War in Heaven (Chap. 10: The Second Attempt on the Graal)

Inspector Colquhoun, summing up the situation of the Persimmons
investigations, found himself inclining towards three trails, though he
was conscious of only one, and that the remnants of the Wesleyan mission
bill. The prospects of this fragment producing anything were of the
slightest, but he would have done what could be done sooner had he not
been engaged in checking and investigating the movements of the staff of
Persimmons. His particular attention was by now unconsciously fixed on
two subjects--Lionel Rackstraw and Stephen Persimmons. For the first
Sir Giles was responsible; for the second, absurdly enough, the adequacy
of the alibi. Where few had anything like a sufficient testimony to
their occupation during the whole of one particular hour, it was
inevitable that the inspector should regard, first with satisfaction but
later almost with hostility, the one man whose time was sufficiently
vouched for by almost an excess of evidence. His training forbade this
lurking hostility to enter his active mind; consciously he ruled out
Stephen, unconsciously he lay in ambushed expectation. The alibi, in
spite of' himself, annoyed him by its perfection, and clamoured, as a
mere work of art, to be demolished. He regarded Stephen as the notorious
Athenian di Aristides.

Unconscious, however, of this impassioned frenzy, the inspector spent an
hour or more going through the files of the _Methodist Recorder_ and
investigating the archives of the Methodist Bookroom. He found that
during the few weeks preceding the murder three missions had been held
in London at Wesleyan churches--at Ealing, at East Ham, and near
Victoria. He achieved also a list of some seven churches in the country
which fitted his demands--ranging from Manchester to Canterbury. He
expected no result from this investigation, which, indeed, he undertook
merely to satisfy a restless conscience; it might be worth while asking
the various ministers whether they had heard of any unexpected
disappearance in their districts, but the chance was small. The
inspector thought it more than likely that the disappearance had been
explained and arranged for, and his mind returned slowly to a sullen
hatred of Sir Giles and a sullen satisfaction with Stephen Persimmons as
he rode back on a bus to his home.

The two emotions working with him led, however, to an unexpected if
apparently unprofitable piece of news. For they drove him to a third
interview with Stephen, ostensibly to collect a few more details about
the staff and the premises, actually to mortify his heart again by the
sight of the one man who could not have committed the murder. The
conversation turned at last on Sir Giles, and Stephen happened to say,
while explaining which of his books the firm had published and why, "But
of course he knows my father better than me. Indeed, he's staying with
him now."

At the moment the inspector thought nothing of this; but that night, as
he lay half asleep and half awake, the two names which had haunted him
arose like a double star in his sky. He felt them like a taunt; he bore
them like a martyrdom; he considered them like a defiance. A remote
thought, as from the departed day of common sense, insisted still:
"Fool, it's his father, his father, his father." A nearer fantasy of
dream answered: "He and his father--the name's the same. Substitution?
disguise--family life? vendettas? vengeance--ventriloquism..." It
lost itself in sleep.

The next evening he spent in writing a report on the case, and part of
the afternoon in being examined upon it by an Assistant Commissioner,
who appeared to be a little irritated by the hopelessness of the
investigation up to that date.

"You haven't any ideas about it, inspector?" he asked.

"Very few, sir," the inspector answered. "There must obviously be a
personal motive; and I think it must have been premeditated by someone
who knew this Rackstraw wasn't going to be there at the time. But till I
know who or what the man was, I can't get my hands on the murderer. I'm
having inquiries made in the Wesleyan districts--one of them's near
where I live, out by Victoria, and I've told my wife to keep her ears
open. She goes to church. But the man's just as likely as not to have
been a stranger to the district, just passing or lodging there for a
week or so."

The Assistant Commissioner grunted. "Well," he said, "let me know what
happens. It's a bad thing, these undiscovered murders. Yes, I know, but
they oughtn't to happen. All right."

The inspector saluted and went out, passing on his way Colonel Conyers,
who, having been landed in London, was making use of the afternoon to
dispose of certain official business. Having settled this, he lingered
to ask whether the Duke of the North Ridings was known to Scotland Yard,
but discovered that, with the exception of one summons for having ridden
a bicycle without a light and one for assault on Boat Race Night,
nothing evil was to be discovered. Nor of the Archdeacon of Fardles. Nor
of Mr. Gregory Persimmons. Nor of Dimitri Lavrodopoulos, chemist.

