blushing little Netta, who foundherself after a while so completely championed by all Mortiscombe thatshe soon fell into her natural place in the college circle as if to themanner born. All nice girls, of whatever class, are potentially ladies(which is more than one can honestly say for all women of the upperranks), and after a very short time Netta became one of the most popularyoung married women in all Mortiscombe. When once Society had got overits first disappointment because Cyril Milliter had not rather marriedone of its own number, it took to Netta with the greatest cordiality.After all, there is something so very romantic, you know, in a gentlemanmarrying a foreman's daughter; and something so very nice and liberal,too, in one's own determination to treat her accordingly in every waylike a perfect equal.

  And yet, happy as she was, Netta could never be absolutely free from apressing fear, a doubt that Cyril might not repent his choice, and feelsorry in the end for not having married a real lady. That fear pursuedher through all her little triumph, and almost succeeded in making herhalf jealous of Cyril whenever she saw him talking at all earnestly (andhe was very apt to be earnest) with other women. "They know so much morethan I do," she thought to herself often; "he must feel so much more athome with them, naturally, and be able to talk to them about so manythings that he can never possibly talk about with poor little me." Poorgirl, it never even occurred to her that from the higher standpoint of areally learned man like Cyril Milliter the petty smattering of Frenchand strumming of
the piano, wherein alone these grand girls actuallydiffered from her, were mere useless surface accomplishments, in no wayaffecting the inner intelligence or culture, which were the only thingsthat Cyril regarded in any serious light as worthy of respect oradmiration. As a matter of fact, Netta had learnt infinitely more fromher Bible, her English books, her own heart, and surrounding nature,than any of these well-educated girls had learnt from theirparrot-trained governesses; and she was infinitely better fitted thanany of them to be a life companion for such a man as Cyril Milliter.

  For the first seven or eight months of Netta's married life all wentsmoothly enough with the young professor and his pretty wife. But at theend of that time an event came about which gave Netta a great deal ofunhappiness, and caused her for the very first time since she had everknown him to have serious doubts about Cyril's affection. And this wasjust how it all happened.

  One Sunday morning, in the upper chamber at Patmos, Cyril had announcedhimself to preach a discourse in opposition to sundry wicked scientifictheories which were then just beginning seriously to convulse the littleworld of religious Mortiscombe. Those were the days when Darwin'sdoctrine of evolution had lately managed to filter down little bylittle to the level of unintelligent society; and the inquiringworking-men who made up Cyril Milliter's little congregation in theupper chamber were all eagerly reading the "Origin of Species" and the"Descent of Man." As for Cyril himself, in his austere fashion, hedoubted whether any good could come even of considering such heterodoxopinions. They were plainly opposed to the Truth, he held, both to theTruth as expressed in the written Word, and to the Truth as he himselfclearly read it in the great open book of nature. This evolution theytalked about so glibly was a dream, a romance, a mere baseless figmentof the poor fallible human imagination; all the plain facts of scienceand of revelation were utterly irreconcilable with it, and in fiveyears' time it would be comfortably dead and buried for ever, side byside with a great load of such other vague and hypothetical rubbish. Hecould hardly understand, for his part, how sensible men could bothertheir heads about such nonsense for a single moment. Still, as many ofhis little flock had gone to hear a brilliant young lecturer who camedown from London last week to expound the new doctrine at the Literaryand Philosophical Institute, and as they had been much shaken in theirfaith by the lecturer's sophistical arguments and obviousmisrepresentations of scientific principles, he would just lay beforethem plainly what science had to say in opposition to these fantasticand immature theorists. So on Sunday morning next, with Bible in onehand and roll of carefully executed diagrams in the other (for CyrilMilliter was no conventional formalist, afraid of shocking the sense ofpropriety in his congregation), he went down in militant guise to theupper chamber and delivered a fervent discourse, intended to smite theDarwinians hip and thigh with the arms of the Truth--both Scriptural andscientific--to slay the sophists outright with the sword of the Lord andof Gideon.

  Cyril took for his text a single clause from the twenty-first verse ofthe first chapter of Genesis--"Every winged fowl after his kind." That,he said impressively, was the eternal and immutable Truth upon thematter. He would confine his attention that morning entirely to this oneaspect of the case--the creation of the class of birds. "In thebeginning," the Word told us, every species of bird had been created aswe now see it, perfect and fully organized after its own kind. There wasno room here for their boasted "development," or their hypothetical"evolution." The Darwinians would fain force upon them some old wife'stale about a monstrous lizard which gradually acquired wings andfeathers, till at last, by some quaint Ovidian metamorphosis (into suchchildish heathenism had we finally relapsed), it grew slowly into theoutward semblance of a crow or an ostrich. But that was not what theTruth told them. On the fourth day of creation, simultaneously with thefish and every living creature that moveth in the ocean, the watersbrought forth "fowl that might fly above the earth in the open firmamentof heaven." Such on this subject was the plain and incontrovertiblestatement of the inspired writer in the holy Scripture.

