acies, but if our faith is pure
who can hurt us? If I had not that consolation--would that you had it,
too!--would it be endurable to me to see those menials whispering and
showing their forced respect? As it is, I am fortified to forgive
them. I breathe another atmosphere. Oh, Evan! you did not attend to
Mr. Parsley's beautiful last sermon. The Church should have been your
vocation.'

From vehemence the Countess had subsided to a mournful gentleness. She
had been too excited to notice any changes in her brother's face during
her speech, and when he turned from the door, and still eyeing her
fixedly, led her to a chair, she fancied from his silence that she had
subdued and convinced him. A delicious sense of her power, succeeded by
a weary reflection that she had constantly to employ it, occupied her
mind, and when presently she looked up from the shade of her hand, it
was to agitate her head pitifully at her brother.

'All this you have done for me, Louisa,' he said.

'Yes, Evan,--all!' she fell into his tone.

'And you are the cause of Laxley's going? Did you know anything of that
anonymous letter?'

He was squeezing her hand-with grateful affection, as she was deluded to
imagine.

'Perhaps, dear,--a little,' her conceit prompted her to admit.

'Did you write it?'

He gazed intently into her eyes, and as the question shot like a
javelin, she tried ineffectually to disengage her fingers; her delusion
waned; she took fright, but it was too late; he had struck the truth out
of her before she could speak. Her spirit writhed like a snake in his
hold. Innumerable things she was ready to say, and strove to; the words
would not form on her lips.

'I will be answered, Louisa.'

The stern manner he had assumed gave her no hope of eluding him. With an
inward gasp, and a sensation of nakedness altogether new to her, dismal,
and alarming, she felt that she could not lie. Like a creature forsaken
of her staunchest friend, she could have flung herself to the floor. The
next instant her natural courage restored her. She jumped up and stood
at bay.

'Yes. I did.'

And now he was weak, and she was strong, and used her strength.

'I wrote it to save you. Yes. Call on your Creator, and be my judge, if
you dare. Never, never will you meet a soul more utterly devoted to you,
Evan. This Mr. Forth, this Laxley, I said, should go, because they
were resolved to ruin you, and make you base. They are gone. The
responsibility I