rd's throat. The lord had
expected it so little that up to the last he made no preparation for
defence. The Dean had got him by his cravat and shirt-collar before he
had begun to expect such usage as this. Then he simply gurgled out some
ejaculated oath, uttered half in surprise and half in prayer. Prayer
certainly was now of no use. Had five hundred feet of rock been there
the Marquis would have gone down it, though the Dean had gone with him.
Fire flashed from the clergyman's eyes, and his teeth were set fast and
his very nostrils were almost ablaze. His daughter! The holy spot of
his life! The one being in whom he believed with all his heart and with
all his strength!

The Dean was fifty years of age, but no one had ever taken him for an
old man. They who at home at Brotherton would watch his motions, how he
walked and how he rode on horseback, how he would vault his gates when
in the fields, and scamper across the country like a schoolboy, were
wont to say that he was unclerical. Perhaps Canons Pountner and
Holdenough, with Mr. Groschut, the bishop's chaplain, envied him
something of his juvenile elasticity. But I think that none of them had
given him credit for such strength as he now displayed. The Marquis, in
spite of what feeble efforts he made, was dragged up out of his chair
and made to stand, or rather to totter, on his legs. He made a clutch
at the bell-rope, which to aid his luxurious ease had been brought
close to his hand as he sat, but failed, as the Dean shook him hither
and thither. Then he was dragged on to the middle of the rug, feeling
by this time that he was going to be throttled. He attempted to throw
himself down, and would have done so but that the Dean with his left
hand prevented him from falling. He made one vigorous struggle to free
himself, striving as he did so to call for assistance. But the Dean
having got his victim's back to the fireplace, and having the poor
wretch now fully at his command, threw the man with all his strength
into the empty grate. The Marquis fell like a heap within the fender,
with his back against the top bar and his head driven further back
against the bricks and iron. There for a second or two he lay like a
dead mass.

Less than a minute had done it all, and for so long a time the Dean's
ungoverned fury had held its fire. What were consequences to him with
that word as applied to his child ringing in his ears? How should he
moderate his wrath under such outrage