"This is all very curious, Colonel," the Assistant Commissioner said.
"What's the idea?"

"Nothing official," Conyers answered. "I won't go into it all now. But
if ever you hear anything about any of those names, you might let me
know. Good-bye."

"Stop a moment, Colonel," said the other. "I think I ought to know why
you want to know about this Gregory Persimmons. Nothing against him, but
we've come across his name in another connection."

"Well..." the Colonel hesitated. He had included Gregory's name in his
inquiries from habit and nothing else; if you were investigating, even
in the most casual way, you included everybody and everything in your
investigations; and if a case had arisen in which his own wife had
played some unimportant part, the Colonel would have been capable of
putting her name down on the list for inquiries to be made regarding her
life and circumstances. He had paid a visit with Gregory to the shop in
Lord Mayor Street, where the Greek, as weary and motionless as ever, had
confirmed Persimmons's statement. Yes, he had sold the chalice; he had
had it from another Greek, a friend of his who was now living in Athens
but had visited London two or three months before; yes, he had a receipt
for the money he had himself paid; yes, he had given Mr. Persimmons a
receipt; the chalice had come from near Ephesus, and had been brought to
Smyrna in the flight before the Turkish advance.

It all seemed quite right. The Colonel felt that Mr. Persimmons was
being very harshly dealt with, and he looked now at the Assistant
Commissioner with a slight indignation.

"A very nice fellow," he said. "I don't want to go into the story,
because at present we want it kept quiet. I think the Archdeacon has
gone mad, and if the Duke hadn't behaved in the most unjustifiable
manner the whole thing would have been settled by now."

"It all sounds very thrilling," the Assistant Commissioner said. "Do
tell me. We don't usually get cases with Dukes and Archdeacons in. The
Dukes are usually in the divorce court and the Archdeacons in the
ecclesiastical."

He was nevertheless slightly disappointed with the story. There seemed
to be no remotest connection between the loss of the chalice and the
murder in the publishing office except the name of Persimmons. Still, he
wondered what Persimmons had been doing while the murder was going on.
But that was a month or more ago; it would be very difficult to find
out. The Assistant Commissioner had never ceased to wonder at the way in
which many people always seemed to be quite certain what they were doing
at four in the afternoon of the ninth of December when they were being
examined at half-past eleven on the morning of the twenty-fifth of
January. He turned the page of the reports in the file before him.

"You didn't meet Sir Giles Tumulty by any chance?" he asked. "Or Mr.
Lionel Rackstraw?"

"I did not," the Colonel said.

"Or Mr. Kenneth Mornington?"

"There was a Mr. Mornington--or some name like it--with the
Archdeacon," the Chief Constable said. "But I didn't really catch his
name when he was introduced, so I didn't mention it. It may have been
Mornington. He ran away with the Duke."

"Very funny," the other murmured. "A chalice, too--such a funny thing
to run away with. Ephesus, you say? I wonder if any particular chalice
came from Ephesus." He made a note. "All right, Colonel; we'll remember
the names."

About the same time the allies in Grosvenor Square separated. There had
been some discussion after lunch what the next move should be. The Duke
inclined to ask Sir Giles definitely whether he identified this chalice
with the Graal. But he had not met the antiquarian, and neither the
Archdeacon nor Mornington thought it likely that Sir Giles would do more
than cause them as much embarrassment as possible. The Archdeacon was
inclined to put the Graal in safe keeping in the bank; the Duke, half
convinced of its authenticity, felt that this would be improper. He,
like Kenneth, attached a good deal more importance than the Archdeacon
to the actual vessel. "It will be quite safe here," he said; "I'll put
it in a private safe upstairs and get Thwaites to keep an eye on it. And
you'd better stop here too for the present." This, however, the
Archdeacon was reluctant to do; his place, he felt, was in his parish,
which Mr. Batesby would soon be compelled to leave for his own. He
consented, however, to stop for a couple of nights, in case any further
move should be made by their opponents.