  And now, how did science confirm this statement, and scatter at once tothe winds the foolish, brain-spun cobwebs of our windy, vaporous, modernevolutionists? These diagrams which he held before him wouldsufficiently answer that important question. He would show them thatthere was no real community of structure in any way between the twoclasses of birds and reptiles. Let them observe the tail, the wings, thefeathers, the breast-bone, the entire anatomy, and they would see atonce that Darwin's ridiculous, ill-digested theory was wholly opposed toall the plain and demonstrable facts of nature. It was a very learneddiscourse, certainly; very crushing, very overwhelming, very convincing(when you heard one side only), and not Netta alone, but the wholecongregation of intelligent, inquiring artisans as well, was utterlycarried away by its logic, its clearness, and its eloquent rhetoric.Last of all, Cyril Milliter raised his two white hands solemnly beforehim, and uttered thus his final peroration.

  "In conclusion, what proof can they offer us of their astoundingassertions?" he asked, almost contemptuously. "Have they a single fact,a single jot or tittle of evidence to put in on this matter, as againstthe universal voice of authoritative science, from the days ofAristotle, of Linnaeus, or of Cuvier, to the days of Owen, of Lyell, andof Carpenter? Not one! Whenever they can show me, living or fossil, anorganism which unites in itself in any degree whatsoever thecharacteristics of birds and reptiles--an organism which has at onceteeth and feathers; or which has a long lizard-like tail and true wings;or which combines the anatomical peculiarities I have here assigned tothe one class with the anatomical peculiarities I have here assigned tothe other: then, and then only, will I willingly accede to their absurdhypothesis. But they have not done it. They cannot do it. They willnever do it. A great gulf eternally separates the two classes. A vastgap intervenes impassably between them. That gulf will never belessened, that gap will never be bridged over, until Truth is finallyconfounded with falsehood, and the plain facts of nature and the Wordare utterly forgotten in favour of the miserable, inconsistent figmentsof the poor fallible human imagination."

  As they walked home from worship that morning, Netta felt she had neverbefore so greatly admired and wondered at her husband. How utterly hehad crushed the feeble theory of these fanciful system-mongers, howclearly he had shown the absolute folly of their presumptuous andarrogant nonsense! Netta could not avoid telling him so, with a flush ofhonest pride in her beautiful face: and Cyril flushed back immediatelywith conscious pleasure at her wifely trust and confidence. But he wastired with the effort, he said, and must go for a little walk alone inthe afternoon: a walk among the fields and the Downs, where he couldcommune by himself with the sights and sounds of truth-telling nature.Netta was half-piqued, indeed, that he should wish even so to go withouther; but she said nothing: and so after their early dinner, Cyrilstarted away abstractedly by himself, and took the lane behind thevillage that led up by steep inclines on to the heavy moorland with itsfresh bracken and its purple heather.

  As he walked along hastily, his mind all fiery-full of bones andfossils, he came at last to the oolite quarry on the broken hillside.Feeling tired, he turned in to rest awhile in the shade on one of thegreat blocks of building stone hewn out by the workmen; and by way ofoccupation he began to grub away with his knife, half-unconsciously ashe sat, at a long flat slab of slaty shale that projected a little fromthe sheer face of the fresh cutting. As he did so, he saw marks ofsomething very like a bird's feather on its upper surface. The sightcertainly surprised him a little. "Birds in the oolite," he said tohimself quickly; "it's quite impossible! Birds in the oolite! this isquite a new departure. Besides, such a soft thing as a feather couldnever conceivably be preserved in the form of a fossil."

  Still, the queer object interested him languidly, by its odd and timelyconnection with the subject of his morning sermon; and he looked at itagain a little more closely. By Jove, yes, it was a feather, not a doubtin the world of that now; he could see distinctly the central shaft of ata
il-quill, and the little barbed branches given off regularly on eitherside of it. The shale on which it was impressed was a soft, light-brownmudstone; in fact, a fragment of lithographic slate, exactly like thatemployed by lithographers for making pictures. He could easily see howthe thing had happened; the bird had fallen into the soft mud, long agessince, before the shale had hardened, and the form of its feathers hadbeen distinctly nature-printed, while it was still moist, upon itsplastic surface. But a bird in the oolite! that was a real discovery;and, as the Gospel Evangelists were no Sabbatarians, Cyril did notscruple in the pursuit of Truth to dig away at the thin slab with hisknife, till he egged it out of the rock by dexterous side pressure, andlaid it triumphantly down at last for further examination on the bigstone that stood before him.

  Gazing in the first delight of discovery at his unexpected treasure, hesaw in a moment that it was a very complete and exquisitely printedfossil. So perfect a pictorial representation of an extinct animal hehad never seen before in his whole lifetime; and for the first moment ortwo he had no time to do anything else but admire silently the exquisitedelicacy and extraordinary detail of this natural etching. But after aminute, the professional interest again asserted itself, and he began tolook more carefully into the general nature of its curious andunfamiliar anatomical structure.

