ous thing that violence should be done to
men of your cloth."

Having thus won his heart, the artful woman began at one and the same
time to please and to probe him. "Sir," said she, "be of good heart;
they have done you no harm, and themselves no good; my mistress will
hate them for it, and love you all the more."

Father Leonard's pale cheek colored all over at these words, though he
said nothing.

"Since they won't let you come to her, she will come to you."

"Do you think so?" said he, faintly.

"Nay, I am sure of it, sir. So would any woman. We still follow our
hearts, and get our way by hook or by crook."

Again the priest colored, either with pleasure or with shame, or with
both; and the keen feminine eye perused him with microscopic power. She
waited, to give him an opportunity of talking to her and laying bare his
feelings; but he was either too delicate, too cautious, or too pure.

So then she suddenly affected to remember her mistress's letter. She
produced it with an apology. He took it with unfeigned eagerness, and
read it in silence; and having read it, he stood patient, with the tears
in his eyes.

Ryder eyed him with much curiosity and a little pity. "Don't you take on
for that," said she. "Why, she will be more at her ease when she visits
you at your place than here; and she won't give you up, I promise."

The priest trembled, and Ryder saw it.

"But, my daughter," said he, "I am perplexed and grieved. It seems that
I make mischief in your house: that is an ill office; I fear it is my
duty to retire from this place altogether, rather than cause dissension
between those whom the Church by holy sacrament hath bound together." So
saying, he hung his head and sighed.

Ryder eyed him with a little pity, but more contempt. "Why take other
people's faults on your back?" said she. "My mistress is tied to a man
she does not love; but that is not your fault: and he is jealous of you,
that never gave him cause. If I was a man he should not accuse me--for
nothing; nor set his man on to drag me through a horse-pond--for
nothing. _I'd have the sweet as well as the bitter._"

Father Leonard turned and looked at her with a face full of terror. Some
beautiful, honeyed fiend seemed to be entering his heart and tempting
it. "O, hush! my daughter, hush!" he said; "what words are these for a
virtuous woman to speak, and a priest to hear?"

"There, I have offended you by my blunt way," said the cajoling hussy,