Kenneth's plan for that afternoon was definite. He intended to go down
to the publishing offices on two errands; first, to forestall Gregory
Persimmons if that power behind the throne should attempt to influence
the throne in the matter of the proofs; and secondly, to obtain a set of
the uncorrected proofs containing the paragraph that had caused the
trouble, and, if possible, Sir Giles's postcard. He felt that it might
be useful in the future to have both these in his possession. For
Kenneth, not being more or less above the law like the Duke, or outside
it like the Archdeacon, had a distinct feeling that, though it might be
good fun to steal your own property under the nose of the police, the
police were still likely to maintain an interest in it. Besides, he had
never read the paragraph itself, and he very much wanted to.

On arrival at the offices, therefore, he slipped in by the side
entrance, reached Lionel's office without passing anyone of sufficient
eminence to inquire what had caused this visit, and searched for and
found the proofs he desired. Then, going on to his own room, he rang up
the, central filing office. "I want," he said, "the file of Tumulty's
_Sacred Vessels_ at once. Will you send it down?" In a few minutes it
arrived; he stopped the boy who brought it. "Is Mr. Persimmons in?" he
asked. "Find out, will you?"

While the boy was gone on this errand, Kenneth looked through the
correspondence. But it consisted wholly of business-like letters, a
little violent on Sir Giles's part, a little stiff on Lionel's. There
was no special reference to the article on the Graal as far as he could
see, beyond the question of illustrations; certainly no reference to
black magic. He abstracted the last postcard, took a copy of the book
itself from his shelves, and by the time the boy had returned was ready
for Stephen.

Mr. Persimmons was in. Mornington went along the corridor, tapped, and
entered. Stephen looked up in surprise. "What brings you here?" he
asked. "I thought you'd be away till to-morrow week."

"So I am, sir," Mornington said. "But I wanted to see you rather
particularly. I called on Mr. Gregory Persimmons yesterday, and I'm not
altogether easy about our interview."

Stephen stood up hurriedly and came nearer. "What happened?" he said
anxiously. "What's the trouble?"

Kenneth explained, with a certain tact. He didn't blame Gregory at all,
but he made it clear that Sir Giles and Gregory between them wanted
blood, and that after the morning's chase Gregory was likely to want it
more than ever; and he hinted as well as he could that he expected
Stephen to stand up for the staff. Unfortunately, the prospect seemed to
cause Stephen a good deal of uneasiness. With a directness unusual in
him he pressed the central question.

"Do you mean," he said, "that my father will want me to get rid of you?"

"I think it is possible," Kenneth answered. "If ever a man wanted the
tongue of his dog to be red with my blood it was Giles Tumulty. That's
the kind of fellow he is."

"Oh, Giles Tumulty!" Stephen said. "I don't dismiss my people to please
Giles Tumulty."

"He's a source of revenue," Kenneth pointed out. "And Mr. Gregory
Persimmons will probably be rather annoyed himself."

"My dear Mornington," Stephen said, looking at the papers on his table,
"my father wouldn't dream of interfering...either with me or with the
staff--especially any of his old staff." He heard his own voice so
unconvincingly that he walked over to the window and looked out. He felt
his possession--his business and occupation and security--beginning to
quiver around him as he considered the foreboded threat. He knew that he
was incapable of standing up against his father's determination, but he
knew also that the determination would not have to be called into play;
the easier method of threatening his financial stability would be used.
His father, Stephen had long felt, never put forward more power than was
sufficient to achieve his object; it was the vaster force in reserve
which helped to create that sense of laziness emanating from the elder
Persimmons, as a man who pushes a book across with a finger seems more
indolent than one who picks it up and lays it down in a new place. But
an attack on Mornington roused alarm in Stephen on every side. His
subordinate was as far indispensable to the business as anyone ever is;
he was personally sympathetic, and Stephen was very unwilling to undergo
the contempt which he felt the other would show for him if he yielded.
Of the more obvious disadvantages of dismissal to Kenneth, Stephen in
this bird's-eye view of the situation took little heed; "I can always
get him another job," he thought, and returned to his own troubles.

Kenneth in these few minutes' silence realized that he would have to
fight for his own hand, with the Graal (figuratively) in it.

"Well," he said, "I've told you about it, sir, so that if anything is
said you may know our point of view."

"Our," said Gregory's voice behind him, "meaning the Archdeacon and your
other friend, I suppose?"