  As he looked, Cyril Milliter felt a horrible misgiving arise suddenlywithin him. The creature at which he was gazing so intently was not abird, it was a lizard. And yet--no--it was not a lizard--it was a bird."Why--these are surely feathers--yes, tail feathers--quiteunmistakable.... But they are not arranged in a regular fan; the quillsstand in pairs, one on each side of each joint in a long tail, for allthe world exactly like a lizard's.... Still, it must be a bird; for,see, these are wings ... and that is certainly a bird's claw.... Buthere's the head; great heavens! what's this?... A jaw, with teeth init...." Cyril Milliter leaned back, distractedly, and held his beatingforehead between his two pale hands. To most scientific men it wouldhave been merely the discovery of an interesting intermediateorganism--something sure to make the reputation of a comparativeanatomist; to him, it was an awful and sudden blow dealt unexpectedlyfrom the most deadly quarter at all his deepest and most sacredprinciples. Religion, honour, Truth, the very fundamental basis of theuniverse itself--all that makes life worth living for, all that makesthe world endurable--was bound up implicitly that moment for CyrilMilliter in the simple question whether the shadowy creature, printed infaint grey outline on the slab of shaly oolite before him, was or wasnot half bird and half lizard.

  It may have been foolish of him: it may have been wrong: it may havebeen madness almost; but at that instant he felt dazzled and stunned bythe crushing weight of the blow thus unexpectedly dealt at his wholepreconceived theory of things, and at his entire mental scheme ofscience and theology. The universe seemed to swim aimlessly before him:he felt the solid ground knocked at once from beneath his feet, andfound himself in one moment suspended alone above an awful abyss, aseething and tossing abyss of murky chaos. He had pinned all histottering faith absolutely on that single frail support; and now thesupport had given way irretrievably beneath him, and blank atheism,nihilism, utter nothingness, stared him desperately in the face. In oneminute, while he held his head tight between his two palms to keep itfrom bursting, and looked with a dull, glazed, vacant eye at the ghastlything before him--only a few indistinct fossil bones, but to him thehorridest sight he had ever beheld--a whole world of ideas crowdeditself on the instant into his teeming, swimming brain. If we couldcompress an infinity of thought into a single second, said Shelley once,that second would be eternity; and on the brink of such a compressedeternity Cyril Milliter was then idly sitting. It seemed to him, as heclasped his forehead tighter and tighter, that the Truth which he hadbeen seeking, and for which he had been working and fighting so long,revealed itself to him now and there, at last, in concrete form, as avisible and tangible Lie. It was no mere petrified lizard that he sawbeneath his eyes, but a whole ruined and shattered system of philosophictheology. His cosmogony was gone; his cosmos itself was dispersed anddisjointed; creation, nay, the Creator Himself, seemed to fade awayslowly into nonentity before him. He beheld dimly an awful vision of agreat nebulous mist, drifting idly before the angry storm-cyclones ofthe masterless universe--drifting without a God or a ruler to guide it;bringing forth shapeless monstrosities one after another on its wrinkledsurface; pregnant with ravine, and rapine, and cruelty; vast, powerful,illimitable, awful; but without one ray of light, one gleam of love, onehope of mercy, one hint of divine purpose anywhere to redeem it. It wasthe pessimistic nightmare of a Lucretian system, translated hastily intoterms of Cyril Milliter's own tottering and fading theosophy.

  He took the thing up again into his trembling hands, and examined it asecond time more closely. No, there could be no shadow of a doubt aboutit: his professional skill and knowledge told him that much in a singlemoment. Nor could he temporize and palter with the discovery, as some ofhis elder brethren would have been tempted to do; his brain was tooyoung, and fresh, and vigorous, and logical not to permit of readymodification before the evidence of new facts. Come what might, he mustbe loyal to the Truth. This thing, this horrid thing that he heldvisibly before him, was a fact, a positive fact: a set of real bones,representing a real animal, that had once lived and breathed and flownabout veritably upon this planet of ours, and that was yet neither atrue bird nor a true lizard, but a half-way house and intermediate linkbetween those two now widely divergent classes. Cyril Milliter's mindwas at once too honest and too intelligent to leave room for any doubts,or evasions, or prevarications with itself upon that fundamentalsubject. He saw quite clearly and instantly that it was the very thingthe possibility of whose existence he had so stoutly denied thatself-same morning. And he could not go back upon his own words,"Whenever they show me an organism which unites in itself thecharacteristics of birds and reptiles, then, and then only, will Iaccede to their absurd hypothesis." The organism he had asked for laynow before him, and he knew himself in fact a converted evolutionist,encumbered with all the other hideous corollaries which his own peculiarlogic had been accustomed to tack on mentally to that hated creed. Healmost felt as if he ought in pure consistency to go off at once andmurder somebody, as the practical outcome of his own theories. For hadhe not often boldly asserted that evolutionism was inconsistent withTheism, and that without Theism, any real morality or any trueright-doing of any kind was absolutely impossible?

