the interrogation with benign inflection.

"Have you come to doubt the righteousness of your own conclusions?" But
he did not discuss the subject further.

He was busy, for the students and masters of the college were to
assemble in a few days; yet he found time in a minute or two to ask
idly, "Where have you been?"

"For one thing, I walked out from the village with Miss Rexford."

"And"--with eyes bent upon his writing--"what do you think of Miss
Rexford?"

Never was question put with less suspicion; it was interesting to Robert
only for the pleasure it gave him to pronounce her name, not at all for
any weight that he attached to the answer. And Alec answered him
indifferently.

"She has a pretty face," said he, nearing the door.

"Yes," the other answered musingly, "yes; 'her face is one of God
Almighty's wonders in a little compass.'"

But Alec had gone out, and did not hear the words nor see the dream of
love that they brought into the other's eyes. There was still hope in
that dream, the sort of hope that springs up again unawares from the
ground where it has been slain.

CHAPTER XV.

It had not been continued resentment against Bates that had made Eliza
refuse Miss Rexford's request; it was the memory of the kiss with which
he had bade her good-bye. For two days she had been haunted by this
memory, yet disregarded it, but when that night came, disturbed by
Sophia's words, she locked out the world and took the thing to her heart
to see of what stuff it was made.

Eliza lived her last interview with Bates over and over again, until she
put out her light, and sat by her bedside alone in the darkness, and
wondered at herself and at all things, for his farewell was like a lens
through which she looked and the proportion of her world was changed.

There is strange fascination in looking at familiar scenes in
unfamiliar aspect. Even little children know this when, from some
swinging branch, they turn their heads downwards, and see, not their own
field, but fairyland.

Eliza glanced at her past while her sight was yet distorted, it might
be, or quickened to clearer vision, by a new pulse of feeling; and,
arrested, glanced again and again until she looked clearly, steadily, at
the retrospect. The lonely farm in the hills was again present to her
eyes, the old woman, the father now dead, and this man. Bates, stern and
opinionated, who had so constantly tutored her. Her mind went back,
dwelling on