o guide her. Paula walked on to the bend
of the apse: here were a few chairs, and the origin of the light.

This was a candle stuck at the end of a sharpened stick, the latter
entering a joint in the stones. A young man was sketching by the
glimmer. But there was no need for the blush which had prepared
itself beforehand; the young man was Mr. Cockton, Somerset's youngest
draughtsman.

Paula could have cried aloud with disappointment. Cockton recognized
Miss Power, and appearing much surprised, rose from his seat with a bow,
and said hastily, 'Mr. Somerset left to-day.'

'I did not ask for him,' said Paula.

'No, Miss Power: but I thought--'

'Yes, yes--you know, of course, that he has been my architect. Well, it
happens that I should like to see him, if he can call on me. Which way
did he go?'

'He's gone to Etretat.'

'What for? There are no abbeys to sketch at Etretat.'

Cockton looked at the point of his pencil, and with a hesitating motion
of his lip answered, 'Mr. Somerset said he was tired.'

'Of what?'

'He said he was sick and tired of holy places, and would go to some
wicked spot or other, to get that consolation which holiness could not
give. But he only said it casually to Knowles, and perhaps he did not
mean it.'

'Knowles is here too?'

'Yes, Miss Power, and Bowles. Mr. Somerset has been kind enough to give
us a chance of enlarging our knowledge of French Early-pointed, and pays
half the expenses.'

Paula said a few other things to the young man, walked slowly round
the triforium as if she had come to examine it, and returned down the
staircase. On getting back to the hotel she told her aunt, who had just
been having a nap, that next day they would go to Etretat for a change.

'Why? There are no old churches at Etretat.'

'No. But I am sick and tired of holy places, and want to go to some
wicked spot or other to find that consolation which holiness cannot
give.'

'For shame, Paula! Now I know what it is; you have heard that he's gone
there! You needn't try to blind me.'

'I don't care where he's gone!' cried Paula petulantly. In a moment,
however, she smiled at herself, and added, 'You must take that for what
it is worth. I have made up my mind to let him know from my own lips how
the misunderstanding arose. That done, I shall leave him, and probably
never see him again. My conscience will be clear.'

The next day they took the steamboat down the Orne, intending to
reach Etretat by