  At last, after long sitting and anxious pondering, Cyril Milliter roseto go home, carrying a heavy heart along with him. And then the questionbegan to press itself practically upon him, What could he ever do withthis horrible discovery? His first impulse was to dash the thing topieces against the rock, and go away stealthily, saying naught about thematter to any man. But his inborn reverence for the Truth made himshrink back in horror, a moment later, from this suggestion of Satan, ashe thought it--this wicked notion of suppressing a most important andconclusive piece of scientific evidence. His next idea was simply toleave it where it was, thus shuffling off the responsibility ofpublishing it or destroying it upon the next comer who chanced byaccident to enter the quarry. After all, he said to himself,hypocritically, he wasn't absolutely bound to tell anybody else a wordabout it; he could leave it there, and it would be in much the sameposition, as far as science was concerned, as it would have been if hehadn't happened to catch sight of it accidentally as it lay that morningin the mother stone. But again his conscience told him next moment thatsuch casuistry was dishonest and unworthy; he had found the thing, and,come what might, he ought to abide by the awful consequences. If he leftit lying there in the quarry, one of the workmen would probably smash itup carelessly with a blow of his pick to-morrow morning--this uniquesurvivor of a forgotten world--and to abandon it to such a fate as thatwould be at least as wicked as to break it to pieces himself of setpurpose, besides being a great deal more sneakish and cowardly. No,whatever else he did, it was at any rate his plai
n duty to preserve thespecimen, and to prevent it from being carelessly or wilfully destroyed.

  On the other hand, he couldn't bear, either, to display it openly, andthereby become, as the matter envisaged itself to his mind, a directpreacher of evolutionism--that is to say, of irreligion and immorality.With what face could he ever rise and exhibit at a scientific meetingthis evident proof that the whole universe was a black chaos, a grossmaterialistic blunder, a festering mass of blank corruption, withoutpurpose, soul, or informing righteousness? His entire moral being roseup within him in bitter revolt at the bare notion of such cold-bloodedtreachery. To give a long-winded Latin classificatory name, forsooth, toa thing that would destroy the faith of ages! At last, after longpondering, he determined to carry the slab carefully home inside hiscoat, and hide it away sedulously for the present in the cupboard of hislittle physiological laboratory. He would think the matter over, hewould take time to consider, he would ask humbly for light and guidance.But of whom? Well, well, at any rate, there was no necessity forprecipitate action. To Cyril Milliter's excited fancy, the whole futureof human thought and belief seemed bound up inextricably at that momentin the little slab of lithographic slate that lay before him; and hefelt that he need be in no hurry to let loose the demon of scepticismand sin (as it appeared to him) into the peaceful midst of a stillhappily trusting and unsuspecting humanity.

  He put his hand into his pocket, casually, to pull out his handkerchieffor a covering to the thing, and, as he did so, his fingers happened totouch the familiar clasp of his little pocket Bible. The touch thrilledhim strangely, and inspired him at once with a fresh courage. After all,he had the Truth there also, and he couldn't surely be doing wrong inconsulting its best and most lasting interests. It was for the sake ofthe Truth that he meant for the present to conceal his compromisingfossil. So he wrapped up the slab as far as he was able in hishandkerchief, and hid it away, rather clumsily, under the left side ofhis coat. It bulged a little, no doubt; but by keeping his arm flat tohis side he was able to cover it over decently somehow. Thus he walkedback quickly to Mortiscombe, feeling more like a thief with a stolenpurse in his pocket than he had ever before felt in the whole course ofhis earthly existence.

  When he reached his own house, he would not ring, lest Netta should runto open the door for him, and throw her arms round him, and feel thehorrid thing (how could he show it even to Netta after this morning'ssermon?), but he went round to the back door, opened it softly, andglided as quietly as he could into the laboratory. Not show it toNetta--that was bad: he had always hitherto shown her and told herabsolutely everything. How about the Truth? He was doing this, hebelieved, for the Truth's sake; and yet, the very first thing that itimposed upon him was the necessity for an ugly bit of unwontedconcealment. Not without many misgivings, but convinced on the wholethat he was acting for the best, he locked the slab of oolite up,hurriedly and furtively, in the corner cupboard.

  He had hardly got it safely locked up out of sight, and seated himselfas carelessly as he could in his easy chair, when Netta knocked softlyat the door. She always knocked before entering, by force of habit, forwhen Cyril was performing delicate experiments it often disturbed him,or spoilt the result, to have the door opened suddenly. Netta had seenhim coming, and wondered why he had slunk round by the back door: nowshe wondered still more why he did not "report himself," as he used tocall it, by running to kiss her and announce his return.

  "Come in," he said gravely, in answer to the knock; and Netta entered.

  Cyril jumped up and kissed her tenderly, but her quick woman's eye sawat once that there was something serious the matter. "You didn't ring,Cyril darling," she said, half reproachfully, "and you didn't come tokiss your wifie."

  "No," Cyril answered, trying to look quite at his ease (a thing at whichthe most innocent man in the world is always the worst possibleperformer), "I was in a hurry to get back here, as there was somethingin the way of my work I wanted particularly to see about."

