“I wanted to make as much money as ever I could,” said Frank.

“Indeed!...  Yes....  And ... and you were successful?”

“I cleared all my debts, anyhow,” said Frank serenely.  “I thought that very important.”

Mr. Mackintosh smiled again.  Certainly this young man was very well behaved and deferential.

“Well, that’s satisfactory.  And you are going to read at the Bar now?  If you will let me say so, Mr. Guiseley, even at this late hour, I must say that I think that a Third Class might have been bettered.  But no doubt your tutor has said all that?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Well, then, a little more application and energy now may perhaps make up for lost time.  I suppose you will go to the Temple in October?”

Frank looked at him pensively a moment.

“No, Mr. Mackintosh,” he said suddenly; “I’m going on the roads.  I mean it, quite seriously.  My father’s disowned me.  I’m starting out to-morrow to make my own living.”

There was dead silence for an instant.  The Dean’s face was stricken, as though by horror.  Yet Frank saw he had not in the least taken it in.

“Yes; that’s really so,” he said.  “Please don’t argue with me about it.  I’m perfectly determined.”

“Your father ...  Lord Talgarth ... the roads ... your own living ... the college authorities ... responsibility!”

Words of this sort burst from Mr. Mackintosh’s mouth.

“Yes ... it’s because I’ve become a Catholic!  I expect you’ve heard that, sir.”

Mr. Mackintosh threw himself back (if so fierce a word may be used of so mild a manner)—­threw himself back in his chair.

“Mr. Guiseley, kindly tell me all about it.  I had not heard one word—­not one word.”

* * * * *

Frank made a great effort, and told the story, quite fairly and quite politely.  He described his convictions as well as he could, the various steps he had taken, and the climax of the letter from his father.  Then he braced himself, to hear what would be said; or, rather, he retired within himself, and, so to speak, shut the door and pulled down the blinds.

It was all said exactly as he knew it would be.  Mr. Mackintosh touched upon a loving father’s impatience, the son’s youth and impetuosity, the shock to an ancient family, the responsibilities of membership in that family, the dangers of rash decisions, and, finally, the obvious errors of the Church of Rome.  He began several sentences with the phrase:  “No thinking man at the present day ...”

In fact, Mr. Mackintosh was, so soon as he had recovered from the first shock, extraordinarily sensible and reasonable.  He said all the proper things, all the sensible and reasonable and common-sense things, and he said them, not offensively or contemptuously, but tactfully and persuasively.  And he put into it the whole of his personality, such as it was.  He even quoted St. Paul.