Stephen jumped round. Kenneth looked over his shoulder. "Hallo," the
publisher said, "I...I didn't expect you."

Gregory looked disappointed. "Tut, tut!" he said. "Now I hoped you
always did. I hoped you were always listening for my step. And I think
you are. I think you expect me every moment of the day. A pleasant
thought, that. However, I only came down now to put a private telephone
call through." He laid his hat and gloves on the table. Kenneth was
unable to resist the impulse.

"A new hat, I'm afraid, Mr. Persimmons," he said. "And new gloves. The
Chief Constable, of course, had them." Gregory, sitting down, looked
sideways at him. "Yes," he said, "we shall have to economize somehow.
Expenses are dreadfully heavy. I want to go through the salary list with
you in a few minutes, Stephen."

"I'll send for it," Stephen said, with a nervous smile.

"Oh, I don't think you need," Gregory answered. "Only a few items;
perhaps only one to-day. In fact, we could settle it now--I mean Mr.
Kenneth Mornington's item. Don't you thing we pay him too much?"

"Ha, ha!" Stephen said, with a twisted grin. "What do you say,
Mornington?"

Kenneth said nothing, and Gregory in a moment or two went on, "That is
immaterial; in fact, the salary itself is immaterial. He is to be
dismissed as a dishonest employee."

"Really--" Stephen said. "Father, you can't talk like that, especially
when he's here."

"On the contrary," Kenneth said, "he can quite easily talk like that.
It's a little like Sir Giles certainly, but your father, if I may say
so, sir, never had much originality. Charming, no doubt, as a man, but
as a publisher--third rate. And as for dishonesty..."

Gregory allowed himself to smile. "That," he said, "is vulgar abuse.
Stephen, pay him if you'd rather and get rid of him."

"There is such a thing as wrongful dismissal," Kenneth remarked.

"My dear fellow," Gregory said, "we're reducing our staff in consequence
of my returning to an active business life...did you speak, Stephen?
...and you suffer. And your present employer and I between us can make
it precious difficult for you to get another job. However, you can
always sponge on the Duke or your clerical friend. Stephen..."

"I won't," Stephen said; "the thing's ridiculous. Just because you two
have quarrelled..."

"Mr. Stephen Persimmons featuring the bluff employer," his father
murmured. He got up, went over to the publisher, and began whispering in
his ear, following him as he took a few steps and halted again. Kenneth
had an impulse to say that he resigned, and another to knock Gregory
down and trample on him. He stared at him, and felt a new anger rising
above the personal indignation he had felt before. He wanted to smash;
he wanted to strangle Gregory and push him also underneath Lionel's
desk; for the sake of destroying he desired to destroy. The contempt he
had always felt leapt fierce and raging in him; till now it had always
dwelt in a secret house of his own; if anything, calming his momentary
irritations. But now it and anger were one. He took a blind step
forward, heard Stephen exclaim, and Gregory loose a high cackle of
delight. "God, he likes it!" he thought to himself, and pulled madly at
his emotions. "Sweet Jesus," he began, and found that he was speaking
aloud.

Gregory was in front of him. "Sweet Jesus," his voice said jeeringly.
"Sweet filth, sweet nothing!" Kenneth struck out, missed, felt himself
struck in turn, heard a high voice laughing at him, was caught and freed
himself, then was caught by half a dozen hands, and recovered at last to
find himself held by two or three clerks, Stephen shuddering against the
wall, and Gregory opposite him, sitting in his son's chair.

"Take him away and throw him down the steps," Gregory said; and, though
it was not done literally, it was effectively. Still clutching the
proofs of _Sacred Vessels_, Kenneth came dazedly into the street and
walked slowly back to Grosvenor Square.

When he reached it, he found the Duke and the Archdeacon were both out,
and Thwaites on guard in the Duke's private room. The Duke returned to
dinner, at which he found Kenneth a poor companion. The Archdeacon
returned considerably later, having been detained on ecclesiastical
business first ("I had to come up anyhow," he explained, "this
afternoon, so Mr. Persimmons didn't really disarrange me"), and secondly
by a vain search for the Bishop.