  "Why, Cyril," Netta answered in surprise; "your work! It's Sunday."

  Cyril blushed crimson. "So it is," he answered hastily; "upon my word,I'd quite forgotten it. Goodness gracious, Netta, shall I have to godown to meeting and preach again to those people this evening?"

  "Preach again? Of course you will, Cyril. You always do, dear, don'tyou?"

  Cyril started back with a sigh. "I can't go to-night, Netta darling," hesaid wearily. "I can't preach to-night. I'm too tired and out ofsorts--I'm not at all in the humour for preaching. We must send downsomehow or other, and put off the brethren."

  Netta looked at him in blank dismay. She felt in her heart there wassomething wrong, but she wouldn't for worlds ask Cyril what it was,unless he chose to tell her of his own accord. Still, she couldn't helpreading in his eyes that there was something the matter: and the moreshe looked into them, the more poor Cyril winced and blinked and lookedthe other way in the vain attempt to seem unconcerned at her searchingscrutiny. "I'll send Mary down with a little written notice," she saidat last, "to fix on the door: 'Mr. Milliter regrets he will be unable,through indisposition, to attend worship at Patmos this evening.' Willthat do, Cyril?"

  "Yes," he answered uneasily. "That'll do, darling. I don't feel quitewell, I'm afraid, somehow, after my unusual exertions this morning."

  Netta looked at him hard, but said nothing.

  They went into the drawing-room and for a while they both pretended tobe reading. Then the maid brought up the little tea-tray, and Cyril wasobliged to lay down the book he had been using as a screen for hiscrimson face, and to look once more straight across the room at Netta.

  "Cyril," the little wife began again, as she took over his cup of tea tohis easy chair by the bow window, and set it down quietly on the tinyround table beside him, "where did you go this afternoon?"

  "On the Downs, darling."

  "And whom did you meet there?"

  "Nobody, Netta."

  "Nobody, Cyril?"

  "No, nobody."

  Netta knew she could trust his word implicitly, and asked him nofurther. Still, a dreadful cloud was slowly rising up before her. Shefelt too much confidence in Cyril to be really jealous of him in anyserious way; but her fears, womanlike, took that personal shape inwhich she fancied somebody or something must be weaning away herhusband's love gradually from her. Had he seen some girl at a distanceon the Downs, some one of the Mortiscombe ladies, with whom perhaps hehad had some little flirtation in the days gone by--some lady whom hethought now would have made him a more suitable, companionable wife thanpoor little Netta? Had he wandered about alone, saying to himself thathe had thrown himself away, and sacrificed his future prospects for apure, romantic boyish fancy? Had he got tired of her little, simple,homely ways? Had he come back to the house, heartsick and disappointed,and gone by himself into the working laboratory on purpose to avoid her?Why was he so silent? Why did he seem so preoccupied? Why would he notlook her straight in the face? Cyril could have done nothing to beashamed of, that Netta felt quite sure about, but why did he behave asif he was ashamed of himself--as if there was something or other in hismind he couldn't tell her?

  Meanwhile, poor Cyril was not less unhappy, though in a very differentand more masculine fashion. He wasn't thinking so much of Netta (exceptwhen she looked at him so hard and curiously), but of the broken gods ofhis poor little scientific and theological pantheon. He was passingthrough a tempest of doubt and hesitation, compelled to conceal it underthe calm demeanour of everyday life. That horrid, wicked,system-destroying fossil was never for a moment out of his mind. Attimes he hated and loathed the godless thing with all the concentratedforce of his ardent nature. Ought he to harbour it under the shelter ofhis hospitable roof? Ought he to give it the deadly chance of bearingits terrible witness before the eyes of an innocent world? Ought he notto get up rather in the dead of night, and burn it to ashes or grind itto powder--a cruel, wicked, deceiving, anti-scriptural fossil that itwas? Then again at other times the love of Truth came uppermost
oncemore to chill his fiery indignation. Could the eternal hills lie to him?Could the evidence of his own senses deceive him? Was not the creaturethere palpably and visibly present, a veritable record of realexistence; and ought he not loyally and reverently to accept itsevidence, at whatever violence to his own most cherished and sacredconvictions? If the universe was in reality quite other than what he hadalways hitherto thought it; if the doctrines he had first learned andthen taught as certain and holy were proved by plain facts to be mereancient and fading delusions, was it not his bounden duty manfully toresign his life-long day-dream, and to accept the Truth as it nowpresented itself to him by the infallible evidence of mute nature, thatcannot possibly or conceivably lie to us?

  The evening wore away slowly, and Cyril and Netta said little to oneanother, each absorbed in their own thoughts and doubts andperplexities. At last bedtime came, but not much sleep for either. Cyrillay awake, looking out into the darkness which seemed now to involve thewhole physical and spiritual world; seeing in fancy a vast chaoticclashing universe, battling and colliding for ever against itself,without one ray of hope, or light, or gladness left in it anywhere.Netta lay awake, too, wondering what could have come over Cyril; andseeing nothing but a darkened world, in which Cyril's love was takenaway from her, and all was cold, and dull, and cheerless. Each inimagination had lost the keystone of their own particular specialuniverse.

