r--why should I? I am not answerable to you!'

Paula's show of petulance was perhaps not wholly because she had
appeared to seek him, but also from being reminded by his criticism that
Mr. Woodwell's prophecy on her weakly succumbing to surroundings was
slowly working out its fulfilment.

She moved forward towards the gate at the further end of the square,
beyond which the cathedral lay at a very short distance. Paula did not
turn her head, and De Stancy strolled slowly after her down the Rue du
College. The day happened to be one of the church festivals, and people
were a second time flocking into the lofty monument of Catholicism at
its meridian. Paula vanished into the porch with the rest; and, almost
catching the wicket as it flew back from her hand, he too entered
the high-shouldered edifice--an edifice doomed to labour under the
melancholy misfortune of seeming only half as vast as it really is, and
as truly as whimsically described by Heine as a monument built with the
strength of Titans, and decorated with the patience of dwarfs.

De Stancy walked up the nave, so close beside her as to touch her dress;
but she would not recognize his presence; the darkness that evening had
thrown over the interior, which was scarcely broken by the few candles
dotted about, being a sufficient excuse if she required one.

'Miss Power,' De Stancy said at last, 'I am coming to the service with
you.'

She received the intelligence without surprise, and he knew she had been
conscious of him all the way.

Paula went no further than the middle of the nave, where there was
hardly a soul, and took a chair beside a solitary rushlight which looked
amid the vague gloom of the inaccessible architecture like a lighthouse
at the foot of tall cliffs.

He put his hand on the next chair, saying, 'Do you object?'

'Not at all,' she replied; and he sat down.

'Suppose we go into the choir,' said De Stancy presently. 'Nobody sits
out here in the shadows.'

'This is sufficiently near, and we have a candle,' Paula murmured.

Before another minute had passed the candle flame began to drown in its
own grease, slowly dwindled, and went out.

'I suppose that means I am to go into the choir in spite of myself.
Heaven is on your side,' said Paula. And rising they left their now
totally dark corner, and joined the noiseless shadowy figures who in
twos and threes kept passing up the nave.

Within the choir there was a blaze of light, partly from