orget to whom you are speaking," she said quickly. "You forget
that this is my father's house!"

"I would give a good deal to be able to forget," said Mr. Fane-Smith. "I
have tried to deal kindly with you, tried to take you from this accursed
place, and you repay me by tempting Rose to stay with you!"

Erica had recovered herself by this time. Tom, watching her, could not
but wonder at her self-restraint. She did not retaliate, did not even
attempt to justify her conduct; at such a moment words would have been
worse than useless. But Tom, while fully appreciating the common sense
of the non-resistance, was greatly astonished. Was this his old playmate
who had always had the most deliciously aggravating retort ready? Was
this hot-tempered Erica? That Mr. Fane-Smith's words were hurting her
very much he could see; he guessed, too, that the consciousness that he,
a secularist, was looking on at this unfortunate display of Christian
intolerance, added a sting to her grief.

"It is useless to profess Christianity," stormed Mr. Fane-Smith, "if you
openly encourage infidelity by consorting with these blasphemers. You
are no Christian! A mere Socinian a Latitudinarian!"

Erica's lips quivered a little at this; but she remembered that Christ
had been called harder names still by religious bigots of His day, and
she kept silence.

"But understand this," continued Mr. Fane-Smith, "that I approve less
than ever of your intimacy with Rose, and until you come to see your
folly in staying here, your worse than folly your deliberate choice of
home and refusal to put religious duty first there had better be no more
intercourse between us."

"Can you indeed think that religious duty ever requires a child to break
the fifth commandment?" said Erica with no anger but with a certain
sadness in her tone. "Can you really think that by leaving my father I
should be pleasing a perfectly loving God?"

"You lean entirely on your own judgment!" said Mr. Fane-Smith; "if
you were not too proud to be governed by authority, you would see that
precedent shows you to be entirely in the wrong. St. John rushed from
the building polluted by the heretic Cerinthus, a man who, compared with
your father, was almost orthodox!"

Erica smiled faintly.

"If that story is indeed true, I should think he remembered before long
a reproof his intolerance brought him once. 'Ye know not what spirit ye
are of." And really, if we are to fall back upon tradition,