ised herself for disingenuousness he
would have been amply avenged.

Even while she was speaking he closed the piano very slowly and softly.
It did not take him long to put on his impenetrable face, for when he
turned round there was not a trace of anger left; the scarce suppressed
taunt in Cecil's last words moved him apparently no more than Mrs.
Danvers's glance of triumph.

"I owe you a thousand apologies," he said, "for staying such an
unwarrantable time, and quite as many thanks for the pleasantest two
hours I have spent in Dorade. Don't think I would detain you one moment
from Mr. Fullarton and your devotional exercises. You know--no, you
_don't_ know--the verse in the ballad:

'Amundeville may be lord by day,
But the monk is lord by night;
Nor wine nor wassail would stir a vassal
To question that friar's right.'"

He went away then without another word beyond the ordinary adieu.
Royston had a way of repeating poetry peculiar to himself--rather
monotonous, perhaps, but effective from the depth and volume of his
voice. You gained in rhythm what you lost in rhyme. The sound seemed to
linger in their ears after he had closed the door.

As the echo of the firm, strong footstep died away, a virtuous
indignation possessed the broad visage of the divine.

"It is like Major Keene," said he, "to select as his text-book the most
godless work of the satanic school; but I should have thought that even
he would have paused before venturing, in this presence, on a quotation
from _Don Juan_."

At that awful word Mrs. Danvers gave a little shriek as if "a bee had
stung her newly." Had she been a Catholic she would have crossed herself
an indefinite number of times: will you be good enough to imagine her
protracted look of holy horror? Cecil's eyes were glittering with
scornful humor as she answered, very demurely, "What an advantage it is
to be a large, general reader! It enables one to impart so much
information. Now Bessie and I should never have guessed where those
lines came from if you had not enlightened us. They seemed harmless
enough in themselves, and Major Keene was considerate enough to leave us
in our ignorance. So Byron comes within the scope of your studies, Mr.
Fullarton. I thought you seldom indulged in such secular authors?" The
chaplain was quite right in making his reply inaudible: it would have
been difficult to find a perfectly satisfactory one. However, the hour
was late enough to excuse