The three went to the Duke's room for coffee, which however, was
neglected while Kenneth repeated the incidents of the afternoon. The
removal of the proofs, which was a mild satisfaction, led to the
employment question, on which both his hearers, more moved, began to
babble of secretaries, and from that to an account of the riot. When
Kenneth came to repeat, apologetically, Gregory's cries, the Duke was
startled into a horrified disgust; the Archdeacon smiled a little.

"I'm sorry you let yourself go so," he said. "We must be careful not to
get like him."

"Sorry?" the Duke cried. "After that vile blasphemy? I wish I could have
got near enough to have torn his throat out.

"Oh, really, really," the Archdeacon protested. "Let us leave that kind
of thing to Mr. Persimmons."

"To insult God--" the Duke began.

"How can you insult God?" the Archdeacon asked. "About as much as you
can pull His nose. For Kenneth to have knocked Mr. Persimmons down for
calling him dishonest would have been natural--a venial sin, at most;
for him to have done it in order to avenge God would have been silly;
but for him to have got into a blurred state of furious madness is a
great deal too like Mr. Persimmons's passions to please me. And I am not
at all clear that Mr. Persimmons doesn't know it. We _must_ keep calm.
_His_ mind's calm enough."

"At least," Mornington said, "we're pretty certain now." And with the
word they all turned and looked at the Graal which the Duke, when they
entered, had withdrawn from the safe. In a minute the Duke, crossing
himself, knelt down before it. Kenneth followed his example. The
Archdeacon stood up.

Under the concentrated attention the vessel itself seemed to shine and
expand. In each of them differently the spirit was moved and exalted--
most perhaps in the Duke. He was aware of a sense of the adoration of
kings--the great tradition of his house stirred within him. The
memories of proscribed and martyred priests awoke; masses said swiftly
and in the midst of the fearful breathing of a small group of the
faithful; the ninth Duke who had served the Roman Pontiff at his private
mass; the Roman Order he himself wore; the fidelity of his family to the
Faith under the anger of Henry and the cold suspicion of Elizabeth; the
duels fought in Richmond Park by the thirteenth Duke in defence of the
honour of our Lady, when he met and killed three antagonists
consecutively--all these things, not so formulated but certainly there,
drew his mind into a vivid consciousness of all the royal and sacerdotal
figures of the world adoring before this consecrated shrine. "Jhesu, Rex
et Sacerdos," he prayed...

Kenneth trembled in a more fantastic vision. This, then, was the thing
from which the awful romances sprang, and the symbolism of a thousand
tales. He saw the chivalry of England riding on its quest--but not a
historical chivalry; and, though it was this they sought, it was some
less material vision that they found. But this had rested in dreadful
and holy hands; the Prince Immanuel had so held it, and the Apostolic
chivalry had banded themselves about him. Half in dream, half in vision,
he saw a grave young God communicating to a rapt companionship the
mysterious symbol of unity. They took oaths beyond human consciousness;
they accepted vows plighted for them at the beginning of time.
Liturgical and romantic names melted into one cycle--Lancelot, Peter,
Joseph, Percivale, Judas, Mordred, Arthur, John Bar-Zebedee, Galahad--
and into these were caught up the names of their makers--Hawker and
Tennyson, John, Malory and the medievals. They rose, they gleamed and
flamed about the Divine hero, and their readers too-he also, least of
all these. He was caught in the dream of Tennyson; together they rose on
the throbbing verse.

_And down the long beam stole the Holy Graal,
Rose-red with beatings in it._

He heard Malory's words-"the history of the Sangreal, the whiche is a
story cronycled for one of the truest and the holyest that is in thys
world"-"the deadly flesh began to behold the spiritual things"-"fair
lord, commend me to Sir Lancelot my father." The single tidings came to
him across romantic hills; he answered with the devotion of a romantic
and abandoned heart.

The Archdeacon found no such help in the remembrances of kings or poets.
He looked at the rapt faces of the young men; he looked at the vessel
before him. "Neither is this Thou," he breathed; and answered, "Yet this
also is Thou." He considered, in this, the chalice offered at every
altar, and was aware again of a general movement of all things towards a
narrow channel. Of all material things still discoverable in the world
the Graal had been nearest to the Divine and Universal Heart. Sky and
sea and land were moving, "not towards that vessel, but towards all it
symbolized and had held." The consecration at the Mysteries was for him
no miraculous change; he had never dreamed of the heavenly courts
attending Christ upon the altar. But in accord with the desire of the
Church expressed in the ritual of the Church the Sacred Elements seemed
to him to open upon the Divine Nature, upon Bethlehem and Calvary and
Olivet, as that itself opened upon the Centre of all. And through that
gate, upon those tides of retirement, creation moved. Never so clearly
as now had he felt that movement proceeding, but his mind nevertheless
knew no other vision than that of a thousand dutifully celebrated
Mysteries in his priestly life; so and not otherwise all things return
to God.