  Throughout the next week, Cyril went on mechanically with his dailywork, but struggling all the time against the dreadful doubt that wasrising now irresistibly within him. Whenever he came home from college,he went straight to his laboratory, locked the door, and took theskeleton out of the cupboard. It was only a very small skeleton indeed,and a fossil one at that; but if it had been a murdered man, and he themurderer, it could hardly have weighed more terribly than it actuallydid upon Cyril Milliter's mind and conscience. Yet it somehow fascinatedhim; and in all his spare time he was working away at the comparativeanatomy of his singular specimen. He had no doubts at all about it now:he knew it perfectly for what it was--an intermediate form between birdsand reptiles. Meanwhile, he could not dare to talk about it even toNetta; and Netta, though the feeling that there was something wrongsomewhere deepened upon her daily, would not say a word upon the subjectto Cyril. But she had discovered one thing--that the secret, whatever itwas, lay closed up in the laboratory cupboard; and as her fearsexaggerated her doubts, she grew afraid at last almost to enter the roomwhich held that terrible, unspeakable mystery.

  Thus more than a fortnight passed away, and Cyril and Netta grew dailyless and less at home with one another. At last, one evening, when Cyrilseemed gloomier and more silent than ever, Netta could bear the suspenseno longer. Rising up hastily from her seat, without one word of warning,she went over to her husband with a half-despairing gesture of alarm,and, flinging her arms around him with desperate force, she criedpassionately through her blinding tears, "Cyril, Cyril, Cyril, you_must_ tell me all about it."

  "About what, darling?" Cyril asked, trembling with half-conscioushypocrisy, for he knew in his heart at once what she meant as well asshe did.

  "Cyril," she cried again, looking him straight in the face steadily,"you have a secret that you will not tell me."

  "Darling," he answered, smoothing her hair tenderly with his hand, "itis no secret. It is nothing. You would think nothing of it if you knew.It's the merest trifle possible. But I can't tell you. I can _not_ tellyou."

  "But you must, Cyril," Netta cried bitterly. "You had never any secretfrom me, I know, till that dreadful Sunday, when you went out alone, andwouldn't even let me go with you. Then you came back stealthily by theback door, and never told me. And you brought something with you: ofthat I'm certain. And you've got the something locked up carefully inthe laboratory cupboard. I don't know how I found it all out exactly,but I have found it out, and I can't bear the suspense any longer, andso you _must_ tell me all about it. Oh, Cyril, dear Cyril, do, do tellme all about it!"

  Cyril faltered--faltered visibly; but even so, he dare not tell her. Hisown faith was going too terribly fast already; could he let hers go too,in one dreadful collapse and confusion? It never occurred to him thatthe fossil would mean little or nothing to poor Netta; he couldn't helpthinking of it as though every human being on earth would regard it withthe same serious solemnity and awe as he himself did. "I cannot tellyou, Netta," he said, very gently but very firmly. "No, I dare not tellyou. Some day, perhaps, but not now. I must not tell you."

  The answer roused all Netta's worst fears more terribly than ever. For amoment she almost began to doubt Cyril. In her terror and perplexity shewas still too proud to ask him further; and she went back from herhusband, feeling stung and repulsed by his cruel answer, and made asthough she did not care at all for his strange refusal. She took up ascientific paper from the heap on the table, and pretended to beginreading it. Cyril rose and tried to kiss her, but she pushed him awaywith an impatient gesture. "Never," she said haughtily. "Never, Cyril,until you choose to tell me your private secret."

  Cyril sank back gloomily into his chair, folded his hands into oneanother in a despondent fashion, and looked hard at the vacant ceilingwithout uttering a single word.

  As Netta held the paper aimlessly before her that minute, by the merestchance her eye happened to fall upon her husband's name printed in thearticle that lay open casually at the middle page. Even at that suprememoment of chagrin and torturing doubt, she could not pass by Cyril'sname in print without stopping to read what was said about him. As shedid so, she saw that the article began by hostile criticism of theposition he had taken up on the distinction between birds and reptilesin a recent paper contributed to the Transactions of the LinnaeanSociety. She rose from her place silently, put the paper into his handsand pointed to the paragraph with her white forefinger, but neveruttered a single syllable. Cyril took it from her mechanically, and readon, not half thinking what he was reading, till he came to a passagewhich attracted his attention perforce, because it ran somewhat afterthis fashion--

  "Professor Milliter would have written a little less confidently had hebeen aware that almost while his words were passing through the press avery singular discovery bearing upon this exact subject was being laidbefore the Academy of Sciences at Berlin. Dr. Hermann von Meyer has justexhibited to that body a slab of lithographic slate from the famousoolitic quarry at Solenhofen, containing the impression of a mostremarkable organism, which he has named _Archaeopteryx lithographica_.This extraordinary creature has the feathers of a bird with the tail ofa lizard; it is entirely destitute of an _os coccygis_; it hasapparently two conical teeth in the upper jaw; and its foot is that of acharacteristic percher." And so forth for more than a column, full ofthose minute anatomical points which Cyril had himself carefully noticedin the anatomy of his own English specimen.

