hen began to retrace his steps toward the Hall. His turning brought the
tower of the college and the distant city before his eyes. The absence
of foliage from the trees exposed to view innumerable glinting roofs that
were hidden in summer as by a forest. He picked out the tower of St.
George's Church and the various steeples with which he had become
familiar. Then he caught sight of the pale wings of the figure of
Victory above the triumphal column in the park, poised like those of a
butterfly about to soar into the still, bright air.

Once more the beauty of the country made its great appeal: the
magnificent valleys to east and west swelling upward to ridges of hills
clothed in ever changing lights and shadows; the Hall standing sentinel
over all; the city nestled below, a city of dreams.

CHAPTER XX

"PUNISHMENT, THOUGH LAME OF FOOT"----

The bishop sat in his study, awaiting the arrival of Mayor Emmet in a
frame of mind that boded ill for the success of the interview. In
reply to his letter suggesting a conference on a subject of mutual
interest, the mayor had named the third morning as the one that would
find him most free from his numerous engagements. The coolness of this
reply was exasperating to the bishop, and he thought he divined in the
delay a deliberate intention to keep him on the rack of uncertainty.
Being a man of ample leisure, he had found plenty of time to formulate
the position he meant to take. He and his daughter had threshed out
the subject, and now avoided it by mutual consent. Their relationship
became unnatural and constrained. They met only at meal-times, and not
always then, for each one sought more than one pretext to dine
elsewhere. More words on the subject would only precipitate a
repetition of the scene that still rankled in the memory of both, and
the discussion was therefore closed until Emmet should have stated his
own position.

While the situation remained thus stationary, the appearance of the
world without had been so completely transformed that a whole season,
rather than three days, seemed to have elapsed. Winter had returned in
a storm of snow that threatened to assume the proportions of the
historic blizzard, which piled such deep drifts about St. George's Hall
that the students had leaped with impunity from the upper windows.
During the previous night, however, the sky had cleared, and now the
air was filled with those familiar brumal sounds, the scrapin