When their separate devotions ceased, they looked at one another
gravely. "There's one thing," the Duke said. "It must never be left
unwatched. We must have an arranged order--people whom we can trust."

"_Intelligent_ people whom we can trust," the Archdeacon said.

"In fact, an Order," Kenneth murmured. "A new Table."

"A new Table!" the Duke cried. "And a Mass every morning." He stopped
short and looked at the Archdeacon.

"Quite so," the priest said, not in answer to the remark.

The Duke hesitated a moment, then he said politely, "I don't want to
seem rude, sir, but you see that since, quite by chance, it has come
into my charge, I must preserve it for...for..."

"But, Ridings," Kenneth said in a slightly alert voice, "it isn't in
your charge. It belongs to the Archdeacon."

"My dear fellow," the Duke impatiently answered, "the sacred and
glorious Graal can't _belong_. And obviously it is in my charge. I don't
want to press my rights and those of my Church, but equally I don't want
them abused or overlooked."

"Rights?" Kenneth asked. "It is in the hands of a priest."

"That," the Duke answered, "is for the Holy See to say. As it has done."

The two young men looked at one another hostilely. The Archdeacon broke
in.

"Oh, children, children," he said. "Did either of you ever hear of Cully
or Mr. Gregory Persimmons? It being (legally, my dear Duke) my property,
I should like Mr. Persimmons not to get hold of it until I know a little
more about him. But, on the other hand, I will promise not to hurt
anyone's feeling by using it prematurely for schismatic Mysteries. A
liqueur glass would do as well." Kenneth grinned; the Duke acknowledged
the promise with a bow, and rather obviously ignored the last remark.

It was already very late; midnight had been passed by almost an hour.
The Archdeacon looked at his watch and at his host. But the Duke had
returned to his earlier idea.

"If we three can share the watch till morning," he said, "I will bring
Thwaites in; he is one of our people. And there are certain others. It
is one o'clock now--say, one to seven; six hours. Archdeacon, which
watch will you take?"

The Archdeacon felt that a passion for relics had its inconveniences,
but he hadn't the heart to check its ardour. "I will take the middle, if
you like," he said, normally accepting the least pleasant; "that will be
three to five."

"Mornington?"

"Whichever you like," Kenneth answered. "The morning?"

"Very well," the Duke said. "Then I will watch now."

They were at the door of the room, and, as they exchanged temporary good
nights, the Archdeacon glanced back at the sacred vessel. He seemed to
blink at it for a moment, then he took a step or two back into the room,
and gazed at it attentively. The two young men looked at him, at it, at
each other. Suddenly the priest made a sudden run across the room and
took the Graal up in his hands.

It seemed to move in them like something alive. He felt as if a
continuous slight shifting of all the particles that composed it were
proceeding, and that blurring of its edges which had first caught his
eyes was now even more marked. Close as he held it, he felt strangely
uncertain exactly where the edge was, exactly how deep the cup was, how
long the stem. He touched the edge, and it seemed to have a curious
softness, to give under his finger. The shape did not yield to his
grasp, but it suggested that it was about to do so. It quivered, it
trembled; now here, now there, its thickness accumulated or faded; now
it seemed to take the shape of his fingers, now to harden and resist
them. The Archdeacon gripped it more firmly, and, keeping his eyes on
it, turned to face the others.

"Something is going on," he said, almost harshly. "I do not know what.
It may be that God is dissolving it--but I think there is devilry. Make
yourselves paths for the Will of God."

"But what is it?" the Duke said amazedly. "What harm can come to it
here? What can they do to its hurt?"

"Pray," the Archdeacon cried out, "pray, in the name of God. They are
praying against Him to-night."

