Yet it
appeared to him that the highest instruments were not always the best
for such rough work.
It was now over two years ago since the thought had first come to him,
and since that time he had spared no effort to shape a certain other
weapon, which, he thought, would do the business straight and clean. Yet
how difficult it had been to raise any feeling on the point. At first he
had spoken almost freely to this or that Catholic whom he could trust;
he had endeavoured to win even Robin; and yet, with hardly an exception,
all had drawn back and bidden him be content with a spiritual warfare.
One priest, indeed, had gone so far as to tell him that he was on
dangerous ground ... and the one and single man who up to the present
had seemed on his side, was the very man, Mr. Ballard, then a layman,
whom he had met by chance in London, and who had been the occasion of
first suggesting any such idea. It was, in fact, for the sake of meeting
Ballard again that he was going to London; and, he had almost thought
from his friend's last letter, it had seemed that it was for the sake
of meeting him that Mr. Ballard was coming across once more.
So the young man sat, with that moody look on his face, until Marjorie
came back, wondering what news he would have from Mr. Ballard, and
whether the plan, at present only half conceived, was to go forward or
be dropped. He was willing enough, as has been said, to work for
priests, and he had been perfectly sincere in his begging Marjorie to
come with him for that very purpose; but there was another work which he
thought still more urgent.
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