gany table, made a distinct clink.

"I do not understand you, Mr. Farrar."

The preacher hastened to make the circumstance more intelligible. He
related the scene at the St. Clair chapel with a dramatic force that
sprang from intense feeling, and Elizabeth listened to his solemn
words with angry uneasiness. Yet she made an effort to treat the
affair with unconcern.

"What have I to do with the sovereign, sir?" she asked. "I am not
responsible for Mr. Tresham's acts. I did my best to prevent the
disgrace that has befallen the fisherman's daughter."

"I think you are to blame in a great measure."

"Sir!"

"Yes. I am sure you are. You made a companion of the girl--I may say a
friend."

"No, sir, not a friend. She was not my equal in any respect."

"Say a companion then. You taught her how to dress, how to converse,
how to carry herself above her own class. You permitted her to wander
about the garden with your brother."

"I always watched them."

"You let her talk to him--you let her sing with him."

"Never but when I was present. From the first I told her what Roland
was--told her to mind nothing at all he said."

"If you had put a glass of cold water before a man dying of thirst,
would you have been justified in telling him not to drink? You might
even have added that the water contained poison; all the same, he
would have drunk it, and your blame it would be for putting it within
his reach."

"Indeed, Mr. Farrar, I will not take the blame of the creature's
wickedness. It is a strange thing to be told that educating a girl and
trying to lift her a step or two higher is a sin."

"It is a sin, madam, unless you persevere in it. God does not permit
the rich, for their own temporary glory or convenience, to make
experiments with an immortal soul, and then abandon it like a soiled
glove or a game of which they have grown weary. What you began you
ought in common justice to have carried on to such perfection as was
possible. No circumstances could justify you in beguiling a girl from
her natural protectors and then leaving her in the midst of danger
alone."

"Sir, this is my affair, not yours. I beg leave to say that you know
nothing whatever of the circumstances."

"Indeed, I know a great deal about them, and I can reasonably deduce a
great deal more."

"And pray, sir, what do you deduce?"

"The right of Denas Penelles to have been retained as your companion.
Having made a certain refinement of life n