rply,--"There is one thing I will not do; I will not go to the
altar and become his wife."

"I suppose I had better tell Frank," said Mrs. Fenwick, after another
pause.

This was, of course, what Mary Lowther desired, but she begged for
and obtained permission not to see the Vicar herself that evening.
She would keep her own room that night, and meet him the next morning
before prayers as best she might.

When the Vicar came back to the house, his mind was so full of the
chapel, and Lord St. George, and the admirable manner in which he had
been cajoled out of his wrath without the slightest admission on the
part of the lord that his father had ever been wrong,--his thoughts
were so occupied with all this, and with Mr. Puddleham's oratory,
that he did not at first give his wife an opportunity of telling Mary
Lowther's story.

"We shall all of us have to go over to Turnover next week," he said.

"You may go. I won't."

"And I shouldn't wonder if the Marquis were to offer me a better
living, so that I might be close to him. We are to be the lamb and
the wolf sitting down together."

"And which is to be the lamb?"

"That does not matter. But the worst of it is, Puddleham won't come
and be a lamb too. Here am I, who have suffered pretty nearly as
much as St. Paul, have forgiven all my enemies all round, and shaken
hands with the Marquis by proxy, while Puddleham has been man enough
to maintain the dignity of his indignation. The truth is, that the
possession of a grievance is the one state of human blessedness. As
long as the chapel was there, malgre moi, I could revel in my wrong.
It turns out now that I can send poor Puddleham adrift to-morrow,
and he immediately becomes the hero of the hour. I wish your
brother-in-law had not been so officious in finding it all out."

Mrs. Fenwick postponed her story till the evening.

"Where is Mary?" Fenwick asked, when dinner was announced.

"She is not quite well, and will not come down. Wait awhile, and you
shall be told." He did wait; but the moment that they were alone
again he asked his question. Then Mrs. Fenwick told the whole story,
hardly expressing an opinion herself as she told it. "I don't think
she is to be shaken," she said at last.

"She is behaving very badly,--very badly,--very badly."

"I am not quite sure, Frank, whether we have behaved wisely," said
his wife.

"If it must be told him, it will drive him mad," said Fenwick.

"I think it must be tol