tical
analysis of Catherine Elsmere's temperament and position, as in the
course of several months his intimacy with her husband had revealed them
to him. He did it well, with acuteness and philosophical relish. The
situation presented itself to him as an extremely refined and yet
tragic phase of the religious difficulty, and it gave him intellectual
pleasure to draw it out in words.

Lady Charlotte sat listening, enjoying her nephew's crisp phrases, but
also gradually gaining a perception of the human reality behind this
word-play of Hugh's. That 'good heart' of hers was touched; the large
imperious face began to frown.

'Dear me!' she said, with a little sigh. 'Don't go on, Hugh! I suppose
it's because we all of us believe so little that the poor thing's point
of view seems to one so unreal. All the same, however,' she added,
regaining her usual role of magisterial common-sense, 'a woman, in my
opinion, ought to go with her husband in religious matters.'

'Provided, of course, she sets him at nought in all others,' put in Mr.
Wynnstay, rising and daintily depositing the cat. 'Many men, however, my
dear, might be willing to compromise it differently. Granted a certain
_modicum_ of worldly conformity, they would not be at all indisposed to
a conscience clause.'

He lounged out of the room, while Lady Charlotte shrugged her shoulders
with a look at her nephew in which there was an irrepressible twinkle.
Mr. Flaxman neither heard nor saw. Life would have ceased to be worth
having long ago had he ever taken sides in the smallest degree in this
_menage_.

Flaxman walked home again, not particularly satisfied with himself and
his manoeuvres. Very likely it was quite unwise of him to have devised
another meeting between himself and Rose Leyburn so soon. Certainly she
had snubbed him--there could be no doubt of that. Nor was he in much
perplexity as to the reason. He had been forgetting himself, forgetting
his role and the whole lie of the situation, and if a man will be an
idiot he must suffer for it. He had distinctly been put back a move.

The facts were very simple. It was now nearly three months since
Langham's disappearance. During that time Rose Leyburn had been, to
Flaxman's mind, enchantingly dependent on him. He had played his part so
well, and the beautiful high-spirited child had suited herself so
naively to his acting! Evidently she had said to herself that his age,
his former marriage, his relation to Lady