  As he read and re-read that awful paragraph, Netta looking on at himhalf angrily all the time, he grew more and more certain every momentthat the German professor had simultaneously made the very samediscovery as himself. He drew a long sigh of relief. The worst was over;the murder was out, then; it was not to be he who should bear theresponsibility of publishing to the world the existence andpeculiarities of that wicked and hateful fossil. A cold-blooded Germangeologist had done so already, with no more trace of remorse andpunctiliousness in the business than if it had been the merest oldoyster-shell or spider or commonplace cockroach! He could hardly keep inhis excited feelings; the strain of personal responsibility at least waslightened; and though the universe remained as black as ever, he couldat any rate wash his own hands of the horrid creature. Unmanly as it mayseem, he burst suddenly into tears, and stepped across the room to throwhis arms round Netta's neck. To his surprise--for he scarcely rememberedthat she could not yet realize the situation--Netta repelled him withboth hands stretched angrily before her, palm outwards.

  "Netta," he said, imploringly, recognizing immediately what it was shemeant, "come with me now into the laboratory, and see what it i
s that Ihave got in the cupboard."

  Netta, all trembling and wondering, followed him in a perfect flutter ofdoubt and anxiety. Cyril slowly unlocked the cupboard, then unfastened asmall drawer, and last of all took out a long flat object, wrapped upmysteriously in a clean handkerchief. He laid it down reluctantly uponthe table, and Netta, amazed and puzzled, beheld a small smooth slab ofsoft clay-stone, scored with what seemed like the fossil marks of a fewinsignificant bones and feathers. The little woman drew a long breath.

  "Well, Cyril?" she said interrogatively, looking at it in a dubiousmood.

  "Why, Netta," cried her husband, half angry at her incomprehensiblecalmness, "don't you see what it is? It's terrible, terrible!"

  "A fossil, Cyril, isn't it? A bird, I should say."

  "No, not a bird, Netta; nor yet a lizard; but that half-way thing, thatintermediate link you read about just now over yonder in the paper."

  "But why do you hide it, Cyril? You haven't taken it anywhere from amuseum."

  "Oh, Netta! Don't you understand? Don't you see the implications? It's acreature, half bird and half reptile, and it proves, absolutely proves,Netta, beyond the faintest possibility of a doubt, that theevolutionists are quite right--quite scientific. And if it once comes tobe generally recognized, I don't know, I'm sure, what is ever to becomeof religion and of science. We shall every one of us have to go and turnevolutionists!"

  It is very sad to relate, but poor Netta, her pent-up feelings all letloose by the smallness of the evil, as it seemed to her, actually beganto smile, and then to laugh merrily, in the very face of this awfulrevelation. "Then you haven't really got tired of me, Cyril?" she criedeagerly. "You're not in love with somebody else? You don't regret everhaving married me?"

  Cyril stared at her in mute surprise. What possible connection couldthese questions have with the momentous principles bound up implicitlyin the nature-printed skeleton of _Archaeopteryx lithographica_? It was amoment or so before he could grasp the association of ideas in herwomanly little brain, and understand the real origin of her naturalwife-like fears and hesitations.

  "Oh, Cyril," she said again, after a minute's pause, looking at thetell-tale fossil with another bright girlish smile, "is it only that?Only that wretched little creature? Oh, darling, I am so happy!" And shethrew her arms around his neck of her own accord, and kissed himfervently twice or thrice over.

  Cyril was pleased indeed that she had recovered her trust in him soreadily, but amazed beyond measure that she could look at that horribleanti-scriptural fossil absolutely without the slightest symptom offlinching. "What a blessed thing it must be," he thought to himself, "tobe born a woman! Here's the whole universe going to rack and ruin,physically and spiritually, before her very eyes, and she doesn't care afig as soon as she's quite satisfied in her own mind that her ownparticular husband hasn't incomprehensibly fallen in love with one orother of the Mortiscombe ladies!" It was gratifying to his personalfeelings, doubtless; but it wasn't at all complimentary, one must admit,to the general constitution of the universe.

  "What ought I to do with it, Netta?" he asked her simply, pointing tothe fossil; glad to have any companionship, even if so unsympathetic, inhis hitherto unspoken doubts and difficulties.

  "Do with it? Why, show it to the Geological Society, of course, Cyril.It's the Truth, you know, dearest, and why on earth should you wish toconceal it? The Truth shall make you perfect."

  Cyril looked at her with mingled astonishment and admiration. "Oh,Netta," he answered, sighing profoundly, "if only I could take it asquietly as you do! If only I had faith as a grain of mustard-seed! But Ihave been reduced almost to abject despair by this crushing piece ofdeadly evidence. It seems to me to proclaim aloud that the evolutionistsare all completely right at bottom, and that everything we have everloved and cherished and hoped for, turns out an utter and absolutedelusion."

