o-night. The good nuns will not have room."

As Mary looked at his face in the candlelight she was astonished by its
decision; there was not the smallest hint of yielding. It was very pale
but absolutely determined, and for the fast time in her life she noticed
how like it was to Ralph's. The line of the lips was identical, and his
eyelids drooped now like his son's.

Ralph too rose and then on a sudden she saw the resolute obstinacy fade
from his eyes and mouth. It was as if the spirit of one man had passed
into the other.

"Father--" he said.

She expected a rush of emotion into the old man's face, but there was
not a ripple. He paused a moment, but Ralph was silent.

"I have no more to say to you, sir. And I beg that you will not come
home again."

As they passed out into the entrance passage she turned again and saw
Ralph dazed and trembling at the table. Then they were out in the road
through the open gate and a long moan broke from her father.

"Oh! God forgive me," he said, "have I failed?"

CHAPTER VI

A NUN'S DEFIANCE

It was a very strange evening that Mary and her father passed in the
little upstairs room looking on to the street at Rusper.

Sir James had hardly spoken, and after supper had sat near the window,
with a curious alertness in his face. Mary knew that Chris was expected,
and that Mr. Morris had ridden on to fetch him after he had called at
Overfield, but from her short interview with Margaret she had seen that
his presence would not be required. The young nun, though bewildered and
stunned by the news that she must go, had not wavered for a moment as
regards her intention to follow out her Religious vocation in some
manner; and it was to confirm her in it, in case she hesitated, that Sir
James had sent on the servant to fetch Chris.

It was all like a dreadful dream to Mary.

She had gone out from dinner at her own house into the pleasant October
sunshine with her cheerful husband beside her, when her father had come
out through the house with his riding-whip in his hand; and in a few
seconds she had found herself plunged into new and passionate relations,
first with him, for she had never seen him so stirred, and then with her
brothers and sister. Ralph, that dignified man of affairs, suddenly
stepped into her mind as a formidable enemy of God and man; Chris
appeared as a spiritual power, and the quiet Margaret as the very centre
of the sudden storm.

She sat here now by