e strangely complimentary, even for a husband."

"Perhaps I am, but I know your dark ways, and your dealings with your
master, and I tell you both what it is; I have done with the job. I
will have nothing more to do with it. I will know nothing more about
it."

"You hear what he says," said Lady Bellamy to George. "John does not
like omens. For the last time, will you give it up, or will you go
on?"

"I can't give her up--I can't indeed; it would kill me," answered
George, wringing his hands. "There is a fiend driving me along this
path."

"Not a doubt of it," said Sir John, who was staring at the broken
picture with chattering teeth, and his eyes almost starting out of his
head; "but if I were you, I should get him to drive me a little
straighter, that's all."

"You are poor creatures, both of you," said Lady Bellamy; "but we
will, then, decide to go on."

"Fiat 'injuria' ruat coelum," said Sir John, who knew a little Latin;
and, frightened as he was, could not resist the temptation to air it.

And then they went and left George still contemplating the horror-
stricken face of the nude marble virgin whose eyes appeared to gaze
upon the ruins of his picture.

Next morning, being Christmas Day, Lady Bellamy went to church, as
behoves a good Christian, and listened to the Divine message of peace
on earth and good-will towards men. So, for the matter of that, did
George, and so did Angela. After church, Lady Bellamy went home to
lunch, but she was in no mood for eating, so she left the table, and
ordered the victoria to be round in half an hour.

After church, too, Angela and Mr. Fraser ate their Christmas dinner.
Angela's melancholy had to some extent melted beneath the genial
influence of the Christmas-tide, and her mind had taken comfort from
the words of peace and everlasting love that she had heard that
morning, and for awhile, at any rate, she had forgotten her
forebodings. The unaccustomed splendour of the dinner, too, had
diverted her attention, for she was easily pleased with such things,
and altogether she was in a more comfortable frame of mind than she
had been on the previous evening, and was inclined to indulge in a
pleasant talk with Mr. Fraser upon various subjects, mostly classical
and Arthurian. She had already cracked some filberts for him, plucked
by herself in the autumn, and specially saved in a damp jar, and was
about to settle herself in a chair by the fire, when suddenly she
turned whi