  "Then I should say you were still bound, for all that, to accept theevidence," said Netta quietly. "However, for my part, I may be verystupid and silly, and all that sort of thing, you know, but it doesn'tseem to me as if it really mattered twopence either way."

  Cyril looked at her again with fresh admiration. That was a point ofview that had not yet even occurred to him as within the bounds ofpossibility. He had gone on repeating over and over again to hiscongregation and to himself that if evolution were true, religion andmorality were mere phantoms, until at last he had ceased to think anyother proposition on the subject could be even thinkable. That a manmight instantly accept the evidence of his strange fossil, and yet beafter all an indifferent honest citizen in spite of it, was an idea thathad really never yet presented itself to him. And he blushed now tothink that, in spite of all his frequent professions of utter fidelity,Netta had proved herself at last more loyal to the Truth in both aspectsthan he himself had done. Her simple little womanly faith had neverfaltered for a moment in either direction.

  That night was a very happy one for Netta: it was a somewhat happier onethan of late, even for Cyril. He had got rid of the cloud betweenhimself and his wife: he had made at least one person a confidante ofhis horrid secret: and, above all, he had learnt that some bold andruthless German geologist had taken off his own shoulders theresponsibility of announcing the dreadful discovery.

  Still, it was some time before Cyril quite recovered from the gloomyview of things generally into which his chance unearthing of the strangefossil had temporarily thrown him. Two things mainly contributed to thisresult.

  The first was that a few Sundays later he made up his mind he ought incommon honesty to exhibit his compromising fossil to the congregation inthe upper chamber, and make a public recantation of his recent confidentbut untenable statements. He did so with much misgiving, impelled by agrowing belief that after all he must trust everything implicitly to theTruth. It cost him a pang, too, to go back upon his own deliberatewords, so lately spoken; but he faced it out, for the Truth's sake, likean honest man, as he had always tried to be--save for those few dayswhen the wicked little slab of slate lay carefully hidden away in theinmost recesses of the laboratory cupboard. To his immense surprise,once more, the brethren seemed to think little more of it than Nettaherself had done. Perhaps they were not so logical or thorough-going asthe young professor: perhaps they had more of unquestioning faith:perhaps they had less of solid dogmatic leaven; but in any case theyseemed singularly little troubled by the new and startling geologicaldiscovery. However, they were all much struck by the professor's honestyof purpose in making a straightforward recantation of his admittedblunder; he had acted honest and honourable, they said, like a man, andthey liked him better for it in the end, than if he'd preached, andhedged, and shilly-shallied to them about it for a whole year of Sundaystogether. Now, the mere fact that his good congregation didn't mind thefossil much reacted healthily on Cyril Milliter, who began to suspectthat perhaps after all he had been exaggerating the religious importanceof speculative opinions on the precise nature of the cosmogony.

  The second thing was that, shortly after the great discovery, hehappened to make the acquaintance of the brilliant young evolutionistfrom London, and found to his surprise that on the whole most of theiropinions agreed with remarkable unanimity. True, the young evolutionistwas not a Gospel Evangelist, and did not feel any profound interest inthe literal or mystical interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis.But in all essentials he was as deeply spiritual as Cyril Milliterhimself; and the more Cyril saw of him and talked with him, the more didhe begin to suspect that the truth may in reality have many facets, andthat all men may not happen to see it in exactly the self-same aspect.It dawned upon him slowly that all the illumination in the world mightnot be entirely confined to the narrow circle of the GospelEvangelists. Even those terrible evolutionists themselves, it seemed,were not necessarily wholly given over to cutting throats or robbingchurches. They might have their desires and aspirations, their faith andtheir hope and their charity, exactly like other people, only perhaps ina slightly different and more def
inite direction. In the end, Cyril andhis former bugbear became bosom friends, and both worked togetheramicably side by side in the self-same laboratory at the College ofScience.

  To this day, Professor Milliter still continues to preach weekly to theGospel Evangelists, though both he and they have broadened a good deal,in a gradual and almost imperceptible fashion, with the generalbroadening of ideas and opinions that has been taking place by slowdegrees around us during the last two decades. His views are no doubt agood deal less dogmatic and a good deal more wide and liberal now thanformerly. Netta and he live happily and usefully together; and over themantelpiece of his neat little study, in the cottage at Mortiscombe,stands a slab of polished slate containing a very interesting ooliticfossil, of which the professor has learnt at last to be extremely proud,the first discovered and most perfect existing specimen of _Archaeopteryxlithographica_. He can hardly resist a quiet smile himself, nowadays,when he remembers how he once kept that harmless piece of pictured stonewrapt up carefully in a folded handkerchief in his laboratory cupboardfor some weeks together, as though it had been a highly dangerous andvery explosive lump of moral dynamite, calculated to effect at one fellswoop the complete religious and ethical disintegration of the entiredivine universe.