It crossed Kenneth's mind, as he sank to his knees, that if God could
not be insulted, neither could He be defied, nor in that case the
procession and retrogression of the universe disturbed by the subject
motion of its atoms. But he saw, running out like avenues, a thousand
metaphysical questions, and they disappeared in the excitement of his
spirit.

"Against what shall we pray?" the Duke cried.

"Against nothing," the Archdeacon said. "Pray that He who made the
universe may sustain the universe, that in all things there may be
delight in the justice of His will."

A profound silence followed, out of the heart of which there arose
presently a common consciousness of effort. The interior energy of the
priest laid hold on the less trained powers of his companions and
directed them to its own intense concentration. Fumbling in the dark for
something to oppose, they were, each in secrecy, subdued from that realm
of opposition and translated to a place where their business was only to
repose. They existed knit together, as it were, in a living tower built
up round the sacred vessel, and through all the stones of that tower its
common life flowed. Yet to all their apprehensions, and especially to
the priest's, which was the most vivid and least distracted, this life
received and resisted an impact from without. The tower was indeed a
tower of defence, though it offered no aggression, and resisted whatever
there was to be resisted merely by its own immovable calm. Once or twice
it seemed to the Duke as if he heard a soft footprint behind him just
within the room, but he was held too firmly still even to turn his head.
Once or twice on Kenneth there intruded a sudden vision of something
other than this passivity; a taunt, unspoken but mocking, moved just
beyond his consciousness, a taunt which was not his, but arose somehow
out of him. Sudden phrases he had used in the past attacked him--"the
world can't judge"; "man chooses between mania and folly"; "what a fool
Stephen is." In the midst of these the memory of the saying about every
idle word obtruded itself; he began to justify them to himself, and to
argue in his own mind. Little by little he became more and more
conscious of his past casual contempt, and more disposed to direct a
certain regretful attention to it. The priest felt the defence weaken;
he did not know the cause, but the result was there; the Graal shook in
his hands. He plunged deeper into the abysmal darkness of divinity, and
as he did so heard, far above, his own voice crying "Pray!" Kenneth
heard, and knew his weakness; he abolished his memories, and, so far as
was possible, surrendered himself to be only what he was meant to be.
Yet the attack went on: to one a footstep, a whisper, a slight faint
touch; to another a gentle laugh, a mockery, a reminder; to the third a
spiritual pressure which not he but that which was he resisted. The
Graal vibrated still to that pressure, more strongly when it was
accentuated, less and less as the stillness within and amidst the three
was perfected. Dimly he knew at what end the attack aimed; some
disintegrating force was being loosed at the vessel--not conquest, but
destruction, was the purpose, and chaos the eventual hope. Dimly he saw
that, though the spirit of Gregory formed the apex of that attack, the
attack itself came from regions behind Gregory. He saw, uncertainly but
sufficiently defined, the radiations that encompassed the Graal and the
fine arrows of energy that were expended against it. Unimportant as the
vessel in itself might be, it was yet an accidental storehouse of power
that could be used, and to dissipate this material centre was the
purpose of the war. But through the three concentrated souls flowed
reserves of the power which the vessel itself retained; and gradually to
the priest it seemed, as in so many celebrations, as if the Graal itself
was the centre--yet no longer the Graal, but a greater than the Graal.
Silence and knowledge were communicated to him as if from an invisible
celebrant; he held the Cup no longer as a priest, but as if he set his
hands on that which was itself at once the Mystery and the Master of the
Mystery. But this consciousness faded almost before it was realized; his
supernatural mind returned into his natural, leaving only the certainty
that for the time at least the attack was ended. Rigid and hard in his
hands, the Graal reflected only the lights of the Duke's study; he
sighed and relaxed his hold, glancing at his two companions. The Duke
stood up suddenly and glanced round him. Kenneth rose more slowly, his
face covered with a certain brooding melancholy. The Archdeacon set the
Graal down on the table.

"It is done," he said. "Whatever it was has exhausted itself for the
time. Let us go and rest."

"I thought I heard someone here," the Duke said, still looking round
him. "Is it safe to leave it?"

"I think it is quite safe," the Archdeacon said. "But what has
happened?" the Duke asked again.

"Let us talk to-morrow," the priest said very wearily. "The Graal will
guard itself to-night."