right must be on the side of the Catholic Church. If the Catholic Church had refused to admit the validity of the Orders of the Greek, Russian, and other dissident Churches of the near and middle east (as it never had), Fernando would have been sure that those Orders were null and invalid.

I think that for him, from the first moment in which he became aware that the Catholic Church of the continent denied the Orders of the Anglican Church, it was really a foregone conclusion that they must be invalid.

It could not be that the Roman Church denied their validity simply because a section at all events of the English Reformers had adopted certain heresies: the whole body of the Greek Church had adopted certain heresies, yet Rome never revenged herself by impugning the validity of Greek Orders, nor had it done so in regard of the other dissident Churches of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. They also had their heresies, but Rome had not challenged their Orders.

Rome had her quarrel with all of them, but it did not drive her to deny the validity of the Orders of any of them.

It could not be a mere provocative policy; it must be simply a question of evidence and

belief. And Fernando could not believe her wrong. That I think was a difference between his attitude and that of many Anglicans who have had his painful road to travel.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE NEW ROAD

THUS things were with Fernando when the school at St. Wolstan's broke up for the long summer holidays. He had begun the year intending to remain on indefinitely, perhaps for all his life; but now he knew that he would not return in September.

In October he was to matriculate at Oxford, and that came about in this fashion. At Easter he had gone for a few days to the house of an uncle, or rather the husband of one of his many aunts. And this uncle had been much interested by Fernando's success at the examinations of the previous December. The "First Class" had greatly impressed him, and particularly because it was largely due to certain classical papers.

He urged that Fernando ought to go to Oxford, since, with a good degree, he might command a higher position, as a master at St. Wolstan's or any other school.

Fernando plainly protested that he had not the means. At St. Wolstan's he earned his living, and would gradually earn more; but he had no other income. If he left St. Wolstan's for three or four years, his income would, during all that time, entirely

cease.

His uncle promptly offered to provide the means for Fernando to go to the University; and ultimately this plan was agreed upon.

So that when the school broke up for the summer holidays Fernando knew that he would not come back at the end of them. By that time he had come to look forward with intense delight to the years at Oxford.

The last Speech-Day at St. Wolstan's, at which Fernando no longer assisted" as a boy but as a master, was rendered memorable by a speech, not on the programme, delivered by the Head Master, who also was not to return after the holidays. It bore reference to the dual control of Warden and Head Master, and was heard with an excitement seldom aroused by any passages from the Greek, Latin, French, or English classics declaimed in that hall. Its substance, however, in no

way concerns us, and nothing further need be said about it here, except that Fernando heard it with some dismay, and took the Head Master's part all the while he was listening to it.

The speeches, expected and unexpected, were all over about midday; after luncheon there was a general exodus of the guests. Fernando himself did not leave till late in the afternoon, and that last afternoon at St. Wolstan's was all packing and farewells. His room, stripped of the things that had made it pretty and homelike for three years, looked desolate and forlorn. How happy he had been in it! Friendships many and dear had begun in it, or ripened in it from mere acquaintanceship to friendship. Would he ever see it again? Certainly never as its tenant. Would those friendships continue ? or would the change that he felt approaching, more by instinct than as yet by definite resolve, change them too, perhaps end them?

It was a lovely day of English summer, all sun and breeze; the rich upland meadows about the college, timbered like a park, looked their loveliest. Fernando went hurriedly round the playing fields where he had so often